Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1892 — Page 4

Bl>ejPf mo erotic Sentinel RENSSELAER, INDIANA. j| xW. McEWEN, - - - Ppblxsheb.

' Motto for Congressmen: “Put a bill in the slot and get an appropriation —maybe.” If Henry Watterson does not quiet down soon an impression will get abroad that his goddess is cross-eyed. The shop of an undertaker in Candelaria, Nev., hears the following sign: “You kick the bucket. We do the rest.” The fact that Speaker Crisp was formerly an actor is not likely to aid him in his new position. If he had only been the interlocutor in a minstrel show, though! It will cost nearly $1,000,000, it is said, to put new wings on the White House. What we need more than this is new wings for certain politi dans in that neighborhood. Though your friends tell you that their latch-string is always out, we have noticed that if you call on them unexpectedly, you will get little else for your dinner but apologies. A new edition of the Bible is being prepared by some American scholars. If they wish to dispose of modern skepticism they would bettor add a foot-note giving the authority for that whale story. * Publishers of religious papers ' make a mistake when they try to force their publications upon unwil- ! ling people, as in the case of the Baptist editor with Col. lngersoll. But Ingersoll’s rude fling at the faith of a great denomination does not suggest that he has a higher plane as a gentleman than the impertinent editor. Twenty prisoners in the Michigan penitentiary are to be released because of the decision that the law providing for undeterminate sentences—under which they were sent to prison —is unconstitutional. It is no new thing to see rascals go unpunished because of legal technicalities, but a wholesale release of convicts is a new thing even for quib-' bling lawyers.

1 France has lost no time in moving Into line with Russia's policy, and has picked a quarrel with Bulgaria because that plucky little nation has expelled a French journalist, who was maligning all things Bulgarian. Will France now take the liberty of going up past the Sultan's forts into tiie Black Sea, with a view to giving Bulgaria a lesson? This would be pretty certain to bring about a disturbance in Europe. Kino Leopold of Belgium, who passes for a very liberal monarch, has just been entertaining at lunch several hundred workmen long engaged on the repairs of one of his palaces. This is mentioned in the European papers as indicating a wondrous con descension of kingship. But it will hardly attain the end for which it was done. Belgium is filled with workingmen's societies between which and monarchy there can be no reconciliation. There is sore trouble in Harvard College because a secret society brands its novitiates on the arm with lighted cigars. “Six deep and savage burns from elbow to shoulder” is the way in which a young gentleman recently initiated into this organization of educated youth characterized the ordeal. Under the present theories of higher education the parent who sends a son to college should cultivate the same spirit of resignation to possible disaster manifested by him who sends his first-born to the war. It may Iw felt that the action of toe Belgian Government in prohibiting the exercise of hypnotism for exhibition unless permission is given by aapecial license costing 20,000 francs Is a trifle arbitrary, but there can be no question of the general assumption that the hyhnotic power is too dangerous to be a legitimate means of popular amusement. Physicians and scientists are still at liberty to make scientific investigations, but in Belgium, at least, there is to be no more idle trifling with the mysteries of hypnotism. German newspapers are printing toe assertion that the weight of the World’s Fair buildings will cause toem to break through the crust of toe earth, with the result of precipitatin r the entire city of Chicago forty feet and submerging it under Lake Michigan. But nobody need ■toy away from the fair on this account. It is probable that the German papers are mistaken, but if toeir prophecy were fulfilled the city and the show would go on just the same. Chicago is not only a phoenix In a fire—it is a duck in a deluge. The elements are Chicago’s most humble servants. Peof. Bilhoth, in an address in Vienna recently on casualties in battle, said that the percentage of combatants wounded by bombs or cannon halls on modern battlefields is slight compared with those incapacitated by rifle bullets. From observations of battles in the Franco-Prussian war he found that -wounds Inflicted by cavalry or artillery are comparatively tare. About 80 per cent, of all casualties were inflicted by bullet wounds, If per cent, came from artillery and 5 per cent by the saber or bayonet. Furthermore, it is a fallacy to suppose that tbe majority of wounds caused hy artillery or bombs end fatally. The deduction is that the principal

study of army surgeons sholud be directed.toward relieving wounds caused by rifle bullets. W. R. Goodall, a Chicago newspaper man, has just sold a play to Boland Heed which the actor declares gives him the best opportunity of his life for genuine comedy work. The play will be first given next spring at the Boston Museum and will doubtless score a splendid and immediate success. Boston does not produce much of anything nowadays in the way of literary or dramatic art, but what it has lost in the creative faculty it has gained in the critical. Chicago is glad to write books and plays for Boston—proud of the honor and confident of the verdict. Boston naturally demands what Chicago gives—the best. In the case of Kraus, the New York druggist's boy who sold oxalic acid for salts, the proprietor of the pharmacy who left an ignorant youth in charge is the one that should he prosecuted. Important lessons are often conveyed in the “true words spoken in jest” in humorous writings. Charles Dickens excelled in the art of corveying needed public monitions in this this way. In Bardwell vs. Pickwick a dispensing chemist whom the judge refused to excuse from serving on the jury said: “My lord, there will lie murder. I have left, to come here, my shop in charge of a young assistant whose prevailing opinion is that epsom salts and oxalic acid are the same thing. “

