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ESTABLISHED IN 18( an able document. GOVERNOR SHEPPARD'S MESSAGE TO THE LEGISLATURE. The Financial Situation?Ocfects In the Tax Lawn and the Remedy?Public Insti tution*?The Schools and Colleges?Wise Recommendations. The following synopis of Governor Sheppard's Message, which he sent to the Legislature last week, we take from the columns of the Columbia Register: The debt of the State, upon report of Comptroller, is given at 80,51)2,111.57. At the suggestion of the Comptroller I General the Governor calls the atten Cion of the Assembly to the consider-1 able amount of f amiable securities still unfunded, amounting, when funded at 5l> per cent, of their face value, to ?285,000 of consols. In order to relieve the sluggishness of holders in funding | these securities, the Governor recom mends the passage of an act providing that the period" in which these bonds and certilicates of stock may be render ed and exchanged be limited to October 31,1889, after which they shall be fund ed only under special act of the General Assembly. A careful review of the assessment and collection of taxes is submitted to the Assembly, with important recom mendations. * In this connection the Governor repeats with emphasis the inequality and absurd valuation of pro pertyin the State, and also to the large amount of property, personal and real, which escapes all taxation whatsoever. The provision of the Constitution re quires that property should be assessed on its "actual valuation" is cmphasi/.-l ed, and the Govemorshows pretty con- j olusively how the letter and spirit of the Constitution is disregarded in this; .important particular, besides the large ' amount of property in the State having no place whatever on the tax books. To meet these and other lax abuses point ed out, the Governor recommends that Section 253 of the tax act be amended so as to enlarge the powers and in crease the responsibilities of the Town ship Hoard of Assessors. I.t is main tained that discreet and intelligent per- i sons filling these Township Hoards can more readily and accurately determine j the actual value of the property in the townships than the County Hoard or! the County Auditor. It is recommend ed that every owner, agent or other person whose "duty it is to return pro perty for taxation shall make there turn in person, and should in person sign the oath required to be made. The Auditor should be authorized to pro pound any inquires that would enable him to obtain full and honest returns of all property subject to taxation. The Township Hoard* before entering on the discharge of their duties, it. is recommended, should be rp tft?r& in addition to the usual oaths ,of office, tp swear that they will fairly and impartially assess the value of pro perty, and concluding their duties should further swear that according to their knowdedge, information and belief there is no property in their township that is omitted from assess ment. It is contended that if all pro perty in the respective townships is assessed at its actual value there will be nothing for the County Hoards to equalize. The jurisdiction of the County Hoards, it is recoiumended, should" be appellate only, with right of further appeal to the Comptroller General. It is recommended that the Township Boards for the services thus rendered should be paid such a per diem as will compensate them for the time spent in discharging such duties. The State Board of Equalization, upon the authority of the Comptroller, the Governor holds is an entirely ineffi cient body. As to the non-payment of taxes and property forfeited therefor the Governor calls attention to the utterly inefficient laws now on the statute book, and recommends here after trfat this forfeiture be affected by ;i decree of court. The Trial Justice system is reviewed and its plain abuses "pointed out. To relieve the case it is recommended that there be two classes of Trial Justices, viz., ministerial and judical. That ministerial justices should have the trial of civil eases alone now within their jurisdiction, and the power to commit offenders for trial before the judicial justice or the Circuit Court as the ease may be. That each County should have one judicial justice to set at the court house, and before whom all criminal eases w ithout the jurisdic tion of the Court of Sessions should be tried. The Governor recommends a recurrence to the old "summarypro cess** jurisdiction, so as to permit the Circuit Judges to hear and determine, without a jury (unless demanded by either parly under certain restrictions.) all civil actions at law involving not more than two hundred dollars, includ ing appeals in civil actions from Trial Justice Courts. It is als:? suggested! that there should be no appeal in such cases from tin- decision of the Circuit Court. It is advised that Me-fee bill l>e revised and amended so as to limit the number of days for which costs may he taxed for "references." It is recommended that the practice of swearing in open