Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1897 — Page 3

RESPECT DUE TO AGE.

DR. TALMAGE TO TREAT OLD PEOPLE. He First Considers Parental Attach* ment and Then the Duty of the Young to the Old-An Eloquent and Forceful Plea for Filial Affection. Our Weekly Sermon. Dr. Talmage in this sermon, shows us a. scene of tenderness and reverence and tells us how we ought to treat old people. His text is Genesis xlv., 28, “I will go and see him before I die.” Jacob had long since passed the hundred year milestone. In those times people were distinguished for longevity. In the eenturies after persons lived to great age. Galien, the most celebrated physician of his time, took so little of his own medicine that he lived to 140 years. A man of undoubted veracity on the witness stand In England swore that he remembered an event 150 years before. Lord Bacon speaks of a countess who had ipirtt three sets of teeth and died at 140 Jo—seph Chole of Pennsylvania lived 140 years. In 1557 a book was printed containing the names of 37 persons who lived 140 years and the names of 11 persons who lived 150 years. Among the grand old people of whom we have record was Jacob, the shepherd of the text. But he had a bad lot of boys. They were jealous and ambitious and every way unprincipled. Joseph, however, seemed to be an exception, but he had been gone many years, and the probability was that he was dead. As sometimes now in a house you will find kept at the table a vacant chair, a knife, a fork, for some deceased member of the family, so .Ticob kept in his heart a place for his beloved Joseph. There sits the old man, the flock of 140 years in their flight having alighted long enough to leave the marks of their claw on forehead and cheek and temple. His long beard snows down over his chest. Ilis eyes are somewhat ■dim, and he can see farther when they are closed than when they are open, for he can see clear back into the time when beautiful Rachel, his wife, was living, and his children shook the oriental abode with their merriment. The centenarian is sitting dreaming over the past when he hears a wagon rumbling to the front door. He gets up and goes to the door to see who has arrived, and his long absent sons from Egypt come in and announce to him that Joseph, instead of being dead, is living ih an Egyptian palace, with all the investiture of prime minister, next to the king in the mightiest empire of all the world! The news was too sudden and too glad v for the old man, and his cheeks whiten, and he has a dazed look and his staff falls out of his hand and he would have dropped had not the sons caught him and led him to a lounge and put cold water on his face and fanned him a little. In that half delirium the old man mumbles something about his son Joseph. He says: “You don’t mean Joseph, do you? My dear son who has’been dead so long? You don't mean Joseph, do you?” But after they had fully resuscitated him, and the news was confirmed, the tears begin their winding way down the crossroads of the wrinkles, and the sunken lips of the old man quiver and he brings his bent lingers together as he says: “Joseph is yet alive. I will go and see him before I die.”

It did not take the old man a great while to get ready, I warrant you. He put on Ihe best clothes that the shepherd’s wardrobe could afford. He got into the wagon, and though the aged are cautious and like to ride slow, the wagon did not get along fast enough for this old man, and when the wagon with the old man met Joseph’s chariot coming down to meet him and Joseph got out of the chariot and got into the wagon and threw his arms around his father's neck, it was an antithesis of royalty and rusticity, of simplicity nnd pomp, of filinl affection and paternal love, which leaves us so much in doubt whether we had better laugh or cry, that we'do both. So Jacob kept the resolution of the text—“l will go and see him before I die."

Parental Love. What a strong and unfailing thing is parental attachment! Was it not almost time for Jacob to forget Joseph? The hot suns of many summers had blazed on the heath; the river Nile had overflowed and receded, overflowed and receded again and again; the seed had been sown and the harvests reaped; stars rose and set; years of plenty and years of famine had passed on, but the love of Jacob for Joseph in my text is overwhelmingly dramatic. Oh, that is a cord that is not snapped, though pulled on by many decndes! Though when the little child expired the parents may not have been more than 25 years of age, and now they are 75, yet the vision of the cradle, and the childish face, and the first utterances of the infantile lips are fresh to-day, in spite of the passage of a halfcentury. Joseph was as fresh in Jacob’s memory as ever, though at 17 years of age the boy had disappeared from the old homestead. I found in our family record the story of an infant that had died fifty years before, and I said to my parents, "What is this record and what does it mean?” Their chief answer was a long, deep sigh. It was yet to them a very tender sorrow. What does that all mean? Why, it means our children departed are ours yet, and that cord of attachment reaching across the years will hold us until it brings us together in the palace, ns Jacob and Joseph were brought together. That is one thing that makes old people die happy. They realize it is reunion with those from whom they have long been separated.

