Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 January 1894 — Page 5

A GLANCE AT MOROCCO.

THE WORLD’S MOST COMPLETE DESPOTISM. One of the Mandates of Its Ruler to That His Subjects Shall Obey All Foreigners—Atrocious Cruelties. It hst been often remarked of late that the Ess per or of Morocco is about the most absolutely despotic monarch of whom the world knows anything in these days. He has Ministers, but they are merely his favorites for the time being, and subject to his whim. He bss no laws to bother him save his will, and no precedents to respect or unpopular representatives to fear. He, himself, .is law and justice, and 3,000,000 people hold their lives and property subject to his nod. And yet hie power is in many directions very narrowly circumscribed. The representatives of foreign nations have very diligently cut his claws. They have taken the natives under consular protection so freely that Emperor Muley Hassan must frequently have wondered whether or no he has any subjects to punish in that portion of his domains occupied by the foreigners. That is a good thing in its way, but a few years ago there wae an angry dispute when it was found that, though there were only three Americans in Morocco, our consul there had made 150 American citizens out of the natives, that he himself insisted upon being their judge, and that he was in the habit of thrusting into prison anybody against whom they made complaint. The Emperor has been frightened out of his wits by these proceedings, fearing that they might lead to the dismemberment of his empire; and a few years ago he ordered his subjects implicitly to obey all foreigners and all people protected by them. Dark crimes against person and property have been committed under this sanction, and many of these shrewd proteges, and not a few consuls as well have grown rich from it. Though the Moors have been nominal rulers of Morocco for 400 years they have never really been rulers of the whole country. The native Berbers were driven to the mountains, and there they have ever since remained, defiant and unconquered, and the emperors of Morocco have been glad enough to lot them alone. The Kahyles of the Riff coast, who recently opposed the Spaniards at Melilla, belong to his stock, and Muley Hassan can in no way control them. They are a far superior lace to the Moors, who are in fact largely Arabs diluted with Spanish and other blood.

Humnn slavery flourishes openly and without hindrance there, even in tne accessible cities, and almost within sight of Gibraltar; while the poor Jews, almost the only thrifty and peaceful element of the urban populations, are bled most unmercifully. Morocco is a fertile country, and rich in copper and other minerals. But the government will neither develop these resources itself,nor allow anybody else to do so. The Moors lack the foresight needful for agriculturists, and they never plant or gather enough to carry them through till the succeeding season, so that one bad harvest means great suffering. The spirit of the Arabs is inherently antagonistic to Christian civilization, and were it not so the Government of Morocco would make thrift and industry impossible. Fez might readily be brought into direct steam communication with the world by means of the Sebou River. Instead, it was until very recent years almost an unknown city. There is not a highway worthy of the name leading from it. Indeed, there are said to be only two wagons in all Morocco. One is the coach presented by Queen Victoria to Muley Hassan a few years ago. He uses it, though he makes the driver walk, since no man must sit above the Emperor. The young Hessian prince, who fifty years ago took the first carriage to Tangiers, was only permitted to use it after he had taken off its wheels. There is no regular means for the dis tribution of justice and none for the collection of taxes When the Emperor needs money he directs the pashas to collect the tenth prescribed by the Koran. The pashas add a tenth for themselves, and the actual collectors put on another tenth for their trouble. If there is any suspicion that the man is not paying all he ought, the torture is a prompt and efficacious way of increasing the pile.

J ustice is openly sold to the highest bidder, and to be accused of an offense against the government is to entail confiscation of all visible property, whether found guilty or not. It is not to be wondered at, then, that the inhabitants of Morocco live in squalor; that they bury their money whenever they think they can safely do so; that they wear dilapidated clothes and let their houses go to decay. To show any evidence of wealth is to invite misery and perhaps death. RoastiDg, stretching, pinching, whipping, branding and mutilating are familiar forms of punishment in Morocco. Revolts are put down by wholesale massacres. Slow beheading with butchers’ knives and daggers in the public street are of common occurrence. Theft is punished by cutting off the right hand; eyes are torn put. ears and noses are cut off for various offenses, and the bodies of the poor are mutilated in still more horrible ways. Nor does conviction always precede punishment. It is ordinarily quite sufficient to have been accused, if the persecutor be a person of consequence.—[New York Press.

MISPRINTS IN THE BIBLE.