court witnesses ap pearing before grand juries be dispen sed with, and that the foreman or fore man pro t< m of the grand jury be authorized, bv act. to administer such oaths. Attention is called to an important dicision of the Supreme Court of the United States reversing the decision (d* the Federal Circuit Court, and by which the payment of a claim of 81,800.000 is saved to the State, besides setting at rest many other claims which would have greatly embarrassed the adminis tration of the state government. The condition of the public schools and higher institutions of learning of the State is reviewed with care, and! the institutions commended to the liberal support of the Assembly. The Governor says that the enrollment of pupils in the*public schools amounted for the year to 183,966, ami the average attendance to 126,690, showing an in-1 creased average attendance in the year 1 003. Of the several State institu-1 59. QUA tinns we are told the institution for the ( Education of the Deaf and Dumb shows an enrollment for the year of 94; Clatlin College 103; South Carolina College 203; Military Academy 112 showing an aggregate of 812 students in the several State institutions. The! remark of the Governor in reference to South Carolina College, when he says i that the "liberal patronage of the insti-1 tution shows that the rehabiliment of the institution has met a want recog-; nized tuid felt" is most strikingly ap plicable to the whole round of the State's schools. What more triumph-, ant endorsement of the State's educa tional appropriations than per pres-1 ence of over 800 students in the several institutions of learning? The Cover-! nor. whilst commending South Car olina College to the liberal support of the Assembly, does not favor free tui-1 tion. Attention is called to the good , progress made in the agricultural de-1 partment of the College, and happy and forcible reflections indulged on the; benefits of practical education. The Governor is in favor of the establish ment of a new agricultural college ifj the Assembly think that the resources: of the State will warrant it. The somewhat embarrassed condi- j tion of the penitentiary, owing to dis asters caused to the penal farms by the Roods, is noticed.and an appropriation of ?25,000 recommended, to be returned to the treasury from the earnings of the! penitentiary. The following facts touching the j "Columbia canal" are noticed on the I authority of the engineer in charge : ! Total cash expended by the State.SlO.ii! ?s 01 i Total cash expended by the city of Columbia... (5,222 10 Total cost of convict labor used. 77.074 SIT Total cost.8130,705 (58 Cost exclusive of amount paid by Columbia.8124,183 58 T'le .Manager in his report recom-. mends the appropriation of 812,000 for! the ensuing year. Seven-tenths of the excavation has been performed. The amount necessarv for the construction! of the dam is est imated at 8(52,800.44? 825,000 thereof being expressed inj money, the rest in labor. The Lunatic Asylum and the Board of Health are eoinmendably noticed by the Governor, both as to the efficiency of their conduct "and tin; great economy practiced in their operation. As to the work on tin; Statt' House it is shown that the amounts already ap propriated for "completing the eon struction of the main building" reach 8132,3ti7.74, and that 801.'XX) more will l?e required to finish the chambers of the Senate and House and for the other necessary work about the main build ing.. ?? The Governor most- touchingly and appropriately alludes to the visitation of Charleston, and altogether has sub mitted a message that would have done honor to James TL Hammond in his day. A Young Sinn's Tragic Fate. Harvey Rowland, a voung man of twenty-two, prominent in social circles and highly esteemed, drew his salary from the Casket Works, Owesso. Michi gan, on Saturday evening. Hiring a horse and buggy* he went driving with his betrothed. Miss Jennie Eldridge, of Corunna, a village three miles distant. They were gone till the evening. Late at night Miss Eldridge was taken home. Young Rowland arrived at the Corunna livery stables with the carriage at 1 o'clock on Sunday morning. lie paid for the keeping of the tournout over night iind left. He returned about half-past 1, and got the horse again and started for Owesso. At daylight the turnout was found at the livery barn in Owesso, Rowland sitting on the seat dead. A bullet-hole was in his fore head. His hands were folded on hisl lap. holding the reins, and a revolver lay upon the seat beside him. Suicide was the first belief, but the apparently j studied arrangement of the dead man's hands suggested murder, especially in the absence of any known motive" for self-destruction, it was afterwards j learned that he had quarreled with | Miss Eldridge, whom ho was to marry next Thursday, and for whom he pur chased several presents on Saturday evening. The Coroner's jury found it verdict of suicide, but further inves tigation will be made. There are ru mors of a|rival, and other sensational reports are in circulation. Died from ii Surgical Operation. Miss Jennie Upton, of Oaston Coun ty, died ut the hospital in Charlotte. X. i ('., Saturday, under a surgical opera tion fur a cystic tumor, which was ag gravated by a dropsical affection. Five) years ago she was prostrated by typhoid fever .and immediately after she re covered wasatllicleil with pains in her stomach. These continued Ihreeyears, when she began lo show siirus u|' ;i dropsical affection. The local physi cians "tapped" her at intervals, but to no effect.