Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1895 — NOTES AND COMMENTS. [ARTICLE]

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Dx. J. V est Rooseyeet, a very high medical authority, demonstrates in the Scribner that bicycle riding develops not only the muscles of the legs, but most of the important muscles of the body. The man who died the- other day after licking an envelope was poisoned by decaying animal matter from the glue getting into a sore in his mouth. No poisons are more deadly than those produced by the decay of animal matter. Persons who lick envelopes in sealing them do it at their own risk. Cos am Doyle, in one of his medical stories, says: “Men die of the diseases which they have studied most. It is as if tbs morbid condition was an evil creature which, when it found itself closely hunted, flew at the throat of its pursuer. If you worry the microbes too much they may worry you. I have seen cases of it, and not necessarily iu mierobie diseases either." Experiments made to determine at what age a child lirst becomes responsive to music show that at six or seven months they are fully so, at least as far as time is concerned. That they are also sensitive to tone at the same age is shown by experiments on a child of seven months, who will not begin to beat time to“Pat-a-cake" picked on the zither in any chord higher than E, but at once responds to E. Army statistics in France and Germany bring out clearly the fact that the latter country has a better system of elementary education than its rival. Out of 258,177 recruits incorporated in the Germany Army during last year 017 only were unable to read or write—that is to say, 24 per 10,000. In France, on the other hand, out of 848,651 who drew for the conscription no fewer than 22,096, or 048 per 10,000, were similarly illiterate. There seems to be no end to human credibility. A writer in a French review, to show the misery and readiness to believe anything that promised to better their condition, as well as the audacity of the unscrupulous rascals by whom they are sometimes fleeced, tells the story of an adventurer who persuaded a number of the peasantry in some districts in Russia to hand over to his keeping all their worldly possessions with a view of emigrating, under his guidance, to the planet Jupiter, where they were to find land in abundance, easy to work and marvelously fertile.

Concluding an editorial article in advocacy of good country roads the New York Tribune says : In Massachusetts there is a permanent Highway Commission, under whoso authority SJSHOO,(X»O is being expended in building State roads. This sum has been dividod among fourteen counties. The general plan is to build, section by section, roads to connect business centers, and join them with through roads in other States. Colonel Pope, who is an enthusiast on the subject of good roads, is convinced that the Massachusetts plan is superior to that of any other State. Certain it is that Massachusetts has taken hold of the matter in earnest and with intelligence. Dr. Howard, of Baltimore, in an address to the Amorican Medical Association, has endeavored to give an analytical account of the mystery of hypnotism. Every phenomenon of this strange influence is referred by him to “suggestion’’—this word being in tliis use u technical term, which means that one mind controls another by irresistibly suggesting its line of thought. “Self is not an entity independent of the orgonism.” The individual, the eye, the human entity, is a product of the bodily structure. There is no soul which has a body for its house. There is a body which has a soul or mind as an attribute of its physical existence. This soul or mind may vary as the body does. “ Alter the relations of the various structural elements of the body and you alter the self.’’ Suggestion from a superior mind assimilates the other creature to itself; and so controls its mental and physical operations. Under a bad influence anybody may be Mr. Hyde; under a good one everybody is Dr. Jekyll.

A little over nine years ago Chicago’s Haymarket tragedy occurred. On the night of May 4, 1886, a bomb was thrown into the ranks of the police, who had gone to disperse an anarchist meeting. One policeman was killed outright, six were mortally wounded, and sixty more or less injured. The number of iftie crowd killed or hurt was never known. Chicago never witnessed excitement so intense, and*she at once achieved the reputation of being the center of anarchism for the whole world. No one event ever brought labor troubles and agitation to the notice of so many people, and probably no other influence has done so much to cause a widespread study of social economy. Four men were hanged for the Haymarket crime, and one killed himself in jail by blowing his head to pieces with a dynamite cartridge exploded in his mouth. It was never discovered who threw the bomb. When it exploded it blew Chicago anarchy to pieces and answered the directly opposite purpose its thrower evidently intended.

A most interesting flag will flyover the plant system exhibit at the Atlanta (Ga.) Exposition. “It is” says the Atlanta Constitution, “a plain flag of bunting with the stars and striped of the United States. It surmounted the exhibit of the plant system in the old Piedmont Exposition in 1887, and was much admired by Mr. and Mrs. Cleveland when they were shown through the exhibit by Mr. Grady. That flag afterward decorated the exhibit of the plant system at the Paris Exposition, and on the day when the Bartholdi statue was presented to the city of Paris by American citizens through Mr. Whitelaw Reid, then United States Minister to France, who acted as spokesman, and was accepted by President Carnot, both of them alluded in their speeches to the flag flying at the top of the Eiffel tower. That flag was the same above alluded to, which surmounted the exI hibit at the Piedmont Exposition,

end which adorned the exhibit ot tho plant systoia at Paris sad which will again adora that exhibit at tkia exposition." It is usual to class ss tbs Wee States of tbs Union only those that border upon one or more of the great lakes, but there are many other States that may be properly so called. Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont have well developed lake systems, and even Msssachusettsand Connecticut have a few small natural lakes. Northwestern New Jersey baa a sort of lake system, so baa northwestern lowa. North Dakota’s lake system is part of the larger system embracing northern Minnesota and neighboring parts of British America. South Dakota, east of the Missouri, has a lake system that extends into the edge of Nebraska. Washirrgton, Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana have lake systems more or less interrelated. Eastern North Carolina has a lake system, including several considerable bodies of water. Southern Georgia shares the extensive Florida lake system, or rather systems, as the Florida lakes have more than one waterbed. Mississippi and Louisiana have a lake system dependent upon the Mississippi River. Something of the kind is true also of eastern Arkansas.

The large decrease in the number of immigrants arriving in this country within the last two or three years is very gratifying to the officials, and: they take to themselves a share of the credit attaching to it. It is asserted that never before have the immigration laws been enforced more rigidly, and one result of this restrictive policy ie shown in the falling off of nearly 50 per cent in immigration since 1898. Every immigrant is required to pass a searching examination before he is admitted to land, and if there is-good reason to believe that he belongs to any of the prohibited classes he is at once returned to the country whence he came at the expense of the steamship company bringing him over. During the last year or two the steamship companies have found it to their interest to co-operate with the officials in keeping out undesirable persons, and the result of these combined efforts have been very satisfactory. A statement has been prepared at the Bureau of Immigration which shows the number of immigrants which arrived in the United States for the nine months ending March 81, in each of the last three years, to have been as follows: 1898, 259,560; 1894, 218,644; 1895, 140,989. Numb* of immigrants debarred for nine months ending March 81, 1895, 1,488; number returned within one year after landing, 128.