FEELING IN MANILA, WORST STORM OF SEASON, CHICAGO'S WIND, AND CORTLAND SNOWBOUND

 

Judge William Howard Taft.

Cortland Evening Standard, Monday, Feb. 3, 1902.

FEELING IN MANILA.

Want Congress to Pass Homestead and Mining Laws.

   Manila, Feb. 3.—Manila is intensely interested as to what action congress will take concerning the Philippine islands. Ordinary local politics have been forgotten and two parties have been formed, the optimists and the pessimists. Some think that life and property are unsafe out of the towns of the islands, while others ridicule such ideas and consider life and property to be assured.

   Criticisms of the statement of Civil Governor Taft that he believed 15,000 men would be sufficient to garrison the islands in a year are plentiful. Yet the majority of the business men who are financially interested in the provinces and consequently claim exceptional opportunities for feeling the pulse of the people, say that Governor General Taft is right on one condition only that being that congress acts for the benefit of the Philippines.

   Captain Frank Green, president of the American chamber of commerce here, says he fully believes that Civil Governor Taft's forecast can be realized if congress will arrange to open and enlarge the forestry reserves. Should this legislation be affected an act by the United States Philippine commission granting franchises would naturally follow and American capital in large quantities as well as many American miners and homestead seekers would come to the islands.

   "If this were accomplished," continued the president of the chamber of commerce, "we would immediately have a large body of resourceful and self-reliant men scattered throughout the archipelago who would become a source of information for the government concerning the natives surrounding them and who would constitute a reserve force in case of necessity."

 

Worst Storm of Season.

   Utica, N. Y., Feb. 3.—With the thermometer averaging 25 degrees above zero the worst storm of the season is raging in this section, assuming the proportions of a blizzard. Heavy snow fell all day until all roads are badly drifted. Telegraph, telephone, police and fire wires are out of the business and cars on the electric roads have a hard time of it. On the steam roads all trains are delayed from a few minutes to two hours.

 

Heavy Wind and Snow.

   Syracuse, N. Y., Feb. 3.—The wind blew 35 miles an hour and the heavy wet snow drifted badly in Syracuse and in Central New York. Street car service is demoralized on some lines. Railroad trains are late. The weather is not cold.

 

Trains Delayed.

   Oswego, N. Y., Feb. 3.—A fierce storm raged in this section last night. Telegraph and telephone wires have been badly damaged and railroad trains are all delayed. Since last night seven and a half inches of snow has fallen.

 

PAGE FOUR—EDITORIAL.

Use For Chicago's Wind.

   Chicago has long been known as the Windy City. It is also generally recognized as a progressive and practical city, quick to take advantage of resources, whether natural or acquired. No one need be much surprised, therefore, to learn of the proposition to utilize in lighting and heating the city the east winds that come blowing in from the bosom of Lake Michigan and the western zephyrs from the expansive prairies of northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. If there could be added to these the wordy breezes set in motion by the voluminous and versatile Chicago professors, a force ought to be created and put into operation which would not only light and heat the city, but illumine and warm the entire universe.

   But really the proposition is made in sober earnestness and is not altogether chimerical. It is advanced by so practical and level headed a man as Franklin H. Head, the president of the National Civic Federation, and was exploited the other day before the students of the College of Commerce and Administration at the University of Chicago. Mr. Head presented as a practical possibility of the future the use of a belt of windmills running dynamos which would charge storage batteries with electricity. He expressed the belief that a series of windmills around Chicago, say for forty miles, could supply storage batteries—such, for instance, as that recently perfected by Edison—with enough electricity to light and possibly heat the entire city. The thing is not impossible. Indeed nothing is impossible in Chicago.

 

PRINCIPAL'S RECEPTION

Held Saturday Evening at the Normal School Parlors—A Delightful Affair.

