Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 104, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 September 1907 — MANY HOUSES SLIDE. [ARTICLE]

MANY HOUSES SLIDE.

LAND IN PITTSBURG SUBURB SINKS 30 FEET. Excavation of Deep Cot for Railroad Track* It Came of Trouble— Early Fire Brluar* About SIOO,OOO Lou in Rochester. With their houses creaking, windows breaking and chimneys sinking deep into the earth, several hundred - foreigners have fled from their homes in Port Vue, a South Side suburb of Pittsburg, fearing death in a landslide which threatens to bury Scott street’s twenty five dwell ings. One hundred yards below the street the Pittsburg and Luke Erie railroad recently began to make a cut for additional tracks. The earth between the cut and the hillside on which the houses stand is underlaid with soft shale and soapstone. The whole mass is slowly slipping toward the cut. During twenty-four hours the street for 10& yards dropped thirty feet below its original level, bursting gas and water mains and leaving half the village without light or fire protection. Three hundred men have been endeavoring to check the landslide, while crowds of hysterical women and children watched the widening fissures.

STEAMER SUNK IN CRASH. • Isaac L. Elwood Goes Down -la Colwllh Brower. The steel freighters A./i. Brower, up bound, and Isaac L. 101 wood, down bound, collided off Bar Point in Luke Erie the other night, and the Elwood went to the -bottom with a large bole amidships. The Brower is of 3,582 tons, 34G feet long, was built in 1902 and is owned by the United States Transportation Company. Her bow is stove in and her forward bulkhead full of water. The Elwood, of 5,904 tons, 478 feet over all, and built in 1900, is owned by the Pittsburg Steamship Company. The Elwood vrss drawing twenty feet and now lies in twenty-two feet, her decks awash amidships, but the deckhouses well out of the water. Neither boat is in the way of navigation.

FIRE LOSS AT ROCHESTER. Damage of 9100,000 I* Caused by Flames In Dry Good* District. Fire that started at 4 o’clock Thursday morning in the basement of the Rochester Marshmallow Company’s factory on Mortimer street, Rochester, N. Y., threatened the destruction of the Cox building and adjoining structures in the wholesale dry goods district. The flames shot up the elevator shaft to the top floor and ruined the three top floors of the rear “L” of the Cox building before the firemen got the flames under control. The loss is estimated at SIOO,OOO. lOWA FAIR DAMAGED 9100,000. Windstorm Cause* Havoc—Airship Struck by Lire Wire Burned. A windstorm struck the lowa State fair grounds in Des Moines the other day, causing damage estimated at SIOO,OOO. A live wire w T as blown against the Knabenshue airship and captive balloon, setting fire to them and destroying both. The big tent of the International Harvester Company was blown down and the exhibit was ruined by heavy rain and fire. Doctor by Day, Thief by Night, In West Chester, Pa., Judge Butler sentenced Dr. Benjamin Holbrook, who was convicted of robbing school houses and railway stations, to five years’ imprisonment. Dr. Holbrook by day was a well-bred, courteous physician. By night the doctor became an audacious burglar, looting railway stations for miles around Coatesville. Four Burned to Death. Searching for an exit from the death trap that confronted them, and hemmed in on all sides, four persons were burned to death in a fire on East Grand avenue, Oklahoma City. The dead: Lillian Raje, Vergie Wallace, Sadie Ward and Walter Ward. The fire is believed to have been of incendiary origin.

Big Newspaper Plant BurJa. The Courier-Journal building, at Fourth and Green streets, Louisville, in which are located, the plants of the Cou-rier-Journal and Evening Times, was destroyed by fire. The fire started at the top of an elevator shaft, supposedly from defective insulationelectric wires. Fire Ruin* Jap Seaport. Fire started in the flimsy native structures of Hakodate, Japan, and before it could be got under control nearly 70 per cent of the city was in ashes. With the exception of the American, all the consulates were burned. Great distress prevails among the people. 84 Worker* Die In River. Eighty-four bridge workers were hurled to their death when three-quarters of a mile of the new bridge across the St. Lawrence river five miles below Quebec, suddenly collapsed and bore them into the water. Farmers Plan Big Merger. A big merger of farmers’ elevators in Minnesota is to be formed. The plan is to secure the co-operation of 200 farmers’ elevators in one central organization. It is estimated fully 20,000 farmers will be represented. Steamer Sink* Tug| Five Drown. The tug Gerry of Wilmington. Del., was sunk in a collision with the British steamer Barnstable in the Patapsco river, off Sparrows Point. Five men of the twenty-five on the boat are believed to have lost their lives.

Postpone Sensational Resolution. The Amtakan Bar Association, in session at PgrtTand, Me., refused to put itself on record as indorsing the unwritten law, and indefinitely postponed a sensational resolution on the subject. —————— ' - Western Vnlon Offlte Burned. The office of the Western Union Telegraph Company in Arkansas City, Kan* together with all instruments, office records and furniture, was destroyed by fire. The building was ruined. The fire is believed to have been of incendiary origin.

FOR GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP; VnlnnUti Urge Consolidation of Telegraph with Postal System. President Small of the Commercial Telegraphers’ Union has called on the United States and Canada to take over the control of the telegraph lines now owned by the Western Union and Postal Telegraph companies. At the" same time he began a campaign to secure a congressional investigation of the conduct of those companies in this country. To this end the union has established two funds —one for the direct support of the strike and the other to pay the expenses of the government ownership campaign. He asks tnat trade unionists in general and telegraphera In particular begin at once to raise $2,000,000 for these purposes. The strike was further strengthened by the calling out of leased wire operators In many brokers’ offices, anfTtr was expected that the cable operators would also join. On the other hand) the telegraph companies claimed to be taking care of all business offered, and say that the strike Is a closed incident so far as they are concerned. Washington heard that Commissioner Neill was about to submit a report regarding the telegraph strike to the President. The strikers charge that the companies are taking most of their business subject to delay, and that the dispatches, instead of being put on the wires, are sent by messengers In sult cases from one city to another, to be copied and delivered by local messengers. • ~ It Is said that a bill Is to be introduced at the coming session by Congressman Samuel Smith, of Michigan, which will authorize postal telegraph systems operated by the Post Office Department. Congressman Smith says: “We provide for carrying the mails by the swiftest known method, steam, electric railways and pneumatic tubes. Why deny the right to the use of the telegraph? We carry tke mails at a loss. Why not use the telegraph not only as a convenience and blessing to all our people, but to help wipe out the annual postal deficit? Who doubts that the telegraph is an essential part of an efficient postal service?” The constitutional right to establish a postal telegraph system is unquestioned. The government started out by owning the telegraph system. In 1845 the government had built a telegraph

line between Washington and Baltimore, costing $30,000. Two years later, under a notion of economy’, it was turned over to private ownership. Among the public statesmen who protested against this course were Henry Clay* and Cave Johnson. Prof. S. F. B. Morse also prophesied the evils of private ownership. Justice Brown, of the United States Supreme Court, has said: “If the government may be safely intrusted with the transmission of our letters and papers, I see no reason why it should not also be intrusted with the transmission of our telegrams, as Is almost universally the case in Europe.”