Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 September 1878 — Page 1

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NEWS Oh THE WEEK.

FOBBXGN NEW A It is calculated that Austria will ba able to export this year from 12,000,000 to 13,000,000 of quintals of wheat, 2,500,000 of rye, 4,000,000 of barley, and 2,500,000 to 8,000,000 of oats. The Bosnian insurgents are estimated at 65,000. A Chinese mission is about to go to Russia regarding the frontier question. It is reported that two students were the assassins of Gen. Mezentzow* at St. Petersburg. A Constantinople dispatch says the Russian army of occupation has 20,340 sick. The cable gives meager particulars of a terrible disaster in Hungary. A furious storm almost entiiely laid waste the town of Mickalez, destroying 1,000 bouses and causing the death by drowning of between 500 and 600 people. At Erlau, also, many houses were swept away by the flood, and a large number of people drowned.

domestic intelligence. JEUist. A number of deaths have occurred at Hyde Park, near Boston, within a few days, from working a lot t>f Siberian curled hair, sent from New York, Mt was in a filthy condition when received, and was sent back. The next lot contained some also in a bad condition, and it was from this that ten people died. New York failures: George W. Beach, railroad contractor, liabilities $120,000; Joseph Stiner, tea merchant, liabilities $270,000; Nathaniel Burchill, builder, liabilities $288,000, no assets ; Young, Smith & Co., importers of sugar, liabilities $345,000 ; Francis Williams, merchandise broker, liabilities $112,000, no assets. Peters’ oil cloth factory, at Newark, N. J., has been destroyed by fire. Loss, $150,000. Ex-Collector Thomas Murphy, of New York, went through the bankrupt court just before the expiration of the law. His liabilities arc scheduled at $726,000. West. A dispatch from Cheynne says that Sheriff Widdowfield and a ntan named Vincent were lately killed, in a canon of Elk mountain, by a party of highwaymen.

Judge Hollins, of Deadwood, a victim of the stampede to the Stinking Water gold region, arrived at Bismarck, D. T., the other day, by steamer. He reports it a fraud, and the man Wetmore, who led the party into the country, a liar. There was no gold, and the Deadwood party is now struggling to get out. They found absolutely nothing. Three highwaymen recently rode into Concordia, a town of 1,500 inhabitants in Lafayette county, Mo., dismounted in front of the principal bank, walked in, and, after intimidating the cashier into silence, helped themselves to all the paper money in the vaults, some $4,000, They then mounted their horses and galloped off. Two men were killed and another mortally injured by an elevator accident in Kingsland, Ferguson & Co.’s building, in St. Louis, Mo., last week. Great forest fires, extending almost continuously for a distance of 160 miles, are reported as raging along the north shore of Lake Superior. Frank A. George, superintendent of the money-order department in the St. Louis postoffice, has absconded, taking with him about $6,000 of the postoffice funds. Sontti. Yellow, fever bulletin, Aug. 26: Memphis—New cases, 100; deaths, 26. It is a sad and dreadful outlook, as awful as a doomed city ever was forced to contemplate. The fever breaks out in a new spot almost every hour, and the death rate runs up. To a stranger the utter desolation of the situation could not be realized. New Orleans—New cases, 125; deaths, 44. The disease is extremely malignant. In the town of Plaquemine, below Baton Rouge, there are new cases every hour, almost invariably resulting in black vomit and death. Grenada—Fifteen deaths in twentyfour hours, and the epidemic still raging. Only ten active men e place. Physicians and nurses completely xhausted. Vicksburg Death-rate and suffering on the increase. New cases in the twenty-four hours, 105; deaths, 25. A Washington dispatch says that Internal Revenue Commissioner Raum has ordered Collectors Woodcock and Cooper, of Nashville, Tenn., to employ forty additional men each, and to make the woods so hot for the “ moonshiners ” as to compel them to surrender. The Comnjissioner is confident that all illicit whisky-distilling in Tennessee will cease in thirty days. '

The yellow-fever reports from the South, on the 29th ult., were not encouraging. At Memphis the plague had become more violent. But 3,000 white people were left in the city. New cases, 119; deaths, 58. The physicians were completely worn out, and were resting', while friends of the sick were searching in vain for medical attendants. At New Orleans the death rate was steadily advancing ; deaths for the preceding twenty-four hours, 57. At Vicksburg a larger number of new cases were reported than on any previous day, though the mortality was not so great. Canton, Miss., which had a population of 3,500 when the plague appeared, was almost completely deserted; not a single business house open except stores; the Court House was locked up, all the officials having left the town; nothing but hearses and coffins were to be seen on the streets. Grenada, Miss., reported twenty deaths in the preceding twenty-four hours. With the exception of physicians and nurses nearly every living soul in the town was down ;.ith the plague. At Port Gibson, Miss., the fever was extremely malignant, and showed no abatement. A severe fight recently took place forty miles northwest of El Paso, between a squad of Texas State troops and a large body of Indians from Port Stanton reservation. Seven Indians and one Ranger were killed. Yellow-fever bulletin for Aug. 31; New cases in Vicksburg for the preceding twenty-four hours, 160; deaths, 13. Memphis —New cases, 100; deaths, 57. New Orleans— The deaths increased to 59, the largest number of the season to date. Canton, Miss.—The disease frightfully fatal; half the cases reported had died, and very few had recovered Grenada— Slight increase in the death rate; no material for the spreading of the fever. The deaths in New Orleans on Sept. 1 numbered eighty-eight, and the fever was on the increase ; whole number of deaths to that ate, 1.003. At Vicksburg there were ninetyeig t new cases of fever and twenty-five « « A Memphis dispatch of Sept 1 says: This Sabbath day has been a sad one for Memphis, death having visited eighty-one house o.di, and sickness more than 100 more. Feop.e go about the streets in mourning, and

The Democratic sentinel.

