8y P. GRAY MEEK. |
ink “Slugs.
Oh there's trouble brewing fast along the Wa-
bash,
There are murmurings of things the men don’t
like,
Both the trainmen and the firemen are saying
If we don’t get an increase we will strike.
—~Congress has adjourned. Amen!
—The rascals in Bellefonte, if there be
any, seem to be immune from the turning
out process.
—Virtne may be its own reward, bus
virtue has come to be so cheap of late that
the reward is scarcely worth going after.
—Public school teachers who could not
earn at least $35 a month at any other
vocation are not fit to be public school
teachers.
—ANDREW CARNEGIE could help save
himself the disgrace of dying rich by -<con-
tributing about $25,000 to the Bellefonte
hospital.
-~There are to be two Arbor days in
April, the 3rd and the 17th. Remember
to plant something ; even if you sow only
a few seeds of kindness.
—Senator ELKINS, of West Virginia,
may denounce his party for hetraying its
pledges, but the Senator will support his
party right along, all the same.
—Since Mr. ADDICKS wasn’t able to
land in the United States Senate it is to be
presumed that he will spend the next two
years in quietly storing up gas to. work off
on the Delaware Legislature when another
vacancy occurs.
—Col. BRYAN is of the opinion that
gold Democrats will never capture any
Democratic convention of national impor-
tance, which is to say that Col. BRYAN
consid ers himself the bell cow in the cap-
turing business.
—Those German professors who think
the MONROE doctrine is ‘‘a perfidious
no thing thas binds no person nor power’
might find out something more about it
were they leading a movement that would
tend to its fracture.
—The last Congress appropriated fifty
million dollars for the Panama canal, fifty
million dollars for the postal service and
river and harbor appropriations amounting
to nearly as much. It takes a Republican
Congress to make the people’s money fly.
—If the Democratic minority in Con-
gress was good for nothing else it served
the purpose of a scape-goat on which the
Republicans will heap all the blame for
the pernicious legislation they did enact
and the good measures they left unconsid-
ered.
—The Memphis Commercial advises the
N orth on the negro problem as follows :
‘‘Mind your own business.” If conditions
every where are as they are right here in
Bell efonte all of the North would have its
hands quite full in acting upon the Com-
mercial’s suggestion.
—The Patterson, N. J., amateur photog-
rapher who is summoned to answer a
libel in divorce because he made his wife
pose for him in ‘‘the altogether,” will
realize that when he took her ‘‘for better
or for worse’’ she didn’t expect it to be as
‘‘worse’’ as that.
—Dr. LORENZ’S idea that America ‘‘is a
magnificent country inhabited by a noble
people” is quite at variance with the
notions of some of the so called foreign
luminosities who have visited us in recent
years. But when it is remembered that
Dr. LORENZ is a smart man all is explain-
ed.
—DANIEL J. SULLY, the young Con-
necticut speculator, who lost two and oue-
half million dollars while he was eating
dinner in a New York restaurant on Wed-
n esday, has an appetite and a nerve to be
proud of. He was bulling the cotton
mar ket, but the bears pounded it down so
that SULLY came very near being wiped
ouf entirely.
— Under the head ‘‘Charged With Wife
Desertion’”’ the Lock Haven Democrat re-
cently published an account of the burial
of a good old gentleman of Youngdale.
Accidents will happen in the best regulated
fam ilies but it is seldom that one of this
nature is discovered. Every one knows
that the heads evidently got mixed up in
the Democrat office, yet after all the old
man was a wife deserter in one sense of the
word at least.
—The York Gazette pleads for the bache-
lors as against the talked of tax on celi-
bacy. It hases its plea on the premise
that all men are not fis to become husbands
or fathers; consequently it would be unfair
to tax them for remaining single when
they are doing so from a purely humani-
tarian stand-point. Of course some men do
remain single because of such lofty notions,
but the most of the bachelors are bachelors
either because they can’t get the one they
are looking for or couldn’t keep her if she
were to be had.
