Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 May 1895 — NOTES AND COMMENTS. [ARTICLE]

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

A report from Russia states that it has been found that ’’strychnine can cure men of the appetite for drink.” It cures them in this country also if they take enough of it. Because the Reichstag was spiteful against Bistnarck, conservative Germany is roaring against universal suffrage. But it is well to remember that only a few years ago the Emperor himself was spiteful against Bismarck

A Philadelphia street railroad now operated by electricity saves $3,915 a month as between the cost of coal and that of horse feed. It is said that this is only one of numerous items in which the trolley system has greatly cut down operating expenses . Ordinary vigilance would prevent nine-tenths of-the bank defalcations But the vigilance which does not see anything suspicious in the personal deposits of a $1,200 clerk reaching SIO,OOO in a recent case, is not ordinary; it’s extraordinary, in the opinion of the Hartford Journal. There are a great many medical missionaries, but Dr. Jennie M. Taylor is the first person to go to a foreign land as a dental missionary. She is the daughter of the Rev.A. E. Taylor, a Methodist minister of Martinsville, Pa., and is working in Africa as a missionary and dentist. A New York woman, whose name is held secret, has endowed the chair of history in the National University, to be built at Washington, with $107,250. The intimation of the offer was made on an old postal card, and within twenty-four hours the head of the university was leaving New York with securities to the required amount in his possession. For expeditiousness this surpasses the endowment record. When the woman was asked why she selected the chair ■ of history she said: “Men can give ' for bricks and mortar, I’ll give for' brains.”

1 iiriet is notan extinct trait in the original home of the thrifty, New England. A young woman writes to a Boston paper to tell how well a family of three can live on $lO a week. “My mother,” she says, “is an invalid. My father is foreman in a factory and earns s2l a week, and I stay home and do the w r ork. Every week we put sl2 away. I dress well and can play the piano. I attend the theater twice a week, but the 25 cent seats are good enough for me. Saturday I cook a quart of beans and buy a loaf of brown bread and onehalf pound of salmon, and that does us until Tuesday. Tuesday a pint of oysters is sufficient for dinner. Wednesday I buy a chicken or a small piece of lamb, which does until Saturday with a little fish. We use a small quantity of pastry and bread and cake and vegetables. We run two fires, burn gas; we use matches and pepper. My father only spends 10 cents a week for pleasure. "When my company stays to tea Sunday we have a few extras. Ido all my dressmaking, and average four dresses a year.” But the ppor father’s 10 cents' worth of “pleasure 1”

The power of hypnotism has been made responsible for almost everything, and now a writer in the Pittsburg Dispatch attempts to show that sleeping in church is often due to this subtle force. The conditions under which the phenomenon is most frequently observed are described as follows: “There is a dim and subdued light in the room; the atmosphere is somewhat close, the temperature is high; somewhat behind the speaker, in aposition which compels the eyes of the congregation, is a jet of gas or a sharp gleam of electricity, into which they look as the sermon proceeds; and the preacher goes on and on. in a gentle and monotonous voice, and down and up, like a mother’s lullaby; and behold, our eyelids are pressed down against our will by soft, invisible fingers, and everything is deliciously vague and far away.” This, the writer would have his readers believe, is hypnotic sleep. Most people, however, will be inclined to think that poor ventilation in the churches, or natural fatigue on the part of the sleepers, is responsible for more of this kind of somnolence than can be traced to any mysterious power. The importation of beans at the ports of New York, Boston and Philadelphia last year was 244,776 bags of 200 pounds each, and yet this country is admirably adapted for bean culture. A correspondent of the Country Gentleman says: “ Where the crop is grown on a large scale so that machinery can be largely used the cost of growing should not be materially greater than that of growing an equal area of wheat. They may be planted by machinery, harvested by machinery, threshed by machinery, and the large buyers in bean growing districts use machinery largely in picking over the product. The yield will probably, on the average, equal that of wheat. Then look at the price per bushel compared with that of wheat. The straw, too, is a valuable food for sheep, as well as for other live stock, far exceeding wheat straw in this respect. Bean prices, usually high, are likely to be higher this year. The domestic demand always exceeds the home grown supply, and large quantities are annually imported. It is not creditable to the farmers of this country that these large importations are permitted to continue.”

Formosa, which Japan will claim and probably get as a part of her war indemnity, lies about 100 miles off the Chinese coast, between the 20th and 21st degrees of latitude, almost within hailing distance of the cities of Canton, Amoy and Tuchan, and will be surrendered by China with more reluctance than any amount of money she is obliged to pay over. The _ island is about 400 miles long and 50 wide, inhabited by a mixture of races, 1 some of them not yet emerged from their primal barbarism, and if Japan gets it her first duty will betogive it a civilized administration and bring its wrangling tribes into subjection, which the Chinese have never been able to do. It is in the main a mountainous and rugged territory, not very fertile nor otherwise valuable, but is of great strategic importance, lying between

r ■. the China and Eastern seas, and will gire important naval advantage to the country that possesses it. France has interests in those regions, and may have something to say about the transfer, and perhaps other countries will be interested in the discussion, But Japan has earned it; It is important to her, and she will probably get it. The great battleship Indiana, which has cost the government over $3,250,000, is nearly in trim to leave the ways, but in all our navy yards and splendid harbors there is no drydock i that can float the new vessel. If anything should happen to the j bottom of the Indiana it would be necessary to take her elsewhere or else drop anchor and allow the ship’s sides to gather barnacles while the half completed docks at the Brooklyn navy yard, at Port Royal and at Port Orchard are being finished. The last named will probably be ready for use within a year, and each of those now in process of construction will be able to float the Indiana or any one of the monsters in the new fleet. Following the launching of the Indiana, it is expected that the Massachusetts, lowa and Oregon, battleships of nearly the same size and cost, will speedily be completed and set afloat, and then the need of more capacious docks will be imperative. The three which are being built are of timber, it is surprising to learn, and the reason is to be found in the fact that the stone docks are easily disjointed by the action of the frost, while the timber docks are more enduring and less expensive. The construction of timber docks, however, requires thorough workmanship and not a little experience on the part of the contractor. One which was at tempted at Portland, Ore., and which swallowed up $240,000 without disgorging a penny in profits, was finally abandoned, and remains to-day a costly ruin. It leaks like a sieve, and is in no way fit for the purpose for which it was designed.

The Neighborhood Club which has been organized recently at Newton, Mass., will be watched with interest, for it promises to supply a social want without infringing upon the privileges and duties of home life. Its plan is to bring together a con siderable number of families, including men, women and children, and to provide evenings of social pleasure for their common enjoyment. It is not proposed to allow church and party lines or social caste to keep out any respectable family, and no accomplishment in literature or art is required for membership. The meetings are made as informal as possible, and mutual acquaintance and friendship are promoted. The business man who joins such a club has a place where he and his wife and his grown children may meet the families who live in the neighborhood, without going to the trouble and expense of a special reception or dinner with the attending annoyances. The average resident in the suburb does not desire to entertain all his neighbors in his house many times during the winter, although he is usually glad to meet these neighbors. It is jnst in that connection that the Neighborhood Club proves useful and convenient. Among the enthusiastic advocates of this new social movement is Dr. Edward Eggleston, who takes the ground that the highest intellectual satisfaction is to be derived in assemblies in which men and women come together. If a gathering is made up wholly of men there is apt to be a lack of restraint that wars against the best mental results. If women meet by themselves, they grow opinionated. But the meeting of men and women together at a Neighborhood Club is subject to none of these objections.