JAS W. McEWEN, Editor.

volume II

Christian burial for their dead is a boon which few are blessed with. At Elmwood sba’low graves are dug, and sometimes a short prayer is uttered by a minister, but, more frequently, there is no service, and the dead are put away hastily.”

WASHINGTON NOTES. Orders have been issued by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue to the Collector at Nashville, requiring him to enlist all the men necessary for a “short, sharp, and decisive campaign” against the “moonshine” whisky-makers in Tennessee. Dennis Kearney, the labor agitator, called at the White House the other day and had a short conversation with the President, during which he complained bitterly of the unhappy condition of laboring men, depression of business, and general hard times. The President argued the subject in a quiet manner, and is reported as having done all the talking, “giving Kearney very little opportunity to say anything. The President explained that the country had not yet fully recovered from the effects of the great war, but that matters were beginning to adjust themselves to ante-war conditions; that for several years there was an inflated condition of business, with a surplus of money, which many mistook for property, but that now business was getting down to bed-rock, so to speak, and the people were learning again the value of a dolls r. He said he thought that all money should have a gold basis, srd that resumption would do much to relieve Hard times, which he did not think would last much longer.” Secretary Evarts has asked for the resignation of Gen. Philip Sidney Post, for several years Consul General of the United States to Austria. The Postoffice Department has decided to begin, on the Ist of October, the transportation of gold and silver coin through the mails as third-class matter at the rate of one cent postage per ounce. Sergt. Boston Corbett, who shot John Wilkes Booth, has written to the Postmaster General from Camden, N. J., asking employment in the pestoffice there. He says he has never held a position under the Government, although he thinks his services deserve reward.

POLITICAL POINTS. The Democrats of the Richmond (Va.) district have nominated Gen. Joseph E. Johnston for Congress. Judge E. H. East, of Nashville, has been nominated by the Greenbackers for Governor of Tennessee. The Republicans of Kansas, in convention at Topeka last week, nominated a full State ticket, headed by J. P. St. John as the candidate for Governor. Gen. Bntler, in a card accepting the nomination of voters who signed a paper expressing a wish to choose him Governor of Massachusetts, says: “I take the trust with all its cares, and will devote all of the intelligence, of the labor, forethought, and energy which in me lies, and use all the power which they and those who think with them may give me, to relieve the people’s burdens and bring about a more equal and efficient administration of the laws of this Commonwealth, which they wish.”

MISCELLANEOUS GLEANINGS. Visible supply of grain in the States and Canada : Wheat, 7,741,000 bushels ; corn, 9,295,000 bushels ; oats, 2,445,000 bushels : rye, 585,000 bushels ; barley, 1,106,000 bushels. The amount of standard silver dollars coined up to Sept. 1 was $12,896,500; outstanding, $2,659,184; on hand, $10,237,316. The demand for them increase s.

Be Careful What You Put Your Name To.

The Davenport Democrat timely observes that “the season has now come when the insinuating agent and patentrights man visits small towns and country villages, seeking to trap the unwary by tricks that have become so common that they ought no longer to find a victim. The swindling is almost invariably done by—on some pretext—inducing the farmer or country merchant to put his name on paper. One of the most successful, and the easiest, ways to obtain the customer’s signature is what purports to be a receipt. It is, in fact, a receipt printed, and containing a multitiplicity of words. It is on a slip of paper seven or eight inches long. The place of the signature is naturally in the right-hand corner. The customer has bought something of the smooth-spoken agent, and, honestly enough, is perfectly willing to sign a receipt. Let that paper be cut in two, up and down the center, and the right-hand half will be an unobjectionable thirty or sixty-day promissory note. The signature is well known in the neighborhood; it is sold or traded long before maturity to some bona fide and innocent purchaser, and the unsophisticated maker has no legal defense. Or, possibly, a fence-wire agent comes along with a sample coil of wire. The customer wants a few rods of wire fence, and signs an agreement to pay on delivery 4 cents per foot for five coils of wire. When delivered, it appears that the coils each contain a quarter of a mile of wire. By the same trick the festive lightning-agent sells the victim enough of lightning-rod to thatch the roof of the house with, when only thirty feet were, needed. The safe way is not to transact business with an itinerant agent unless he can get along without your signature to a written or printed instrument.

Sugar-Making from Corn.

The chemists at the Agricultural Department are busily at work perfecting a process of manufacturing sugar from the stalk of Indian corn. Several very successful results were accomplished today. The Commissioner of Agriculture expects that next year nearly all the farmers in the country who raise Indian corn will be able to' manufacture their own sugar. The first farmer who has started out in the manufacture of sugar from the stalks of Indian com has been heard from. His success will encourage others. This man is from Illinois.— Washington telegram.

Appreciative.

