Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 March 1888 — Page 3

JA Column or Two of Chat About the Fair Daughters of Eve. 'Together with a Few Notes oh the Latest Styles in Feminine Attire. Easter Sunday puts new millihiry •on the heads of our fashionable women, and if fair weather permits, there will be the usual annual display of bonnets and hats on the great religious festival -day. A single hat out of the multiplicity of spring styles is like a grain of sand from a seashore, and yet the first illustration in this article shows more than the identical shape and trimming of the example chosen. This 'hat indicates the tendency of fashion. The brim reaching out moderately over and agreeably shading the face, -the high, erect crown, and the absence of protuberance behind are characteristics of most of the hats that will be worn during the opening of the season. Viewed from an artistic standpoint, this hat is picturesque and not too much exaggerated. Considered as to its adaptability to a wide variety of faces, it is admirable, because it can be unbecoming to very few persons. The latest developments in millinery sustain the promise of increased si e in both hats and bonnets, and some of the new things are simply enlargements of old ones. The absence of covering or shading for the back of the head is shown in all the hats depicted in this letter. The effect generally is to impart an air of rakishness to the wearers. With the hair brushed upward, or at least without any flowing tresses, there is a neatness and jauntiness of expression to feminine heads which could not be seen under the brims or inclosures. In the matter of bonnets, the peculiar shape of tho period of the Directoire in France are being reproduced, running into pokes, and yet the neat close shapes, such as worn by the lady in our second illustration, will be extensively retained. Ribbon is rather ahead of flowers just now for trimming. Upright bows of ribbon on hats and bonnets continuing

THE NEWEST MILLINERY.

■so long in favor, has created a demand for a ribbon that will remain in the required position without the aid of wires ■ and linings. It bears all the appearance of ordinary corded ribbon, is produced in every shade, and in all the new varieties, but possesses the unique advantage of remaining exactly as deft fingers place it. It will stand erect on a hat, or fall in single loops on skirts, the latter being a specially commendable feature, as the much-used ordinary .ribbon loops and bows have a most unpleasant knack of interlacing and massing together. Doesn’t this suggest artistic possibilities in costumes hitherto undreamed of ? If the ribbons of our millinery can be made to stay exactly in the required shapes, by simple manipulation of the hands, why not make •draperies of skirts and the embellishment of bodices of similar material, and thus impart an entirely trustworthy shapeliness to oar garments? The second sketch undertakes to show a New York lady on her way to • church on Easter morning. The outward feature of her toilet is a rich mantle. The very beautiful mantle is just new from Paris, and it is made in • drap de velours in a beautiful shade of bois, on which there is a kind of faint peach-colored bloom, altogether impossible to describe. The mantle is of -a simple but wonderfully becoming -shape, cut as a circular cloak, but made to fit the figure closely at the back by means of some ingeniously contrived pleats. The only trimming on the mantle is a handsome and effective passementerie in black and gold arranged on the back and around the neck, with a bordering of black fox fur on the collar and cuffs. The long, -plainly cut fronts are so contrived that ait becomes a necessity in walking to

WOMAN'S PROGRESS

hold them daintily in either hand. This is a pretty way of wearing the cloak, as the drap de velours naturally falls into the most exquisite folds imaginable, and by this means also the dainty lining becomes prettily visible. In this case the mantle is lined with a pretty tone of blue surah, effectively shot with bois du rose. The positively ’novel idea embodied in this mantle is the holding up of the front with the hands. Hitherto wraps of all sorts have been left to hang of themselves. Whatever expression they had was such as the maker imparted, and could not be greatly affected by the wearer. But in the case of this mantle she may employ her deftness and grace in producing bewitching effects of drapery. What are called afternoon dresses, which means that they are worn by women in making informal calls, dr*e just now running to checks and stripes of pronounced character. They are

AN EASTER CHURCH TOILET.

