Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 May 1885 — MISCELLANEOUS. [ARTICLE]

MISCELLANEOUS.

There were 18-1 failures in the United States during the week—an increase of twenty as compared with the previous week. Lradgtrett’s Journal, in its weekly review of the trade outlook, says: The movement of general merchandise throughout the country the past week, as reported to Bradatreet’s, has not varied much from that of the preceding week. Dealers in staple lines at leading distributing centers do not look for any permanent gain or activity in mercantile circles during the coming quarter. Again the word is passed that no improvement is now looked for until next autumn. Dry goods merchants at New York and St. Louis are more cheerful than elsewhere. All the leading wool markets are quiet Manufacturers secured supplies some weeks ago; cheap small lots are scarce, and the proximity of the new clip counsels delay before completing stocks. The movement is therefore dull and prices are unchanged. The coming six or eight weeks will witness three or four weeks’ stoppage of work among Eastern cotton, paper, and nail mills, and among the nail and glass works at the West. Some special brands of pigiron have cut prices $1 per ton, that is, have made actual prices asking prices. There is no other change of note either in iron or steel. Copper in the home market has declined some. The reports from the winter wheat region continue favorable. The Commissioner of Agriculture telegraphs to this journal that his reports indicate a shortage of. 117,000,000 bushe’s of winter wheat. The specials from Washington Territory and Oregon point to a gain of 4,000,000 bushels as compared -with last year, and there is now no known reason for believing that the total spring and Pacific coast crop will fall much, if any, behind that of 1884. In that event the outlook for the aggregate of wheat this year is 396,000,000 bushels. It may run below this, and it is equally possible that the total may be larger. There are too many uncertainties at present for a definite forecast. The movement in grocery staples in general shows no change. Sugar and coffee are higher.

The frontier of Salvador was crossed by 400 Guatemalan troops, Honduras having failed in her attempts at mediation. Seventyfive conscripts wore taken from La Libertad by a military guard. Menendez, the rebel leader, has been driven back by the army of Salvador. The volunteers belonging to Winnipeg who were killed during the fighting at Batouche were buried with great military pomp at Winnipeg. They were buried in one large grave. Thousands turned out. Three volleys were fired over the grave by a firing party selected from the Montreal garrison artillery. A Winnipeg dispatch says Gen. Middleton had sent word to Poundmaker that he must make an unconditional surrender or he would march against him with troops. The prospects are that there may be a fight with the Indians, as Poundmaker will be fearful of being hanged if fie gives himself up. A Chicago man has been granted a patent for a telephone based upon a system radically different from that of the Bell telephone. Hitherto the Pell Telephone Company has had a clear monopoly because of the broad claim in its patent, and it has been maintained that the Bell system was the only one on which a telephone could be practically constructed, which was the use of a continuous current of electricity. The patent granted to the Chicago inventor is operated by an intermittent current, on a plan resembling the dots and dashes of a telegraph Instrument.