BY P. GRAY MEEK.
Ink Slings.
—The farmers will do the next shelling
for the country as soon as the corn crop is
gathered.
—It may yet be necessary for chairman
GARMAN to fire a protocol or two at judge
GORDON.
—It may be somewhat earlier than usual
but the fall season for Cuban and Porto-
Rican towns is closed.
—The bacilli of innocuous desuetude
seem to be getting in their work on the
WANAMAKER movement.
—DMr. W. L. ANDREWS’ mouth, which
had been taking a short vacation, has re-
sumed business at the old stand.
—Since SAMPSON and SCHLEY’S engage-
ment in New York harbor, CERVERA is not
the only admiral who knows how it feels
to be effectually bottled.
—Our Prohibition friends may be carry-
ing on a cold water campaign, but judging
by the noise they make there is evidently
no gum shoe business about it.
—If its by the ‘sweat of our brows
that we earn our bread’’ many of us should
have to over credit the output of an entire
bake oven for the past week’s efforts.
--Between rallying round the flag and
hunting an available position on which
to erect his defenses, Col. STONE takes a
desperate chance of working overtime.
—It is not a question as to the number
of Republicans who are on the fence here-
abouts, but how long the top rail will hold
out if the scramble to get there continues.
—Although there are many other things
to claim the attention of the administra-
tion at present it seems content to be de-
voting much of its time to making HAY.
—That Col. STONE expects to use light
artillery in the present campaign is evi-
denced by the fact that he has placed ex-
Auditor General NILES out on the firing
line.
—Admiral SCHLEY is reported sick,
and it is little wonder. It is remarkable
that he wasn’t sick and tired long ago over
the embarrassment zealous admirers must
have caused him.
—The fact that the Governor accepted
his defeat with good grace is probably ac-
counted for by the other fact that there
was nothing else offered him to accept.
Some people are given to accepting the
best that is offered.
—We can positively deny the story that
Gov. HASTINGS has secured the services of
one of BLANCO’S typewriters. The effort
to write his recent defeat into a victory is
now known to have been the bungling
work of a very weak imitator.
~—Some one has remarked that MARCUS
AURELIUS HANNA is not figuring se much
before the public of late. The reason is
he is kept busy figuring on his war con-
tracts and the profits he is making out of
the business of running the boodle depart-
ment of a Republican administration.
—As Col. STONE'S campaign issues have
all been knocked into smithereens by the
colapse of the war, what is the matter with
a re-issue of the ‘‘reform’’ issues that
Mr. QUAY’s party made a few years ago?
They would be hot-stuff now and harmonize
so well with the practice of that party
since ! Hoorah for Reform !
——When we come to think that the
State expenditures have grown from $4,-
539,256 in 1883 to $15,205,006 in 1897,
it is easy to think that the thinking ap-
paratus of every thoughtful taxpayer
should be busy thinking of ways to stop
this reckless extravagance of the hoss’
henchmen. Don’t you think so ?
—It is whispered about the town that
the new regime in local Republican politics
is at the bottom of the anti-saloon league,
recently organized here. No reason for
such a strange departure is assigned, so we
have inferred that the leaders are just go-
ing to do what they can to keep temptation
out of ARNOLD’S way, when he comes over
here on his congressional campaigning tour.
—Prominence knocks the talk clean out
of some people. Prior to his nomination,
for the Legislature, candidate DALEY could
give you a line of gab on any subject that
would make your ears tired. Ask him
now who he is for for United States Senate
and he can’t speak. Its wonderful what a
silencer a Republican nomination is—par-
ticularly to those who want to appear to be
what they are not.
-—Failing to capture anything at the Re-
publican county convention, Gov. HAST-
INGS has fearlessly trained his guns on the
positions of the news reporters of the town.
As a result he already occupies the in-
trenchments of the Associated Press and
Pittsburg Times, and has forced flags of truce
to be displayed on the fortifigations of each
of the other journals having forces in this
field. A man who can thus snatch victory ?
out of defeat must be ‘‘trooly’’ great.