China, as was expected, will take no part in the World’s Fair at Chicago in 1893. It is to be regretted, because the Chinese exhibit at the Centennial was one of the most beautiful and interesting of all. The exhibition, however, will be a success. Attention is being directed to it all over the world. New York is now coming forward, and although the Sun is doing its best to prevent an appropriation being made by that State, its opposition will not avail. New York is a great State and a wealthy one. It owes its prosperity almost entirely to the rest of the country—particularly the West. New York cannot afford to be mean or small in matters of this’kind.

It is now time to call John Chinaman to a halt. The Chinese “rebellion” appears to be another name for a deliberate wholesale attack upon civilization. wherever it has taken root in the miscalled Celestial Empire. If China expects to escape punishment for such misdeeds as the slaughter of more than a thousand native Christians. the massacre of missionaries, and the spreading throughout the empire of documents reviling Christianity, she will find herself vastly mistaken. Let us hope that the United States will be represented in Chinese waters, when the time comes to bring John back to his senses, by at least two or three good war ships. John is anything but Celestial just now.

It has always been cause of wonder that in the act of Congress authorizing the World’s Fair the women’s portion of the national body was designated the board of “lady” managers. With precisely like right the commission should have been called the board of “lord” managers. “Lady,” whatever its original source, when used in conjunction with public duty means in good English the wife of a lord. We dispensed with “lords” jr, this country a little more than a hundred years ago. Man is the noblest work of God, and woman is correlative of man. President Calmer said at the Delmonico banquet that he regretted the mistake. To express this regret—which every person not illiterate or vulgar, if American, must so conspicuous a place and to make no effort to correct the implied flunkeyism, which is laughable as well as vulgar, is- not becoming the most distinguished national officer of the World's Fair. Let the official designation be altered by authority to “the Women's Board, World’s Columbian Exposition.” Does President Palmer know that another egregious error was committed in issuance of commissions to the womeif? They were described as “Mrs. General” Tom Thumb, etc., instead of by the names they bear as women, not as wives or daughters or widows or other relatives of men having no relation to the World’s Fair. Since the fair is to stun the world with its wonders, it would be well to have all its incidents arranged decently.

The Pasha and His Watch.

On the occasion of the Empress Eugenie’s visit to Cairo inlß69,Nubar Pasha was presented by Napoleon 111. with a valuable watch richly set, with diamonds. This watch he was in the habit of laying before him on the table during the meetings of the council which were generally held in the evening, At one of the sittings the electric light suddenly went out. When it was turned on again Nubar’s watch had disappeared. The Pasha scrutinized the faces of his colleagues one after the other, but not one winced under his gaze. At length he said: “Gentlemen, the watch that, according to my custom, I had lying here before me, has been removed. The door is locked on the inside, nobody has entered the room in the meantime and nobody has gone out. I attribute the loss of the watch to a bad joke or a tit of abstraction on the part of one of you gentlemen. I will now turn out the light once more, feeling convinced that when i| is turned on again the watch will be found in the usual place.” The light was then put out. When it shone brightly a minute later, not only was the place where the watch had lain still vacant but Nubar’s bejeweled inkstand, a present from Victor Immanuel, had also vanished. Nubar Pasha never saw these articles again.— National Zeitung.

LOVE'S SEASON.

Love doth a tenant of the spring become; Ofsummerhours when skiesofbrilbant bine Tempt bees and katydids to gardens new; When the woodpecker with his distant drum Is heard, and when the cricket's restful thrum Makes autumn musical; when Winter’s few Delights of Nature blossom into viow; Love makes the yeur, complete, its constant home. Whnte’er the days or months for us unfold Love has one season in its rounded rhyme; Love’s sun turns darkest skies to brightest gold, And makes of time a period sublime; From cradle-tiyrnu to bo Is at Life’s night tolled Where Love dwells it is summer all the time, —[Dexter Smith, in Boston Transcript.

A Moccasin Among the Hobbys.

BY RICHARD M. JOHNSTON.

