Democratic watchman. (Bellefonte, Pa.) 1855-1940, June 11, 1897, Image 1

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    BY P. GRAY MEEK.
Ss ———
m——
« Ink Slings.
ER
—Lynching seems to be quite the fad
and all that is needed to make it more pop-
ular than ever is to have more brutes like
“CLICK” MITCHELL.
—The Cuban insurgents are announced -
as being still alive. Little wonder when
they have nothing more deadly to fear than
WEYLER’S mouth or his newspaper re-
ports.
—For the six months ending May
31st, 1897, there were 486 births in Centre
-county, an increase of 89 over the same
period of last year. We publish this mere-
ly to show that notwithstanding the hard
times the people of Centre county are slow
to curtail in this one luxury.
—If N1coLA TESLA’S idea of doing away
with electricity conducting wires altogeth-
er and using the earth for a conductor ever
becomes practicable what assurance have
we that we wont have to take to flying ma-
chines to keep our feet from being continu-
ally tickled by electric shocks.
—The federal troops stationed at Ft.
Sheridan, near Chicago, have complained
because their mess has been composed
chiefly of beef liver fora whole year. It
has not been announced what action the
war department will take, if any, for their
relief, but we would suggest some of CAR-
TER’S pills.
—Governor HASTINGS has signed the
MITCHELL alien tax bill and it is now be-
come a law. There is nothing in this, how-
ever, to convince any one that anything
will accrue from such a tax in the form of
revenue. The supreme courts will more
than likely be called upon to pass on the
constitutionality of such a measure and the
great corporations, which it makes collec-
tors of taxes, will be very apt to have it
. knocked out.
— The sugar schedule of the new tariff
bill is all that the trusts could desire. One
of the members of the big robbing concern
’ told all too plainly how the people are to
be bled when he stated, in Washington,
on Wednesday: ‘It will allow a heavily
increased margin of profit to be made
from American consumers, without any
danger of foreign interference.”” Surely
the trust dould want nothing more. Surely
the Republican party is returning legisla-
tion for campaign boodle received last
fall.
— Although two thirds of the American
cotton crop goes abroad the tariff tinkers
have just laid a duty of 20 per cent. on raw
cotton. This tariff is intended only to
humbug cotton growers, as the tariff on
agricultural products was designed to fool
‘the farmiers until they- finally saw that it
amounted to nothing, but in placing it
there is a danger of closing some foreign
markets to our product. No country is go-
ing to buy from us when we go crazy over
a principle that is, in effect, this : You
must buy everything we have to sell, but
our laws preclude our using anything of
yours.
—The lynching of ‘CLICK’ MITCHELL,
at Urbana, Ohio, last Friday, for having
outraged a white woman and thegfiring on
the mob by the local militia, with the re-
sult that four innocent people were killed,
will be history as long as the State of Ohio
stands. History that will cast a cloud
over the law abiding citizenship of that
Commonwealth ; history that will muzzle
press and pulpit of that State when lynch-
ings are made in the South and history that
will contribute its part toward showing
future generations the gradual rise of a
grave race problem that they will surely
have to settle...
—Congressman J. D. Hicks, of the
Blair--Bedford district, started tongues go-
ing at the encampment of the state G. A.
R., at Johnstown, last week, when he
stated that ‘‘you. can pile tariff up moun-
tain high, but you will never find a remedy
for the question of low wages until immi-
gration laws are passed that will restrict
the immigration of foreigners to this coun-
try.” Congressman HICKs is telling the
. truth, but why don’t he stand up in Con-
/ gress and move for such restriction. It
would make him a very popular man, but
he is just like the rest of the Republicans :
Afraid of the foreign vote.
—The papers that were harping away
about Senator TILLMAN’S ‘-anarchistic’
tendencies last fall and defaming BRYAN
because TILLMAN supported him are just
beginning to realize that the ex-Governor
of South Carolina is entirely too honest and
entirely too straightforward for his sugar
speculating, always log-rolling colleagues
in the Senate. TILLMAN’S pitchfork, that
they shouted would scatter fire-brands from
the dome of the capitol, has assurned an
entirely different aspect to them now that
they see it at work sustaining the govern-
ment instead of ripping out its vitals, as
they said it would.