—The race between the Philadelphia
Times and the Inquirer of that city, as to
which can give the most obsequious sup-
port to QUAY and his ring ticket, may not
be very interesting to the public but it is
at least exciting to the principals. At pres-
ent the Inquirer has the lead by several
laps, owing to the balking of the Times at
the start, but if the on-lookers will possess
their souls in patience and keep their eye
on it to the end, we’ll bet a fresh skunk
against the consistency of the Times, that if
its wind holds out and its belly-band don’t
bust, it will pass under the rope neck and
neck with, if not far ahead of, its principal
competitor.
VOL. 43
STATE RIGHTS AND FEDERAL UNION.
BELLEFONTE, PA., AUGUST 26, 1898.
_NO. 33.
Mr. Jenk'’s Acceptance.
The political literature of Pennsylvania
never had a more notable contribution than
the letter of GEORGE A. JENKS accepting
the Democratic nomination for Governor.
It is an expression from a public man that
secures the attention of the people on ac-
count of the importance of its subject and
the character of its author. It is made
still more impressive by the earnest vigor
of its language and the evident sincerity of
every word employed to express the views
and purpose of the man who has been chos-
en to lead the people in the battle for state
reform.
Its subject is of the first importance to
Pennsylvania citizenship as it relates to a
condition of our state affairs that is as
much of a disgrace as it is an injury. It
clearly portrays the evils that afflict the
body politic of the Commonwealth. It ex-
poses the corruptions that pervade all parts
of the State government. It fixes the re-
sponsibility for the abuses that have their
source in machine misrule, and designates
the remedy by which the administrative
unfaithfulness and legislative profligacy
that misrule and rob the State may be cor-
rected.
The high character of the candidate who
thus speaks to the people, his unquestion-
ed honesty, and evident sincerity, together
with his admitted ability, command the
confidence of those whom he addresses.
His words are not like those of the machine
politician selected by QUAY as the machine
candidate, whose evasive language is in-
tended to deceive, and who tries to confuse
the issues by bringing forward such as do
not relate to state affairs, but the letter of
the Democratic candidate presents clearly
to view the abuses and malpractices that
are injuring the interests of the people, and
gives assurance that the correction of those
evils is the sole issue upon which the
Democrats are making this state campaign.
In Mr. JENKS’ letter there is nothing of
the dodging evasion of QUAY’s candidate,
nor the sham moral superiority assumed
by SWALLOW, but it is a direct and forci-
ble exposition of machine rottenness and
an earnest appeal to the people to redeem
the State from the corrupted condition of
its government. With such a record as
GEORGE A. JENKS has made, both in pri-
vate and public stations, the work of state
reform can be safely entrusted to him as
one who has faithfully performed every
trust committed to him, and as an honest
man whose word has never been called in-
to question.
Badly Demoralized.
Doctor SWALLOW’S moral qualities have
undergone a visible deterioration since he
he has adopted the methods of the self-
seeking politicians. When he first started
out in his career as a political agitator he
had some ground for claiming that he was
called to that mission by the evident moral
delinquencies that characterized the prac-
tices of our state rulers. His action at
that time could be given the credit of hav-
ing a corrective purpose, but it can no
longer be regarded in that light when the
course he pursues is calculated to assist the
corrupt machine leaders in retaining their
hold on the State, and he is seen resorting
to the practices of professional politics in
the prosecution of a self-seeking campaign.
Above all should doctor SWALLOW, as a
reformer of vicious politics, have scrupu-
lous regard for truth, and refrain from mis-
representation, whether made directly or
by implication.. Does he believe that he
is coming any way near the truth when he
adopts the machine trick of representing
that QuAY influenced the nomination of
GEORGE A. JENES? Can he claim to have
the slightest reason to believe that the ma-
chine boss had anything whatever to do
with the proceedings of the Democratic
state convention? The doctor may be
credited with intelligence in regard to
state politics, and as he cannot be so
stupid as to believe that Mr. JENKS in any
way owes his nomination to QUAY, his em-
ployment of that fabrication is an exhibit
of dishonest politics that shows how he has
degenerated since he started out to be a
castigator of dishonest politicians, and in
the end has become a not overscrupulous
office seeker.