Curious Errors Which Have Been Found iu Editions of Holy Writ. Many lists of misprints in the Bible have been printed, but the following, compiled by the Brooklyn Eagle, is probably the best in existence: The Breeches Bible is so named because it contains the phrase, “They sewed figge tree leaves together, and made themse' ves bi eeches. ” Genesis 3:7. Printed in 1506. The Bug Bible: “So that thou shalt not nede to be afraid for any Bugges by night, nor for the arrow that flyeth by day." Psalms 91:5. Printed in 1561. The Treacle Bible: “Is there not treacle in Gilead?” Jeremiah 8:22. Printed in 1568. The Rosin Bible, printed in 1603, translates the same verse, “Is there no rosin in Gilead?" The Plaeemaker’s Bible: “Blessed are the placemakers." Mattnews:9. 1561-2. The Vinegar Bible: “The Parable of the Vinegar” appears instead of “The Parable of the Vineyard," as a chapterheading to Luke 20 in an Oxford edition published in 1717. Ear-to-Ear Bible: “Who hath eats to ear, “let him hear.’’ Matthew 13: Ttelffanding Fishes Bible:.“And it shall come to pass that the fishes will stand upon it.’’ Ezekiel 47:10. 1806. The Discharge Bible: “I discharge thee before God.” I, Timothy 5:21. 1806. The Wife-Hater Bible: “If any man

come to Me and hate not his father * * * yea, and his own wife also,” etc. Luke 14:36. 1810. Rebekah's Camels Bible: “And Rebekah arose and her camels.’’ Genesis 24:61. 1823. To-Remain Bible. "Persecuted him that was born after the spirit to remain, even so it is now." Galatians ▼.: 29. When this bible was in the press at Cambridge the proofreader, in doubt whether be should remove a comma, applied to his superior, who penciled on the margin these words, “To remain.” This reply was thus transferred to the body of the text. The Wicked Bible, printed in London in 1632, was so called because the negaation was omitted in the seventh commandment, thus placing an awful injunction on the faithful. The Printers’ Bible makes David pathetically complain that printers (instead of princes) have persecuted without a cause. The He and She Bible: From the respective readings of Ruth iii.; 15, one reading that “she went into the city,*'' the other has it “he went.” 1611. The Thumb .Bible, being one inch square and half an inch thick, was published in Aberdeen, 1670. The Murderers’ Bible, so called from an error in Jude, verse 16, the word “murderers" being used for “murmurers.” 1801. Wieiix’s Bible : The edition of this Bible contains a plate by John Wierix, representing the feast of Dives with Lazarus at his door. In the rich man’s banqueting room there is a dwarf playing with a monkey, to contribute to the merriment of the company, according to the custom amoDg the people of rank in the sixteenth century.

FAMOUS METEORIC STONES.

The Largest Known Weighs 50,000 Pouuds. A meteoric stone, which is described by Pliny as being as large as a wagon, fell near Aegospotami, in Asia Minor, in 467 B. C. About A. D. 1500, a stone weighing 1,400 pound, fell in Mexico, and is now in the Smithsonian Institute at Washington. The largest meteoric masses on record were heard of first by Captain Ross, the Arctic explorer, through some Esquimaux. These lay on the west coast of Greenland, and were subsequently found by the Swedish exploring party of 1870. One of them, now in the Royal Museum of Stockholm, weighs over 50,000 pounds and is the largest specimen known. Two remarkable meteorites have fallen in lowa within the past twenty years. February 12, 1875, an exceedingly brilliant meteor, in the form of an elongated horse-shoe, was seen throughout a region of at least 400 miles in length and 250 in breadth, lying in Missouri and lowa. It is described as “without a tail, but having a flowing jacket of flame. Detonations were heard so violent as to shake the earth and to jar the windows like the shock of an earthquake,” as it fell about 10:30 p.m., a few miles east of Marengo, lowa. The ground for the space of seven miles in length by two to four miles in breadth was strewn with, fragments of this meteor varying in weight from a few ounces to seventy-four pounds. On May 10, 1870, a large and extraordinary luminous meteor exploded with terrific noise, followed at slight intervals with less violent detonations, aud struck the earth in the edge of a ravine near Estherville, Emmet County, lowa, penetrating to a depth of fourteen feet. Within two miles other fragments were found, one of which weighed 170 pounds and another 32 pounds. The principal mass weighed 431 pounds. All the discovered parts aggregated about 640 pounds. The one of 170 pounds is now in the cabinet of the State University of Minnesota. The composition of this aerolite is peculiar in many respects, but as in nearly all aerolites there is a considerable proportion of iron and nickel. It is generally held that meteors at one time or another formed integral parts of a comet. The meteor enters the earth’s atmosphere from without with a velocity relative to the earth that is comparable with the earth’s velocity in its orbit, which is nineteen miles per second. By the resistance it meets in penetrating the air the light and jhe other phenomena of the luminous ‘fraia are produced. Many small meteorites are undoubtedly consumed by this friction, before they reach the earth’s surface.

How Old Is the Human Race?

