Hope Republican, Volume 2, Number 15, Hope, Bartholomew County, 3 August 1893 — Page 2

HOPE REPUBLICAN. By Jay C. Smith. HOPE INDIANA A shower of toads is reported from Maine. Is it possible that the Maine liquor law is a failure? The tall lighthouse on Long’ Island, near Shinnecock Bay, was recently struck by lightning, and the keeper’s rooms were badly demoralized. New York City is-continually agitated over the alleged pollution of its Croton water supply, and the leading journals wage a vigorous crusade against the evil. Frenchmen, having become tired of fighting duels that result in the destruction of gun-powder only, except where an occasional bystander stops a bullet by accident, are now talking of a resumption of work on the Panama canal the coming winter, and recent dispatches state that there is already 50,000,000 francs subscribed for that purpose. The Now York Tribune defies the Colorado silver agitators who have been proposing to fight till blood shall rise to the horses bridles, and asserts* that New York State could place in the field and maintain more armed men than all the silverproducing States combined. This ■information is no doubt correct but entirely unnecessary. There is no probability that there will be a civil war in this country again. The Choctaw Nation in the Indian Territory have a very simple way of dispensing justice when it becomes necessary to execute the death pen alty. Two men hold the criminal’s hands, while the sheriff, charged with the duty of executioner, knee’s five paces in front, aims a rifle at a bit of white paper pinned over the victim’s heart, and shoots him dead without further ceremony. All things considered, the proceeding is an improvement on the usual hanging, accompanied, as it often is, with bungling machinery and spectacles of the most revolting cruelty and horror. Mr. C. W. Harrington writes to the New York Sun from Olivet, Carroll county, Arkansas, stating that there are thousands and perhaps millions of acres of good land subject to entry under the homestead act in northern Arkansas and southern Missouri, within 150 miles of St. Louis. He urges people desiring comfortable homes and independent incomes to investigate the healthful and undeveloped country so long neglected and so easily accessible. Lands through the southern tier of Missouri counties are rated at from $2.50 to 17 per acre in settled communities much nearer to markets than the homestead lands, and can be bought on favorable terms. There is a government land office at Harrison, Ark. The modern innovation of Safety Deposit vaults in our large cities is believed to be very largely responsible for the financial stringency , which has gradually throttled the current of business transactions. These Safety Deposits, containing private apartments which any one can rent, afford a secure hiding place for untold wealth that not only escapes the assessor, and thereby fails to contribute its due proportion to the support of the gov- j eminent and the maintainance of ; civilized society that rendered its | accumulation possible, but currency in large sums is thus withdrawn from the channels of commerce and thus inflicts a two-fold injury to the community that protects and cherishes the fortunate owners. The Safety Deposit is in some respects a financial heaven, for treasure placed within its ponderous and protecting walls is in a refuge where “neither moth nor rust corrupt nor thieves (and bank cashiers) break through and steal.’' Cable dispatches from Paris state that riots in that city have largely been caused by the excessive, heat, and that all of the historic outbreaks of the past have occurred during extremely heated termfe. The high temperature, it is alleged, drives the lower classes to a desperate frenzy

! that is unknown when the thermomI eter acts in a reasonable manner. The populace confined to the squalor I of heated streets, without possible relief, become temporarily madmen , to whom consequences—life or death —are of little moment, and ; they fight and kill from sheer wani tonness —without reason and with i no real grievance that is within the j power of human authority to remedy I or set right. Country people will | find it difficult to believe this, but i residents of our American cities who I find the streets like so many ovens, | for weeks at a time, that leave peo- | pie limp, panting, damp, unpleasant wrecks of their former selves, can realize that a very slight increase of misery, squalor and discomfort might temporarily turn them from i peaceable citizens into flaming incen- ! diaries or organized mobs, i Lightning rod peddlers continue ! to make forays upon the rural popu- ! lation in various parts of the coun- ( try, and continue to call down upon 1 their class the maledictions of num- ! erous victims of their treacherous i wiles. There seems to be no safe- | guard from the ravages of these : pestiferous vermin except to submit i to an attack, pay the bill and aei quire the rod and the experience necessary to insure immunity from j future attacks. ’Like victims of ! smallpox and some other diseases, persons seldom suffer a second attack, one siege being an effective prophylactic for all time. • Our advice, therefore, would bo to all householders