Litchfield enquirer., 1878-06-13

| DEA1h UT 4fAhs -AiA4' ODOO 4iA' Humphrey, whe died last week, has always lived here.
 COLLINS EsTATE.-The commissioners on the estate of Miss Laura Collins, Judge Catlin of Harwinton, and MT. Huntington of Woodbury, having some very important questions to de- eide about the Christopher F. Wheeler estate, met last week at tLe Court Room in Litcf. field.
 CoURT.-Thsre was dispute between Ju- lius J. Merwin and B. Franklin Lamphier about a small tax, and Mir. Merwin was brought before Justice Wadhams, charged with striking MT. Lamphier, and the decision was that he should pay fine of $2 % and costs. It is understood that the trial en civ il suit brought by Mir. Lamphier will come on to-day; involving the same facts.
 | MIDDLErowN CoNvENTroN.-The delegates to the great Sabbath School Convention were Alison Sanford and Henry Norton; and as Go shen news is very scarce this week. perhaps yeu may think best to publish short account of what we saw and heard:
 Waiting an hour for the train in New Brit ain, went into the State Normal School, and delegation of teachers from the Massachu- setts Normal School at Westfield, ,seuen in num- Der, entered at the same time. I think there were more than 100 pupils, and after the di- | rections were given to the classes, all left the | room for the recitation rooms, and I was in vited with two Massachusetts teachers, to the room where the Principal, Prof. Carleton, gave instruction to the class which will graduate in few days. The subject was, methods of in- struction; and the class, consisting of one gen. tleman and 15 ladies, showed that so far as theory is concerned, they are well prepared to instruct in our schools. If Twas searching for good teacher, should not hesitate, but should endeavor to obtain the services of one of these seniors.
 The Railroad from New Britain to Middle town passes through fine farming country, and found Middletown to be beautiful city, We had very good convention, and did not allow my attention to other things to keep me away from any of the seven meetings But your readers know all about such gatherings and will write only of what saw outside The convention were invited to visit the Uni versity at o'clock, Wednesday, and when we saw the hundreds of strangers viewing the cu- riosities in Judds Hall, and passing from one beautiful buildingto others, we were reminded of Philadelphia. A company of us went over the river to see the wonderful quarries at Port land. There are three of these, all near the l river, and each one contains several acres. There are now only 700 men at work. but in better times they have HOO. They bore great holes in the red sand stone rock IS feet deep, and the powder starts an immense mass of the rock, which is worked up by cutting long trenches with sharp picks, and driving in steel wedges a foot long. One hundred and thir- teen of these wedges driven into one of these trenches had cracked the rock to great depth. l The pits are now 120 feet deep, and they have bored 75 feet deeper. where the good sand stone ends. We saw what appeared to be the body of a tree IS inches in diameter turned to stone. We also saw the tracks of the lizards made in the stone when it was soft, and the toes are usually about 9 inches long, but on one slab arc great tracks made by an animal in the remote ages of antiquity, walking straight forward, and the animal stepped 8 inches at a time. | visited the Conn. Industrial School for girls. The beautiful buildings are about mile southwest of the Colleges, and are in the midst of fine farming country, the lot con- taiuing 4S acres. There are 117 girls in the school now averaging about 12 years of age.
 They work at making paper boxes and doing what is necessary to be done in the establish ment, forenoons, and study afternoons. Most of them appear to be very bright, and am satisfied that the influence exerted on them is decidedly good, and that a large majority of them will make useful citizens The teachers were very polite, and the Superintendent, MT. Charles H. Bond, showed me all there was to be seen The elder girls do not associate with the young ones, and each one has a nice room; neither is it necessary to lock them in, as they
 do not run away. do not believe that our
 people realize how much good is done in this
 institution.
 TEMPERANCE. = Mir. Graves came and the
 meetings began, last evening, and the people crowded up to sign the pledge, until the print
 ed pledges were exhausted. H. N.