* Finally she went to Char lotte for treatment. When she arrived her disease was at its worst. 11 er body was swollen tu three times its natural size. After a diagnosis, the physicians : were doubtful about the success of an j operation, but at the solicitation id' the patient the operation was decided upon. Seven physicians gathered, und the patient was placed under the knife. I The physicians found that the patient was suffering from cystic tumor, which is a cluster of abdominal tumors. As ;i result of the operation, tin-patient was relieved of a mass of matter, fluid nun solid, weighing seventy pounds. The Huid matter amounted to six gallons, weighing fifty-live pounds, while the solid matter or tumor cluster weighed fifteen pounds. The operation was scarcely concluded when the patient died. * $|Mii*tmilHtrg (Oii-s Wet. Sr.\UTAxnri:o, Nov. 27?The elec-j tion fur license or no license was held to-day. The interest was wide-spread, hut feeling was much less bitter than in former elections. Roth parties felt confident until the result was announc ed, as follows : License, three hundred j and ninety-live; no license, three hun dred and" twenty-two. The vote was! the largest ever polled in this city,! The wets are exuberant with joy. " i lover Jaul.\Si> el .xgej>ur(t, s. c, Tum M AWFUL CRIME. AN OLD WOMAN BURNED ALIVE BY HER CHILDREN. Horrible Details of the Murder Drought Out In the Trial?Vain Attempt of the Defence to Persuade the Jury to Attri bute the Crime to Superstition. ]?lois, November 23.?The most re volting case of matricide?a mother burned alive by her four children?that has come before the French tribunals in many years is now before the Court of Assizes of Blois. Thousands of people from far and wide are" Hocking to the court room, and the population are only prevented by the gendarmes from lynching the alleged murderers. Mine. Lebon, an old wonian of seventy, lived with her daughter and son-in-law, named Thomas, in the village of Luneau. The widow's two sons, who lived some way off, and her daughter had endeavored to get their mother into an asylum at lilois, but having failed in this they decided to do away with the old woman and divide the few hundred francs she had saved among them. When it was known in the village on duly 27th that Mine. Lebon was dead a crime was at once suspected, and the gendarmerie immediately visited her house. A horrible sight awaited them. In the fireplace were the charred remains of the old woman. Nothing was left but the head, the two feet, one arm and the thigh bones. The right arm of the victim, shrivelled and twisted, was round the head. Next day the evidence of the two sons, daughter and son-in-law was found to be contradictory, and they began to accuse each other. The declaration of the murdered woman's granddaughter. ;i little girl of seven, cleared up all doubts, .shestated that her two uncles hail come on a visit, and that while at dinner her mother had suddenly said? '?We must get rid of the old one." Then her uncle Alexander ran to the bed and seized hold of his mother by the head, the other son, Alexis, taking her by the feet, and between them they carried her to the lire, winch the little girl's father and mother hud in the mean time prepared. The poor woman had at first called out. but her cries gradu ally became weaker. Tha woman Thomas then took a handful of straw from the mattress and gave it to her husband to set lire to their victim's clothes. The black bonnet worn by the murdered woman, which was not burn ed, was found to have been soaked with petroleum. There is, therefore, little doubt that the wretches had poured petroleum over her clothes to make them burn netter. Her son-in law shoved the body wit h his foot fo prevent it from falling out of the Are? place. Before committing the crime the murderers had sent for a priest to confess .their motlmr^antfjflUniu^liniely. afterward Alexis anirAlexandre Leoon confessed to the priest, their sister doing the same a little later on. The accused are defended ably and elo quently by Maitre Laguerrc, the young Kadical Deputy. Georgette Lebon, the wife of Thomas, is a dark, cross-eyed little peasant woman of twenty-five, but looks as if she were fifty. Thomas is a great, swaggering rustic, with long, yellow mustache. Alexis Lebon is 33 years of age, thin, sallow and malicious, and has a terrible wound in his face from the corner of his mouth to his cheek, so that when he speaks he has the appearance of trying to bite off his ear. Alexandre Lebon is