Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1886 — Page 3

THE FAR WEST.

Dame Fortune Point* the Way. There is perhaps no place in America that offers to the energetic, industrious man a more sure reward for his labor than the country that has so recently sprung into prominence, and whose unparalleled resources have been quite unknown until within the last few months. There is a reason why the general world has not known of its existence, although it lies within a few days’ travel of populous centers of civilization. We speak of the country lying in Northwestern Nebraska and Southwestern Dakota, and it has seemed as though that rich and fertile farming section was to remain undeveloped on account of its geographical position and the difficulty with which travelers reached it. It has been known for years that the fertility of the North Platte country in Nebraska was unequaled by any soil in the world, and men who have ■had the moral courage to take their chances have availed themselves of the opportunity of a profitable investment, and have secured homes by homestead right and purchase, until nearly all the land lying near the railroads has been taken possession of by actual settlers, and, as a result, we see Northeastern Nebraska one of the most prosperous sections in the West. But lying just beyond is a country more fertile and possessing more natural advantages, fed ny mountain streams, and rich with mineral deposits. We know that it is a popular opinion that the best land has been taken, and that there only remain undesirable patches of arid soil unfit for cultivation. This may be true of certain sections of the Northwest, but cannot be said of a country that lies entirely open to settlers, and which will, before the ending of the present year, be in the possession of those vigilant business men who are always upon the alert to take advantage of the country opened up by the building of new lines of railway. Such opportunities do not often occur, and a man may live his life and not have such chances thrown iu his way as are now offered. The Black Hills country, now for the first time thrown open to the world by the extension of railway enterprise, has by its entire isolation from civilization existed iu the minds of many people only as a myth. The death of the brave Custer, which occurred some distance from there, brought that country into public notice, and the agitation of those times resulted in the opening of the Hills to white settlement, but the r extreme distance rendered it impossible for any but the most brave and adventurous to go there. All this has been changed, however, with the coming of the locomotive, and the Black Hills region to-day, without question, constitutes the richest district for its area in the world. Its gold, silver, tin, mica, iron, coal oil, its timber, its mountains of marble, and gypsum, show it to be the most prolific iu resources of any section of country on this continent. Lying toward the western limit of the more thickly populated portion of Nebraska is the town of Valentine, and seventy-five miles further west you reach what is known as the Antelope country, and beyond this it is simply magnificent, both in appearance, topography, and richness; and that condition obtains almost entirely to the State line between Nebraska and Wyoming, as does also a similar condition northward from the Dakota line to Bapid City and vicinity. A false idea has gained some credence that this portion of Dakota and Nebraska was only fit for grazing purposes, but this is a great mistake, for some of the finest wheat and oats ever grown in the States has been harvested in the immediate vicinity of what is now known as Buffalo Gap. There seems to be no limit to the depth or richness of the soil, and, besides this, the face of the country is beautiful, being just rolling enough to be picturesque, yet little of it that is not tillable. It has been quite reliably reported that during this year the Fremont, Elkhom and Missouri Valley Bailroad Company and the Sioux City and Pacific Bailroad, both being under control of the Northwestern Bailway, will extend their line to Fort Fetterman, Wyoming Territory. Another ex-'-elision will be made from Buffalo Gap to Bapid City, a distance of fifty miles, as will also a line be built from Fremont 'to Lincoln, a distance of nearly fifty miles. Still another branch will be constructed, starting westward from Scribner, in nearly a direct line, some sixty miles. It is possible, however, that the last named route may bear slightly to the northwest, the geographical surface of the country being more favorable to its construction. Too much praise cannot be awarded to the enterprise of these railway companies, in thus taking the risk of exploring a hitherto unsettled country, and to their exertion alone can be attributed the brilliant prospect now opened to those who wish to avail themselves of an opportunity to make a substantial start in life.

