Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 March 1892 — NOTES AND COMMENTS. [ARTICLE]

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

The statistician of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Co. R. R. points with pride to the remarkable fact that on the Pennsylvania branoh of this railroad not a single passenger has been killed since the road went into operation, twenty years ago. “It is also u matter for congratulation,” he says, “that during that time four children have been bom on the trains of that division—two of them twins.” All four are alive, and one of them is an employee of the company. An eminent French statistician makes a clever and graphic presentation of the thrift of the French people. He saye that a duplicate of the Eiffel Tower, which weighs between 7,000,000 and 8,000,000 kilogrammes, built of silver, and with two additional stories added, would barely represent the actual savings of the French people deposited in the national savings banks. The kilogramme is 2 pounds 3.26 ounces. Thb new Reading terminal station in Philadelphia is to boast the largest trainhouse in the world. What is termed the false work of the great arch has already been begun. Its span will be 266 feet, and height from the ground 120 feet. The train-house is to be 553 feet in length. The station proper will be 110 feet in length, making the terminal building 663 feet long. The train house will be laid out with thirteen tracks at the Market Street end, which will be reduoed by switohes to nine tracks ut the Arch Street end. The roof will be constructed of iron, copper, and wood.

The turning of the bed of the Feather River at Oroville, Cal., has won for the engineer of that astonishing piece of work an offer from the liquidator of the Panama Canal Company to go to Colon anu make an estimate on the cost of turning the Chagres River and converting its bed into a caual channel, with the aid of five looks. The theory seems to be that what French engineering failed in American skill may finish. But Col. Frank McLaughlin, the Feather River manipulator and mountain borer, has said: “No, I thank you; the United States are good enough for me!" New York Sohool says that Edward, Dukeof Clarence, would, had he become king, have revived those old English names that have not been associated with English sovereigns for several centuries. As Edward he would have been the seventh of that name, Edward VI having followed Henry VIII, but as Clarence he would hove been the first of that name to reign, the Clarences never having reached the throne. Now the line of succession goes to his brother George, and the Georges have been most frequent since the House of Hanover began to reign. Through Victoria, whose father was the Duke of Kent and son of George 111. tho kiuship passes to Charles I, Mary, Dueen of Scots, Elizabeth, and back through the Tudors and Plantagenets to William the Conqueror, spanning the period of English and modern history.

The mining-camp depicted by Bret Harto seems to be a thing of the past. The rush to Cripple Creek, the new gold mines in Colorado, should logically have produced those crude frontier types which Mr. Harte has immortalized, but the Cripple Creek Crusher reports: “Thus far tho Crusher is proud of Cripple Creek from a moral standpoint. Through all the mad rush and wild excitement there have been no murders or serious quarrels. The camp has been exceedingly fortunate in securing a class cf people that are here for legitimate business, prompted by honest motives. As a rule, every man attends strictly to bis own business. We are free from the baneful influences of the tinhorn and the thug. The record seems all the more remarkable from the fuct that as yet our town has no municipal government, and the rules of the camp have but lately been adopted, and are not known to a large number of our people. The saloons and gambling-houses are orderly and quiet. No camp in the State can boast of a higher degree of intelligence and manhood than characterize the people of Cripple Creek, and no camp has >een pushed into prominence more rapidly or systematically as the result of such intelligence.” Probably no city in the United States is so well known to army officers as St. Louis. As early as 1826 Jefferson Baracks were established there, and up to the civil war St. Louis was a rendezvous for troops ordered to the West. During the war armies wore recruited and equipped for the field there. Grant lived in St. Louis for many years before the war, and Sherman for many years after it. Sheridan left St. Louis as a captain of infantry under General Nathaniel Lyon to march on Springfield, mo., in 1861. General John M. Schofield was stationed in St. Louis when the war broke out. Generals Grant, Hancock, and Eugene A. Carr married St. Louis belles. In short, our army officers have many pleasant as well as turbulent memories of St. Louis. But when department headquarters were removed I'rom the citv last autumn, St. Louis's glory as a military station began to fade. Jefferson Barracks and the Arsenal at Carondelet have been turned into cloth-ing-depots for the army, and the only garrison left is a siugle company. A recruiting office is still maintained. The quarters ut the barracks are old, and in some cases dismantled. But the reservation on which the barracks stand is one of the most beautiful in the possession of the Government, consisting of 1,200 acres of grass and park. The people of Cochise County, Ariz., have suffered terribly from Apache raids. Of the last Legislature the county asked but ono thing—that a company of rangers be organized tojprotect settlers. A rill empowering the Governor to issue a call ana equip a company, when, in his opinion, its services were needed, was rassed; but, although several murders lave been committed by the Apaches since the adjournment of tho Legislature, Governor Irwin has done nothing. The citizens have now taken the matter up themselves in grim-earnest. Four bloodhounds have been imported from the Texas penitentiary at Huntsville, and it is nroposed to track the Indians and exterminate them with the aid of theso dogs. The hounds are to be taken into the Chiricahua Mountains in Arizona, where Masse and Kid, the leaders ot the band of murderers,- have their headquarters. At intervals they sally out, ■twoop down on unprotected settlers, kill them, seize their stock, and return to the nountain fastnesses. If hard pressed, be Apaches sometimes cross the border into Mexico and make for the wilder ■sierra Madres. Tho bloodhounds selected by the Cochise citizens are oiossed vith fox hounds, and their scent is said r o be superior to that of the pure bloodhound. Governor Irwin will now be tsked to 00-operate in the work of extern i nos ion by organizing a company of r-ncers.