The doings of the boats in the United
States navy are surely enough to make a
tomb-stone laugh. ‘Whenever they don’t
run-aground getting out to see they find
they are unseaworthy after they do get into
deep water or, if not that, something else
happens. The funniest thing that has ever
happened, however, occurred off Newport,
the other day, when the torpedo hoat Por-
ter sailed so fast that the friction with the
water scraped all the paint off the hull of
the boat. Thisis almost as ridiculous as it
would be to say that a Philadelphia district
messenger boy had set his clothing afire by
the friction of his legs in running so fast
with a message.
ARAEe
The Silver Issue in Congress.
The Philadelphia Ledger will find it was
not mistaken in the prediction it now
makes that the silver question will be de-
cidedly in evidence at ‘the next session of
Congress. The tariff question will then be
off the hands of the dominant party, and
the effects of the new tariff will be on the
country, not much to its satisfaction.
The situation will be very conducive to
a renewal of the silver question. The
prosperity promised as a consequence of
higher tariff duties will be found not to
have put in an appearance. There will be
no substantial improvement of the indus-
tries. There will be no increase of wages.
The farmers will find that they are getting
no better prices for their products. The
mortgages will be weighing just as heavily
on the farms as they did before prosperity
was promised through the medium of a
higher tariff.
There can be no mistake in believing
that by the time the next Congress shall
meet in regular session all the existing con-
ditions will prove the failure of the Repub-
lican tariff as a restorer of good times.
The inevitable consequence will be that
some other remedy for the business depres-
sion will force itself upon Congress. What
will be that remedy? Itis folly to sup-
pose that the goldbug plan of reforming
the currency by further contraction will re-
ceive the support of any considerable ele-
ment in Congress. The proposition to re-
tire the greenbacks couldn’t muster a cor-
poral’s guard of supporters.
The movement for the reform of the cur-
rency will take a different direction. The
Ledger says that “the Senate is for free sil-
ver and will press the issue whenever and
wherever opportune.’”’ Surely no time
could be more opportune than after the
failure of the Republican tariff in restoring
prosperity had made itself manifest.
Although the free silver issue will pre
cipitate itself upon the next Congress it
can not be expected that currency reform
on that line will be brought about during
the present administration. Granting that
President MCKINLEY has a leaning to-
wards free silver, he will be unable to re-
sist the power which the monied interests
that elected him will continue to exert in
governing his policy to the last hour of his
administration. There is no other medium
through which silver can be restored to the
currency as standard money at an equita-
ble ratio with gold, as intended by the con-
stitution, than through the success of the
Democratic party in electing the next
President and majority of Congress.
A Fight Over the Sugar Schedule.
The old saying that when thieves fall out
honest men may get what is due them,
may be realized to some extent in the pend-
ing tariff bill by the falling ont of the sugar
trust and the Standard oil company in re-
gard to the sugar schedule.
The scheme of plunder that is now be-
ing put through Congress owes its origin
to the combined demand of the trusts and
other favored interests. Each has some
special profit that it wants ‘protected,’
and by pooling their interestssand uniting
their influence the general scheme of spol-
iation embodied in the tariff bill is put
through at the expense of the general con-
sumers. :
As a rule, when a tariff bill is being for-
mulated, but little difficulty is experienced
by the experts and beneficiaries in harmon-
izing their individual interests for the sake
of the general spoils. But a fight has brok-
en out between the sugar and oil trusts
over the sugar schedule that can’t be easily
reconciled. It is on account of the threat
made by Germany and Austria that if the
duty on their beet sugar is increased, they
will put such a tariff on American coal-oil
as will exclude the Standard company’s
product from their market.