It is not out of place in this connection to give a brief description of Buffalo Gap and Rapid City, the two most important towns lying upon this railway line now pushing its way where others dared not go. Buffalo Gap is a village of 800 population, and lies midway between Chadron and Rapid City, fifty miles distant from each. The site upon which the city is situated is a beautiful second bottom, far above high water, three miles from the Gap proper, and at the base of beautiful hills which are about 1,800 feet high, while the far-reaching valley of the Beaver, touching the Cheyenne, and the Cheyenne River valley are plainly visible in the distance. It has a fine agricultural countiy around it, the stock ranges •of the Cheyenne River tributary to it, and plenty of fine timber within hauling distance. On the 10th of December of last year the railway was finished to the Gap. and it is reliably estimated that fully 140 houses were erected in the incredibly short space of ten days after the arrival of the first railway coach. Buffalo Gap is at the present time the terminus of the railway line, but the proposed route lies northward to Rapid City, which is the county seat of Pennington County, and its location is as beautiful as could be imagined. Lying on the banks of Rapid Creek, a clear, swift stream, it is surrounded by fertile valleys and picturesque hills, with the mountains and forests of the great mining region, but a miles away. The countiy tributary to Rapid City contains varied and inexhaustible ' wealth, and the farming countiy its, without exception, aB rich as in Central Bakota. The forests confain their stores of timber, and so great is the supply of pine that it is estimated that the timber will not be exhausted in half a century, and that lumber for export will ■shortly be made an important industry. The

quarrying of building stone, sandstone and slate will soon be begun, and already Eastern capitalists are purchasing land with a view of working the quarries. Although Bapid City has been a frontier town, society is in a state of the most refined culture, and its educational facilities are of the best. Large and commodious school buildings have been erected, and beautiful churches give evidence of a high state of intellectual advancement and cultivation. The Dakota Hot Springs, twelve miles west from Buffalo Gap, are unquestionably a specific for rheumatism and other diseases cured at the Arkansas Hot Springs; and situated, as they are, in the Hills, with the mountains all around them, with canons leading in all directions, each being in itself a natural road-bed, these springs are destined to become not only a sanitary but a pleasure resort, and the height being 3,500 feet above the sea level, renders it the most pleasant to live in of any altitude known. A large hotel is being built at the Springs, which will be completed in early spring, and a tally ho coach line will be run from Buffalo Gap to this hotel, in connection with the railway train; also, an ambulance will be provided for the carrying of those who are unable to ride in the coach. Already the tide of emigration has set In, and as soon as the frost leaves the ground in the spring active operations will be begun by the railroad company in the extension of their lines, and a new country will be opened up to settlers. Begarding the relative merits of the two cities, Buffalo Gap and Bapid City, eacii has advantages not possessed by the other, and it only remains to determine which of these two ambitious cities will be the metropolis of Western Dakota.

Draining Enormous Marshes.

Few people are .probably aware of the great engineering undertaking in which Kussia has been engaged for years, of draining the Pinsk marshes. These are so extensive as to secure special designation on the ordinary map of Europe, being, we believe, the only case of the kind; and, in point of area, are very much larger than Ireland. Situated on the Russo-Polisli confines, they have become famous in Bussian history as a i-efuge for all manner of romantic characters, and have remained an irreclaimable wilderness in the midst of a prosperous corn-growing region up to wjtliin the last few years. In 1870 the Russian Government first took in hand seriously the abolition of this wild expanse, which, owing to being perpetually more or less submerged and covered with jungle growth of forest, prevented not only communication between Russian districts on either side, but also Letween Russia and AustroGermany. Consequently a large staff' of engineering officers and several thousand troops were drafted into the region, and these have been engaged upon the undertaking since. Up to the present time about 4,000,000 acres have been reclaimed, thanks to the construction of several thousand miles of d tches and of canals, so broad as to be navigable for barges of several hundred tons burden. Just now the engineers are drawing up the programme for next year, which comprises the drainage of 350,000 acres by means of the construction of 120 miles of ditches and canals. Of the 4,000,000 acres already reclaimed, 000,000 acres consisted of sheer bog, which have been converted into good meadow land; 900,000 acres of “forest tangle,” which have been prepared for timber purposes by cutting down all the underwood and thinning the trees; 500,000 acres of good forest land—forest oases in the midst of the marshes—hitherto inaccessible, but which have been connected, more or less, with navipable canals, and thereby with the d stant markets; and, finally, 2,000,000 acres have been thfiown open to cultivation, although only 120,000 acres have been actually occupied up to now. Besides making the canals and ditches, the engineers have built 179 bridges, bored 152 wells from forty feet to eighty feet deep, and 425 from twenty feet to forty feet, and have made a survey of 20,000 square miles of country, hitherto unmapped. When their task is finished, Russia will have effaced from the map of Europe one of the oldest and toughest bits of savage nature on the continent, and a few years will suffice to render the Pinsk marshes undistinguishable from the rest of the cultivated region of the sources of the Dnieper.— Engineering.

