The Hiattville News from Hiattville, Kansas • 4

H. YEAMNTBE ate September with a total I of fatalities: merely amounting to 33 but. abroad the' ominous figures com- menced to mount with a rush again Five thousand lives were lost In a flood in India and 140. through a ferry disaster at Symrna. October was the month of the great forest, fires'; which devastated Michigan, destroying 60 lives-and worth of property.

A typhoon In the Philippines added its quota of 800 souls, and a second typhoon off China claimed 5,000 victims. Both at home and abroad November proved a comparatively Innocuous month, although It was marked by two comparatively large Three hundred and thirty-nine lives were lost in a mine explosion In Germany, and 123 'deaths resulted from the burning of the steamer Sardinia at December and Yuletlde came and exhausted humanity saw the black year drawing to a close in apparent calm." They were looking forward to the new year in eager hope that the evil days were over, when the greatest blow of all fell. On December: 28, 1908, occurred the great Italian earthquake, the' most stupendous disaster of the world's history. Even yet it is impossible to make an accurate' estimate of what its cost was either in loss of human life or, property. It is known that 125,000 people but in actual' fact it is probable figure" is far below HISTORY OF the exceptionally high number of fatalities which resulted from the accidental' discharge high explosives.

In spite of the elaborate precautions which are generally observed in the handling of such material as dynamite death a large army of Victims from premature explosions. Altogether 499 lives were lost through, this class of disaster. Dangers Surround Earth's Delvers. An examination of the figures brings borne forcibly the terribly dangerous conditions under which work the men who sgo down into the earth to delve for wealth. From Wery country in the world which owns mines was contributed the tale of a grewsome underground tragedy.

In all 2,270 miners' were sacrificed, and the universal distribution of the disasters would seem to indicate that no precautions can be taken which will guarantee safety with any certainty to the subterranean workers. 1 In considering' the' statistics given here it must not be forgotten that -they do not include many thousands of violent deaths which would run the total far above its present tremendous total of over a quarter of a million. No account is taken in these figures of single fatalities, such' as persons killed by street cars and in other thqroughfare accidents and the long list of individual deaths for which the railroads are annually responsible." Also the criminal statistics are not included, and it is only toe true that the number of persons who meet their death from assassination every year is a large one. Suicides also are not included, nor the big y. KANSAS STATE NEWS aA JiiTi iti if i ifi iTi iti if i it i if i if i 1 1 --rTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT Brown Tail Moth In Kansas.

The brown tail moth has been found In, Kansas. It is one of the most de- tructive little insects known. Not only does this insect destroy the fruit trees, but It gives off into the air a hair-like substance which 13 uncom fortable to breathe. The entoinokio department of the university is now busy examining all the nursery stock coming into the state to keep tha moth from getting scattered. The facet that, there were brown tall moths Ja Kansas was made known Victor Chesky went to Topeka and found in a large shipment of see lings, eight large nests containing the moths, and about 200 of them in each nest.

The seedlings affected were carefully taken out from the remainder of the shipment and brought here to the university where Professor Hunter is making a close study ci them. Since tfee first announcement a month ago that there would be dan ger of a brown tail moth Professor Hunter's assistants have been examining all the nursery stock that has come into the state. They have not made the discovery knowa for fear of getting the alarmed, but they have found in alt: 34 nests of the moths. Three of these nests were found at Ottawa, five at Winfield, eight at Topeka and seven at Lawrence. The nests were brought to the university and examined carefully and then destroyed.

For State Charities, $348,318. The state board of control made its semi-annual report to the governor showing the expenditures of the board, for the nine state charitable institu tions for the fti'st half of this fiscal year. The report shows a total expenditure of $348,317.97 for institutions' inclusive of the special funds se apart for permanent improvements and new buildings. This is a reduction of from the expenditures of the previous six months. The expenditures are itemized as follows: "Salaries and wages, maintenance, fees expended, $346.15.

The amounts expended at each institution are as fallows: Topeka hospital, 20.15; Parsons hospital, sehoeF for feeble minded youth, school for the deaf, schooE for' the blind, soldiers' orphans' home, industrial schooS for boys, industrial school for girls, $19,040.92. Col, W. A. Harris Can't Serve. Col.

W. A. Harris of Lawrence has declined the appointment, of regent of the state agricultural college, tenderest him by Gov. Stubbs. He says that his private business will not permit him to attend meetings of the boarsfc of regrents regularly nor to give college the time a regent should give It Too Many for one Church.

A new Methodist church has beea. organized at Salina. It will be knowat as the South Salina M. E. church.

The separation was made from the regular church, because the attendance and membership was too large for ok church to handle. Widow Got $10,000 Damage. In the district court jury returned verdict for $10,000 damages, against the Santa Fe railroad company im favor of Mrs. Jennie Bell Turner. whose husband, a yardman, was killed by being run over at Arkansas last summer.