I vary well remember Little Joe Hobby, who, when 1 was a child, was one of my father’s near neighbors and friends. Ho was not so very, very little. They called hitn so in distinction from ,a big cousin of the same name. Everybody liked him. Even Maggy Tiller over and over again said that she thought a great deal of Joe. Yet she gave hor hand in preference to tho big cousin,and so Littlo Joe, sorrowful as it all was, had to bear it ns well as lie could. Maggy, noticing at her very lust refusal how hardly' ho took it, offered the consolation, which at such a time, if a girl would only reflect for a moment, is the very poorest to be thought of. Sho told him to never mind, for that it wouldn't bo so very long before he would find a girl to suit him to a t, and then lio would bo just running over with joy that lio hadn't* married Maggy Tiller. Indeed, Maggy was very sorry for his distress, so sho must say something, and she didn't know of anything better. Then he rose, and, after shaking good-by, said: “No, Maggy, I can't got you; but I’ll never marry anybody else.” He went to the wedding, and with the other guests extended congratulations, and partook with reasonable zest of tho good things. Afterwards he was as good a neighbor ns beforo, and a good cousin to both. My father said, out of course only in tho family, that if ho had been in Maggy Tiller’s place he would havo tnkon Little Joe, and let Big Joo go somewhere else; for in his opinion Little Joo was more of a man; and so, he suspected, thought Maggy’s mother. However, he added, nobody can ever foresee what girls will do in such cases. Joe—Little Joe, I mean—tried to go ! along about us he had been doing before i his bad luck, ns ho called it; for ho never denied a single tiling. But he was as healthy in mind us in body, and he felt that if Maggy and the other Joo could do well, so far as he was concerned, they were welcome to do so. Indeed, ho was a bettor friend to them than Jim Hobby, Big Joe's older brother, whom Maggy hud cast aside also, and who in a pot went off and married Mandy Brake, who wasn't as pretty as Maggy and had rather poor health besides. And they did do well, —tlint is moderately well. If Big Joe's industry, niunngement and prudence had corresponded with hia physical proportions, they would have done splendidly. As it was, out of tho good pieco of ground which they owned, they mado quite enough to live on, and perhaps a tritio over; but not nigh what Littlo Joo, who continued to livo with his mother, contrived to put aside ycarlv for rainy days. The two families lived only a milo apart, and visiting continued to bo kept up the satno us if nothing had happened. ! In decent time after the birth of their baby, Little Joo wont over there and j handed around his congratulations again. I When the baby was darned Joi ho, had to congratulate again; and ho did so, .like tho man he was. it may have soemed to him somewhat monotonous whonever ho was there that tho father was everlastingly saying that in some points, indeed in almost every single blessed point, he had not a doubt that that baby was nhoad of anything of its age that could be found in the whole State, let alone the county. “Why, Joo,” he said, more times than his hearer could recall, “Maggv’ll tell you herself that sometimes 1 have to loose my mule from the plough half an hour before the dinner-horn blows, I want to see him so bad.—Look’ee here, Joe,” ho said nigh as many times to the baby, “you know who that is sitting in that chair? You don’t? Why, that’s your cousin Joe, same name as you. Not named after him exactly, but all tho same. Ask Cousin Joe if he don’t wish ho had a Joo like you.” At such times Maggy smiled a little scold; but it did no good. He would go on about it, and keep at it, not even stopping at the dinner-table, occasionally getting up and making Littlo Joe get up, repair to the bed or the cradle whereon that baby was lying, and note how, when he was not crowing, he would be trying, just for the fun of it, to ram his fists or the coverlet into his ever-open mouth. And then sometimes ho would crown all by crying to the youngster about thus: “Going to bo a big man some day, nron’t you?—a heap bigger than Cousin Joe.”

Such things he did often, not from any thought of malice towards his cousin, but out of mere exuborancoof tho consciousness of his superiority to him. Little Joo endured it ull, and did what he could in simple ways to help them along. Once, when the baby was thought to be dangerously sick, ho went there at nights, and, ►vhile the father slept; watched with tho mother during the silent hours. Before Big Joe was awake next morning he would be gone to his work. During that time Jim Hobby never onee came there. His wifo did, and wanted to' help; but Muggy , knowing that she was not strong enough to do uuy good, thanked her and sent her home. One would tljnk that such ns that ought always to come to an end. Sometimes it does, as in this case itdid. Early in August, when the baby was only a few weeks old, Big Joe got sick himself. People said it was from having had too much Fourth of July. Whatever was the cause, no sort of medicine, old women’s nor doctors’, could cure him; and so he died, leaving Maggy a poor, lonesome widow. With her baby she moved back to her mother’s, and it was not so very long before she began to look as bright as ever, and perhaps some prettier. I could not undertake to say exactly how Little Joe feh on the occasion of his cousin's death; but he said and he did what was becoming,—no more, no less. He helped to put him away docently, and then helped Maggy to do what was to b« done before she could get back to her native place. As for the baby, while he did not—because he could not — show the pride which hie father in.

