Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 December 1894 — NOTES ANO COMMENTS. [ARTICLE]

NOTES ANO COMMENTS.

The British Government has just interfered with the free exercise of religion in India by prohibiting the practice of hook swinging at religious festivals. By inserting a hook attached to a rope in his flesh and then swinging in the air for a few minutes the devotee believed that he promoted the cause of religion. Clermont, a little town in Florida, revels in the luxury of two mayors. Last June Mr. Todd was elected to the office without a dissenting vote. He was away from home at the time, and did not return for ten days. The ordinances require the Mayor to qualify within three days after the election. Mr. Goodenough, who was Mayor last year, holds on to the office. Horses are very cheap in Oregon just now. A herd of 800 head, just off the range, were sold at an average price of $5 each recently, and a few days ago, at a sale of fine stock near Portland, a splendid matched team of sorrel mares were sold for S4O, and a big bay horse brought only $22.50. Half a dozen years ago such horses would have sold readily for SIOO to $l5O each. The sinking of the Japanese warship Tsukuba by collision with the steamship Zambesi in Kobe Harbor, reported in recent dispatches, is not a serious loss to the war strength of Japan. The Tsukuba was a wooden vessel of 1,980 tons displacement, carrying only eight ordinary breechloading rifles and other guns, and was used as a training ship for cadets. She was only 194 feet in length and 250-horse power. Thk National Game Bird and Fish Protective Association is moving to secure greater uniformity and effectiveness in the game laws of the United States. It is a good cause and deserves the support of all sportsmen. Unfortunately, In many States Where natural conditions are not averse to the cultivation of game the total lack of protection has resulted almost in the depopulation of both field and stream, It is not too late, however, to arrest the destruction. There are more than 5,000,000 children in the elementary schools In England, 890,000 of whom pay for their tuition, and of these 500,000 pay no more than a penny a week, according to a recent official statement. Ot the “voluntary schools, ” In which the whole or part of the tuition is paid by the parents, 5,000 receive from 10 to 20 shillings a head for the children in attendance, 4,000 between 5 and 19 shillings, and 5,000 under 5 shillings. In the meat shops of towns in New Mexico and Arizona the visitor from the East is apt to notice that the dressed carcasses of sheep have a tuft of wool still attached to the head and tall. This is left by the butcher to assure the customer that it is mutton and not goat flesh that he is buying, (or in these Territories many flocks of goats are reared and pastured by the small Mexican ranchmen to be killed for food for the poorer natives. Roast or stewed kid, with Chili popper sauce, is an esteemed dinner dish at the tables of many well-to-do American and Spanish-American citizens. The Emperor of China Is the subject, if not the hero, of a story that is circulating in Peking. A palace eunuch, it is said, recently delivered a letter or dispatch meant for the imperial eye alone into the hands of one of the ladies of the harem. Thereupon his majesty seized a sword and immediately decapitated the offending messenger. The people ot Peking are said to speak of the Incident with undisguised satisfaction, regarding it as o proof that the Emperor has a mind of his own after all, and may yet succeed in breaking through the trammels of the silken net which has hitherto completely hindered the development of the individuality.

There is a “whole” milk treatment as well as a skim milk cure, and an advocate of the former says that a patient requires from five to six quarts daily while confined to bed, and from one to four quarts more when working. To digest all this, free action of the skin, lungs and other organs must be secured by dally warm baths and an unlimited supply of fresh air night and day. Under this treatment the heart quickens, the alimentary canal enlarges and its glands increase in size and number, and th 6 arteries enlarge and furnish to all parts of the body an increased supply of blood. A patient with a supposed mortal disease was cured under this treatment between July 15 and Oct. 28, and during that time increased in weight from 106 pounds to 129 pounds 14 ounces.

A recent Board of Trade inquiry into the hours of labor of railroad employees in England has brought to light some cases of flagrant abuse. On ope occasion a signalman was on duty 26J hours and on the following four days worked from thirteen to fifteen hours a day. Other signalmen on the same line were required to work from sixteen to nineteen hours. One switchman was at his post 16f hours, and on Sundays, when the labor is light, others had from eighteen to nineteen hours' work. An engine-cleaneron one line had been kept at work for 84 consecutive hours, part of the time as fireman; and both engineers and firemen were sometimes on duty from 18 to 24 hours. As a rule the hours of the men were kept down on all the roads to the legal twelve hours. Four miners have just arrived at Tacoma, Wash., from Alaska, bringing each SIOO,OOO in gold dust, which they said was the result of two seasons’ work in the Yukon country. They said that all the old-timers who have.been long on the ground and hfive mastered its peculiarities have struck it rich during the last season. There is good evidence of this in the fact that a steamer called at Tacoma a few days ago, en route to San Francisco from Alaska, having aboard about $200,000 in gold dust, which, her officers said, was a usual load this season'. Some big nuggets, averaging twenty or thirty ounces, have been found. But the mining is exceedingly difficult. About 800 miners will winter in the Yukon district this year. The influx of miners

