Decatur Democrat, Volume 35, Number 24, Decatur, Adams County, 4 September 1891 — Page 2

Ilemocrnt DECATUR, IND. N, BLACKBURN, ... Publisher. The wise man is not disposed to father every idea that “pops” into his head. One marriage out of every four in Japan ends in a divorce, and yet the Japanese seem to .be still trying to acquire a modern civilization. Father Ignatius declares that ■Chicago is nothing but an overgrown baby. Perhaps he observed the frequency of the bottle while there. By a vote of the school children of New York the rose has been named as the State flower. The children can be trusted to name the most popular flowers. The churches now recognize “outaide’ Christians;” that is, honest and worthy who have no affiliations with the church. There are so many of these men that the church was compelled to give them recognition. A grand-daughter of the Queen •of England was married to a German princeling. The supply of princelings from Germany appears inexhaustible, but so, it may be added, appears the Victorian supply of daughters and granddaughters. Not one man in ten reaches old age without having had to be cut up for some trouble. The surgeon’s knife accompanies a man all his days, but be does not seem to be any healthier or happier, or live any longer, than When he was cured with herb teas. It is time that the ferocious bull ■dogs who chew people up with or without provocation should either be thained up or exterminated. !One Auman life is worth more than all the pedigreed dogs in the country. Paste this in your hat as a preventive against hydrophobia. The latest news from the overflowed desert of Salton Lake is that the waste places may be made fertile by the rushing waters of the Colorado Biver, and that already there are Jigns of the vegetation that will nourish cattle. Nature is coming to the aid of the civilization and the cowboy. do Bernhardt is an American, if we are to believe that delightfully romantic story which comes from Portland, Oregon. But how does it happen that a girl born in Rochester, who lived there for ten years, did not learn to speak English? For such a bright child as the divine Sarah must have been this is indeed surprising. The silly time of the year is at hand, when elopements are in order, and the silly friends of silly young people applaud their silly designs and help them make themselves miserable for life. It takes all the romance out of the situation when the old folks are compelled to give them a home or see them starve. This occurs almost invariably as a sequel to the romance. Queen Victoria now reigns over 867,000,000 subjects, more than ever governed by one sovereign before. That is all right. But when bao«arat Prince of Wales becomes King over these millions, mostly better people than himself, the discrepancy will strike most people as a discord and not a symphony. A profligate is hardly the kind of a King for such a nation.

A woman of Sun Prairie, Wis., will always be glad that she took an -umbrella with her when she went to ■pick raspberries. She did not need it to protect her from the sun, but from tram. She broke its ribs over his head, blinded him in one eye with the ferrule and threatened to brain him with the club handle if he didn’t so on about his business. He went, and she picked a full measure of berries before she went home and told her folks. Dr. Bayard Holmes has a paper In the latest number of the North American Practitioner in which he presents some ihteresting conclusions in gard to cancer. The disease is the work of a parasite and it is “a close •messmate of man.” It attacks only those who. have passed the reproductive period, hence the individual sufferer may be destroyed without danger to the human species. And the parasite itself is in no danger of extinction because there are constant accessions to the ranks of the class ■susceptible to attacks by the pest. The accident to the Servia gives a note of warning to steamship companies that the steamships should adopt the same plan that was used -on sailing vessels, and carry duplicates •of every piece of machinery that is liable to get out of order. Sailing vessels carried extra spars and sails to repair damages at sea. Had the -Servia carried an extra crank pin It -would not have been necessary to put back to New York at great expense to the company and great inconvenience to the passengers. A Boston paper has gone into quotations of Dickens and shrieks of agony over the “living deatji” of John •Bardsley, sentenced to fifteen years’ confinement” in the Eastern Penitentiary. The Boston contemporary may apply the balm of fact to the wounds of fancy. “Solitary coni'.; 'Mnement” in the Eastern Penitentiary --■■ ' ' / Sv ’ - ■ ■ .. » % A . ” Li!

i A, -i, i 1 [is a farce. Although who run the institution may still cling fondly to the theory, the crowded condition of the prison has long since forced them to forego the fact. Whatever be the abuses of the institution, that particular hideousness which stirred the indignant eloquence of Dickens is outworn. The number of Jews in Poland is 1,380,000 in a total population of 8,252,000. They form 40 per cent, of the population of Warsaw, and in all the other towns an average of -50 per cent., while in villages it falls to 7 per cent. Trades and industries in the city of Warsaw are almost entirely in the hands of the Hebrew population. In the higher branches of commerce the ratio is 16 Jews to 3 Christians, in the lower branches 19 Jews to 2 Christians, and in the agency and brokerage business 43 Jews to 1 Christian. Os the large industrial enterprises of the city 63 per cent, are in the hands of Jews and only 18 per cent, belong to native Christians. But few of the race are common workmen. According to the English wife of a Guatemalan coffee planter one can see to read by the light of the moon in that country. She says it is no uncommon thing to see a senority reclining in a hammock, with a book in her hand, on her father’s veranda in the Costa Cuca District,- Guatemala, between 12 and 1 oclock in the morning. “There are no moonlight nights in the United States or in England like we have in Guatemala,” says the lady. “The moon at certain periods of the month is so bright that it is as light outdoors as during the day. It is too hot during the day in Costa Cuca to be out for pleasure, and all little excursions around the country are arranged to take place at night when the moon is bright.”

