Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 83, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1901 — WOMAN DIES BY FIRE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WOMAN DIES BY FIRE.

HER DEATH IS CHARGED TO BLACKMAILERS. Husband Had Refused to Notice a Demand for $5,000 and His Home Is Burned—Cattle Buyer’s Body Found Under a Culvert Horribly burned and death after intense agony was the fate of Mrs. W. C. Carson, wife of a Cowley County, Kan., farmer, all because her husband refused to deposit $5,000 in a place named by unknown blackmailers. Three weeks ago, Carson, who is wealthy, received an anonymous note requesting him to bury SSOO at the root of a telephone pole by the roadside under penalty of having his house burned. The suggestion was ignored. One week later another anonymous letter was received stating that if $5,000 was not deposited within a week his house would be burned and he himself killed. No attention was paid to the second communication, and on a recent night while Mr. Carson was en route to Oxford for mail the home was fired. Mrs. Carson was found about ten., feet from the ruins by Mr. Dunn, a neighbor, horribly burned, and insensible. She was taken home by Mr. Dunn, where she rallied enough before dying to relate her knowledge of the transaction. She rushed outside when she discovered the fire, but remembered some valuable papers and treasured old violin, and tried to save them. From that moment her mind was a blank until she awoke in the home of Mr. Dunn. ROBBED AND MURDERED. Body of Martin Ayres Found Under Bridge in Nebraska. The body of a man. supposed to be a cattle buyer named Martin Ayres, was found the other evening by farmers under a bridge in Daily township, sixteen miles west of Ponca, Neb. I'he mane head was crushed and his clothing showed evidence of a struggle. No money iVas found on the body, and it is thought that he was held up and murdered. Ayres was a stranger. Fatal Accident at Mine. While Sylvester Hadley, William Y\ hittington. Walter Hadley, Frank Sutton and Newton Hadley were building a tipple at the Zeller-McClellan mine, Brazil, Ind., the scaffolding broke and they fell thirty-two feet. Hadley and W hittington were fatally hurt and the three others were seriously injured. Bodies of Former Lovers Found. The bodies of Frank C. Forrest and Louise Strothoff were found in the road five miles east of Quincy, 111. He was shot through the head and she through the heart. They were former lovers and had quarreled. She is supposed to have been jealous of Forrest, who recently had been attentive to a Quincy girl. Four Men Fall to Death. As the result of the breaking of a temporary platform built on a scaffolding inside and bridging the top of a monstrous tank in the Eastern elevator at Buffalo, six men fell a distance of eighty feet. Four were killed, one instantly, and the others died within a few hours. Dies in the Electric Chair. Edwin Ruthven, colored, was electrocuted in the annex at the Ohio State penitentiary. The crime for which Ruthven, or Rutheben, as the commitment papers read, was electrocuted, was the murder of Police Officer Shipp in Cleveland on the night of May 6, 1900. Fatal Wreck on Wabash. The west-bound Wabash passenger train was wrecked at Cass station, four miles from Logansport, Ind. Fifteen persons are dead and twenty are injured. The train ran into a washout. West Virginia Again Stricken. Another cloudburst descended upon stricken West Virginia coal fields and damage to property is said to be even heavier than on the previous occasion. Nash Is Renominated. Gov. Nash was unanimously renominated for the office by the Ohio Republican convention. Curfew Law Doesn’t Hold. County Judge Smith at St. Paul. Minn., has declared the Nebraska curfew law unconstitutional.

Uncle Sam: “Don’t you gosh darned chumps know that the sun hain’t set yet?” —St. Paul Pioneer Press.