The same moral lapse is shown when
doctor SWALLOW speaks of GEORGE A.
JENKS as being: the ‘‘creature’” of state
chairman GARMAN. When it can’t be be-
lieved that the doctor is unacquainted with
Mr. JENKS’ high character and command-
ing ability, his use of such a term, as ap-
plied to the Democratic candidate for Gov-
ernor, shows how readily he can adopt the
reckless language of the unscrupulous poli-
tician who won’t allow so trifling a thing
as a falsehood to stand between him and
hi. object of making votes.
The reverend Prohibition candidate for
Governor professes to be running his cam-
paign on that one of the ten command-
ments, which says, “Thou shalt not steal.”
His platform would be improved if it con-
tained the other clause of the decalogue
that forbids lying.
m———
Awkwardly Situated.
No one can help but observe the awkward
dilemma of those Republican organs in the
State that are conscious of the debasement
of QUAY’s rule in the State, and cannot
reconcile it with their sense of decency to
give it their unreserved support, yet fear
to directly antagonize it by an open and
earnest opposition to the state and legis-
lative nominations that represent the ma-
chine rule, and are designed to perpetuate
the machine power.
The Philadelphia Press is one of the
organs that are in this unpleasant fix. Its
tone for some years past has indicated its
conviction that QUAY-ism, as the ruling
factor in the Republicanism of Pennsyl-
vania, is an injury and disgrace to the
State. That it wants a change is plainly
shown by its continued complaints about
this evil, that is afflicting the Common-
wealth, but there are party restraints that
prevent it from advocating the only means
of correcting this political and governmental
debasement, by defeating the party that
has proven its inability to emancipate itself
from the control of QUAY’S corrupt ma-
chine.
That the Press is desirous of relief from
this ruinous and disgraceful situation, but
that it is restrained from advocating meas-
ures that would be more than a partial
remedy, is shown by the following expres-
sion which indicates its hope that the State
may be relieved of the QUAY abominations
by the efforts of JOHN WANAMAKER :
Mr. Wanamaker did a great puplic service by
his speeches throughout the State for the six
weeks preceding the Harrisburg convention. A
second such pilgrimage next fall will deepen and
make permanent the profound impression created
by his first series of addresses on the evils of ma-
chine rule in Pennsylvania. The full effect of
such plain home truths as Mr. Wanamaker pro-
claimed, wherever he went, is not seen at once.
No one has challenged the truth of his assertions.
Being uncontradicted they are tacitly admitted.
They show that machine rule means a corrupt
rule, a costly rule, a robbery of the treasury for
the benefit of the machine and its supporters,
Let this be brought home and pressed home to
the people and the result will he a Legislature
in 1899 for which the people will have no reason
to blush or apologize.
Admitting that Mr. WANAMAKER made
an impression hy his series of speeches, in
which he attacked the Quay machine,
what more did he bring to the knowledge
‘of the people than they already knew ? And
if it is his intention to continue his efforts
on the stump during this campaign, why
will not the interest of reform as much re-
quire that he should oppose the election of
QUAY'’S candidate for Governor as his can-
didates for the Legislature? This being
his obvious duty, if he is really interested
in state reform, of what practical account
would such opposition be if not exerted for
the only candidate that can be elected
Governor if QUAY’S man shall not succeed ?
The Press speaks as if the whole question
of reform, as involved in the coming elec-
tion, consists in preventing QUAY from con-
trolling the Legislature, when it is obvious
that the reform of the state government re-
quires the defeat of the machine candidate
for Governor equally as much as the pre-
vention of a machine majority in the Legis-
lature.
i ————e
A Sacrifice of Reputation.
The Philadelphia Ledger is making a
pitiablesacrifice of its reputation for politic-
al honesty and consistency of expression
on the subject of state reform.
It has frequently and explicitly commit-
ted itself to the conviction that QuAyism is
the source of corruption that is viciating
every department of the state government.
