Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 November 1897 — EASTERN. [ARTICLE]

EASTERN.

Edward B. Hamilton, one of the most prominent men in banking circles of Worcester, Mass., shot and killed his wife and two children and fatally shot himself. When -found 1 he said he wished to die. Hamilton was 51 years old and was a member of one of the oldest families. The bark Gazelle hns arrived at Boston from Para and the Barbndpes, and Capt. Green reported that when 180‘miles south of South Shoal lightship, he fell in with an immense amount of wreckage, apparently marking the spot where some large English vessel had foundered. The New York Times says: “The incorporation at Albany of the New Amsterdam Gas Company of New York City, with a capital stock of $23,000,000, of which $10,000,000 is to be preferred, is accepted as an indication that within six months all the gas companies of Greater New York will be united.” Former Judge Alfred Walling, one of the best-known Democrats in Monmouth County, New Jersey, committed suicide at his home in Keyport by shooting himself in the head. 'He died almost instantly. Mr. Walling was for ten years presiding judge of Monmouth County Court, retiring about five years ago. A riot occurred at Scottdale, Pa., in which Henry Gillespie. John Jordan, and Manager Skemp, of the Scottdale Iron and Steel Company, were badly injured. The previous day a union man, Frank Keltz. was beaten into insensibility by non-union ironworkers, and Keltz's fellow workmen vowed vengeance. Manager Skemp, fearing trouble when his men quit work, formed thirty or forty of them in line and marched up Pittsburg street. At Broadway a large crowd had gathered and four of Ihe marchers with drawn revolvers stepped to the front and ordered the crowd back. Just then some one threw a stone into the crowd of non-union-ists. This was responded to by a shot, followed by a regular fusillade, fully fifty shots being fired, nearly all coming from the non-union men. On the authority of an officer of high standing in army ordnance circles it is stated that the war department is seriously considering the advisibility of erecting, at an early date, a number of turret guns as a supplement to the defense of NewYork harbor. The turrets to be used will, it is said, be of the German Grusou type nnd the manufacture of the turrets is to be undertaken by American plants. The Gruson turret is controlled by the great Krupp establishment at Essing. The representative of the Kropps, Capt. A. E. Piorkowski, of the German army, is now in this country, and ordnance men say that as soon as the Kropps have perfected arrangements on this side of the water the manufacture of the turrets will begin. Turret protection has been adopted to so large an extent of late in Europe ns to practically isolate the methods of the United States coast defense system. Capt. George McCluskey, chief of the detective bureau at New- York police headquarters, and a score of the ablest men under his command have been engaged during the past week in trying to solve the mystery of a great diamond robbery. Mrs. Alice Norton, a wealthy young widow, living at the Hofei Bartholdi, left her room in the hotel over Tammany's headquarters one evening last week to takt- dinner with a woman friend, who also lives at the hotel. Mrs. Norton bad a large collection of diamonds, many of them having been bought abroad. They were considered of great value. When Mrs. Norton left her room she locked the door and put the key in her pocket. In a drawer in a bureau were the jewels she did not wear that evening. There were several diamond rings, a large sunburst, which had been purchased in Paris, and a brooch valued at SI,OOO. The exact value of the diamonds left by Mrs. Norton is not known, but it is estimated to be about $20,000. When she returned at 11 p. m. her jewels were gone, and there is no clew to the thief.