—A bill to pension teachers was intro-
duced in the House on Tuesday. It pro-
vides that they shall receive not less than
one-third their average pay for the last half
of ten years service in the schools. While
the WATCHMAN is decidedly in favor of
the minimum salary bill of $35 per month
and concedes that teachers bave as niuch
right to a pension as retired judges, vet the
whole theory is wrong. The pension idea
is being carried entirely too far. If the
thing keeps on every class of people will
be drawing pensions and who will there be
AS
~ Dn
VOL. 48
»e
aerlic
alin al:
STATE RIGHTS AND FEDERAL UNION.
BELLEFONTE, PA., MARCH 6, 1908.
NO. 10.
Mr.
Olmsted’s Curious Reasoning.
Representative OLMSTED of the Harris-
burg Congress district made an interesting
speech in the House of Representatives in
Washington the other day in support of
his own report from the committee on elec-
tions on the contested election case of
WAGONER against BUTLER for the Twelfth
district of Misseuri. This is a peculiar
case and required extraordinary treatment.
The overwhelming majority which Mr.
BUTLER received at the special election last
November was hard to dispose of and there-
fore Mr. OLMSTED was obliged to discover
some new principles of law and new meth-
ods of procedure and reveal some extra-
ordinary facility at falsification in order to
carry his point.
Mr. BUTLER was elected to Congress by
the voters of that district at the regular
election of 1900 by a majority of 3,553.
For some unexplained reason the Repub-
lisans wanted the seat so badly that upon
Mr. OLMSTED’S report on a contest the
member-elect was thrown out during the
last session and a special election ordered to
fill the vacancy. The special election was
held last November with the result that
Mr. BUTLER’S majority of 3,553 in 1900
was increased to 7,016 in 1902. Any one
else than OLMSTED would have interpreted
that as a rebuke of the narrow partisanship
which outraged justice by unseating Mr.
BUTLER before and left him to the enjoy-
ment of his victory. But it didn’t have
that effect on OLMSTED. He made a new
investigation of one side of the case and re-
ported, notwithstanding the 7,016 majority,
that Mr. BUTLER was not elected and that
bis overwhelmingly defeated competitor
was entitled to the seat.
The surprising part of the affair, how-
ever, was the reason given by Mr. OnM-
sTED for his decision and the processes by
which he arrived at his conclusions. The
registry list was padded after the Phila-
delphia fashion, it appears, and Mr. OLM-
STED discovered that ‘eighty-one persons
were registered in a house having only
eleven rooms, ’’and forty of them were allow-
ed to remain on the registry by the election
commissioners. That was bad,of course, but
nothing compared with Philadelphia. There
it has been proven in court since the elec-
tion that sixty men were registered and
voted from one brothel protected by the
police in its lawless and vicious traffic be-
cause it could be used as a ‘‘fence’’ for
ballot box stuffers and the offer was made
to prove that there are hundreds of similar
places of the same character protected for
the same reason and that 80,000 fraudulent
votes are polled from such iniquitous dens
of infamy for the Republican ticket every
year.
Mr. OLMSTED understood that such a
statement supported by exparte evidence
was not sufficient to unseat the Represen-
tative who had 7,016 majority behind him,
so he asserted the legal principle that there
having been frauds in every election dis-
trict in which the Democrats had a ma-
jority all such districts be thrown out and
those remaining gave the Republican can-
didate a small majority. This atrocious
interpretation of the law was adopted by
the House at a session without a quorum
and upon such proceedings the defeated
Republican candidate for Congress has been
declared elected, placed on the roll and
with a service of ten days will be allowed
to draw the salary of the fall term.
Senator Quay’s First Defeat.
feat. He set out to force the omnibus
Statehood bill through the Senate. Early
in the session which has just closed he de-
clared that unless that measure were dis-
posed of he would hold up all other legis-
lation. He did his best to carry out the
purpose. He even forced an extra session
of the Senate to achieve tbe result. But
he failed and lost at least one of the ele-
ments of success which influenced Governor
PENNYPACKER to declare him a greater
man than WEBSTER or CLAY.