dulged, yet be was even more considerate of its wants. It was only a few minutes' walk to the Tillers’, and ho went thore almost every day. The devotion shown by him to that baby was not without its return, as it was not long before the latter showed himself to be as well pleased with his cousin's society as ever he had been with that of his father. Even Jim began to tako an interest which ho had not shown in his brother's lifetime. During tho summer days of the following year, when Muggy’s work took her out of the house she put tho baby in his cradle, which sho had removed to a nice spot in the shudo of a large Mogul plumtree that stood not far from the dairy. Occasionally sho wont by to see if any wood-insect had invaded his couch, or, if he was awake, to havo a littlo chat by way of reassuring him against any sense of abandonment or too profound solitude. For he was not one of those exacting babies who are everlastingly wanting to bo waited on, und shaken up, and sung to, claiming all the attention they can get, und more besides, not only in the day, but in the very night. What that baby wanted, after his many meals und his as many sleeps, was the consciousness that congenial society was in convenient call. His health was as perfect as the very morning, and whenever ho cried you might feel sure either that a pin was sticking somewhere, or that something else was the matter which no grown-up person could bo expected to endure without complaint At such time, when Littlo Joe was thero, he hovered around that cradle as if the most precious of his treasures lay therein. Such devotion, in all the circumstances, must have touched any hourt, unless it wero of stone. Yet when, towards tho beginning of tho full, Littlo Joe began to plead as once beforo ho had dono so all in vain, Maggy cried and bogged him to stop it. Ho did as ho was bidden, but with an inward resolve not to stop for good as long as things stood as they wore. For she showed as plainly ns day, oven to tho humble Littlo Joe, that she didn’t want him to quit coming to tho houso, particularly now that Mrs. Jim Hobby had died, and so another gloom had been thrown over the family. Littlo Joe would have been ashamed to be eallod a hero if lie had known what that meant. Yet in tho action which I am now going to toll, my father uSM to say that there was as heroic behavior as much of that one reads of in tbe careers of those who

subdue Nations and bring homo spoils with infinite Manslaughter. Among venomous reptiles in the Southern States, next to the rattle-snake the one most dreaded is tho moccasin. Its bite, oxcept upon very young persons, is soldom fatal; but very ofton its victim hr.s to lose some portion of the limb which has been struck. The most prompt treatment is necessary to prevent much suffering and other serious consequences. I shall let Little Joo speak for himself about an encounter which he had with ono of those reptiles. One morning, having come over to our houso on some little mattor about the line-fence, as he was ascending the steps of the piazza my father said: “Good-morning, Joe. Why, hello! what’s the matter with your thumb, that you’vo got it wrapped in that cloth?” “Mornin’, squire. Then you hadn’t heard about my snake-fight?” “No, indeed. I’ve been away from home for a couple of weeks, getting back only last night. It seems you got the worst of it.” “I did for a while; but I come up with him beforo it was all over.” “My goodness, man! But I'm very glad it was no worso.” “So am I—thankful to boot. What time it lasted, it was a right serious business, countin’ in my skear, and Maggy's too.” “Ay, was Maggy in it also?” “Not in the tight, she wasn’t, but in the skear she were, worse off than me; fact is, she couldn’t help it, bein’ of her own baby.” “My! my! Tell mo about it.” Smoothing tenderly the cloth around his thumb, he began: “ It was on Thursday three weeks ago. I walked over to Missis Tiller's, I reckon the sun wero about, a hour or a hour and a half high. Muggy wero a-sweepin’ the front yard about the gate. Her ma wero fono over to Missis Kcenuin’s, and the aby wero layin’ in the cradle asleep under the big plum-tree, you know, squire, thero By the dairy.” “Very well. Finest Mogul plum-tree in tho neighborhood.” “Jes’so. Well, soon as I got in the yard, and shook hands with Maggy, I went on silent to seo the baby, who him and mo are first-rate frionds, we are.” “So I hoard. Go ahead.”