The Boston Traveller says that a little Brighton girl went with her mother on a visit to a friend’s house the other day, and listened with great delight to her hostess playing the piano. When the air was concluded, she deliberately handed the surprised lady a cent. “Why, ma,” she replied to the remonstrances of her shocked parent, “ we always give the organ man a cent, and Mrs. plays ever so much gooder than him!” Dr. Holmes says that crying widows marry first. There is nothing like we‘ weather for transplanting.

RENSSELAER, JASPER COUNTY, INDIANA, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6,1878.

PAPER MONEY.

Until the Advent of Paper Money the World Never Had a Currency. A certain plant, charged with being poisonous, was formerly tolerated in private gardens because of its pretty fruit called “love-apples.” Could the owners of those gardens revisit the world they would be very much surprised to find their evil-reputed fruit not only credited with being exceptionally wholesome, but everywhere a favorite article of food; and, were our earlier ancestors permitted to look in upon us, they would be astonished to learn that a substance dispensed by the apothecaries of their day, in grain doses to suffering humanity, had become an article of leading commercial value, and that many thousand tons of it were annually consumed at the tables of all classes, from the highest to the humblest, throughout the world. Likewise, it shall come to pass that our descendants will wonder how we, their forefathers, could regard their favorite, indispensable greenback as a poison to be avoided like the oncecontemned tomato, and as a drug of the political pharmacopeia to be sparingly used only for the cure of national distempers, even as, in old times, sugar was classed nowhere but among the materia medica for the cure of febrile complaints. Popular prejudice and the want heretofore of favorable opportunities have thus far prevented more than a limited recognition of the fact that a paper currency can, under certain conditions, become of permanent, of inestimable value to the political and industrial economies of a great nation The general impression concerning it is similar to that entertained of a nauseous medicine to be reluctantly accepted as a remedial agent, but to be gotten rid of as quickly as possible if only to confirm the convalescence of the patient. That this prejudice, this unfavorable impression, should not exist would seem strange, indeed when we consider the circumstances which have invariably inspired and attended the appearance of a paper currency; for there are no well-authen-ticated instances of a government paper currency having been issued except in great national emergencies, except when the political existence of the people was at stake and every other consideration had to be subordinated to the paramount one of rescuing (he vessel of state from the perils of surrounding shoals and breakers ; or, if not so critical, the emergency has always been sufficiently grave to arouse those serious apprehensions which are thought to justify a resort to paper currency as one of the last heroic methods left for averting an impending general calamity; a kind of Caesarean operation that sacrificed everything for the preservation of the parent state. Thus it is not surprising the people should have been led to associate the presence of a paper currency with the idea of there being something abnormal in the condition erf the commonwealth, and to deem the absence of it a sure indication of national wealth and strength.

It should, however, be borne in mind by those who are inimical to the use of paper currency that the issue of it upon the occasions above referred to implies for it no .inconsiderable amount of virtue; otherwise it would not have been resorted to so frequently as a means of safety in times of danger, and therefore, if beneficial upon occasions when all kinds of money, not excepting gold coin, are the least capable of doing good, it follows that a proper knowledge of its inherent qualifications ought to enable ns in times of peace to make it one of the most efficient and valuable of all currencies. It should also be borne in mind that the mere fact of a paper currency being put forth in seasons of general distrust and uneasiness would very naturally cause it, however intrinsically good it might be, to acquire the bad reputation attached to its surroundings, and suffer the same vicissitudes to which all other things are then subjected, and therefore it is neither just nor logical to condemn its use during peace and prosperity merely because it has heretofore been, through no fault of its own, associated with periods of anarchy and ruin. Nor should it be overlooked that paper currency has been more often issued by those who were incapable of properly using it and of comprehending its legitimate office than by those in whose hands it became an instrument for the accomplishment of much good. People with an outer crust of civilization, to conceal the inner mass of their barbarism and ignorance, have, monkey-like, imitated their more enlightened fellow, creatures in this as in other respectswith no better idea of what a paper currency really is than a dim, chaotic notion that it is in some sort the offspring of a combined modern alchemy and necromancy, whereby, through the use of certain cabalistic characters, ordinary paper is transmuted into a precious metal; whereby an ounce of dried pulp is metamorphosed into an ounce of virgin gold. Under such auspices and because it failed to meet the extravagant expectations of its projectors, this currency rapidly came into bad odor, and so tainted the financial atmosphere with its violent death and decay, as to utterly disgust many of the warmest friends of monetary reform. I am fain to reluctantly admit that even in this land, this paradise of the peripatetic school-master, there is, in certain quarters, concerning this subject, as much benightedness as exists in the minds of the most outwardly polished of barbarians. Publications supposed to reflect the intelligence of their writers ventilate opinions about the nature and characteristics of a paper currency that remind one very much of those which were uttered when the feasibility of using steam as a propelling force was under discussion. Among other objections was one from a very learned writer who demonstrated, with the aid of the highest mathematics, that, owing to atmospheric resistance, the faster a locomotive Went the slower it would go. Many of the Objections urged against a greenback currency are of this description. They have a potent influence upon that large class which never reflects and always accepts what is false in preference to the truth; but there are other objections, which, because of the few grains of truth scattered through their mass of errors, pervert minds that do think; and it is for the benefit of these I have in this paper endeavored to point out where the few grains of truth, made to serve a false cause, really belong, and what little or no connection they have with the great issue at stake in this country. It is no argument against the use of a paper currency that it has not been voluntarily used by any government until very recent times. This is an argument that applies with equal force against the employment of every modern invention; neither steam nor