Bat Mr. QUAY neglected no means of
achieving the result which he had in his
mind. He jeopardized the perpetuity of the
government and imperiled the prosperity
of the people. There are various ways of
assailing the flag. The leaders of the South
in 1861 adopted one expedient. They re-
sorted to arms and marched squadrons
against the citadel of power and tried to
crush the authority of the Federal govern-
ment. That was really a manly warfare.
It was hostility in the open. But QUAY
aimed at the same result in a different way.
He tried to paralyze the government by
withdrawing from it the necessary support.
QuAY failed in his purpose as JEFFERSON
Davis failed but of the two methods that
of DAVIS was the more honorable and
manly. The success of either would have
come to the same result. If the armed foe
of the government between '61 and ’65 had
triumphed in their designs the government
would have been destroyed. If QUAY had
succeeded in depriving the government of
the resources to keep the machinery in
motion the result would have been the
same. In other words there is no differ-
ence between QUAY and any other enemy
left to pay them.
of the government.
Senator QUAY bas sustained his first de- :
Bad Wit Misapplied.
The Republicans had a bad quarter of an
hour in Washington the other day and they
made rather a poor fist of it. The question
was a statement that certain valuable relics,
historic mementoes and cherished tokens
that have come into the White House in
one way or another during the century of
its existence had not heen properly taken
care of lately. As a matter of fact it ap-
pears that since ROOSEVELT has been in
office most of the property of that kind bas
been consigned to the junk pile and what
has escaped that fate has been sold to
second hand furniture men and curio deal-
ers. It is worthy of mention in this con-
nection that the side-board presented to
Mrs. HAYES by the Women’s Christian
Temperance Association has been sold to a
brewer who wants it for use in a saloon at
the St. Louis World’s Fair.
The Republicans in the House of Repre-
sentatives undertook to make light of the
question. General GROSVENOR who knows
about as much concerning humor as an
elephant does about dancing the minunet
took a hand iu the discussion. ‘‘The pend-
ing bill,”’ he said ‘‘relates to fine breeding
animals, not bar fixtures.’’ and the Repub-
licans were convulsed with laughter. Prob-
ably the temperance women of the coun-
try will not take the same hilarious view of
the question. The son of Mrs. HAYES fail-
ed to see the fun in the affair and offered
an amount of money for the souvenir rath-
er than have it placarded in a saloon. But
the new owner correctly estimates the pos-
sibilities of such a novelty in a saloon and
declined the offer,so that the temperance
proclivities of a lady of the White House
may be held up to ridicule to the fullest
extent.
Bat the popular approval of Mr. GRoOS-
VENOR’S associates encouraged him to pro-
ceed and even induced JOE CANNON, of
Illinois, to drop into humor without wis.
‘I do not believe in descending to diminu-
tives continued Mr. GROSVENOR, ‘‘and
tracing the whereabouts of second-hand
farniture.”” This was really funny and
Mr. CANNON followed with this gem:
“When MADISON was President it is relat-
ed that the washing was hung in the East
room. My God,” he continued, ‘‘what
has become of the clothes line?” This
mock heroic convulsed the statesmen with-
in the sound of his voice but it didn’t
answer the question of the resolution and
will hardly satisfy the patriotism of the
country which is outraged by the irrev-
erence with respect to relics which have
been fondly cherished since the days of
WASHINGTON. Something better must be
offered.
The War in The Philippines.
The news from the Philippines continues
to express the horrors of war. It is nearly
three years now since the announcement
was made in Washington that hostilities
were ended but scarcely a day passes that
doesn’t bring intelligence of some new out-
break and fresh atrocity. All sorts of
compromises have been made with vice and
every principle of our government has
been sacrificed at one time or another to
fulfill the consequences of the lust for em-
pire which first influenced the administra-
tion of the late President McKINLEY to
enter upon a war of conquest in that
Asiatic archipeligo. But the war goes on
with unabated cruelty and will go on for
all time, if present policies are continued.