in the unprotected districts to buy a lightning rod at once, on the best possible terms, for if it is not a safeguard against the thunderbolts of heaven, it will at least act as a protection against the emissaries of the lower regions in the guise of rod peddlers, who annually prowl about seeking whom they may devour. Investigations conducted by a correspondent of the Chicago Inter Ocean seem to establish the innocence of Seay J. Miller, the negro lynched at Bard well, Ky., for the outrage and murder of the Kay sisters near that place on the 5th of July. The lynching was accompanied by extreme brutality, Miller being hung to a telegraph pole by a log chain, after being elevated on a forked stick, and then let fail to break his neck, which was done at the first drop. The crazy mob fired numberless shots into the insensible body, and the toes were cut off, after which the body w r as burned on a pile of timber collected for that purpose. All efforts to induce Miller to confess failed, and it is the solemn belief of many of the best citizens of Bardwell that an innocent man was sacrificed to appease the infuriated mob that demanded a sacrifice for the atrocious crime that had been committed in their midst. Such occurrences are not calculated to give thinking people an increased respect for American civilization. Savages could do no worse, Lynch law is fast becoming a reproach to American society, and is indefensible even in the most aggravated cases, where the guilt of the criminal is already established beyond a doubt. PEOPLE Justice Field is the only supreme justice remaining who sat in the famous electoral commission. Michael P. Chalk, of Duluth, the most famous diver along the lakes, has. invented a submarine armor which he believes will withstand the pressure of the sea at a depth of 1,800 feet. Prof. C. K. Jenuess, of the Leland Stanford University, the sociologist, in order to more thoroughly familiarize himself with tramp life, dressed himself as a tramp and lived among the profession. He was, however, quickly detected and forced out of the ranks of the fraternity. The oldest officer in the French army is General Mellinet; he is ninety-five j’ears of age. The officers of the garrison of Nantes, where he resides, visited him the other day in a body, and gave him an ovation. He received the grand cross of the Legion of Honor after the battle of Magenta. Mr. Selous, the famous traveler, said in a recent lecture that during his twenty years’ traveling in South Africa with a few unarmed followers he was only once attacked by the natives. This was in 1888, when in the dead of night an attack was made on his camp by the Mashukulumbwe, who were incited to the attack by some rebel Barotse.

TOPICS OF THESE TIMES. INDIANA, From an exhaustive monograph, compiled by Mr. John B. Conner, of the Indiana Farmer, at the request of the Indiana Board of World’s j'air Managers, wo have gleaned a few interesting facts relative to the resources, history and future possibilities of the great Hoosier State. Indiana, exclusive of the surface covered by the lakes of the State, has 21,637,760 acres of land. From north to south its average length is about 250 miles with a width of nearly 150 miles. The Territorial government was established in May, 1800. As early as 1702 French explorers had found their way into the territory now embraced within the .limits of the State, but seventy years later the white population did not exceed 550 people. In 1808 the white population numbered 17,000. and the census of 1810 showed 24,520, The Indian titles to lands, relinquished in 1810. released only the hill regions in the southern part of the State. All north of the Indian Boundary Line, beginning in the Whitewater valley and extending in a northwesterly direction to the Wabash river, just north of Terre Haute, was held by Indian tribes and was an unbroken hunting ground, abounding in wild game. In 1816 the Territory had a population of 63,897, and was admitted to the Union as a State. In 1818 all Indian lands were relinquished to white settlement excepting a small reservation on the Mississinewa river for the Miarais and a similar tract on Eel river for the Pottawatomies. This section was known at the time as the “New Purchase,” and was speedily taken up by home-seekers, and, fortunately, by actual settlers, without the aid of speculators, There being no market for lumber, the almost inestimable wealth of the great timbered central portion of the State was in a large measure sacrificed and wasted in rail fences and by deadenings and burning in logheaps. In the hill sections of the State sixty years ago plowing was done so as to prevent washing gullies, so as to throw’ a furrow’ down hill, dragging the plow back to run another furrow, and thus by great labor plowing half an acre a day. Now, by means of the revolving plow, hillsides are as rapidly tilled as other lands. Summit lauds, lying at the top of water sheds, are usually’ underlaid with a heavy clay, the top soil being comparatively shallow, but by drainage and fertilization have become very durable and productive. The State is especially rich in alluvial soils along the numerous river bottoms and water courses. These soils are remarkable for their