Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 July 1892 — Page 4 Advertisements Column 2 [ADVERTISEMENT]

waukei by the payment of $3,000 t< the accused person. At a receptior given by fashionable people in th« latter city a set of silver teaspoons was missed, and one of the ladies invited to assist the host was chargee by the latter with stealing them. Mrs. Chandler caused the arrest el Miss Laurence for the theft, but sub sequently lacked courage to continue the prosecution. The spoons were found to have bee*i accidentally taken to a caterer’s, and Mrs. Chandler, 'bo* ing sued by Miss Laurence for $5,000, has compromised for three-fifths of it. There is comfort in the reflection that if fashionable American women must imitate fashionable English women in some respects there is no evidence yet that the imitation can be carried to the pitch of stealing.

Since it is becoming more and more the fashion that the account between husband and wife in cases of marital infidelity shall be settled with the pistol, it would, perhaps, be well to insist upon an accurate knowledge of the use of fire-arms as an essential condition of marriage. It is certainly needlessly cruel to do the thing up bunglingly when called upon to shoot the betrayer of one’s honor. Take, for instance, the case in Paris, where a lady of the first social rank disposed of the woman with whom the husband had been guilty. The outraged wife fired five shots from a revolver into the victim, and even then did not succeed in killing her on the spot. The wretched creature lingered in agony for some hours. Since society seems inclined to regard the shooting as perfectly proper under the circumstances, and indeed as in “very good form,” it certainly should encourage the instruction necessary to the better aim in the first place, may be right to kill, but it is not contended, so far as we have heard, that it is right to torture.

An accident occurred to a cabman in Chicago which seems so reasonable and logical in its nature one wonders that he does not read of such mishaps every day. Some portion of the harness gave way and the shafts shot into a perpendicular position. The jehu, as a natural consequence, found himself precipitated upon the hard pavement with painful emphasis. This accident calls fresh attention to a well-known fact—namely, that the hansom cab is the most uncouth, uncomfortable, unreliable and ridiculous nightmare of a vehicle ever devised by a depraved inventive genius. It is a sort of balancing machine with the horse at one end and the driver at the other. When the driver is a heavy man, one can imagine the difficulty with which the poor animal catches bis hoofs into the cobblestones as he pulls his load along. As for the upending feature, there is no reason why a passenger should not consider such a diversion possilfle at any moment. That cabs have not hitherto turned upside down with frequency can be attributed to nc other reason than public good luck.

Froji Montreal comes the information that a number of Canadian capitalists have seriously taken in hand the project of connecting the Georgian Bay and Lake Ontario by means of a ship railway. There was talk of this before the Tehuantepec scheme received its quietus by the death of Captain Eads, but never until now as anything more than a possibility. It is now stated that E. L. Corthell, a Chicago civil engineer who was associated with Captain Eads in the Tehuantepec business, has just made a thorough inspection of the proposed route from a point near Colllngwood to another near Toronto, a distance of about sixty-six miles, and pronounced it entirely and easily practicable. The plan is for a roadbed of fifty feet with six steel tracks, and the estimated cos,t is not more than $15,500,000 for a road capable of carrying vessels up to 5,000 tons burden. A corporation called the Hurontario Ship Railway Company has been organized to carry this project through. When that is done and some improvements in navigation of channels connecting the lakfes and of the St. Lawrence River are made the traveler can take ship in the port of Chicago and sail to any seaport on the globe, sixty-six miles of the distance overland, without leaving his vessel. This may be done before the century is out. Then look for the Tehuantepec ship railway, unless in the meantime the Nicaragua canal comes in to meet all the requirements of commerce in that quarter. Truly this is a century of wonders, and those who shall be octogenarians at its close will have seen greater things than have been seen in any other country since the earliest record of history