It has already been amply proved that
in the Philippine policy of the government
every cherished principle and sacred tradi-
tion of the country has been subverted.
In fact this has been practically acknowl-
edged by those responsible but they have
held that the commercial or the pecuniary
gain will compensate for the loss. This is
putting a small estimate upon the value of
principle even if the best expectations with
respect to commercial advantages were
realized. But as a matter of fact so far
from such expectations being realized they
are farther off now than when the first bat-
tle was fought. The expense of main-
taining order and mock government is al-
most as great now as it was three years
ago and the returns are quite as meagre.
In view of these facts isn’t it about time
for the people of this country to call a halt
on a policy so fatuous that if it continues
much longer will bring bankruptoy.
Probably the islands are as fertile as the
most enthusiastic have described them.
Maybe the wealth in minerals that has
been written about so freely exists beneath
the surface of that tropical soil. But
white men can never develop such a
country and it is the plain duty of our
government to relinquish an unjustly
acquired sovereignty and give to the people
there what onr forefathers declared was an
inalienable right, that of civil and re-
ligious liberty under a government of their
own. :
——1If a bill now before the Legislature
becomes a law the District Attorney of
Centre county will receive a » Falary of $1000
per annum.
An Insult to The People.
Does the Republican machine imagine
that the people of Pennsylvania are no lon-
ger capable of self-government ! This con-
clusion may justly be inferred from the
numher of commissions that are being
created by the Legislature. We are having
commissions to fix our rates of taxation,
and finally commissions to keep our public
roads in regair. Every thing appears to be
running toward commissions and unless
the people of the State are incapable of self
government there is no need for these com-
missions.
It may be said that the commissions are
created for the purpose of providing fat
places for favored politicians and they do
serve that purpose without doubt. The
roads commission, for example, will require
a civil engineer at a salary of three or four
thousand dollars a year, besides secretaries,
clerks and stenographers and the members
of that commission must have their ex-
penses paid at a luxurious rate. The other
commissions must be equally equipped in
the matter of help and luxuries and the
present Legislature is providing for twenty
of them or more so that they do become an
important lever in politics. But the real
reason for them is that the machine mana-
gers believe that the people are unable to
govern themselves.
This is a palpable and impudent insult
to the people of Pennsylvania which should
be resented promptly and vigorously.
There never was a time in the history of
the world im which intelligence was so
generally and widely diffused as now and
yet flity years ago nobody would have
dared intimate that the people of Pennsyl-
vania needed commissions or imported tal-
ent to build and repair their roads, or school
houses or other public or private institn-
tions. That aspersion is put on them how
however, by the action of the machine and
it remains to be seen whether or not the
insult will be resented.
The Dangerous Surplus.
There are over $10,000,000 in the gen-
eral fund in the state treasury and three
or four millions in the sinking fund, and
vet the Legiclators at Harrisburg are still
searching high and low for new subjects of
taxation. Corporations are burdened and
they in turn add to the cost of their service
to the public and for what reason ? For
no other cause in the world except that the
vast fund distributed over the State in the
favored banks serves to influence voters to
support the machine and perpetuate the
power of the ring.
The greatest evil which was ever in-
flicted on this State was the indiscriminate
appropriation of funds by the Legislature
for so-called charity. It is nothing more
or less than prostituting charity to the base
of debauching politics. Charity is dis-
tributed not accordingly as it is needed or
may achieve good results, but in the pro-
portion that it helps the Republican ma-
chine and the institutions afford a rake-off
to the dependent politicians of the State.
Hospitals are created and supported not to
relieve distress or minister to the sick but
in order to create a fund with which to
purchase votes for the party. :
The treasury surplus is a menace to the
prosperity of the people. The fiction that
it comes from the corporations is all bosh
and deceives no intelligent man or woman.
All expenses come from the consumers and
money taken from their earnings for pur-
poses of government in excess of the actual
needs of government work a double injury.