has been so great that thero is likely to be a great scarcity of provisions before spring. A big rush to the region is looked for next year, because the placers have panned out so well. Higher than St. Peter’s at Rome, higher than the Strasburg Cathedral, higher than the Great Pyramid, higher than the Cologne Cathedral will be the top of the statue of William Penn in Philadelphia within a few weeks. The hat of the good Quaker will overtop every other structure in this or any other country, except the Eiffel tower at Paris and the Memorial shaft to Washington at the capital; but as neither of these is a building, comparison is hardly fair. The Washington monument is 555 feet high, the Eiffel tower 984 feet. The crown of William Penn’s hat will jbe 547 feet from the ground. The next structure in height, the Cologne Cathedral, is 510 feet. The City Hall of Philadelphia is an Immense structure of marble and brick and iron. It has been building since 1871. ill main tower on the north side of the building is 90 feet square at the base. Great marble blocks rest upon a foundation of eight feet of concrete laid 20 feet below the surface of the ground. Some of these blocks weigh five tons. The walls in places are 22 feet through. The whole building is 470 by 486 feet. It is the largest single structure on the continent. In Belgium a new system of voting has recently been tried with some very surprising results. A few years ago only one in fifty of the population had a right to vote. The liberals demanded universal suffrage and obtained it by bulldozing the parliament. Every man was made a voter. A single man had one vote, a married man two, and the owner of a certain amount of property three. Then, a compulsory voting law was passed. At the recent election the liberals who were responsible for this change , Jost heavily. The conservatives and socialists were the gainers. “The compulsory system,” says the Atlanta Constitution, “worked badly. Citizens who refused to vote on the ground that they were dissatisfied with the candidates and platforms were arrested, driven into th© polling booths, and ordered not to come out until they had made up their ballots. If they persisted in not voting they wore sent to jail. Naturally, all Belgium is in an uproar,and it is probable that the compulsory system of voting will be abolished. The people have come to the conclusion that when a citizen is unwilling to support any of the candidates it is an outrage to lock him up.” One of the oldest Methodist ministers in harness in the United States is the Rev. Stephen R. Beggs, of th* Rock River Conference, Illinois. He is 911 years old, and sound in mind, wind and limb. He was born March 8, 1801, and began his ministry in Clark county, Mo., in 1822. His circuit led him out of Missouri and into Indiana and Arkansas. He traveled a circuit there for nine years on horseback, when he was fortunate enough to have ahorse, but not infrequently on foot. As the conference forbade circuit riders to marry until they had completed their course of study and been admitted in full connection, he applied himself assiduously to his books, was admitted to conference, and married, fn 1881, Miss Elizabeth Lambeth Heath. Immediately after tills Mr. Beggs was transferred to Illinois and became a circuit rider in the Tazewell district. He then began to hear of Fort Dearborn and Lake Michigan, and had a great desire to see the lake. He eventually made a>. trip to Chicago for the purpose, and, of course, preached a sermon before he left. His congregation consisted' of twenty-five persons, assembled in. Dr. Harmon’s room in the fort. That was in 1881.

The French press is devoting m good deal of attention to the address recently made before the Sociological Congress at Paris on the effect of education and crime. Since the passage of the act of 1870 the number of children in English schools has Increased from 1,500,000 to 5,000,000,. and the number of persons in prison has fallen from 12,000 to 5,000. The yearly average of persons sentenced to penal servitude for the worst crimes has declined from 2,000 to 800, while juvenile offenders have fallen from 14,000 to S,(XX). Sir John Lubbock sees in these figures a confirmation of Victor Hugo’s saying, that “he who opens a school closes a prison.” In France, according to the Temps, criminal statistics and the statements of magistrates show that, as schools have been opened prisons have filled, and that the diffusion of education has been accompanied, apparently with increase of crime, and especially of juvenile crime. In attempting to account for this phenomenons the Temps points out that in France, under the republic, education is simply intellectual instruction. In England there is not only instruction, buttraining. Moral and religious influences are brought to bear upon the children.