Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 December 1902 — SETTLE STATE LINE. [ARTICLE]

SETTLE STATE LINE.

MISSOURI-NEBRASKA BOUNDARY IS ESTABLISHED. Supreme Coart CommiMlon Decide* that Line Lie* in Center of Old Rive*Bed—Caban Reciprocity Treaty la Signed in Havana. The commission which has been sitting St the Midland Hotel in Kansas City to ' hear arguments in the Missouri-Nebraska boundary line case adjourned Friday after making a decision which is in the nature of a compromise. The point at issue was the ownership of 15,000 acres of valuable land at the point where the two States meet. The dispute was caused by the changing of the current of the Missouri river. Formerly the river made a great bend, and came around again, leaving only a short neck of land. On July 7, 1866, the river broke across this neck, and since then the line has been in dispute. The commission, which was upI»ointed by the United States Supreme Court, found that a line drawn through the territory of the old river bed, equally distant from each side, represented the main channel of the Missouri river prior to 1866, and that all land lying on the Missouri side of the line belonged to the State of Missouri, and all land lying on the Nebraska side of said line belonged to that State. The river shortened its course fourteen miles by cutting through the neck of land. RECIPROCITY WITH CUBA. Treaty Signed in Havana Reduces Tariff Rates 20 Per Cent. It was officially announced in Havana that a treaty of commercial reciprocity between Cuba and the United States nas signed at 11 o’clock Thursday night by Gen. Bliss and Secretaries Zaldo and Montes. It only lacks the signatures of Secretary Hay and Senor Quesada and the approval of the United States and Cuban Senates to make it operative. Gen. Bliss left on Saturday for Washington with a copy of the treaty. Although the treaty provides for a uniform reduction of 20 per cent from the present tariff charges on Cuban products entering the United States, a parallel list of products has been drawn up in which is set forth the reductions on each Item made by Cuba and the United States respectively. It is impossible now to make any material change in this list.

•1,000,000 STEEL-PLANT FIRE. Great Milla in Canal Dover, Ohio, Are Destroyed. The corrugating mills, the paint shop, the storeroom, and the building containing the four mills of the west side of the American Sheet Steel Company’s mills burned to the ground at Canal Dover, Ohio, and the company is confronted with a loss of over J 1,000,000, nearly $750,000 in finished product and the balance in building and machinery. The offices, the machine shop, the galvanizing department, and the mills on the east side are all that remain of this great plant. Electric Spark Ignites Gas. Two men were instantly killed, two perhaps fatally burned and a number of others less seriously injured by an explosion of gas in the Cleveland water works tunnel 100 feet below the bottom of Lake Erie. The cause of the explosion, it is believed, was a spark from the joining of two electric light wires in the tunnel, which ignited the accumulated gas. Unknown Fires at Belgian Monarch. As Leopold, the King of the Belgians, was leaving the royal train at the station at Laken two shots were fired at him, although neither took effect. It is not known whether the shots were fired by an assassin or by poachers. Real War at Puerto Cabello. British and German fleet bombarded forts at Puerto Cabello for forty-five minutes, silencing their guns. The town was not shelled and it is not known that anyone waa injured. Figures on lowa Crops. lowa State crop report shows $59,000,000 loss to farmers by rains; 53 per cent of corn soft and unsalable; oats yield worth one-half of 1901; potatoes 1,000,000 bushels under 1001.

Wealth for a Cripple. Walter E. Duryea, young New Yorker who broke his neck while divmg, lives to inherit $1,000,000 and other property, and physicians hold out hope that he may yet be able to walk. Children Burned to Death. Three colored girls, aged 2, 4 and 7 years, children of Louis Smith, were burned to death in a 16th street tenement house in New York. The parents went out, leaving the children in bed asleep. Cable's End at fan Francisco. The shore end of the Pacific cable was successfully landed and spliced at San Francisco, the ceremony being witnessed by a crowd of over 30.000 persons. New Minister to Japan. Lloyd Griscom, Jr., has been appointed minister to Japan to succeed Mr. Buck, deceased. Death of Mrs. U. 8. Grant. Mrs. U. 8. Grant, widow of the former President, died at her home in Washington of heart failure. Retail Business Reported Brisk. Weekly trade reviews report brisk retail business aided by low temperatures and the holiday demand. Pilarrims Killed In a Wreck. At Tepa, on the Hidalgo Railway, in Mexico, a special train bearing 1,000 pilgrims returning to Tnlancingo from City of Mexico, was wrecked, killing three persons and injuring many more. Kisses Mistress, Not Maid. In St. Joseph, Mo., John Yost was fined S2O for kissing Mrs. Richard M. Purdy, at whose bouse he delivered groceries. Mm Purdy Is a pretty young woman. She wore a long aprwn and her hands warn In the dough. Yost be thought she wu the hired girl rijfejito ' ‘ iI? ■? I v* i 1