CORBETT COMING TO CORTLAND

Cortland Evening Standard, Saturday, January 11, 1896.

CORBETT COMING TO CORTLAND.

   James J. Corbett will appear in Cortland on Monday evening, January 13, in his new play "A Naval Cadet." The production of this play will be as elaborate as any of Mr. Irving's or Mr. Daly's representations, no less than four great scenic artists having been called upon to prepare the scenery, viz:  Harley Merry, John R. Young, John A. Thompson and Frank Dodge. The scenes include a view of Lang Island opposite the insane asylum at Ward's Island. The commencement ball in the practice room at the Naval academy. The gymnasium at Annapolis. The American liner St. Louis in mid-ocean. The Jardin de Paris, in that gay city; a lonely spot in Latin Quarter in Paris and a Parisian dive used by a gang of counterfeiters. In this scene Corbett engages in a hand to hand encounter with an English bully and of course lays him out.

KING'S DAUGHTERS'

Annual Report of the President for the Year 1895.

   A report of the work done by the King's Daughters for the year 1895 is, in the main, a repetition of that of other years, perhaps with the exception that the demands at home have been so many and so pressing that effort in other directions has given way almost entirely to local charity work.

   Meetings have been held semi-monthly or monthly, as circumstances required, devoted to the routine business of the circle in its various departments. However small the attendance, one unfailing feature has characterized the meetings—a spirit of deep interest, that in itself has been a means of great encouragement.

   The plan entered upon at the close of last year to employ the superintendent of local charity to devote her time to the work was by aid outside of the organization continued through the winter months. This experiment has proven the necessity which exists in Cortland for practical missionary work, six days in the week for no less than twenty weeks in the year; especially during a season of long continued business depression like the present. Such work deserves a compensation other than that which comes as the reward of well doing.

   During the year a large number of women and girls have found employment, hundreds of families have been visited and about twelve hundred garments, many of them new, have been given out. Other household supplies have been collected and distributed of which no estimate can be made.

   Ten dollars have been sent at different times to Miss Emma Nason to assist in her mission work among the lumbermen and miners in the West, and an annual subscription of five dollars for five years given to the Cortland hospital.

   To the churches and schools that have so liberally contributed toward carrying on this work, to the business firms for their donations, and to the many kind friends who have never failed to respond to calls for assistance, the circle is most grateful.

   The new officers and members enter upon the year with strong hearts to meet its emergencies and duties, believing that no nobler work can engage woman than to be a King's Daughter in the sense implied in our organization. Of doubt and discouragement the future, like the past, will have its full share, but guided by Him in Whose Name we labor, there will be few failures to record at the end of the year.

   Respectfully submitted,

   LYDIA H. CHENEY,

   Retiring President, Jan. 11, 1896.

King's Daughters' Election.

   At the recent annual election of officers for the Loyal Circle of King's Daughters, the following were elected for 1896:

   President—Mrs. William G. McKinney.

   1st Vice-Pres.—Mrs. E. D. Parker.

   2d Vice-Pres.—Mrs. M. C. Elias.

   3d Vice-Pres.—Mrs. A. M Johnson.

   4th Vice-Pres.—Mrs. Frank W. Collins.

   Sec.—Mrs. A. Holt.

   Treas. Mr. Eugene Powers.

   Supt. of local charity—Mrs. Lyman Jones, assisted by directors in the four wards.

   Supt. of employment agency—Mrs. S. H. Rindge.

   Chairman of hospital work—Mrs. F. G. Hyatt.

   Chairman of sewing committee—Mrs. Lyman Jones.

   Chairman of social committee—Mrs. F. J. Cheney.

RIDDLED WITH BULLETS.

Swift Retribution Overtakes Murderer Smith.

SHOT BY ENRAGED FARMERS.

Smith Had Foully Murdered Robert Clapsaddle, His Father-ln-Law, and the Neighbors Took the Law Into Their Own Hands.

   LOCKPORT, N. Y., Jan. 11.—Robert Clapsaddle, a farmer of Ransomville, a small town about 10 miles from here, was fatally shot by his son-in-law, George H. Smith, who was pursued by a posse of villagers, cornered and when he made resistance, filled with bullets, causing his death. One of the pursuers also was shot.

   Farmer Clapsaddle lived a mile south of the village in a small cottage with his wife, daughter and a grandchild, 12 years old, the son of the murderer. Clapsaddle was in moderate circumstances and the crime was the outgrowth of passion.

   Smith was a dissolute character, who spent what money he could get for liquor. He had married the eldest daughter of the Clapsaddles. She had separated from him on account of his dissipation and Smith had always blamed his father-in-law for the estrangement.

