Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 24, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1901 — INDIANA INCIDENTS. [ARTICLE]

INDIANA INCIDENTS.

RECORD OF EVENTS OF THE PAST WEEK. . _ Eec'aion Will Help Hural School*—Typhoid Fever Among Num at Oldenburg—Reclaiming Kankakee Swamp —Married at Fifty Miles an Hoar. The centralization of school* in rural districts and the free transportation of the pupils in public conveyance* to and froffi schools is rapidly growing in favor throughout Indiana. This experiment was first tried in Delaware County, where the schools were consolidated, and proved a great success. The plan was originated by Charles A. Van Metre, the youngest, school superintendent in the State, being only 31 years of age. The authority of trustees to transport school children to school has been the only hindrance to the success of the plan. The question is one that has been long pending and great interest attaches to the recent decision on the matter which State Superintendent Jones has handed down. It is regarded as final in the matter and trustees have only 1 to act. Mr. Jones says that it has been' conceded for years that township trustees have almost unlimited powers and rights to organize and conduct their schools. In conclusion Mr. Jones says it would be just as reasonable for one to assert that the trustees cannot buy a bell -for his school house or nails with which to make repairs or an encyclopedia as to assert that the trustee cannot transport children to school at public expense. Typhoid Fever Rage* in Convent. An epidemic of typhoid fever is raging within the confines of the Catholic convent of the Immaculate Conception at Oldenburg. Thirty nuns have fallen victims to this dread disease and several have died from its effects. The epidemic is more serious from the fact that no men physicians are allowed within the walla of the convent, the rules of the institution being strict in the extreme. The source of the epidemic is believed to have been in the four wells which supply the convent with drinking water. Kankakee Swamp la The Kankakee swamp, so famous twenty years ago for its Vast stretches of morass, is now practically reclaimed to cultivation as the result of patient work. The myriads of water fowl now only pay the region fleeting visits to the disgust of sportsmen. The broad river of old ha* dwindled to an insignificant stream, choked with sandbars. The swamp now produces some of the best Com in the country. Wed at Fifty Mile* an Hour. John Sanderson and Miss Josephine Breitenbach of Greentown were married on the Clover 'Leaf passenger train, between that place and Kokomo. At a given signal of the engineer, while the cars were going fifty miles an hour, the couple stood up and were married by Mayor Rogers of Greentown.

Within Our Borders. Richmond has seven smallpox cases. Crawfordsville may get an ice plant. Anderson is to have a new business college. Henry John, 72, Laporte County pioneer, is dead. A freight wreck fit Salem blocked the Monon six hours. The Modes-Turner glass factory, Terre Haute, has resumed. . Montgomery County is broke, and the tax levy will have to be raised. Thomas Huey, Muhcie, lost a foot by being run over by an L. E. & W. train. William Craig, Evansville, stabbed by his brother-in-law. Ollie Funk, is dead. Willie Swift, 12, Yorktown, was klb ed by a Big Four engine in the Yorktown yards. * The Gould steel mill at Irondale has started and will' run a double force all winter. Flora’s biggest factory, the sawmill and planing mill, owned by R. D. V oorhees, burned. A. W. Swanson, aged 45, was killed by a train at Terre Coupee, his body being cut in two. Farmer Tilton of Clay township fired at melon thieves and one lad got a shot through his ear. The C., R. & M. Railroad will cross the center of Marion’on elevated tracks, on a trestle 2,100 feet long. Rev. Dr. J. W. Turner of Evansville has accepted a call to the First Methodist Church of Decatur. 111. Mrs. Louisa Schnatzmeier, 100, Columbus, is dead. She leaves a son, 71, and a daughter, 76. She was born in Prussia. During a severe storm seventeen out of a herd of nineteen cattle belonging to Alfred Nickey, near Churubusco, wero killed by lightning. The 10-months-old child of Fred Erdman and wife, Greensburg, swallowed a beauty pin and chain, with the pin open. It lodged in the child’s throat, but was finally swallowed. The child will recover. Thomas Shepperd, who was released from the Michigan City prison after serving a sentence of twenty-two years for murder, has just been married at Sullivan to a Miss Johnson, the sweetheart of his yoqth. State Gas Inspector Leach said, at Marion, that the oil wella are not wasting as much gas as supposed. The law, he says, gives the well owners fortyeight hours in which to shut off the gas escaping from newly opened wells. The Collier Shovel Company of Washington has been consolidated with the Chicago Steel Manufacturing Company of Chicago, and the plant will probably bo moved to Hammond. The capital of the consolidated concern will be $650,000. Claus Johnson, formerly of Laporte, was killed by a Lake Shore train near New Carlisle. '■ •' William Cullers was found- hanging in his barn east of Auburn. He had used a hitch strap. No cause known. Mrs. Catherine Hook. Laporte, discovered that ahe had been declared insane and attempted to kill herself with arsenfc. David Matthews, a well-known dtimn of Frankfort, has been indicted, charged with raising thistles. It is the first case under the new law.