It is for this reason that the Standard in-
terest is opposing the high duty which the
sugar trust has induced the Republican tar-
iff makers to impose on foreign sugar. The
“interest of the people in this matter is of
but small account to those who are getting
up this tariff. It makes but little differ-
to them how much the consumers may be
gouged by the sugar trust ; but when a par-
ty like the Standard oil company, which
contributed such a large amount to the Re-
publican campaign fund objects to the sug-
ar trust heing favor with such a high duty
it is a different matter. And yet it is em-
barrassing for the tariff makers to refuse
the sugar trust anything it may demand,
when it is considered how liberally it fur-
nished boodle for the campaign, and how it
enabis Senators to speculate in sugar trust
stock.
This disagreement of the Standard’ oil
company and the sugar trust in regard to
the sugar schedule, certainly produces an
unpleasant situation for the tariff makers,
who want to’ favor both of such good sup-
porters of the Republican party, but it may
turn out that this conflict of interest be-
tween the two monopolies may result in an
unintentional advantage to the consumers
of sugar.
Not Weakened by Defeat.
Old man DANA, of the New York Sun,
who devotes his editorial columns chiefly
to the defence of the trusts and the ad-
vance of plutocratic interests, is greatly
troubled because the supporters of free
silver, instead of dispersing after last year’s
election and slinking out of sight, which
Tie thinks they ought to have done, have
actualiy grown stronger. ?
He greatly deplores that these ‘‘revolu-
tionists’” and ‘‘anarchists’’ are in such
vigorous condition ; and well may he de-
plore it, for their strength threatens the
overthrow of the combination of pelf and
plunder, as represented by monopolistic
trusts and gold-bug money sharks of which
he has become the devoted champion.
The old renegade of the Sun declares
that ‘‘since the election the revolutionary
-glements have continued in their menacing
unity, and the cohesiveness of the combi-
nation has become greater, rather than
less.”
supported the ‘‘honest money’’ of the con-
stitution at the last election maintained an
unimpaired front, and is more firmly com-
bined than ever, he is entirely correct in
his assertion. :
He is greatly troubled by the fact that
“in Congress, in both the Senate and the
House, the silverites, whether Democrats,
Populists, or Republicans, are working in
unison and with entire cordiality ; at the
South the old hostility between Democrats
and Populists seems to have ceased ; the
silver Republicans have left their party for
good, and are securely in the BRYAN alli-
ance.’
This is regarded by DANA as a very dan-
gerous situation, which ought to be
remedied or prevented in some way or
other, and there is no doubt@hat every
trust, bank syndicate, and combination of
monopolists and plutocrats, looks at it in
4 the same light, but to the honest, plain
people of the country it affords the hope of
better government and “a better chance for
their interests in the future.
But what particularly provokes the old
fellow of the Sun, and appears to him as
peculiarly dangerous, is that ‘‘the Demo-
cratic BRYAN-ites are not
tions the Democrats who revolted against
them last year.”’
DANA is correct in this remark. There
will be no exclusion of Democrats, although
he would prefer that a feud should be kept
up in the Democratic ranks, and for that
reason it aggravates him to see that those
whosupported BRYAN are not disposed to
exclude any class of Democrats, whatever
may have been their course last year, if
they will now accept the principles of the
Chicago platform.
Nothing could be more encouraging and
gratifying to the Democracy than that so
bitter an enemy as the editor of the New
York Sun is forced, contrary to his feelings,
to regognize-and acknowledge the growing
strength and splendid condition of the old
historic party that maintains the principles
as well as the money of the constitution.
Why the Tariff Bill is Not Filibustered.
Is is reported that the President and the
Republican leaders in the Senate are great-
ly pleased with the progress which the
tariff bill is making in the Senate.
It is getting along more rapidly than
they expected, and they now believe that
they can look for its final passage by the
middle of next month. What: agreeably
surprises hem is that the Democrats in
the Senate are behaving so nicely in not
resorting to filibustering methods of ob-
struction.