distinctly English in style, and are just now accompanied by high, close collars, which impart a sort of wellgroomed, clear-cut air to the wearer. A great many children in New York are dolls to their mothers, who delight in dressing them finely, and sometimes exercise remarkable good or lamentably bad taste in so doing. The grandchildren of the late William H. Vanderbilt are known in their circle of society as well-trained, carefully treated youngsters, who are educated carefully to disregard the circumstances with which great wealth surround them. But it follows, naturally, that no money is spared in their costumes, and that good motherly love dictates for them clothing of exceptional interest. I have jnst seen and sketched two costumes made for Vanderbilt toddlers. The first little figure is clad in a charming little frock of fine cream cashmere, effectively trimmed with floral embroideries in cream silk, carried like braces over the shoulders and down the back. The other has a very smart little coat of rich Ottoman silk, with a wide cord. A full sash is ti.ed in a large bow at the back, while the coat is bordered round the hem with a very handsome flounce of Irish guipure lace. The same beautiful lace forms the collar and passes down the coat in front. The dainty little hat is of cream corded silk to correspond, trimmed with a plume of cream ostrich feathers and a bow of fine lace. The hat is prettily caught up in front to show a soft lining of quilled lace. At the time of the Greek play presented at Harvard College, Frank Millet demonstrated the ability of the trained artist to give effectiveness to costumes, and Hamilton Bell, who has just completed the design for a young lady’s costume, says that the work needs artists who have made a study of costumes worn by different nations

WELL-CLAD TODDLERS.

and at different periods. Chicago Ledger. A Novelty in Watches. One of the fads in London is the wearing of wrist watches by the women. They are both ornamental and convenient, being made in every style from the plain leather strap to the most magnificent bracelet, where the face of the watch is encircled by priceless stones. Purses, pocketbooks, sticks and umbrellas are also being introduced with diminutive timepieces, and even seal rings are being made with them.

TARIFF TRUTHS.

Can a Tax System Be Right Which Is a Puzzle to the Intelligent Tax-Payer? A Mystery and a Partial Explanation —Labor Cost and the Tariff v . Rates. ' _____ ■ - F- ' The Mystery. [From "Tariff Chats," by Henry J. Philpott, of Dm Moines.j How strange it is that any American citizen should say, when asked his views on the tanff question, “I don’t understand it" The tariff is a part of his taxes. It is the largest part of the tax he pays to the General Government. If he is an average citizen, with an average family, this tax alone cost him $lB last year, and a little more or less than that every year. Yet he confesses that he knows nothing about this $lB of his own money which he pays over to Uncle Sam. He doesn’t know whether it is more or less than he ought to pay. He never asks whether the tax is so levied that he is paying more than slß—sso or SIOO maybe—while some other and richer tax. payer gets off at $5 or $lO. Would he spend money so blindly in any other way? When you ask him about the money he pays to Uncle Sam he says he doesn’t understand it. If you asked him about the money he bestows on his wife and children would he look blank at you and confess, “I don’t understand it?” What would you think of him if h? did? How long would you expect to see him out of the Sheriff’s hands?

Now all his taxes are a part of his expenses. Why should he not understand all about them? Is it worth $lB a year to let his mind rest from such an easy task as finding out where the money goes and how it goes, and whether the manner of its going is not such as to take several times $lB along with it? If he were spending $lB in any other way he would at least look far enough into the matter to see whether some shrewd swindler had not a scheme in it? That something of this kind is true of the tariff I shall prove to you in a minute. But first I want you to stroll with me down into the Valley of Humiliation, and blush awhile for having ever been compelled to confess, as I know you have, for so have we all, that we didn’t understand the tariff question; that we have been paying out an utterly unknown sum of money every year without knowing or even inquiring—for if we had diligently inquired we should have known—how we paid it, or when we paid it, or whether any reform was needed, or whether we might not have got off by paying less, and had just as good a Government or better.

Can any tax system be right which is an absolute mystery to the intelligent taxpayer? Is the man fit to be free who does not, or will not, or cannot, at the first opportunity, investigate until he thoroughly understands how his Government exercises its taxing power over him—the most important and dangerous of all its powers? But if you say, “Don’t reproach me so; I have studied it long and earnestly, and, although I can understand anything else that concerns me, I can’t understand my taxes,” my reply is: Then your taxes are levied in a wrong way. You have already condemned them so far as lies in your power. You have said of them about the worst thing you could say. Get you at once a tax system thatfou can understand. And do not rest until all your neighbors have joined you in your effort. Beware of mysteries, but, above all, of mysterious taxes. You may rest assured that people who impose mysteries on you do not, as a rule, do it for your good. If you were making change of money with a man, and he should throw a cloak over you so you could not see, you would suspect his motives in a minute, wouldn’t you?

