Local Brevities

LOCAL BREVITIES.

The department of Michigan W.R.C. excursion to Detroit and Port Huron on Tuesday, Aug. 3, will be one of the finest trips that will be offered to the public this year. With a fare of 90 cents to Detroit and $1.40 to Port Huron from Ann Arbor it will also be remarkably cheap.

A conference of men and women interested in the great social, hygienic, and philanthropic questions pertaining to the welfare of human society will be held at Battle Creek, Oct. 12-17, 1897, when papers and addresses will be held by prominent philanthropists and educators with the hope of evolving some practical methods of reform.

A summons has been issued out of the circuit court in the case of William Pankey vs. The M.C.C.R. The suit is for damages for the death of complainant's son Daniel Pankey in October of last year, which was caused by the lad falling off a passenger train as he and some companions were jumping on and off it as it moved through the Michigan Central yard.

The supervisors of some of the townships up in Midland county have discovered some diseases new to the medical profession, and in their health reports the following are some of the causes of deaths last year: "Callary infantum," "decline after measles," "hooping cough," "new monia," "tubucal consumption," "cholrane phantem," and "spinel." --Ex.

James Steffe, of Northfield, met with a dangerous accident Monday morning which might have been more serious than it was. He was filled his pipe with tobacco and lit it not noticing a 22 calibre cartridge that had by some means got into the pipe. An explosion followed and Mr. Steffe's eyes were filled with tobacco and smoke, otherwise he was unhurt. It was a narrow and lucky escape.

A reunion of the Modern Woodmen of America will be held at Eagle Point, Clark's Lake, on Friday, Aug. 20. It is the intention to make it a noteworthy occasion. Lodges in southern Michigan will send full or large representations and a crowd of at least 2,000 is expected to participate in the celebration. There will be a fine list of sports and a successful day is predicted. Hon. Emory Townsend, of Saginaw, will be orator of the day.

McClure's Magazine for August will be a special midsummer fiction number, with a complete novelette (a story of England and India) by Rudyard Kipling, chapters of a novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, and short stories by A. Conan Doyle, Robert Barr, John Kendrick Bangs, and others. It will be richly illustrated, the frontispiece being from a drawing made expressly for the magazine by Boutet de Monvel, the distinguished French illustrator.

A correspondent to the Times complains of the dangerous practice of killing sparrows by means of poisoned grain and states that not only are the pugnacious little Englishmen destroyed but domestic song birds also. The correspondent demands that the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals step in and interfere in the matter as cats and other household pets have fallen victims to arsenical poisoning cause by eating these poisoned birds.

Mrs. Sarah A. Palmer died at her home 109 N. Main st., Thursday evening of last week, aged 57 years and 8 months. Her husband George W. Palmer died only a few weeks ago and the surveying members of the family have the sympathy of many friends in their double bereavement. The funeral services were held at the house Sunday afternoon Rev. J.T. Sunderland officiating. The remains were interred beside those of her husband in the Fifth ward cemetery.

The U. of M Alumni Association of Macomb county banqueted at the American hotel, Romeo, on Thursday evening, July 16. About 40 members and their friends were present and greatly enjoyed the program of toasts and responses, interspersed the music. The newly elected officers are: President, Dwight N. Lowell, Romeo; vice president, Mrs. Decker. Mt. Clemens; secretary, Robert Eldredge, Mt. Clemens. The meeting next year will be held at Mt. Clemens.

The permission heretofore granted to Mack & Co. to extend their show window over the sidewalk was rescinded by the council on Monday night. On Wednesday Mayor Hiscock vetoed the council's action on the ground of irregularities in the council's proceedings, since the sidewalk committee alone recommended that such permission be granted, while the matter had been referred to a joint committee consisting of the sidewalk committee, the ordinance committee and the city attorney.

There is trouble between the Ann Arbor Railway Co. and the common council over the building of a sidewalk on First st. in the second ward. The council has ordered one to be built for the convenience of the residents of that quarter but the company does not want to build it, claiming that it is a convenience to shippers as well as to the railway company not to have the side of the street on which it is proposed to build the walk used by pedestrians. The matter was finally laid over until next week.

A suit brought by J.L. Skinner, of this city, to recover $168 commission dues which he claims are owed to him by G.A. Watkins, state agent of the Penn. Insurance Co., for having assisted him in getting a $10,000 policy to write on the life of Joseph T. Davies, a student in the medical department of the university, was on trial in Justice Pond's court Tuesday and Wednesday. The attorneys on both sides of the case made things quite warm in the court room while the trial was in progress. Justice Pond has not yet rendered his decision in the case.