Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 May 1895 — NOTES AND COMMENTS. [ARTICLE]

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Already there have been more train robberies in 1895 than for the entire year in either 1890,. 1891 or 1892. A. J. Blackwell, the rich and erratic Indian who owns the cities of Blackwell and David in the Indian Territory, announces that he will build a SIIOO,OOO temple at David City, Okla., for the perpetuation of Indian religions. The indications of reviving business continue. The New York World publishes interviews with leading men in almost every department of business, and without exception they ! represent conditions as hopeful and improving. The Examiner states that for eaoir convert made in foreign fields during the last year it has cost the American* Board (Congregational) $260, the Missionary Union (Baptist) SBS, the Methodist Church $285, the Episcopal Church $1,884, and the Presbyterian Board $278.

The Engineering and Mining Journal notes an increase of prices of i staple articles estimated at from 20 I to 25 per cent, as compared with the j prices of the beginning of the year. The articles noticeably affected are I silver, corn, meat, cotton, wool and ! wheat, while in the iron and other j metal markets there is a “a rising, tendency.” The United 'States Consul at Han*kow, China, has sent to the Department of State an elaborate report on* the tea trade of last year. He says that it is the belief that there will be a larger demand for tea the coming season than the last and that there will be keen competition. He adds that the Russian trade was largely remunerative last year. The report shows that for the season of 1894-95 the exports of tea from Hankow to* America and Canada were 6,995,298 pounds. About the same amount was sent to Great Britain direct, while 22,468,247 pounds were shipped to Russia.

The Sioux City Journal is impressed by the difficulties in the way of harmonizing state, city, and town government systems. It says: “Just what to do with our cities, how to give them the necessary measure of self government, and yet to guard against the license which would endanger their existence, how to obey the constitutional command to have all laws of uniform application, yet to make them so elastic as suit the village and the city alike — this is a problem in statesmanship worthy of the best talent and most brilliant genius.” A feature of the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta, Ga., w T ill be the production of a spectacular playbased on the career of Hernando De Soto and his band of Spanish cavaliers in the early history of America. A company of New York and Atlanta capitalists has been organized by Mrs. Littleton, with a capital stock of SIOO,tKX>, to produce this spectacular drama. They will build a theater and present in tableaus the romantic and adventurous career of De Soto in Georgia, Alabama and Florida, drawing partly on tradition and partly on imagination.

House boats will soon be introduced in this country, a company being about organized with a capital of SIOO,OOO to build them in Philadelphia. It is proposed to establish a floating camp or village near Philadelphia this summer. Each boat will be of a standard pattern, complete in itself, with as many rooms and berths as may be required. They will be supplied with kitchen, store room and lavatories, with open shaded decks for fair weather, and a small boat for landing and visiting. This style of boat is common in some parts of Europe, especially in London. The Czar of Russia has rejected a petition which was recently presented to him by seven journalists and literary men in favor of modification of the press laws, A commission, consisting of the ministers of justice and of the interior and the procurator of the holy synod, to which the document was referred, reported: adversely upon it, pointing out that the presentation of collective petitions is logically prohibited, and also that the press laws are not antiquated, but that they have been repeatedly amended. The commission added that private persons are prohibited from calling upon the government to change the laws of the country and are especially prohibited from criticising them. AT Dashour, twenty miles south of Cairio, the graves of two princesses of the Twelfth Dynasty, more than 4,000 years ago, were discovered intact a little while ago. The coffins had decayed and the mummies crumbled to dust as soon as an. attempt was made to remove them, but on the head of each was a golden coronet looking as fresh as the day it was made. One was a wreath of forget-me-nots with Maltese crosses at intervals made oi precious stones;.the other coronet contained a socket in which was inserted a spray of flowers made of jewels, with leaves and Stems of gold. Beside these were necklaces, bracelets, armlets, anklets, daggers and charms. The United States Patent Office will make a good showing at the Atlanta Fair. The collection made for the Chicago Fair puts it in a position to do so within the rather meagre appropriation, $6,000. The display will run mostly to the cotton industry and general agriculture. The cotton gin of Eli Whitney may occupy a separate case. Plows will range from that of Daniel Webster to the latest approved model. A recent acquisition just received from Massachusetts is the first patent granted in what is now the United States. It was issued in Massachusetts. “At a generail Courto at Boston the 6th of the 11th mo. 1646,” to Joseph Jenkes, of Hounslow, County Middlesex, England, and declared “yt no othr pson shall set up or use any such new inventino or trade for fourteen yeares without ye license of him ye said Joseph Jenkes.” Japan, after a comparatively short campaign, has thrashed China and obliged the latter country to accept terms of peace that are extremely galling. In other words, a nation of 40,000,000 of people has put under

I subjection- * nation of 400,000,000. :.It iaintereVting and profitable to coni **der the causes that led to this reI markable achievement, remarks the 1 New York Journal. A good deal ol j the mystery is cleared away when we assert that the Japanese are both patriotic and self sacrificing,, The Chinese, on the other hand, are self ' indulgent and have little or no love of country. From the outset of the struggle, civilized nations extended their sympathy to Japan. It seemed plain that any improvement in China’s status must be brought about by heroic treatment. Even Li Hung Chang realized this, and now acknowledges that the higher interests of civilization have been subserved by his country’s defeat. The influence of Japan on China is sure to be beneficial. The Chinese are a clever and in many respects an admirable people, but they have been held back by a narrowness of view and a retroactive disposition that is bound to* disappear under Japan’s progressive treatment. > Speaking of Mrs. Hetty Green, the richest woman in the United States (her fortune is estimated at $50,000,090), the New York Journal says: Hetty Green is said to be a rich woman—so rich that her personal tax is fixed at $27,000. Yet Hetty, with all this money, has no home. She asks the people she meets to tell her of some place where she can sleep. She never sees on the walls around her any little embroidered legend, ■‘God Bless Our Home.” nor does she see the associated objurgation about “Our Cook.” She cannot let herself live in ordinary comfort, believing, apparently, that if she has no home she will not have to pay the taxes. It is therefore hardly worth \tfhile to be so rich in purse if you are so abjectly poor in soul. If you have to sneak through life living always on the sly, dodging from house to house, and making your dinner on five cents’ worth of crackers bought at a grocery, what is the use of money? There are hundreds of thousands of poor women in the tenement houses in this city with just enough to live on who may, perhaps, envy Hetty her millions, but who are far happier than she is.

An official of the Agricultural Department, discussing the recent increase in the price of cattle, which is said to be the primary cause for the increase in the price of beef in the country, says that it may be occasioned by the decrease in the corn crop of the past few years. The. last great crop of the country was [that grown in 1891 and available in 1892. It amounted to 2,009,000,000 bushels. The- crop of 1892 was 1,680,000,000 bushels; that of 1898, 1,620,000,000 bushels, and the crop of 1894 less than 1,200,000,000 bushels. Corn is the principal food of beef cattle. It is true that the farmers have used wheat for cattle food during the depression of price of this cereal, but the falling off of the corn crop, in the opinion of the official, may have had more to do with the rise than anything else. Lack of the principal food for cattle may have induced stock raisers to put upon the market more cattle than formerly. Another reason for the decrease in the number of cattle is given in the fencing in and closing up of many of the stock ranges and ranches. The settlement of the Western States by small farmers has made stock raising in great herds less profitable, and it is said that the increase in cattle has not nearly ke,pt pace with the increase in population of the country.