The fullest answer that science can yet give to the three most interesting questions perhaps ever asked in the world are explained by Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, the ethnologist. These questions are: “When did the first man appear?” “By what process did he appear?" and “Where did he appear?” Summing up all that geologists and anthropologists know, he appeared certainly 50,000 years ago, and it may be as many as 200,000 years ago. The evidences of his existence which date back 50,000 years are unmistakable. By what process he came into being science has no definite answer. If it refuse to accept the doctrine of specific creation it must refuse also, for lack of complete evidence, to accept the doctrine of gradual evolution—the old Darwinian doctrine. Dr. Brinton thinks the theory of “evolution by a leap” is as good as any other theory. According to this, man sprang from some high order of mammal, the great tree ape, perhaps, by a freak, just as men of genius are freaks, and as all the vegetable and animal kingdom show freaks. As to where man first appeared, it is beyond doubt that his earliest home was in Southern Europe, or Asia, or North Africa. No earlier traces of him have been found than those found in the area that is now England, France, and Spain.—[Forum.

Presence of Mind in the Pulpit.

Frederick the Great, being informed of the death of one of his ohaplains, a man of considerable learning and piety, determined to select a successor with the same qualifications, and took the following method of ascertaining the merit of one of the numerous candidates for the appointment. He told the applicant that he would furnish him with a text tlie following Sunday, when he was to preach at the Royal Chapel. The morning came, and the chapel was crowded to excess. The King arrived at the end of the prayers; and on the candidate ascending the pulpit he was presented with a sealed paper by one of his majesty’s aides-de-camp. The preaoher opened it, and found nothing written. He did not, however* lose his presence of mind; but, turning the paper on both sides, he said: “My brethren, hero is nothing, and there is nothing; out of nothing God created all things;” and proceeded to deliver a most eloquent discourse on the wopders of the creation.—[Sala’s Journal. There are a million more men than women in the United States.

SOMEWHAT STRANGE.

ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS OF EVERYDAY LIFE. Queer Facts and Thrilling Adventures which Show That Truth to Stranger Than Fiction. Ljkutk.kant Boyi.e T. Somerville, of the English Navy, recently returned from the Hebrides Islands, tells the following interesting tale regarding the work of a professional native rainmaker: Towards the end of the year, just after yam planting, there came an unusual period of drought, so that an inland tribe in the island of Ambrym went to its rainmaker and demanded his immediate attention thereto. He at once set to work to weave a sort of hurdle of the branches and leaves of a tree famed for itsrain-producingqualities, which, being finished, was placed, with proper ino&ntations, at the bottom of what should ■have been a water-hole in the now parched bed of the mountain torrent. There it was then held in place with stones. Down came the rain, nor did it cease for forty-eight hours, by which time it had become too much of a good thing. Soon the rain-producing hurdle was quite ten feet under water in the seething torrent, and the people, much to their dismay, saw that their yams and the surrounding earth were beginning to wash away down the hillsides. The lieutenant continues: “Now mark what comes of fooling with the elements 1 No man of the hill country was able to dive to the bottom of the water-hole to pull up the hurdle with its weight of stones, so the merciless rain still held on. At last the shore natives, accustomed to swimming and diving, heard what the matter was, and some of them coming to the assistance, the compeller of the elements was recovered from its watery bed and—the rain stopped.” It is such a coincidence as this, happening perhaps once in a decade, which causes this people, now thoroughly Christianized, to refuse to give up their rain doctors, although all other outward forms of rank superstition appear to be freely abandoned.

There lately oalled upon Prof. Cocsar Lombroso, of the University of Turin, a well-dressed, pleasant-mannered young man, who represented that his wife was the victim of an extreme case of kleptomania, public shops, private houses—her own house even—being open fields to her in which to lay hands on the belongings of pthers. Previous medical treatment had failed; the aid of the great doctor was solicited. By appointment the patient, a beautiful and engagingly frank young woman, was brought to Lombroso’s office the next day But while consultation was in progress between the distressed husband and the Doctor they detected the fair patient appropriating a gold statuette and a photograph framed in brilliants; and finally, in the act of bidding the Doctor good day, she adroitly relieved him of a valuable scarf pin. In an aside the distressed husband said: “You see for yourself how possessed she is with the thieving instinct, I will bring you back all the missing articles to-morrow at any hour you may appoint, when you will kindly give me your opinion of the case and advise me what to do.” The failure of the heartbroken man to appear with the valuables on the morrow, ana the fact that a fair proportion of the physicians of the South of France and most of Italy are also patiently waiting to advise him how to treat his afflicted wife, who “borrowed” valuables of them also, leads Dr. Lombroso to the conviction that this was rather the most uniaue case of kleptomania yet brought to nis notice.

Laborers were excavating in the cellar of the Forty-seventh Regiment Armory, in Brooklyn, N. Y., when they came upon an extraordinary sight. A workman removed some debris with his piok, and saw before him a cat with its tail in the air, its ears bent back, and its spine arched.. He said “Shew, there!” But the cat remained motionless. The laborers ran up to see the cat. They found that it had turned to stone. It looked as natural as life. The head and legs, the arched spine and the tail were perfect. It was a petrified eat. How it came there and how it got petrified is a mystery. Inquiry was made. It was learned that Wiiliam Godfrey, who wa3 the armorer of the regiment ten years ago, had a pet cat. In the year 1883 the cat disappeared. The armorer thought so much of the oat that he offered a reward for its return. No trace of the lost cat was found. It is supposed that the cat ran under the cellar floor of the armory in pursuit of a rat. In its eagerness it entered some small aperture, from which it found retreat impossible, and perished inside. There were small springs in the ground and the earth was impregnated with lime. As the cat withered away, particle by particle, the lime in solution was deposited in place of the tissue, and in a few years the cat was stone. The petrified cat is now on exhibition in the armory.

