Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 April 1892 — Tariffs and Exports. [ARTICLE]

Tariffs and Exports.

The advocates of a high tariff have been doing their best to show that our export trade has not decreased since tho enactment of the McKinley tariff law. Their object is, of c ourse, to prove that a high taiiff on imported goods received in payment for exported goods does not cut down export trade. The returns of our export trade for the seven months ending* with Jan. 31 last, as compared with the same months last year, is a complete proof that hi jh tariffs do decrease exports. Our exports have been as follows: 1831, 1892, Products of— Seven months. Seven months. Agriculture $107,991,959 $513,531, <69 Mining 12,930,830 12,024,258 Forest 16,971,213 13,492,013 .fisheries 4,039,391 3,733,871 Manufactures 97,188,098 98,101,074 Miscellaneous 1,914,869 2,412,849 Total $311,102,310 $643,343;857 Total excopt of agriculture $133,110,331 $120,754,566 Bread,tiff* $ 67,634,073 $198,546,034 Agriculture except breadstuff* $340,357,896 $220,042,255

To be sura there has bean a large Increase in the sum total cf reports, but this increase has been made up entirely of wheat and other breadstuffs. In fact, the total exports of all other goods other than products of agriculture have decreased over four and a half millions. At the same time all agricultural products other than breadstufs have fallen off over twenty miliionf. It will be seen, therefore, that the only increase has been in breadstuffs, and since European crops were largely a failure in 1891 not even a total prolibition of imports could have prevented the starving people of Europe from buying our^breadstuffs. As a matter of fact, therefore, these figures are a complete refutation of the claim that a high tariff does not injuriously offset our expert trade. Pets on Men-of-i War. On board a man-of-war there are usually several pets. TJieir presence is not frowned upon by the authorities, for the life of a sai or is monotonus, and a harmless diversion is welcome to both officers and. men. Some one of these pets is usually a favorite, and is recogiized by all, from the captain to the apprentice boy, as the ship’s maskot, says the New York News. The (cruiser Baltimore has for her mascot, i goat. When was put in commission he was duly entered on the ship’s papers as “'William Goat.” He is an old salt, having been brought up in Uncle Sam’s navy from a kid. The first cutter is the only boat in which he will allow himself to he taken ashore. He listens to the service every Sunday morning in a[i exemplary manner. The Richmond kad at one time a hog for a mascot. He used to take a bath every morniig, and always presented an attractive exterior. His favorite amusement was to pace the deck half the night with the precision of an officer of the watch. When he got almost too fat to move he was allowed to die a natural death. His shipmates would have regarded it as cannibalism to send him to the cook’s coppers. As for eating a rasher Of what they took price In, They’d as soon think cf eatnig The pan it was fried in| Monkeys are common on board ships serving in tropical and semi-tropical waters. The Yorktown, the Yantlc and some other ships carry mastiffs. Many carry cats, and Cape pigeons are pets with the vessels on the Pacific statioi^ The*Chicago, the flagship of the White Squadron, now in South American waters, has a pet parrot. It has hut one grave fault for a sea-going bird. It has learned several words of command, and can imitate the voice of nearly every officer ou board. Its delight is to yell out when the men are at dinner, “All the first cutters”—accompanying the words with an excellent imitation of the boatswain’s pipe—and send the crew tumbling up from below. When the Thetis was in the Arctic she had a seal for a pet, but soon tired of it. All it would do was to eat sejen meals a day, bathe in a tub and lie on its side on the deck to be scratched and petted. All attempts to make a learned seal of it were utter failures.