Only within the past week it published a
catalogue of the abuses in the public af-
fairs of the State directly attributable to
the rule of the boss. After committing
itself in that way, what sense, consistency
or decency is there in its expressions that
are calculated to reflect upon the candidate
for Governor in whom the honest citizens
of the State can have a hope of defeating
the person whom the Ledger knows to be
the choice of the obnoxious boss, and
whose election is part of the machine pro-
gram for the continuation of its corrupt
rule.
When a paper of such repute is aware of
these facts, not merely admitting but re-
peatedly and earnestly declaring them to
be such, and then adopts a line of asser-
tion about GEORGE A. JENKS, which it
knows to be the invention of those who de-
sign to maintain their control of the State
by the election of the Quay candidates,
gubernatorial as well as legislative, such
a paper is to be pitied for the sacrifice it is
willing to make of its truthfulness and
consistency in order that it may maintain
some appearance of party allegiance.
The Ledger clamors for the defeat of
QUAY'’S legislative candidates, but how far
would that amend the evil of electing the
machine candidate for Governor? It
would be but half-way reform, depriving
the State of the full benefaction that
would he conferred upon it by an anti-ma-
chine Legislature acting in conjunction
with a Governor such as GEORGE A. JENKS
would he, whose character and record are
an assurance of honest administration.
Alger Has McKinley’s Approval.
The people need not expect that ALGER
will be called to account for his manage-
ment of the war department which in its
consequences was so disastrous to the
health and lives of the soldiers, and so dis-
graceful to the government.
President McKINLEY is said to be en-
tirely satisfied with ALGER’s official con-
duct. He greatly regrets that so much
fault has been found with his war secre-
tary, but has assured him of his unaltered
confidence, believing the hest was done
that could have been done under the ocir-
cumstances, and that ALGER deserved the
gratitude rather than the reproaches of the
country.
This is remarkable in view of the fact
that from all quarters in the army, from
every point at the front, and from every
encampment where troops were stationed,
came the same accounts of neglect and in-
efficient management that impaired the
health of the soldiers through insufficient
subsistence, medicine, clothing and shelter,
and ‘caused the death of many of them.
While the President asserts his approval of
ALGER’S management, the officers of the
army before Santiago were forced to sign
the famous ‘round robin,” and forwarded
it to Washington imploring to be rescued
from the deadly consequences of ALGER’
method of managing the army.
Is there anything astonishing in Presi-
dent McKINLEY’S standing by his delin-
quent war secretary ? All the terrible{ex-
periences which the soldiers have had, the
suffering from lack of proper provision for
them, came from the system of personal
influence and political pull that filled the
commissary and quartermaster’s depart-
ments and the general army staff with in-
cumbents incapable of performing the du-
ties, or goverened by no other motive than
making money out of their positions.
ALGER, in his true character as a hucks-
tering politician, used the army appoint-
ments as the medium of conferring personal
favor, paying political debts, and putting
politiciars under obligations that would be
serviceable to him. That he had McKIx-
LEY as a partner in this system of army
politics, which proved so destructive to the
health and lives of the soldiers, was shown
by the kind of characters that received the
military appointments directly from the
hand of the President.
In view of this fact no one need be ‘sur-
prised that ALGER has McKINLEY'’S ap-
proval and support, for are not ALGERism
and McKINLEYisSm one and the same
thing ?
——The Governor says that DALE was
the mill stone about his neck and CLEM
thinks that the Governor was doing the
same duty for him. Strange, isn’t it, that
neither one of these statesmen can see him-
self as others see them, If they could they
would soon realize that each one was his
own mill stone.
S rallow Adopts a Machine Trick.
Nothing could be more untruthful and
foolish than the representation made by
Dr. SWALLOWS campaigners that GEORGE
A. JENKS is a QUAY candidate. Not only
has the doctor himself heen guilty of trying
to fix this impression, which he knows to
be utterly false, but H. L. CASTLE, the
chairman of the Prohibition state execu-
tive committee, appears to think that fool
politics is not out of place in this cam-
paign, when he asserts that “QUAY had as
much to do with JENKS’ nomination as he
had with the nomination of Colonel
STONE.’
Dr. SwALLow may have been credited
with sincerity when he started out in his
fight against the corruptions in our state
government, but his present course would
indicate that he cares more for his personal
ends than for the overthrow of the ma-
chine against which his candidacy is
claimed to be directed.
