Palmyra Items from Palmyra, Nebraska • 5

OLD CRIME. DEATH IN NEW YORK OF A HEARTLESS BETRAYER. Ele Came to the Escaped Murderer Wanderer and Was Cared For Finally Concluded to Try for the Hangman's Reward. There died in a New York liquor house the other day a man who had drunk himself to death. His very body had begun to decay as a result of continual saturation with narcotics.

He was known about the saloons as "Jim, the Bum," but his real name was James Lesprance. His remains were carted away to the potter's field, while his soul flitted to the judgment, there to stand trial for a crime for which. the laws of human government prescribe no punishment. Fifteen years ago Lesprance betrayed into the hands of the law one Luke Phipps, who on the night of August 19, 1883, shot his young wife on a Detroit river ferry boat. Mrs.

Phipps was in company with a man, a stranger to the murderer. No effort was made to shoot her companion. The shooting was done on the Canadian side and Phipps was at once arrested and held in the Sandwich, jail, for murder in the first degree. While awaiting trial he escaped with some other prisoners but was recaptured in Pullman, Ill. At the time of Phipps' capture it was given out that while under the infuence of liquor he told of the murder, and revealed his identity; that William McEwen, son of the then sheriff of Essex county, who was employed in the Pullman offices, heard of Phipps' unsolicited confession, and wired his father, who sent on deputies.

In a recent conversation with Detective Andy Rohan of Chicago, who arrested Phipps, that officer revealed to a Detroit detective a story of baseness and ingratitude on the part of the Informer against Phipps, that places the first version at naught. It seems that the wife-slayer broke jall on November 20, of the year of his arrest, with another murderer named Greenwood and a thief named Seers. They sawed through the bars of their window and lost little time in getting out of the queen's dominions. Phipps wandered to the Illinois town, where, in fancied security, he started a poolroom. One LUKE PHIPPS.

day, an old acquaintance, a French Canadian, whom he had known long before the tragedy, drifted Into Pullman. He -was penniless, ragged and half-starved, and Phipps, ignoring the first law of nature, took him in and cared for him. He bought him a new suit of clothes and installed him as his right bower in the poolroom. The vagrant friend knew the story of the outcast Phipps, who was living under an assumed name, yet the fugitive trusted him. The reward offered for Phipps' apprehension finally overcame whatever qualms of conscience the fellow might have possessed, and he resolved to become a Judas.

He revealed Phipps' Identity to Rohan, and led the latter to the poolroom, where Phipps was Innocently engaged in a game. The informer stood in a recess of the door and pointed out Phipps to the detective. The latter advanced and, tapping the doomed man on the shoulder, said: "Phipps, I want you for murder." The latter's complete surprise and show of emotion at once convinced the detective that he had not been misinformed. Phipps wilted. He seemed to have wearied of the continued exile and dread of detection, and he simply turned to the officer and said: I guess it's all up with me." Then, turning to the man who had 80 treacherously entrapped him, he conferred upon him the appurtenances and good-will of his pool room bustness.

He never suspected his Judas. The latter was unsuccessful with his Il1-gotten legacy, and became very dissipated and finally left Pullman in the direst poverty. He never received any of the reward money. He drifted to New York to die a nameless tramp. Luke Phipps was hanged June 17, 1884, and a grewsome reminder of his crime and its expatiation is the shell of the steamer Hope, which lies rotting and moss-grown in a Sandwich canal.

The Hot Winds of the Rookies, Scientists are of the opinion that hot, dry winds that blow over the eastern slope of the Rocky mountains depend upon the presence of slowmoving, low-pressure areas in that region, and thence eastward, accompanied by relatively high pressure over, the Pacific ocean off the coast of Oregon, It is believed that air is heated in ite sudden passing from the summit of the Rockles to the prairies below. UNHAPPY BY AMBITION Widows of Noted Men Who Are Now Miserable. The recent death of Madame Bazaine, in a hospital in Mexico, removes the first of three famous and unhappy women whose histories are closely intertwined and whose ambitious schemes have helped to shape the destiny of France. The other two are Carlotta, the widow of the 111-starred Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, and Eugenie, the widow of Napoleon Emperor of the French. Mme.

