State News

Charles II. Smith, a. leading boot and shoo dpaler oi' K ist Saginaw, litis closud lis doors. T.wenty thousand yoymg salmón have aeeu plauted in tlio Boardman rivor and 8,000 in Grand river. Graud Kapids papers say tliat " it i a notorious tact that the boys ot' 11, l(i and 18 are the patrouB of the various saloons in the city." Th o Corunna American says the in(leV)ttidnBss of Hbiawassee couuty is ovor f30,000, and the prettept couuty rer has advanced over $',800 to nieol current oxjiuhsiis : The Plainwell paper mili has made 950,000 pounds of paper during the last year. The mili ki;nps 'M) persona in employinent, and it takes 4 15,000 per year to pay theui. The surveying party sent out hy the Detroit, Lansing and Lake Michigan Railroad Company aro running a line from Iloward City to Lake Michigan. They passed Newaygo lant wook. About four inches of snow feil in the Saginaw región Saturday morning and lumbermen wore delightod, but betbre the shades of ovening a drizzling rain bet in and slowly but suruly uielted their hopos away. Matthew Van Vloek, of Palo, Ionia county, was on board the first steamboat built by Fulton vvhich ran on tha Nort.h river. He is 82 years old, and served in the war of 1812. After a long suspense of anxiety by the people of Baldwin the Lake County seat question has beon dceided by the Supremo Court in favor of Baldwin City, which caused the Baldwinites to be quite jubilant. The Pullman car works in Detroit bogan Monday the construction of a hotel car aud a sleeping car tor eihibition at the Centennial. Prof. W. H. Payne, suporintendent of the Adrián publio schools, has been appointod, in conjunction with Joseph C. Jones, of Pontiac, Miss Julia A. King, of Fl int Statu visitors to tho Normal School. Adjt. Gen. Robortson has issuod a general order to the State troops making it obligatory uprm them to perfect themselves in target practice, and laying down the rulos and regulatious by which thoy shall be governed in so doing. The Kent County Board of Suporvisors has authorized the re-leasing of the present Circuit Court rooms tor throe years, and tho project of building a new court-house is thus indofiuitely postponed. The J. L. & S. R. E. has secured sorne reinarkably iine specimous of birdseye and curly maple from Otsego county, and will smid it to üollaud as samples. Hon. O. M. Barnes is also making a fine collection of it to exliibit at the Centennial. The Sagiwiiciiin says that notwithstanding the general depression, the business of the ofh'cers of registor of deeds of Saginaw county has been greater tor tho past six days than for any correspouding period in all five years that Air. Stevens has oeupiod tho office, and by far the grater proportion of transfers are of farming lands, to partios who have either coiumonced operations or propose immediately to commonce the business of making farms. Tho first newspaper puplished in Grand Rapids was called the Qrand liiver 'Times. It was started by George W. Patterson, in 1837 and the fint number published April 18, of that year. Several copies of the riist number are still extant, having been priuted on cloth with a view to their presrvation. Mr. Patterson was assisted as editor by Noble H. Fitiney. The press on which this paper was printed was drawu up the river fi'nu Qrand Haven, on tho ice, by a team of dogs. The Grand Haven Berald favors a ship canal from Lake Michigan to Saginaw Bay tiu the Grand and Sagiuaw Rivers and tributaries as giving an altitude of only seventy-two feet to be overeóme with sixteen locks. lts second ohoice, with about tho eamo altitudo to be oveecome, is by the Portage River, which erupties into tho Grand twenty miles above Jackson, to its source, Mud Lake ; thence four miles to a chain of lakes, from which flows the main branch of the Huron. Leave the Huron above Ypsilanti and avoid the suddeu fall there ; up Lumber Creek ten miles; thence two miles to the south branch of the River Rouge ; thence by the River Rouge to south Detroit. In a communication to the Popular Science Monthly Prof. W. II. Payne, of Adrián, describes a curious " ludían mili " on the farm of Mr. Hollis Smith, near Marengo, Calhoun county. It eonsists of a great block of freestone 15 feet long and 5 feet'wide, in whioh is a hole 15 inches deep and 20 inches across at the top. The capacity of this mortar is 15 gallons, and it seems the Indians vrero accustomed to grind corn in it by means of a heavy stone suspended by bark ropes froin the tree end of a spring pole, the other end of which was fastoned to the trees whioh stand near by. Stones suitable for this purpose lie beside the mili, as do also smooth, flat stones, which bear evidence of having been used for cookiug purpose.