a great, fat boy, and cries all the time the trial is iroing on. Questioned by the .Judge, (ieorgette Lebon refused to relate how the crime happened. The Judge asked : "You sprinkled petroleum over her, didn't you?" Georgette -No; she had a bottle of spirits in her pocket that she used for cabalistic purposes; this bottle must have broken when she was on lire, be cause the old woman all at once burst out into a tremendous name, just us a newspaper does when thrown into the lire. The next witness was little Eugenie, a bright little girl, who related the story of the crime just as she had al ready done at the preliminary investi gation. Judge -Who lighted the lire afterj your grandmother was placed in the; fireplace? Eugenie -My mother lighted the lire. : As soon as grandma burst into a blaze papa told me to say. if anybody asked, i that grandma had tumbled into the fire \ by accident. This evidence made a profound im pression and the child seemed evident-! ly to be speaking the truth. Maitre | Laguerre this afternoon made a most eloipteul speech for the defense, and with greal tact tried topursuadethe jury to attribute the crime to supersti tion, on the ground that the prisoners I considered their mother to In a wit -h and that she had a habit uf casting j magic spells over them. Laguerre. for | t he defense, cited all the weird cases of j witchcraft thai have occurred in lilois in tin; last century, but the jury did not sec it in that light, ami the court .sen tenced Georgette and her husband to death, Alexandre Lebon to the galleys for life and Alexis to the galleys for twenty years. The news was received by the excited crowds in the cotirl house ami streets with shouts of ??Servo them right, the scoundrels !" Heroism Itewartled. I'outauk Wis., Sow 20. Kngiiieerj Thos. Lit! whose heroic attention to duty on the night of the liasl Iii? dis aster undoubtedly saved many lives, was presented last evening by liishop Whipple with a gold medal. The liishop was on his way home from 1'hiladelphla, where he had the token struck off at the Cnitt d States mint. One side bears the insc! iption liishop i Whipple to Thomas Little, ami the re verse : "For his heroism in saving the . lives of passengers at I!io. Wis.. Octo ber 2S, 1880." The medal is plain but, veary neat, being a triilesmaller than a ! silver dollar. The recipient was taken ' entirely by surprise, and liishop Whip-; pie left for home on the night train.' after having paid a warm tribute to j the engineer. I ISDAY, DECEMBER 2, ASSAULTS A LADY. A Washington Department Clerk from South Carolina in Trouble. Washington, November 21.?A cold draught of air blowing into the bed room of Mrs. Page, who lives at No. J.o33 L street, Northwest, awakened that .-lady shortly after 12 o'clock Fri day-night, but bewg drowsy she did not at once get up. The smell of chlo roform, however, fully aroused her, and springing out of bed she attempted to light.the gas, when she found herself in the.powerful clutches of a man. He seized her by the throat and attempted to enforce her to inhale chloroform. The brightened woman struggled and screamed, and her brutal assailant strubk. her several times in the mouth. In the meanwhile the aged mother of Mrs^Page and her three little dauglf ters,>the.only other occupants of the houad, were aroused by the noise, and they-- began to scream. One of the daughters, throwing open a front win dows/called for help. The burglar, alarmed for his own safety, dealt Mrs. Page a savage blow in the face, and she fell heavily to the flooir. In leaving the room he encoun tered the aged mother of Mrs. Page and one oE her daughters, whom he knock ed over, and then quickly made his way out of the house through the basement door,, which he had pried open with a jimmy. He hud'disappeared before the neighbors, aroused by the cries, had reached the house. The children found Mrs. Pago lying insensible. The odor of .chloroform was very strong, and a four-ounce bottle of the driig was fO?fci on the tloor. Dr. Cook, who was called,'-.soon revived Mrs. Page, who. foinnately, was found to he hut -light IjapTjrt. The chloroform bottle used by the supposed .burglar bore the label of the Ebbitt House drug store. The proprietor identified it and said he sold it Friday night to John L. Weirfc, colored, a clerk in the General Lairtl Oilier in the Interior Depart ment'. The ollicers visited West's bonding house yesterday and found tRatheiiad left early in the morning. They then went to his office, but found he had not put ill an appearance there. The officers paid a second visit to Mrs. Page's house and learned from that lady that West had called upon her early this morning to smooth matters over. He told her, so Mrs. Page says, that bc lost his head Friday, and when he found himself it was near midnight ancHie was In her room. Mrs. Page re fused to smooth matters, as he desired, and he left. West, who would hardly be taken for a negro, .is about 33 years of age, is from Columbia, S. C, and graduated at Lynn, MM: He has been in