While a majority of the people of this country are opposed to the rechartering of the Louisiana Lottery, they cannot indorse the methods which the anti-lotteryites of Louisiana are taking to secure this end. The resolutions adopted at a mass meeting of those opposed to the great corporation at Lincoln Parish are in direct contravention to the spirit of American institutions. The resolutions practically mean that if the anti-Lotteryites cannot accomplish their ends by fair means they will resort to foul. They propose nothing short of physical revolution. Louisiana has never placed any check on outlawry; in fact, public opinion in the State seems to sustain such outbreaks. However, when it comes to “revolution” Uncle Sam will doubtless have something to say in the matter. The Daughters of the Revolution, the female descendants of those who whiped the British out of this country and established American independence, have organized in nearly all the states in the Union and are shouting for the old flag and an appropriation. What they want is SIOO,OOO to erecta monument to mark the spot where sleep 11,500 soldiers and sailors of the revolution, who died in the prison ships at Wallabout, rather than accept the invitation of the British officers to enlist in the English army and fight against their country. The scheme is more patriotic than practicable. Repeated appeals have been made to Congress for this purpose, but without avail. When it comes to monument building Congress is ready to compete with New York. Government is a business institution. Monuments are sentimental affairs. A Grand Chinese Marriage. A notable event in Chinese life in San Francisco was the recent marriage of Vice-Consul Ow-Yang King and Eiss Lillie Tin Loy, the daughter of a merchant in Grass Valley and a native of the State. All day the spacious parlors of the consulate were thronged with gorgeously attired Chinese paying their respects. The rooms were elegantly' decorated with costly silk banners of brilliant hues. On some of these banners were embroidered in gigantic figures mottoes expressing the well wishes of the donors. The chairs were covered with trappings of red silk embroidered with gold. They were of the most costly description, and were choice works of art. Ow-Yang King, dressed in the full uniform of his consular rank, presented a very striking appearance. His flowing robes of silk, heavily embroidered, and across his breast was a gorgeous emblem woven in fantastic but beautiful design. The bride is a fine artist and pianist, and otherwise accomplished. The marriage contract was signed in the evening, and a banquet followed. What a ••Ration*' la. A ration is the established daily allowance of food for one person. For the United States army it is now composed of the following: Twelve ounces of pork or bacon or canned beef (fresh or Corned), or , one pound and four ounces of fresh beef, or twenty-two ounces of salt beef, eighteen ounces of soft bread or flour, or I sixteen ounces of hard bread, or one pound and four ounces of cornmeal. To every 100 rations, fifteen pounds of beans or peas, or ten pounds of rice or hominy; ten pounds of green coffee or eight pounds of roasted coffee, or two pounds of tea; fifteen pounds of j sugar, four quarts of vinegar, onei pound eight ounces of star candles, I four pounds es soap, four pounds of i salt, four ounces of pepper and four} ounces of yeast powder to every 100 rations of flour. | Snake bites are said to cause the death of 20,000 people in India during some years. The great Americanl antidote for snake bites kills more people than that every year in this country. ; ' V>.,

DR. TALMAGE’S SERMON. A LESSON DRAWN FROM THE FAMINE IN EGYPT. The Remarkable Conjunction of Bl* Crops in America and a Scarcity in Europe Calls to Mind the Similar Case in Joseph’s Time. A Religious Lesson. The cabled reports of meagre harvests in Europe and the memory of the vast crops of ripening grain which Dr. Talmage saw during his recent tour in the West, have combined to turn his thoughts back to that patriarchal time when all the world sent to Egypt to buy corn, and to suggest a gospel lesson. His text is Gen. xlill, 3, “Ye shall not see my face except your brother be with you.” This summer, having crossed eighteen of the United States, North, South, East and West, 1 have to report the mightiest harvests that this country or any other country ever reaped. If the grain gamblers do not somehow wreck these harvests we are about to enter upon the grandest scene of prosperity that America has ever witnessed. But while this is so in our own country, on the other side of the Atlantic there are nations threatened with famine, and the most dismal cry that is ever heard will I fear be uttered, the cry for broad. I pray God that the contrast between our prosperity and their want may not be as sharp as in the lands referred to by my text. There was nothing to eat. Plenty of corn in Egypt, but ghastly famine in Canaan. The cattle moaning in the stall. Men, women and children awfully white with hunger. Not the failing of one crop for one summer, but the failing of all the crops for seven years. A nation dying for lack of that Which is so common ou your table, and so little appreciated; the product of harvest field and grist mill and oven; the price of sweat and anxiety and struggle —bread! Jacob the father has the last report from the flour bin, and he finds that everything is out, and he says to his sons, “Boys, hook up the wagons and start for Egypt and get something to eat.” The fact was, there was a great corncrib in Egypt. The people of