Conscious of the disrepute of their own
boss, the machine managers artfully con-
cluded that nothing could he more calcu-
lated to injure a Democratic nominee than
to create an impression that QUAY had
something to do with his nomination.
With this design they have circulated the
report that GEORGE A. JENKS owes his
nomination to the same disreputable in-
fluence that nominated STONE and makes
his candidacy repugnant to those citizens
who desire the State’s political redemption.
Though Dr. SWALLOW has intelligence
enough to understand the trick, and is as-
sured, by the character of GEORGE A. JENKS
as well as by the purpose that is intended
to be carried out by his candidacy, that
QUAY had ahout as much to do with his
nomination as the devil had to do with the
organization of the church, he nevertheless
shows a willingness to adopt the lie which
the QUAY corruptionists have invented to
injure the only candidate that has any
chance of defeating their nominee for Gov-
ernor.
——With the beginning of an imperial-
istic policy for the United States will come
an end of all high protective tariffs, just as
surely as the night follows the day.
State Reform.
The Record of the Party and Its Conventions On
the Subject—Some Interesting Figures Showing
How Salaries, Etc, Now Cost Almost Double
What They Did When Democrats Last Had a
Voice in Law-Making.
HARRISBURG, Ang. 18.—The absurdity
of the contention that the Democrats are
mere followers of Mr. Wanamaker and Dr.
Swallow in exposing Republican thefts and
extravagances is best demonstrated, per-
haps, by a review of the past platforms of
the party in Pennsylvania. Long before
Dr. Swallow was ever so much as heard of
in politics, and many years previous to the
time when John Wanamaker was raising
huge corruption funds from the great cor-
porations of the country for Matt Quay,
acting as chairman of the Republican na-
tional committee to use in corrupting the
voters of the country, the Democrati¢ party
had taken a sturdy stand for state re orm.
In fact, while it is true that inditidual
Democrats in the Legislature have upon
occasions, succumbed to the wiles of Quay-
ism, it is nevertheless a fact that the only
restraint ever yet put upon Quay or Quay-
ism, that was at all effective, came from
Democratic senators and members, upheld
and encouraged by the Democratic press
and people. Many a steal has been stayed
by their efforts and many a crooked meas-
ure, engineered by monopoly interests, has
succumbed to their opposition.
In 1874 the Democrats of the state in
their platform denounced the Republicans
for fostering corporations to the detriment
and injury of the great agricultural inter-
ests ; for having introduced frauds and cor-
ruption into the departments of the state
government and among the state officials
generally, and for having failed to dismiss
them when exposed and convicted. They
demanded a greater economy and the lop-
ping off of every needless expense.
The people had just adopted a new con-
stitution, which was made necessary by the
waste and frauds of Republican legislatures.
Under their auspices legislation had run
riot. Almost any kind of a law could be
passed that anybody was willing to pay for.
The statutes each year filled books thick
almost as family Bibles. Nobody knew
what the laws were until after they had
been published. The Reading railroad coal
digging monopoly was licensed under a
charter entitled, ‘‘An act for the incorpora-
tion of the Laurel Run improvement com-
pany’’ and the coal trade has been demor-
alized and miners’ wages have continuous-
ly gone down from that day to this, To
win a wager a bill was passed through both
houses containing a paragraph that actual-
ly provided for the divorce of a member
who was a party to the wager and had bet
that the thing could not be done.
"Republican venality stunk then as Mr.
Wanamaker says it stinks now. . And fol-
lowing the adoption of the new censtitu-
tion, which aimed to check it, the Demo-
crats on the reform issue, elected their state
ticket and a majority in the house. The
senate was still Republican and a stumb-
ling block to effective betterment, but
much good was nevertheless accomplished.
In 1882 the Democrats elected their state
ticket and again secured a majority in the
house on a platform devoted to state issues
and condemning Republican theft and
reckless expenditure. And that legislature
of 1883, backed by twenty Democrats and
a number of anti-corporation Republicans
in the senate, did more highly commend-
able reform work than has been done in all
the years since. In almost every year the
Democratic platforms have exposed the
Republican short-comings ‘‘on the hill.”