“A Firm Adherence to Correct Principles.”

electricity were in use one hundred years ago, but does anyone in his senses contend that they should be discarded, be laughed and sneered at, because the world, from the beginning down to the days of our grandparents, got along with an immense degree of comfort and happiness without them? I know some would reply : The two cases are not identical; that steam and electricity are wholly new motors applied to the car of progress; that they are new because the world had not previously been prepared for them, and were adopted because the age in which they appeared was ripe for their application; but that currency is as old as the hills, has stood the tests of hundreds of generations, and, therefore, when you ask us to adopt greenbacks instead of gold and silver, you are simply asking us to place confidence in a stranger to perform the same duties Which have from times immemorial been faithfully discharged by a long-tried friend and servant. I would answer : That longtried servants, be they never so faithful, must succumb to the same fate of change and death that ultimately overtake all things, however immutable and fixed they may seem; and that, so far from proposing to supersede any metallic currency heretofore in use, we utterly deny having such an intention, for the plain reason that there is no currency of the kind to supersede; that until the advent of paper money the world never had a currency. Currency, like the steam engine and telegraph, is a modern, a very modern invention.

WILLIAM HOWARD.

Philabelphia, Pa.

THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE GREENBACK.

[By Hon. D. B. Stubbs, of Muscatine, lowa.] But we are told that Congress has no power under the constitution to issue money except as a war measure. Republican orators, and many that the people never looked upon as orators, loudly proclaimed last fall that the constitution positively forbids the issuing of money by the General Government except as a war measure, In fact both of my opponents last year proclaimed this, and the Democratic candidate said it was evident that we could have no further issue of greenbacks unless we went to war for the power. I submit this proposition : If Congress does not possess the power to issue money, how can it delegate the power to the national-banking corporations to issue money ? How can it delegate greater power than it possesses? All corporations are creatures of the Government that creates them and nave only just such powers as the creator—the Government —gives them, and no other. If the Government does not have the power to issue money then it gives the corporations that it creates greater power than it possesses itself. How this can be is more than I can under stand or solve after more than twenty years’ arduous study and practice of the law. Perhaps some of those all-know-ing orators of the old school of politics, who never read a law* book, can explain the mystery. Some of the wisest of these men have gone farther, and told us that the Supreme Court of the United States has decided by its solemn opinion that the greenback was only a war measure and that the constitution absolutely prohibits the issue of legal-tender currency only in time of war. When you hear one of these high-toned clackers make this assertion you may rest assured that he has never read the legal-tender decision made by the Supreme Court of the United States or else he has no sort of regard for truth. Our Supreme Court has been called upon in various cases to decide as to the constitutionality of the Legal-Tender acts of Congress. The leading ones are those of Hepburn vs. Griswold, reported in 8 Wallace United States Supreme Court reports, p. 606, and the two cases of Knox vs. Lee, and Parker vs. Davis, reported in 12 Wallace, 457. In the first case mentioned one Hepburn made a promissory note in the usual manner and form, dated June 20, 1860, promising to pay Henry Griswold $11,250 on the 20th day of February, 1862. This note both bore date and became due before the passage of the Legal- Tenderact of Feb. 25,1862. In this case the question that was presented for the determination of the Supreme Court was whether or not the payee of a note, made before the LegalTender act took effect, was obliged by law to accept in payment United States notes equal in nominal amount to the sum due according to its terms when tendered by the maker.

In this case the court held that all contracts for the payment of money, not expressly stipulating otherwise, were, in legal effect and universal understanding, contracts for the payment of coin, and ruled that defendant’s tender of United States treasury notes was not a satisfaction of the debt, but that the contract, being made before the law making these notes a full legal tender took effect, must be governed by the law in force at the time of the making of the contract, and that Hepburn must pay Griswold in coin. There does not seem to be any new law in the doctrines here laid down, which is that legislative enactments cannot change or impair the obligation of oentracts.

This decision was made in February, 1870, and may have made some men seriously reflect upon the status of the 5-20 bonds, notwithstanding the passage of the act to strengthen the public credit passed March 18, 1869, and it had the effect no doubt to hasten the enactment of the refunding bill passed July 14, 1870, so as to have our 5-20 bonds refunded and made by contract payable in coin,which was done on that date. And it transpired that the decision in the Hepburn-Griswold case did not then suit the chiefs of the party. Many of them had debts to pay off that had been contracted before the passage of the Legal-Tender acts, and it suited their convenience to pay just then in greenbacks instead of coin. Bear in mind that no decision had then or ever has been made declaring the law to be that debts contracted while the Legal-Tender law was in force could not be paid in United States treasury notes, only that they would not pay the debts contracted before the passage of these acts. And, having the power, this party no doubt increased the number of Supreme Judges from seven, the number on the bench at the time of the Hepburn-Gris-wold decision, to consist of nine members, a Chief Justice and eight Associates, and on the 18th day of February, 1870, Justice Strong was appointed, and on the 21st of March Justice Bradley was appointed. Now, with a Supreme bench organized for the very purpose of making a decision that the greenback was constitutional and would discharge any and all debts, whether made before

