Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 November 1901 — ADMITS MANY CRIMES [ARTICLE]

ADMITS MANY CRIMES

VERSATILE SWINDLER SURRENDERS AT INDIANAPOLIS. Confesses Numerous Forgeries and Embezzlements Committed All Over the Country—Biggest Engine in the World Makes Record Breaking Run. John Verfall, an Englishman, walked into the police station in Indianapolis, and, after admitting twenty or more forgeries committed in various parts of the country, said he wanted to give himself up. The forgeries, Verrall said, aggregate $12,000, and were committed in the following cities, under the aliases given: H. V. West, forgery at Cincinnati; Vincent Neville, embezzlement at Evansville; Vincent St. John Verrall, embezzlement, New York; V. R. Lord, embezzlement and forgery, Philadelphia; J. H. Verrall, embezzlement, Boston; Vincent West, embezzlement. Boston; Dr. West, embezzlement and forgery, Peoria, 111.; Vincent West, embezzlement, Chicago; V. T. Berkeley, embezzlement, Boston; L. V. Latham, embezzlement, Halifax, N. S.; K. D. West, embezzlement, Toronto, Canada; W. K. West, embezzlement, Hamilton, Canada; 11. Vincent West, forgery, Dayton, Ohio. Verrall says he lost his wife two years ago, and since that time he has gone bad, gambled and “gone to the devil generally,” as he puts it. The forgeries have for the most part been in small amounts. “Call me a blackguard,” said Verrall. “I have lost all claim to respect. I am related to the old English family of Neville, and that is why I sometimes assumed that name.”

TEACHER STABBED IN THE BACK. F ur Pupils of Cawood, Mo., School Lodged in Jail. Luther Montgomery, a teacher in the school at Cawood, Mo., was stabbed in the back by four of his pupils. Just before the recess hour, and while his back was turned, four young men, Miller, Craig and two named Bedford, none of whom are over 18 years of age, slipped up behind Montgomery and dealt him a blow with a knife in the back of the head. He was then set upon and dragged to the floor, where he received three other wounds, one in the neck, one in the shoulder aud another in the back. Montgomery comes of a wealthy and influential family living near Bolckow. The boys are all of good families and had previously borne good reputations. Montgomery will probably die. The boys were lodged in jail.

MILE RUN IN FORTY SECONDS. Biccest Passenger Engine in World Makes Speed Record on Long Trip. With the mammoth new No. 398, the largest passenger engine in the world, the Southwestern limited on the Big Four made a record-breaking trip between Indianapolis and St. Louis. Pulling out of the union station at Indianapolis, the limited, with eight heavily laden coaches, was fort£-four minutes late. The run to Greencastle, Ind., was made in thirtytwo minutes. At several favorable stretches a mile in forty seconds was reeled off. The distance between Indianapolis and Mattoon, 111., 128 miles, was made in two hours and forty-five minutes. In the run to St. Louis, 134 miles, the remaining eighteen minutes was made up. Liberal Troops Capture Color. The liberals made an unexpected attack on Colon, Colombia. The government was not prepared and there was little resistance. After some fighting in front of the Cuartel and in certain streets for an hour and a half the liberals gained possession of all the public offices and the town of Colon. Flour Mill in Ashes. Fire caused by spontaneous combustion destroyed Graif Bros.’ flour mill at Lake Crystal, Minn. The loss on the building is $60,000; on grain and flour, $15,000, with a total insurance of $24,000. The electric light plant, water works and telephone system also burned, increasing the total loss to over SIOO,OOO.

Thirty Thousand Dollar Fire Loss. Fire which broke out in the three-story brick building of Aughe Brothers in Frankfort, Ind., spread rapidly, entailing a loss of $30,000. Among the victims are Harry Perry, saloon; Bert Willis saloon; James Coulter, three-story building; William Hatfield, grocery, and the Central Union Telephone station. Ba'k Mississippi Lynchers. Will Mathis, who is accused of the murder of two deputy marshals of the name of Montgomery, -whose charred bodies were found in the ruins of Mathis’ house, surrendered at Dallas, Miss. Preparations were made to lynch the prisoner, but the officers decided to take him elsewhere for safe-keeping. Blaze at Detroit Theater. Fire which broke out in the Whitney Grand Opera House in Detroit did $lO,000 damage before it was extinguished. The theater, which is owned by Stephen A. Baldwin of that city, was controlled by E. D. Stair. The loss is covered by insurance. Brooklyn Postmaster Out. A dispatch from Washington says that Postmaster Wilson ,of Brooklyn, N. Y., has resigned. The cause of his resignation is a controversy between Mr. Wilson and one of the assistant postmasters general over uu employe in the Brooklyn postoffice. Boy Has Ticking Brain. In a Syracuse, N. Y., police court the other day a boy was on trial who had a brain which ticked like a watch. He is Alex Jenni and is 15 years old. By placing the ear close to the head a ticking can be heard. His intellect is not impaired by this strange phenomenon. F.-mily of Three Found Murdered. The dead bodies of A. I*. Wilcox, wife and 3-year-old son were found in their home at Downey, Cal. All the bodies were horribly mutilated, and the condition of the premises indicated that the murderer or murderers had met with a tierce resistance. Reven Trainmen Killed. Seven persons were killed and three passengers and fourteen trainmen, ten of whom were from Chicago, were injured in collision between limited trains on the Santa Fe road ip Arixona.