   The annual principal's reception given in February of each year to the senior class of the Cortland Normal school, the local board and the faculty, was given last Saturday evening at the Normal parlors by Principal and Mrs. Francis J. Cheney. Nearly all of the large class that will go out from the school this year and a number of students of other classes who assisted were present. The guests were received by Dr. and Mrs. Cheney, Superintendent and Mrs. D. L. Bardwell of Binghamton and Prof. and Mrs. W. A. Cornish. The decorations were arranged very tastefully under the direction of Mrs. C. M. C. Hawkins of the faculty and Miss Laura Cotton, a student of the Normal. Refreshments were served in the kindergarten room, and these were superintended by Miss Bishop and Miss Skidmore, assisted by Miss Ella Grace and eight young ladies of the four ladies' societies. These were, Misses Bloxham and Lynden of the Philomathians, Misses Humphrey and Dates of Alpha Delta, Misses Bessie Davis and McFarland of Corlonor and Misses Redington and Cheney of Clionian. The ushers were Messrs. Earl Wood and Hugh Duffey, Jr., of Gamma Sigma and Messrs. Thomas S. Clark and Arthur Knights of the Delphic. Mrs. Hawkins assisted by Miss Olive Edgcomb served lemonade. The refreshments were especially delicious and well served, and everything in connection with the reception tended to make the affair a very pleasant one for all. Darby's orchestra furnished music for the occasion.

 

Railroad Street, Cortland, N. Y.

CORTLAND SNOWBOUND.

THE WORST STORM SEEN IN THE PLACE SINCE 1895.

Railroads Struggling with the Drifts—Electric Road Tied Up, but Working Hard to Get Out—Everybody Shoveling for Dear Life to Clear the Sidewalks—Wholly Unexpected.

   Cortland is now in the embrace of the worst storm that has visited the place since 1895, and only a few storms like it are recorded by the oldest inhabitant. It began during Saturday night with rain which poured down in torrents at intervals all night long. The temperature was high, and altogether the effect was not unlike an April shower. People started for church Sunday morning at about 10:15 with umbrellas hoisted against the strong wind to protect them from the driving rain storm, but before they reached the church doors the rain had turned to snow and as the immense snow flakes floated down there was every appearance of a regular sap snow.

   Then the sidewalks became covered with slush and a few hours later it was hard work to travel without getting over the tops of one's rubbers in the slush. Before night there came a chill in the air and every one who could got out to remote the slush from his walk before it should freeze up. Then the wind came up and all night long it blew a gale. Houses shook and windows rattled. On Clayton-ave a front door carefully locked was blown open by the force of the hurricane and the hall way was filled with snow. The front door of the adjoining house was nailed up and this morning it was almost impossible to draw the nails they had become so bent by the force of the straining upon them.

   Services at the churches last night were very poorly attended. In several of the churches the regular order of worship was changed to a prayer meeting. And how the snow came down, and how it drifted. At about 9:30 the fire bell sounded its warning notes and every one who heard shuddered thinking of the awful night for a fire. Fortunately it was a false alarm caused by the crossing of wires. It was deliverance, for had a fire broken out in such a gale it would have swept everything before it. People who got out to see where the fire was located found themselves in the face of a blizzard with drifts to the knees or higher. The electric lights sputtered and flickered fitfully and could be seen for but a few rods. All night long the wind blew and the snow piled up. This morning when people opened their doors many of them found that they had to dig before they could even set foot outside. The drifts were a sight to behold. They are piles up on Main-st. to an incredible height and the country roads are said to be absolutely impassible.

   Strange to say some of the biggest of all in the city appear to be directly on the sidewalks. On the west side of Main-st. for nearly its whole length the walks were this morning covered by banks anywhere from 1 to 6 feet in depth. The east side fared much better, in fact many of the walks were bare on that side, and good natured remarks upon the relative condition of the two sides were exchanged between the fortunate ones on the one side and the shovelers on the other. Those on the west side, however, contented themselves by thinking back to a storm of three or four years ago when that side of the street was entirely snowbound, as it was this morning, and the eastsiders indulged in about the same amount of fun at their expense, but in a few days the conditions reversed, as it seemed as though all the snow on the west side of the street and a reinforcement of about three times as much new material landed over on the east side, and then the shoveling began over there in good earnest.

   But the banks are not by any means confined to Main-st. On all the streets the snow is heaped up, not only on walks, but also in the roads and milkmen and deliverymen were repeatedly caught and stuck fast in the drifts, where they were held until shoveled out.

