Newport weekly independent., 1901-08-30

reported from Havana. The vic- tim was Miss Clara Maas, of New Jersey. Of the six persons bitten by mosquitoes recently in the course of the yellow fever commissions ex- periments, three have died, and the doctors say the other three are suffer- ing from light attacks of the disease. Miss Maas was a nurse at Las Ani- mas and wished to become immune.
 A special from New York says: ''The retirement of Charles M. Hayes from the presidency of the Southern Pacific railway will be fol- lowed by numerous other official changes in that road. Some of the high-salaried agents are to be dis pensed with, it is said, and Southern and Union Pacific officers are to be consolidated wherever practicable. A yearly saving of several hundreds of thousands of dollars, it is esti- mated, can be made by such consoli- dation."
 The first train over the Memphis Frisco connecting track from Miami 10 Alton was run August 19. The track is almost completely ballasted now and will be ready for through trains from Kansas City to Texas and Oklahoma in a few days. Miami was the terminus in the h. dian territory of the Kansas City, Fort Scott and Memphis The con- nection at Alton with the St. Louis and San Francisco road is the resnlt of the consolidation of the two properties.
 While at target practice on Fort Riley reservation, half a mile north of Junction City, Kan, a seven-inch 107-pound shell exploded as it was being placed in the breech of the third section gun of siege battery c, Seventh artillery, commanded by Captain Vandusen. Henry c. Wat son was killed and seven other men were wounded, four of them se- riously.
 A mob of armed white citizens numbering 5000 succeeded in driv- ing all the colored people out of Pierce City, Mo-, with the exception s few known to be respectable. One negro named Will Cooley was lynched for murdering Miss Gazelle Wild, and another negro was burnt in his own cabin. All the colored people of the place, with the excep- tion of those noted above, fled for safety The citizens of Pierce City say the colored element of that place have committed many crimes and their conduct otherwise has brought reproach on the city for ten years or more.
 Five fremen and two other men were killed by an explosion of big benzine tank at the Atlantic Re fnig Company's oil works at Point Breeze in the southeastern part of Philadelphia, on the 20th. When the explosion occurred the fremen and employees of the Atlantic Refn- ing Company, in all about fifty men, were at work in the pumping house drawing off oil from the burning tanks. The flames shot high in the air and the pumping was almost completely demolished. Eathworks were thrown up to keep the Schuylkill river from becoming flooded with blazing oil.
 The census bureau reports a de- crease in the death rate in the regis tration area of Is per 1000 popu- lation. The average age at death in 1890 was 31.1 in 1900 it was 35.2; in 1890 the death rate in 281 regis tration cities of 5000 or more peo- pie was 21 per 1000. In 1900 the rate was 18.6 per 1000; in 341 cities of 5000 population and up ward, a reduction of 24 per 1000; St. Joseph, Mo-, with a death rate of 9.1 per 1000, shows the lowest mor- tality, and Shreveport, La, with 45.5, the highest. In the rcgistra- tion department the fifteen princi-