Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 June 1893 — NOTES AMD COMMENTS. [ARTICLE]

NOTES AMD COMMENTS.

The American Cultivator ciaims that "the white man’s covetousness of lands owned by Indians has probably always exaggerated their value. Certain it is that in most parts where forests had to be cleared off the land today only represents the cost of improvements made on -it. By this rule the unimproved land as held by the Indians had little or no appreciable value. It may prove the same with some of the Western Indian reservations only lately brought into market. While out of reach the Cherokee strip was fondly pictured as the finest agricultural country that the sun ever shone upon. The Indians at least sold it under this impression for a pretty good sum of money. Now it appears to have been a mistake. Much of the land will not be taken up, for the reason that, if preempted, nobody would be likely soon to come along and pay a big price for it. The Western boomer stops his booming if he finds it does not induce an Eastern tenderfoot to come along and buy his property at the boom prices. Too much Eastern capital has gone in that way already. The whole country will be richer if more Eastern capital stays at home to develop the resources of the communities where it was made.”

In a recent work on criminology, the learned investigator says that out of ninety-eight young men criminals fortyfour per cent, did not blush when examined. Of one hundred and twent-two female criminals, eighty-one per cent, did not blush. If our novels are to keep up with science, they must change their indicia of emotion. It must be the men who blush and the other sex whose sensitiveness must not be a regular feature. Leander blushes as he declares himself or is suddenly brought up against a sentimental outcrop. But Hero takes it calmly. The scientist also notices that women blush about the ears rather than on the.cheek. This, also, requires a change in the novels. It is a pointer, too, for the ladies’ man who is watching for signs that he is making an impression. If he fastens his gaze upon the left ear. he may see something that will tell him he may consider himself happy. In reference to the viking ship that has been constructed at the World’s Fair and modeled after the one dug up at Goking in 1880, it may be of interest to know that the etymologists have had a severe wrestle with the problem of the derivation of the word “viking.” There used to be a current popular notion that the word had something to do with king, and it had a correspondingly lordly promiueuce in vocabularies. Then an iconoclastic philologist came along and proved convincingly that the word meant simply a predatory sea robber who dwelt in a vik, or village, by the sea and made piratical excursions therefrom. The latest authorities derive it from the Icelandic vig, a warrior, and thereby restore the word to some of its old-time glory. It is a curious fact that, while the westward movement of the population has covered no less than !) 1-8 degrees of longitude (9 degrees, 21 minutes, 7 seconds), this movement has run almost on a straight line, the extreme northern and southern variation embracing less than one-third of a degree of latitude (18 minutes, 56 seconds). To put the contrast more distinctly, we may say that, while the western movement for the century aggregates 505 miles, the extreme northern and southern variation is a little under twenty-two miles, and the finishing point of the line is only some six miles south of the starting point. A weld-known New York physician says that he gives bread pills and sugar pills in his practice to compose the nerves and stimulate a belief that they are gettingbetter in people who have nothing the matter with them. Chronic invalids, lie says, are to be found chiefly among people who have nothing to think about but their livers, and they devote their minds to their aches and pains with great assiduity. He would like to recommend work, but he knows that his hypochondriac patients would get angry at such a suggestion, and would engage another physician. There can scarcely be a better gauge of the general prosperity of the State than the amount of the savings of the great class of wageworkers and persons receiving salaries. These people comprise the bulk of the savings-bank depositor*. According to the report of the Superintendent of Banking, issued recently, there was an increase in the deposits last year, as compared with the previous year, of nearly $41,000,000. A natural element by which the city of Boise, Idaho, derives a great benefit, is a great volume of hot water that gushes out of several deep artesian wells. The water possesses no medicinal value, but a six-inch pipe has been laid from the springs into the city, and hot water will oe conducted into nearly every residence and business house in the city. The cost of heating with hot water is estimated to be 50 per cent, less than with coal.