“ When I got there, lo and behold, thero were a great big full-grown highland moccasin quiled up on the baby’s breast, all exception of his head and his neck, which stoochhigh up, and his eyes a-viewin’ of the child, like he were studyin’ where ho’d begin on him. 1 holloed out, I did,and Maggy she coaioarunnin’ up; but I pushed her back and told her to stay back and keep silent. jShe done it. She put one hand ’on her breast and lifted the other towards the sky. At that minute Jim come in tho gate, and he run up to see what were the matter. Then he told me to stay there and watch the snake till he could run in the gurdou and cut a forked stick and prong hiin/with it So Jim he left, and tho fight" begun. Soon as the thing saw me, Tie whirled his head away from the baby for a strike at me. And, squire, it were tbe fieriest, beautifullest thing you over laid your eyes on. He were certain, well us I were, that it were a life-and-d nth case; because there wasn’t any chance for him to get away into the woods, and I no doubt he saw fight was in me. But 1 didn’t have one blessed thing except my hands, and if I'd had a stick tho question would been what to do with it, him a-layin’ there on tho baby. To make things worse, he woke, the baby did, and he begun asmilin’ at me, and I were skeered nigh out of my senses, thinkin’ he might kick or throw up his hands, so the snake would turn on him ngain. Then I got mad, sure enough, and I said to myself,- ‘No, sir, not that baby. If its got to be anybody, it shall be me.’ Every time I made a grab at its neck, he dodged and struck at me. Well, sir, it’s wonderful how supple the thing were. I thought 1 had him once or twice, but he slipped from my fingers like a piece of ice, and mighty nigh as bold, and several times with his strike he were in the width of a hair of gettin’ me. All of a sudden I thought of my hat, and thinks I to myself, ‘Blast you, I’ll try to hive you!’ And 1 done it, after a few wipes at him; but as I was pressin’ him down he put his tooth in the ball of my left hand thumb. But I grabbed him by the tail, give him a whirl or two like o*wj»ipthong, then, fetchin’ a jerk, slung his head off. You know thnt’s the quickest way in the world to kill ’em. Then Maggy come up, she did, and she

snatched up her baby, who was kickin’ his level best at tho fun; but I told her to lay him down for a minute, take a twine string out of my coat pocket, and tie it tight around my thumb where I were holdin’ it. For don't you know, squire, it come to my mind that very minute of Jay Roberts losin’ his whole thumb three year ago that a moccasin bit, and that under the water? Yes, sir, that it did. Maggy screamed, but she done as I told her. Then I told her to go and make a pot of red-pepper tea, boilin’ hot, not thinkin’ thero was a drop of sperits in the house. Soon as she* got away, I hauled out my knife. I give it a wipe or two on the bottom of my shoe, and then Well, squire, whoever thinks thore’s fun in cuttin’ off their own thumb at the j’int, they’re welcome to it. But I grinned and got through with the job, and by that time Maggy’s ma got back. She told Maggy to fling that pepper tea away, and then she got out a level tumblerful of whiskey and come out and made me drink evory drop of it. And then, while Maggy was fixin’ to tie up what was left of my thumb, she, aknowiu’ I couldn’t oarry all that load of whiskey,she made me go to bed, and,tell you the truth, squire,l never remembered unother thing till nextmornin’ daybreak, when I woke up, callin’ for wator.” “ But where was Jim all this time? ” “ They told me after it was all over tnat Jim came back with his forked stick, assayin’ it took longer than he thought to get one to suit. Missis Tiller said she thanked him, and told him that he better put it away keerful, as it might como in handy next time.” “That’s Jim; that’s exactly Jim,” said my father. “But, Joe Hobby, don’t tell me you came away from that house without getting Maggy’s word, after what I told you of the importance of being brisker in some of your ways, especially since Jim has become a widowor.” “Oh, no, sir. I thought it were a good chance to follow up your advice, and I put in for her as well as I could; and she said that, in all tho circumstances, she wasn’t sure but what it was her duty.” “That's good! that’s first-rate! ” “But, law, squire! she declare she must put off the weddin’ for at least one whole year.” “Nonsonso! You toll Maggy, from me, that, after all you’ve done for her and that baby, I say that I think it very hard to be putting itroff so long, and that if any accident was to happen to you in all that lonesome while she’d never forgive herself.” He carried the words, and in a few days afterwards reported that they had compromised on Easter. —[Lippincott.

Earthquakes in Japan.

