Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1905 — Indiana Slate News [ARTICLE]

Indiana Slate News

DEATH CHEATS HERMIT’S HEIR. Chicago Woman Walks Six Miles to Find Hut Deserted. Knowing nothing of the death of her father-in-law, but hoping she might prevail upon him to help her and her children, Mrs. Gus Valin came to Laporte from Chicago. Not having money to pay for a carriage she walked six miles into the country to find the hut desolate and the old man, Swan Valin, known as “The Swede Hermit,” dead and buried. For six months the authorities had been searching for the children. When the old man died it was shown he was a miser and had left a fortune, but Administrator Charles Ryden had been unable to find the four children, though he struck one clew that led to Sweden and back to this country. The hermit had sent his children away from home and then had disowned them. One son comin 'ed suicide and the wife went insane an died. Anna, a daughter, is in Chicago.

BIG CASINOS CLOSED. Doorn of West Baden and French Lick Gambling; Rooms Locked. The lid is on and screwed down tight, the lights are out and the doors are locked at the gambling casinos at West Badeh and French Lick Springs, and in these magnificently fitted-up places of chance, where the goddess of fortune has been wooed by all classes and conditions of people for years, the click of the roulette wheel and the whirr of the slot machines and other devices are stilled. Ed Ballard’s promise to Gov. J. Frank Hanly that, so far as he was concerned, gambling would cease at both resorts on Dec. 10, has been carried into effect. Not even a slot machine is in commission, and public gambling is a thing of the past at both places. Both clubrooms have large and expensive pay rolls, and, locally speaking, they will be badly missed.

SCHOOL BOV SAVES TRAIN. * Lad Finds Defective Rail and Stops Flyer in Time. Eddie Arndt, a young schoolboy, whose home is near Tracy, is a candidate for a Carnegie medal for heroism. The other day on his way home from school he discovered a broken rail on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad near Tracy. Knowing that a fast passenger train was then due, he ran to meet it, and as it came in sight was seen by the engineer running along the track and waving his school bag wildly. The train was stopped within a few feet of the defective rail by the quick use of the air brakes. Without the boy’s signal it would have been hurled to destruction in a creek by the side of 'the track.

TRAIN WRECKS BUILDING. Engine Plnnges Thronirh Wall of Stove Works nt Evansville. Passenger train 125 on the Illinois Central was wrecked by spreading rails near the Indiana stove works in Evansville. The engine jumped the track and plunged through the wall of one of the buildings of the stove works, wrecking the building. A Pullman coach, which was hurled in another direction, struck a second building and damaged it. Frank Davis of Richmond, a switchman, lost both legs and may die. Will Beck, the fireman, was scalded. There were forty passengers on the train, but none was seriously hurt.

INDIANA USES AKE MERGED. Interurban Roads to Effect an Entrance to Chicago. The Indiana Railway Company, owning and operating interurban lines connecting South Bend, Mishawaka, Goshen and Elkhart, have been merged with the South Bend, Laporte and Michigan City Railway Company, operating an interurban line connecting South Bend and Laporte. The companies merged under the name of the Northern Indiana Railway Company. The capital stock is $4,000,000. A Pittsburg and New York syndicate is back of the consolidation. Extensions to Niles and St. Joseph, Mich., are expected to be built nnd eventually entrance gained to Chicago. FIELD FOR CONVICT LADOR. Indiana Prisoners Make Twine Which Former Statesman Sella. Leigh G. Furness, a former member of the State Legislature, has been engaged by the State prison to visit the farmers over the State nnd sell binder twine of convict manufacture while -r plaining the purpose of the prison in undertaking the business which is to give the prisoners employment on a product which does not conflict with any industry in the State. The prison factory is now being equipped and about 100 men will be employed in it.

Ten Fall with Scaffold. Ten workmen fell twenty-five feet from a scaffolding being used in the construction of nn elevator at Sheldon. Four were fatally injured, five received less serious injuries and one escaped unhurt by clinging to a side wall. Finds 92,000 Gem in Hirer. Ostendorff. a Vincennes jeweler,' bought of Frank McAllister a perfect (>2%grnin penrl of oriental luster. The gem is valued nt $2,000 and was taken out of the Wabash river by McAllister. Within Onr Borders. Eddie Kline, I) years old, was ground to death by n Big Four train nt Slielbyfllle. John Rigby, a glnmsblower from Chicago Heights, committed anicide in Terre Hante because of ill health. . James Joyce was found guilty of murder and sentenced to prison for life for killing Jesse Harper nt Vevay. James Neville of Terre Hautr, aged 12 yearn, died while visiting in Richmond, Vs.. from convulsions caused by seeing the body of a murdered man.