the Legal-Tender acts took effect or subsequent, the case of Knox vs. Lee, and Parker vs. Davis, the one from Texas and the other from Massachusetts, were consolidated and brought before the Supreme Court, and at the request of the court the question of the constitutionality of the Legal-Tender acts was to be fully argued and finally settled by the court, so that the question should be forever put at rest I have both arguments and the opinion of the Supreme Court before me. But I cannot read the whole opinion, as it would require much time. I will say that I hope each man who feels an interest in this question will procure and read the decision. I characterize it as the most elaborate and strongest greenback document that is now in print, and of the very highest authority, however, to the jurisprudence of the land. In this ease the court held that the Legal-Tender acts were constitutional as applied both to past and future contracts. The court says: “Before we can hold the Legal-Tender acts unconstitutional we must be convinced they were not appropriate means, or means conducive to the execution of any or all of the powers of Congress, or of the Government, not appropriate in any degree (for we are not judges of that degree of appropriation), or we must hold they were prohibited.”—l2 Wallace, United States Supreme Court Reports, page 509. “ The degree of the necessity for any Congressional enactment, or the relative degree of its appropriateness is for consideration in Congress; not here. When the law is not prohibited, and is really calculated to effect any of the objects intrusted to the Government, to undertake here to inquire into the degree of its necessity would be to pass the line which circumscribes the judicial department and to tread on legislative ground.— Ibid, 542. So you see that the question is not decided upon the contingency of war, but the whole matter of the necessity of any constitutional enactment is left to Congress, The whole of this decision leaves the right to issue legal-tender money upon the same authority in the constitution that there is for the Government to make contracts, to require an oath from officers, to build a Presidential mansion, a Capitol or any of the department buildings; to punish robberies of the mails and postoffices, to prohibit the circulation of obscene literature, to provide for taking the statistics of Territories and of the United States, respecting age, sex, health, etc.; to improve rivers and harbors, to establish buoys and light-houses, to establish a United. States Bank. All of these things have been and are being done without any express power stated in the constitution. The court says : “The constitution was intended to frame a government as distinguished from a league or compact—a Government supreme in some particulars over States and people. It was designed to provide the same currency, having a uniform legal value in all the States. It was for this reason the power to coin money and regulate its value was conferred upon the Federal Government, while the same power as well as the power to emit bills of credit was withheld from the States. The States can no longer declare what shall be money or regulate its value. Whatever power there is over the currency is vested in Congress. If the power to declare what is money is not in Congress, it is annihilated.—lbid, 545. “ And, generally, when one of such powers was expressly denied to the States only, it was for the purpose of rendering the Federal power more complete and exclusive; how sensible then its framers must have been that emergencies might arise when the precious metals might prove inadequate to the necessities of the Government and the demands of the people—when it is remembered that paper money was almost exclusively in use in the States as the medium of exchange, and when the great evil sought to be remedied was the want of uniformity in the current value of money, it might be argued, we say, that the gift of power to coin money and regulate the value thereof was understood as conveying general power over the currency, and which had belonged to the States, and which they surrendered.” —lbid, 546. * * * * “By the obligation of a contract to pay money is to pay that which law shall recognize as money when the payment is to be made.

‘ ‘lf there is anything settled by decision it is this, and we do not understand it to be controverted. No one ever doubted that a debt of SI,OOO, contracted before 1834, could be paid by 100 eagles coined after that year,though they contained no more gold than ninety-four eagles coined when the contract was made, and this is not because of the intrinsic value of the coin, but because of its legal value. The eagles coined after 1834 were not money until they were authorized by law, and, had they been coined before, without a law fixing their legal value, they could no more have paid a debt than uncoined bullion, or cotton, or wheat. Every contract for the payment of money is necessarily subject to the constitutional power of the Government over the currency, whatever that power may be, and the obligation of the parties is, therefore, assumed with reference to that power.”— lbid, 548-9. “If, therefore, they (the legal tenders) were, what we have endeavored to show, appropriate ends, they were not transgressive of the authority vested in Congress.”—lbid, 552. “It is hardly correct to speak of a standard of value. The constitution does not speak of it. t contemplates a standard for that which has gravity or extension; but value is an ideal thing. The coinage acts fix its unit as a dollar ; but the gold or silver thing we call a dollar is, in no sense, a standard of a dollar, it is a representative of it. There might never have been a piece of money of the denomination of a dollar. * * “ It will be seen that we hold the acts of Congress constitutional as applied to contracts made before or after their passage. In so holding we overrule so much of what was decided in Hepburn vs. Griswold as ruled the acts unwarranted by the constitution so far as they apply to contracts made before this enactment.”—lbid, 553. So the question of the constitutionality of the power of Congress to authorize the issue of legal-tender cu r rency has been settled. It may be that Wall street and British gold will force from our Judges a reversal of this decision, and foist upon the country a ruling as infamously wicked and baleful as was that in the Dred Scott case. It may be, for gold has become more potent than justice, philanthropy or the rights of the people, but let the perpetrators of such a deed remember the termination of Belshazzar’s impious meetings.

DOWN TO DATE.