Earthquakes are of so frequent occurrence in Japan that they are looked upon ns a matter of course, and unless they uro accompanied with a serious loss of life and destruction of property, tho outside world hears little of them. Some of the earliest Japanese traditions are of extremely destructive earthquakes, and many fanciful tales are told of those which happened previous to the times of trustworthy historical records. But there are many authentic records of earthquakes which destroyed whole cities. The most serious of these disturbances in recont times was that of 1855, when, in Yedo, which was the centre of the quake, 14,241 dwelling-houses and 1G49 fire-proof storehouses were overturned. In the last days of tho past October there was a very serious earthquake about Gifu and Nagoya, and there was great loss of life and property. There were slight earthquakes on Sunday, October 25th, and these tsontinued with increasing severity until the morning of the following Friday. During the last two days of tho quake, 368 distinct shocks were felt and recorded. At Gifu the houses tumbled down and caught fire, and thoses people not caught in the ruins fled to tho country and tho hills; but in nearly every house it is reported that one or more unfortunate victim was caught. Enough is known to place tho loss of life at several thousands. When tho first shock was felt at Gifu the up and down trains on the Takaido Railway were just meeting. The shock was accompanied by a rumbling sound, and the people on tho train thought that there had boon a collision. On looking out of the windows, however, they saw tho station in ruins, and the water in a neighboring pond dashing violently from side to side. As the shocks continued, cracks in the earth were observed two or three feet wide, oponiug and closing. The shipping in tho various harbor! was very much injured, and one ship which recently arrived at San Francisco reported that when seventy miles at sea a violent shock was felt, the sea was lashed into a foam, the waves broko over the decks, and tho maintopinast and cross-trees wero lost. These disturbances at sea have been very common in previous earthquakes, and several times great ships in Japanese ports have had great difficulty in weathering such unaccustomed conditions.—[Harper's Weekly.

An Aristocratic Market Gardener.

Pretty nearly half England’s nobility has gone into trade,of some sort. The Duke of Fife is turning his land into bank stock. Lord Randolph Churchill is a special correspondent—and the name is legion of those noble dames who sell everything from butter to bonnets—and not always by proxy. The so famous Lady Brooks ruus a show in connection with her Eastern charity work, where you can buy nearly woman can put on from the crown of her head to the sole of her foot. Her betters in birth and breeding help themselves in lowlier ways. One, the sister of the wife of the Duke of Wellington and daughter of a Marquis whoso blood is of the best, lives just out of London in a rambling old house that has half an acre of garden behind it. Small as is the bit of earth, she gets from it a good share of her maintenance. She points out her asparagus bed, crowded with tender shoots, and says: “Is it not tempting?—but I cannot afford to eat it. Every stalk is engaged to Covent Garden Market.where it fetches enough money to clothe me and my girls.”—[New York Sun.

The Oldest Medical Work.

A translation .'Tnto German of the Egyptian medical manuscript acquired about twenty years acfb by George Ebers, the eminent Egyptologist and novelist, hus just been completed. Dr. Heinrich Joachim, the translator, believes that the work was written not later than 1550 B. C., and that parts of it are of still older date. It consists mainly of recipes, interspersed here and there with proverbs, but gives some advice upon the examination of pationts, and states the diseases indicated by certain symptoms. The original papyrus is a unique and important document, being the oldest medical work in the world. —[Trenton (N. J.) American.

THE DUTY ON LEAD ORE

HOW IT INJURES THE LEAD INDUSTRY. Building: Up Mexico at the Expense of the United States—Reduce the Duties on Cordage and Rope—Why They Oppose Free Wool. One Year of the Lead Ore Duty. McKinley granted the demands of the lead miners of Colorado, and imposed a duty of li cents per pound on the lead content of imported ores. Previous to the passage of the McKinley tariff such ores had been free of duty. The mass of our imports of these' ores come from Mexico, being shipped thence to Kansas, Missouri, and other States having large smelting works, where they are smelted with the silver-lead ores of the United States. The mixture of these ores in the smelters reduces the cost of production considerably. The lead ore miners of Colorado believed that were a duty put on Mexican ores the price of their lead would be advanced. They cared little for the injury which such a course would bring to the smelters and miners of sil-ver-lead ores. The duty has been in force a year, and its effects can therefore be shown. The production of lead in the leading States, the miners of which secured the duty of li cents per pound on lead ore, in 1890 and 1891 has been as follows: . Production , 1890. 1891. , , Tons. Tons. Arizona and California I,UCO 1 000 Colorado 60,030 64,000 Idaho and Montana 24,000 25 OX) Nevada 2,500 2,500 Utah 24.000 25,000 Total 111.500 117,60 J The production of lead in these States increased during the year only 6,000 tons. The producers and smelters of lead in Missouri, Kansas, Illinois and Wisconsin, who use the imported ores as a flux in the smelting of our own more refractory silver-lead ores, opposed the duty and declared that it would greatly injure their business. The production of lead in these States in 1891 as compared with 1890 was as follows: 1890. 1891. , Tons. Tons. Lead produced 55,000 40,u00 A falling off of 15,000 tons, making the net demand in the production of lead in the States enumerated in 1891 9,000 tons. How this was brought about is shown by Mr. Both well, of the engineering and Mining Journal, in his annual review of the lead industry. Says Mr. Bothwell: “For a short time indeed, toward the end of 1890, the price of lead was advanced by the McKinley bill, and the smelting charges on dry silver ores were also increased quite heavily, owing to a temporary scarcity of lead fluxing ores, but a more liberal interpretation of the bill of the Treasury Department again allowed the Mexican ore to enter. The price of lead thenceforward declined (though smelting charges did not), and as a final outcome it must be apparent to every one, from a study of these statistics, that the McKinley bill has begn an injury rather than a benefit to the lead, and especially to the silver miners of the West.