the. department since'1879. He now holds the position of bookkeeper at a salary of $1,400 per annum. Mrs. Page is a $1,200 clerk in tire salne office, and hasjt desk near that o^gest..... -y_ . ^ Your Dull and 3Ty Ox. The Washington correspondent of the World alludes to several embarrass ing meetings of leading politicians at den. Arthur's funeral. In addition to the refusal of Mr. Elaine to speak to Mr. Edmunds, who offered his hand, we are told that Sunday morning Frank Hatton and William JC. Chandler, with one. or two friends started to walk to the house of mourning. As they were leaving ths Fifth Avenue Hot id Mr. liluino was encountered and till the membejs of the party except Hatton rushed forward to greet him. Hatton walked on by himself. "Why didn't you speak to Mr. Elaine?" afterwards said Chandler to Hatton. "I did not think it was necessary," was the reply. "Mr. Blaine knows what I think of him." "You are very foolish," said Chandler. The party hatl not been in Mr. Arthur's house live minutef before 11. B. Hayes was announced. "Now Chandler, its your turn," said Hatten. Chandler appeared to have forgotten his lecture to Hatton, and avoided meeting Mr. Hayes. "It is surprising," said an observer, "how much the Re publican leaders love one another." a Kentucky Killing. Louisville, Ky., November 2<?.?A 'finies special says: Report has reach ed Williamshurg, Ky., that, the Foe family, who were thought to have been destroyed by lire in Knox County a mouth ago," were, in reality, murdered by their neighbor and his concubine, whom Poe had slighted socially. The mother, live children and two visiting young ladies wen? found burned in the ashes of the destroyed hut. The story of the murder is told as follows by the illigitimatc son of the concubine, aged ten years, whom the reputed father had threatened and made mad. This boy says : "Thtrman cut, from ear to ear. the throats of each of the eight persons while they slept, and that his mother then dragged the bodies to the middle of the room and set them on lire. They also fired the house, took some bed clothing and ol her articles and depart ed." On the boy's .statement arrests and investigation followed, and the I'oe articles were found in the cell tr of the suspiHitcd parties' lumse. They refuse to be interviewed, and are now in Rar bour'sjail awaiting examination. Dcalll in t Ik- .M i nt's. Wll.KKSI'.AKKK. November 2i5.- All explosion of gas in Canygham shall occurred this morning at'ten minutes past 7 o'clock, while tin: men were get ting ready to go to work. About, fifty miners and laborers were sitting at the foot of the main shaft waiting for the inside boss when the explosion occurred and only three or four of them, as far us can be ascertained, escaped without injury. Most of the men were sent to tiieir homes at once. A number, possi bly ten or twelve, will die. and many others [will be scarred or maimed for life. The explosion was caused by Cornelius Doyle, a mine laborer, who stepped into* a worked-out chamber, which was Ii I led with gas. with a light ed lamp upon his hat. Doyle will die. Many mules were killed or wounded, and the damage to the inside workings of the shaft are great. The lire bosses. William Williams ami Willirin F.\ans, are reported fatally burned. There is great excitement in the vicinity of the shaft. This paper only 81.50 per annum. 188G. PIttC BLOWN INTO ETERNITY. The Horrible Death of an Old ltcsident of Charleston. Mr. Joseph 0. Lynah,. travelling agent of the Hazard Powfler Company j of New York, met with a horrible J death at Oalveston, Texas, on Sunn..,, last. Mr. Lynah was a brother of Mr. Arthur Lynah, bookkeeper in t'ae Peo ple's National Pank of this city, and a | nephew of Dr. Lynah. The details of the accident which resulted in his death are as follows : Mr. Lynah went to Gal veston to negotiate the sale of a large quantity of powder which had been stored for several months in a magazine belonging to the Brown Hardware Company. Failing to negotiate the sale of a hundred or more kegs to the Brown Company, Mr. Lynah called upon C. 8. "Wood'iv. .Sons, and transfer red the powder to them. The Brown and the Wood magazines are both lo cated three miles down the island be yond the city limits, but about a mile apart. Mr. Lynah personally superin tended the transfer of the powder. The employees of both firms remarked how exceedingly careless he was in throw ing kegs around the magazine and let j ting them fall violently from the wagon j while making the transfer. Lynah dis ; covered nineteen damaged kegs, the I contents of which had become lumpy i on account of moisture. He left the s damaged powder in Brown's magazine. [ when he visited the magazine in com I pany with Thos. A. Drew, an employee ; of Brown, for the purpose of destroying j the damaged powder. They carried i the nineteen kegs about fifty yards ; from the magazine to the bank of the bayou. Lynah kicked in the heads of three or four kegs, examined the con tents and piled the power on top of the unopened kegs. As he took