Egypt have been largely taxed in all ages, at the present time paying between 70 and 80 per cent, of their products to the Government. No wonder in that time they had a large corncrib and it was full. To that crib they came from the regions round about—those who were famished some paying for corn in money; when the money was exhausted, paying tor the corn in sheep and cattle, and horses and camels; and when they were exhausted, then selling their own bodies and their families into slavery. The morning for starting out on the crusade for bread has arrived. Jacob gets his family up very early. But before the elder sons start they say something that makes him tremble with emotion from head to foot and burst into tears. The fact was that these elder sons had once before been in Egypt to get corn, and they had been treated somewhat roughly, the lord of the corncrib supplying them with corn, but saying at the close of the interview, “Now, you need not come b’ack here for any more corn unless you bring something better than money—even your younger brother Benjamin.” Ah! Benjamin—that very name was suggestive of all tenderness. The mother had died at the birth of that son—a spirit coming and another spirit going—and the very thought of parting with Benjamin must have been a heart break. The keeper of this corncrib, nevertheless, says to these older sons, “There is no need of your coming here any more for corn unless you bring Benjamin, your father’s darling.” Now Jacob and his family very much needed bread; but what a struggle it would be to give up this son. The Orientals are- very demonstrative in their grief, and I hear the outwailing of the father as these older sons keep reiterating in his ears the announcement of the Egyptian lord, “Ye shall not see my face unless your brother be with you.” “Why did you tel' them you had a brother?” said the old man, complaining and chiding them. “Why, father,” they said, “he asked us all about our family, and we had no idea he would make any such demand upon us as he has made.” “No use of asking me,” said the father, “I cannot, I will not give up Benjamin.” The fact was that the old man had lost children; and when there has been bereavement in a household, and a child taken, it makes the other children in the household more precious. So the day for departure was adjourned and adjourned and adjourned. Still the horrors of the famine increased, and louder moaned the cattle, and wider open cracked the earth, and more pallid became the cheeks, until Jacob, in despair, cried out to his sons, “Take Benjamin and be off.” The older sons tried to cheer up tneir father. They said: “We have strong arms and a stout heart, and no harm will come to Benjamin. We’ll see that he gets back again.” “Farewell!” said the young men to their father, in a tone of assumed good cheer. “F-a-r-e-w-e-1-1!” said the old man; for that word has more quavers in it when pronounced by the aged than by the young. Well, the oread party—the bread em-bassy-drives up in front of the corn-crib of Egypt. These corncribs are filled with wheat, barley and corn in the husk, for those who have traveled in Canaan and Egypt know that there is corn there corresponding with our Indian maize. Huzza! the journey is ended. The lord of the corncrib, who is also the prime minister, comes down to these arrived travelers and says: “Dine with me today. How is your father? Is this Benjamin, the younger orother whose presence 1 demanded?” The travelers are introduced into the palace. They are worn and bedusten of the way; and servants come in with a basin of water in one hand and a towel in the other, and kneel down before these newly arrived travelers, washing off the dust of the way. The butchers and poulterers and caterers of the prime minister prepare the repast The guests are seated in small groups, two or three at a table, the food on a tray; all the luxuries from imperial gardens and orchards and acquariums and aviaries are brought there and are filling chalice and platter. Now is the time for the prime minister, if he has a grudge against Benjamin, to show it Will he kill him, now that he has him In his hands? Oh, no! The lord of the corncrib is seated at his own table, and he looks over to the table of his guests, and he sends a portion to each of them,* but sends a larger portion to Benjamin, or, as the Bible quaintly puts It, “Benjamin’s mess was 2ve times as much as any of theirs.” to quick and send word back with the swiftest camel to Canaan to old Jacob that “Benjamin is well; all is well; he is faring sumptuously; the Egyptian lord did not mean murder and death, but he meant deliverance and life when he announced to us on that day, 'Ye shall not see my face unless your brother be with you.’ ” Well, my friends, this world is purine struck of sin. It does not yield s single crop of solid satisfaction. It 'a dying. It is hunger bitten. The fact that it does not cannot, feed a man’s heart