But it should occur to these tariff makers
that the Democrats in the Senate can see
no policy in obstryfcting the bill. It is not
their funeral. While they are opposed to
a measure which is intended to favor special
interests and will be oppressive to the peo-
ple at large, they believe that in the end it
will be better to give the country such
experience of its effects as well effectually
dispel the delusion that prosperity is pro-
moted by tariff taxation. :
The present lease of power was given the
Republican party by a majority that was
induced to believe that a higher tariff was
needed to make the country prosperous.
The Democrats are willing that the coun-
try shall have a full trial of the kind of
prosperity that will result from this tariff
bill, and they will await the verdict which,
three years hence, will declare what the
people think of it.
Such a policy as this is certainly wise on
the part of the Democrats in the Senate.
But while President MCKINLEY and his
tariff supporters are highly delighted with
the progress which their bill'is making on
account of its meeting with no filibustering
opposition, they ought to know. that the
course which the Democrats are pursuing
in this matter is designed to give the tariff
party all the rope it needs to hang itself.
When, in 1900, it is found that this new
Republican tariff has not produced ' pros-
perity, it will contribute more to the over-
throw of the Republican party than any-
i other of its miscarriages. :
.
If by this he means that the forces which |
| the senate committee to make such a
inclined to |
exclude from their state and local conven.
BELLEFONTE, PA., JUNE 11. 1897.
Where the Obstruction Comes From.
While the tariff bill very wisely is not
being delayed by Democratic obstruction,
there are impediments to its passage, caused
by the conflicting greed of its supporters.
Some are wanting favors that conflict with
the interest of others. Such collisions be-
tween the greedy spoils seekers will pro-
long the action of Congress that is keep-
ing the country in suspense.
For example, the beef trust, which con-
trols the hide market and would profit by
a duty on hides, wants that product to be
taken off the free list, and it is backed by
some of the cattle kings who feed tir
herds on the cheap lands of the western
plains, while, on the other hand, the shoe
and leather manufacturers of the East, who
favor a tariff on everything else, object to
hides being tariffed. ;
There is the same conflict of interest be-
tween the wool raisers and the .woolen
manufacturers, each party greedily de-
manding its own advantage in opposition
to the other. The sugar trust has induced
scandalous increase in the differential duty
lin its favor that a difficulty on that point
is likely to ensue, which may increase the
delay in the final passage of the bill, and
there are other points of difference between
the hungry beneficiaries, for the settlement
of which additional time will be required.
Thus it is seen that while this new
scheme of tariff robbery is quite sure of
being enacted, the time that is consumed
in getting it through, and the prolonged
uncertainty that is injuring the business
interests, are chargeable to the conflicting
claims of the beneficiaries, and not to any
obstructive tactics on the part of the op-
ponents of the bill. Except the duty of
voting against it, its enemies will put no
obstacles in its way, believing that the
most effectual way of finally ridding the
country of a robber tariff is to give the peo-
ple a surfeit of its robbery.
How They Differ.
Ohio and President McKINLEY do not
agree in a matter that involves the ques-
tion of public order and respect for the law.
The President in his inangural address
‘made the following declaration : ‘‘Lynch-
ings must not he tolerated in a great and
civilized country like the United States.
Courts, and not mobs, execute the penal-
-ties of the law.”’
The violence of the frensied mob at
Urbana, as it wrenched the negro prisoner
from the hands of the law, and wreaked
its merciless and ferocious vengeance on
him, was Ohio’s response to this expression
of the President whom it had given to the
country. .
If this were but an isolated case of Ohio
lawlessness it might be attributed to some
phenomenal influence producing an excep-
tional demonstration of public wrath, but
lynchings are such frequent occurrences in
substitute for the orderly processes of the
laws within its borders that Ohio must be
regarded as expressing herself in direct con-
tradiction to President McKINLEY’S dec-
laration that ‘‘lynchings must not be toler-
ated in a great and civilized country like
the United States.” e
What an exhibit is made to the civilized
world by these repeated outbreaks of law-
lessness in a State whose political fame is
emblazoned by such shining lights of Re-
publicanism as JOHN SHERMAN, McKIN-
LEY, FORAKER, GROSVENOR, BUSHNELL,
and last, but not least, MARK HANNA.
