Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1896 — NOTES AND COMMENTS. [ARTICLE]

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

A homicide occurs every two hours in Italy. This was one of the many startling statements made by Baron Garofalo, a distinguished Italian criminologist, In a lecture delivered on “Criminality in Relation to the Education of the People” in the Roman College. His audience Included Queen Margherita. Next to Monaco, the smallest country in Europe, Is Liechtenstein, in Germany, the ruler of which is Prince Liechtenstein. For some time he has been living in Vienna, leaving a manager to rule in his place. This manager has become unpopular, and the people are so dissatisfied that there Is some talk of mobilising the standing army of seven and a half men. According to Mr. Peterson, an expert dog-trainer in London, the life of a performing dog extends to about eight or ten years. The education of a dog for the stage, according to Mr. Petersen’s ideas, should not commence before the animal is a year old, and generally lasts for a year. Some animals, however, are quicker than others,and a dog found in the streets repaid his rescuers from the lethal chamber by picking up all that was taught him and going on the stage in three months. According to a recent bulletin of the Bureau of Labor the gross average product of every employee engaged in manufacturing or mechanical industries is $2204 a year. Of this, the employee gets $444.83 as wages; $1213 goes for raw material, and $547 for salaries, rent, etc., and profits. The average annual wages are increasing with every census, having been $247 in 1850, $289 in 1800, $302 in 1870, $340 in 1880, and $444.83 in 1890. Japan’s hope of becoming a great iron and steel manufacturing country has been clinched by the discovery of iron deposits of vast extent and high grade. At Iwate mines have been opened which will produce 30,000,000 tons. Mr. Wnda, ex-chief of the Mining Bureau of Japan, is authority for the statement that the product is equal in quality to that imported and makes as good steel. As cool retails at $2 gold per ton in Japan, the prospect that the country will soon cease to import manufactured iron and steel goods is practically assured.

Accidents will happen, says the proverb. According to a table published In the Pittsburg Chronicle-Dispatch from an analysis of 2000 accident cases, there were 531 persons injured by falls, or missteps on pavements, 243 by carriages or wagons, 75 by horse kicks or bites, and 47 by horseback riding, 117 were cut by edge tools or glass, 96 were hurt by having weights fall on them, and 06 were hurt by bicycle accidents, while 73 were hurt by falling down stairs. Yes, accidents will happen, and here’s a little study of chances. But what a lot of trouble a little caution will sometimes avert. Biblical scholars throughout the world will await with intense Interest further particulars concerning the manuscript Gospel which was recently discovered in a village church near Caesarea, in Asia Minor, and which the Czar of Russia is said to have purchased. All that is known of it now is that It is very old and beautiful being written upon the finest and thinnest vellum, which has been dyed a deep red purple. The letters are in silver, and are square, upright uncials; the abbreviations of the sacred names are in gold. The pages are 32 centimetres by 26, and the writing on each page is in two columns.

Boston has at last acknowledged the unwisdom of having a cow for city surveyor, if one may so express the fact that some of the streets there are laid out so as to follow the cow-paths of the original hamlet. The inconvenience of the streets and their narrowness have led to a most expensive congestion of traffic. The daily amount of freight carried through the city is estimated at 100,000 tons. The unreasonable delay for each team under present circumstances is one hour out of the ten, which constitutes a working day, or a loss of 10,000 tons daily. At a cost of sixty cents a ton, there is a loss of SOOOO a day. or $1,800,000 per annum. The World’s Proctor Memorial Association has announced that it wfill erect the largest observatory in the world on the summit of Mount San Miguel, near San Diego, Cal., as a memorial to the celebrated astronomer and author, Richard A. Proctor. The association was organized some years ago in California, but it is proposed to nyike the observatory of an international character, and secure, if possible, the co-operation of the leading Governments of the world. The intention is to equip the Institution with the largest telescopes ever constructed, the first one to have lenses five times the size o the Lick and four times that of the Yerkes telescope; if it proves a success, still more powerful will be constructed on the sectional-lens principle invented by Astronomer Gathman, of Chicago. Mount San Miguel comprises about 12,000 acres and has an elevation of 3600 feet. An American engineer named Hobson has contributed to the Revue Bleue an article on the Eastern situation, in which he plainly expresses his doubts of Lord Salisbury’s belief that the concert of the powers may eventually lead to a cessation of the present armed peace. He would have Britain go to war at once, since he believes that by next year, or the year after, France and Russia together will have a far stronger navy than Britain will then possess. Mr. Hobson declares that the dual alliance of France and Russia will easily dispose of the triple alliance.. “France for money, Russia for men,” he says, “are almost inexhaustible, but the triple alliance cannot stand the strain of keeping up its armaments much longer, and England will have to make very heavy sacrifices to regain a little of the superiority which she will have lost in warships of the first-class.” Russia and France will, therefore, wait till the rest of Europe is bankrupt, and then, perhaps, arrange a new alliance. In this way, Mr. Hobson arrives at the conclusion that England ought to go to war immediately, “since every day that passes puts her in a state of increasing inferiority at sea as compared with her adversaries.” It is clear that Mr. Hobson’s article was written for a French and Russian alliance-