Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 December 1890 — WHAT MY LOVER SAID. [ARTICLE]

WHAT MY LOVER SAID.

' A service of carrier pigeons is to be established between Zanzibar and Lake Nyassa, in Africa. The stations will be thirty miles apart. The organs of smell in the tnrkey, vulture and carrion crow are so delicate that they can scent their food for a distance of forty miles. “That featherhead who has been laughing at the new air ship about which we have just heard may live to take a voyage in it,” is the latest, prophecy as to air navigation. It has been suggested that the phonograph shall be used as a cash register. Every sum the cashier receives might be called in the phonographand there recorded, as a check on accounts. In her fear of being forgotten the irrepressible Sarah Althea Terry has broken out again, and is credited with slapping a lawyer’s cheek. The report does not state whether her hand was injured. There are about 75,000 persons in prison in the United States. There are at least, as many more persons out of prison who belong to the criminal class, making 150,000 criminals, or one for every 400 inhabitants. The fatherly government of Russia has sentenced a woman nihilist, Sophie Guengberg, to be hanged. She did not murder anybody, but it is thought she was going to incite somebody to kill the Czar. Therefore because she merely, perhaps, thought “kill” she is be hanged. The site of the Andersonville Prison has become the property of the Grand Army of the Republic. It was largely occupied by those who are now members of the order, somewhat more than twenty-five years ago, and now possession is followed by the title in fee. The whirligig of time is a lively toy. Arkansas has won a cock fight from Louisiana, with the accompanying stakes, amounting to about SSOO. This cannot hurt Louisiana very much, for the operations of the lottery which she has so long fostered and profited by have resulted in taking all the spare change out of Arkansas for many a year past. The Chicago Post’s voting column on the question of keeping the world’s fair open on Sunday’s is filled with letters from all sorts of people and is bringing to light many cranks of one kind or another. So far, the vote received by the Post shows a large majority in favor of having the fair open on Sundays. There are 942 submarine cables, exclusive of the 1 ) seven Atlantic cables, with an aggregate of 112,740 nautical miles; 1,600,960 milesof overland wire; the United States has 776,500 miles of wire; France 220,890, and Great Britain 180,000 miles; the United States , in 1889 transmitted 56.000,000 messages, France 30,000,000; and Great Britain 50,000,000. In New York it is estimated, according to the output, that the annual consumption is fifteen whole pies for each man, woman and child within the city. There are twenty establishments that bake pies exclusively. Of these one company turns out 8,500 pies a day, or 2,660,500 pies a year, not counting Sundays, and another averages 7,000 a day, or 2,191,000 a year. Congress has passed an appropriation of $350,000 for the purchase of the Portage Lake and River Improvement Co.’s canal and Superior Ship Canal Railway and Iron Co.’s canal. These works connect Portage Lake with Lake Superior, and will now be made free from tolls. The copper-mining industries will be greatly benefited by this action of Congress. ' When Brigham Young invited Mlle. Rita Sanganelle to appear at Montana, he fixed the charge of admission at one fowl, and a supplementary pigeon if the fowl was not as plump as Jt might be. The night’s receipts amounted to 700 fowls and 50 pigeons; and the dancer had no reason to complain when she was paid her equivalent in cash at the rate of 10 shillings per fowl and 9 shillings per pigeon. The following populations make an interesting comparison: Russian Empire, 113,354,649; United States, 62,480,540; Germany, 46,852,450; AustriaHungary, 40,464,808; France. 38,218,903; Great Britain and Ireland, 35,246,633; Italy. 28,460,000; Spain, 17,550,246. It is only a question of time when we shall lead even Russia, and with our increase will be the leadership of the English-speaking civilization. It was a remarkable declaration recently made by Mr. Gladstone, England’s greatest living statesman, that universal suffrage is likely to prove a benefit, because in the long run the judgment of the masses is more likely to be right than that of the aristocratic a is the basis of American ophy, and for 100 years ■s gone on broadening its ing itself all the time ounded. Only women ded from suffrage, and