Mob Law in Ohio.
The terrible lynching that occurred in
Prhana, Ohio, last week, surpassed in its
lawless features anything in that line that
has happened in the United States. and
what makes it the more deplorable is that
it was a manifestation of the spirit of law-
lessness that is attaining an alarming de-
velopment in that State. The assumptions
of the right of the mob to take the law in
its own hands are becoming so frequent in
Ohio as to indicate a rapidly increasing dis-
regard for the regular processes of the
law.
If such a horrible affair as that of the
Urbana lynching had happened in one of
the southern States, it would have heen
held up by the Republican newspapers as
another evidence of the barbarity of the
southern people, and another outrage com-
mitted upon the black race by southern
ruffians ; but this exercise of mob law, of
which the victim wasa negro, culminating
in a scene of violence in which three liv 8
were lost and ten persons wounded, occur-
red in a State which boasts of peculiar prom-
inence in Republican politics, furnishing
some of the greatest lights and highest
leaders of the party, among whom is ‘the
present incimbent of the predidential of-
fice. rs
These Ohio lynchings, that are occurring
with disgiaceful frequency, give that
State the appearance of verging upon an-
archy.
———————
‘—-Subhseribe for the WATQHMAN.
that State, and mob rule is so common a
|
The Champion Legislative Rascals.
The Illinois lawmakers, after surpassing
every other state Legislature, not even ex-
cepting that of Pennsylvania, in the ras-
cality of their general conduct, adjourned
last week. Some time before its adjourn-
ment the chaplain of the lower branch got
off a prayer which may be said to have
brought down the House.
Believing that the reckless profligacy of
the Members should be made the subject of
prayer ; he petitioned the Lord to so influ-
ence them that they would. be ;more in-
clined “to remember the poor tax-bur-
dened people of the State,’” and would be
less disposed to make their own profit the
chief object of their legislative service.
The vociferous applause which followed
the prayer could be regarded rather as the
derision of pardoned legislative roosters
than as a sympathetic approval of the peti-
tion for divine assistance.
The rascals who, during the session, had
received bribes to the amount of $250,000
for passing the consolidation bill of the |
Chicago gas companies, and who are esti-
mated to have secured boodle to the’
amount of $750,000 from the Chicago street
railway companies, were just the characters
who would regard such a prayer as a great
joke. ;
It may not be out of place to remark
that this was the Legislature that was
elected by the Republicans of Il'inois to
take the lawmaking power out of the
. hands of the Democratic ‘‘anarchists’’ and
‘‘repudiators.’’
——The fellows who stole the old cannon
relics of the Mexican war, from the drill
field at West Point and sold them for scrap
brass are just beginning to realize that
there was something back of those old guns
that is loaded with heavier. charges than
ever reverberated through the adobe halls
of the Alamo. The federal government has
trapped them.
——WiLLiAM H. LEH, of South Easton,
has lost his seat in the House to ADAM
SHIFFER, a Republican, who contested.
The poor Republicans don’t have quite
enough Members in Harrisburg for their
happiness and they take any means to se
cure them.
Foghorns to the Rear.
From the Pittsburg Post. OE
Mark Hanna’s mastery over the Repub-
lican organization in Ohio is complete, and
it looks very much as if Senator Foraker
had become a back number. The counties
in the northern part of the State are in-
structing for Hanna for Senator. Foraker
is stronger in the centre, in the southern
counties and in the cities, but his support-
ers lack their old aggressiveness. Hanna
will probably be endorsed for the Senate
by the coming state convention, and that
will end the matter so far as the Republi-
can nomination is concerned. The decis-
ion will rest with the people, and the Dem
ocrats are growing in confidence that they
will carry the State. For the purpose of
this campaign the Populists and the Gold
Democrats have been largely absorbed by
the regular Democracy. There are a num-
ber of Democratic aspirants for the guber-
natorial nomination, with no one in.the
lead, unless the movement in favor of Mr.