The Pale, Wan Clergyman.

During his recent lecture here in Pastor Conwell’s church, at Berks and Mervine streets, the Eev. T. De Witt Talmage related a little incident that will bear repeating. He was speaking of a brother clergyman who was very thin. “One day,” he added, “as the preacher was walking along the street near his home he was stopped by a man of robust proportions. ‘Are you the clergyman living in this neighborhood who the people say is dying of consumption ?’ inquired the hearty-looking individual, at the same time taking an ample survey of the divine’s meager frame, ‘I don’t know, brother,’ meekly replied the clergyman; ‘but I have been preaching the gospel at this weight for fifteen years, and man’s the time I have conducted funeral services over just such a big, healthy brother as you.’ The lobust individual said not a word, but thoughtfully walked away.” —Philadelphia Bulletin. To find capacity of a cylindrical vessel in gallons, multiply the area in inches by height in inches and divide product by 231. To find capacity of a four-sided vessel in gallons, find cubical contents by multiplying the length, breadth, and height in inches and divide product by 231. Pleasure makes folks acquainted with each other, but it takes trials and griefs to make them know each other. Trusting to luck is only another name for trusting to laziness.

OUR FATHERS’ DOLLAR.

Facts Brought Forward Shewing that It Has Many Friends in Congress. There Is No Chance for Coinage Suspension at Present, It Is Said. The silver situation is set forth in the following Washington dispatch published in the New York World a few days ago: There is no chance for the suspension of silver coinage by the present Congress. It is useless for the financiers of the East to cherish delusive hopes. The real facts of the situation may as well be recognized. All the speculation about the composition of the Committee on Coinage is secondary. It will make little difference what that committee may do. The House itself is strongly against the suspension of the coinage. The. probabilities are that when Congress adjourns the situation will be precisely the same as it is to-day. All the agitation of the question in the interval, whether in Congress or out, will be without avail. The chances of a free coinage bill being pushed through the House are greater than the chances of a suspension of the present coinage. Such a bill would, of course, be vetoed by the President, and that would leave matters just as they are. My reasons for this opinion are as follows: 1. New York, New Jersey, and New England are emphatically in favor of the susdension of silver coinage, but outside of this section the feeling is either divided or strongly in favor of silver. The idea seems to have spread throughout the West and South that the anti-silver movement is engineered by the Wall street financiers; that it is in the interests of the capitalists as against the debtor classes. 2. It is a mistake to suppose that the question is, strictly speaking, sectional. Even Pennsylvania is no longer united; I have every reason to believe that there are both Democratic and Republican members of Congress from that State who will vote against suspension. 3. The sentiment is also divided in the four great Middle States, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. Ohio is certainly closely akin to the East in her commercial, industrial, and educational development; yet there are among her Representatives both Democrats and Republicans who are against suspension of the present silver coinage. The feeling for silver grows stronger as one advances westward through Indiana and Illinois, and reaching Missouri every one of the frontier Representatives and the Senators is found arrayed against suspension, and many of them advocate unlimited coinage. 4. There is probably not a Republican member from Kansas, Nebraska, lowa, Minnesota, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, or California who is not a silver man. One of the leaders of the Republican minority, who knows the men well, assures me positively that such is the case. The Democracy west of the Mississippi is absolutely solid in favor of the silver dollar. 5. A careful canvass of the House fully justifies these statements, and leaves no reasonable doubt that about one-third of the Republican members, with at least twothirds of the Democratic members, will vote against suspension, having a majority of at least sixty votes against suspension. 