I visited at the farmhouse of the father of Millard. Fillmore when the son was President of the United States, and the octogenarian farmer entertained me until 11 o’clock at night telling me what great things he saw in his son’s house at Washington and what Daniel Webster said to him, and how grandly Millard treated his father in the White House. The old man’s face was illumined with the story until almost the midnight. He had just been visiting his son at the capital. And I suppose it was something of the same joy that thrilled the heart of the old shepherd as he stood in the palace of the prime minister. It is a great day with you when your old parents come to visit you. Your little children stand around with great wide open eyes.Vwondering how anybody could be so old. The parents cannot stay many days, for they are a little restless, *nd especially at nightfall, because they sleep better in their own bed, but while they tarry you somehow feel there is a benediction in every room in the house. They are a little feeble, and you make it

as easy as yon can for them, and yon realize they will probably not visit you very often —perhaps never again. You go to their ,yoom after they have retired at. night to see if the lights are properly put out, for the old people understand candle and lamp better than the modern apparatus for illumination. In the morning, with real interest in their health, you ask howXhey rested last night. Joseph, in the historical scene of the text, did not think any more of his father than you do of your parents. The probability is before they leave your house they half spoil your children with kindnesses. Grandfather and grandmother are more -lenient and indulgent to your children than they ever were with you. And what wonders of revelation 1 in the bombazine pocket of the one and the sleeve of the other! Blessed is that home where Christian parents come to visit! Whatever may have been the style of the architecture before they came, it is a palace before they leave. If they visit you fifty times, the two most memorable visits will be the first and the last. Those two pictures will hang in the hall of your memory while memory lasts, and yon will remember just how they looked, and where they sat, and what they said, and nt what figure of the carpet, and at what doorsill they parted with you, giving you the final goodby. Do not be embarrassed -ff i our father come to town and he have the manners of the shepherd, and if :uur mother come to town and there be in her hat no sign of costly millinery. The wife of the Emperor TheodQ3ius said a wise thing when she said, “Husbands, remember what you lately were and remember what you are, and be thankful.” Kindness to Parents. By this time you all notice what kindly provision Joseph made for his father Jacob. Joseph did not say: “I can’t have the old man around this place. How clumsy he would look climbing up these marble stairs and walking over these mosaics! Then he would be putting his hands upon some of these frescoes. People would wonder where that old greenhorn came from. He would shock all the Egyptian court with his manners at table. Besides that, he might get sick on my hands, and he might be querulous and he might talk to me as though I were only a boy, when I am the second man in all the realm. Of course he must not suffer, nnd if there is famine in his country—and I hear there is—l will send him some provisions, but I can’t take a man from Padanaram and introduce him into this polite Egyptian court. What a nuisance it is to have poor relations!” Joseph did not say that, but he rushed out to meet his father with perfect abandon of affection, and brought him up to the palace and introduced him to the emperor and provided for all the rest of the father’s days, and nothing was too good for the old man while living, and when he was dead, Joseph, with military escort, took his father’s remains to the family cemetery. Would to God all children were as kind to their parents! If the father have large property, and he be wise enough to keep it in his own name, he will be respected by the heirs, but how often it is when the son finds his father in famine, as Joseph found Jacob in famine, the young people make it very hard for the old man. They are so surprised he eats with a knife instead of a fork. They are chagrined at his antediluvian habits. They arc provoked because he cannot hear as well as he used to, and when he asks it over again, and the son has to repeat it, he bawls in the old man’s ear, “I hope you hear that!” How long he must wear the old coat or the old hat before they get him a new one! How chagrined they are at his independence of the English grammar! How longjie hangs on! Seventy years and not gone yet! Seventy-five years and not gone yet! Eighty years and not gone yet! Will he ever go? They think it of no use to have a doctor in his last sickness, and go up to the drug store and get something that makes him worse and economize on a collin, and beat the undertaker down to file last point, giving a note for the reduced amount, which they never pay! I have officiated at obsequies of aged people where the family have been so inordinately resigned to Providence that I felt like taking my text from Proverbs, “The eye that mocketh nt his father nnd refuseth to obey its mother, the ravens of the vnlley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall cat it.” In other words, such an ingrate ought to have a flock of crows for pall-bearers! I congratulate you if you have the honor of providing for aged parents. The blessing of the Lord God of Joseph and Jacob will be on you.