Bazaine was a Mexican lady and the friend of Empress Carlotta. When she became the wife of Gen. Bazaine, the marshal of France, Emperor Maximilian gave her a princely dower. She encouraged her husband's ambitious projects and remained loyal to him through all his misfortunes. When he was sentenced to be degraded and shot for having capitulated to the Germans at Metz without having exhausted all his means of defense, his wife succeeded in getting his sentence commuted to twenty years' imprisonment without military degradation.

Shortly afterward she effected his escape from prison and was his comfort and stay until his death in 1888. Mme. Bazaine's friend and patroness, the Empress Carlotta, is still, living in an insane asylum in Brussels. She is the daughter. of King Leopold of Belgium.

When her husband, Maximilian, was compelled to abandon all hope of succeeding to the crown of Austria she encouraged him to accept the offer of Napoleon III. to make him Emperor of Mexico. When Maximilian was hard pressed by the republican troops in Mexico she went to France and appealed for assistance to Napoleon and Eugenie. Her appeal was refused and she became insane. It is said that she does not to this day know that her husband was shot in Mexico thirty-three years ago.

Eugenie De Montijo, the widow of Emperor Napoleon has been no less unhappy than her two friends, Mme. Bazaine and the Empress Carlotta. She lives a sad and lonely woman in Chiselhurst, England. The overthrow of the French empire and the expatriation and death of her husband crushed her ambitious spirit, and her bereavement was completed in 1879, when her only son was killed while fighting against the Zulus in South Africa. FLOCK OF BUZZARDS.

The Scavengers of Charleston, and Work Every Day Except Sunday. Washington correspondence Chicago Record: One of the curious sights in Charleston la a flock of buzzards, which, six days in the week, hover around the streets and alleys, and particularly the market places of that city. They are the public scavengers and are protected by law. They clean the streets of garbage and other filth, and work from dawn to sunset in a most energetic and faithful manner on tamiliar terms with the population. They have learned not to fear any one, but swoop down wherever they like and carry off all the decaying animal and vegetable matter they find.

When the sun goes down they fly across the bay and roost in the dark groves that line the banks of the river. They never work on Sunday. Charleston Is a very religious city. The observance of the Sabbath is more strict there perhaps than in any other place of its size in the country. The people, mostly Presbyterians and Huguenots, retain the old-fashioned ideas about the fourth commandment.

Even the vultures respect this sentiment, and "Remember the Sabbath day to keep It holy." When they disappear Saturday night they are never seen again until Monday morning, and this has been their habit as long as the oldest inhabitant can remember. The American Duel Two German students having quarreled, decided the earth was not large enough for both of them to live on and resorted to the diabolical practice called an "American duel." In a darkened room the two young men drew lots, having sworn that he who drew the black ball would commit suicide. The unhappy loser went to his room and discharged a bullet into his breast, but missed his heart, and lingered for several days on his deathbed; his parents were summoned by telegraph and besought him on their knees to disclose the name of his antagonist, but he steadfastly refused, and died with the secret in his breast. The students not only excused his conduct, but praised his courage, and when his remains were taken to the railway station to be transported to a distant city, they aecompanied the funeral cortege with torches and music. The students claimed he was not a suicide, for he was killed in an honorable duel, and they maintained that his opponent was not accessory to his death, because he shot himself.

Thunder and Lightning. Thunder and lightning, though natural operations, are a cause of great alarm to many. It is seldom any person is injured who keeps away from considerable metallic substances and avoids immediate contact with the walls of the house. The middle of the room is in general perfectly safe, and the lower rooms are safer than the upper. A bed removed at a slight distance from the walls of the room is in perfect security, even if the house were struck.

When lead la used on the roofs of buildings particular care should be taken that it communicates with spouts, and by these means with the ground. To determine the distance of the lightning, count the seconds between the flash and the thunder, and reckon less than a quarter of a mile for every second. ASSAILS CAPT. MAHAN COL. HIGGINSON FLAYS THE NOVEL WRITER.

He Has Been Political Figure for More Than Half a Century- Commanded a South Carolina Regiment Daring the War. Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, In his address before the Twentieth Century club, in Boston, recently, delivered a bitter attack on Capt. Alfred T. Mahan, the celebrated American writer upon naval affairs.

Col. Higginson's address was entitled, "Freedom," and some of his remarks about Capt. Mahan were of a rather personal character. Among other things he said that "a rawhide in the hands of a Boer farmer might teach him (Mahan) a lesson in the right of self-government." In criticising Capt. Mahan's late article in the Independent, Col.