   Smith came into the Clapsaddle homestead, where the old man sat reading his paper, and without warning or provocation, drew a revolver and shot Clapsaddle through the head.

   Before an alarm could be given by the affrighted women of the household, the assassin had made his escape and was well away.

   Mr. Clapsaddle died soon after the arrival of a doctor, never regaining consciousness.

   Almost immediately the tidings of the cowardly crime spread among the townspeople and a posse was formed with a deputy sheriff at its head to hunt down the murderer.

   Smith had fled across country diagonally toward the home of his wife's second husband, De Clute, probably with the intention of committing another crime. He was armed with a revolver and had his pockets filled with cartridges.

   The posse was composed of over 50 reputable men and neighbors of the murdered man. They were variously armed with rifles and shotguns and small arms. They soon struck the trail and made a flank movement to cut off his retreat.

   When Smith saw the posse in pursuit he took a bee line for the house of one Brown, and as he entered the door he turned and, brandishing the revolver, cried:

   "The first man who follows me in here I will shoot."

   Undaunted, the posse closed in around the house, when Brown, coming to the door, assured them that he was not in league with the murderer and that Smith was in hiding in one of the closets. Thereupon Elmer Clapsaddle, a relative of the murdered man, cried to Smith to come out and surrender.

   Smith, thrusting his arm out of the window, responded with a bullet, which entered Clapsaddle's wrist.

   This aroused the latent rage of the crowd, and they poured the contents of

their guns through the walls of the house at short range into the spot where Smith was evidently standing.

   There was a sound as of a falling body and a groan, which showed that the shots had taken effect, and when examination was made Smith was found to be fatally wounded, bleeding from a dozen wounds; where bullet and shot had riddled him.

   He was dragged from his hiding senseless and dying.

   He cannot possibly live.

EXCITED VENEZUELANS.

The War Feeling Continues Unabated In the Capital.

   NEW YORK, Jan. 11.—A Caracas, Venezuela, dispatch says:

   The political excitement is unabated.

   Senor Briceno, editor of El Patriota, has been arrested, together with other partisans of Andueza Palacio.

   The newspapers here are discussing the possibility of a British warship in the harbor of La Guayra being able to throw a shell over the mountain into the city of Caracas.

   To quiet apprehension in regard to it, the matter has been submitted to expert engineers here. Their opinion is awaited with considerable anxiety.

   During the last revolution the American admiral, Walker, on board the flagship Chicago, after studying the question declared that it was impossible because the guns could not be elevated enough.

   The anti-English manifestations continue.

   At Valencia, the Venezuelans divided themselves into two parties—one representing English invaders and the other the patriots—and began a sham fight. Those on the Venezuela side became so exalted that they went at it in earnest, with the result that several who were enacting the role of Englishmen received severe stab wounds. The police had to be called in to stop it.

PAGE TWO—EDITORIALS.

A Story Which Explains Something.

   The York Mail and Express declares that the present attitude of the United

States toward the Venezuela dispute dates back to Secretary Gresham's control of the state department. This is as strange as it is interesting, but the informant of the Mail and Express insists that there is no doubt that Secretary

Gresham foreshadowed the present controversy and our application to it of the Monroe doctrine. The story goes that two years ago President Cleveland and Secretary Gresham agreed on the Venezuelan policy recently made public, with the understanding that its announcement to the British ministry should be postponed until no other recourse was available. Steps were then taken to sound the three leading governments of continental Europe as to the degree of support they would give an application of the Monroe doctrine, which should check farther aggression by England in the western hemisphere.

   At first replies were not satisfactory, but eventually there was a very clear understanding. It was, in fact, "understood in Washington before the president's position on the Venezuelan question was announced, that Germany, France and Russia would either or all take an early opportunity to let it be known that the Monroe doctrine, as it is understood in this country, had a wider application, and these powers had agreed to unite for the limitation of the British aggressions upon minor occasions all over the world, at least to the extent of preventing these aggressions taking the form of extension of territory under British domain, in either America, Africa or Asia." It so happened that Germany was given the first opportunity to assert the anti-English policy by the Transvaal invasion. Russia, however, was prepared to do the same thing had occasion arisen in Asia, while France would have taken the offensive had there been British aggression in northern Africa. The story of a quadruple alliance against England is given a color of truth by the bold language of President Cleveland's Venezuelan message, and more recently by the really friendly attitude of the English press toward America, as though somebody over there had seen a new light.

The Hitching Ordinance.

   Scarcely ever has an ordinance been passed by any village board of trustees in Cortland which has aroused the opposition of the one adopted at the last meeting prohibiting the hitching of horses on Main-st. The farmers are frantically indignant over it and a goodly number of the business men are scarcely less so. The farmers declare that they will not be driven to the hitching barns when they only want to stop five minutes and some of the business men fear that such an ordinance will drive trade away from Cortland.