6. The situation in the Senate is not very different. Mr. Evarts appears to be on the fence, if not already committed against susEension. Mr. Sherman also is believed to e uncertain as to his course. The Republican Senators from Kansas, Nebraska, lowa, Minnesota, California, Colorado and Nevada are solid against suspension, and there are strong indications that Logan and Cullom, of Illinois, and several of the Republican Senators from Michigan and Wisconsin will side with them. The great majority of the Democratic Senators from the South, including Mr. Lamar’s successor from Mississippi, and Mr. Garland’s successor from Arkansas, are opposed to suspension. In the Senate the least majority against suspension is estimated at six. Even the majority of the Senate Finance Committee is said by antisilver Senators to be either against them or to be at least doubtful. 7. The silver question is not a party question. Neither party is united upon it. A Democratic administration strongly advocates suspension. Two-thirds of the Democratic Representatives and Senators are as strongly opposed to it. Republicans are also clearly divided. Nor, as I have said, is it, strickly speaking, a sectional question. Only eight States, and most of these comparatively small ones, in the northeast corner of the country, are pronounced iu their opposition to silver, while of the thirty other States, constituting the greater part of the country, some are divided on the question, but most of them strongly in favor of silver. This widespread silver feeling is largely the outgrowth of a prejudice or suspicion that the money centers of the East are endeavoring to control the Government for selfish ends, an unfounded suspicion perhaps, but yet one that exists in this rural Republic, and it must be taken into consideration. 8. It is certainly desirable that the business men of the East, as well as the West, should recognize the facts of the situation and not deceive themselves with wrong conclusions. No bill suspending silver coinage can pass the House. Any bill providing for free or more extended coinage, if passed, would certainly be killed by the President’s veto. Therefore it is far from probable that dur ing the present session of Congress there will be any change in the law regarding the coinage of silver.

A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing.

[Detroit (Minn.) dispatch.] Thursday last little Minnie, the fourteen-year-old daughter of John L. Krauser, of this place, disappeared from home. Shortly after it was learned ’ that a preacher named Frazer was also missing, and it was thought best to look the matter up. The couple were traced by an enraged father and one or two friends to Bluffton. There the runaways were found in a room, but escaped by the girl putting on a long dress and a thick veil. She brushed against her father without his recognizing her, and the preacher escaped by the back way. The pair met outside and made their way to Wadena, where they were finally caught. Th« preacher narrowly escaped with his life, while the little girl was taken home.

TEUTONIC CUPIDITY.

Germany Seizes Upon the Samoan Islands and Annexes Them to Her Empire. Arbitary Aotion of Bismarck’s Consul— American and British Consuls Protest. [London dispatch.] Intelligence has been received here that Germany has seized the Islands of Samoa in the Pacific Ocean. The King and his chiefs were insulted, and finally fled, A force of marines were landed from the German war ship Albatross. The German Consul then hauled down the Samoan flag and ran up the German colors in its stead. The Samoans threaten to make war on the Germans. The American and British Consuls protested against the action of the Germans. In February, 1885, the announcement was made that Germany had annexed these islands, and that its action was in pursuance of a secret agreement between the Governments of Germauy and England. The officials at the Coionial Office in London said that they believed that the agitation of the Australians was only temporary, and that there was a growing feeling both in Australia and England that Germany would be a good neighbor, and that it was wise to give Germany an interest in the Pacific Islands to offset the aggressions of France. Strangely enough the dispatch announcing the annexation said that Germany’s proceedings were “despite the protests of the English and American Consuls.”