Higginson said: "Capt. Mahan's idea is the naval board of prize money theory. It disposes of every man's right to his own child. Not a farm in New Eng- AUSTRALIANS HAD TO GET BEES Why Their First Crop of Clover Was Fallore. "Yes, sir, some mighty queer things occur in the horticultural world," said the florist, who had just been telling how chrysanthemums were bred very much like animals and how it was possible to put stripes on them or make them almost any shade desired.

"You probably wouldn't think that the presence or absence of bees would guarantee the continued existence or the disappearance of an agricultural staple like clover, would you? Of wouldn't, and if you tell that fact and the circumstances of an actual case to the average layman he will think you are telling him a hand-raised, brid horticultural joke. It isn't a joke, An experiment down in Australia years ago proved that nothing was farther removed from fiction. Originally there was no clover in Australia and not a bee was to be found in the whole country. The people found that clover would be a most desirable addltion to their agricultural products. Clover seed was brought and sowed.

The climate and soil were everything that could be desired and a beautiful land, not a set of carpenter tools, not a crop of clover was the result. Clover THOS. WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. block of telephone stock, could be held by its owner under this theory, unless he used it with propriety. How 811- perbly would President Eliot provide for Harvard should he take possession of all the property even of Cambridge people who were using it injudiciously.

The result would be a final swallowing up of nations, until only two Englishspeaking nations remained, with the necessity of one swallowing the other. "When a truth is well stated it is well to have the opposite side brought out as forcibly as possible. It is unfortunate that we have a man, honored in literature and naval service, who will state an absolute falsehood as though It were the truth. Capt. Mahan, in a recent letter to the New York Independent, lays down the general principle that neither a state nor people possesses any right to govern Itself, or to Independence, saying: "As to the Boers, the right they have depends upon the use they make of their power, and they have forfeited that right." Col.

Higginson is one of the old-style abolitionists of New England. His career has been full of struggle, activity in many lines, and success in a few. He has now reached the grand old age of 77, yet his mind is as quick and responsive as It was when he was adjutant on the staff of Gen. James H. Lane of Kansas, nearly 40 years ago.

He was born In Cambridge, was graduated from Harvard in 1841, and from the divinity school in 1847, and at once took up the pastorate of the First- Congregational church at Newburyport. In 1850 he left the ministry and became the free soil candidate for congress. Failing of election, he took the pulpit of the Free church at Worcester, but a few years before the opening of the civil war he discarded the cloth a second time to devote himself to the agitation against slavery. The beginning of the war saw him a soldier in active service as a captain In the Fifty-first Massachusetts infantry. He was afterward colonel Thirty-first South Carolina volunteers the first regiment of freed slaves taken into the service of the Union.

He took the town of Jacksonville, but being wounded at Wilton's Bluff, he resigned his command In 1864. For fourteen years he made his home at Newport, but in 1878 removed to Cambridge, where he has since resided. Col. Higginson's fame depends chiefly on his articles in perlodical literature and his poems in his first volume entitled "Thallato." Orchid Dinners. One of the fads of the day is to give orchid dinners.

All of the floral decorations of these entertainments are worked out In orchids, and the effect is extremely rich and beautiful. Even the politicians agree that honesty is the best policy for everybody else. TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR THE AID OF CENSUS ENUMERATORS. An Unofficial Supplication to the Agricultaralists to be Prepared to Answer All Questions Promptly--Novel Method of Instruotion. 1.

And it shall come to pass in June that a census of agriculture be taken by the chosen men of the nation, who number two score and ten thousand. 2. Upon a parchment, yet upon a separate parchment, which is called a schedule, the chosen men shall write the chief things and the little things of the farm, and the value of them. 8. But neither the wicked, nor the assessor of many taxes, nor the collector thereof, shall serve with the chosen; nor shall he look upon the returns to know any man's property.

4. The anointed only from the census shall lay hands on the returns and know the writings 1 thereon, Whoso doeth more than this surely shall be punished. Thus salth the law. 5. The chosen' people of the land, the enumerators thereof, shall, swearing solemnly, write upon the parchment, yea, upon every parchment, the length and breadth of every crop; verily, the true shekels' worth of all things upon the farm in 1899 shall be summed up on the blanks which the king of the census giveth out, and they shall be kept forever and ever in the temples at Washington, where many nations may behold the correct measure of the strength of the land.