a match from his pocket Drew protested against his lighting 500 hundred pounds of pow der without making a trial of lighting a slow fuse. Lynah replied that he would touch it oil', whereupon Drew became alarmed and ran at the top of his Sliced. He had scarcely proceeded 500 feet "when he heard a terrific explo sion, and at the same instant was thrown violently on his face. Turning over quickly, Drew looked toward the spot where he had left Lynah. and saw him spinnidg around like a top, about thirty feet iii the air, his clothing and hair all ablaze. Lynah fell nearly a hundred feet from where he went up. When Drew reached him life was ex tinct, and every particle of clothihgand hair had been burned from the unfor tunate man's body. -Newsand Courier. MURDER REVEALED BY~SPIRITS. A Supposed Accidental Death Found to Have lieenji Crime. Wheklino, W. Va., November 21.? By a strange and what many people be lieve to be a supernatural revelation a murder committed live years ago has been*exposed in this-city^~'*A 'man who had a young son by a former marriage was left a widower a second time some five years ago. He had been married to his second w ife about a year when she died, as is alleged, through breaking her neck by a fall down stairs. One of the dead "woman's brothers, with the boy above alluded to. was recently pass ing along a street in this city when a man in front of them fell in a fit. The brother and boy stopped to watch the sight, and after the lapse of a moment or two the prostrate and writhing man on the pavement called out:?"i was murdered ! My husband shot mo !" The effect of this outcry upon the boy i was remarkable. He turned pale and ! screamed out that it was true that his father did kill ?'mama," but if his fath | er knew he had said so he would kill j him. j In the excitement the man on the I side-walk recovered and attempted to j slip away in the crowd, but when stop pod denied that he had said anything, j gave his name as Williams and "said he i was a "medium." The boy, in answer j to further inquiries, said his father and I the dead woman frequently quarrelled, j and that his father shot her as she was ; going down stairs. .Some of the rela ' tions of the family recalled that the J woman's clothing was blood stained j when she was found at the foot of the I stairs and an investigation was deter ; mined upon. The remains were exhumed yester day in the presence of a Justice "of the f l'eace. when the breastbone was found j to be perforated by a bullet, which was afterward found in the collin. It is supposed that Williams became posses sed of the secret in some way and took advantage of his alleged powers as a medium to make the matter public. The arrest of the alleged murderer will follow. Married in a Show Window. I'kovjijkxci:. November .!.- The most largely attended wedding ever held in this city came off to-night in the large show window of a house furn ishing establishment in High street. The contracting parties wen; Leonard D. .Moiiutney and Isabella I'ondina. The ceremony was performed by |{ev. Frank a. Mutter of tin- Boorganized Church of Latter-Day Saints of this city. The inducement for tin- couple marrying in this novel manner in full ga/.e of the public was the offer of a black walnut bedroom set. which has been on exhibition several weeks at the establishment. a notice was published in the window of the effect that this would be presented to the couple that would consent to be married in that window. Scarcely had the notice been put up when there were scores of ap plications of all nationalities, some of them being negroes. Finally a certain couple were selected, but Ihe names were kept strictly secret and were not given out until after the ceremony. The affair had been extensively adver tised to take [dace to-night at S o'clock, but long before that time an immense crowd was assembled in the street, and by 8 o'clock there wen- probably in front of the building, around it and in side of it, between three thousand and four thousand people. Karthquitke shocks la the East. Constantinople, November 27.? Severe shocks of earthquake were felt to-day in Sinryna, Tihesirte lind the- Is land of Chios. E $1.50 PER ANjfcl. DANTE'S HELL IN TEXAS. horror and death broadcast in sleepy hollow. The Kurth Yawns ami Creates a Chasm Fifteen Miles I.on;,- ami Fifteen Hundred I'eet lVitte??]teg!on Infernal Seen h> ilu man Eyes. Sleepy Hollow. Texas, Novem ber 29.?The greatest excitement pre vails here. Nothing is talked or thought of but nature's great convulsion fast night. At a point seven miles South east of this little country postoffice oc curred last night one of the staugest freaks of nature recorded in the annals of the world's history. At the above mentioned point is the confluence of two creeks, Post Oak and Chambers, the latter quite an important stream, and what would be called a river in the New England States. Here is located the cause for the terror and excite ment that have got hold of the people. An immense upheaval has occurred at that