It is unjust to the taxpayer in the first
place, for it takes from his earnings money
which belongs to himself and to the busi-
ness men of the country for the reason that
it concentrates in money centres the cur-
rency which ought to be diffused through-
out the State.
——In the appointment of Wm. F.
SMITH to be post-master at Walker the
question is raised as to whether Col. W. F.
REEDER is really the dispenser of patron-
age in Centre county or whether some of
the lesser lights who have not bowed to
the REEDER yoke have not still a way to
the ear of the ‘‘old man.”” In the Walker
appointment Col. REEDER was known to
have been for SAMUEL ALEY and there was
quite a long and bitter contest for the of-
fice. But the result shows that M. S.
BETZ, the Jacksonville store keeper at
whose business place the office is located,
had a little pull somewhere. He is one of
the few country leaders who did not hasten
into the REEDER camp when that famous
telegram was made public, consequently
his man was not supposed to be in the race.
Mr. BETZ went down to Washington and
called on ‘‘the powers that be’’ with the
result that Mr. SMITH was very proRpAY
appointed;
The Patron, the Grange paper for-
merly edited by Hon. Leonard Rhone and
Col. Jas. F. Weaver and published from
the Republican office in this place, has been
consolidated with the Farmer's Friend, the
paper published by Col. R. H. Thomas, at
Mechanicsburg.
on HIN
Such Will be the
Case,
We Hope That
From the Philadelphia Press.
Governor Pennypacker is reported to
have declared in a semi-public way on Sat-
urday that he had been making inquiries
to ascertain if any demands had been made
for a percentage of money appropriated by
the Legislature to institutions, familiarly
called a rake-off. He has found no trace
of such demands, but asks for all infor-
mation any one may have on the ‘subject.
He wants to know the truth.
There was a great deal of scandal in the
last Legislature about the reported rake-
off on the charitable appropriations. At
the close of the session the whole State was
filled with talk of it, and some of the talk
was sufficiently definite to include the
names of persons who were in official posi-
tion in the Legislature and the then State
administration. There never was any
public allegation, however, save in the
case of the appropriation to the Clarion
Normal school. A great deal of noise was
made about that, but a few days ago the
grand jury ignored the indictments brought
in the case, not having sufficient evidence
2 pavans their return to court as true
ills.
That probably ends the scandal so far as
the last session is concerned. And there
will be no similar scandal at this session.
Long before the session met the influences
which are recognized as potent in shaping
legislation had concluded there should be
no room for a repetition of such allega-
tions, no matter how vague. Let us give
just credit. Senator Quay and Senator
Penrose and Mr. Durham were determined
against it, and the election of Judge Penny-
packer to the Governorship, Henry F.
Walton to the Speakership and John M.
Scott to the Presidency of the Senate were
a guaranty to the peblic that there wounid
not only he no rake-off, but that there
would not be even the suggestion of such a
thing.
It can be said in the light of full know-
Jedge on the subject that nothing at the
present session has been watched with
more vigilance and care by those who
know it to be the purpose of the leaders of
the Republican organization to see that
there is no snch scandal as that which
grew out of the last session; that
there is not even a shadowy excuse upon
which to hang similar accusations. There
are no hold-up committees in this Legisla-
ture and no black-mailing lobbyists about
it to make demands upon the charity ap-
propriations. No institution will pay any-
thing to get the money which the State in-
tends it shall have.
Governor Pennypacker has solidly
clinched the matter by his request to be
told of any demands made by anybody for
a rake-off. The rake-off operator wi
out of business during the present session
of the Legislature and the present State
administration. The State will not be
humiliated by another such scandal as that
of two years ago.
As to the Widows.
From the Williamsport News.
Alfred A. Howlett, banker, contractor,
and merchant, of Syracuse, N. Y., invited
136 widows to participate in the celebration
of his eighty-second birthday at his home
on Tuesday last, and an even hundred were
present. Men were rigorously excluded.
A woman’s orchestra furnished the music,
a woman took care of the furnace, and a
woman opened the doors of the carriages as
they drove up.
