Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 150, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1904 — TRANSFER IN PANAMA [ARTICLE]

TRANSFER IN PANAMA

CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION TAKES POWER FROM JUNTA. Officers of New Regime Are Chosen and Laws Already Provided by Temporary Government Continned in Force—lnsane Student Suicides. The constitutional Convention, the first legislative body in the' history of the new republic of Panama, met Friday and organized with G. B. Amador as temporary chairman, and Nicholas Victoria, temporary secretary, and then chose as president of the convention Dr. Pablo Arosemena. The vice president if Dr. Louis Deroux, who in the last House of Representatives at Bogota said that unless the canal treaty- was ratified ganama was sure to secede. Heliodora I’atino was elected-second vice president. Juan Brin was made secretary of the committee, and sent to the government house to notify the junta and the ministers of the meeting of the convention. The mas- ‘ sage of-the junta to the convention was read by Dr. Eusebio Morales. It recited the history of Panama up to the present day, and explained the reason for secession. The junta then surrendered the power it had assumed to the new menL Special thanks were given to the ministers who assisted in the preliminary 'work. One of the first acts of the new government was to continue the laws of the temporary government. The actual receipts of the’ government are insufficient for expenses, but the revenue from the canal will give a large sum.

GIANT ICEBERGS IN OHIO. River Freezes Anew and Gorges Canse Isolated Towns to Suffer. Dispatches from Ohio river points indicate that new ice is forming, while the gorges between Evansville and Louisville are already firm and also those between Madison and Cincinnati. The same conditions exist for seventy miles above Cincinnati, where the gorges are almost continuous and at some places icebergs thirty and forty feet high exist. Navigation on the Ohio and tributaries has "been suspended for six weeks and many river towns without railways, which depend on the boats for mail, groceries, fuel and almost everything, are suffering. Only a two weeks’ supply of coal is available at Cincinnati.

CONFESSES HE KILLED WIFE. _ J. Wilfred Blondin Tells How He Murdered Spouse in 1901, - A confession made by J. Wilfred Blondin, who was convicted of tho murder of his wife. Margaret, in June, 1901, and sentenced to life imprisonment, has reached the Boston police. In his statement Blondin says that he killed his wife in Chelmsford, Mass., within a short distance of the place where her body was found decapitated some days after the murder. He says that he strangled her by the roadside, and carried her body into the woods and cut off the head with a knife. He threw the head into a nearby stream, where it was found later.

INSANE STUDENT CUTS THROAT. Overwork and Religions Excitement Impel Youth to Suicide. John Werner of Lake Preston, S. D., one of the brightest students of Dakota University, cut his throat with a razor. He had overworked himself at his studies, and, while still in an exceedingly nervous condition, was driven to insanity by a revival meeting in which he became interested. He grew morbid on religious topics, and ended life a suicide. He was 19 years old.

Tragedy Ends Talk of Fires. Jasper Carlisle and Argus Cartuell, living near Waldron,* Ind., were in a store discussing the Chicago fire horror when a messenger informed Carlisle that his mother had burned to death. The men were not outride the door when a telephone message announced that the aged mother of Cartnell had fallen into an open fire and had been fatally burned. St. Louis Lawyer Passes Away. James L. Blair, .former counsel general for the St. Louis exposition, died in Eustis, Fla. He went, there in search of health, but the other day he was seized with a congestive chill, which he could not shake off. Jle was under charges for heavy embezzlement. Consul Imperiled by Fire. Dr. F. liieloff. Herman consul nt St. Louis; Prof. C. F. McClurnpha of the University of Minnesota and Hugh V. Mercer of Minneapolis narrowly escaped death by suffocation in the Deep Haven Clubhouse at Lake Minnetonka, near St. Paul. Sink in Cava River. Sightseers in Mammoth Cave were thrown into the water when their boat sank and had a narrow escajie from drowning. Seven of the eighteen members of the party were Chicagoans. Russian Reform Law Framed. A Russian law for peasant reforms was framed, and although it is regarded ns ultra-conservative the liberals hail it as promising some relief from existing chaos. Tariff Rates Left with Palma. The Cuban Congress has given Presi- ' dent Palma the right to raise duty rates, within a limit of 30 per cent, at his own discretion. The move pleases Americans. Chicano Girl Inherits 97.5,000. Uuder the will of Jeremiah F. Barnes of fiyracuse. N. Y., Miss Edna B. Race of Irving Park, Chicago, inherits $75,000, one-half of the estate of her grandfather, whom site had cared for the last yearBuffalo Merchants Suffer by Blaze. Fire among the wholesale establish mentis and warehouses in the triangular block formed by the junction of Pearl and Erie streets. Buffalp, N. Y.. caused a loss estimated at $250,000. Five fire Wsmo were injured, one seriously.