Farm Land Going Up. Kansas farms selling at $100 an acre are the common thing this spring. A farm in Dickinson county that broagM $75 last spring sold recently for $185: an acre in all. Woman Dies From Scratch of Death in ten days from a pm scratch is the tragedy in the home ol Charles Jones, a farmer near Chanutc Mrs. Jones in sweeping received a slight scratch from a pin in her clothing.

The scratch was on the left wrfsS and was scarcely perceptible to tie eye. At the time little attention was paid to the injury, but it commencad swelling immediately and gradual! Induced blood; poisoning. Three Men Hurt In Explosion. In a premature explosion ia tne Frazier near El Dorada H. Croonk, the foreman, a negro and a Mexican employed in the quarry were seriously injured.

Croonk's eyes were blown out and part of hia face-blown Widely Known Kansas Physician Dtad Dr. G. A. Biddle of Emporia one ell the widely known physicians in Kar' sas and a Mason, died recently hospital at Topeka of Bright's aisasft. He was a brother of Dr.

T. C. Biddlv superintendent of the Topeka stju asylum for the insane. THEW INETEEN. HUNDRED AND EIGHT the most terrible year of disaster in the history of the modern world.

That is the black record which Time has entered in his books for the year which has just closed. A quarter of million people destroyed Jn awful catacylsms, billions of dollars' worth of property wiped out of existence, a sum of pain and human anguish which can never be expressed in words or figures such is the balance which must be carried "to the debit side of the world's account books. The mention of the word catastrophe will of course bring the thoughts of, every one back to the great Italian earthquake," the greatest "single" disaster in the world's history, a tragedy which cost 125,000 lives and wiped out of existence great and historic pities. the shadow of that terrible holocaust the world has failed to realize that it was merely the climax of a long series of horrors which followed one on the heels of the other from the first day of January, 1908, to the first day of January, 1909. chimes of the rejoicing bells that rang in the new year of 1908 had not" died away.

when the grim fiend of destruction commenced its work in a mine at'. Carthage, N. M. Twelve miners were blown out of human recognition the. black year vhad opened.

The first big blow fell 11 days later when 300 people were incinerated in a restaurant fire at China. It was followed the next day by a trag-1 edy in America which shook the country to the core and sent thousands into mourning. The opera house at Boyertown, was burned down during an amateur performance, and 172 charred and mangled bodies were subsequently, taken from the ruins. The first month of the ominous year waned to a close amid a series of minor disasters at home and-abroad which were overshadowed by the horrors which preceded them and the yet greater horrors which were to come. The first of February ushered in the first cyclone, which devastated Mississippi, leaving -20 dead bodies and hundreds of ruined homesteads in its wake.

Two days later news was flashed -across the wires that a mine explosion in Japan had destroyed .91 miners and that 21 lives had been lost in a snowstorm In Algeria. Devastated by Cyclone. Scarcely a week had elapsed before the cyclone fiend made its second appearance, sweeping through Minnesota and Texas, claiming 13 lives. On the same day a mine explosion in Natal put an abrupt end to the hazard ous calling of 32 miners. Within two weeks similar accidents England and Spain had called 92 more men to their account, while a dynamite accident in California was paid for with 30 lives.

-As if reach month was endeavoring to outdo-in horror its predecessors, March opened with a record of terrible disasters, among which is numbered the most heartrending American trag-1 edy since the Iroquois fire. The carnival' ol destruction opened on the first of the month with an avalanche in Switzerland which cost 61 lives, among the lost being several Americans. Three days afterward came the schoolhouse fire at Collingwood, O. Oae hundred and seventy-eight chil- 'dren burned, trampled and crushed to death! No adjectives and no words of any language could adequately describe such-an appalling event. Vio- lent death invested' with terrors always strikes humanity with peculiar fiendishness when it seizes as its prey helpless and innocent children This holocaust of childhood stunned the country into oblivion of lesser calamities, while the despairing shrieks of hundreds of mothers and fathers rang 'across the world.

The month 1 closed, with an earthquake in Mexico in which 500 people' were killed and a inine explosion at Havana, which added 70 more items to the long toll of the year's violent deaths. Fire and earthquake gave place to flood and storm in April, and the loss of life leaped upward with terrific bounds. The first great disaster of the month occurred in China, where 2,000 people were drowned in a flood which inundated the province of Hu-pib. A few days later two railway accidents, one Australia and the other in Alberta, accounted for 68 more unfortunates. Qn, April 24 a series of cyclones of unprecedented fury burst over the southern states, destroying 368 lives, annihilating villages, and devastating property to the extent of millions of dollars.