In 1885 the party thus said : “The long
continued abuses and spoliations of the
state treasury, and the defiance of laws by
its management, makes essential a radical
reform so that large sums shall not be ac-
cumulated by taxation of the people to be
distributed smong the favored depositories
of the state.”’ Also, referring to what
Governor Pattison and the legislature of
1883 had accomplished : “The economies
enforced by the Democrats of the legisla-
ture and in the departments of the state
government, which have passed under
Democratic control and the abolition of
useless offices that were a burden to the
people, give assurance that the extension
of that control to other departments of the
state government will be accompanied by
real reforms of the extravagance and irregu-
larities which prevailed under the Republi-
can administration.”
But the extension of that control did not
come and the Republican spoliations went
regularly on from bad to worse. The pro-
test against the accumulation of large sums
to be distributed among the political banks,
made by the Democrats, as here shown,
thirteen years ago, went unheeded until
1897, when the large sums were not only
accumulated, but: withheld from those to
whom they legally belonged, to enable the
banks to be thus favored. In fact the
Humes (Democratic) law of 1883 had pro-
vided for taking the sinking fund moneys
from. the banks and investing them. in
United States bonds, and the Republicans
then lessened the flow of money to the
sinking fund and kept it in the general
fund, from which the banks got it and the
machine thus flourished. iil |
The convention of 1887 denounced the
Republican legislature for “its failure to
pass the state revenue bill, which was urg-
ed by nearly all the people in the common-
wealth and which, by its failure, made the
people pay a million of dollars annually
that should and would have been paid by
corporations.’”’ It denounced, also, ‘‘the
failure of the administration to attempt
any correction of the wrong doing or ex-
posure of the fraud or criminal neglect, as
confessing the supremacy of ring rule in
Pennsylvania.’’
Reference is here made to the revenue
bill, framed by a state commission, to
equalize taxation, so that the people should
be relieved and the corporations made to
pay their share and which, though it pass-
ed both houses against the wish of the
machine, was mysteriously sent to the gov-
ernor without the signature of the presi-
dent of the senate and therefore failed to
become a law. Shortly afterwards Senator
Quay and an officer of the legislature had
a pugilistic scrap in a Harrisburg hotel bar
room, arising from the fact that each charg-
Concluded on page 4.
Spawls from the Keystone.
—By a fall of coal at the Wyoming colliery,
Luzerne county, Joseph Kinoski was fatally
injured.
—Mystery surrounds the death of an un-
known man whose body was found in a barn
near Hazleton.
—Fifteen sheep belonging to John Hutchi-
son, near Warriorsmark, were killed by a
stroke of lightning last Thursday.
—The famous Bucktail veterans ofthe civ-
il war will hold a regimental reunion at
Gettysburg, on September 9th, 10th and 11th
—Work was begun Wednesday with 500
men and boys at the Lehigh Valley Coal
company’s immense new breaker, at Cen-
tralia.
—Barber Walter Sillman, of Scranton, has
been held for court, to answer the charge of
pulling teeth in defiance of the new law for
the protection of dentists.
—A proposition to increase the borough in-
debtedness of Shamokin by $65,000 for street
paving purposes was carried at a special elec-
tion, Wednesday, by a majority of 1,660.
—Captain E. W. Howe, U.S. A., received
orders, Wednesday, to report at Mount Gretna,
which has been selected as the place for mus-
tering out the Pennsylvania Volunteers.
—Hon. John Layng, president of the Chest
Creek land and improvement company, at
Patton, and vice president of the Fall Brook
railway company, died, Monday, at Block Isl-
and, L. IL.
—Rev. W. G. Ferguson, a well known min -
ister of the Central Pennsylvania M. E. con-
ference, and who was pastor of the M. E.
church at Milton, died in a Philadelphia hos-
pital Monday. The reverend gentlemen had
gone to Asbury Park on his vacation, and be-
came ill while at that resort. He then went
to Philadelphia.
—Jacob Z. Over, a printer and editor of
long experience, died at his home in Everett
on Saturday last, aged about 65 years. Mr.
