Items Of General Interest

The chairman of the house committee on ways and means announces that a tariff-reform bill will be formulated without delay, and that manufacturers or other persons interested in this class of legislation will not be given a protracted hearing by the committee.
The coal fleet from Pittsburg and the Kanawha region reached Cincinnati, putting an end to the coal famine that has prevailed there for several weeks.
A general strike of the operatives in the Fall River (Mass) factories, about 5,000 in all, is expected. They demand a 13(1/2) per cent advance in their wages.
The first through train from Minneapolis to New York and Boston over the "Soo" line crossed the bridge at Sault Ste. Marie in sections Sunday night and Monday. There were six sections and 102 cars, each car containing 150 barrels of flour.
Sixteen leading members of the First Baptist church at Jackson, Tenn., and three newspapers in different parts of the state are defendants in an action for $50,000 damages brought by Rev. Frederick Howard, pastor of the Central Baptist church in Jackson. They are charged with making statements injurious to his character.
Gen. Cassalo, war minister of Spain, his wife, his son, and aids-de-camp, eleven persons in all, drew all the prizes in the state lottery at Christmas time. The prizes amounted to $1,000,000.
The Hon. A. S. Cochran, legal agent of the Tehuantepec ship canal, said at Pittsburg Monday that it will require $50,000,000 to build the canal, of which amount $10,000,000 at least can be raised in the United States.
The total receipts of the New York post office in 1887 were $4,832,996.35, and the total expendituree 1,758,994.68.
All union carpenters at the Saginaws, Mich., struck Monday for nine hours' work and the same pay they have been getting for ten hours.