' English comedian. All the world honored him—did everything for him that ; the world cobld do. He was applauded in England and applauded in the United States. He roused up nations into laughter. He had no equal. And yet, i although many people supposed him en- , tirely happy, and that this world was , completely satiating his soul, he sits down and writes: “I never in my life put on a new hat that it did not rain and ruin it. I never went out in a shabby coat because it was raining and . thought all who had the choice would ' keep indoors that the sun did not break forth in its strength and bring out with ' it all the butterflies of fashion whom I knew and who knew me. 1 never con- ' sented to accept a part I hated, out of < kindness to another, that I did not get hissed by the public and cut by the 1 writer. I could not take a drive for a tew minutes with Terry without being overturned and having my elbow bone broken, though my friend got off un- ' harmed. I could not make a covenant ’ with Arnold, which I thought was to make my fortune without making his instead, than in an incredible space of time—l think thirteen months —I 1 earned for him 20,000 pounds and for myself one. lam persuaded that if I were to set up as a beggar every one tn the neighborhood would leave off eating bread.” That was the lament of the world’s comedian and joker. AH unhappy. The world did everything for Lord Byron that it could do; and yet in his last moment he asks a friend to come and sit down by him and read, as most appropriate to his case, the story of “The Bleeding Heart.” Torrigiano, the sculptor, executed, after mouths of care and carving, “Madonna and the Child.” The royal family came in and admired it Everybody that looked at it was in ecstacy, but one day,, after all that toil, and all that admiration, because he did not get as much compensation for his work as he had expected, he took a mallet and dashed the exquisite sculture into atoms. The world is poor compensation, poor satisfaction, poor solace. Famine, famine in all the earth; not for seven years, but for six thousand. But, blessed be God, there is a great corncrib. The Lord built itg It is in another land. It is a large place. An angel once measured it, and as far as I can calculate it in our phrase, that corncrib is fifteen hundred miles long and fifteen hundred broad, and -fifteen hundred high; and is full. Food for all nations. “Oh!” say the people, “we will start right away and get this supply for our soul.” But stop a moment; for from the keeper of that corncrib there comes this word, saying, “You shall not see my face except your brother be with you.” « In other words, there is no such thing as getting from Heaven pardon and comfort and eternal life, unless we bring with us our divine brother, the Lord Jesus Christ. Coming without Him we shall fall before we reach the corncrib, and our bodies shall be a portion for the jackals of the wilderness, but coming with the Divine Jesus, all the granaries of Heaven will swing open before our soul, and abundance shall be given us. We shall be invited to sit in the palace of the King and the table, and while the Lord of Heaven is apportioning from His own table to other tables He will not forget us, and then and there it will be found that our Benjamin’s mess is larger than all others, for so it ought to be. “Worthy is the lamb that was slain, to receive blessing and riches and honor and glory and power.” I want to make three points. Every frank and common sense man will acknowledge himself to be a sinner. What are you going to do with your sins? Have them pardoned, you • say. How? Through the mercy of God. What do you mean by the mercy of God? Is it the letting down of a bar for the admission of all, without respect to character? Be not deceived! I see a soul coming up to the gate of mercy and knocking at the corncrib of heavenly supply. And a voice from within says, “Are you alone?” The sinner replies, “All alone.” ° The voice from within says, “You shall not see my pardoning face unless your Divine Brother, the Lord Jesus, be with you.” Oh, that is the point at which so many are discomforted. There is no mercy irom God except through Jesus Christ. Coming with Him we are accepted. Coming without Him we are rejected. Peter put it right in his great sermon before the high priests, when he thundered forth: “Neither is there salvation in any other. There is no other name given under Heaven among men whereby we may be saved.” O anxious sinner! O dying sinner! O lost sinner! all you have got to do is to have this Divine Benjamin along with you. Side by side, coming to the gate, all the storehouses of Heaven will swing open before your anxious soul. Am I right in calling Jesus Benjamin? Oh, yes. Rachel lived only long enough to give a name to that child, and with a dying kiss she called Him Benoni. ' Afterward Jacob changed His name, and he called Him Benjamin. The meaning of the name she gave was “Son of my Pain.” The meaning of the name the father ga^e-was “Son of my Right Hand.” And was not Christ the son of pain! All the sorrows of Rachel in that hour, when she gave her child over into the hands of strangers was nothing compared with the struggle of God when He gave up His only Son. The Omnipotent God in a birth throe! And was not Christ appropriately called “Son of the Right Hand!” Did not Stephen look into Heaven and see Him standing at the right hand of God? And does not Paul speak of Him as standing at the right hand of God making intercession for us? O Benjamin —Jesus! Son of pang. Son of victory! The deepest emotions of our souls-ought to be stirred at the sound of that nomenclature. In your prayers plead His tears; His sufferings, His sorrows and His death. If you refuse to do it, all the corncribs and the palaces of Heaven will be bolted and barred against your soul, and a voice from the throne shall stun you with the announcement, “You shall not see my face except your brother be with you.” My text also suggests the reason why so many people do not get any real comfort. You meet ten people, nine of them are ih need of some kind of condolence. There is something in their health, or in their state, or in their domestic condition, that demands sympathy. And yet the most of the world’s sympathy