Newport weekly independent., 1903-10-02

Christian Peper, the we'll known St. Louis tobacco dealer and manu- facturer, is dead.
 President Roosevelt and family have returned from their summer home to the white house.
 It is reported that France is se- cretly organizing an expedition for the conquest of Morocco.
 The Philippine government has decided that United States supplies received in the Philippines shall be subject to regular duties.
 At Gallatin, Tenn, runaway horse attached to a delivery wagon smashed the vehicles and fatally in- jured three persons, two children and a woman.
 Senator Morgan declares the ac- tion of the Colombian senate in refusing to ratify the canal treaty means that the Nicaraguan route will be chosen.
 Austin Chamberlain, son of Joe Chamberlain, has been appointed chancellor of the exchequer in the British cabinet. He was formerly postmaster general.
 Since last January ninety-eight new cotton oil industries have been organized in the south, with plants to cost in the neighborhood of $3,- 100000. At present there are nearly 700 oil mills in the south, with an annual output of $125,000,- 900.
 Government troops in the Phil ippines continue to have light skir- mishes with small bands of insur- gents without the boundaries of thickly settled sections. In a skir- mish in the province of Batanga a few weeks ago priest with a small band attacked a small town. The priest was killed and his followers put to flight.
 The sovereign grand lodge of Odd Fellows met at Baltimore on the 21st. The report of the grand commander in chief gives the total membership of the order as 1899, 956, including subordinate lodge members and sisters only of the Rebekah lodge. Revenue, relief and invested funds are indicated as fol- lows: Revenues or receipts in 1909: Subordinate lodges, $10,- 214, ,000; encampments, $712,522 ; Rebekah lodges, $626, 6,743; total rev enue, $11,553,905; an increase of $771, ,343 over the preceding year.
 The annual report of the opera tions of the dead letter office for the year ended June 30, 1903, has been prepared and will be embodied in the forthcoming report of First Assistant Postmaster General Wynne. The report states that it is made to appear that there has been large and steady increase in its annual receipts, which is due, it is stated, to the great and constant increase in the volume of matter passing through the mails, The total receipts for the year were something over 10,000,000 pieces, the largest in the history of the of flee, exceeding those of the preceding year by some S5O,00o pieces. Of the aggregate number 8,895,205 pieces were opened. The money found in opened letters amounted to $48, ,634, but this sum included money (generally coin) found loose in the mails or in postofices and consigned to the dead letter office. Commercial paper found, such as drafts, checks, money orders, etc, represented face value of $1, ,493,- 563.
 Walter Iselhardt, aged 7 years, met a horrible death at the home of his parents near Belleville, Ill. With other children he was play ing on a porch when he leaped off, landing in boiling kettle of apple butter.
 John Alexander Dowie, the fa- natic and high priest of Zion, a colony founded in Illinois, has gained more notoriety by advocat- ing the marriage of whites to ne- groes.
 A dispatch from Sofia says that