F. C. Gunning, an engineer who has just come back from Mexico, says that the Chinese problem is rapidly forging to the front in that country. He says: “The Mexican is ordinarily an easy-going, lnxury-loving, cigarette-smoking individual, who, when he comes into contact with the abstemious, industrious, and frugal Chinaman, is simply lost. The Chinese are fast becoming controllers of the small shop trade of Mexico. A Chinaman will set up bis little store next door to a Mexican and will run him out of business in a year. I’ve seen it done a hundred times. But what is setting the Mexican to thinking is the fact that the Chinaman is marrying the pick of the Mexican girls. Truth! I had a talk with a beautiful girl, whose husband was a big laundryman at Guaymas. She Etit the thing in a nutshell when I asked er how she came to marry a celestial. ‘lf I had married a Mexican of my own class’, said she, ‘I would have had to work like a slave, and, like as not, been beaten every other day. Now I have my carriage and horses, am made a very queen in' my household, am forbidden to work. My husband is most considerate and really worships me. There are a number of girls here who are married to* Chinamen and we have a delightful little society of lour own. Was I not right, signor?’ ” A London laundryman says that the use of shirt cuffs for jotting down memoranda ismore common than is, perhaps, commonly supposed. He related how, one day, a young fellow drove up in a cab and rushed into the office in great excitement, asking whether some shirts deposited in the name of L. had been washed. We found they had not, and as the owner turned them over in feverish haste, be fairly yelled with joy, pointing to a little column of figures on the left cuff of one, Which he explained were the numbers of eight £lO bank notes, which had been lost or stolen, and had the shirts been washed, all hopes of ever getting them back must have been abandoned; they were, however, bucujbsfully traded and recovered a few days

later. The cuffs of Stock Exchange men are often covered with mysterious characters—presumably indications of the stock market, and the “Ups” found on the wrist linen of racing men were actually taken advantage of by the irongirls on one or two occasions with success. It is is not yet recorded, however, that the mannish young woman has taken to “cuff jotting,” as die has to cuff and shirt wearing. la a Philadelphia shop window a unique old relic of a piano is displayed, bearing the following inscripUon: “John Jacob Astor sold this piano to one of the first families of New York more than a century ago. Mr. Astor is believed to have been tne first piano dealer in the United States.” Then follows a copy of an advertisement in a New York paper, dated January 10, 1780. It reads: “J. Jacob Astor, at No. 81 Queen street, next door but one to the Friends’ Meeting House, has for sale an assortment of pianofortes of the newest construction, made by the best makers of London, which he will sell on reasonable terms. He gives cash for all kinds of furs, and hat for sale a quantity of Canadian beaver and Canada coatings, raccoon skins, muskrat skins, etc.” Peter Neary, of Newark, N. J., had a billy goat and & ten-dollar greenback. Billy and the bill had a meeting, and, following tho fashion of the period, effected a con solidation; that is to say, the goat chewed and swallowed the bank note. This arrangement was made without Mr. Neary’s consent, and he moved instantly for a dissolution of partnership by killing the goat and recovering the fragments of the bill. These were sent to the Treasury, and it seems that there was enough left to identify the note, and so a few days ago Mr. Neary received a brand new $lO note in return, and is only out to the extent of a goat. James Farren, an 84-year-old hunter of Jackson County, Wash., came back from a trip in the mountains a few days ago bearing a good-sized cougar skin. He was hunting for bear, so ho says, when the cougar, whose hidp measures just seven feet in length, appeared in bis path. He hadn’t much ammunition, and wanted it all for the bears, whose tracks he was following, so he snatched up a piece of rook and hurled it at the cougar. It struck the animal on the head, stunning it, and before it could recover Farren jumped upon it and slit its throat with his knife.

The Sudese are an interesting body of African women who arrive at Bombay as sailors and stokers on steamships. They perform the duties of these positions admirably enough, and they yield implicit obedience to their queen, whose name is Sophia. Whea there is a fight she decides which side her subjects shall take. In the recent riots she took the Eart of a loyal subject of England, aud ade her underlings battle for the Government. Lord Harris, in his report, honors her especially. Empress Elizabeth of Austria recently was out riding and noticed a pile of stones placed aoross the track over which the Buda-Pesth express was to pass in a few minutes. Springing from her horse, she ordered the groom attending her to remove tho obstruction, she herself assisting him. The work was hardly completed when the train, crowded with passengers, passed over the spot

