DOMESTIC by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 24, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 51.

DOMESTIC.

By Editor

—On the night of the 18th inst., an armed mob broke into the county jail at Russellville, Ky., and killed three prisoners charged with murder.

—The Los Angeles Rolling Mills, employing 150 hands, have been compelled to close operations. Internal dissensions and exorbitant freight rates are given as leading causes.

—The first general clothing manufactory to be established in the northwest is announced to open in January at Tacoma, Wash. It is to employ 150 hands, and turn out 150 suits per day.

—An El Paso, Texas, despatch says that many Chinese have lately been crossing into Texas and Arizona from Mexico. The county jail at El Paso is said to be full of Chinamen who have been caught violating the exclusion law.

—A newspaper item says that “prominent women of Spokane, Wash., have organized a gold mining corporation, with a capital stock of $2,000,000. In delving into the earth only women are to be employed. The novel experiment will be watched with care.

—Now it is strawboard that is to be cornered. An Indianapolis despatch says that representatives of eight prominent manufactories met in that city on the 17th inst., and took preliminary steps to control the output and prices of strawboard throughout the country.

—The will of the late Mrs. Donahue, of San Francisco, bequeaths $100,000 for building and equipment of a library for the Jesuit College of St. Ignatius, in that city. Another $100,000 goes to Archbishop Riordan, to be distributed among charitable institutions as he may select.

—The New York World of the 17th inst. says that 600 men will be discharged from the Brooklyn Navy Yard within a few days. This is because the next appropriation will not be available until June, 1897, and the recent appropriation of $2,000,000 has dwindled down to $100,000.

—Rev. Dr. Wendte (Unitarian), of this city, subscribes for the Catholic News, of New York, as a donation to the Free Reading Room. This he does because the Library Committee have ruled out the San Francisco Monitor, as they say, “not for its Catholicism, but for its ‘cussedness.’”

—Fire in St. Paul, Minn., on the 19th inst., destroyed property to the extent of over $400,000. On the same day, at Elizabeth, N. J., fire destroyed property valued at $200,000; and at Sheffield, Ashtabula County, Ohio, the house of a Mr. Aelo was burned, consuming also himself, wife, and a grandchild.

—J. J. Thornton, assistant editor of the Ashland, Ala., Advance, was assassinated on the night of the 17th inst. He was shot through the window of his house while playing a mandolin. The deed is supposed to have been committed by a representative of certain “lawless gangs” who have been denounced in the paper.

—The U. S. Senate has passed a resolution recognizing the Cuban Republic, but Secretary of State Olney has given warning that such a resolution will not be signed by the President, and will be worthless without his signature. He claims that such a recognition certainly means war with Spain, and states further that “the power to recognize the so-called republic of Cuba as an independent state rests exclusively with the executive.” But many members of Congress dissent from this opinion of the secretary, and some of them declare that “a cabinet officer uttering such a sentiment should be subjected to the severest censure.”

—Two brothers named Boydston, of Chicago, claim to have discovered a process of petrifying human bodies. They have two bodies in their possession, one a young woman who died last July, and an old woman aged 66. The bodies retain the same complexion that came with death, and it is claimed the transformation is in every way permanent.

—A New York despatch of the 16th inst. reports that city as the center of a severe snowstorm, accompanied by winds of great velocity. “The storm started in the lower Mississippi Valley, swept toward the Atlantic Coast, over Florida, and up the coast, increasing in severity until it reached its maximum.” Four persons were frozen to death in New York.

—Miss Frances E. Willard, of W. C. T. U. fame, makes a personal appeal in behalf of the National Armenian Relief Committee's fund for assisting the thousands of suffering widows and orphans in that unfortunate country during the vigors of the winter season. The object is no doubt a worthy one. Funds may be sent to Brown Bros. & Co., 59 Wall Street, New York City.

—Rev. C. C. Mc Lean, the Los Angeles Parkhurst, is not doing much credit to the ministerial profession by his visits to the houses of dissolute women in quest of evidence to condemn them. An earnest effort to redeem them would be more in harmony with the example of the Master. In the Police Court, where the clergyman and his confrères were trying to convict several of these women of selling liquors without license, he admitted that he drank enough in each place to know what kind of stuff they sold. It was also elicited that he and his party returned a second time to one specially wicked institution, and that they drank six bottles of beer.

—Tacoma, Wash., has a regiment of 1,200 men organized and ready to go to the relief of the Cuban insurgents as soon as the United States shall have recognized Cuba independent. The prevailing unprecedented floods of western Washington have washed out the biggest and oldest log jam on the Pacific Coast, being the one on North River, which drains the north side of Pacific and the south of Chehalis counties. This jam had been in the river so long that trees several feet in diameter had grown upon it. It defied dynamite, giant powder and other agents of human ingenuity. Government engineers have been working out a channel along one side of it with snagpullers for a long time without apparent success. But the channel weakened its grip, and the high flood and high tide combined, broke it. The great mass of logs and stumps composing the jam have gone out to sea and will render navigation dangerous about Shoalwater Bay. This jam had been growing in the river for years beyond the memory of the oldest inhabitant.