amounts to absolutely nothing. People go to the wrong crib, or they go the wrong way. When the plague was in Rome a great many years ago there were eighty men who chanted themselves to death with the litanies of Gregory the Great—literally chanted themselves to death, and yet it did not stop the plague. And all the music of the world cannot halt the plague of the human heart. I come to some one whose ailments are chronic, and I say, “In Heaven you will never be sick.” That does not give you much comfort What you want is a soothing power for your present distress. Lost children, have you? I come to tell you that In ten years perhaps you will meet these loved ones before the throne of God. But there is but little condolence in that One day is a year without them, and ten years is a small eternity. What you want is a sympathy now—present help. I come to those of you who have lost dear friends, and say: “Try to forget them. Do not keep the departed always in your mind.” Row

SSSESi can you forget them when every figure ■ in the carpet and every book, and every i picture, and every room calls out their l name. i Suppose I come to you and say by wav > of condolence. “God is wise.” “Oh,” you say, “that gives me no help.” Sup- - pose I come to von and say, “God, from i all eternity, has arranged this trouble.” i “Ah!” you say, “that does me no good,” • Then I say, “With the swift feet of prayer go direct to the corncrib for a , heavenly supply.” You go. You say, , “Lord, help me; Lord, comfort me.” . But no help yet No comfort yet It is all dark. What is the matter? I have . found. You ought to go to God and ; say: “Here, O Lord, are the wounds of my soul, and I bring with me the ’ wounded Jesus. Let His wounds pay , for my bereavements, His loneliness for ; my loneliness, His heart break for my , heart break. O God! for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ—the God. the man, i the Benjamin, the brother—deliver my • agonized soul. O Jesus of the weary > foot, ease my fatlgud! O Jesus of the i aching head, heal my aching head. O Jesus of the Bethany sisters, roll away the stone from the door of our grave.” That is the kind of prayer that brings ■ help; and yet how many of you are getting no help at all, for the reason that there is in your soul, perhaps, a secret trouble. You may never have mentioned it to a single human ear, or you may have mentioned it to some one who is now gone away, and that great sorrow is still in your soul. After Washington Irving was dead, they found a little box that contained a braid of hair and a , miniature, and the name of Matilda Hoffman, ana a memorandum of her death, and a remark something like this: “The world after that was a blan<c to me. I went into the cOuntrv, but found no peace in solitude. I tried to go into society, but I found no peace in society. There has been a horror hanging over me by night and by day, and I am afraid to be alone.” How many unuttered troubles! No human ear has ever heard the sorrow. O troubled soul, I want to tell you that there is one salve that can cure the wounds of the heart, and that is the salve made of the tears of a sympathetic Jesus. And yet some of you will not take this solace; and you try chloral and you try morphine and you try strong drink and you try change of scene and you try new business associations and everything and anything rather than take the divine companionship and sympathy suggested by the words of my text when it says, “You shall not see my face again unless your brother be with you.” Oh, that you might understand something of the height and depth and length and breadth and immensity and infinity of God's eternal consolations. Igo further and find in my subject a hint as to the way Heaven opens to the departing spirit. We are told that Heaven has twelve gates, and some people infer from that fact that all the people will go in without reference to their past life. But what is the use of having a gate that is not sometimes to be shut? The swinging of a gate implies that our entrance into Heaven is conditional. It is not a monetary condition. If we come to the door of an exquisite concert we are not surprised that we must pay a fee, for we know that fine earthly music is expensive; but all the oratorios of Heaven cost nothing. Heaven pays nothing for its music. It is all free. There is nothing to be paid at that door for entrance, but the condition of getting into Heaven is our bringing our divine Benjamin along with us. Do you notice how often dying people call upon Jesus? It is the usual prayer offered—the prayer offered more than all the other prayers put together—- “ Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” One of our congregation, when asked in the efafSing moments of his life, “Do you know us?” said: “Oh, yes, I know you. God bless you. Goodby. Lord Jesus receive my spirit,” and he was gone. Oh, yes, in the closing moments of our life we have a Christ to call upon. If Jacob’s sons had gone toward Egypt, and had gone with the very finest equipage, and had not taken Benjamin along with them, and to the question they should have been obliged to answer, “Sir, we didn’t bring him, as father could not let him go; we didn’t want to be bothered with him,” a voice from within would have said: “Go away from us. • You shall not have any of this supply. You shall not see my face because your brother is not with you.” And if you come up toward the door of Heaven at last, though we come from all luxuriance and brilliancy of surroundings, and knock for admittance, and it is found that Christ is not with us, the police of Heaven will beat