Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 February 1893 — NOTES AND COMMENTS. [ARTICLE]

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

As is to be expected at this season of the year, many reports of losses by fire are coming to hand. Some of these losses are from the nature of the case, inevitable, but by fur the greater proportion of them could be prevented by the exercise of common prudence. A later paper gives an account of the burning of a livery stable and the loss, by this fire, of five valuable trotters. There was no mystery about the origin of the fire. It was pure carelessness on the part of some person at present unknown. This party dropped a parlor match on the floor and was to heedless to pick it up. A horse stepped on this match, ignited it, and in less time than it takes to write about it the stable was in flames. With slight variations nearly every prominent paper has a similar story to tell. Heavy financial loss is involved and in many of the cases animals are fearfully tortured. Sometimes human lives are also sacrificed. These seem like severe penalties, but they are the result of the violation of certain natural laws which man cannot set aside. The only way to prevent their infliction is to be careful to avoid all causes of fires where the fires themselves are not desired.

Most of the steamers plying between Germany and this country bring, among other things, consignments of songbirds, such as canaries and linnets. According to information given by a correspondent, there must have occurred the escape from some Reamer inward bound, sailing close to the shore, of a large number of those songsters. In November, during gentle southerly weather, canaries aud linnets came from seaward to the mainland on the south side of Long Island, between the Forge River and East Moriches Life Stations. Many must have quickly perished, but numerous others were captured. They were greatly fatigued, and famished for food and water. The correspondent who gives this information secured a canary which flew into his house. The bird is still in his possession, and has developed into a fine singer. Possibly the officers of some steamer inward bound from Germany may be able to recall the escape of the birds referred to. If so, it would be interesting to know at what distance from land they commenced their flight.

Tasmania has a climate favorable for the growth of apples. The producers grow only the varieties best fitted for a long journey and the requirements of the English market, and they are instructed and assisted by Government inspectors. The quantity sent to London last year was 200,000 bushels, and for the next season all the available space in the cool storage chambers of the steamships has been engaged. The freight charges are heavy—about sl.lO per bushel—but the fruit arrives in England at a time when no other apples are in the market. Pears and oranges have been sent successfully, but in small quantities, and an attempt will be made to put grapes on the London market in February. Honey is exported from New-Zealand, and arrangements have recently been made for supplies of black ducks, teal, and pigeons to arrive in London from New South Wales, during the months of January, February, and March, at the rate of 1,000 birds per week. A serious famine prevails in Finland, aud advices from several sources state that a large proportion of the inhabitants of that country are perilously near starvation. Two hundred thousand persons of a total population of 2,000,000 are entirely destitute, and before the winter ends it is expected that onefourth of the whole number of inhabitants will be in a similar sad plight. The Finns have hard work to make a living at tr.e best of times, because of the poorsoil aud rigorous climate. Last summer the potato and rye crops were either destroyed or seriously damaged by constant night frosts in July. August, and September. Many districts known to be in great distress are now. isolated by snow and ice, and in others the inhabitants are existing on bread composed largely or wholly of birch bark. The Finnish Senate has voted several million marks for the reliefof the sufferers, and a Government committee i 9 trying to cope with the distress, but it’is said further help is urgently needed by the people. Tub Barzilians, now that they have a new form of government, have decided that they want a new capital. And, says the Argosy, they have gone about getting one in quite business-like fashion. None of the other cities of the republic suit them, so they propose to found and build one to order. A special commission has been appointed, consisting of five civil engineers, two astronomers, a naturalist, and an expert in hygiene. They hope to find a site that will possess such a combination of advantages that there will be nothing to hinder the new city’s becoming the metropolis of South America. The- result of this novel way of securing a capital for a country will be watched with interest. The summary manner in which the Brazilians have set about the matter reminds one of town building in the mining regions of the far West.

The financial value of technical training in the United States is illustrated by the fact that engineer officers of the navy frequently resign their commissions to accept profitable employment with large manufacturing concerns. A man armed with the training and technical education of a naval engineer can command in civil life a salary from two to five times as grei tas his pay in the navy. Engineers must serve for the greater part of their lives for less than $5,000 a year, and the number to pass $6,000 must be exceedingly small. The plums that await such men in civil life are of a sort to prove a serious temptation to all who feel the necessity of a large income, and it is only the ease and dignity of a naval life that keep skilled engineers in the service. The Rev. Father Callaghan of the Mission of Our I.udy of the Rosary, New York, has received a novel request from Hotel Keeper Dineen of Huron, South Dakota, through Father Brown of St. Vincent’s Curch, at Springfield, South Dakota. Mr. Dineen said he and neighbors wanted a car load of marriageable Irish girls shipped to Huron. Mr. Dineen said that husbands were as abundant as blackberries in J.uly, and land could be had for the asking in South Dakota. Those who were not anxious to marry at once could get steady employment and good wages for an indefinite period. Washington State is quarrying a monolith which is to be the largest ever cut in this country, and twenty feet longer than the much-talked-about monolith Wisconsin has prepared for the Chicago Fair. It will be taken from a quarry near Tacoma, and will be 130 feet long, or high, and four feet square at the base, and will be set up at Chicago alongside the largest flagstaff ever raised in America, which is also to come from Washington. The beautifully embroidered band trimmings for dresses for all occasions are extremely fashionable, and likely to continue so. The embroidery is executed in Byzantine, Turkish, and Persian styles, with colored metal and gold and silver thread.