“ Special Cases’* Growing Out of th# Louisiana and Florida Elections 'Which President Hayes Has Provided For. [From the Washington Post.] Some time ago the Post published a list of the “ special cases” that had been brought to the attention of Mr. Hayes, and disposed of by him or his associates. This list was far from being complete, as it included only the most prominent of the ballot-box staffers, election-return forgers, and the thieves who had been rewarded for their peculiar services, but the following is what might be styled a ’ more ambitious effort. Doubtless it is yet far from being complete. Doubtless there are hundreds of petty criminals, such as manufacturers or forgers of affidavits, and manipulators of small election precincts, who have been shoved into out of-the-way places, of whom the nation is as yet oblivious, but the following enumeration will answer all practical purposes. Of course the man who is indebted to this worthy crowd for the office he holds has no object in lifting them from the mire into places of emolument, of trust, and of power. It was purely accidental, of course. To believe otherwise is to believe Mr. Hayes privy in some measure to the frauds of which he is the beneficiary, and that will never do. We publish the list, therefore, only for th’_ purpose of calling attention to tne wonderful coincidences which sometimes occur in politics.

J. Madison Wells, President of the Returning Board, Surveyor of the Port. Thomas C. Anderson, member of the Returning Board, Special Deputy Collector of Customs, New Orleans. Louis M. Kenner, member of the Returning Board, Deputy Navil Officer, New Orleans. Wm. Pitt Kellogg, Governor of the State, United States Senator by the influence of Hayes. Morris Markes, Hayes elector, Collector of Internal Revenue. Orlando Brewster, Hayes elector, Surveyor General. 8. B. Packard, radical candidate for Governor on same ticket with Hayes, Consul to Liverpool. Hugh J. Campbell, who appended forged jurats before the Returning Board, District Attorney for Dakota. Charles Hill, who carried the second electoral returns to Washington, storekeeper in the Custom House. H. Conquest Clarke, Kellogg’s private secretary, a place in the Interior Department.

George L. Smith, who fraudulently manipulated the returns of nine parishes, Collector of the Port of New Orleans. W. L. McMillan, who was instrumental in breaking up the Packard Legislature, Pension Agent. St. Felix Casanave, brother of the Returning Bearder, storekeeper in the New Orleans Custom House. W. H. Green, clerk of Returning Board, a place in the New Orleans Custom House. York Woodward, another clerk of the Returning Board, chief clerk in the Surveyor’s office. W. F. Loan, ex-Chief of Police, place in the revenue office, under Markes. F. A. Clover, Supervisor of Elections in East Baton Rouge, position in New Orleans Custom House. F. A. Le Sage, a striker in East Baton Rouge, position in Custom House. John Sherman, leader of the band of visiting statesmen, Secretary of the Treasury. E. W. Stoughton, visiting statesman, Minister to Russia. John A. Kasson, visiting statesman, Minister to Austria. A. B. Levissee, Hayes elector, special traveling agent Internal Revenue Department. L. J. Souer, who bribed the Packard Legislature to elect Kellogg Senator, appraiser of merchandise, New Orleans. A. S. Badger, Chief of Police, Postmaster at New Orleans. John M. .Harlan, member Louisiana Commission, Associate Justice Supreme Court. J. R. Hawley, member Louisiana Commission, offered Commissionership to Paris Exposition. L. Desmarius, cashier New Orleans Custom House. H. M. Twitchell, Consul at Kingston. A. B. Sloanaker, place in revenue office.

W. A. Heisland, supervisor of elections, clerkship in Custom House. Jack Wharton, United States Marshak James Lewis, appointed Naval Officer to conciliate Kenner. Benjamin Bloomfield, Tom Anderson’s crony, and member of the State ring, Auditor in New Orleans Custom House. C. S. Abel, Clerk of the Returning Board, clerk in New Orleans Custom House. Napoleon L. Lastrapes, and Paul Trevigne, strikers, positions in New Orleans Custom House. R. M. J. Kenner, brother of the Returning Boarder, place in the Custom House, New Orleans. Samuel Chapman, Henry Smith, and E. Lukeman, strikers, positions in Custom House. E. F. Noyes, visiting statesman, Minister to France. M. L. Stearns, Governor, Commis? sioner of Hot Springs. L. 0. Dennis, in Superintendent of Architects’ office. “Judge” Cessna, Postmaster. Clerk Black, in the treasury. Clerk Vance in the Postoffice Department. Clerk Howell, Collector of Customs. Bowles, of Leon, in the treasury. “Judge” Bell, Government Timber Agent. Elector Humphreys, Collector, Pensacola. Stearns’ secretary, in the treasury. Maxwell, Lieutenant in the army. Phelps, commissioner to Paris. Varnum, Receiver Land Office. Taylor, County Clerk, in Land Office.

John Sherman on the Stump.

A correspondent says of John Sherman’s speech at Toledo, Ohio: He was constantly interrupted by jeers and insults from the audience—something that never before happened any other public man in this city. “Eliza Pinkston,” “Mrs. Jenks,” “Jim Anderson,” were howled at him from all parts of the house. When Hayes’ name was mentioned, a tremendous yell of “ Fraud !” went up, compelling Sherman to cease speaking. The interruptions were so constant that he delivered his proposed speech only in part, but lost his temper and went into a personal explanation of his official conduct. The audience was made up of Pernor

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crate, Republicans and workingmen in about equal parte. The crowd, which was immense, packing the house, would not hear Shei man’s defense of the Louisiana steal, but hooted him down with cries of “Fraud” and “Eight by seven,” mingled with calls for “Sweet Eliza” and “ Mrs. Pinkston.” The Secretary’s meeting closed with shouts and cheers for the National candidate and platform. His humiliating treatment was the greater because witnessed by many distinguished men, including Speaker Grosvenor, of the Ohio House, Gen. Robinson, of the State Republican Committee, Congressman Willets, of Michigan, and others. It was one of the most remarkable demonstrations known in the history of Ohio politics. He advocated resumption; said that the Republican party was for keeping out and in circulation all the greenbacks that could be maintained at par with coin; defended the national banks; admitted that some Republican frauds were committed in Florida in 1876, but insisted that the vote of the State was properly counted for Hayes; impudently asserted that Hayes “got the vote of Louisiana as lawfully and fully as that of Ohio;” accused the Democrats of having tried to cheat in Oregon; tfnd became vehement on the subject of the solid South. But Mr. John Sherman did not say anything about his letter to Anderson and Weber, or about his interview with Maj. Burke, of New Orleans, in a Senate committee-room.

