State News Brevities

Lightning 8truck eighteeu placea during the storm of the 5th, in Berrien County, and the wind unroofed several barns and destroyed much timber, including fruit trees. The county oourt house at Farwell, Clare County, was destroyed by fire on the night of the llth. Loss, $'2,000; no in8urance. A portion of the clerk's records were lost. David Nicholson, of Kalamazoo, a íirciimn ou the Jaokson, Lansing and Saginaw Railroad, was severely injured in the abdomen while coupling cars at the Lansing depot July 14. In Wayne County, within two miles of the point where the townships of Cantón, Van Buren, Nankin and Eomulus corner, about 400 acres of peppermint are under cultivation. The Univer8alists of Michigan hold the next annual session of their State Sunday-school Convention at Lansing, commencing Tuesday evening, July 24, and olosing Thursday eveniug. The lake survey boys are at work in the Putin-Bay archipelago. They report the uninliabitod islands literally alive with black and rattlesnakes, West Sister Island being the most favored. A geven -year oíd son of J. Eosebank, of Ferrysville, while bathing in the Grand Eiver with a number of others on the 12th, got beyond his depth and was drowned before assistance arrived. Barnard O'Donnel, of Manitou County, was reoently sentenced to one year in State Prison for asaault with mtent to kill. This is said to be the first term of oourt held in Manitou County for n'fteen years. Alpona people are turning their attention especially to gravel roads, and propose to make first-class thoroughfares to the interior, having unequaled facilities for improvements of that charaoter. A son of Rev. C. T. Van Antwerp, of Otsego, attempted suicide recently rather than go back and work on a farm where his father had engaged hún work. A stomach pump got tho best of the laudanum he had taken. Quite a numbur of liouses in Lenawee County have been burglarized recently. It is thought that the attention of the thieves had been directed to them in the hope of securing the proceeds of the sale of the farmer's wool orop. On the morning of the 14th, the Dwight Outler, Jr., and the Centennial, tvro amall steamers running between Grand Haven, Spring Lake, and Fruitport, were diaoovered to be on fire. The hulls were saved, and the loss will not exceed $1,500. A project is on foot to connect the Chioago, Saginaw and Canada Railroad with the Detroit, Lansing and Northern, by constructing a road between Cedar Lake and Stanton, onty nine miles in lengtb. St. Louis is asked to subscribe f5,000 to the project. Mr. A. D. Doubleday, on a little less than three-quarters of an acre of ground in this village, raised 3,000 quarts of excellent strawberries - and he sold them at an average of nine cents ! This beats the State so far as he&rd trom. - Kalamazoo l'elegrajjh. During the month of June there were fifty-three entries at the United States Land Office, Traverse City, under the homestead law, covering 5,452 acres ; twenty-eight final poofs, covering 3,650 acres ; four soldiers' homestead declarations, covering 640 acres ; cash entries amounting to $182 56, covering 62 90-100 acres. Some workmen digging a ditch at Clinton, Lenawee County, carne upon a stick of wood 12 or 15 inohes in length, and 1 1-4 inches in diameter. It was found four feet belew the surface, and the date 1714 was cut into the stiok, which gives the relie the age of 163 years. Soon af ter its exposure to the air it crumbled into fine particles. The Lapeer Clarion says : A few days ago a school boy at Farmer's Creek found a small turtle in the road that had marked on its shell " J. C, April 14, 1848." Zadock Bates, living near, remembers seeing Jonathan Coverdale, who went to California in 1851, mark the turtle at the date given. He found it on the farm near whioh it was found by the school boy, after the lapse of twenty-nine years. At Niles, July 15, at 4 o'clock A. M., Thomas Gaines, agent of the American Kxpress Company, was awakened by a pistol shot. Getting up he heard a burglar escaping through the window. The shot went between his arm and head, the powder blackening the pillow. His arm was slightly grazed by the ball. The burglar was rifling his pants and got $21 only when Gaines stirred, frighteninghim off. At its reoent meeting the State Board of Health adopted a resolution to the effect that all looal boards of health be advisod and requested to direct their health physioiaus to offer every year vaocinatiou with bovine vaccine virus to every ohild not previously vaccinated and to all other persons not vacoinated within flve years, without oost to the vaccinated, but at the general expense of the looality, as provided for townships in section 1736, Compiled Laws of 1871, On the 9th inst. a destruotive storm of wind, rain and hail passed over the towns of Lapeer, Attica and Goodland, destroying the crops, blowing down fences, and damaging buildings. The oom erop in the wake of the storm is reported as ruined, as also a lurge breadth of growing wheüt and oats. One night last week thieves eutered the house of theFlint Log Driving and Boom Compauy, two miles above Plint, and stole about $'220 in cash trom two of the inmates, Frank and John O'Hair, taking 185 froin tho formor and $38 from the latter. The wife of John awoke about two o'clock in the morning oompletely stified with ohloroform, and not until the other inmates of the house were arouyed, was the robbery discovered.