us back from the breadhouse saying, “Depart, I never knew you.” If Jacob’s sons, coming toward'Egypt, had lost everything on the way; if they had expended their last shekel; if they had come up - utterly exhausted to the corncribs of Egypt, and it had been found that Benjamin was with them, all the storehouses would have swung open before them. And so, though by fatal casualty wo may be ushered into the eternal world; though we may be weak and exhausted by protracted sickness—if, in that last moment, we can only just stagger and faint and fall into the gate of Heaven—it seems that all the corncribs of Heaven will open for our reception; and the Lord of that place, seated at His table, and all the angels of God seated at theii* table, and the martyrs seated at their table, and all our glorified kindred seated at our table, the King shall pass a portion from His table to ours/and then, while we think of the fact that it was Jesus who started us on the road, and Jesus who kept jus on the wav, and Jesus who at last gained admittance for our soul, we shall be glad if He has seen of the travail of His soul and been satisfied, and not beat all jealous if it be found that our divine Benjamin’s mess is five times larger than all the rest. Hail! annointed of the Lord. Thou art worthy. My friends\you see it is either Christ or famine. If there were two banquets spread and to one of them only you might go, you might stand and think for a good while as to which invitation you had better accept; but here it is feasting or starvation. If it were a choice between oratorios you might say, “I prefer the *Creation,’” or “I prefer the 'Messiah.* ” But here it is a choice between eternal harmony and everlasting discord. Oh, will yon live or die? Will you start for the Egyptian corncrib or will you perish amid the empty barns of the Canaanltish famine? “Ye shall not see my face except your brother be with you. ”. Ba Wanted Potatoes. A good story is told of M. Tains. Max Muller, it is said, went to the dining-room of a hotel in Oxford, and there saw Taine sitting with a dish of roast beef and vast quantities of buttered toast The learned German was surprised at the combination, and at the large quantities of the toast, “Is that a French dish?” he asked. "No, said; Taine; “but they keep on bringing it to me, in spite of all I can say to the contrary." "What did you ask for?" observed his friend. “Why,” replied Taine, “1 keep telling them to bring pottertos, and each time they bring me a fresh dish of toast" M. Taine’s pronunciation of "potatoes” was so much like "buttered toast” that the astonished waiter could not be blamed. The popular beverage of the man who works the circular saw—Sauterne,

=J Mi PROTECTION WATERS IT RAILROAD CHARGES INCREASED BY THETARIFF. Protection's Chock—Thn Useless Wool Tar--Ift—Profits in Foreign Trade—Hamilton vs. McKinley—A Point About Needles— Reform Notos. Watered by Protection. Our farmers very justly complain that railroads are very often capitalized at much more than their actual value, and then proceed to charge freight rates high enough to earn dividends upon their watered stock. This complaint is, in many cases, only too well founded; yet the men who make it often overlook the fact that they themselves have a very deep pecuniary interest in cheapening the legitimate expenses of railroad building and equipment. Even a railroad honestly capitalized at its actual cost has to earn dividends upon a much larger capital than would be otherwise necessary, owing to the artificial values caused by the protective tariff. There are some farmers who fancy that the price of steel rails, for example, is no concern of theirs. But they must see that it does concern them, since whatever increases the cost of making railroad becomes an element in fixing freight and passenger charges. The New York Commercial Bulletin, one of the highest authorities tn business matters has recently said: “When it is considered that the materials and labor required in the construction and operating of our roads are increased in coston ’an average probably fully 30 per cent through the operation of the protective policy, it will be seen that our transportation is costing us same $325,000,000 per annum more than it need,” and it went on: “that (§325,000,000) needless tax has to be paid out of our products and labor, ana thereby becomes an embargo uoon our whole commerce and industry, and an obstruction to our competition for the commerce of the world. • A correspondent having askei for further explanation of this, the Bulletin answered in part a; follows: “In applying this 30 per cent, ratio to the enhance fijent of the cost of railroad construction and transportation, we aimed to be large'y within the truth, as will appear from the fact that for the years 1865, 1875/1880, and 1885 the duty On iron rails averaged 40 per cent, and home-made rails must have ranged above foreign prices approximately in about that ratio. For the period between 1863 and 1890—the epoch of high duties—the cost of railroad constructed, as it is expressed in the stocks and debts of the companies, has amounted to 8,500 millionsr-and, therefore, taking the enhancement of cost of construction at only 30 per cent, we have during that period incorporated into our railroad system no less than 2,550 millions of virtually fictitious capital, or nearly double the present amount of the national debt; upon which the roads, not being responsible for this artificial increase of their outlay, demand with some show of right that they must be allowed to earn interest. Allowing them only 4 per cent, on