Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 April 1896 — NOTES AND COMMENTS. [ARTICLE]

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Jersey has had a collateral Inheriiance tax a little more than three years, but its State Treasury has been enriched to the amount of $363,086.59 ty the tax during the time. The United States Postoffice Department now uses over 3,000 railway cars on 150,000 miles of road, and keeps 6,000 clerks on the move, traveling in crews 140,000,000 miles a year, during which time 9,000.000,000 pieces of mail matter are handled. St. Louis has organized war against the new woman. Her most exclusive feminine club is responsible for the crusade. A tendency to revolt against the restrictions of conventionality has been observed, and although nothing definitely monstrous has been done, it is deemed wise to meet the emergency at the start. A new field for feminine energies is always a theme of interest. Miss Jlaitie Louise Burns, of Chicago, deserves the congratulations of the business world, and the thanks of womanGem.’e, womanly and devoted to pretty kind. Gentle, womanly and devoted to pretty gowns, she is still actively engaged in the hotel business, and is making of it a success. The annual waste of the British army is about 34,000 men—more than the entire army of the United States! There has been much talk of reserves. England has over 80,000 reserves, all supposed to be mature and experienced soldiers. The Duke of Wellington, when asked what his reserve would be in certain eventualities, said, “Th- people of England!” Our reserve is the people of America. One of these days, warns the New York Tribune, under the stimulation of British enterprise and British capital, Burmah may be a serious competitor of the United States and Russia in the petroleum markets of the world. Oil xvells have been worked there for 2,000 years, but in a rude and primitive manner. Now they are turning out many millions gallons a year, and the quantity is increasing in a startling ratio. The quality of the oil is also very fine. Evidently the ancient realms of the East are by no means yet “worked out.”

According to official statistics the public domain of the United States originally consisted of 1,815,000.000 acres of land, of which all but 599,000,000 acres have been disposed of. Of the land remaining unentered Arizona has 55,000,000 acres, California 45,00Q,000, Colorado 40,000,000, Idaho 46,000,000, Kansas 941.000, Minnesota 5,000,000, Montana 73,000,000, Nebraska 10,000,000, Nevada 61,000,000, New Mexico 58,000,000, Oregon 37,000,000 and Wyoming 50,01X1,000. These immense tracts include great mountain areas which will be forever worthless for cultivation, but they include also millions of acres of arid land which can be made fertile if money enough is spent in irrigating them.

In the British Medical Journal a Paris correspondent says at least 2,500 physicians in France are battling with starvation, and he adds that physicians themselves are largely responsible for this state of affairs. They “have taught lady patronesses of different societies to diagnose diseases, to dress and bandage xvouuds, to vaccinate their own children and those of their neighbors. Medical science is vulgarized in every way. Doctors write in important daily papers explaining how bronchitis and cramps of the stomach are to be cured, and in fashion journals they teach how to cure pimples and avert headaches. Five hundred thousand gratuitous consultations are given yearly in Paris dispensaries, and in this w T ay a large amount of fees is diverted from the medical profession.” Speaking of women in the professions, a writer in “The Congregationalist” says: “The advance in medicine may be gauged by a few salient facts. When Harriet Hosmer, a sculptor of whom Massachusetts is justly proud, w’ished to study anatomy, she knocked in vain at the doors of medical colleges in New England and New York. Crossing the Mississippi she went to Dr. McDowell, dean of the Medical College in St. Louis, who said to her, with true Southern chivalry: ‘You shall study anatomy in my college, and if anybody interferes with you he will interfere with me first.’ Yet in her own State, not long after, the first medical school in the world for women was opened. This was in Boston, November 1, 1848, with twelve students. In the same city to-day are two hospitals, the New England Hospital for women and children and the Vincent Memorial Hospital, w’hich were started and are managed by women.” A factory for the employment of exconvicts will be planted in Chicago if the plans of the bureau of charities of the Civic Federation are carried into ecect. The proposition is that the work of the Illinois Industrial Association, repesented by A- C. Dodds, shall be taken up in a larger way. He has conducted a broom factory in which convicts were employed. It has been a failure. It is proposed that an organization be formed to take charge of this factory as a philanthropic and charitable institution. It will be run whether it pays or not.. It will be conducted by a board of directors of an association instead of a single person. The gentlemen interested in the scheme do not deem the reformation of convicts a hopeless task, even after hearing the experience of Mr. Dodds, who has for years made the problem of the convict his special work. In the old home, under his management, there had been posted up a set of rules. It was the chief pleasure of the men to break these rules. They succeeded in breaking all of them. It was not uncommon for them to sally out of this philanthropic institution' to “crack a crib” and bring the plunder back to the house. Once two of them had gone down into the kitchen and manufactured counterfeit money. A new bridge to be erected over the Tennessee River at Knoxville, while not to be of unusual size, will be, the engineer in charge says, a wonder in the engineering and architectural world. It Is to be built entrely of pink marble, quarried in Knox County and

within a few miles of the site. It will be 1,600 feet long from “out to out” of abutments and will be 240 feet long in the main spans of arch, which, it is claimed, is twenty feet longer than the longest arch in the world. It will rise at the crown of the channel spans 105 feet above water, with four largest cldedly imposing strusture. It is to be a solid marble bridge from side to side, with a fifty foot roadway over 100 feet above water, with sou largest spans in the world. The immense arches will be eight feet deep at the keystone, fifteen feet at the skewbacks, or spring lines, and will spring from piers thirty feet high and forty feet wide. The piers go to solid rock, the substructure limestone, twelve feet below the water surface at the bridge site. The arches and spandrel filling will be constructed of concrete. The parapet walls will be constructed of sawed marble slabs, with heavy blocks on pilasters every fifteen feet, projecting above the wall proper and giving what might be called a semi-castell-ated effect.

A correspondent of The Youth’s Companion sends a suggestive clipping from a local paper. The idea is advanced that one reason why the farmers of the country cannot have free postal delivery is that roads are so hard to travel. If the roads were good, postmen on cycles might deliver the mails everywhere. The Companion thinks the thought is one which dwellers in the country will do well to ponder. The increasing interest in the subject is attested by the space given to th* discussion of the question in the daily newspapers and other period!, cals. In a recent issue of the New York Independent Prof. Shaler, of Harvard 1 diversity, and several other experts, till eight pages with their contributions respecting the need of better common roads, the best methods of construction, and the obvious value of highways convenient for travel. Massachusetts sets the example for the rest of the country,and Prof.Shaler,who isa member of the Highway Commission, gives an account of the method adopted by that commonwealth to promote the building of good roads. Under this system three-fourths of the expense is met by the State, and the rest of the cost by the counties in which the work is done. The Massachusetts plan of State aid has been tried two years without showing serious defects, and Prof. Shaler regards it as a practical method of dealing with the road-build-ing problem. An important suggestion in these articles concerns the propel technical training of civil engineers who wish to make highway construction a specialty. The highest skill in engineering is required to exemplify the best methods in highway work. The study of materials to be used and of their proper disposition is a necessary preparation for expert treatment of the road question. The Companion concludes by asserting that the old theory in rural districts, that any one who could order workmen about vigorously ami make animals do their best was fit to be a highway constructor, is giving place to the sensible conclusion that careful training is needed for work which is designed to increase the convenience and prosperity of the community.”