Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 January 1879 — THE MONETARY CRISIS. [ARTICLE]

THE MONETARY CRISIS.

Alexander H. Stephens’ Plan. Mr. Alexander H. Stephens, says a Washington correspondent of a Western journal, is still of the opinion that the country is going to the demnition bowwows. He says the present is one of the severest monetary crises the country has ever been called to pass through. As to the matter of resumption, he says he has nothing to say against it. “Let it come, but, unless something is done to relieve the distress of the people, there will be terrible suffering.” When asked what measures of relief he would suggest, Air. Stephens answered: “I would relieve the stringency by the issuance of silver dollars, silver bullion and gold bullion bars, and silver certificates and gold certificates to an equal amount. I have already embodied my view’s in a bill which is now in the possession of the Committee on Coinage, Weights and Measures, and which, at the earliest opportunity, I shall present to the House. This bill provides for the unlimited issue of bullion; that is to say, they are never to exceed the amount of bullion, but they may exceed the amount of coined money at any one time in existence a hundred-fold. The trouble with the country is not in the quality of its money, but in its quantity. People may talk as they will about the desirability of a paper dollar which shall be at par with gold or silver. I want dollars to be at par with each othdr, but I also want enough of them to do the business of the country with. There are not nearly enough of them now, and hence the terrible stringency in the labor markets of the world. Aly plan will entitle the holder of bullion, gold or silver, to carry it to the Alint and have it stamped and get his certificate therefor, which certificates I would have legal-tender money of value. It takes no longer to stamp on a bar of silver the figures descriptive of its w’eight, and therefore value, than it does to stamp a dollar, and not so long. These certificates I would make full legal tender, receivable for public and private debts. The beauty of my plan is that it will act quickly. Large blocks of bullion can at once be stamped, and the certificates issued in multiples of SI,OOO, say, or smaller, even down to fractions of a dollar. In this way we should not have to w’ait for the slow and wearisome process of coining the standard dollars. Two or three hundred million dollars’ worth of certificates could be issued in a very little while, and that amount of legal tender injected into the great arteries of trade will revive business as bya galvanic shock, and the reaction will be entirely healthy, too.”

A Whipping-Post Tragedy. One of the strangest of tragic occurrences took place recently in Nansemond countv, Va. Moses Ford, who was employed as a negro laborer on the Seaboard and Roanoke railroad, was arrested for stealing $lO worth of property from a farmer. The Judge of the neighborhood soon ascertained his guilt, and speedily sentenced him to receive thirty-nine lashes at the public whipping-post. The punishment was duly inflicted by the constable, and at its termination Ford exhibited the wildest emotion and left with the greatest precipitation for home. A deep sense of mortification seemed to settle upon him and he was perfectly overwhelmed. He spoke to his mother calmly, without mentioning the shame to which he had been subjected, and called for his gun. His mother handed him the weapon, when he repaired to the back yard out of sight of the members of his family, and, placing the muzzle of the gun to his forehead, pulled the trigger with his foot. His agitation caused the charge to miss, and he stood uninjured. He deliberately readjusted the piece and fired again, this time with fatal effect, as a large part of the skull was blown away and his brains scattered over the ground, presenting a most revolting and ghastly spectacle. This startling ending of a simple public whipping causes considerable feeling in the neighborhood where it occurred. There is a growing sentiment in Virginia against the whipping-post, and this tragic result will materially add to its unpopularity. The Hog-Cholera Commission. Congress having appropriated, at the previous session, SIO,OOO to pay the expenses of investigating the nature and cause of the diseases prevalent among swine, the Commissioner of Agriculture appointed a number of competent gentlemen in the States of Indiana, Illinois, lowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, North Carolina, Virginia and the western part of New York, who have been engaged in prosecuting their investigations, and have nearly all submitted extended reports, which have been carefully collated and the results embodied in a report that will shortly be presented to Congress. From these papers it appears that the identity of the disease in all portions of the country is pretty thoroughly established, and the term “hog cholera” appears to be a misnomer, and that in all cases of the disease the lungs appear to be affected. Among the gentlemen engaged in the investigation are Dr. H. J. Detmos, the veterinary writer for the Chicago Tribune; Prof. Law, of the Cornell University; Dr. D. W. Voyles, of New Albany, Ind., and Dr. Salmon, of North Carolina, from whose knowledge it is supposed that the results of the investigation will prove of the highest importance in throwing light on a subject which has never been fully understood, and in checking a disease whose ravages yearly destroy a large portion of the revenue of our stock raisers and farmers.—Scientific American. Jesse Pomeroy, the boy murderer in the Massachusetts State prison, is said to be losing his mind and failing in health.