In this assemblage, the Chicago Infer-
Ocean contends, there must have been
widows of all ages, all kinds, and all de-
grees of widowhood. But it is to be pre-
sumed that, whether old or young, homely
or pretty, ordinary or fascinating, unhappy
or joyful, consoled or inconsolable, ex-
pectant or hopeless, they were all genuine,
as the aged Mr. Howlett seems to be a very
particular sort of man.
Just what bis object was in bringing all
these widows together it is impossible to
say. If he were a younger man it might
be presumed that among the widows of his
acquaintance he was hoping to find oue
who would be a comfort and a blessing to
him. But at 82 men do not usually marry
widows. At that age a man in Mr. How-
lett’s circumstances is generally able to
find among the daughters and grand-
daughters of widows some one willing to
run the risk of becoming a widow herself.
But the woman who participated in this
affair that most men will be interested in
is the woman who took care of the furnace.
The chances are that she is not a widow.
A woman who can take care of a furnace
need not be a widow. Nor if once married
is she ever likely to become a widow, be-
cause there is no reason why her husband
should not live on and on and spend every
moment of his life in perfect health and
contentment.
As a matter of fact, if women in general
would learn how to take care of the fur-
nace and exhibit a desire to take care of it,
and refuse to permit their husbands to take
care of it, such parties as that given by the
Syracuse banker, contractor, and merchant
would be next to impossible, for there
would be few if any widows in this coun-
try, genuine, legal, or grass.
An Embarassing Object Lesson.
From the Columbia Independent.
Why did the Republicans take the duty
off coal if, as they tell us, the foreigner
pays the tariff tax ? And why, if the peo-
ple pay the tariff tax, do the Republicans
wish the duty to go back a year from now
unless to protect the monster coal trust?
Those are the two horns of the coal tariff
dilemma. Take your choice, Republicans.
The Democrats are well pleased at the ob-
ject lesson you have been compelled to give
the people.
Not Such a High Mark to Set
Woman Either.
From the Easton Democrat.
It is reported from St. Petersburg that
there is a strong agitation there in favor of
admitting women to the Bourse, and ib is
believed that this innovation will be effect-
ed within a short time. Why shouldn’t if
be? Haven't women proved themselves
for
as shrewd, as reliable and as honorable as
many men of the business world ?
1
| Spawlis from the Keystone,
| —Mrs. Jane Larrabee, of Cross Forks, who
| has a husband and several children, becom-
| ing despondent, took her life carly Saturday
| morning by hanging herself in the kitchen
| of her home.
{ —Cramp, Mitchell & Serrill, bankers, of
Philadelphia, have purchased the controlling
interest in the gas and electric properties of
Easton, Pa., and Philipsburg. N. J., and will
consolidate them.
—Wm. Harris, a tanner in Perry county,
missed an occasional hide from his tannery
and thinking they were being stolen by dogs
sprinkled some of the hides with poison. The
next morning he found a dead bear in his
yard.
—’'Squire Joseph L.. Holter, of Howard,
has in his possession the oldest piece of
money in this community. It is an $800
Continental bill, dated April 10, 1774, and
signed by Maddis Helpham, and is well pre-
served.
—The house of Patrick McTygue and most
of the contents above South Philipsburg,
was totally destroyed by fire on Saturday
night at about 10 o’clock. It is said that
there was no one in the house when it
caught fire. The cause of the fire we have
not learned.
—Edward Cookey, a log driver employed
on Smith’s drive, while engaged with other
men in breaking a jam of logs on the head-
waters of Kettle creek, Sunday evening, was
knocked into the stream by the moving logs -
and disappeared among the avalanche of:
twisting, moving timber. His body was
badly crushed. :
—Sixteen men employed by the American
Bridge company, on the extension to the
Juniata shops, quit work and left for Pitts-
burg Tuesday. They are all members of the
Pittsburg local, No. 3, International Associa-
tion of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers,
and were ordered to quit work on account of’
trouble in Pittsburg.
