The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1891-12-09
TO- and every man on board except Captain

| Lee was UrOWneu.
Four men were blown to pieces by the
explosion OF a dynamite factory at Haver-
straw, N. Y, and man some distance
from the factory was also killed.
TWELVE barges loaded with brick cap
| sized opposite Croton Point on the Hudson
river, last Friday. There were sixty men on
the barges, and only about thirty reached
shore.
A FREIGHT car famine is seriously incon-
veniencing Western shippers OF grain, and
before the close of the month tremendous
| blockade will extend from the Missouri
river to the seaboard
| MAJOR THOMAS HARVARD died at Brook
Ign, N. Y, last week. aged 1902 years. He
| was the oldest American ship-builder sur
viving from the golden age of naval archi-
| lecture in the days before the civil war.
AT 8 o'clock last week Tuesday morning
| the level of the lake at Chicago dropped
suddenly two feet four inches below the
| lowest point ever before recorded, and re-
ports indicate that the entire chain Of lakes
is similarly affected.
| A FEARFUL tragedy occurred Tuesday of
last week in Hotel Warwick, Springfield,
Mass. George K. Barr, the proprietor,
quarreled with his pretty wife. He insisted
on playing cards at night with boon com
panions; she flirted, and aroused his jeal-
ousy. A quarrel, a scream and an oath,
and five pistol shots Their bodies were
found side by side the next morning.
ONE of the worst storms for years pre-
vailed over the north last Friday, and was
most severe on the great lakes. In Pennsyl-
vania immense damage was done by cy-
| clonic wind and rain storm in the Cumber-
land valley. New York city was swept by
a storm, and electric light poles on Fifth
avenue for about a mile crashed into the
street, blocking traffic and injuring many
people. Not much damage was done in
Boston, but two vessels went ashore on
Pasque Island, near New Bedford. Devas-
tation was wrought along the Hudson
river.
A CURIOUS incident in railroading hap
pened last week in Pittsburg, and so con-
trary is it to the story usually served up for
the public in these days of casualties that
the telling of it is quite worth while. A
careless train dispatcher gave orders for a
freight and a passenger train moving in op-
posite directions to go to a certain station.
Then he was horror-struck by the thous hit
| that they couldn't reach there without
frightful collision. But there was no col
| lision, for this reason: The engineer of the
freight had premonition, an instinct, that
something was wrong; 80 he deliberately
disobeyed the orders and ran his train on to
a side track just in time to let the passenger
express thunder by.
THE long-missing head of Hiram Sawtelle
has been found Last week Isaac Sawtelle
| made a full confession, in which he said
that the day he met Hiram at Rochester, he
drove towards the hut near which his
| brothers. body was found. As he drove
down the lane leading to the hut, Hiram
became frightened. Isaac had previously
told Hiram that if he did not sign over GER
tain property to him he would kill him. AS
Hiram jumped from the carriage, Isaac shot
him. With the map that Isaac had drawn,
a searching party last Saturday found the
head, wrapped in the murdered mans I'M
derclothng, and buried under a pile of
brush. The hearing on the petition for a
new trial began at Concord, N H., last
Monday. Isaac took the stand and detailed
how he murdered his brother. He said that
when he and his brother reached the shanty,
he gave Hiram the alternative of signing
some papers or of being shot. Hiram started
to run, and was shot down. Isaac thought
then of committing suicide, but concluded
he had "a poor old mother to live for" so
he lived.
Foreign.
ESCAPING gas blew up building at Black
burn, Eng, killed one woman and badly
hurt half dozen men,
THIRTY million people slowly starving;
| fifteen thousand dying in one night; the
bark of trees replacing bread That is a
partial picture of the famine in Russia.
The French minister at Shanghai has
made, it is said, an imperative demand on
the Chinese government for the punishment
OF the rebels who massacred the Belgian
priests and nuns.
The famine in Mexico is far worse than
has been represented. 1t is said that not
fewer than 5000 lives have been lost from
starvation and disease caused by insufficient
food, and the plague is spreading
BANDITS tortured priest at Villa Gorda,
| Spain, thrusting his feet in blazing fire be-
cause he would not reveal the hiding-place
of his wealth Rather than lose his feet he
told where all the money he had, about $50,
was concealed.
EARL and Countess Russell have been
exhibiting themselves in the London di-
vorce courts, and the testimony is reported
to have been so shocking that the ladies
were unable to attend the trial The court
refused to grant the countess bill.
AN engineer on a railroad in Switzerland
accomplished terrible revenge for being
dismissed from the service. Last week he
jumped into the cab of locomotive, threw
| open the throttle, and jumped off, The en-
CINE dashed down the track and into
loaded passenger train Half dozen people
were fatally hurt.
LATEST details of the Japan earthquake
tell startling story. On October 2S, japan
was shaken as never before for thirty nine
years Mountains were split in twain,
rivers damned up whole towns Frustrated
and 900 people killed The scene of dead
and mangled bodies presented sight worse
than any battlefield. About $500 we're
wounded, $4,000 houses totally destroyed,
| ana over S,OOO Dauly udmaReu Inc pOrce-
lain shops suffered especially. The center
of the disturbance was doubtless near the
celebrated mountain of Hakuzan, which
stands on the borders of four provinces
Hundreds of victims who were in their
houses at the time of the shock lie buried
no one knows how deep.
THE revolt in China is progressing
Thousands of imperial troops are guarding
the places along the great wall where it is
expected the rebels will attempt to force a
passage. 1t is believed that the outrages
that recently occurred far to the south of
Mongolia are part of a conspiracy to over
throw the present ruling dynasty of China,
and it is the opinion among those best able
to know that unless the government imme-
diately checks the rebellion, local or other
wise, the country will be plunged into a
civil war, the results of which it would be
hard to prophesy. The insurgents are re-
ported to have been defeated by imperial
troops in the Kinohow district Orders
have been given by the government for
the immediate execution of all prisoners,
except the leaders, who are to be reserved