A Share in Success. I rejoice to remember that, though my father lived in a plain house the most of his days, he died in a mansion provided by the filial piety of a son who had achieved a fortune. There the octogenarian sat, and the servants waited oh him, and there were plenty of horses and plenty of carriages to convey him and a bower ip which to sit on long summer afternoons, dreaming over the past, and there was not a room in the house where he was not welcome, and there were musical instruments of all sorts to regale him, and when life had pnssed the neighbors came out and expressed all honor possible and carried him to the village Mnchpelah and put him down beside the Rachel with whom he had lived more than half a century. Share your successes with the old people. The probability is that the principles they inculcated achieved your fortune. Give them a Christian percentage of kindly consideration. Let Joseph divide with Jacob the pasture fields of XJostten anil the glories of the Egyptian court. And here : l would like to sing the praises of the sisterhood who remained unmarried that they might administer to aged parents. The brutal world calls these selfsacrificing ones peculiar or angular, but if sou had had as many annoyances as they ave had Xantippe would have been an angel compared with you. It is easier to take care of five rollicking, romping children than of one childish old man. Among, the best women of our land are those who allowed the bloom of life to pass away while they were caring for their parents. While other maidens were asleep they were soaking the old man’s feet or tucking up the covers around the invalid mother. While other maidens were in the cotillon they were dancing attendance upon rheumatism and spreading plasters for the lame back of the septuagenarian and heating catnip tea for insomnia. In almost every circle of our kindred there has been some queen of self-sacrifice to whom jeweled hand after jeweled hand was offered in marriage, but who staid on the old place because of the sense of filial obligation until the health was gone and the attractiveness of personal presence had vanished. Brutal society may call such a one'by a nickname. God’calls her daughter, and heaven calls her taint, and I call her domestic martyr. A half-dozen ordinary women have not as much nobility as could be found In the smallest joint

of the little finger of her left hand. AF though the world has stood 6,000 years, this is the first apotheosis of maidenhood, although in the long line of those who have declined marriage that they might be qualified for some especial mission are the names of Anna Ross, and Margaret Breckinridge, and Mary Shelton, and Anna Etheridge, and Georgiana Willetts, the angels of the battlefields of Fair Oaks and Lookout Mountain and Chancellorsville and Cooper Shop hospital, and though single life has been honored by the fact that the three grandest men of the Bible—John and Paul and Christ —were celibates.

The Maiden' Aunt. Let the ungrateful world sneer at the maiden aunt, but God has a throne burnished for her arrival, and on one side of that throne in heaven there is a vase containing two jewels, the one brighter than the Kohinoor of London tower, and the other larger than any diamond ever found in the districts of Golconda —the one jewel by the lapidary of the palace cut with the words, “Inasmuch as ye did it to father, the other jewel by the lapidary of the palace cut with the words, “Inasmuch as ye did it to mother.” “Over the Hills to the Poorhouse” is the exquisite ballad of Will Carleton, who found an old woman who had been turned off by her prospered sons, but I thank God I may find in my text, “"Over the hills to the palace.” As if to disgust us with unfilial conduct, the Bible presents us with the story of Micah, who stole the 1,100 shekels from his mother, and the story of Absalom, who tried to dethrone his father. But all history is beautiful with stories of filial fidelity. Epaminondas, the warrior, found his chief delight in reciting to his parents his victories. There goes Aeneas from burning Troy, on his shoulders Anchises, his father. The punished with death any unfilial conduct. There goes beautiful Ruth escorting venerable Naomi across the desert amid the howling of the wolves and the barking of the jackals. John Lawrence, burned at the stake in Colchester, was cheered in the flames by his children, who said, “O God, strengthen thy servant and keep thy promise!” And Christ in the hour of excruciation provided for his old mother. Jacob kept his resolution, “I will go and see him before I die,” and a little while after we find them walking the tesselated floor of the palace, Jacob and Joseph, the prime minister proud of the shepherd.