Political Assessments.

Every department and bureau at Washington has been thoroughly canvassed for subscriptions to the Republican campaign fund, as if to illustrate Hayes’ civil-service order of June 22, 1877, which declared “ no assessment for political purposes on officers or subordinates should be allowed. ” The methods for raising money are precise!; those which were practiced under Grant. The salaries are all regularly assessed in advance, at a fixed percentage, to bring a certain amount into the treasury of the Congressional Committee, of which that eminent reformer, Charles Foster, is now the directing mind. A collector, who receives 5 per cent, on the toll be gathers in, goes around with a book into all the public offices, takes down the names of the subscribers, and, at the close of the month, those signatures are recognized by the disbursing officer as authority to deduct a certain portion of the salary of the clerks. Nearly all the chiefs of bureaus and divisions, who draw large pay and perform little service, have set an example to their subordinates by subscribing mere than the sum assessed on their salaries, in order to make their loyalty conspicuous. At first there was a partial resistance to the assessments, under the delusion that the civil-service order had some meaning, and that those who obeyed its letter and spirit would be protected. That error of judgment was soon corrected, for it was discovered that every person who refused to be assessed was reported, and John Sherman ordered summary dismissal in his department and its branches as the penalty for recusancy. The Sixth Auditor’s Office, which settles the Postoffice accounts, and is known as the Botany Bay of the treasury, with 300 or more clerks, was selected as the first point of attack; and, after one removal for this cause, the whole force fell in and even sought to subscribe as a measure of self-protec-tion.

Hayes gave his name to head the list of contributors, which of itself was a warning to the whole army of officeholders that they were expected to do likewise. But he has not yet paid in a dollar to the fund. He is willing enough to see the poor clerks made to pay, but, with $50,000 a year and nearly everything free that makes up the actual cost of living, he locks his iron chest and intimates that his name alone ought to be sufficient, because his example put tens of thousands into the political exchequer that might not have got there without it.

He has shown himself in this matter to be a double friud. First, by encouraging assessments which he had formally declared should not be allowed. Secondly, by lending his name without making it good with a money value. The consistency of his character has been maintained in this duplicity. If he had been an honorable man, even after the crime by which he reached the Presidency, Hayes veiild have seen made good the advances of money which Zach Chandler had loaned for his benefit, after John Sherman and others failed to redeem their pledges. But he never lifted a finger to pay what every gambler, even, would have regarded as a debt of honor, and dismissed it as a trifle unworthy of attention. He first began by cheating his opponents, and now he cheats his friends.— New York Sun.

Mullein as a Cure for Consumption.

• A correspondent writes as follows about the flower of a well-known plant: I have discovered a remedy for consumption. It has cured a number of cases after they had commenced bleeding at the lungs and the hectic flush was already on the cheek. Aftet trying this remedy to my own satisfaction, I have thought philanthrophy required that I should let it be known to the world. It is common mullein steeped strongly and sweetened with coffee sugar, and drunk freely. Young or old plants are good dried in the shade and kept in clean bags. The medicine must be continued from three to six months, according to the nature of disease. It is very good for the blood vessels also. It strengthens and builds up the system instead of taking away the strength. It makes good blood, and takes inflammation away from the lungs. It is the wish of the writer that every periodical in the United States, Canada and Europe should publish this recipe for the benefit of the human family. Lay this by and keep it in the house ready for use. —Rural New Yorker.

A Big Bell.

The people of Moscow declare that their great bell shall never be pulled down from its glittering steeple, where it reigns over all other church-bells in the world. Its weight is 443,772 pounds, while the other famous bells are light in comparison: St. Paul’s, London, 13,000 pounds; Antwerp, 16,000; Oxford, 17,000; York, 24,000; Montreal, 29,000; Rome, 19,000; Bruges, 23,000; Cologne, 25,000 ; Erfurt, 30,000; English House of Parliament, 31,000; Vienna, 40,000; Novgorod, 69,000; Pekin, 136,000; Sens, 34,000; Moscow (its second), 141,000. The great bell of Moscow is nineteen feet high and sixty-four feet round; its noise is tremendous,

gjematratiq dentine) JOB PRINTINB OFFICE Dm better fkenitiee than any office tn Northwesters Indiana for the execution of all branobM of JOB BBIWTIKra. PROMPTNESS A SPECIALTY. Anything, from a Dodger to a Price-List, or from a Pamphlet to a Footer, black or colored, plain or fancy, SATISFACTION GUARANTEED.