A big deer happened casually upon the town of Nehalem,Ore., last week, trotted the length of the main business street, meandered into the back yard of a citizen’s house, ambled through the house and out of the front door, and then trotted out of the city limits. The incident excited no particular interest. A dentist at Birmingham, Eng., has just been mulcted in $250 damages for the extraction of the whole of the teeth of a married woman. She only asked him to extract one tooth. Previous to the operation she testified she could eat a crust or pick a bone with anyone. A London merchant is utilizing the phonograph in his business. While he is driving to his place of business in his carriage ne, talks his instructions into one of the machines, and when he arrives he gives it to his head clerk, who makes it repeat them. Much surprise was caused at Lincoln, Neb., recently by the Rev. Simon Roundtree, a colored Baptist preacher, aged 99 years, getting married for the eighth time. His latest wife is 55 years old. In 1880 a lime'treein Berwickshire four feet diameter, six feet from the ground, was blown clean down and raised and replaced again. It to-day shows no trace of injury. The case of Samuel Merry of Providence is rather odd. His neck was broken last October, but he is living nicely on beefstew aud expects to get out soon.

Putrefactive Poisoning.

Permit me to supplement your interesting annotation upon “Ballets as Microbe Carriers” by the following remarks, says a writer in the Pall Mall Gazette. Although in the case of the bullet the infection with poisonous bacteria is accidental, owing to striking the earth, yet it is reported that there is a tribe of aborigines in the New Hebrides who purposely make use of a telluric or earth poison for their arrows. On their arrowheads they smear dry earth taken from marshy ground, with the result that the wounds inflioted by their arrows usually end fatally in tetanus and lockjaw. Allied micro-organisms are probably also the source of those deadly arrow poisons which are obtained by savages from putrefactive matter. In the Norwegian whale fisheries, after having driven the whales toward the shore, they are surrounded by a net, which prevents them through fear returning to the deeper sea. The whales are next struck with prepared putrefactive poisoned harpoons. In about twenty-four hours some of the whales begin to exhibit signs of exhaustion, probably through septic or suppurative poisoning, and are hence readily oaptured. It is then found that the harpoons are imbedded in masses of inflammatory gangrenous tissue. These harpoons are removed and carefully preserved without being wiped or cleaned, to be employed for the next shoal of whales, when these harpoons are again used, producing and repeating their septic or poisonous properties. The explanation of this rapid poisoning is due to-the harpoons carrying with them the germ of bacteria of an iufeotive inflammation, inoculating the whales by getting up infective or poisonous inflammation. Kero and Domitian used special putrid preparations made from the sea-hair (apiysis punctata), a kind of sea-slug or snail, for secretly poisoning their enemies. Similarly, from tirrie immemorial, some savages have used dried putrid animal poisona for their arrows to kill men and animals. The Mosaic law, prescribed an eye for an eye, a tooth 'for a tooth.

FOXY SUGAR TRUST.

MAS IT TRICKED THE WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE? Tro»t Statistics from Willett A Gr»y’« Statistical Sugar Trade Journal—McKinley’* Hard Lea* on—Sped tic Tariff Duties Cheat the People.