Joseph and Jacob. I may say in regard to the most of you that your parents have probably visited you for the last time, or will soon pay you such a visit, and I have wondered if they will ever visit you in the king’s palace. “Oh,” you say, “I am in the pit of sin!” Joseph was in the pit. “Oh,” you say, “I am in the prison of mine iniquity!” Joseph was once in prison. “Oh,” you say, “I didn’t have a fair chance. I was denied maternal kindness!” Joseph was denied maternal attendance. “Oh,” you say, “I am far away from the land of my nativity!” Joseph was far from home. “Oh,” you say, “I have been betrayed and exasperated!” Did not Joseph’s brethren sell him to a passing Ishmaelit.’sh caravan? Yet God brought him to tkai emblazoned residence, and if you will trust his grace in Jesus Christ, you, too, will be empalaced. Oh, what a day that will be when the old folks come from an adjoining mansion in heaven, and find you amid the alabaster pillars of the throne room and living with the king! They are coming up the steps -now, and the epauleted guard of the palace rushes in and says, “Your father’s coming, your mother’s coming!” And when under the arches of precious stones and on the pavement of porphyry you greet each other, the scene will eclipse the meeting on the Goshen highway, when Joseph and Jacob fell on each other’s neck and wept a good while. But, oh, how changed the old folks will be! Their cheek smoothed into the flesh of a little child. Their stooped posture lifted into immortal symmetry. Their foot now so feeble, then with the sprightliness of a bounding roe, as they shall say to you, “A spirit passed this way from earth and told us that you were wayward and dissipated after we left the world, but you have repented, our prayer has been answered and you are here, and as we used to visit you on earth before we died now we visit you in your new home after our ascension.” And father will say, “Mother, don’t you see Joseph is yet alive?” and mother will say, "Yes, father, Joseph is yet alive.” And then they will talk over their earthly anxieties in regard to you, ancl the midnight supplications in your behalf, and they will recite to each other the old Scripture passage with which they used to cheer their.staggering faith, “I will be a God to theesand thy seed after thee.” Oh, the palace, the palace, the palace! That is what Richard Baxter called “The Saints’ Everlasting Rest.” That is what John Bunyan called the “Celestial City.” ’ That is Young’s “Night Thoughts” turned into morning exultations. That is Gray's “Elegy in a Churchyard” turned to resurrection spectacle. That is the “Cotter’s Saturday Night” exchanged for the cotter’s Sabbath morning. That is the shepherd of Salisbury plains amid the flocks on the hills of heaven. That is the famine struck Padanaram turned into the rich pasture field of Goshen. That is Jacob visiting Joseph at the emerald castle.

Short Sermons.

Worship.—Man is a religious being, and must have some god to worship. No race of men has yet been found altogether destitute of some religious belief, and the world has no building large enough to hold the gods before which men have fallen down and worshiped. Indeed, it may be said with truth that every individual has a god of his own. —Rev. Dr. Harcourt, Methodist, Philadelphia, Pa. Intellectual Weeds.—The sweet clover and burdock which carpet our stone quarries and claybanks illustrate some still ornamental uses for otherwise mischievous plants. So old errors in religion and old abuses in politics are simply the left-overs of a day when they performed some useful office. They are the Intellectual weeds which better ideas are trying to supersede.— Rev. George A. Thayer, Unitarian, Cincinnati, Ohio. Love.— Has it ever occurred to you what a masterful thing love is; what obstacles it surmounts, and what difficulties it overcomes? Love does not hesitate for impulse nor wait for opportunity, but creates both, it comes into the cottage of the poor, humble and downtrodden, with the same sweet Dreath that It diffuses In the palaces of the rich and proud.—Rev. A. 8. Yan tea, Episcopalian, Brooklyn, N. X.

A DEADLY PARALLEL.