This seizure touches England more nearly than any other power, because the Samoans are distant only 400 miles from the British Fiji Islands, and contain two of the safest and best harbors in the Pacific. The islands are nine in number, havo an area of about 1,400 square miles, and a population of nearly 50,000. The largest island is Upola; area, 335 square miles; population, 17,000. On this island is Apia, the capital of the group, residence of the King and foreign consuls, and principal commercial town in the kingdom. The soil is rich and the surface densely wooded. The products comprise cocoanut-oil, arrowroot, cotton, castor beans, ginger, coffee, tortoise shell, and vegetables. The commerce of the island is mostly controlled by a single Hamburg house, and the protection of that solitary German trading establishment furnishes to the Berlin island-grabber a pretext for the theft of a whole Polynesian kingdom. The inhabitants are superior in bodily and mental endowments to those of other parts of Polynesia. They are Christians and mostly Presbyterians. The country has been under the protection of the United States.

SILVER IN THE SENATE.

Mr. Pugh, of Alabama, Speaks in Favor of the Dollar of the Daddies. [Associated Press Keport.] Mr. Pugh called up Mr. Beck’s silver resolution, and addressed the Senate on it. With the aid of all the learning in the world, Mr. Pugh said, the greatest statesmen in the world were still grappling with the money question at precisely the same point at which they began to grapple with it. So far as the United States were concerned, there had never been a time when our paper and metallic currency had been so sound and healthy as it was to-day. This condition of affairs, and the premium on our bonds constituted a grim satire on the prophecies of the opponents of the legislation hitherto enacted by Congress on the money question. Nothing more was to be desired, Mr. Pugh thought, than that the banks, bankers and Federal Treasury should stand aside and allow the Gresham law to have full and free operation on our silver currency. He had much confidence in the practical ideas, sound judgment, and integrity of President Cleveland and his devotion to constitutional principles. But many Democrats would differ with the President on the money question and on details affecting the tariff. These questions were so far-reaching and complicated in their operation as not to be capable of a final solution satisfactory to all honest inquirers. He (Mr. Pugh) had given the President’s message much consideration, bnt was constrained to differ with him in regard to money. Mr. Pugh quoted figures from the New York Clearing House to show that only about 3£ per cent, of the clearing house transactions were represented by cash, the remainder being made up principally by cheeks. Congress was confronted, he said, with an official announcement that our business relations had reached a crisis in which we must suspend the coinage of silver if we would secure an international ratio between gold and silver. The real point involved, Mr. Pugh believed, not the suspension, but the total stoppage of silver coinage, and if silver coinage were suspended now, it would be a blow that would directly and speedily tend to the consummation of an organized conspiracy of capitalists to secure absolute control of our currency and the regulation of the volume and consequent purchasing power. Mr. Pugh believed ho spoke for the Southern people when he said that three-fourths of them would to-day, if opportunity were given, vote against the proposition to suspend silver coinage. The petitions that came to Congress favoring suspension were all on printed blanks, and signed mainly by bankers. Mr. Pugh criticised the arguments of the Secretary of the Treasury and of the President. He inquired whether we were to take the mere diction of the President on this matter, and insisted that the executive officers were under obligation to enforce the laws of Congress. Why had those laws been hourly violated? Had Congress abdicated its powers to the Executive Department of the Government? The national banks which were fiscal agents of the Government, should not, Mr. Pugh thought, have been allowed to become members of a clearing house that discredited the silver certificates of the Government. The national banks had evaded the law of Congress by agreeing that they would not offer silver certificates to the clearing houses, and, therefore, none had been actually refused by the clearing house. A New York newspaper, he said, had squarely identified the invasion.