6. And all the live stock according to age, and all the poultry, and all the hives of bees which the husbandman hath shall be and they shall be written in value as the law saith and preserved in the temples. 7. And the length and breadth of the farm, and the value thereof, and the value of the houses and barns for shelter thereon, and the value of the machinery and implements and chariots which man useth shall likewise be written and laid 1 forever in the temples of truth. Thus saith the law.

8. He who leaseth land shall answer all things to the elect like unto him who owneth it, for the king of the census hath said that one man shall not be called and another left. 9. Thus salth the king of the census to his people: "Thou shalt this day write upon a tablet all the things of the farm and the value of them; the value of all thou hast eaten and all that thou hast sold and exchanged, and be ready; for in an hour ye wot not next June the enumerator cometh. Blessed be he that maketh full and perfect answers quickly." 10.

Send thou unto the king of the census, at Washington, which is the king's home, or unto the high priest of the census of agriculture, and thou wilt receive light. "JONES" TOO MUCH FOR TAGALS There Is No in Their Language or In Spanish, Major Samuel B. Jones of the regular army is now quartermaster at Boston. He served with distinction until recently in the Philippines, says the Philadelphia Post. A curious local custom in Luzon authorizes a native to take and use a foreign name, generally Spanish, in addition to his own Tagal patronymic.

This acoounts for the multitudes of such sonorous names as "Agramonte," "Uriarte" and "Polobieja." The major had won the gratitude of a native, who announced his determination to adopt the American family name of Jones before it occurred to him that there was no equivalent for in either Spanish or Tagal. He had it written out for him by a soldier, to whom he gave a box of cigars for his trouble, and then departed from the camp. Some time after the native came into camp and was addressed by his new name. He looked worried and called his interlocutor aside and explained to him his troubles. "Please don't call me by that name," he said, plaintively.

"You see, I took that written name home to my village and showed it to my relatives. They were much pleased, but when they tried to read it no two pronounced it alike. Rather than have trouble in the family I am looking for brave American whose name is comprehensible!" His Address. The following, from an English paper, will be enjoyed by speakers who have found themselves called upon to address audiences already wearied by excessively long speeches: A certain man was invited to speak at a local gathering, and being nobody in particular, was placed last on the list of speakers. Moreover, the chairman introduced several speakers whose names were not on the list, and the audience was tired out when he said, introducing the final speaker, "Mr.

Bones will now give us his address." "My address," said Mr. Bones, rising, "is 551 Park Villas, S. and I wish you all good-night." Saving Him Money. Mr. Wheatpit-My failure is the talk of the street! At the meeting of my creditors today I arranged to pay 10 cents on the dollar.

Mrs. Wheatpit (after a moment's figuring) -Oh, Henry, isn't that lovely? Then the $50 hat I sent home today will only cost you Making a Living. First Swell--They say this fellow actually earns his living with that voice. Second Swell--Is that so? First Swell--Yes--by collecting the things that are thrown qt hAm. -Ally Sloper.

WILD ANIMALS Bred In Captivity Develop Ferocity in Spite of Training. There is a current tradition that wild animals born in captivity do not attain the savageness of those bred in their native jungle, and that the teeth of such animals do not develop as they do in the wild state. Mr. Alexander Day, assistant superintendent out at the zoo, whose experience with wild animals has been almost lifelong, that he has not found those to be true. However innocent and apparently tame the cubs may appear, he says, there is a time when they attain savageness apparently from instinct, and show all the characteristics of the animals whose home has always been the forest or the plain.

As for the development of teeth, Mr. Day points for illustration to full-grown lions which were born and reared in captivity and may be seen any day cracking bones of meat with which they are fed with every evidence of possessing the most sound teeth possible. The only way In which wild animals in captivity 11sually suffer with their teeth is that when they are fed they may grab at the meat which is pushed through the bars with a big iron fork and break a tooth on the fork, or they may in jumping against the bars injure. a tooth and suffer afterward from its loss. The little lions, when baby cubs, are shy at first; then become as playful as kittens.

For the first year of their life usually they may be treated as domestic animals. At the age of about twelve weeks the cubs are taken from their mother, but in the meantime she has taught them to eat meat. At first the cubs suck a bone or a scrap of raw meat which the mother tears off for them. Often they may be seen gnawing upon a bone which the mother lion holds in her jaws and paws. When first taken from their mother the cubs are given finely chopped meat, the pieces being gradually made larger until they are given bones, upon which they sharpen and develop their teeth.

