Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 May 1896 — NOTES AND COMMENTS. [ARTICLE]

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Superintendent of Police Instruction Massey, of Virginia, decides that women cannot, in that State, hold even such an office as school trustee. The constitution provides that only voters shall be eligible to office. The inventors of Remington, Ind., have invented a glass coffin. They expect to make a fortune out of the idea, as they say there is a yearning desire for glass coffins all over the country, which thus far has had to go unsatisfied. The Chicago Times-Herald finds that o>f forty-four Governors twenty-nine are professing Christians. Of these ten are Presbyterians, five Congregattonalists, five Episcopalians, four Methodists, three Unitarians, one Baptist, and one Christian. A German arithmetician has calculated that If the 1,480,000,000 inhabitants of this globe were all enclosed in one space Just large enough to hold them, a good bicyclist could make the circuit of them in less than four hours. The Isle of Man would be large enough to hold them all. A writer in the Popular Science Monthly finds in teaching deaf pupils to understand by watching the lips of a speaker that the forty-odd sounds In the English language are comprehended in only sixteen visible facial forms. Proficients feel that they hear instead of see the words spoken. Two children were found drifting about alone on the schooner Robin Hood in mid-Atlantic. Their father had started out with them from Newfoundland for Lisbon, but had died eight days before another vessel fell in with the Robin Hood. A sailor was put on board, who brought schooner and children into Cadiz. The International Statistical Institute held at Berne, Switzerland, last summer took steps to investigate the desirability of all the civilized countries of the world taking a “synchronous” census in 1900, that is, on the same date. A census of this kind, carried on according to a consistent system, would bring more accurate results than have ever before been attained.

The number of applications for patents in England has decreased within the past three years. In 1893 there were 25,380 applications, in 1894 there were 25,110, and last year there were 25,007. When the present Patent Act came into force, with its reduction of fees", there was a sudden leap from 5993 applications in 1883 to 17,110 in 1884. Then, in 1885, there was a slight reduction of 100, but after that there was a steady increase up to 1894. Farmers in the region about Fresno, Cal., are almost in despair because of the plague of rabbits. Although many thousands of the animals have been killed lately in one way or another, by poison, by shooting, and in rabbit drives, they do not appear to decrease in numbers. Thousands have been shot in a day. but they come in from the surrounding uncultivated regions to feast on the grain fields in increasing numbers. It is estimated that three jack rabbits will eat as much grain as one sheep. A big drive was held in February and many thousauds of rabbits were killed, but a month later it was estimated there were 100,000 on the same ground. Another drive was held the last of March, but already the rabbits are swarming in again. It is not generally known that each year the United States contributes SIOOO to the support and maintenance of an international bureau of weights and measures which is located near Paris, France. Seventeen uations are contributors to this bureau which keeps the world supplied with accurate metrical standards. The metric system is obligatory in France, Germany. Italy, Belgium. Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Portugal, Norway, Peru, Servia, Venezuela and Sweden. It is permissive in the United Spates, Great Britain and Turkey. The fact that the majority of the nations use the metric system is a hardship on American and British producers, for some of the metric countries are not willing to enter into contracts with them because of the inaccuracies which come by the transference of figures from.one system to the other. Official figures given out from Spanish sources show the direct cost to Spain of the military operations in Cuba during the first year of the insurrection to have been about fifty million dollars. There are now one hundred and thirty thousand Spanish troops on the island, and the maintenance of ths increased force will entail an expenditure of from seventy-five to one hundred million dollars for the current year. To this direct cost must be added the loss of revenue. Last year, the receipts from customs were about eight million dollars below the average. Forty towns have been wholly destroyed and as many more partially so; and the loss to Individuals from the burning of sugar plantations and to the government in the revenue ordii*.rily derived from sugar is very heavy. The Spanish lost about four thousand men in the first year's operations, but more than three-fourths of this mortality was caused by yellow fever. As lias been announced, the exposition of Nashville to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the admission of Tennessee as a State will not be opened until May 1, 1897. But suitable ceremonials will be observed on the anniversary, which is .Tune 1 next. Tennessee was the sixteenth State. It was a part of the territory of North Carolina. by that State to Congress in 1792. several attempts had been made to form it into a State under the name of Franklin and of Frankland. In January, 1790, a constitutional convention assembled at Knoxville, formed a constitution, and appealed for admission into the Union under the name of the State of Tennessee. The region had long been known as the “Tennessee country.” but it is the tradition that Andrew Jackson, who was a member of the convention, suggested this name for the State. John Sevier was chosen the first Governor, and Andrew Jackson was elected thel first member of Congress. Congress, then in session ir Philadelphia, was under the control of the Federalists, and Tennessee was well-known to be Jeffersonian and Republican, but after a bitter contest the bill for the admission of the State pajssed both houses. The Springfield Republican, in an editorial on agricultural colleges, says: “The Michigan Agricultural College la

also under fire for failing to send back the main body of its students to the farms. The friends of the college have prepared an answer which they consider a strong one, but which still admits the truthfulness of the main charge. It appears that of the 676 graduates who have been sent out since the organization of the institute in 1857 only 156 assumed the occupation of farming. But the 84 who became teachers and workers in agricultural colleges and experiment stations, the 26 who became civil and mining engineers, and 50 others who became mechanics, chemists in foods and fertilizers, etc., are held to have adopted pursuits in keeping with the objects of the college—making 48 per cent, of all graduates who can be so classified. On the other hand, over one-half took up occupations which were foreign to the main purpose of the college—Bs teachers In non-agrieultural schools, 74 lawyers, 97 merchants, clerks, etc., 3!> physiciahs, 12 druggists, 11 editors, 11 bankers, 5 ministers. 2 artists, and so on. Of 925 non-graduates heard from only 161 took up farming, while the large body of the rest went int 6 such occupations as have just been enumerated. There would certainly seem to be ground for asserting that the agricultural college tends to educate Its students away from rather than toward the farms.