Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1885 — UNCLE SAM’S SERVANTS. [ARTICLE]

UNCLE SAM’S SERVANTS.

A naturalist, who has jnst returned from Spain, says that the natives keep locusts in cages “for the sake of their music.” . The Norristown Herald suspects it would be a little more expensive to hire a boy to file a saw all day, but the “music” would be more edifying-

James Y. Christmas, the son-in-law of the late Mrs. Myra Clark Gaines, has compromised the famous suit in which Mrs. Gaines was so long engaged with the citizens of New Orleans, for $1,200,000. He can now buy a number of Christmas presents and have a nice fortune left.

Ex-Judge Kelley, who has just entered on his thirteenth Congress, is over 70 years of age. He ascribes his present good health to his having stopped the use of tobacco in any shape. He chewed and smoked fiftyfive years, when his health was shattered. He gave up tobacco and now feels like a new man.

A prize of $5,000 was offered some time ago by Mr. Lorillard, of New York, for the discovery of the key of the ancient Maya alphabet. The offer is still standing. Dr. Le Plongeon, who has recently returned from a twelve years’ study of the ruins and mountains in lucatan, is thus far the strongest competitor for the award.

A PROJECT is on foot for introducing in Loudon a new style of four-wheel cab, with many improvements on the existing vehicle, an important modDcation being that the cab can be readily used as an open one. The new cabs will be well horsed and well driven by men in inform. Improved hansoms are also contem; dated, and it is pioposed that for both descriptions of vehicle the fare shall be sixpence per mile.

Nature has been very provident. Many people have wondered how the world would run furnaces and keep warm a few ee italics lienee when the great forests and coal mines and peat bogs have ben exhausted. The recent borings for gas have partially solved that problem. Our boys a dozen generations lienee will not likely have to saw wood and pack in coal, but only turn a faucet in connection with the great gasometer worked by the unseen forces of nature.

It is said that ultra-fashionable young ladies in New York are learning to knit stockings, using gold needles tipped with pearls. A pair of stockings knit with gold needles tipped with pearls, says the Norristown Herald , are as susceptible to wearing out at the heels as rapidly as a pair knit with steel needles. Perhaps if gold wash-boilers and gold frying-pans, gold tea-kettles and gold brooms, inlaid with pearls, were to be introduced into “society” in New York, ultra-fashionable young ladies would learn to assist their mothers to perform the cooking and other household duties.

An old saber was plowed up by William A. Thompson on his farm on Goodwin Point, N. Y. The brass mountings of the scabbard are well preserved, and the hilt, which is also of brass, had been plated with gold, as slight traces of that metal can be seen about the guard. The sword is supposed to have belonged to an officer of Sullivan’s army, which, under Major Parr and Colonel Dearborn, made a raid upon the Indians along Cayuga Lake in 1779. It will be deposited in the Cornell University Museum. —New York Sun.

Zola, the French novelist, is described as carrying a fac3 combative, pert, dogged, egotistical, with thick, sensual lips, a turned-up nose, a conspicuous chin, and a good, broad, intellectual brow, with short and bristly hair atop of it. When Zola speaks, though it be only to say, “ What fine weather we are having,” he manages to convey the idea that he is uttering wisdom and being listened to by one who is presumably an ass. His life, his home, his face, hi 3 habits are those of an orderly, methodical rentier. In his youth he suffered privation and poverty.

Many of the old railroads in the South in existence in 1880 have been purchased since by syndicates and vastly improved and extended so as to develop new territory or make new connections. Besides this, however, many millions of dollars have been expended

in building new roads, and a wonderful impetus has been given to the development of the resources of the South. The increase in mileage alone in five years has been 9,323 miles. The smallest increase in any State has been in Maryland—forty-two miles—and South Carolina comes next in smallness with 136 miles. Yirginia shows an increase of 794 miles, which is exceeded by only two States —Texas and Arkansas.

The price of cigarettes, up to within a short time, has been fifteen cents a bunch of twenty cigarettes. Now at most places they are sold for ten cents a bunch. Just as they are getting real cheap the London Lancet devotes a page to showing that the cigarette is the most harmful way of using tobacco. The harm is somewhat mitigated by using a tube and stuffing that tube with cotton. The trouble about the use of tobacco is that its effects are cumulative, and the bad effects do not stop when you quit the use of it.

Charles S. Voorhees, delegate to Congress from Washington Territory, is a son of Senator Daniel Webster Voorhees, of Indiana, which is the second case in the history of the country of father and son serving in Congress at the same time, the other being that of Governor Henry Dodge, of Wisconsin, and his son, General Augustus C. Dodge, of lowa, who served in both the House and Senate at the same time. Y'oung Voorhees will, it is said, be the youngest member in the Forty-ninth Congress.

Webster’s dictionary asserts that the southern portion of Illinois is called “Egypt” because of the “thick darkness” in which the people of that locality dwell intellectually, they staggering under “the general reputation of being extremely ignorant.” A writer in the Springfield (Mass.) Republican comes to tho defense of those maligned Illinoisans. The term originated, according to the statement of General Z. Casey, through the circumstance of the failure of the corn crop in Northern Illinois in 18c5, or about that year, and the invasion of the southern portion by the sufferers for the r necessary supply of that cereal. The yield was abundant in “Egypt,” and the labor of conveying grain from tho well-stored section to the enfamislied region was lightened by the jest of “going down into Egypt,” after the Biblical style.