Rice, the eloquent and popular young may-
or ‘of Canton, gives him a preponderance.
The situation seems to invite the selection
of President McKinley’s townsman.
The Governor is for Economy.
From Hastings’ latest Mesdage to the Legislature.
At this time, when almost all industries
are suffering, when trade is stagnant and
when willing labor can find no employ-
ment, economy in the expenditure of pub-
lic moneys should control the general As-
sembly in its appropriations, and will cer-
tainly control the Executive in the consid-
eration of all such measures. I havestead-
ily withheld my approval from various bills
ingreasing the salaries of public officials, but
I would gladly approve any bill that might
be lawfully passed decreasing reasonably
existing salaries, from the highest to the
lowest. When the individual citizen finds
it necessary to exercise the most rigid econ-
omy in order to support himself and his
family, it is certainly a strong admonition
to you and to the Executive to see to it
that his burdens should not be increased,
but so far as possible should be lessened.
* A High Priced Stenographer.
From the Doylestown Democrat.
The stenographer of the State Lexow
committee appears to have been a valuable
man. * At least if we are to believe Sena-
tor Kauffman, he was a costly man for the
Commonwealth. The Senator, in his
speech denouncing an appropriation of
$65,000 for the alleged expenses of the
committee, showed that the cost of stenog-
rapher for the 57 meetings held must have
been $9,812.25. or an average cost per ses-
sion of $172.14. As the average length of
meeting was two hours and 25 minutes,
the stenographer’s salary was $71 an hour.
Yet this is a bill which our model legisla-
ture has said is not extravagant.
A Republican Paper on a Republican
. Body.
From the Altoona Tribune.
Talk about the 1st of July being an early,
date for adjournment! Why with any-
thing like ordinary diligence all the legiti-
mate business of the law-making body, in-
cluding the passage of the usual apportion-
ment bills and a legislative apportionment
bill, could have been sent to the Governor
by he middle of May. Instead of dawdling
about, wasting time in a futile effort to
find some object that might be taxed with-
out rousing antagonism, a real statesman-
like body would have taken the bull by
the horns, figuratively speaking, and would
have both reduced expénses and increased
the revenues. -
Spawls from the Keystone.
—Allegheny will havea law against spit-
ting in street cars and public halls,
—The National brass and iron works at
Reading will be notably enlarged.
—The Central hotel at Orwigsburg was
sold to the First’ national bank, of that
place. :
—Mrs. Hiram P. Yeager died at Reading
while etherized and undergoing a surgical
operation.
—Pennsylvania Universalists opened their
sixty-sixth annual convention at Reading on
Tuesday.
—William Fisher was struck by a Reading
passenger train near Ashland and instantly
killed.
—Diplomas were given to 21 scholars of the
Lebanon High school Tuesday evening at
the commencement exercises.
—A horse frightened by a band knocked
down and trampled to death Mrs. W. H.
Nauss at New Cumberland.
3 —The annual commencement of the Dick-
inson schoo! of law was held in Bosler /mem-
orial hall, Carlisle, Monday.
—In a little trolley collision at Scranton
six women passengers rushed so violently to
escape from the car that all were injured.
—At Slackwater, Lancaster county, Steph-
en Stranetra was fatally shot by the discharge
of a pistol which he was examining.
—The Ivy day exercises of Wilson college
were held at Chambersburg Monday and
were conducted in the college chapel, on ac-
count of rain.
—George H. Stein, of Annville, won the
gold medal Monday evening in the junior
oratorical contest of Franklin and Marshall
College, at Lancaster. ”
—The school board of Shenandoah, which
is Democratic by one, majority, reorganized
Tuesday evening and elected as president
James J. Davitt.