   The railroads are having a hard time of it. The early Lackawanna train from the south arrived on time, but got stuck in a drift near Preble which delayed it for some time. The 9:25 southbound train did not get through from Syracuse to Cortland till about noon. The vestibule train due at 1:03 did not leave Syracuse till that time and reached Cortland after 3 o'clock with two engines. One track between Cortland and Syracuse was then wholly open and the other partly so.

   The Lehigh Valley R. R. finds the bulk of its snow between Freeville and Camden. Three snow plows are out on the road one west and two east of Cortland. The one at the west has cleared the road well. The 9:43 train from Elmira arrived soon after 11 o'clock and went right back again. No trains are being run east of Cortland.

   A snowplow was sent east last night and it got as far as Canastota and there the engine to which it was attached broke down and the plow was useless as no other engine could get to it. A second plow started out from Cortland at 12:15 this noon to clear the east end of the road.

   The E. & C. N. Y. R. R. started a train with two engines from Cortland for Cincinnatus this morning. It reached Cincinnatus a little after noon, but will not try to return till tomorrow. Some big drifts were encountered.

   The electric road has been having a big time of it. Last night it tried to run its snow plow all night to keep the road open, but that was found to be impossible, as the snow blew in faster than it could be cleared out by the plow. At 11 o'clock the last car was pulled off the McGraw division and soon after that the cars were taken from the Homer line. This morning the road was drifted full. Work has been pushed all day and it was expected that the Homer line would be open before dark, and work will then be begun at once on the other division.

   The wind has abated much during the day and the mercury is beginning to drop. During the night and forenoon it was warm and comfortable, but this afternoon the air is keen and there is the promise of a cold night.

 

FALSE ALARM OF FIRE.

Proceeded from a Break in Wire and Crossing of Wires.

   At about 9 o'clock last night the fire bell began a vigorous ringing which was kept up for several minutes. No particular number was struck, but, in spite of the blinding snow storm and the big drifts that had been piled up, about sixty firemen responded and were at the engine house ready for duty if required. The cause of the ringing of the bell was a break in the alarm wire on Greenbush-st. in front of the residence of C. C. Darby, where the wire came in contact with the limb of a tree, thus sawing the wire off by the action of the wind. It is said by the officials that there are only two places in the city where these wires can possibly be interfered with by coming in contact with trees, and these, the officers state, will be attended to immediately.

   Mayor Charles F. Brown was one to start out from his home to see if there was a fire. Just at dusk he had been out and cleared his walks from all snow and slush, and as this was only a little later he stepped out on what be supposed to be a clear track, but instead of this he was soon nearly up to his neck in a big drift that had piled up directly in front of his door.

 

Delaware, Lackawanna & Western engine "Sam Sloan."

Installing New System.

   The Lackawanna is installing all along the main line of the road a complete system of telephonic communication which will eventually supplant the telegraphic system now in use, although the latter will not be entirely abandoned as the Western Union Telegraph company controls  the lines to a certain extent.

   Work has already been commenced in extending the system from Binghamton to Syracuse on the Syracuse division, and wires will afterwards be strung to Elmira and eventually to Buffalo. When the lines are completed and in operation between Scranton and New York, the communicating circuits will be over the northern division to Binghamton.

   The work of installing the new system being done by the company's own employees, under the direction of L. B. Foley, superintendent of telegraph on the Lackawanna.—Binghamton Herald.

 

BREVITIES.

   —There will be a meeting of Grover Relief Corps tomorrow at 3 o'clock sharp in G. A. R. hall.

   —The Primary union will meet in the parlors of the First M. E. church tomorrow afternoon at 4 o'clock.

   —New display advertisements today are—E. M. Mansur, Oranges, page 8; Buck & Lane, Plumbing, etc., page 6.

   —Cortlandville lodge, No. 470, F. & A. M., will confer the second degree at their regular communication Tuesday evening.

   —All members of the degree staff of Iskoot council, D. of P., are requested to meet at Red Men's hall at 7 o'clock Tuesday evening, Feb. 4.

   —A regular meeting of the W. C. T. U. will be held Tuesday, Feb. 4, at 1 P. M. The entire service will be in charge of the county president, Miss Libbie Robertson.

   —A meeting or the National Protective legion will be held Tuesday evening at 7:30 o'clock in I. O. G. T. hall. All members are requested to vote on sick claims.