Over was in earlier life one of the proprie-
tors of the Hollidayshurg Register, and for
about twenty years conducted and edited the
McConnelsburg (Fulton county) Republican,
from which he retired a couple of years ago.
—Mrs. Hannah Quigley. who was awarded
$8,000 damages against the city of Lock Ha-
ven at the May term of court for injuries al-
leged to have been received by falling on a
defective sidewalk on West Park street,
died at her home in Lewistown Wednesday
morning. Reasons for a new trial in the
case were filed by the attorneys for the city
some time ago.
—The Cambria Iron company, whose ex-
tensive plant is located at Johnstown, will be
absorbed by a new corporation, the Cambria
Steel company, and its stock will be guaran-
teed 4 per cent dividends. Thenew corpora-
tion will have a capital of $24,000,000 and the
holders of Cambria iron stock will have the
privilege of subscribing to three shares of the
new company (the Cambria company) for
every share of the old company.
—The creosote department of the Williams-
port wooden pipe company’s plant at Cam-
mal, was destroyed by fire early Sunday
morning. The mill proper was not dam-
aged. The boiler exploded and was thrown
over 150 feet. Levi Kyre. overseer of the
¢reosote department, was severely ‘burned.
Charles Smith was also slightly injured.
The loss will be between $20,000 and $22,000.
An insurance of $15,000 was carried.
—Edward H. Taylor, of Smethport, at-
tended the firemen’s convention at Ridgway
last week. Saturday night he boarded a
freight train on the Buffalo, Rochester and
Pittsburg railway. As the train was going
over a forty foot trestle work, Taylor fell on
the track. The wheels crushed his leg be-
low the knee, and the man fell to the ravine
below. He was taken to Johnsonburg,
where he died. He leaves a wife and five
children. He was 40 years old.
—A few days ago, 14-year-old Miller
Clarke, of Shakespeare, near Milton, met
with a painful accident. He was descending
a plum tree, where he was picking fruit, and
lost his hold. In sliding down he was
caught by a clothes hook fast to the tree, just
between the left eye and frontal bone, where
he hung until a neighbor, attracted by his
awful cries, released him. The flesh was hor-
ribly torn about the eye, but the sight, it is
believed, can be saved.
—The school directors of Rush township,
realizing the necessity of providing books of
reference in their schools for the use of pu-
pils and teachers, have purchased ten sets of
the People’s Encyclopedia to be placed in the
different schools this fall. This is quite an
expense to the district, but it is money well
spent to provide reference works. Text
books are all right so far as they go, but they
will not satisfy the pupil who does more than
skim over the subjects he studies. Rush
township has a school board to be prond of.
—Rev. William F.'Rick, chaplain of the
Twelfth Pennsylvania Volunteers, died at
Williamsport Sunday, aged 30 years. Ty-
phoid fever was the cause of his death.
Chaplain Rick contracted the disease at Camp
Alger, where he overworked himself in alle-
viating the wants of the sick soldiers of his
regiment, who suffered so’ severely from the
ravages of the fever. Rev. Mr. Rick was pas-
tor of St. Mark’s Lutheran church, Williams-
port, and was very popularamong his parish-
ioners. When the soldiers responded to the
call of President McKinley at the beginning
of the war, Chaplain Rick marched to the
station at the head of the local battalion of
the Twelfth.
—The House of Representatives has a re-
minder of the devastation wrought by the
Johnstown, Pa., flood of May 31, 1889. It is
a bill and favorable report to issue the heirs
of Neil McEnery a $500 4 per cent United
States bond. Neil McEnery was an inhabi-
tant and citizen of Johnstown when the flood
swept down the Conemaugh valley. He and
his wife and seven children were drowned
and his house, with its contents, were de-
stroyed. Some time after the disaster six
coupons of a 4 per cent United States bond
were found in the wash of the flood and
turned over to the flood finance committee.
The heirs of Neil McEnery advertised for the
lost bond, but never received any answer.
No coupons from it were ever presented to
the United States treasurer. After nine
years Congress is asked to grant authority
for issuing a duplicate bond when the proper
indemnity is given to the government,