CLEVELANDISM AND M’KINLEYISM CONTRASTED. Conditions Daring First Two Months of McKinley Protective Tariff Somewhat Different from Corresponding Sixty Days of Cleveland Free Trade. Two Administrations. Special Washington correspondence: The ciose of the first sixty days of the operations of the new tariff law and the business improvements which fare visible in every direction during that time have suggested a comparison of the conditions during the two months in question with those of the corresponding date in the first year of the Cleveland administration, during which time the free trade Congress elected with President Cleveland was just beginning its attack upon the protective system which the Dingley law sixty days ago re-established. The two periods from July 24 to Sept. 24 in the years 1883- and 1897, respectively, present a marked contrast as to business conditions, and it is possible to obtain from Government records some data bearing upon this subject and now especially interesting. Sixty of Cleveland-Wilsonism. The following data gathered largely from ofliical reports presents a picture of the sixty-day period of the year 1803 with which the two months just ended correspond, both as to the portion ol’ the year and the period of the I’resi-

dential administration and also proximity to tariff legislation. Week ending July 24, 1893. —Failure of Bozeman, Mont., National Bank. Four Denver banks closed their doors. Bank suspensions in other Western cities. Two bank failures in Milwaukee and runs on numerous other banks. Commercial Bank of Denver fails, capital $250,000. Bank failures at Vernon, Tex., and Knoxville, Tenn., capital $200,000. Failure of Tacoma, Wash., National Bank, capital $200,000; also failures of banks at Great Falls, Mont., and Orlando, Fla., capital $200,000. Suspension of work in manufactories reported from all sections. Week ending Aug. 1, 1893. —National banks at Manchester, N. H., and Indianapolis, Ind., fail, capital $500,000. Failure of First National Bank at Spokane, Wash., capital $250,000. Ten banks suspend in one day (July 27), capital $2,000,000. Bank failures in South Dakota, Montana, Illinois, Kansas, Texas, Washington, New Hampshire, and correspondingly large number of business suspensions.

Week ending Aug. 8, 1893.—Collapse of Chicago Provision Deal and many failures of commission houses. Failure of National Bank of El Paso, Tex. Failure of National Bank of San Antonio, Tex. Failure of National Bank of Muncie, Ind. Fifty-third Congress meets in special session to begin its destruction of the McKinley law. Week ending Aug. 28,1893.—Encounter between the anarchists and socialists nverted by New York police. Meeting of anarchists broken up by New York police. Failure of national bank at Hindman, Pa. Failure of national bank at Tacoma, Wash. Suspension of manufacturing establishments in numerous States. Announcement by Comptroller of the Currency that 155 national banks and 560 private banks had failed during the year ending Aug. 28. Railroad receivers appointed during August for Northern Pacific, Philadelphia and Reading, New England, and Pittsburg, Akron and Western.

September.—Railroad receivers appointed. for Wisconsin Central, Chicago, Peoria and St. Louis, Cleveland, Canton and Southern, and Evansville and .Terre Haute railroads. The mileage of roads placed in the hands of receivers during the year 1893 was 25,375, nearly one-seventh of all the lines in the United States, and their indebtedness $1,212,217,033. During the year there were 16,115 mercantile suspensions, involving liabilities amounting to $346,779,889. During the bank suspensions of July, loans were made on call at the N. Y. Stock Exchange as high as 72 per cent. Sixty Days of McKinley-Dinglej-ism. The following statements of revival of manufacturing industries during the sixty days following the enactment of the Dingley law, the period corresponding with the similar dates in the first year of Cleveland’s second term, show the contrast between present conditions and those of the corresponding months of the preceding administration. The statements which follow are from Bradstreet’s Financial Journal: Week ending July 24, 1897. —Twenty thousand workmen resume work in the iron and steel industries. Bigelow Carpet Co., at Clinton, Mass., resume work, 900 hands. Packer Colliery at Rappahannock, Pa., resumes work, 1,000 hands. Columbus, 0., Buggy Co., resumes, 400 men. 0., B. &Q. Co. reports full complement of hands at work in its railroad shops for first time in several years. Chattanooga Tradesmen announces large number of iron furnaces in South resuming •work. McKenna Steel Works, Joliet, 111., resume, 400 hands. Spinners at silk mill, Paterson, N. J., receive increase in wages from sto 20 per cent. Pittsburg Plate Glass Co., Kokomo, Ind., resumes, 800 hands. Jones & Laughlin Iron Works, Pittsburg, resume, 3,500 hands. Maine Central Railroad increases wages of employes. Week ending July 31, 1897.—T0d furnaces, Youngstown, 0., resume workl Numbers of ‘manufacturing concerns in Connecticut and Pennsylvania resume work. Furnaces at Birmingham and Bessemer, Ala., resume work. Algonquin woolen mills, Passaic, N. J., increase grages 10 15 per cent Atchison Bail-

