Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 December 1891 — Page 4 Advertisements Column 2 [ADVERTISEMENT]

tioned above, who make and keep happy homes, and rear brave men an<l virtuous women for the battle of life. A mountain exploded in Mexico some time ago, according to Mr. Vincent Loaiza, and an immense body of water commenced to flow from the newly formed crater and inundated much of the surrounding country. As Mr. Loaiza is a traveling man and does not say that he caught submarine fish, twelve inches long, in the newly released waters, we are compelled, in the language of Pooh Bah, to look upon this as a —failure to give “corroborative detail to a bald and unconvincing narrative.” The continual drift of Eastern people to'the West and Northwest is indicated in some statistics of railway travel between Chicago and Minneapolis and St. Paul. In eleven months the total was 140,260 tickets, the west-bound numbering 77,061 and east-bound numbering 63,199, 50 per cent, of the total being first-class; second-class, 20 percent.; third-class, 2 per cent.; tourist, 9 per cent; special excursion, 10 per cent. There were 19,066 second-class tickets westbound to 8,166 east-bound. It is evident that the Northwest is getting from the East always and giving no people. The notion that it is impossible to make a will which no one can break is greatly strengthened by the decision just rendered in the Tilden will case. The sage of Gramercy was one of the shrewdest lawyers the country has ever produced, but even he, with all his legal knowledge and precaution, was unable, it now appears, to execute a will which no one could assail. His heirs brought suit to set it aside, and after years of expensive litigation their efforts have been successful. His vast wealth will be distributed among them and New York will lose his splendid bequest for a great public library.

It is all very well for the London Times to counsel the United States to moderation in dealing with Chili, but it gave precious little of this kind of advice when England was demanding reparation for the Trent affair from this country. England gave Portugal just as little after an English exploring party was fired on in a wild and savage part of Africa where boundaries were uncertain. A fleet on the Tagus and twenty-four hours was the measure a “great and powerful nation” like Great Britain gave Portugal then. Nor was England inclined during our war to allow for any mishaps which befell Englishmen “as an act in the same drama,” One of the dispatches with which Lord Lyons pestered Secretary Seward is devoted to the “outrage” t’hat a blockade-run-ning Englishman in Fortress Monroe was not getting his daily morning bath. This is the spirit in which England protects her citizens, and it is one reason why no one ever thought of attacking English sailors in the streets of Lisbon in the worst heat and fever of the recent feeling against England.

Bifxiards, although it is the most thoroughly scientific game ever invented by man, seems to be about as uncertain in its results as horse-racing. On a recent night the two greatest billiardists. that the world has ever seen met in Chickering Hall, New York. During their professional career they have been pitted against each other in thirty-two games, of which Slosson has won sixteen games and Schaefer a like number. To a person aware of this fact alone it would seem, therefore, as though a bet placed on either man would stand about an even chance of winning. But Schaefer was the favorite. When the two champions were last in Chicago, Schaefer’s careless brilliancy of style and marvelously delicate execution threw his opponent into the shade. Connoisseurs in the game concluded the question of supremacy had at last been settled. They affirmed that billiards was like singing—a supreme artist received his chief endowment from Nature. Now we must be prepared to hear another story. Mr. Slosson’s friends will come forth from their retirement and will declare that truly great billiards is the result of correct modes of life, of constant study and practice, and of a complete mastery of the nerves. The question is a peculiarly interesting one. There is no doubt that Mr. Slosson represents the genius of perseverance, Mr. Schaefer the genius of natural endowment. The contest which these two gentlemen are waging has been fought on other battlefields than that of the green cloth, and will probably never be decided.