this compulsory inflation, it follows that the protective policy is now forcing upon the railroads a necessity for exacting from the public, for capital account alone, §102,000,000 per annum more than would have been required in the absence of that policy. This was embraced in the aggregate of $325,000,000 given in our remarks of the 15th Inst, based on the fact that every Item among which the 1.080 millions of current gross earnings is disbursed has been directly or indirectly subject to the inflating effect of the tariff. “We hardly know how to make it plainer to our correspondents than we already have how this artificial increase of the cost of rail transportation ‘has to be paid out of our products and labor. ’ What else is there but products and labor to provide the means of paying for transportation service? The cost of transportation has to be added to the cost of labor and products, thereby enhancing the price of both; and so far as there is any artificial augmentation of this element of cost there is clearly so much abnormal embargo upon both our industries and our trade; which must be an obstruction to our competing with nations which are less subject to tariff impedimenta *»*’ * « • • “And just here lies the fundamental blunder, the fatal weakness, of protection. Whatever producers may be supposed to gain through the tariff raising prices, they cannot but lose through a corresponding increase in the cost of labor, plant, materials, management and all other outlays, and the result of ths. artificial contrivance is simply nil. For the device diverts a large amount of capital and labor from pursuits for which we have the best facilities to those for which we have the worst; and the net result is a waste of productive power and a failure to turn the national resource into thq.most natural current and to the best account. Protection is simply an attempt to subvert and counteract natural laws; and as such it can never benefit the industry at large of any country, although it may be so contrived as to help some interests to the corresponding detriment of others.” The Useless Wool Tariff. If we are to continue to be, on the whole, the best-clothed. people in the world, we must continue to consume a large portion of the product of woolgrowing countries. The. proposition of Judge Lawrence and his associates, to grow all the wool of every kind that we require, is known by every manufacturer, and this should be evident to any intelligent person who will investigate the subject, to be the most arrant nonsense. Thousands of farmers in this country, who have attempted the raising of special breeds of sheep in various localities and abandoned it as unprofitable business, know it to be impracticable. They can do something else more Drofitable, for which they are better circumstanced. Practically, therefore, it is the same as impossible to force this business to any great extent Under any circumstances, it Is a matter of many years experience in the adjustment of various breeds of sheep to special localities. This cannot be done by increased duties on foreign woola —Wade’s Fibre and Fabric. ___ Tariff the Main Issue. In a recent interview upon the issues of 1892, Senator John G. Carlisle says: “I have no hesitation In saying that the Democracy should keep the tariff to the front It is the great issue of the day and on it the fight should be made. Upon It the party is united and can make a confident and aggressive battle. “The party is not united on the free coinage of silver, and it would be suicidal to advance that issue to a position of equal importance with the tariff; but this will not, in my opinion, be done,, Nothing can get in front of the other issue; the cause of revenue reform wl.l still be the paramount question, even with free coinage. If the drain on the people produced by high prices is continued, how are they benefited? /Their money will still be wrung from them through custom house exactions." IT is quite possible that we have spoken disrespectfully of reciprocity, and why not? Isn’t it a humbug, pure and simple? Isn’t it a roundabout and awkward way of arriving at the ends which the tariff reformers have in view? The worst of it is, it does not promise valuable returns, but the admission of rabid protectionism that reciprocity is

====■■ ■ > " " desirable means much; it gives the lie to many of their arguments tn the past, 1 and deals a severe bloVr to the fabric of protection, already tottering to its fall. —New York Merchants’ Review. la tba Foreign Market a Cursaf Our enormous crops, with good prices, which would not be possible in the narrow confines of the home market, are now teaching our farmers the value of their foreign market as they have never seen it before. While they are thus learning in a most practical way the immense importance of the European market, let them not forget what the protection doctrine about that market is. The principal American book setting forth the doctrines of protection is that of Carey. This is the greatest work yet produced by an American protectionist, and our high tariff crowd are accustomed to swear by Carey. And what says Carey about the foreign market? “Our country would be better off if the Atlantic were an impassable ocean of fire, and a prolonged "war between this country and our best Customer, England, would prove an advantage. ” Do the farmers think so? Let them imagine what would now be the price of wheat if the 200,000,000 bushels which Europe will probably call for this year were kept at -home to glut our own market. But this queer doctrine is also the doctrine of