The Explanation. [From “Tariff Chats,” by H. J. Philpott, of Des Moines. 1 But, besides being mysterious, there is another very suspicious circumstance about this tax which costs you, an average man, $lB a year. lam sure you must have observed it a number of times. It is that whenever you ask to have the $lB cut down to sl7 some man 1,000 miles away, or across the street, >or somewhere, excitedly rises up, gets very red in the face, and cries at the top of his voice, “Don’t! For God’s sake, don’t. It will bankrupt me and starve my workingmen.” Now, don’t you think that man has some undue interest in your taxes being high? “Why,” you say to him, “the Government has got too much money. I was willing to pay the $lB when the Government needed the money, but really I don’t like to go on paying the whole of it when only a part is needed. I don’t want my money, which doesn’t come any too easily, ricked up in the Treasury or sown by the wayside.” “Well,” says he, “but you must go on paying it anyhow. It will never do to stop.” Now, is there not something suspicious in the existence in the country of people who get so excited when other people’s taxes are going to be reduced? Is it not proof positive that there is a scheme behind your tax system, as I promised to prove to you a minute ago? Suppose the treasuries of your State, county and township were overflowing with money. You have a receipt for the taxes you paid this year. It foots up $lB. Next year, you say to yourself, it will be less. The taxing powers will reduce the levy. Next year the tax receipt will foot up sl6. Suppose it did? How many of your neighbors would be rushing to the county court house and demand that the reduction be not made? What would you think of any one who should do so? How long would it take you to make up your miqd that that man had a job of some kind on foot and expected to get hold of part of the money you paid in taxes?

Yet you have come to look upon it as perfectly natural that a lobby of rich men should swarm at Washington to resist every proposed reduction of taxes. You are not in the least surprised that when President Arthur or President Cleveland proposed that your $lB tariff tax should be cut down to sl2, there should at once be held several meetings of rich men ($140,000,000 was represented at one meeting) to protest against the reduction and put forth a piteous plea that if it was made they would have to go out of business. Now the present tariff is already twice condemned as a tax system. You condemned it by confessing that with hard study you can net understand it. These meetings of rich men have condemned it by saying that it is a kind of tax which can not be reduced without ruining their busi-

ness. Is it not about time such a system was reformed? Can you honestly, my protectionist friend, say that you admire a tax which you can not understand and which can not be reduced without the bitter opposition of special classes of the people, and an outcry that the whole country is going to be ruined? Do you begin to guess what it is that the cloak of mystery covers? Labor Cost wuil Tariff Rates. I From the Chicago Tribune.] The abominably false pretense that the existing tariff is necessary to secure high wages for American workmen is exposed by the fact that the rate of duty on nearly any import that can be mentioned is twice the amount paid labor for the production of a like article in this country. Exceptions may be found to this rule, but the rule itself cannot be denied. Thus, while it is pretended that the present high monopoly tariff only covers the margin between wages here and abroad, the truth is that the taqp rates on almost any protected article will average more than twice the total wages paid American labor for the manufacture of a like article here. The following statement of the labor cost of certain selected articles is taken from the report for 1886 of Carroll D. Wright, United States Commissioner of Labor, and to make the suggested comparison plain, the Tribune adds to the Commissioner’s exhibit the rate of duty on the manufactures specified:

Per cent. Rate of Articles. labor cost. tariff. Pair stoga b00t517.50 3o Yard ingrain carpet‘22.sß 47 Suit cassimere clothing 16.26 68 Yard of sheeting2a 81 55 Ton Bessemer nailsl9.o6 84.33 Pair blanketslß.os 63 Ton pig-iron 9.72 56.60 Yard cotton cloth.lß.Bo 55.76 Yard print cloth 31.82 49 Cooking 5t0ve’..36.95 45 Pound spun silk 8.81 30 Harness leatherl3.B4 30 What could demonstrate more conclusively the falsity of the claim that the present excessive duties can not be reduced without lessening the wages paid American labor? Allowing for tariff rates sufficient not simply to cover any alleged margin between wages in this country and in Europe, but the total labor cost of articles produced here, and there still remains 50 per cent, or more of the present tariff scale that can only be reckoned as pure bounty and {dunder paid to factoiy bosses and in which abor has no share. What is this excessive {tortion of the tariff which does not benefit abor in any degree maintained for? It was put on only to secure revenues in-time of war, but that necessity long since passed away and surplus revenues are now piling in the Treasury. Is it supposed that this tribute can still be exacted from the people under the pretense that it is done to protect labor? What bounty-monopoly advocate will explain why it is necessary to levy on imports to an amount double the labor cost of producing similar articles in this country?

