Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 December 1897 — LEGAL BATTLE ROYAL [ARTICLE]

LEGAL BATTLE ROYAL

MISSOURI ATTORNEY GENERAL AFTER TRUST COMPANIESHe Says They Become Illegal When They Begin to Do a General Banking Bneineas-Fly Wheel Bursts, Killing a Man at Pittsburg. Must They Quit Banking? A fight to a finish is now on between the Attorney General of Missouri and the St. Louis Trust Company, the Union Trust Company, the Lincoln Trust Company and the Mississippi Valley Trust Company of St. Louis. Some time ago the Attorney General applied to the Supreme Court for a writ of quo warranto to determine what right, if any, the trust companies had to do a banking business, the ultimate object being to deprive them of their charters. Judge George A. Medill of the Union Trust Company, in giving his testimony said that if the views held by Attorney General Crow were indorsed by the Supreme Court the trust companies could not remain in business. The Attorney General holds that all the trust companies named are violating the lawin doing a general banking business as well as the business of a trust company, both under a charter from the State to do the business of a trust company alone. A law was enacted in 1895 prohibiting trust companies from doing the general business of a banking establishment, and this is the basis for the present prosecution. Another Big Gain in Exports. The monthly statement of the imports and exports of merchandise, gold and silver, issued by the bureau of statistics at Washington, shows that the exports of domestic merchandise during November amounted to $114,608,301, a gain of nearly $7,000,000 over November, 1896. The imports of merchandise during November aggregated $52,352,331, of which over 50 per cent was free of duty. The gain for tile month was over $5,300,000. For the last nine months the increase in the exports of merchandise was $85,901,435. The gain in the imports of merchandise was $68,492,194. The exports of gold during November aggregated $699,340, and the imports $2,505,308. Fot the nine months the imports exceeded the exports by about $7,000,000. The exports of silver during November amounted to $4,979,277, and the imports $1,544,305. Fot the nine months the exports of silver amounted to $52,551,963, and the imports to $11,617,012. Train Wrecked in Indiana.* Train No. 3 on the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad ran into an extra train near Clinton, Ind. Three employes were killed and half a dozen others injured, but none of the passengers were hurt. Both engines were badly wrecked, the baggage car was thrown down an embankment and the mail car smashed. The cause of the accident is not definitely known at present, but it is supposed to have been due to the crew of the extra train overlooking the passenger train. Killed by Bursting Wheel. One man was killed, one fatally injured and a number of others slightly hurt by the bursting of a fly wheel at the South Third street plant of the Oliver Iron and Steel Company at Pittsburg. The accident was caused by the engine , becoming ungovernable. The fly wheel was fifteen feet in diameter and weighed several tons. The engine was completely wrecked.