“This result must set some of the intelligent miners to thinking who profited When they were injured, or at least not benefited, by the legislation which they were told would prove so greatly to their advantage. But had Mexican lead ores continued to come in free, what would have been the result? Undoubtedly the smelting of the Mexican ores would have been done in this country, to the obvious advantage of our metallurgical industry, instead of in works built with American capital in Mexico. “Lead might have ruled lower in price had a very large amount of ore come in from abroad, but this would have greatly stimulated consumption, and wqpld have kept down smelting charges on dry ores, the mining of which gives occupation to more men than does the mining of lead ores. ” Turning from the injurious effects of the duty on the production and smelting of silver - lead ores in the United States to tho effect on the production of lead in Mexico, Mr. Bothwell says: “Previous to 1890, only a few unimportant smelting works existed in Mexico, the product of which was very small, but when the American market was closed to the Mexican miners, who could not afford to pay the heavy freight charges to Europe on the low grade ores, nothing was left for them to do but to establish a smelting industry of their own. The opportunity was promptly seized, not only by them but also by some of the, larger American smelters, who found themselves deprived of a portion of their supplies; they, too, went over to Mexico and started up smelting works, which are now partly in operation, and will be entirely so early this year. “At present the production of lead bullion in Mexico goes on at the rate of about 1,200 tons per month, but very shortly this will be increased to about 2,500 tons, and may by the end of this year amount to 3,000 tons. If this latter figure is reached it will mean that Mexico will thus produce about onesixth as much as the United States, and there can be no doubt that most of this bullion would have been produced hei'e had not the law been altered in a most deplorably narrow-minded spirit.” Since the duty on imported ores benefits no one in the United States, but has caused great injury to the silver-lead ore producers and smelters, why should It not be repealed?

Truth Win Out.

At the hearings before the Ways and Means Committee, of which Major McKinley was Chairman, and which drafted and passed the tariff bill bearing his name, the woolen manufacturers whp testified claimed that there were used in the making of a pound of cloth at least four pounds of greasy wool. These men induced the Ways and Means Committee to adopt the above as the basis of the specific duties on goods to compensate the ; manufacturers for the duty of 11 cents per pound on wool. They did so, and during the debate declared over and over again that the 44 cents per pound duty on woolen cloth afforded no protection to the manufacturer but merely offset the wool duty. Truth cannot long be concealed. Now that the present Ways and Means Committee are considering the introduction of a bill putting wool on the free list, and at the same time taking off the pound duty of 44 cents on cloth and reducing the ad valorem rate to 40 per cent., certain manufacturers are opposing this on the ground that such a bill would deprive them of a great deal of protection. Says a writer in The Manufacturer, the organ of the high tariff manufacturers’ club of Philadelphia, who signs his article “One who sees only danger to manufacturers in free wool:” “Manufacturers under the McKinley bill pay 11 cents per pound duty on wool. By importing the light-shrinkage Australian wools, which are the kinds mostly imported, a manufacturer can get out of two pounds of unwashed skirted wool one pound of scoured wool, which is nearly the equivalent of one pound of cloth. It is claimed that it takes nearly four pounds of unwashed wool to make a pound of cloth. This maybe true of the faulty 75-per-cent, shrink wools used in Europe, but never imported; but it is not true of the light, open, shafty, skirted Australian woois that are im-