BEFORE and after marriage. BI.FOBX. She waits and listens. Footsteps fall — She knows they are not his. She waits and listens for a sound That sweetest music is. He comes—and, with a sudden thrill And heartbeat loud and clear, She doee not hear, she does pot see— She /eefe that he is near, And, coyly lifting to his face Her eyes of heavenly blue, She murmurs, in love’s softest tones, “ My darling, is it you ?” . A IT KB. Again she listens. Footsteps resell And footsteps pass her door. She listens, but her needle flies More swiftly than before. She hears, at length, the tread that time And cares are making elow; And, with a start that sends her chair Herd rocking to and fro, Springs to the landing, and, with voice More shrill than any lute’s, She screams, above the balusters, “ Augustus, wipe your boots I” —Philadelphia Times.

WIT AND HUMOR.

A sweet craft—Courtship. “A celebrated case”—The printer’s. t It’s a wise joke that knows it’s own father. It is a weiss beer that knows its own schooner. There was a row in Boston harbor last Tuesday between whites and blacks. The former were beaten—four boatlengths. The man who “stopped to take breath,” the other day, took so much with it that a policeman took all three to the station-house. A bright little girl who knows all about doll anatomy, on hearing that her grandma had broken her leg, wanted to know if the sawdust all came out of it. A gentleman who was presented with an heir, after having had six children of the other sex come into the family, acknowledged that it was a great sir-prize. A friend writes that “ the mosquitoes are too thick to sleep much down where he is.” They are toothin to sleep at all here, or let anybody else that they can get at. An “old maid” of Hoboken asks, “ Who ever saw a man kind ?” The Philadelphia Bulletin asks, “Who ever saw a lamb chop ?” The Boston Globe asks, “Who ever saw a hair dye ?” There isn’t much difference between an old Roman soldier and a cannital who has just dined on a nice young female missionary, for the former was a gladiator, and the latter is glad-he-ate-her, too. * “I sigh for one glance of your rye,” warbled an impecunious fellow as he wandered into a leading saloon a few days ago. He got but a “glance,” his range of vision being suddenly transferred to the outer air.

A young M. D. who graduated from a Philadelphia medical college last spring claims to have discovered an infallible cure for yellow fever. He says painting the patient red will keep the yellow in the fever from showing. Mrs. Henpeck—“ How stupid that you can’t recollect when Mrs. Maj. Shouter called!” Mr. Henpeck—“l—--know it was the day you hit me with the camp-stool.” Mrs. Henpeck—“Thenit was on Friday.” Mr. Henpeck—“ Oh, no; that was the day you threw the teapot at me.” “Mine’s eau de vie,” responded a patient waiter, as he stepped up readily to the bar with the three who were invited to join a new-comer. “Yes, and you’ve owed a V here now these six weeks,” said the barkeeper, “ and ought to be branded as a man that don’t pay.” And he was so brandied.

“ We have plenty of fresh salt air here —even our lady boarders wear sol’taires in their ears,” said an enthusiastic seaside landlord. “ Don’t say so,” said the press guest; “have you a salt-rheum in the house? ’ “ Yes, sir,” said the landlord, quickly; “ a humorous correspondent has it just now.” A full bearded young grandfather recently had his hirsute appendage shaved off, showing a clean face for the first time for a number of years. At the dinner-table his 3-year-old granddaughter noticed it, gr.zed long with wondering eye, and finally ejaculated, “ Grandfather, whose head you got on ?” “Sweets to the sweet,” said a young man on passing the sirup to a young lady seated at one of our hotel tables. “And beets to the beat,” remarked the lady, shoving a dish of that vegetable toward the young man. For some reason the observation cast a settled gloom o’er a countenance that just before was radiant with smiles.

Here is the peroration of an able counsel’s remarks: “I hope, gentlemen of the jury, that you will not regard the case for the prosecution as having been made out. But if, to suppose an impossibility, you should condemn my cliert, let me beseech you to have what mercy you may have upon this unhappy man who has never yet strayed from the path of rectitude, and only asks your assistance to enable him to return to it.” Now doth the merry harvester Whistle the jelly tunes, The while the gentle bumble-bee Skips up his “pantaloons.” Gone after the arnica. —Stillwater Lumberman. Never lose yourself in church, if you have anything weighing on your mind. A man in a neighboring city, who had just paid the milliner a fearful bill for his better-half’s new and elaborately decorated head-gear, dropped into a doze in his pew, and, when the minister gave out to be sung that hymn of Montgomery’s commencing: What is the thing of greatest price The whole creation round ? the drowsy man, forgetting where he was and supposing the question was propounded to him personally, electrified the congregation by very audibly ejaculating, “My wife’s new bonnet!”• — Chicago Commercial Advertiser.

Slumbering Plants.

It is well known that plants sleep at night; but their hours of sleeping are a matter of habit, and may be disturbed artificially, just as a cock may be waked up to crow at untimely hours by the light of a laintern. A French chemist subjected a sensitive plant to an exceedingly trying course of discipline by completely changing its hours—exposing it to a bright light at night, so as to prevent sleep, and patting it in a dark room during the day. The plant appeared to be much disturbed and puzzled at first. It opened and closed its leaves irregularly, sometimes nodding, in spite of the artificial sun that spread its beams at midnight, and sometimes waking up, from the force of habit, to find the chamber dark in spite of the time of day. Such are the trammels of habit. But, after an obvious struggle, the plant submitted to the change, and turned day into night without any apparent results.— Springfield Union,