SOME RESULTS OF PROTECTION.

way Co. aaaouncM inability to supply new cars to meet demands of shippers. Week ending Aug. 7, 1897.—Ensign Car Manufacturing Co., Huntington, W. Va„ resumes work. Cleveland, 0., rolling mills resume, 2,000 hands. Sugar producers of Louisiana advance wages 16 per cent. Cotton mills at Lancaster, Pa., resume, 1,000 hands. American Watch Co., Waltham, Mass., resumes in all departments. Iron works at Mahoning and Lebanon, Ohio, and Birmingham, Ala., resume. Week ending Aug. 28, 1897. —Fall River Iron Works resume on full time, 2,700 hands. Fall River Printing Co. resumes on full time. Columbus, Hocking Valley R. R. shops increase from half time to 10-hour schedule. Illinois Steel Co. announces resumption of work. National Tube Works at McKeesport, Pa., announce increase of wages. Union Iron and Steel Co., Youngstown, 0., resume work after a long shut-down. Pennsylvania Railroad shopA at Altoona increase schedule to ten hours. Washington, Pa., Steel and Tin Plate Co. doubles working capacity. Birmingham, Ala., Railroad shops extend schedule to ten hours. Lawrence, Mass., Hosiery Mill resumes, 2,000 hands. Car works at Michigan City, Ind., increase schedule to twelve hours, with two years’ work engaged, 1,500 hands. Week-ending Sent. 18. 1897.—Cordflge_ mills at Isaia, 0., purchased for $500,000, to be reopened at once after several years of idleness. East Lake Woolen Mills, Bridgeton, Pa., resume after three years’ idleness. Wead Paper Mill, Malone, N. Y., resumes after two years’ idlaness. Large advance in wages of coal miners and conclusion of coal strike. A. B. CARSON. Wonderfully Improved. “While the newspaper stories have been somewhat exaggerated, it Is an absolute fact that the Western farm-

er’s financial condition is wonderfully Improved. During the past three years he practiced such economy that with a slight Improvement of wheat prices last fall and fair values of cattle, sheep, and hogs, the thrifty farmer gradually reduced his debts. With good prices this fall, he is indeed paying off the mortgage. The fall in the interest rate is as remarkable as the other features of the rising tide.”—American Agriculturist.

Brief Political Comment. Is there a “famine” in raw hides? There has been an increase of over thirty per cent, in the price of that article since the framing of the Dingley law. Those dreary and depressing statements showing the enormous dumber of business failures all over the country during the four years of the Cleveland administration are rapidly disappearing. The business failures during the second vroek of the present September were only 169, while those of the corresponding week of 1893 were 34G, and they range in that vicinity during the corresponding week in each year of the Cleveland term. The contrast between the gold surplus since the new administration came in and that during the Cleveland administration is very remarkable. Mr. Cleveland was compelled to sell hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of bonds to keep up the “reserve,” while the Treasury Department has just notified the Subtreasurer of New Y'ork that It has all the gold it needs and that he need not make any effort whatever to add to the accumulation. The Ohio Democrats who are running away from their silver platform have plenty of company now. Chairman Jones has recommended to the New York Democrats that they drop silver, and Senator Gorman is also en-* gaged in the delightful occupation In his State of advising Maryland Democrats to perform the same act The proposition to make something out of nothing was too thoroughly tested last year to make It a safe one this.