In time the lions can crush the bones with ease. From 12 to 14 months of age the young lions are, it is said, so cross as to be almost unmanageable. At the age of 18 months or two years the cubs are taken in hand by the trainer and then, having reached their growth, they are ready to be perfected in their tricks and to be exhibited. It is said by those familiar with lion taming and training that lions which have been brought up as pets are the hardest to train for performers. They do not seem to take the training seriously, and are not so easily mastered as those which have grown to maturity without petting.

Baltimore Sun. GOV. ROOSEVELT'S BRIBE. Paid 810 for a Shot at a Wounded Charging Grizzly Bear. hullers thrashed out the seed, which was sown the next year.

Where the seed was sow. the ground remained bare. Scarcely a sprig of clover came up. The farmers were astonished and scientists were called upon for a diagnosis of the case. They soon located the trouble--there were no bees or other insects which could carry the pollen from one clover blossom to another.

This mixture must take place, else the seed will be inert and absolutely incapable of reproduction. Bees were imported to the country and there was never any more difficulty about the growing of clover in Australia. The bees in seeking honey from the clover blossoms get the pollen on their legs and wings and thus carry it from one blossom to another. It doesn't take long for a few hundred bees to make the necessary mixture in a big field of clover." GEN. WILLIAM W.

AVERELL. William Woods Averell, whose death occurred at Bath, N. recently, was a prominent cavalry leader on the Union side during the civil war. Gen. Averell was 67 years of age.

He left West Point in 1855 and gained an enviable reputation as an Indian fighter, being severely wounded. When the civil war broke out Gen. Averell received the appointment of colonel of a Pennsylvania cavalry regiment in the army of the Potomac. In GEN. WILLIAM W.

AVERELL. March, 1863, he began a series of raids which made his name famous. In 1864 he was given command of the second cavalry division the army, and W86 wounded at Wytbeville, but remained on the field. Gen. Averell resigned from the army at the close of the war.

For three years subsequently he held the office of consul-general at Montreal. He had been prominent in business circles in New York city of late years, being heavily interested in asphalt paving. "A friend of mine," says a New York er, "told me the following story about Gov. Roosevelt that I had never heard before. The present governor was out with a guide after grizzlies, and if one was found the agreement was that Roosevelt should take the first shot, and if he missed, the second was to go to the guide.

The governor, you know, is near sighted and has to wear glasses. They finally got a shot at a. grizzly and although the governor succeeded in winging him the bear was not fatally wounded, and came charging down on them at a terrific rate. Now, big game men unite in saying that, hunt the world over, and there is only one form of sport to be found more dangerous than grizzly hunting, and that is a cowboy who has gone wrong, and that he, and he only, is likely to give you a better run for your money than a grizzly bear. Well, to return to the story, the bear was coming down on them like the Empire State Express and emitting loud, rude, belligerent snorts at every jump.

Roosevelt's glasses had been knocked off by the recoil of the gun, and while he could locate the bear by the row he was making, he was without the limit of accurate vision. Nothing daunted, however, and with every drop of sportblood in his veins a-tingle, he yelled at the guide: 'Say, Bill, $10! Is it my and upon that worthy falling a victim to bribery and corruption Roosevelt laid his bearship low when he arrived near enough for him to see where to put a shot in a vital spot." Involuntary Twitchings. A nerve specialist stated, not long ago, that one way to judge of the condition of a person's nerves was to watch his thumbs. Ever since that time, says a correspondent, I found the greatest fascination in looking at people's thumbs. The doctor said that it they moved involuntarily outward it was a sign that the nerves of that man or woman were not in the best condition.

I find myself now sweeping the line opposite me in a steet-car, and if that doctor's test is a good one, there is a surprising number of people whose nerves need looking after. There are few among the women who do not involuntarily move the thumbs outward at intervals of every few minutes, and when your attention has been once attracted to it, the process of watching their gloved, hands grows very interesting. I have found the habit much less frequent among men, but take the average number of women in a streetcar, and it will be a surprise to you to see how many of them indulge unconsciously in this little habit. I only hope it might not mean anything so serious as it might indicate, if that nerve specialist's diagnosis was a good one. A Fine Cleaner, Mirrors and plate glass can be cleaned very thoroughly with alcohol on a soft piece of muslin or flannel..