Isaac Y. Baker, Superintendent of New York Prisons, has about completed bis annual report for submission to the Legislature. Auburn Prison, which held the bulk of the idle men, had 250 convicts out of 870 at work September 30, when the accounts of the institution showed a deficiency for the year of $35,009, against one of SGO3 in 188-1. Clinton had kept at work 400 of its 541 inmates, and cut down her deficiency from SII,OOO to $33,000. All of the 1,541 convicts at Sing Sing September 30 were at work on contracts which dc not expire for a year. There was t, $5,000 surplus for the year. The Superintendent looks with disfavor on the State account system for the prisons, as requiring the investment of too large a capital to make it safe. Under this system the State manufactures and sells on its own account in the prison, instead of letting the prison labor on contract.

The first successful arterial transfusion in Bellevue Hospital is reported from New York. The method was the injection of a solution of salt and water into an artery against the action of the heart, the theory being that the heart

is stimulated by the arterial tension, and that one innocuous fluid is as good as another. The patient was a middleaged woman with a strong constitution, who had been shot by her husband in a fit of jealousy, the ball entering the right side of her face and carrying away a part of the upper jaw and badly fracturing the bone. After a week of apparent progress in the hospital he nurse discovered late at night that Mrs. Connolly #as dying, secondary hemorrhage having set in. The body was cold and clammy to the touch and the dew of dissolution was on the forehead. Hypodermic injections of whisky were given at frequent intervals and warm bottles and cloths were applied. The lacerated artery in the jaw was found with difficulty, the heart beating so low that the bleeding points could not be seen. All the ordinary remedies failed. The surgeon injected a solution of salt and water, and the heart gradually beat stronger. In a few minutes the patient returned to consciousness, and though very weak for some days has finally recovered.

Reports of the Heads of Government Department and Bureaus. Secretary Lamar on the Indian Problem—Points from the Report of Secretary Manning. SECRETARY LAMAR’S REPORT. Another View of the Vexed Indian Question and Another Plan for Its Settlement, The annual report of the Secretary of the Interior reviews at great length the relations of the Indian tribes to the Government and the settlers residing near their reservations. The Indian outbreaks of the year and the causes of them are considered. The recommendation of the Commissioner of' Indian Affairs that the less guilty of the rebellious Chiricahuas should be transported to an island in the Pacific Ocean, as a penal colony, to earn their own living by fishing, stock-raising, etc., or sent to the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, is indorsed. It is recommended that the Southern Utes be located in Indiun territory, and that the Piutes, of Oregon, be settled on homesteads and given farm implements and other assistance. Tho subject of the leasing of land by Indians to cattle companies is taken up, and, after showing the passive consent of the late Secretary to such leases, and the evil that has resulted from the practice, the Secretary says: “From all the facts developed on the subject I am convinced that the assistance rendered by the respective Indian Agents, in the making of these alleged leases, was directed more for the interest of the cattlemen than that of the Indians placed under their care and supervision. While many of the Indians favor the leasing of their lands for grazing purposes, others opposed and protested against such use and occupation of their reservations, and refused to participate in the making of the alleged leases, or to accept any share of the money received thereunder. Sufficient influence, however, seems to have been brought to bear upon oanajority of the respective tribes to induce them to enter into the arrangement made. In my judgment, not the least among such influences were the encouragements and persuasion of the respective Indian agents, or some of them at least; and in many instances I fear they have shared in the profits of these speculative transactions. ’’ After speaking of the encroachments of railroads on Indian rights, the Secretary unfolds a plan for the civilization of the Indian which is, in effect, the severalty plan on a small scale, only a small portion of each tribe being placed on homesteads at first, and the number gradually increased. The Secretary thinks it impossible to break up the tribal and reservation systems in any other way. | IThe Secretary recommends the appointment of a commission of not more than six men of integrity, intelligence, and experience, and of such ability as to be able to comprehend the course of treatment and methods of management best adapted to insure the Bpeediest progress of the respective tribes and bands, to visit each of tho reservations, and investigate and roport the condition, peculiar circumstances, and needs of the Indians residing thereon. The Secretary recommends, in order to destroy the evil influence of “squaw men," the passage of a law providing that whenever an Indian woman shall marry a citizen of the United States she shall be deemed a citizen, and that all children bom of such marriage shall be deemed citizens. Under the provisions of this law no Indian woman would marry such a man with the certainty of losing her membership in the tribe and her right to remain on the reservation.

The condition of the Indian schools, the report says, is gratifying. The Winnebago and Crow-Creek, Reservation trouble is reviewed, and it is announced that the President’s order withdrawing those lands from settlement has been almost universally obeyed. The exceptions, if any exist, are cases in which a removal would cause suffering. Tho story of the Oklahoma invasion is retold, and it is stated that these unlawful movements have rendered it unwise at present to open negotiations with the Indians owning the title of these lands for tho purpose of opening them to settlement. Three million nine hundred and twelve thousand four hundred and fifty acres of public land have been sold for cash; 10,201,213 acreß have been absorbed by public entry, and 881,860 acres of Indian lands have been disposed of, making a grand total of 20,995,513. The total receipts from these lands were 88,019,598. The total area of surveyed lands up to the 30th of June, 1885, is 909,409,347.50 acres. That unsurveyed is estimated at 845,360,390.50 acres. In speaking of the Yellowstone National Park, the Secretary recommends the establishment of a court within tho park, with exclusive jurisdiction over all misdemeanors, and with i>ower to examine and to hold to bail in all cases of felonies, to be tried in the nearest court having criminal jurisdiction, Tho Assistant Superintendents should be authorized to serve any process of such court, anato arrest without process any person taken in the act of violating tho law or any regulations. The wholesale slaughter of game in the park has been stopped, and game is increasing. Appropriations are recommended for five Assistant Superintendents to aid in the protection of game and the suppression of vandalism ; for a new building for the Superintendent for stables, and for the construction of new roads. The estimated expenses for the next year are $150,000. The reports of the Governors of the various Territories, most of which have already been published, are reviewed.