Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1894 — NOTES AND COMMENTS. [ARTICLE]

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

There were a billion and a half : bushelsof corn raised in this country ! last year, over half a million bushels lof oats, and a third of a million bushels of wheat. The greatest engineering feat at present under way in Europe is, perhaps, the improvement of the lower Danube. There has been talk of ; opening up this river to large vessels for three hundred years. The work is now under way, and when It is through Vienna will be a port of entry for large vessels. A metallurgist at Westfield, N.J., who has been experimenting for many years, has discovered a method of making aluminum at twenty-five cents a pound with a profit to the manufacturer. This is about onehalf its present selling price.atid this inventor believes that in time the metal can be produced as cheaply as Bessemer iron. The grape has been a most popular and useful fruit, but it is only recently that all its possibilities have been grasped. They are now making an excellent illuminating oil out of grape seed. For generations cotton seed, now so important an agricultural product, was regarded as a useless substance, and so it has beon with grape seed. The systems of rewards and punishments which seem to be the ruling motives of our lives are in themselves degrading. The man who does a good act prompted only by the incentive of reward would commit a crime for the same purpose. It is only when we have reached a stage of developments where wo forget the punishments that might follow neglect or the reward that is to come through a work performed, and do right because it is right, without fear of the consequences, that we can reach our highest development. Some two years ago the State of Pennsylvania oppointed Eckley B. Coxe a commissioner to see whether some good use might not be made of the slack, coaldust, etc., which goes to waste around the coal mines. After a great many experiments and tests, it is said, Mr. Coxe has made some remarkable discoveries. With the aid of a specially constructed stoker and fan blast, not only can the dirt heretofore thrown away be utilized, but in steam production better results have been obtained from it, and at fifty per cent, less in cost. A number of experts who have examined the test plants say that it will revolutionize the production of steam power.

The increasing number of fires ascribed to electricity demands the exercise of greater care in the use of this method of furnishing light and power. Boston has lmd a number of fires within the past few years directly tracoable to electricity which burned up millions of dollars worth of property. The fire record in Hartford shows the same result and doubtless an investigation of the fires in other cities would prove the destructive part electricity, when not properly handled, has played in fires. The recent burning of Tahnage’s church, in Brooklyn,with much valuable property adjoining was probably caused by the defective insulation of some electric light wires. The great and unfortunate M. do Lesseps in his extreme old ago finds himself a' wery poor man. He married late ifL fife and has a family of thirteen children. It is generally believed that the blunders of the Panama were not criminal on his part. But recalling his past great services to commerce in the construction of the Suez Canal, it is proposed by a majority of the shareholders that during the rest of M. de Lessep's life he shall be given an annuity of 00,000 francs, 01 about $12,000, and that after his death and till his youngest child is of age, 40,000 francs a year shall go to the widow and children. This illustrates that there are cases when great corporations show they are not soulless.

There are some curious statements published in the Japanese Mali, made by a Japanese who has been traveling in China. He thinks the present Chinese Manchurian dynasty is so much hated that it will be overthrown within ten years, which will be followed by a breaking up of the Empire. He says there are twelve hundred foreign missionaries in China. “Among them,’’he declares, “those sent from America are true propagandists of the Gospel; but of those belonging to the Russian and French nationalities, some are really of the military profession. They take no interest in the propagation of their religion, but are busily engaged in geographical studies with special reference to military operations.”

Congressman Amos Cummings recently told a story about a public document which has been printed for over 100 years without the slightest ground why it should be thus preserved. “In 1789,” Mr. Cummings said, “a law was passed requiring the treasurer of the United States to send to congress annually copies of all his accounts settled by the first comptroller of the treasury. He transmitted them without classification, indexing or recapitulation, and this report was printed until 1889— 100 years. The last one cost $6,500. The report for 1889 was printed in 1891 by order of the fifty-first congress. Its preparation took the whole time of two clerks in the treasurer’s office. These reports have been utterly worthless ever since they were issued, in 1789, and have undoubtedly cost the government hundreds of thousands of dollars. When they were first printed they covered not more than three or four pages. They have increased in size until the report of 1889 covered nearly 1,000 printed pages. Not long ago the clerk of one of the committees went to Amzi Smith, superintendent of the senate document room, and asked him for a c6py of these reports. Smith disappeared, and returned after half an hour with the volume, saying: ‘I have been here over thirty years, and you are the first man that ever callod for a copy of this work.’ ” In the laboratory of the Imperial

Board of Health of Germany experiments were made and the results which have been published show, says London Science Siftings, that the seeds of consumption were found in abundance in the dust collected, not only on the floors, but on the walls and seats of carriages. Samples of dust were taken from forty-five compartments of twenty-one different passenger cars and 117 animals were inoculated with them. Part of these died very soon thereafter of various contagious diseases before they had time to develop consumption ; of the rest, killed four to six weeks after inoculation, three had tubercles. These three, however, were inoculated with sleeping carriage dust, taken, not from the floor, but from the walls, cushions and ceilings. Bacteria at the rate of 78,8(H) per square inch were found on the floor of a fourth-class carriage, and 84,400, 27,000, . and 16,600 per square inch on the floors of the third, second, and first-class carriages. Thus, even in the latter, the average passenger, who usually has at least half [a compartment to himself, say 3,000 square inches of floor, has an army of 49,500,000 deadly enemies aiming at his vitals on the floor alone, to say nothing of other millions in front and rear, on both flanks and overhead. It would seem impossible to escape; but a Board of Health is said to have reported measures for removing or reducing the danger which the railroads are considering.