THE PORTLAND TRANSCRIPT, April 20, 1872

                                                             MAINE MATTERS
                                                                 KENNEBEC
          Mrs. Lydia Osgood, of Gardiner, aged 76, mother of J. K. Osgood, the leader of
      the great  temperance reform recently inaugurated, fell and broke her as she was on
      her way to early morning prayer meeting of the Conference on Saturday. She kept
      on and attended the prayer meeting and with heroic fortitude, holding the broken
      limb with the other hand. Then she walked home and sent for a surgeon.  In the
      afternoon, with her arm in a sling,  she attended meeting again!
          The session of the Maine Conference of the M.  E. church at Gardiner last week
     was numerously attended, pleasant and harmonious. William Deering of this city,
     and F. A. Plaisted, of Gardiner, were elected lay delegates to the General Conference
     with Charles Beals, of Augusta, and J. M. Heath, of Portland, as reserves. The
     clerical delegates elected were Parker Jacques, Stephen Allen, Charles Munger
     and S. F. Wetherbee, with George Webber, and Professor J. L. Morse, as reserves.
     The General Conference concurred in the addition to the restrictive rules of the
     church passed by the  Baltimore Conference, "that the time of pastoral service
     shall not extend beyond the present limit." But non-concurred in  a provision that
     the present authority of the  Bishops shall not be restricted.
                                                                    LINCOLN
          The house of Thomas M. Reed, Phipsburg, was burned Sunday. Partly insured.
           Black River is clear of ice, and the steamer is running between  Bath and  Boothbay.
                                                                    OXFORD
          E. D. Marshal, in attempting to throw a bag of corn upon a moving freight car
     at West Paris, last week, lost his footing and fell upon the track. A car passed over
     his body, cutting him completely in two. He leaves a  widow and two children.
         Ephraim Sanborn, of  Denmark, owns a sugar orchard of 1,300 maples.
                                                                  PENOBSCOT
          Twenty Swedes are to work in the Basin Mills at Orono, and if they do well
     one hundred will be employed.
          A writer in the Whig, who is an experiences hunter, says a few cougar or
     American lions remain in the vast forest of Northern Maine, but he knows of none
     being killed  for the past 30 years. The are sometime called "Indian devils" and
     catamounts. They are quite plenty in Northern New York.
                                                                 SAGADAHOC.
          A breach of promise case-Bertha Witham vs. Joseph Lemont-was opened for
     trial in  the S. J. Court at  Bath last  Friday. Soon after opening it was taken for the
     jury and sent to the full Court on the special point whether the minority of the
     defendant at the time of the promise, although he represented himself to be of age,
     would be a bar to plaintiff's suit.
                                                                   SOMERSET
          The well known Dr.  Mann, of "Strippings and Molasses" fame was  convicted
     as a  "common seller" at Skowhegan, last week.  He plead his own case and urged
     that "there was no court, as Norridgewock was the place where the court was held."
     Judge Kent suggested that the defendant has been in favor of the removal, hitherto.
     The doctor replied that he thought now he would rather be tried in a better place,
     among  better people and where they have Sunday schools. Mann is out with a card
     in the Reporter, saying he voted for Kent in Log Cabin and  Hard Cider times,but
     the times are a sight harder now, without the cider!