—Standing before a mirror at Shillington,
Berks county, Adam A. Sweitzer, a victim of
melancholia, father of seven children, gashed
his throat from ear to ear,
/ —The Pottsville town council is preparing
an ordinance in anticipation of an entrance
of the Schuylkill telephone company lines
into that city, The poles shall be taxed.
—The Seventh annual convention of the
Epworth League in the Williamsport district
began at Williamsport Tuesday.
—Harry Farmer, of Lexington, died at
Lancaster Sunday from injuries received last
Sunday while attempting to board a moving
train to go to Philadelphia.
—Each Scranton policeman has been pro-
vided with a book of instructions, which tells
him among other things, when he may em-
ploy violence and weapons.
—Burglars entered the general store of
Henry Hatfield at Dallas, blew the safe open
and secured $20, then escaped on a railroad
handecar toward Wilkesbarre.
—By an explosion of gas in the Black
Diamond mines of the Brown coal company,
two miles south of Monongahela City, Mon-
day, several men were injured, but none
fatally.
—While out hunting, young Frank Smith,
of near Wellsboto; Tala iis gut ora edge of-
rocks he was climbing, when the weapon slid
toward him, was discharged and sent a death
shot through his heart.
—David Reaher and Horace Bryan, of
Middletown, were arrested Sunday by Penn-
sylvania railroad detectives, charged with
robbing cars at Conewago, and were commit-
ted for a hearing at Lancaster.
—Recently a cow owned by C. M. Slack,
of Eldred gave birth to a two-headed calf.
For a few days the little freak was quite live-
ly and would eat with one mouth while it
yelled with the other. It didn't have suf-
ficient strength to handle both heads and the
other day it died.
—Harry Rupert and George Eisenhower,
of Williamsport, together with Sherman Et-
tinger, of Union county, broke jail at Lewis«
burg Saturday night by picking the locks on
their cell doors and prying the iron bars from
an outside window. The men were in jail
for robbery. Sheriff Gross has offered a re-
ward of $100 for their recapture.
—Three hundred employes of the Mitchell
Coal and Coke Company, of Gallitzin, and
200 workmen employed by the Taylor & Mc-
Coy coal and coke company, of the same
place, are out on a strike because of a reduc-
tion in wages. On June’ 1 the -companies
posted a notice in effect that after that date’
the price of mined coal for coke makipg
would be reduced five cents per ton.
—Contrary to law a number of mefi and
boys have been fishing with seines at the
mouth of the schute, on the other side of the
river from Lock Haven and it has just come
to light that a few days ago a man caught
three mammoth carp, the combined weight
of which was fifty-one pounds. Two of the
carp weighed eighteen pounds apiece and the
third weighed fifteen pounds.
—Sylvester Ashton, who was sentenced
from Clinton county to the penitentiary for
robbing stores at Pine, was a witness at Wil-
liamsport Tuesday in the case against his
brother, who is accused of robbing Nesbit
station, The convict-was in the custody of
deputy warden Hopkins, of the penitentiary.
Although Sylvester testified against his
brother, Robert was acquitted by the jury,
—In connection with the Knoor trial in
Bloomsburg, district attorney Harmar points
out a curious incongruity in the Pennsylva-
nia laws. Under the act of 1860, section 137,
the punishment for setting fire to a building
with no person in it is a $2,000 fine and 12
years’ imprisonment, and if the structure is
occupied at the time of the commission of the
offense, $4,000 and 20 years’, yet for blowing
up with dynamite or a barrel or so of gun-
powder, whether occupied or not, the pun-
ishment is but $300 fine and three years’ im-
prisonment.
—Sunday afternoon Dr. W. B. Martin and
J. S. Humes, of Jersey Shore, made a
thorough exploration of the new cave at
Oriole. They made the trip in a skiff and
finally came to a solid stone wall. They
found that the cave is about 600 feet long,
which explodes the idea that the cave ex-
tended beneath the entire Nippenose valley.
At the terminus of the cave a number of sta-
lactites of enormous size were found. The
stream of swift flowing water which runs
through the cavern ends in 2 pool which
must have subtérranean outlets.
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