the newest State, Wyoming, admits even them. What other State will be next to give women a vote? The census of illiteracy in Europe and America is as follows: Roumania, Russia, and Servia, 80 per cent, of the population are unable to read or write; Spain, 48; Hungary, 43; Austria, 30; Ireland, 21; France and Belgium, each 15; England 13; Holland, 10; United States (whites), 8; Scotland, 7; Switzerland 24. German Empire, 1; in Sweden, Denmark. Bavaria, Baden, and Wurtemberg, there is not a single person over 10 years of age unable to read or write. A strange but sentimental practice prevails in Ohio of releasing an inmate of the State prison on Thanksgiving day as a kind of official recognition of the festival. It is contrary to good sense and common morals. If the convict is fit to be released at all, he should not be detained there on aiy pretext, but restored to society for that reason, and with confidence in him. If he is not ready for it, he should not be let loose on the community under any plea or romantic excuse. The Indiana physician who ran away from home and left his mother to almost die of grief in the belief that he had been murdered in order that he might marry a girl of whom he feared his parents would not approve showed himself to be very foolish and very brutal. As the laws are in Indiana, a man may have any number of wives in succession at the small cost of securing a divorce, and there is not a state or a country in the world where the wisest lawyer and the most lavish use of money can procure for one more than one mother. It would be cruel to doubt the statement of candidates for office who are defeated that they are glad to be relieved from the cares and troubles of officeholding. They ought to be allowed to find all the consolation in their power under the disappointments, and sometimes mortifications, that they have met. Yet we are inclined to think that the instances are very rare of a candidate who was really pleased to be defeated. It was so easy to have declined in advance, if there was such a state of feeling. But defeats are sometimes blessings in disguise, notwithstanding, and in process of time men acquire a condition of philosophy which enables them really to understand it. The system of indorsing is all wrong and should be utterly abolished. It has been the financial ruin of more men than perhaps other causes. Our young men especially should study the matter carefully in all its bearings, and adopt some settled policy to govern their conduct, so as to be ready to answer the man who asks them to sign his note. What responsibility does one assume when he indorses a note ? Simply this: He is held for the payment of the note in full, principal and interest, if the maker of the note, through misfortune, mismanagement or rascality, fails to pay it. Notice, the indorser assumes all the responsibility, with no voice in the management of the business and no share in the profits of the transaction, if it proves profitable;but with a certainty of loss if, for any of the reasons stated, the principal fails to pay the note. Anarchy audits loud-mouthed, longhaired devotees, are dying a slow, sure death. This is a poor country for the red flag. It will never thrive on American soil, and some of these fine days it will wither up like an autumn leaf .-.nd float back to Poland and the land of the Czar. Each year these queer revolutionists. lift themselves upon their European legs and celebrate the hanging of the Chicago Haymarket bombthrowers. Sometimes they put flowers on their “martyrs’ ” graves and sometimes they do not, as suits their often not overly plethoric purses. However, they never omit threatening dire vengeance on the Government for “murdering” their patron saints and say perfectly dreadful things about the American people. It is to be noted, though, that there is no more dynamite work since that wholesome hanging lesson. As long as they take it out in talk and content themselves with ventilating their windy lungs nobody need care much. Let’s be amused at them awhile and see how soon they get tired of it. One of the ways of stimulating invention which is well worthy of trial is offering standing rewards for those who at any time make discoveties of great advantage to human progress. Our patent laws do this indirectly by giving to the inventor exclusive control of his discoveries for a term of years. But these laws do not always protect those who most need protection, and are often used for the term of the patent in the most oppressive manner. It is a common trick of patentees to make no complaints when their inventions are made and sold by outsiders, but to prosecute vigorously those in whose hands their inventions are afterwards found. In this way thousands of dollars were extorted from farmers for driven-we’l patents, until the highest courts decided that this patent was invalid. Laws should be made protecting those who innocently use patented ideas, as articles containing these are sold to them. It would also probably be well to at least try to purchase some of the more valuable patents from jheir inventors for a round sum, for thelpurpose of making a present of them to the public for the public good.

[The following poem is recognized as one of the most charming gems published in the English language. Its authenticity is w holly unknown, though it has been long suspected that it came from the fertile brain and tender heart of the immortal Horace Greeley. Recently an Eastern gentleman offered to deed his splendid farm, valued at $15,000, to any one producing a copy of the poem antedating the one in his possession.—Geo. F. Alford.] By the merest chance, in the twilight gloom. In the orchard path he met me; In the tall wet grass, with its faint perfume. And I tried to pass, but he made no room. O. I tried, but he would not let me. So I stood and blushed till the grass grew red. With my face bent down above it. While he took my hand as he whispering said— How the clover lifted each pink sweet head, To listen to all that my lover said! O, the clover in bloom—l love it! In the high wet grass went the path to hide. And the low wet leaves hung over, But I could not pass on either side, For I found myself, when I vainly tried, In the arms of my steadfast lover. And he held me there, and he raised my head, While he closed the path before me. And he looked down into my eyes and said How the leaves bent down from the boughs o’erhead To listen to all that my lover said! O, the leaves hanging lowly o’er me! Had he moved aside but a little way, I could suroly then have passed him, And he knew I never could wish to stay. And would not have heard what he wished to say. Could I only aside have cast him. It was almost dark, and the moments sped. And the searching night wind found us; But he drew me nearer and softly said—• How the pure sweet wind grew still instead, To listen to all that my lover said. O, the whispering wind around us! I am sure he knew, when he held me fust, That I must be all unwilling. For I tried to go, and would have passed. As the night was come with its dews at last, And the sky with its stars was filling; But he clasped me close, when I would have fled, • And he made me hear his story. And his soul came out from his lips and said— How the stars crept outt when the white moon led, To listen to what my lover said, O, the moon and stars in glory. I know that the grass and the leaves will not tell. And I’m sure that the wind, precious rover, Will carry this secret so safely and well That no being will ever discover One word of the many that rapidly fell From the eager lips of my lover; And the moon and the stars that looked over Shall never reveal what a fairy-like spell They wove 'round about me that night in the dell, In the path through the dew-laden clover; Nor echo the whispers that made my heart swell As they fell from the lips of my lover. Dallas, Texas.