The instances given above are hardly up to the average of the tariff, and some of them are altogether exceptional in showing a rate of duty not greatly in excess of labor cost in home manufactures. It must be remembered that the average rate of the tariff is 46| per cent, of the value of imports, while the amount paid as wages in this country is only 20 per cent, of the cost of the manufactures produced. Mulhall gives the following as the ratio of wages to valuo of manufactures in the United States for a period of thirty years ending in 1880:

Average per cent. States. for thirty years. New England 22 Middle 19 Southern 18 Western ....18 Union 20 If labor is only paid 20 per cent, of the value of the goods produced, by what pretense can it be made to appear that a tariff of 46i per cent, must be levied on competing imports to main American wages? Clearly a tariff averaging 20 per cent.— less than one-half the present scale—would cover not only any “difference between American and European wages,” but the entire cost of the manufactures produced here. In the face of these facts it requires brazen audacity or stupid ignorance for any . man to claim that a tariff averaging 45 per cent. —60 per cent, on the necessaries bought by the unprotected farmers —must be maintained to protect labor.

American Versus !■ oreigu Uaboi > “I have recently made some investigations which prove indisputably th:U American labor can compete with foreign,” remarked Hon. Frank Hurd, of Ohio, to a Chicago Tribune reporter. “Just take two lines of production. A lady’s laced gaiter shoe, twenty-four button, can be made in Lynn, Mass., for 35 cents’ worth of labor. The manufacturer of the same shoe in Manchester, Eng., pays his workman 60 cents. In Germany the labor costs 80 cents. The German laborer at these wages will make $2, the English laborer about $3, and the American laborer $4 or $4.50 per day under a protection system. For the single shoe the American laborer is paid less than either the English or German workman, yet he earns more per day. That is because of the superior intelligence, skill, and organization of American labor. Another instance lies in the manufacture of cotton cloth. A German weaver turning out 100 yards of a certain quality will receive 70 cents for his labor. The English workman on the same quality of goods will receive 60 cents, the American 40 cents. Yet the American weaver will make more wages per day than the English or German laborers. It is our machinery and the skill of our workmen that enable them to earn more wages than foreign laborers, and not a protective tariff. We could drive England out of the world’s market if we would exchange for the commodities of other countries.”

TruntH and the Tariff'. (From the New York Bun.] Some of the worst and most shameless of the trusts are distinctly made possible by the tariff, and would break down in a very short time if foreign competition were once freely admitted. This is the case with the Steel Association, with the Iron and Steel Beam trust, and with the Sugar trust, the latter being affected by the prohibitory duty on the higher grades of sugar. It is not entirely the case with copper, because this gigantic trust originates in a foreign country, and for the time being grasps the product of the world; but it is true in this way, that the tariff has built up the copper monopoly in this country, and put its managers in a position to turn over to the French ring practically the entire output of the United States for three years. So, though free copper would not now break the bonds of the trust, the tariff has made the trust possible.

INDIANA STATE NEWS.

—Patents have been granted Indiana inventors as follows: Milton Delane and O. L. Cummins, near Columbia City, clod crusher and ground leveler; Isaac N. Elliott and P. A. Be id, Richmond, mechanical movement; Thomas E. Hall, assignor of one-half to D. R. Ennis, Indianapolis, car coupling; Daniel H. Kime, Kendallville, and H. Williams, Toledo, hasp lock; John T. Obenchain, Logansport, turbine; Britton Poulson, assignor to W. D. Schiefer, Fort Wayne, and J. C. Hunt, Concord. Mass., device for detaching buttons; Amos Sanders, North Vernon, receptacle for containing classified bills, letters, or samples; William D. Schiefer, Fort Wayne, assignor of one-half to J. C. Hunt, Concord, Mass., device for detaching buttons; John L. Ust, South Wabash, potato drill; Joseph M. Van Mover, assignor of one-half to A. I. Abbott, Terre Haute, sliding or rolling gate; John C. Voss, Bedford, cutting apparatus.