Samples of Protection. Just why the Ways and Means Committee left i cent per pound duty on refined sugar, is a mystery to those who are unacquainted with the insidious workings of our pet and spoilei trusts. It was generally known that the sugar trust secured its i cent duty from McKinley and Aldrich by corruption and bribery. It was also known that this trust had made $15,000,000 or $20,000,000 a year out of this duty, besides half as much more of legitimate profits. It was known, too, that the total labor cost of refining sugar is less than 1-7 cent per pound and as low as in any other country. Then, why did Wilson leave such a duty? There is but one explanation consistent with the facts and with the undisputed integrity and honor of Mr. Wilson and his committee—the duty is the result of misrepresentations made to the committee. Otherwise, if the committee had intended to levy a duty for revenue or to protect sugar growers, it would certainly have placed the same duty on raw as on refined sugar. The misrepresentation probably consisted in leading the committee to believe that the export duty paid refiners in foreign countries would put our refiners at a disadvantage, unless they were protected by a small duty. The sugar trust presented statistics to this effect. This is evident from what appeared in Willett & Gray's Statistical Sugar Trade Journal of Sept. 28. After stating that Germany is paying a bounty of 214 cents per 100 pounds on the exportation of granulated sugar, from Aug. 1,1802, to July 31, 1805, this journal continues: "Any reduction of present duty on refined sugars would oertainly produce an interesting conditiou of things in the sugar trade, for in order to compete with Germany, for instance, at a disadvantage of 214 cents per 100 lbs. in this one respect, American refiners might be obliged to transfer their refineries to Germany, or if the business continued here it would be at the expense of all the wholesale grocers, who would be obliged to forego the selling of American sugars, while the American refiners would come into close relations with the retail grocers direct. This would mean ‘chaos’ to the refinedsugar trade, and would not cheapen sugar to the consumer, because refiners everywhere would be in constant competition for raw sugars with which to supply America with refined, and prices of raws would rule at a much higher average price than now.” If it was upon information of this kind that Wilson decided to leave a duty on refined sugar, the matter should be reconsidered. The Berlin Zuckerindustrle at once took Willett & Gray to task and showed the falsity of their figures. It showed that German refiners, when they purchase raw sugars, have to pay an export bounty on them of what is equivalent to l!> cents per 100 pounds on refined sugar—leaving a net premium of only 64 cents per 100 pounds to exporters of refined sugar. This bounty of 1-6 cent per pound will only pay one-third of the freight across the Atlantio. Without any duty, then, our refiners would have a natural protection of 4 cent per pound even as against the most favored refiners in Europe. That they could compete oven without this natural protection is evident from what Willett & Gray’s journal told us, on Juno 10 last, when it ridiculed Germany’s little refineries, the largest of which could only melt 1,000 barrels a day, while three refineries in this country were constantly melting 14,500 barrels per day. It laughed at the idea of preventing “the economies which come from consolidating the business” by the attempt “to divide up the business into German sized companies. ” Beyond a doubt sugar is refined as cheaply, and probably more cheaply, in this than in anv other country. It may be well to call the attention of sugar producers to the Inadvertent admission of this semi-official organ of t.he sugar trust that “prices of raws would rule at a much higher average price than now," “because refiners everywhere would be in constant competition, ” if the duty were abolished and “chaos” should reign—that is, If the power of the trust to “regulate” prices of both raw and refined sugars were taken away, as it would be by the removal of a duty. But this journal does not mind “putting its foot in it” occasionally, If by so doing it can save any part of the duty on refined sugar. It has thrown its reputation as a statistical journal “to the dogs" in its desperate efforts to mislead Congress and to preserve its right to export $20,000,000 a year from our sugar consumers—as the 4 cent per pound enables it to do. As’ another example of the bad effect upon statistics, of mixing them up with protection and trusts, take the last issue of this same sugar journal (Dec. 28). On page five, it is stated that “making up the average prices for the year we find that centrifugals have averaged 3.08 c per lb., while granulated has averaged 4.84 c per lb., a difference of 1.16 c per lb., which has been the usual difference, and was the usual difference ton years ago, when the business was entirely in the hands of independent refiners." Turning back to page 3 we find tables giving weekly quotations of (96 degrees centrifugal) and refined (granulated) for the last ten yea s. These show that during the year 1884 the average difference between the prices of raw and refined sugars was less than 13-16. or about 4-5 cent per pound, /it no time in 1855 was the difference as great as 1 cent, and the average for the whole year was 5-8, or .634 cent. In 1886 the average difference was .718 cent ,and in 1887, the last year before the trust got control of the refineries, the average difference was .685 cent. The average differenc' for the next two years—lßßß and 1890—was 14 cents. Thus is this statistical journal condemned out of its own mouth. During the last four or five months scarcely a number of this journal has appeared that did not contain unfair or inaccurate statements, intended to deceive the legislators at Washington. This is but one of the pernicious effects of protection. Take away the duty which protects this greedy, audacious, law-defying trust, and, beside* bfieaper sugar, we will have more accurate and reliable statistics.—Byron W. Holt.

Cheat* the People. In specific tariff duties there is a form of robbery which is generally concealed from public view. In all manufactures the cost of production is being lowered from year to year. Let a specific duty which amouuts to 10 per cent, ad valorem remain unchanged for'twenty years and it may be 100 per cent. Carnegie’s boast is that his mills can turn out. more steel no>v with 2,00 b men than they could ten years ago with 10,000. That is an example. Carpets which would have cost $5 a yard fifty

years ago can now be made for $1 or less. A specific duty of $2.50 a yard in Hamilton's tariff, or say 50 per cent., would now be 240 per cent. Specific duties prevent the people from getting the benefit of improved processes and lower cost of production. Ad valorem duties follow the reduced cost without being obliged to wait for the people to find out their disadvantage and to get mad enough to defeat the lobby. Specific duties are the protected manufacturer’s pet arrangement. Ad valorem duties are much safer for the people.—St. Louis Republic.

A Great Fight. The war is on! The thousands of selfish interests that have bsen fastening on to our body politic for many years are forming in solid phalanx for the fight. On one hand are the people whose very vitals have been sucked dry in order that the privileged might revel in luxury. On the other side stand the privileged classes, who will fight for their privileges until the last one has gone down. It will be a great and, perhaps, awful contest, for be it known that the privileged classes believe in the entoroement of law only so long as those laws are framed to suit them. It will be a great fight on the right of men to get full value foi their money. We of the producing class work for low wages and pay high prices for the necessities of life. The privileged clastes, through the assistance of Government, get high prices for the things that have been made at low wages. Thus, all the milk in the eocoanut flows to thorn, while we get the husks. It will be a great fight. In the end the common people will win, and the trusts and other iniquitous designs to rob the laborers of the fruits of their toil will go to the wall. But it will be a great fight.—National Economist.