~—Arthur Roush, of Sunbury, formerly of
Selinsgrove, a brakeman on ‘the Lewistown
division, met with an accident Thursday in
which he had both legs cut off above the
knee. He was assisting in putting away his
train at Lewistown when the accident hap-
pened. He was taken to the Lewistown
hospital, where both legs were amputated.
—A law firm in Tennessee wants to know
the whereabouts of the heirs of Jeremiah
Church, Jeremiah Church was the founder
of Lock Haven. His death occurred at Car-
lisle, Towa, on November 1, 1874. The land
that he owned in Tennessee and which was
considered worthless at one time has become
very valuable and for this reason his heirs
are being looked for.
—NMillard F. Blake, of Martinsburg, enter-
ed suit in the Blair county court at Holli-
daysburg Monday against the Pennsylvania
railroad company to recover $282,875, alleged
to be due him as royalties. Mr. Blake
claims to be the patentee of the process of
dumping freight cars through openingsin the
bottom of the cars, and he alleges that the
company has used his device during the
| past four years without making proper com-
pensation to him.
—While traveling along the public road in
a wagen near his home at Bitumen, John
Scisco, who is supposed to have been ill or
intoxicated. fell from the wagon Sunday
night and was instantly killed, his neck be-
ing broken. He landed on some rocks near
the edge of a small stream, a portion of his
body being submerged in the water. His
wife was notified of the accident and Mon-
day morning she went to the scene and pulled
the body out of the water. Later Justice
of the Peace Kepler, of Williamsport, who
had been notified, arrived and held an in-
quest.
—The people of Johnstown are striving,
through legislature enactment, to have a new
county formed of small portions of Cambria,
Indiana, Somerset and Westmoreland, to be
called Conemaugh, of which Johnstown
would be the county seat. At present this
big centre of population and business is thirty
five miles from the county seat of Cambria
county. Senator A. E. Patton has introduc-
ed a bill in the state legislature providing for
a new county to be formed out of upper Cam-
bria, northeastern Jefferson and southwest-
ern Clearfield and Curwensville as the coun-
ty seat.
—Oak Grove is ‘pushing on’’ at a great rate
of speed. The New York Central Railroad
company have now completed a power house,
oil house, blacksmith shop, erecting shop,
store room, office building, transfer table,
yard masters’ office, lumber sheds, coal tipple
with pockets on both sides, scale house, elec-
tric light plant, boiler room and engine room
and tool room. The transfer table is operat-
ed by electricity. There are thirty two
tracks completed in the yards and there are
about 5,000 cars stored there at all times,
ready to be made up into trains and sent on.
There are two underground crossings. By
the middle of summer it is estimated
there will be from 1,000 to 1,200 men at work
in the shops and yards.
—A few evenings ago Oliver Bittner, of
Beech Creek township, Clinton county, was
attracted to his chicken coop by the barking
of his dog and upon procuring his revolver
and wending his way toward the coop he ob-
served two fairly well dressed men enter. The
cackling of the hens suggested to him that
they were there for the purpose of theft and
upon approaching nearer the thieves broke
and ran, Mr. Bittner firing five shots at them,
but on account of the darkness none took ef-
fect. Mr. Bittner says he has missed things
heretofore, which he thinks were stolen and
hereafter he purposes to protect his property
even to the extent of putting the would be
thieves out of the game.
—Steward H. Thompson, treasurer of the
J. C. Blair company at Huntingdon, who
died in that place a short time ago, in his
will named as executor of his affairs the pres-
ident of the company, E. McC. Africa. He
left $6000 to the First Methodist church of
Huntingdon, $1000 of which are to be ap-
plied to the liquidation of the debt resting for
years on the congregation, and the other
$2000 to be placed in the steward’s fund,
To his step-son, William Moore, living in
Boston, he bequeathed $1000, and to his
step-daughter, Mrs, Jarvis, residing in the
same city, he left $1000. All the remainder
of his property which is considerable he left
without limitation to his wife.