   The trustees looked the ground all over before taking action and discussed the pros and cons and are confident that they are right. It hardly seems as though the ordinance would make a great deal of difference either way. There are only eleven hitching posts by actual count between the Messenger House and the Cortland House and only that number of teams could be accommodated at once.

   The time was when the whole street on both sides was lined with posts and some days they were all used, but voluntarily these same business men have taken out those posts leaving only eleven remaining and the trade has come just the same and the public have been accommodated. Now they say that if the remaining eleven go "business will be busted." If reports are true a very strong pressure will be brought to bear on the trustees to repeal the ordinance.

   Time will tell.

BREVITIES.

   —Y. M. C. A. Bible class meets to-night at 8 o'clock.

   —New advertisements to-day are—L. N. Hopkins, page 6.

   —One drunk paid a fine of three dollars in police court this morning.

   —Ninety-eight men are training for places on the Cornell university crew,

Sixty-six of these are freshmen.

   —Merchants report that the sleighing is helping their trade. Many country people from a distance are filling up the stores.

   —The funeral of Mrs. Mary Burke will be held Monday morning at 9 o'clock at the house and at St. Mary's church, Solon, at 10:30 o'clock.

   —Mr. Andrew Carnegie this morning delivered an address on "Business" before the students of Cornell university, the occasion being the celebration of Founder's day.

   —Burnett E. Miller has been having measurements taken on his property on Main-st. with the prospect of building a new hitching barn in the rear of the Miller block and the Hopkins block.

   —The special meetings held this week at the Homer-ave. M. E. church have been interesting and well attended. They will be continued next week with the exception of Monday and Saturday nights.

   —The Manhattan club gave a very pleasant dancing party in Empire hall last evening. Thirty couples were in attendance and music was furnished by Daniels' orchestra. Refreshments were served at 11:30 by B. H. Bosworth.

   —G. E. Butler has lately taken a remarkably fine photograph of Mr. James

A. Wood's big black dog. "Bruno" is so well known and is such a favorite upon all the streets that his owner is besieged with requests for photographs.

   —Mailing Clerk E. J. Hopkins says that never since he has been in the postoffice have the outgoing mails been as heavy as now. This is partly due to certain business concerns here sending so many catalogues and circulars. One mail alone took thirteen sales of such matter.

   —The Western Union Telegraph Co. has replaced the old four line switchboard in the Cortland office with a new one for eight lines. This necessitates the rearranging of the lines in the front part of the office. New lightning arrestors to prevent the burning out of the instruments are also being put in.

   —Prof. L. J. Higgins has a fine oil painting in the north window of the store of Ament & Brazie. It is a scene on the Tioughnioga river at the crossing of the carriage road over the D., L. & W. R. R. just below the farm of Hon. O. U. Kellogg. The view looks down the river. The effect it very pretty.

   —The Telephone company have placed a long distance telephone in the office of the Cortland Howe Ventilating Stove company on Elm-st., which will also be used as a public pay station for the accommodation of persons living in that portion of the village. F. J. Smith's hardware store has also been connected with the Telephone exchange.

   —The Cortland STANDARD is very positive in its opinion that there is "nothing" in the report that the Lehigh is about to purchase the E., C. & N. The fact that the latter's shops would in such an event be moved from Cortland lends animation to The STANDARD's denial, and it ought to. A fig for a paper that does not stand for its own "bailiwick" first, last and all the time.—Ithaca News.

   —Supt. O. O. Esser of the Pennsylvania division of the Lehigh Valley R. R. was in the city this morning and when asked by a Journal reporter as to developments in the rumored transaction with the E., C. & N. railroad, he appeared to wish to keep the matter as quiet as possible, jocularly remarking that the newspapers of last evening contained more interesting, but not necessarily authentic information than he was at present able to give.—Ithaca Journal, Friday.

   —About twenty of the friends of Mr. Charles Hammond called at his home,

150 Port Watson-st., last night and spent the evening with him, enjoying in high degree a social season. It was the intention of the friends that the call should be a surprise and Mr. Hammond claimed that it was, but some of his previous actions strengthened the belief that he had at least suspected the call and had prepared for it. Light refreshments were served.

   —Two cases were tried before Justice Dowd yesterday. The first was a jury trial, F. R. Furber against W. J. Moore, coroner of Cortland county, for the recovery of carpenter's tools upon which replevin had been made. The jury gave Furber the custody of the tools. The second case was F. R. Furber against J. B. Edwards as deputy sheriff. This was an action to recover damage for loss of use of these tools. Judgment was rendered in favor of plaintiff for six cents and costs.