Larger Kevenue* from Lower Rate*. One of the Republican scarecrows that are now being used to frighten Democrats away from tariff reform is a so-called ‘estimate” that the Wilson bill will cut down revenues $70,000,000. How unreliable —indeed how absurdsuch an estimate is may be seen by a casual glance at the official statistics of the government during the last fifty years. Indeed the refutation of this absurd “estimate" is found in' the daily experience of every retail merchant. When these men cut prioes for holiday trade or any special sale they expect to more than make up the difference in price by the increased number of sales. The i-ame Is true of importations. With a lower rate of duty importations art often so stimulated that the net receints of revenue are greatly increased. The Walker tariff of 1842 is a good illustration. When this low tariff bill was passed in 1846 the collections increased $.->,< 0!),000 the first year, and in t3n years increased from $26,000,000 to $61,000,000. —Oakland County Post

McKinley'* Hurd Lrnon. At last we have evidence that McKinley did learn something, after all, from the terrible boating his party got under his leadership in 1890 and 1892. In his message to the Ohio Legislature on Monday ho warned the majority that it would be hold by the people to the strictest accountability. He said, “it should keep the expenses safely within the revenues,” evidently having in mind the awful blunder ho and his party made in Congress in bankrupting the Treasury. “There should be no inoiease in the rate of taxation," he added, as though to say, “Take warning by me and my bill and avoid the fate that overtook me. ” The Governor’s formal inauguration will not occur until next Week, when, it is reported, he will take occasion to deliver himself on national politics. We shall hope to see him then draw further lessons of reproof and repentance from his own experience.—New York Post.

Not Afraid of Wilson. Neither the panic nor tho fear of a reduction of the tariff has bad much effect on the cotton mills of tho country. Some of,those in the East were stopped a few days for repairs, but thoy were all running last week, and there isn't* cotton mill in the United States that dida t earn at least 6 per cent, during the year on the capital invested. The cotton mills of the South have for tho most part done considerably better than that. According to the Chronicle of Augusta, Ga., tho six mills in that city and vicinity have paid, or will pay, from 6 to 10 per cent, in dividends on thoir capital, amounting to $4,600,000, and it must be remembered that the companies are capitalized for considerably more than is actually invested in the works. One of them increased its capital 50 per cent, and will pay a 3 per cent, semi-annual dividend. Mockery of Overproduction. The ability of any industry to invade the markets of other countries implies its ability to hold the market of its own country against the same competitors, and ft is a mockery to talk of overproduction as long as there are so many millions of hungry people to feed and so many millions of ill-clad people to clothe, and only a law of Congress to forbid that exchange of the products of labor by which both ourselves and they could enjoy more of the goods and necessaries of life. —Wm. L. Wilson, in the Forum. Meaning of Free Wool. Free wool means cheaper and better clothing for our people and a better market and higher prices for wool. The protectionist howlers know it as well as the Democrats. Hence their distress lest the Wilson bill will take effect before the next wool clip is marketed. Nothing but delay can save the calamity lies from refutation.

Taxation and Kobhery. When the law compels me to contribute my just quota to the support of government, it is taxation; when it compels me to contribute to the support of any private enterprise, it is robbery. The first is a tariff so revenue; the second is a tariff for protection— Wm. L. Wilson, in the Forum. The Wilson 11111. The one urgent need of the country at the present time is to have the tariff settled.—Philadelphia Times. It is said that there is some accidental protection in the Wilson bill. Well, let it go at that. Pass it. Get it out of the way!—Atlanta Constitution. The House has the new tariff bill. If it knows what is good for itself and the country it will pass it on to the Senate in a hurry.—Atlanta Journal. “It is the uncertainty that hurts.” It was the uncertainty that hurt last fall when the repeal bill was undergoing prolonged and useless discussion. It will be the uncertainty that kills if something is not soon done to relieve it.—Washington Post. Until confidence, ba«ed upon fully known conditions, can be established either by the defeat or the passage of the Wilson bill, business depression and suffering will unquestionably abide with us. The Wilson bill should be promptly killed or passed.—Philadelphia Telegraph.

ARTISTS OF THE ROUND-UP.