McKinley. Here are his words: “If our trade and commerce are increasing and profitable within our own borders, what advantage can come from passing by confessedly the best market that we may reach the poorest by distant seas? In the foreign market the } profit is divided between our own citizen and the foreigner, while with the trade and commerce among ourselves the profit is kept in our own family and increases our national wealth, and promotes the welfare of the individual citizen. ” Yet “the poorest by distant seas” is now booming the prices of wheat in a way to make the farmers smile Would it not be wiser to court that market very vigorously by taking more freely what it has to offer in exchange? Protection's Cheek. The great crops of all kinds of agricultural products are now attracting universal attention; and already the protectionist organs are congratulating themselves that these big crops are going to make the farmers so happy that they will forget all about, agricultural depression and go on voting for the blessed high tariff. The organs do not even stop here, but have the sublime cheek to claim that these big crops are due to the McKinley law. Thus the New York Tribune, the chief sinner of them all, has the assurance to say: “The expansion of production at this time is not entirely a matter of luck. One principal object of the new tariff was to afford better Kotection to agriculture. It contained w duties for the express purpose of enabling American farmers to secure the home market more fully. At the same time it gave them assurance of expansion of manufactures and establishment of new industries, creating a far greater home demand tor their products. Early last fall, as soon as the new tariff went into effect, these results were perceived. American farmers, thus encouraged, increased their production in every direction, and so rapidly that they might have found reason to regret It/lf unusual foreign demands had not-Arisen. The encouragement of industry here was the legitimate fruit of a tariff intended for that purpose. ” But who can discover a single farmer that planted more this year because of the McKinby law? Such aiarmer ought to ba found at once for exhibition purposes. Any dime museum could offer him a good salary. The idea of McKinley encouraging farmers who export an enormous surplus of their products! | A Point About Needles. Mistakes will occur even in the bestregulated protection families Here, for exam nle, is one of the “tariff pictures” of the New York Press: “Ladles, the McKinley bill has not advanced the price of needles. They cost sl.lO a thousand last year, and only 73% cents this year; because we make them in this country, and the tariff does not touch home-made goods if we make enough of them. That’s mighty good reason why we should make enough of them, isn’t it?” And here is an exti act from McKinley’s speech at the great protection banquet in New York last April: “Do you know why we put sewing needles on the free list? We did It upon the great underlying principle of protection, because we didn’t manufacture them at home. ” ( That is why needles are lower now. The duty taken off by McKinley was 25 per cent, and already needles have fallen in price, according to the figures given by the Press, more than the entire amount of the duty. But do we make needles? McKinley says no; the Press says we do, and that this is the reason that the price has come down. McKinley says he put needles on free list; the Press says there is still a duty on them._^— —— Yet, it is a well-known fact that this organ was subsidized by a rich Connecticut manufacturer to expound and defend protection. Profits in Foreign Trade. Here are the yearly profits which England gets out of its foreign trade, together with its interest on investments in foreign countries: Profits on freight £ 45,000,000 Interest on the capital in foreign commerce 5,000,030 Insurance 8,500,000 Profits of the merchants 17,500,000 Interest on investments 56,000,000 Total 126,000,000 or $612,000,000 per annum made out of foreign trade and by putting money into foreign countries. Yet we have many protectionist wiseacres in this country who tell us that “British free trade” is bringing a “bitter harvest” upon England. Do these figures show that foreign trade is an unmitigated evil? The organ of the Protective Tariff League has found a new consolation for the woolgrowers to compensate them for the decline in the price of their staple since the McKinley bill'went into effect. It says: “The duty on wool may or may not increase the price of this year’s clip, but five years from now the number of sheep will be increased, and the fleeces which are cut from those sheep will weigh more than those cut in 1890 or even in 1884. ” This may be the effect of the tariff on the sheep, though we cannot see how it will come about. But If the effect on the farner is to make him weigh less (and that is the way it works now), we shall still think that there is a net loss to the country from the wool tariff.— Evening Post. “The overthrow of the present horrible system of tariff taxation is absolutely essential to the liberties of the people. Taxation of the laboring masses for the enrichment of the protected and privileged few is a re-enactment of slavery in this country more odious and abominable than African bondage when it existed. This issue is to be fought out to the bitter end, and I have faith that sooner or later the people will triumph over the ruins of the plutocracy. There are other issues also which must take their place in the National Democratic platform. ’—Senator Voorhees.