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WASHINGTON STATE NEWS OF INTEREST Important Occurrences of Past Week Briefly Compiled for Our Readers. The influenza epidemic is decreasing in Walla Walla. Of the 26 births at Centralia during January, 14 were females. The quarterly convention of the Puget Sound Society of Friends was held in Seattle. Influenza cases are decreasing in number in Seattle, Dr. H. M. Reed, city health commissioner, amnounced. Rev. Jeremiah Dick, for 16 years Sunday school missionary of the Congregational church, is dead at Seattle. A total of 1300 Vancouver voters have joined the Triple alliance, according to an official of the central labor council. Investigations in the alleged irregularities in the Pacific coast shipbuildlag program have been resumed at Seattle before a federal grand jury. Fire destroyed the Thompson-Ford Lumber company sawmill at Kelso. The loss is estimated at between $40,000 and $50,000, with $20,000 insurance. Four famous guns operated by the 146th field artillery, recruited mainly from Washington, Oregon and Idaho, have been presented to Walla Walla by the war department. Shipments to date from Yakima valley points, with estimates of 2000 cars of fruit yet remaining in storage, indicate a total production of 16,137 cars last season. F. E. Waterhouse, 28, bank clerk, within half an hour after his arrest at Seattle, pleaded guilty to an indictment charging him with embezzling $3500 from his employers. A record price for wheat was paid at Walla Walla, when Joe Grote, a Eureka farmer, bought 5000 bushels of Early Bart for seeding. Grote paid $8.50 a bushel for the grain. The school teachers of Pasco have requested that they be given a bonus in addition to their regular salaries. The bonus asked for approximates 20 per cent of their contract salaries. The receiver of the First International bank of South Bend, which failed three years ago, has declared a dividend of 25 per cent, and asserts that another one will be declared shortly. The Berg-Griggs company of Tacoma was awarded a contract by the state board of control for construction of a central heating plant at the state in dustrial school for girls at Grand Mound for $7990. A contest of the will of J. D. Sherwood of Spokane, who was killed in a California automobile accident together with his wife, has been filed by a sister of the wife, who claims that the husband died first. Two grain elevators and warehouses, with a capacity of 300,000 bushels each, will be erected at Moscow, Idaho, and Colfax, Wash., this summer by Alloway & George, Spokane contractors, according to plans made public. Dr. F. E. Smith, chief dairy and fuel inspector of Seattle, was elected president of the Parific Northwest Association of Dairy and Milk Inspectors at the eighth annual convention of that organization which was held in Portland, Or. The Kelso city council has entered into an agreement with D. B. Fleck. owner of the Kelso water system, subject to the approval of the voters of the city, by which the city will purchase the Kelso Water company system for $40,000. A huge electric power house driven by water dammed on the north fork of the Lewis river, in Clarke county, and to cost possibly $5,000,000, is to be built by the Northwestern Electric company of Portland, if rumors to that effect are true. The board of Lincoln county commissioners has granted a franchise to the Washington Water Power company for an extension of their power transmission line nine miles northwest of Wilbur. The new line will supply light and power in a number of farm homes in the territory. Pending favorable decision by the courts, stockholders of the Puyallup and Sumner Fruitgrowers' association will distribute a $50,000 melon which with interest totals $64,000. For the 1919 season, returns to the growers amounted to $779,740 at a cost of operation of $7216. The state sheriffs' association, in session at Walla Walla, reelected :
