OWATONNA, Sept. 4 - Tramps are unusually numerous on our streets the past week, but have caused no disturbances, and but few arrests have been made.

Preparations for the state fair are progressing rapidly. Several new buildings are being erected. The fence about the grounds is being repaired, additions and repairs are being done on the exposition building built last year; eating houses and booths put in shape for occupancy; the track is being put in first class condition, and every part is assuming a lively and business like appearance.

The city council met last evening at city hall, and after the regular routine of business the local state fair committee, who were present, asked for an appropriation for the purpose of helping to defray the expenses of some improvements necessary to be made on the fair grounds, and of decorating the city. After some discussion $300 was appropriated and will be placed in the committee's hands for that purpose, which, with what they already have on hand, was thought sufficient for that purpose.

Rev. L. J. Dinsmore, pastor of the Universalist church of this place, has returned from Idaho, where he has been spending several months. Mr. Dinsmore is not an enthusiastic admirer of Idaho, and advises no man to leave a fair business here for that country.

Our city schools commenced last Monday with an unusual large attendance, and two new rooms have been fitted up for primary scholars.

On Monday, first inst., a fine son was born to Mr. and Mrs. O. Wood. It is said its grandpa's, Gen. Bier plug hat has grown another story in consequence.

Mr. W. H. Kelly has had a nice job of paving done in front of his new block on Cedar street.

A severe thunderstorm passed over this country yesterday. The rain was not heavy, but the lightning was exceedingly sharp and followed quickly by heavy claps of thunder that caused the nervous to duck their heads and hurry on as they passed down the street.

Cornelius Larson, of Simon, in this county, while plowing in the field was struck by lightning and instantly killed, and his horses, which he was driving, were also killed, while the same bolt struck and burned three wheat stacks that stood in the same field, about forty rods from where Larson was at the time. Larson was a young man about thirty years of age and leaves a wife and three small children to mourn his loss.

The lightning struck a setting of wheat stacks in the town of Havana on the farm of Mr. Hatly, but with the assistance of his neighbors he succeeded in saving all but a part of one stack. The lightning also struck in several other places, burning in one instance a shock of wheat for L. J. Morehouse in Owatonna township, and hitting a tree near the city mill on the west side of the river.