point, causing a rent in the earth that is horrifying to look upon. The topography of the country before this agonizing kick of old mother earth was almost a dead level. It is one vast creek bottom, covered with dense tim ber: or was such before this occurrence. To-day a yawning chasm, fifteen miles long and more than fifteen hundred feet broad, stares one in the face who has the courage to look at it. A dense cloud of black, sulphurous smoke rises slowly from its rumbling mouth. In tense heat prevails at a distance of half ja mile on either side of this vast and terrible crater, and, to add to its awful grandeur, it intersects Chambers Creek just below i;s union with Post Oak, thus forming quite a large body of water that plunges into this bottomless chasm with ajar and thundering tone that can be felt and heard for twenty two miles. The nearest telegraphic station to this point is Corsicana, thirty live miles away. The people in this neighborhood are composed of a thrifty though illiterate class of planters. They are naturally superstitious, and this wonderful phenomenon has just run them wild. They spend (heir entire time praying and singing. They have abandonded their fields to prepare for the awful doom, as they suppose in store for them. They neither eat nor sleep, only^as they are exhausted. A portion of the time to-day a strong Mast wind has been blowing, driving the heat to the West side of the open ing, so that your correspondent could approach sufficiently close to examine partially the inward appearance of the jaws of hell. No language, however, I awful or eloquent, could approach even the faint picture of so grand yet so I fearful a scene. Imagine a lirery opening in the*earth fifteen miles long and l,o00 feet wide, belching forth great clouds of black sulphurous srfioke, from beneath which come the deep muttcrings of subter raneous thunders, whose voices speak only through the open mouth of hell, then you may form but a slight idea of this scene. As the wind moves the huge volume of smoke aside it reveals huge monsters of every hideous and conceivrblcshape writhing and twist ing in the molten mass beneath. Sounds and murmurs like human voices in the awfulcst agonies seem to come from right under yoiir feet, as you stand on the brink of this horrible chasm. Var ious theories have been advanced by experts and old women as to the mean ing of all this unrest of old mother earth. There is no doubt in the mind of your correspondent that it is asso ciated with the recent earthquake at Charleston. S. C. What the result maybe before nature resumes her equilibrium in this sec tion is hard to tell. It has already re sulted In the destruction of twenty-five line ranches, 70<> head of stock, thirteen dwelling houses, and about three thou sand acres of line timber have been swallowed up. The loss of human life amid the present excitement is impos sible to ascertain, but it is supposed to be frightful. People are gathering up their effects and fleeing from the coun try in wagons or horseback, in wheel barrows und on foot. Croat suffering ami destitution must follow in the wake of such wholesale destruction of life and property. The asmosphere for twenty miles .around has an intense sulphurous smell. Unless to-morrow's i sun has a tendency to purity the atmos > phere orlift this sulphurous ordoryour I correspondent will be compelled to take 11j> his retreat with the break' of day. Animals, birds and insects, even to ! the vivacious Texas mosquito,areleav ; ing the neighborhood of this awful dis i play of nature's lire works. Horses, cattle, hogs and dogs are lying dead through the timber, suffocated with the sulphurous gases that seem to he ooz ing from the ground. The ground is so intensely heated for tell miles around thai every living spear of trrass and all the timber is dyin Tin piel uro of desolation and woe i? frightful even to contemplate, but imagine what it is to otii-in the midst of all this loneliness. Aside from the rumbling noise beneath your fret the silence is painful. I semi this communication by horse back mail to the. nearest railroad point, thirty-live miles away, and will write you mow fully when my brain and nerves get steadier and I get outof this infernal region. Laxavkli.kx. A Maniac'-. Kevuli lug Crime. St. I.ni is, November '2'i. a special from Leaven worth, Kansas, says : A dispatch from Havensville, .Jackson County, eighty-live miles West of here, tells of a revolting crime committed near that place last Wednesday night. A young farmer named Rhodes Cle ments, while going from prayer meet ing with another farmer named Samuel Cordon, suddenly became insane and killed the latter with it club. Not re turning from the meeting, search was commenced for Clements and he was round some distance from the mad. sit ting beside the body of the man he had (murdered, eating his heart. He had cut off the head from Gordon's body and had turn out the heart, lungs and liver, and was devouring them. Cle i ments was secured and is ..ow in jail^ i a raving maniac.