RECORD OF THE WEEK

INDIANA INCIDENTS TERSELY TOLD. Mancie Saloon Men Jubilant—Killed Himself While Angry with His Fath-er-Mad Deed of a Flatroclc ManPrisoner Moved to Escape a Mob. Liquor Men Victorious. For the first time since the crusade was begun on Muncie saloon men by the committee of one hundred prosecuting them, for operating saloons in the residence parts of the city, the defendants are victorious. In the former trials a dozen or more were found guilty, and some driven out of business. In the trials of John P. Weisse, William Webster and John Shea the Mayor found for the defendants. With these findings, over two-thirds of the score or more cases will not stand, and saloon men are jubilant. Killed His W ife and Himself. Wesley Nading of Flatrock shot and instantly killed his young wife and then made an unsuccessful attempt on his own life. For years he operated a general store in Flatrock and .was well-to-do. Several years ago his mind became unbalanced and he was given treatment in a private sanitarium, returning home about eighteen months ago apparently fully recovered. On Tuesday he ate breakfast at the usual time and in his usual spirits went down to his office. He returned home about 8 o’clock and found his wife scrubbing the back porch. Without a word he drew a revolver and fired a bullet into her back. She sprang up screaming and started to run, when he fired again. The second bullet entered her head just back of the right ear and she fell off the porch dead. Nading then placed the muzzle of the revolver against his left breast and fired. The bullet passed entirely through his body just above the heart. Suicided in a Rage. Clarence Parker of New Castle, aged 20 years, committed suicide at his home in the eastern part of Henry County. The boy’s father had mounted a horse belonging to his son and rode to a neighbor’s. When the son came in a short time afterward he became angry because his father had taken his horse and took down his double barreled shotgun. He then went to the orchard, cursing his father as he went, and a few minutes later he emptied one load of shot into his left breast, dying instantly. The Reformatory Crowded. The sessions of the courts over the State are causing an influx of convicts to the reformatory at Jeffersonville, and Superintendent Hert is wondering how he is going to accommodate all the new men. The cell houses are inadequate to furnish proper sleeping apartments if the rush Continues. The number will shortly reach one thousand. Fyfe Henderson Sentenced. Fyfe Henderson, who raised a check on J. S. Stewart & Co., St. Louis, from $12.35 to $212.35 and left for Canada, where he was captured, was found guilty by a jury at Vincennes and sentenced to the reformatory at Jeffersonville.

All Over the State. The last crop bulletin of the season announces that the Indiana corn crop will fall below that of last year. William McMath, Thomas Dill, John Cavitt, Jr., and George King, all of Rushville, expect to. start for the Klondike in the spring. Thieves have carried away almost all the foundation of the Mcßride school house at Jeffersonville, and it is in such a condition as to be unsafe. Henry Louden, a farmer living near Melbern, committed suicide by taking poison. His body was found in the barn by his 7-year-old son. No cause is given. Nearly 400 members of the Porter-Lake County Veterans’ Association attended the fourteenth annual reunion at Valparaiso of the association, which numbers about 700 members. Edwin F. Carter of Evansville, a young theological student, has been missing for a week. He left for Alexandria, Va., and reached Cincinnati. A telegram was received from him saying he would immediately start for Alexandria. After this all trace of him has been lost. Prof. Harrison Staley of Sandbom made an unsuccessful attempt at suicide by swallowing morphine. Three weeks ago Prof. Staley was arrested and committed for assault with intent to kill Mrs. W. M. Wilcox. After lying in jail at Vincennes for ten days he gave bond and was released, and he returned home to arrange for the trial. Mrs. Charles Carter of Chesterfield and “Del” Crane, a traveling man for a Michigan lumber firm, have eloped on a bicycle built for two. Years ago, before she became Mrs. Carter, they were lovers. When last seen they were pedaling over a hill ten miles north of Anderson.

The State Auditor has completed the footings of the assessment of all classes of property in Indiana this year. There are 22,435,182 acres of land assessed at $453,487,733, as against 22,401,(513 acres assessed at $453,125,559 last year. The average valuation an acre is $20.21, as against $20.22 last year. The improvements on the land are assessed at $83,898,561, as against $82,798,721 last year. The lots of the State are valued at $150,218,220, as against $150,101,305 last year, and the improvements on the lots are assessed at $162,892,389, as against $156,282,730 last year. The personal property is valued at $278,324,983. as against $277,983,995 last year. The total value of lands, lots, improvements and personal property is $1,128,621,886, as against sl,120,302,020 last year. The State Board of Tax Commissioners assessed the property of railroads, telegraph and telephone companies, sleeping ear companies and express companies at $160,369,827, making a total value of property for the purposes of taxation $1,289,191,713. The valuation is the highest in the history of the State. Many farmers in the vicinity of Hagerstown, who p.antcd their wheat at the usual seeding time, find that there was sufficient moisture to cause the germ to sprout, but not enough to sustain the life of the plant, and in consequence the wheat will have to be planted over. John M. Sellers, aged 76, was found dead in bed at Darlington by neighbors, who were attracted by the odor frogi the house. The body was swollen to twice its size. There was a red hot gas stove burning in the room. Mr. Sellers lived alone and had not been seen for several daya-