THE PORTLAND TRANSCRIPT, May 12, 1877

                                                         MAINE MATTERS
                                                             PENOBSCOT
          Honorable Elisha Allen, Minister Plenipotentiary from the Sandwich Islands,
     (Hawaii,) is visiting his friends at Bangor.
          The Maine Teachers' Association, met at Bangor last week, and about 200
     teachers, from all parts of the State  were in attendance. Superintendent Corthell
     read a paper on "Methods of Teaching Reading." He thought the phonic method
    would save a year's study. Only classic English should be read, and he did not
    approve of using histories or works of science  as reading books. Dramatic
    elocution he did not think fit for the common schools. Professor C. C. Rounds
    of Farmington read a paper on "Teaching this English Language," in which
     he expressed the opinion that technical grammar should be deferred to a late
     stage in the course. Messrs. Rounds, Corthell and Robertson of Augusta, were
    appointed to prepare, and print a course of instruction in accordance with the
    views of Mr. Rounds.
                                                      SAGADAHOC
          J. M. Hager, of Richmond, the well-known ship builder, who was very
     severely injured by a fall at Philadelphia, some time ago, has so far recovered
     as to walk about the street without a cane.
          Quite a revival is in the progress at  Phipsburg in Rev. Mr.  Lovering's
     parish. Messers. Ufford and Roberts of the Portland, Y. M. C.A. have been
     laboring with grand success in this field.


                                                        SOMERSET
          E. F. Tukey and John Littlefield have bought out the old original S. S. Putnam
     Curtain Fixture Co., of Boston, and will remove the machinery from Boston to
    their new shop in Fairfield, where the Chronicle says, they will at once begin work
    on an extensive scale. Mr. Putnam began the manufacture of these fixtures in
    Fairfield over 20 years ago, and has made a fortune by their manufacture and sale.
    Mr. Littlefield has been his foreman 15 years.
         C. Davis Miller is Nominate Postmaster at Skowhegan.
          The wife of Colonel A. W. Wildes, of Skowhegan, died suddenly last week.
     She had suffer from asthma, and procured some stamonium by advice of a nurse,
     and steeping it partook quite freely. She died in a short time, and some suppose it
     was from the medicine. Her physician think her heart had become affected by
     disease  and this caused her death.
                                                          WALDO
          A salmon weighing 33 1/2 lbs., was lately caught in the Penobscot, to which
     was attached a metallic tag numbered "1019" showing that it had been  caught three
    or four years ago and liberated at the Bucksport breeding works by Mr. Atkins.
          An interesting case was tried at Belfast recently. The heirs of Robert Elwell
     claimed that a deed of land in Northport purporting to be give by him in 1815, and
     upon which all the titles to the land have stood since that date, was a forgery. They
     said that Robert Elwell sailed around Cape Horn in 1811 and never returned. They
     brought experts to show that his signature was unlike genuine signatures that were
     offered. But their whole case was nearly taken out from under them by the
     production of a paper folded so as to show only a signature. This signature the
     experts said was identical with that on the deed of 1815. It proved to be a genuine
     signature of Robert Elwell witnessing a deed of land in Belfast made in 1815. This
     of course settled the matter, and the plaintiff consented to a nonsuit.