Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 October 1897 — WESTERN. [ARTICLE]

WESTERN.

Mayor Harrison will permit no knockout boxing contests in Chicago. Superintendent Greenwood of the Kansas City schools is planning to use newspapers as text books. In Chicago, Frederick V. Bowers, who plays a part in "McSorley’s Twins,” eloped to Milwaukee with Miss Blanche Louise Barrett, daughter of Charles R. Barrett. Joe Wallace was instantly killed and David McElroy fatally injured at the St. Lawrence mine, Butte, Mont. The engineer failed to stop the engine, and the cage was carried up into the timbers. Leigh Hough, brought to Owatonna, Minn., from Guthrie, Ky., charged with murdering Joe M. Clark, has made a full confession to Sheriff J. Z. Barncard and several witnesses. His confession clears three companions. Thomas Coffey, manager of the Detroit office of the Vermont Marble Company, has been missing since Oct. 3 and his family and friends have become anxious about him. So far as known there is no shortage in his accounts. Plans contemplating the investment of from $500,000 to $1,000,000 by Eastern capitalists in sugar factories and refineries have been consummated in Denver, and an agreement has been signed by 100 farmers pledging themselves to the cultivatioin of 1,000 acres of sugar beets. At Portland, Ore., Francis Seely, Government tea inspector, condemned 830 chests of tea which arrived from the Orient on the steamship Monmouthshire. Several days ago he condemned 422 chests consigned to a Chicago firm. The entire lot was found to be old, trashy tea, unfit for use. At a meeting of the California board of university regents, the resignation of Director E. S. Holden of the Lick Observatory was presented and accepted, to take effect on Jan. 1 next, when his leave of absence expires. Meantime Prof. James S. Haberle was appointed acting director of the observatory. An attempt was made to murder Editor Moffat of the Bismarck, N. D., Settler, five shots being fired by some unknown person. This is the second attempt on his life, and three weeks ago his presses and type were dumped into the Missouri River. Ho has been making a bitter war on the saloon and gambling element. There was a riot among the prisoners in the St. Louis jail, during which twenty desperate negroes engaged in a fight among themselves. Deputy Jailer Wagner turned in the riot alarm to the police, who overpowered the combatants and placed them in dungeons. The fight started over a game of craps, in which 80 cents was involved. in a lecture delivered before the chemists of the University Science Association on “The Transmutation of Metals,” Edmund O’Neill, associate professor of chemistry at the University of California, declared the possibility of making gold from silver, and said there was an excellent basis to support the claim for the union of metals and that the ultimate solution of the problem was an achievement science expects. News just received from Long Valley, Idaho, says that there has been a battle

between the settlers and the shepherds, in which three men were killed and one dangerously wounded. Details are meager, but it seems that fifteen of the settlers warned the sheepmen to leave the valley and when they refused, made an attack upon the sheep camp. Thirty shots were fired by the settlers and a man named Barber was wounded. The sheepmen then returned the fire, killing three of the settlers. The rest of the attacking party fled. It is thought that Barber was killed. Victory for the laymen marked the opening hour of one business session of tire Rock River conference at Chicago. Boon after the ministers had been called to order in the Western Avenue Methodist Church Rev. P. H. Swift, secretary of the committee of five, made his report It recommended the adoption of the proposition for a constitutional change granting equal representation in numbers of preachers and laymen at the Methodist general conference held every four years. This proposition was favored by a unanimous vote. In addition the conference passed the resolutions favoring the laity, which was also presented Monday, after the laymen’s association committee had been heard by the clergy. As the action was expected, it did not arouse much enthusiasm, but the church members present, when the report was made and the action was taken, joined in hearty applause. At Dubuque, lowa, by a vote of 141 to 8 the Upper lowa Methodist Episcopal conference declared for the proposition to increase lay representation at the quadrennial general conference.