ported. The waste on the latter averages but slightly above 50 per cent. (A good deal is imported which shrinks only 48 percent.) This class of wool is so well skirted on the ranch as to require little or no further sorting in the mills. “The clear shafty wool is all that is imported by American manufacturers/ One pound of scoured, clear-sorted, wool, free from inferior bits and pieces,' as already stated, is almost the equivalent of one pound of cloth. The manufacturer imports two pounds of such wool in the grease, paying 11 cents per pound, or 22 cents on the one pound scoured. As the McKinley bill gives a specific duty of 44 cents per pound—which is in no way assailed by undervaluations, as may be the case with an ad valorem duty—manufacturers have a clear margin of nearly 22 cents per pound protection on every pohnd of cloth made of these light, fifty per cent, shrunk, skirted, Australian fleeces. “Assuming that fifty per cent, ad valorem duties wholly cover the difference in wages between the foreign and American mill labor for which purpose this fifty per cent, was imposed, we find that the only margin of real protection against undervaluation is the specific duty on cloth which the free wool advocates now propose to remove. “The only real margin of surplus protection which American manufacturers now have under the McKinley bill is the margin (be it 22 cents per pound more or less) which they now get as a compensatory duty for the duty upon wool. “The duty on cloth was fixed under the assumption that the manufacturer paid 44 cents per pound duty on the scoured wool needed to construct one finished pound of cloth. In point of fact he pays but little (if any) over 22 cents per gound on that wool, leaving him a margin of about 22 cents per pound. With free wool he loses this. Will he favor free wool and also favor being brought into closer competition with foreign manufacturers, with only an ad valorem rate on goods that can so easily be avoided by undervaluations and false invoices?” No wonder that certain woolen manufacturers who, during the last Presidential campaign, paid so much to get the permission of Congress, by a tariff law, to charge a clear bounty of 22 cents per pound on cloth over and above the bounty given them by the duly of 50 per cent, object, to being deprived of it so soon. The manufacturer who turns out in his factories legitimate woolen goods and the wool growers, who have the prosperity of the wool and woolen industry at heart, know that free wool will benefit both. It is such wool growers who hope to get political prestige from their labors^and such manufacturers as believe in a tariff for bounty, included with whom are the users of shoddy and other bogus materials, who believe in the McKinley tariff on wool and woolen manufactures.

Reduce the Duties on Cordage and Rope.

The gentlemen who have introduced in Congress bills to put binding twine on the free list, and certain journals which continue to demand that a bindingtwine bill shall be the cornerstone of the Democratic policy, can obtain some very, useful information from current commercial reports and the statute known as the McKinley tariff act. The commercial reports which might enlighten them are those relating to the price of cordage. Several advances have recently been made by the powerful combination or chartered trust which controls the supply. The Iren Age of the 7th inst. published the following: “The associated manufacturers (the National Cordage Company) have within a few days made two advances in price, which they are enapled to announce and maintain in view of the fact that they are almost in undisputed control of the market, the outside competition being relatively unimportant. The first of the two advances occurred Dec. 28, when the following prices were announced: * * * The above advanced prices were followed Dec. 30 by the announcement of another advance of £of a cent per pound on manila and 1 cent per pound on sisal and New Zealand. The trade was hardly pepared for such radical advances as the above, especially as the price of the raw material is about the same as for some time.” 1 The Iron Age announced an advance on Oct. 22, and at that time published the new price-list. We give below the prices for rope announced at the three dates mentioned: CORDAGE PRICES. Oct. 22. Dec. 28. Dec. 30. Manila rope 9)4 11)4 12)4 Sisal rope 6 4)4 9)4 l<ew Zealand rope 5)4 1% 8)4 It should not be forgotten that the first of these lists sets forth an advance of } of a cent per pound, and that the complete lists include hay rope, hide rope, bale rope, lath yam, and many other kinds of cordage. In the middle of October the price of manila rope was only 8J cents, and sisal was selling at The advance in less than three months has been 44 per cent, for manila rope, 68 per cent, for sisal, and 59 per cent, for New Zealand. The power of the tariff to increase the, price of binding twine is now limited to 7-10 of a cent a pound at the outside. The astute Manufacturer, the organ of Mr. Dolan’s high-tariff association, recently spoke of “the increased duty upon binding twine, which has tumbled the price of that article within a single year from 12 cents a pound to 8 cents.” The truth is, that not only was the duty on binding twine almost entirely cut off, but also the raw materials out of which such twine is made were removed from the dutiable to the free list. The cost of production was thereby largely reduced, and at the same time the power of the ring to raise prices by the aid of a duty on the finished product was almost en-' tirely taken away. This is one of the few good features of the McKinley tariff.' If our friends will stop talking about binding twine and will take up the other kinds of cordage, which are still “protected” by considerable duties, they will show that they have not wholly overlooked the McKinley tariff act and the changes it has made. In the exactions of the chartered trust which so boldly makes these great advances in the other kinds of cordage advances ranging from 44 to 68 per cent. —there is something which may well engage the attention of the Ways and Means Committee at Washington. A demand for free cordage would mean something. In the case of binding twine there is scarcely anything left to talk about. —New York Times.

There is a bright chap sending news from Los Angeles to the papers. He sent an accdhnt of a horrible suicide in which the miserable wretch was described as having “first mutilated himself in a horrible way, then cut his head with an ax, took laudanum, stabbed himself over the heart with a big jackknife, and shot himself in the head.” The much-lacer-ated individual lived for several hours because, as the correspondent says, “the knife fortunately glanced on the breastbone and thus saved him in- * stant death.” That .was fortunate indeed, not so much for the suicide, who escaped instant death to linger in agony for hours, but for the world of newspaper readers, who but for this incident might have never discovered how droll a rural correspondent can be when ho doesn’t want to.