Denton and Haughton Examiner, etc. — 1888-02-25 (Denton, Greater Manchester, England)

TOWN LEVELLED BY A CYCLONE. A tornado has destroyed Mount Vernon, Illinois, a flourishing town which stood 60 miles to the east of St Louis, killing 36 persons and fatally injuring 19 more, while 100 were seriously wounded, and 500 buildings were demolished in a few minutes. Mount Vernon was built on a flat prairie. The tornado came up from the south-west, with a rotary, whirling motion, sweeping a path 500 yards wide and several miles long, within which everything was destroyed. The damage occasioned is estimated at 500,000 dots. The ruins caught fire afterwards, and four men were burnt to death. The cyclone consisted of the usual revolving black cloud in the form of an inverted cone. Everything which it struck it demolished.  Be the death recently of Mr. Archibald Murray, who held the office of Clerk of the Petty Bag for many years, an appointment of £BOO a year lapses to the Treasury, as it is provided by the Judicature Act of 1879 that the post be abolished on the occasion of the next vacancy. A BRILLIANT company assembled on the occasion of the anniversary dinner in aid of the Dramatic and Musical Sick Fund. Mr. Lawson, M.P., who presided, made an earnest appeal on behalf of the fund, especially pleading the cause of the subordinate workers in every theatrical organisation, whose earnings are small, whose employment is precarious, whose work is oftentimes exhausting, and yet whose services are as essential for effective performance and display as those of the leading stars and prima donnas: Sir Albert Brant proposed the toast of Plays and Players," to which Mr. G. A. Sala responded. During the evening subscriptions were announced to the amount of nearly £7OO.  JOSEPH Losancrrrom pleaded guilty at Leeds assizes to several charges of forgery, embezzlement, and falsifying accounts in connection with the Leeds United Loan Society, of which he was manager. The total defalcations amounted to £30,000. The prisoner was sentenced to five years' penal servitude. James Hatton, 50, pleaded guilty, at the same assizes, to having falsified a cash-book belonging to the Wath and Mexborcnigh District of the Ancient Order of Foresters, and was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment.  A naz took place the other morning at the Board School, Cromer-street, Gray's-inn-road, London. At the time of the outbreak there were several hundred children in the school. The flames first appeared in the bartement, where there is a warming apparatus. The latter got overheated, and the flooring of the ground floor was soon ablate. Valuable assistance was rendered by some persons going into the building and rescuing the children, and in a short time several engines were on the scene, and quickly commenced work. The flames were speedily extinguished before any extensive damage was done. . . .  oAT the Kent Assizes at Maidstone, before Mr. Justice Mathew, William Coppin, ap aged shoemaker, of Maidstone, and ,Robert Simmoris, 56, a lawyer's clerk, were indicted for forging and uttering a receipt for £535, with intent to defraud Lucy filoreton, widow, and of whose late husband's estate Coppin was the sole administrator. Coppin was also indicted as a fraudulent bankrupt. It transpired in the course of Coppin's bankruptcy proceedings that he had misappropriated £535 as Moreton's trustee, to cover which he produced a forged receipt which was proved to be in the handwriting of Simmons. They were found guilty, and sentenced to five years' penal servitude.  Tim Nottingham Borough magistrates have committed for trial William Booth, a fitter, in custody on his own confession, charged with murdering his daughter, six years old, by cutting her throat with a razor on the 7th inst. The child's mother died in September last. The prisoner married again five weeks later, but a separation soon took place. The prisoner drank heavily, but was in work when the crime was committed. Medical evidence was to the effect that the prisoner's brain functions were in a perverted condition, due to alcoholic irritation, but they were now sound.  _ Mn. ANDERSON intends to press to a division his amendment on the subject of the condition of the Scottish tenant-farmers.