Party Programme at rtashincton. Every new advice from Washington confirms the fact of the acceptance by the Republican party leaders of the lesson of the elections. It is a lesson of extreme conservatism. If ever a people gave evidence of satisfaction with the policies of a party, it is the American people in their evidence rendered on Nov. 5 of their attitude toward the policies of the Republican party. The fidget and the fret of the incurable tariff revisionists and “reformers” has gone utterly unheeded by the electorate of such States as Massachusetts, lowa and Nebraska, wherein has been invariably an early response to proposals for change when such proposals were even plausible. Especially is this true in the first of these commonwealths, where agitation has been unceasing and unnoticed. There is the better reason for obedience to this negative mandate in the fact that it is In accord with a public policy of which the wisdom Is mathematically demonstrated in every month’s trade returns. The people might need amendment of thetfaws regulating their commerce and industries and be unaware of the fact. It might be, for Instance, that the protective system was curtailing their foreign trade to an extent unrecognized in the fervor of their domestic activity. In that case statesmen might be in duty bound to foster measures whose necessity the people had not come to see. But the fact is that the Dingley law has extended foreign trade to a degree unknowm and unthought of under either of its predecessors—the tariff-for-revenue Wilson law and the tariff-with-reclprocity McKinley law. When popular will goes hand in hand with public good, it were sheer madness to divert its steps from the plain path they follow. The wisdom of a let-it-alone policy in regard to the tariff and all subjects of international trade relations is apparent. There will be quite enough of other work for Congress in the regulation of “trusts” and the settlement of the currency with possibly some amendment of the internal revenue law’s with an eye to the surplus. Last but not least, the ratification of the new canal convention and the all-important legislation necessarily consequent will demand time which can ill be spared to tamper with trade regulations, even were these latter not putting the whole commercial world in debt to the American producer.—New York Press.

Can a Governor Be Coerce!? Gov. Beckham’s reply to Gov. Durbin’s refusal to surrender to him two alleged accomplices in William Goebel’s murder starts with imputing corrupt motives to the Indiana executive, passes to a defense of the Kentucky Judge whose evident partisanship on the bench has become a public scandal, and winds up with some glittering generalities in praise of the people of Kentucky. Beckham charges that Gov. Durbin’s refusal is the. fulfillment of “campaign obligations” and the result of a “political bargain.” What of value two poor and almost friendless men, whose leadership of their party in Kentucky had ended in disaster, could offer in exchange for “protection” to the Governor of a great State even Beckham’s fervid imagination fails to declare. All who remember, however, under what circumstances Beckham came into office and appreciate the fact that his whole political existence depends on giving the Goebelltes their desired revenge will have no difficulty in understanding that the “political bargain” and the /‘campaign obligations” are south and not north of the Ohio River. Beckham asserts that Judge Cantrill’s “character as a man and a jurist stands unimpeached among the good people of Kentucky.” Yet this same Judge, in the face of affidavits of partiality and of his own Supreme Court’s rebuke of his conduct on a former trial, refused to grant a change of venue to Caleb Powers and permitted the case to go to a jury composed entirely of Goebel partisans. The maxim about Caesar's wife appears to have

been overlooked by both Cantrill and his defender. The fact is that Gov. Durbin merely exercised his inherent discretion to inquire whether the claim for Taylor and Finley was prompted by a desire for justice or for partisan revenge, and found that the latter motive was selfevident in the circumstances. Therefore he refused, as dozens of other executives have, to be a party to prosecution which w’as plainly persecution. And for thus setting bounds to partisan rancor Gov. Durbin is applauded by all fair-minded men, even in Kentucky.—Chicago Inter Ocean. McKinley Reciprocity. The late President’s reciprocity idea is entirely consistent with his wellknown protection sentiment, by which he has stood during his entire political life, and which he lived to see fully vindicated by “our wonderful industrial development.” “Sensible trade arrangements,” the late President says —not free trade, but that “which will not interrupt our home production,” and that Is McKinley protection and McKinley reciprocity. Anything else would be a surrender of our Industries to ruinous foreign competition and a return of the days and experiences of the Cleveland administration and the Wilson tariff bill. “Our wonderful industrial development” must be sustained, not by breaking down the law’s which have made it possible, but, as McKinley says, “sensible trade arrangements which will not Interrupt our home production.” Back of that sentiment stands the whole Republican party and the industrial Interests of the country, and back of that sentiment stands the nation’s new head and President McKinley’s successor, President Theodore Roosevelt. —York (Pa.) Dispatch.

Real Republican Reciprocity. But when reciprocity treaties come within President McKinley’s definition of “opening up of new markets for the products of our country by granting concession to the products of other lands that we need and cannot produce ourselves, and which do not involve any loss of labor to our own people but tend to increase their employment,” the Republican party is a unit in support of them. It may be taken for granted that whatever treaties are made will be on those lines. President Roosevelt will work In harmony with the Senate and House. There is no “impending war” on this subject or any other. The Republican party Is as strong now in favor of “continuing the policy that has been so brilliantly successful in the past” as it has been at any other time. The wonderful success of that policy was never more evident than in the trade returns of the present time.—Philadelphia Press. Europe Gets Her Share. Why should the nations of Europe worry about our exports to their shores? Most of the goods go over in their ships. The more goods we sell them the more fares will go into the treasuries of the transatlantic liners. Of course, this may not always continue, but it has been a rich plan for the British, tl* Germans, the Dutch, the French, and even smaller maritime nations, and now they are trying to outdo one another in building new fleets of bigger and faster boats. Not only that, but lots of the money they send us goes back again In the form of railrad fares, all over Europe, hotel bills, fees and tips Innumerable and all the lavish expenditure of a host of rich travelers. The balance of trade is in our favor, but we are not mean about spending the money, and Europe will think several times before she turns our picture to’the w/ill. Should Not He Forgotten. Our foreign trade both In imports and exports is quite satisfactory, and while we are congratulating the country on its. great trade expansion, It must not be forgotten that all this la being accomplished under the operations of the protective tariff laws so much denounced and abused by the free-traders.—Allentown (Pa.) Register.