Mississippi paid 229 to the rage of the storm, Louisiana contributed -108, and Alabama 31. While the cyclones were still ravaging the south, in a snowslide buried 40 persons and obliterated a village. last week of April saw a last supreme effort put forth by, the malign fates to make the first of the month of spring the most deadly of the dread year. Forty lives were lost in a railroad accident in Australia and 28 more in a similar disaster in Mexico; A landslide at Notre Dame de Sabelle, Canada, added 36 to the swelling total, and finally the Japanese cruiser Mutsushim blew up and 240 members of its crew perished. Past Mere Foretaste of Future, It might well have seemed that the fury of the fates would have been exhausted by this time, but instead- humanity had only experienced the first few blows of the terrible scourging which was to be visited upon.

it. In the first three days of the next month 26 persons were burned to, death in America, 13 in Norway, and the collapse of a in London accounted for 20 more. The following day a ferryboat capsized in Russia and 121 passengers were drowned. A week later another terrific cyclone burst over the doomed southern states and took toll of 42 lives in Louisiana, 17 in east Nebraska, and 14 in Oklahoma. The sequel to this prelude came on the -13th, when 10,000 lives went out in another Chinese flood at Hankow.

Beside this appalling tragedy a railroad aocident in Belgium with 60, fatalities seemed trivial. As a grand finale the ill-fated Hankow was struck by a typhoon and the total of her dead was increased 1,000. The following day aaother thousand lives were sacrificed in a mine fire at Kewang, China. June apparently despaired of ever competing successfully with her sister month. However, she continued to pile tragedy on tragedy.

On the first of. the month an accident on the Amur river in China resulted in 89 deaths, and 18 was added to the day's roll by a nooa Mexico, un tne tourtn a typhoon on the west coast of Australia wiped out 270 lives, and two days aft erward another cyclone burst in Ne braska at a cost of 28 lives, to be. followed the next day with another cy clone in Iowa which increased the list by five. On the same: day 20 persons were lost in a flood in Mexico and 18 in an, explosion in Vienna. The month of roses concluded its list" with tor nado, which struck the Portuguese coast and slew 400, while Oklahoma contributed 100 more of her citizens to another storm.

As far as America was concerned July was the most merciful month of the year. Fifty-two lives was the entire tribute collected in the United States through the agencies of flood, fire and storm. This leniency was more than rnmnpnasitorf hnwaixu. K.r the lisV of fatalities abroad. On the second of the month Batavia; Java was ravaged by a storm which de stroyed 600 lives.

On the same day a mine explosion in Russia was respon sible for 235 fatalities. On the 13th 57 lives were lost in a storm off the coast of Spain, and on the 15th a flood in -Asia Minor swept away 2,000 peo ple. Few Fatalities in August. August was the most merciful month in the year. In, the United States the death roll was 170, prin cipally caused by floods in North and South Carolina and The biggest disaster abroad was a cyclone in Hungary which killed 74 people.

It was closely followed by a mine ex plosion in England with 70 fatalities The total deathroll for the remaining disasters was 81, the largest; single item being 39 lives lost in forest fires in British Columbia. The United States was still fortun the; real number of victims. In material loss.it is impossible to name any figure. Far Surpassed Lisbon Disaster. Up to the time of the Italian earthquake, the record disaster had been the earthquake at Lisbon In 1755, when 60,000 lives had been lost.

This terrible tragedy had been for over a century and a half the object of the awful dismay of the world. It becomes almost insignificant in view of the calamity which befell in the clos- ing days of 1908. Fdr every soul that went out at Lisbon two were quenched in Sicily and Italy and "5,000 more were added for good Another point of interest, especially for those who cherish the venerable the unlucklness of the number 13, is the discovery that there was a disaster on every thirteenth day of the month for the first seven months of the year. The record' was started on January 13, the date of the Boyertown theater fire. A month later there a boiler-explosion in Pennsylvania, followed: in March by an avalanche which t5ok 18 lives in April 13 saw a flood in China which cost 2,000 lives, and the same day in May a similar disaster was responsible for the "loss of 10,000 people.

while 42 people died in a cyclone in- Louisiana. June 13 a dynamite explosion took nine lives in Winnipeg, and on July 13 47 lives were lost In a storm off the coast of Spain. Another curiosity is discovered 'in connection with highly-useful elevator which has made- possible skyscrapers. While it is fairly common to hear of accidents in elevators, few people realize Vhat a heavy toll it takes on life. In'the United States in 1908 108 people were- killed and 57 injured in elevator accidents.

A significant feature of the list is number who lose their lives through individual drowning accidents, care less handling of firearms, and the numberless other stray hazards which surround life. If all these figures could be collected and added it -is not an exaggeration to say that it would be found that at least .300,000 persons came to a violent end during the fatal months of 1908. That is to say that the year saw the violent destruction of a population of a city almost as large as Pittsburg. As a matter of fact the true figures would "probably be much in excess of that number. Counting the National Currency.

The sheets of paper on which bills and bonds are printed are delivered daily by the loans and currency division of the secretary's office to the bureau upon requisition. From the time the blank sheets are delivered by careful count until 30 days when the printed bills are sent to the treasury to have the seal printed the bureau must account for every sheet in Its hands." It. is counted when received, it is counted when wet, when printed on one side, when dried, when wet again, when printed again, when dried a second time, when examined for imperfections, when numbered in short, counted some fifty times before it finally; escapes from the bureau. It has become accustomed to be counted before it starts out into the world as money, and then continues to be counted until ragged, dirty and worn out counted to death only to be again counted and destroyed. .4 5 3 1 I 1 3.