Old-Time Texas Cowboy* Different From Those ot To-Day. The old-time cowboy is no more, aayv a writer in the Dallas New*. He pas* ed in his checks with the free,grass custom. The big pasture has introduced a new order of cowboys, who sleep in a house and "obey orders” or quit. The old cowboy was the companion of his bos* and shared his pleasures and his hardship*. No manager in his big headquarter rock house reminded him of his inferior rank in society, nor did any of the modern ranch accessories mar the common dangers, the pleasures end the freedom and equality of the whilom cowboy and cowman. But the ranch in. the olden time was a cotton-wood log house to cook in, and for root and protection from the weather the slicker wae used, and Mother Earth supplied their beds. The broad range and overhanging sky answered for house and home. A round-up in 1867-1880 was not bounded by wire fences, but the boy» galloped out of camp after breakfast, made a wide sweep and all then drove toward a common centre, and lo! directly at that point was gathered a herd of stock cattle of all brands, ready for the cut to begin. The high-toned man was tabooed. I remember such a man appeared at the ranch of J. T., in Shackleford County, in 1869. He was a city fellow, and would say “thank you" and such like. His intense politeness and hightoned nonsense Aggravated the boys mightily. Jim B. In particular (poor fellow) was especially fretted by his nonsense, as he called it, and tried to ridicule it out of him, but in vain. At last bia resentment ripened Into genuine hatred, and it vras hard to keep the peace bebetween them, for the city fellow had grit, too. Weil, one morning in 1889, at Mountain Pass, in Taylor County, long before any one lived in that section, Jim got awfully mad and gave the city feller a cussing, whereupon a row resulted! and bloodshed was barely prevented there and then. We got the city fellow to ride off and it looked like peace had returned, but ono hour later Jim B. and his amiable enemy met off at one side of the round-up. 1 happened to be near. In a flaah the city ohtip raq before Jim, dismounted, leveled his gun on him and demanded au apology or death. Jim jerked out two six-shooters, but said nothing, and instantly the city fellow fired. Poor Jim rolled off his horse a dead man. I got to them just as Jim fell, lie died instantly, shot through, the heart. His slayer mounted his horse and “lit out.” AVo buried Jim and went on with our herd, two men short, but. with no discordant eloment among us. Buoh was the old way. The boys were courteous and kind, they were generoa* and brave, industrious and honest, but they would not stand any high-toned' nonsense. A new era has set in. Which Js the better wo cannot say, but one thing ia sure, with all his faults, and they were many, the old-time cowboy was a man to be trusted in peaoe or wax and was the very soul of honor.

“One Obstinate Juryman."

The most remarkable case of a jury “standing out” against what seemed to be irrefutable testimony, and all through, the resolution of one man. occurred before Chief Justice Dyer. He presided at a murder trial in which everything went against the prisoner, who on bis port* oould only say that on his going to work in the morning he had found the murdered man dying, and tried to help him, whereby he had become covered with blood; but when tho man presently died,, he had come away and said nothing about it, because he was known to lmve had a. quarrel with the deceased, and fearod be might get into trouble. The hayfork with which the man had been murdered had the prisoner’s uame on it. In other respects his guilt appeared to be established, and tho Chief Justice was convinced of it, but the jury returned a. verdict of “not guilty.’’ This was Chief Justice Dyer's css*, and he put some very searching questions to the High Sheriff. Tho came of the acquittal, said the official, wag undoubt edly the foremun, a farmer of excellent character, esteemed by all his neighborsand very unlikely to bo obstinate or vexatious. “Then," said tho Judge, “I must see this foreman, for an explanation Of the matter I will have.” The foreman came, and after extracting from hi* lordship a promise of secrecy, proved at* onoe that the prisoner had been rightfully acquitted, “for," said he, “it was I! myself who killed the man.” It had been no murder, for the other had attacked him with the bay fork, and* fas he showed) severely injured him, but in the struggle to get possession of thaweapon he had the misfortune to givethe man a fatal wound. He had no lean as to his being found guilty, but, the assizes being just over, his* farm and affairs would have been ruined by a confession, through lying in jail ao long, sohe suffered matters to take their course. He was horrified to find oue of bis own servunts accused of the murder; he supported his wife and children while in jail; managed to be placed on the jury, and elected foreman. He added that if he had failed in this ho would certainly have confessed to his own shaie in th* business, and the Judges believed him. Every year for fifteen years his lordship made inquiries as to the foreman’s existence, and at last, happening to survive him, he considered himself tree to teU. the story.—[London News.

Avalanches Produced by Railways

A correspondent to the London Times records a curious and altogether unexpected result of the tunnelling operations in the St. Gothard is a lawsuit instituted by the inhabitants of the adjacent valleys. They s ue the Federal Government sos damages caused by the great increase o£ avalanches which constantly thunder down the mountain side, produced, it i» presumed, by the explosions of dynamite more than by the vibrations of passing: trains in the lower tunnels of the railway. Many witnesses, who have lived in the neighborhood since the early part of the century, will swear to the greatly augmented number and force of the avalanches that now constantly sweep destruction down the mouutain. The firat hearing of this novel case was lately heard before the Federal judges assembled at Bellinzona. We believe there is no instance in this country of ai* avalanche produced by railway service.— [Scientific American.

China’s Regular Army.

The regular army of China is said to consist of 323,090 men. Besides this, the Emperor’s army, there is a national 1 army of 650,000 men, who are paid, about $1 a month, but in consideration of this munificence are required to feed themselves. The cavalry receive $3 a month, feed their own horses, and if lost or killed, are required to replace them out of the pay given by the government.