Birmingham state herald., 1895-10-16
MOBILE.

Special Correspondence to State Herald.
 Mobile, Oct. 14-The following dispatch
 appeared in the Louisville Courier-Jour-
 nal of Sunday, October D. exciting good
 deal of interest and comment in Mobile;
 Montgomery, Ala, Oct. 5.-(Special)-
 Something of a sensation has been cre-
 ated in the state over the contest of the
 will of the late John Lawrence Lavaretta,
 a former prominent and wealthy citizen
 of Mobile. Lavaretta died several months
 ago and left the largest part of his estate.
 aggregating several hundred thousand
 dollars, to his son. Constantine Lawrence
 Lavaretta, the present mayor of Mobile.
 Now come Philomena and Delena Law
 aretta, daughters of John Lavaretta, and
 full sisters of Lawrence Lavaretta, and
 file a contest. They charge their brother
 with all sorts of ugly things in connection
 with influencing their aged fathers feeble
 mind against them. Among other things,
 they charge their brother with having
 cruelty beaten and assaulted them to
 make them leave their fathers home.
 and when they had done so, their brother,
 they aver, represented to their father
 that they had forsaken and thrown him off. The case is pending"
 The charges contained in this dispatch do not appear anywhere In the contest made against Mayor Lavaretta in the bill in the probate court or in the bll filed in the chancery court They are the ex parte and manufactured charges or the telegraphic correspondent of the Courier-Journal. It is said that the mayor will institute a suit for libel against the Courier-J Journal The charges that the
 mayor ever treated his sisters with cru city, either by actual blows or by lntiml- dation, are denied by him and his friends as gross islanders.
 Our Mobile people are very much inter- ested in the matter of the divorce or Mrs; Amelia Rives Chanler. She was raised in this city, while her father was super1n- tendent of the Mobile and Ohio railroad, and has a host of friends here who have watched her career with interest The Mobile society people are also much interested in the engagement of Miss Vanderbilt to the Duke of Marl- borough. The mother of the future duchess is a Mobile girl, daughter of Mr. Murray Smith, one of our ante I bellum cotton kings. They occupied the handsome residence at the corner of Government and Conception streets, now owned by Mrs. Joel w. Jones.
 It is interesting to know that the foun- | der of the Vanderbilt family, in his. old | age. married Mobile lady, Who was | Miss Crawford.
 It is also interesting to know that none of the ladies who have stepped into mar | ble halls have looked with much memory | or consideration upon the quiet city by | the sea.
 The trade of Mobile is constantly grow | ing The Register of today gives an ac- count of large shipments from the west | by way of this port to Liverpool. The steamship VeraX, of the Mobile and | Liverpool Transatlantic line, steamed | into port Wednesday morning and went l up the river to her berth at the upper | Mobile and Ohio wharf. The Verax will l take an assorted cargo no small part of which will be a direct shipment of 5000 sacks of flour direct from St. Louis to | Liverpool.
 These sacks contain 1i0 pounds each, l and the shipment will be equal to about l 210 tons In addition to the flour there | are about 800 tons of white oak cross | ties and fence posts from Indiana that l will also be shipped. Of course she will | take "a good lot of cotton, but this other | stuff will be in addition to the cotton cargo. This diversity of exports by this | line is a good sign, and is evidence that | the line will not have to depend upon any | one class of freight for success. In con- versation with Capt Murray Wheeler, | one of the firm of Ross, Howe & Wheeler, | the agents of this line he said that this | shipment was, he hoped, but the fore western points through Mobile to Liver proposed to see that the shipment had | such dispatch that the shippers would | be encouraged to send their flour this | way altogether in the future. This ship l ment is also of practical value to Mobile l in that it will establish the fact that flour | can be shipped through this port from | the west to Liverpool direct
 GULF.