POPULAR SCIENCE.

li is said that the medical examiners of the boys who were candidates for the place of appreuti os in the navy found that nearly all suffered from heart trouble or imperfect eyesight, caused by smoking cigarettes. „ K:.; John* Lrr.mwK, in some observations on the intelligence of the dog, -ug rests that dogs might bo made to under* and by means of a system like that u. ed for deaf mutes. He had a dog which would pick out a card containing a request for food or drink. R. F, Fiuswelt., in a paper read before the Chemical Society, London, says that the results of his personal experience with toughened glass, during a period of eleven months, have caused him to regard that substance, when formed into laboratory utensils, as a complete failure. In insects the sex of an individual is not determined until toward the oud of the larval stage. Entomologists who rear moths and butlertiies contend that when the food supply is scanty the majority of perfoot insects produced are males, while if food is superabundant females preponderate. The painstaking researches of Prof. S. P. Langley have caused him to reject Lord l Osse’s asssnmption that the temperature of the moon’s surface rises to 20.) or 300 degs. F. during tho lunar day, and falls about as far below zero in the lunar night. Prof. Langley finds that the temperature can never rise above a point where everything, perhaps ovon the gases, is frozen solid. M. Levasskvk computes that at the commencement of the eighteenth contury there were 9,500,000 Europeans who lived in various lands outside of Europe. Including these people, the whole population of Europe was 185,590,000. 'At present there are 82,009,000 living in other countries, but the population of Europe continues to increase rapidly, and is now 335,000,000. That is, it has nearly doubled Bineo 1700, while tho emigration from it is now nine times as largo as it was at that time. Evidently the lifo philosophic tends to longevity. There are at present, at the various German universities, no fewer than 157 professors between the ages of seventy and ninety. Of these, 122 deliver tlioir lectures as usual, seven of them being more than eightyfive years of age. The oldest is the veteran Von Ranke, the historian, who is now in his ninetieth year, but is not considered fully equal in vigor, memory, and other matters to Prof. Elveniuh, who is thirty-nine days his junior. After all, it is not roinarkable that a professor should live to a good old age. He lias a secured income and congenial pursuits. He ought to be devoid of the unworthy passions that shorten existence, and to lead a life as placid as that of the gods of Epicurus. But Germany, in spite of the figures we have quoted, cannot show a professor equal to M. Chevrouil, of Paris, who still lectures, still writes, still conducts experiments in chemistry, still walks every day from his house to his laboratory, and will, if ho lives, be 100 years of ago in August, 1880.

Love’s Young Dream.

“It is a beautiful song,” ho said as the flute-like tones of her voice and the turn turn of the piano accompaniment died away in the frescoes of the ceiling, “but I am not partial to secular music. I love the grand old hymns best.” [ “Indeed?” she said, as she ran her fairy fingers lightly up and down the seven octaves. “Yes,” he exclaimed enthusiastically, “the grand old hymns for me.” “Well,” she murmured, as a rosy blush stole over her damask cheeks and the long silken lasheß shaded the bright and beautiful eyes, and a sigh soft as the perfumed zephyr that rustles the leaves in the umbrageous grove at eve when the diamond dewdrop trembles on the petals of the modest rose slightly stirred her bosom, “well, I do not know that I can blame you, for I am rather fond of a certain him myself.” Then a season of osculation ensued over which we regretfully drop the curtain.—Boß ton Courier.

Security.

“Won’t you leave your coat down here before you go up to dinner? Let me take it,” suavely besought the clerk of a country hotel of a visitor who had just come in. “I will hang it up,” he continued, politely. The guest thanked him for his profuse display of courtesy, and went up stairs highly pleased with the trouble that had been taken over him. “\V6 always do that,” said the clerk, winking at a bystander. “I have only bet'll in the hotel business two months, but that was the-first trick I learned. I wanted that man’s coat as security for the payment of his dinner bill. It is the rule in manv country hotels to get the unknown transient to deposit his coat, hat, or gum boots in the office. If it is done properly, the visitor thinks - t is nothing but native politeness.”— Exchange. “T don’t dictate,” said the autocratic revivalist, (Sam Jones, “but I tell you Christians what dancing you do I advise you to do between here and hell. Too warm for fiddle strings down there. What card-playing you do, do it right here. You can’t play down theye, unless you get some asbestos cards. Paper won’t last. Listen to me. I don’t believe a dancing, card-playing, or theater going church member ever repented or was converted. Poor little starveling. Have to resort to every trick the devil will get up to have some fun.”