—The 400 acres of ground recently purchased at Rensselaer by the Catholic Church, will be used for the location of a Catholic school for the education of Indians, Building* will be erected at once, and it is expected to have them ready for occupation by this fall. Young men will be selected from the several Indian schools, who have already received several years schooling, and these will be trained in the higher branches of education and fitted to take the place of teachers in their various tribes of nations. Some will be educated as artisans, farmers, carpenters, blacksmiths, etc. —Funeral services were recently held at the Methodist Church, during which time a large number of persons were present and the seats full. Soon after the funeral party left the house one of the stove flues and about one-fifth of the joists and plastering overhead fell and crushed the stove and benches, and made a general wreck of the room. The weight was great, and had it fallen a little sooner the loss of life would have been large. At leost forty persons were occupying the space crushed by the fall, and certainly none of them could have escaped death or very serious injury. —The young men of Columbus have formed a malitia company which was mustered into the State service recently by Major J. F. Gent, of the Governor’s staff. The officers are William J. Beck, Cantata; William L. McCampbell, First Lieutenant, arid Hasford Valentine, Second Lieutenant. The company starts with fortytwo members, though the number is to be increased. The members are among the best young men of the city, and when fully equipped and drilled, will be an organization of which the community will be proud.

—Governor Gray has paroled Thomas Boyer, a convict in the Jeffersonville penitentiary, who was sentenced in 1880 to fifteen years for manslaughter. At the time of his conviction Boyer was only 15 years old. His crime was the shooting of an unknown man who happened to pass a crowd of boys with whom Boyer was playing. It was believed at the time that the shooting was done deliberately, but it is claimed that there have been developments lately that justify the opinion that it may have been accidental.

—The heaviest verdict that has ever been given in the Jennings County Circuit Coprt was rendered recently by the jury in the case of Mrs. Florence O'Conner vs. the O. & M. Railway Company, for the killing of Mrs. O’Conner’s busband, who was employed as a brakeman on that road. The plaintiff sued for SIO,OOO damages and the jury gave her a verdict in the sum of SB,OOO. —N. T. DePauw & Co., of New Albany, are leasing large tracts of land along the river border in Harrison County. There are now five natural-gas wells in the county, and it is the expectation of the company named to obtain gas in sufficient quantity to pipe to New Albany and supply light and fuel for the glass works. —The County Commissioners of Clark County have ordered an election on the first Tuesday in May in Jeffersonville Township, to decide whether the township will subscribe $75,000 to the capital stock of the proposed bridge over the Ohio River between Jeffersonville and Louisville.

—Stephen Brown, a farmer residing near Eugene, shot and instantly killed a tramp whose name could not be learned. The tramp was trying to get lodging for the night, and when refused became angry and struck Mr. Brown, who then shot him. Mr. Brown was not arrested. —Mrs. Louisa Morehead, has instituted suit in the Vanderburg Superior Court against the Diamond Coal Company for $5,000 damages. The complaint alleges that the defendant has been illegally minpig coal in subterranean limits under her land in Center Township. —At Terre Haute, Dr. and Mrs. Julius Gerstemeyer, of Brazil, kidnaped the Doctor’s children by his first wi e, who had been put in the custody of their uncle. The children were taken from school, and the kidnaping party took a train for Colorado.

—The Board of Trustees of the Northwest Methodist Conference at their recent meeting at Lafayette decided that at the next camp-meeting at Battle Ground the gates to the grounds would be locked on Sunday and no Sunday fees be taken. —An impression was taken of the lock to the county jail at Huntington with the supposed purpose of liberating two prisoners charged with murder. The doors of the jail have been barred with extra bolts, so the cast taken will be useless. —Adam Errick, a wealthy farmer, was run over and killed by a passenger train on the Fort Wayne road at Warsaw.