The Ohio house of representatives has appointed a committee of five members to investigate the charges made against four members of the present house, that they accepted bribes to vote for Henry B. Payne for United States senator while members of the last general assembly. Senator Payne represents the Standard Oil Co., and incidentally the democracy.
[Subsequent investigations made it clear that Washington Freemen, our editor in 1886, was justified in his suspicions. Nevertheless, Payne’s colleagues in the Senate—perhaps not feeling qualified to cast the first stone—declined to expel him. – The Ed.]
A man named Lapour killed the sheriff of Colfax county, Neb., Jan. 12th, and was hung by a mob.
An oysterman named Thomas Jefferson was frozen to death while attempting to cross the bay at Galveston, Texas, during the great cold snap.
“The Seven Stars of the Mysterious Ten and the Daughters of the Sepulchre” is the dazzling title of an assessment life insurance association of Texas.
Mary Welch, seventy years old, residing in Lewiston, Me., was burned to death Jan. 12th, through her clothes taking fire from a lamp which she dropped.
A Boston company is at work upon the extensive Indian shell-heaps of Damariscotta, Me. The shells are barrelled and sent to Boston, where they are ground up and placed in the market as poultry food. How little the noble red man thought, when he was devouring the succulent clam centuries ago, that he was storing up material with which to feed the hen of the paleface.
Near Dawes City, Neb., a stage coach was robbed of $15,000, intended for the payment of United States troops at Fort Robinson.
In an accident on the Baltimore & Ohio railroad at Colburg, Ind., two firemen and an engineer were killed, and another engineer horribly crushed.
A vessel’s after house, and two skeletons tied to each other by rope, were thrown ashore on the north side of Martha’s Vineyard by the recent storm. They are supposed to be relics of the City of Columbus wreck of two years ago, a lot of shoes, similar to those taken from the wreck at the time, having also been thrown up by the sea.
The Chicago socialists, who are nearly all Germans, propose to inaugurate the “social revolution” about May 1st, by breaking up the militia and destroying the public buildings with dynamite bombs.
Free soup is to be given out by the Boston police, beginning to-day, Jan. 18th.
Mayor Harrison, of Chicago, says he fears no serious outbreak of Socialists.
“Poker” Taylor, of Henrietta, Texas, was beating his wife brutally when the son, thirteen years old, stopped the old man’s fun by sending a bullet through his breast.
Editor Stead, of the Pall Mall (London) Gazette, has been released from prison.
Professor O.S. Fowler, of Buffalo, N.Y., the aged philanthropist, has been arrested and accused of illegally practising medicine.
A drunken vagabond was roaming about in the vicinity of Gardiner street, Friday, entering houses and frightening women where there were no men at home. A vigorous application of sole leather would be a good prescription in his case.
Eddie York, an eight-years-old boy, was before the court on a charge of being a disobedient and stubborn child, the complaint having been sworn out by his mother. The judge withheld sentence, on condition that if the boy did not hereafter obey his mother he would be sent to the reform school without trial.
Mr. Soule was found on the floor of his residence on Saturday morning, having died some hours before, it is supposed from an overdose of opium. His mother and family were absent from home.
Mr. Editor: A writer in the Penny Post has ridiculed the officers attached to the navy yard tug Leyden, because that vessel has been in dry dock for three months or so, and did not go to sea for the rescue of imperiled mariners when the great blow occurred. The fact is that the Leyden would only have proved a coffin for her officers and ship’s company, had she put to sea in that storm; she is a “brute to handle,” even under favorable circumstances, and workmen who have been employed on her declare that they could punch a hole through her anywhere. She could have done no good at sea, and was safe from doing any harm while in the dry dock; that is the best place for her. – Calking Iron
The salvation army made a raid from this city to Eliot, Friday evening, and had a meeting, or a war, or a drill, or whatever they term it, in the Advent chapel at Eliot neck. The result was apparently satisfactory, as the army went over again on Monday evening.
At Dover, on the night of the 12th inst., Willie, the five-year-old son of Frank Follett, was picked up on the street and taken to the police station, where he said he had been kicked our of doors to fend for himself that forenoon by his stepmother. The boy was hungry and chilled, and said he had been shockingly treated.
The New Hampshire Gazette, January 21, 1886
The remains of the distinguished French officer, Major L’Enfant, who, at the request of Washington, planned the city which was to bear his own name, lie buried in a garden on the Riggs estate in Maryland, unmarked by any monument.
[Pierre Charles L’Enfant … died penniless and was interred on the Digges Farm, also known as Green Hill in Prince George’s County, Maryland. On April 22, 1909, his remains were disinterred from the Digges Farm and on April 28, 1909, a military escort conveyed the remains to the U.S. Capitol where they lay in state from nine until noon. They were then taken by military escort to Arlington National Cemetery. There they were re-interred on the slope in front of the Custis-Lee Mansion. – FindAGrave.]
The inhabitants of Montana are hoping to squeeze into the Union as a state.
The salvation army has given up the fight in Westfield, Mass., after a two-months’ struggle.
At Athca, Ind., Henry Loddi and John Reinhart quarrelled over a board bill, and Loddi was shot dead.
The Belfast (Me.) Journal publishes a list of the ship captains hailing from Searsport, and claims that Searsport captains command one-tenth of all American ships.
Nearly 3,000 coke ovens are idle in the coke district of Pennsylvania, about one-third of the entire number. Thousands of men, including a large number of ignorant and fiery Huns, are out of work, and serious trouble is feared. Gov. Pattison was called on for military aid on the 19th inst.
A Birmingham, Conn., youth, named George Micado, was seriously injured, and probably blinded, by the explosion of a loaded cigar. It is supposed that a witty friend put gun-cotton in it for a joke.
At Cartersville, Ga., on the night of Jan. 23rd, the house of Aaron Collins, United States commissioner, was blown up with dynamite by Tobe Jackson’s gang of moonshiners, who not long ago blew up revivalist Sam Jones’ house because he preached against whiskey making and selling, and are believed to have murdered many revenue officers. The house was destroyed, and Mr. Collins and his wife badly hurt.
The nihilists are again active in Russia.
Charles A. Clowes, secretary of the Riverton alcohol works of Chicago, Ill., a wealthy and handsome young married man, murdered his mistress, “Blanche Grey,” and shot himself, both dying almost instantly. The woman was an inmate of a notorious den on South Clark street.
Mr. Barney Conroy has been appointed transfer mail agent at the union depot in Indianapolis, Ind. It is said there are some blemishes on Mr. Conroy’s record. In 1872 he was sent to the penitentiary for two years, for grand larceny. In 1877 he pleaded guilty of larceny and robbery, and got two years more. In 1879 he was convicted of riot, and indicted for petit larceny and robbery; and in 1883 he was convicted of assault and battery. He has been arrested numerous times for minor offences. But he has always been an ardent worker for democracy and reform.
There seems to be considerable said in one of our local papers about the grocery peddler of Kittery. They evidently “have him on the list” and think “he never would be missed.”
Mrs. Samuel Bell, wife of a wealthy Toronto citizen, eloped with a young clerk named Doyle. She was careful to take a large sum of money, and equally as careful to leave her four children to her husband.
Mattawamkeag, in Penobscot county, Me., has paid $50 in bear bounties to one man the past year, he having killed ten bears.
George I. Langbeen committed suicide in New York on the 24th inst., in a fit of jealousy. He shot himself in the presence of the young widow who had caused all the trouble.
The New Hampshire Gazette, January 28, 1886
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Our thanks to the Portsmouth Athenaeum, holder of the newspapers from which the items above were excerpted. – The Ed.