Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 August 1883 — PASSING EVENTS. [ARTICLE]

PASSING EVENTS.

Preparing to Squeeze Monopoly—The Ischia Calamity. Oar Forests—The Cholera—Cheering Agricultural Prospects. The completion of the Northern Pacific railway is fraught with vital interest to the people of the Pacific coast. Heretofore, in the opening of the new routes, the Central Pacific combination have been enabled, by geographical and other influences, to so maintain fare and freight-rates that the new routes afforded no relief to anybody. The completion of the Southern Pacific, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, the Denver and Bio Grande and the Atlantic and Pacific, has in no ease resulted in a reduction of fare to California, for the reason that the Central Pacific, controlling, as it does on all sides, the Western outlet of these roads, refuses to make concessions. With the completion of the Northern Pacific a new era wi 1 dawn. That road is under' obligation to nobody. It reaches tide-water with its own line, and the Pacific ocean is free to all It can make its own rates without fear of reprisals in any direction. It can cut the tare to San Francisco to I .s—quite enough, by the way—and force its rivals to follow suit or lose the business. It can make its own freight rates, make its own contracts with Pacific coast merchants—in other words, do exactly as it pleases, and the Central Pacific combination is powerless for either redress or vengeance.

The Ischia Calamity. The mail accounts of the Ischia calamity bring it before the reader in still more vivid colors than those of the telegrams. At Casunicciola there was a resident population of 1,-000, and the town was crowded with visitora After a premonitory roaring the earth began to roll and surge "like a pot of thick tnmh,” and in an icstant buildings began to crackle and crumble into heaps of rubbish. Great cracks opened in the earth, into which many houses disappeared bodily. It was about 10 o'clock at night when the end came A moment before, and a large town was full of peopli, many already in bed A moment later, and not a. single bouse was iteft standing, saving only a small phurch by the sea, and the root was partly shaken off lug walla Dense masses of sulphurous Smoke and dust wena-emitted, in which many were suffocated There vyae.aotja light left ■■ It was ta&Pdarkness ft ot until eiumingpould the suryj vOtts begin *to retene the wounaed’ In the ruins of. thit single » town 4,000 people lie entombed. For a day or two many lingered in suffering- One by < onetheif' cties ceased In two or three days -thn. progress of decomposition has made the work of seeking for remains an impossible task. Tfalristhe history of one •own. TUre were half-dozen - others in which similar scenes were witnessed upon a smaller scale. It wW*Dne' *nf“ the most appalling disasters >of modern times. • : ’ ' Our Forests. The meeting of the American Forestry congress was heldaxt 8t Paul The primary object of this association jig the preservations of our foresta Dr. Loring, United, State* ( Commissioner of Agriculture, is its President and delivered the opening address. Among other things he said that the consumption of pine lumber : by fire and in thwarts was very great, and suggested that the future supply might be obtained by allowing an exhausted region to recuperate while * the lumberman resorts to uncut sections for the purpose of his demands. New Hampshire and Vermont are exhausted of their pine supply, and their spruce will last but seven ana four years respectively at the present rate or consumption. In Maine the pine will last bm four and spruoe fifteen years, while in South Carolina, at the present rate of cutting, the pine forests will last fifty years; California, 150 years ; Arkansas, 300 years; Pennsylvania, 15 years; Georgia, 80 years, Louisiana, 100 years; North Carolina, 50 years; 'Wisconsin, 20 years; Michigan, 10 years; Minnessoto, 10 years; Mississippi, 150 years; Alabama, DO years; Florida, <0 years; Texas, 250 years. Exhausted forests can be restored in time, and to this end every means should be applied both by people and Government, eaeh within its own jurisdiction. The Cholera. If it is true that the cholera, which has caused such dreadful ravages in Egypt, is not the genuine Asiatic disease, there is, of course, every reason for believing that we will escape a visitation from the plague. The physicians who were first sent over by France and England pronounced it Asiatic cholera of the most malignant type. The physicians sent from India into Egypt by the British Government say the disease is nothing like the plague with which they are familiar in India. There is a doubt, then, as to the character of the pestilence. If it is an endemic disease, there is no occasion for alarm either in Europe or America; if it is an epidemic disease, ft is certain to take the grand tour around the inhabitable earth. Cheering Agricultural Prospects. In the midst of a somewhat, to say the least, doubtful financial and commercial outlook the prospect of a most bountiful harvest, and consequent plentiful breadstuff supply at moderate prices, is such as should Insure popular content and tranquility. Indeed, the agricultural prospect is so hopeful as to constitute a silver lining to the somewhat darker than ordinary cloud that Just now obscures the horizon of trade and commerce.