Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1897-01-08
IN GENERAL.

I tree one day last week and fatally injured.
A statue of the Count Ferdinand de
Lesseps is about to be erected at Port Said,
at point overlooking the harbor and the
entrance to the Suez canal.
The Norton Gold Mining company is be-
ing formed as a stock company under the
laws of the state of Vermont, with a cap
ital stock of 100000, for the purpose of
mining for gold in Stockbridge near the
common.
Charles +. Osmer, nne-year-old son of
Mr. and Mrs. George d. Osmer, was drown
ed in the mill pond at Taftsville Saturday
night. He had been skating and after
dark fell through an opening where the ice
had been cut. The body was found the
following day.
A mortgage was filed in New York We'd
nesday for the snug sum of $50, 10000 1t
was given to the Farmers Loan and Trust
company by the Commercial Cable com
pany, pledging all its telegraph properties,
rights, privileges and franchises, including
those of the Postal Telegraph company, to
secure an issue of gold bonds and debenture
stocks.
Alexander Waitzfelder, well known on
the New York race tracks as bookmak-
er's cashier, has died from blood poisoning,
caused by carrying paper money in his
mouth. He was a noted handler of money,
and was in the habit of keeping wad Of
bank notes in his mouth while his hands
were occupied in making change or entries
One day he bit his lip, and it is believed
that poison from the bills entered his sys-
TEN and ultimately killed him.
All the Paris papers are commenting on
the success of the bicycle exhibition now
being held in the Paais de rIndustrie. A
few Sundays ago Al, 900 persons visited the
exhibition. Among the novel and inter
esting machines exhibited is an ice sextu-
| plet built to 60 on ice or crusted snow at
the rate Of one mile a minute. The wheels,
which are spiked, revolve through the cen
tire of a pair of thin sleds, the spikes just
| passing beneath the surface. = II
A colored citizen of Lee, Mass, was
convicted Monday of chicken stealing. He
! had given the pastor of his church and
! prominent brethren n royal New Year S
feast, with plenty Of chicken fixin's,' and
everything would have been merry as a
marriage-be had he not accidentally
dropped his house-key in the hen-roost
whence he derived the staple Of the enter
tainment. This incident has a regular old
plantation flavor.
Isaac II. Douglass of Voluntown, Conn,
while suffering from religious mania, at
tempted last Wednesday 10 kill his son,
who is about 80 years old and somewhat
weakminded, by striking him with an axe,
making four wounds on his head. lie
then built a fierce fire and was preparing
to burn his own body and that of his son,
when the neighbors discovered smoke issu.
ing from the windows and broke in in time
to rescue both. The sons skull is frac
tured. Douglass will be committed to the
insane asylum.
The failure of Lincoln b. Wells of Deer
| field has been announced. MI. Wells
bought real estate when prices were much
higher than at present. few years age
his farmhouse and buildings were burned
and 1t was necessary for him TO borrow
the money to rebuild. He was larg,
loser by the failure of the Oak Grove faru
company some years ago. His liabilities are
estimated at about S2j 900, and it is thought
that $50, 600 OF his Indebtedness is secured
His unsecured creditors are likely to re
ceive but little.
There is one state in the Union which
permits the death penalty to be inflicted by
shooting. That state is Utah, the newest
of all. A murderer named Patrick Cough
lin was lawfully shot TO death in Rlct
county fortnight ago, by firing squad
composed of six deputy sheriffs. The law
which is derived from the previous terri
torial legislation on the subject, allows tn,
convict to choose whether he will be-
hanged or shot. The validity of the stat
ute was questioned some years ago in tn,
supreme court of the United States, but i
was upheld,
Thirty thousand elk are wintering in tn,
Jackson's Hole country of Wyoming, &C
coIding to the estimate of the game warden
who says that in one herd which he saw
the other morning there were 1900 o
them, stretching over distance of sil
miles. The sight, he said, surpassed any
thing he had ever seen and utterly amaze,
him. The elks' trail over the snow wa
like flint ice, he said, so hard had the snow
been packed down. The animals are seeI
by thousands any morning, moving alon
the Snake river from the Great Swamp t,
the eros Nentre hills, and at night tn
walls of the calves straying from thei
mothers may be heard.
The London and China Telegraph say
that in Otago, New Zealand, where Scotch
men are in the majority, a contract 70
mending a road was to be let, and the mos
acceptable bid was signed Mcpherson.
Notice was sent to the said Mcpherson L
complete the contract and 10. he appearer
in all the glory of yellow hue and pigtail
But" gasped the president of the board
''your name can't DE McPherson?" "Al
lightee," cheerfully answered John China
man, "nobody catchee contact in Otag
unless he named Mac" The contract wa
signed and the Monaghan Mcpherson di
his work as well as if he had hailed iron
Glasgow.