Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 December 1883 — Brother Jonathan. [ARTICLE]

Brother Jonathan.

The smoke of the great fire In Dallas, Tex., was seen in Fort Worth, thirtytwo miles distant. A fire alarm was sounded in Fort Worth, and with twenty-seven men the foremen of all the companies took a steam fire engine and two hose reels to the Union depot. They put the engine on a flat car, and in forty-five minutes from the sounding of thelfirst alarm they were playing on the fire in Dallas. The New Zealand Legislature has decided that the Kea must go, Kea being the name of a race of parrots whose fondness for mutton has made them exceedingly disliked. They are said to have acquired this expensive taste gradually, having been content to peck at carcasses hung up in the markets. But in recent times they have ■developed sufficient audacity to attack the living sheep, and thus invited official destruction. Dr. Norvin Green, the President of the Western Union Telegraph company, in an article in the current number of the North American Review, on “The Government and the Telegraph,” gives the following figures of the miles of telegraph lines now in operation in the countries named: Miles In Great Britain 23,00 q In Germany 41,0<Jq In France 86.00 q In Austria and Hungary 30,00 q In the United States ISO.OOq ■ He states that on the lines in the United States there are. “about 500,000 miles of wire.”

The father of the late Duke of Portland used to say that he was the wealthiest living Englishman, for, though his revenue' might not be so large as that of some others, no one had more available cash. Lord Derby is in a similar agreeable position. His income from land alone is £167,000 per annum, and he may be credited with at least as much more as will make up £200,000 per annum. For ■ his Irish estates, which he wisely sold, he received £160,000. Then he has £5,000 a year officially.* His wife has a large jointure from the Salisbury estates, and he is childless. The membership of the church at Wallpack, N. J., is all torn up over an internal dissension that threatens to ■drive the defeated faction to the mountains. The fight began ten years ago, •over the location of the church when it was about to be rebuilt. It finally .settled on the organist. This, of course, •was but natural. The church organist who escapes assassination may be accounted lucky. The controversy growing hotter, the enemies of the ■organist, a young lady, were driven to desperation. They couldn’t do justice to their indignation, because its object was a woman. They then perpetrated the unique outrage of tarring and feathering the instrument. There are pigmies in the church as well as out. A BurlJington correspondent says that the Vermont law giving women the right to vote for school officers and to hold educational offices, which has been in force three years, is practically a failure. The law is obscure in its terms, and too little interest has been taken by the women in its provisions to obtain a’judicial interpretation of it. Of the 241 towns in the State, twenty have this year chosen women for Superintendents of Schools, but in no case, so far as this correspondent knows, has such a choice been brought about by the Votes of women. Of the twenty the majority are clergymen’s wives. Female Superintendents were not a novelty in the State at the time of the passage of this law, but the legality of their election had not previously been formally recognized. A case of extraordinary longevity is reported by Russian papers from a Bessarabian province, where Savtchuk, a man of above 130 years of age, enjoys perfect health and strength, but his white hair has a greenish tinge. He is a Little Russian by birth, and settled in Bessarabia while it was yet under Turkish dominion. His eldest son, who is more decrepit than his father, is 37 years old. The village of 120 houses where Savtchuk now lives has risen from •one cottage, which he built a long time ago with the help of a friend, and is exclusively inhabited by direct descendants of the two first inhabitants. The tribe of the Savtchuks is composed of fifty families, which live in peace and quiet without ever going to law. A recent telegram from Charleston, 8. C-, states that a bale of cotton picked by machinery was exhibited on ’’Change and attracted general attention. Its condition was pronounced to be as good as t that picked by hand. A large number of machines designed for picking cotton have been invented during the past few years, and some of them are of very ingenious construction.

The trouble with picking cotton by machinery is not found in the machines themselves, but with the condition of the plant. The bolls do not all lipen at the same time. The ripening process goes on during several weeks. To prevent wastage it i< necessary to pick the bolls as fast as they become matured. A delay of a few days often subjects the ripe cotton to injury by rain and winds. The machines that have been experimented with gather the cotton from the ripe bolls well enough, but they tear open those that are not mature. A machine that will gather the ripe bolls and not injure those that are not mature would be a great success. Such a machine would revolutionize cotton production in a few years. It would be almost as valuable as the cotton gin. By judicious selection of seed it may be possible to produce flowers that will mature at the same period. Could this be accomplished the success of the machines that have heretofore been experimented with would be assured. At present the expense of picking cotton greatly reduces the profit. A “spy” went on Sunday to a hotel at Newton, Ct., and persuaded the proprietor to sell him liquor. The proprietor was arrested, but when the trial came on the doors of the court-room were found to be locked and the keys missing. The court was thereupon held on the front steps of the Town hall, but the “spy,” who was the chief witness, was found missing. The court adjourned for dinner. But the hotels were all closed to the prosecuting lawyers and witnesses, and nothing could be had but some crackers and cheese which one of the defendants had bought. Public opinion seemed opposed to the idea of hiring somebody from another town to come in and break the law in order to secure evidence against the local hotel proprietors. The peoplQ believe in home industry and in producing their own spies. Therefore they wouldn’t allow the foreign one to be produced at the trial.

Chicago Times: Last evening a man named William McNulty entered the Hyde Park police-station and told a story that, no doubt, made the remains of the good George Washington turn over in his grave. He had enlisted in the army, at the tender age of 15 years—in 1843 —for five years. The enlistment was renewed for the same length of time in 1848, 1853 and 1858. Serving under Grant at Vicksburg, ha was taken prisoner. The Confederates took him South and finally into Mexico. There, at the time Maximilian was shot, McNulty had a rope around his neck twice, but was finally saved. In 1865 he was captured by a gang of “Greasers,” and until recently had been a prisoner in the Sierre Madre mountains. He tried to escape, and was shot with several bullets in the shoulder and abdomen, besides losing a portion of one foot. He now has a copper bullet in his neck which entered his mouth, and at present reclines peacefully on the carotid artery. His hands and feet have been nearly shot to pieces, and he carries a bullet in his head which penetrated between the eyes. He escaped recently when the band was captured, and is now on his way home to Adrian, Mich. He has not heard froni his old home for twenty-two years. The good people of Adrian should extend a proper reception to Mr. McNulty.

“You have told us about Uncle Sam,” said a bright boy at my elbow, “now can you not introduce the original Brother Jonathan?” So I consulted the “Dictionary of Americanisms,” and found something like the following: When Gen. Washington, after being appointed commandei' of the army of the Revolutionary war, went to Massachusetts to organize it, he discovered, a great want of ammunition, and it seemed as if no means could be devised for the defense and safety of the troops and country. The elder Jonathan Trumbull was then Governor of the State of Connecticut; and Washington, who relied with the utmost confidence upon the Governor’s judgment, remarked: “We must consult Brother Jonathan on the subject.” This was done, and his Excellency succeeded in supplying many of the exigencies which existed. Afterward, when fresh difficulties arose, the remark of Gen. Washington was remembered and repeated until it became a by-phrase, and later a designation for the whole country.— New York Examiner.