fertility and usually rest on beds of sand and gravel. The frequent overflows keep up the fertility, and seventy to eighty bushels of corn per acre is no unusual yield. The prairie lands of the State, in the northwestern section are usually underlaid with a heavy clay subsoil, and usually contain a considerable per cent, of sand, and, in favorable years, are as fully productive as the bottom lands. Through drainage, the oldtime “chills and fever,” that w’ere a standing menace to the health and prosperity of the people, have been removed, and these miasmatic diseases are seldom experienced even by the residents of what was formerly known as the swamp regions. The railroad epoch in Indiana begun in 1850. though a few lines had been projected and partly built fifteen years earlier. No State in the Union has superior transportation facilities to-day. All but three of the ninetytwo counties are touched by some of the lines. No one influence has had so great and beneficial an effect on the agriculture of the State as the numerous railway lines. The first public exhibit of shorthorn cattle ever held in the State was in Governor’s Circle, Indianapolis, now the site of the State Soldiers’ Monument, in 1835. From this date these pure bred cattle were sought for in all sections, and importations from England have been numerous. Mr. Conner regards Purdue University as a most beneficent institution to Indiana! agriculturists in every way, claiming that it is producing a class of intelligent farmers that would have been impossible to have secured in any other way. Lands are still comparatively cheap to those who know hon ; to use them, and no

commonwealth in the United States is more favorably situated with regard to markets and possible profits for the intelligent agriculturist. AMERICAN WHEAT PRODUCTION. There is a measure of encouragement to the farmers of the United States in the fact that the production of the great staple of wheat has approximately reached the maximum, and were it not for the unknown quantity, in the problem, of the output of the other great cereal producing countries of the globe the future prosperity of the American husbandman might be predicted with some degree of accuracy and regulated by a decreased supply for the constantly increasing demand that must of necessity be a marked peculiarity of the markets of the world within the next decade, if the ratio of the increase of population in the past ten years shall be maintained in the large cities of our own country and of other lands. Notwithstanding the rapid development of the territories of the Northwest, and the great addition to the area of lands sown to wheat as a consequence, there was during the ten years ending with 1889 a reduction of 2,000,000 acres in the nation's wheat area that had been attained up to 1879. The tendency to devote | more and more land to meadows and pastures has been a marked peculiarity of agricultural progress in the United States since 1879, and each year, while showing great increase in the area of cultivated soil, has shown a decrease in the per centage of land that has been devoted to the l production of the great staple. The j conversion of wheat lands to other ! uses has been very active in all the i States cast of the Mississippi, as well as in Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska. The reductions in Iowa, Nebraska and Missouri aggregated ! no less than 3,560,000 acres. The i area devoted to corn production is j also deficient, so that the possible conversion of coni lands to the proi Auction of wheat is no longer practicable, and there are indications that wheatlands will, under present conditions, be largely diverted to i corn growing, to meet the constantly increasing demands of a home market that annually adds 1,500,000 to its population. As matters stand | now, we have the product of some j 6,000,000 acres for export, but with i the steady growth of our population, i the acreage devoted to growing I wheat for shipment abroad must i naturally decrease at the rate of at least 600,000 acres per annum, unless —which is highly improbable—we can add materially to our wheat bearing area. As there are no more Dakotas —that with the aid of Kansas aded 6,500,000 acres to the wheat area during the past eight years—to replace the acres that are continually being diverted to the production of corn, beef, hay and cotton in the older States, it seems inevitable that our supply of wheat for export must of necessity decrease, and should there be a failure of the wheat crop—as has often happened—in other countries, the price must materially advance in the European markets and consequently in our own. When agricultural producers shall have learned the great lesson—by which capitalists have profited to such an alarming extent in the past few years —to limit by combinations and trusts the production of an article of which there is already an | over-supply on the market, fifty I cent wheat will become an unknown j commodity. The World’s Agriculture. I St. Louis Globe-Democrat. The agricultural capital of AusI tralia is estimated at £373,000,000. I Europe has 5,345,000 acres in beets, j producing 40,400,000 tons. Fiance has 6.455,000 farm owners, who hire 11,794,000 laborers. Ellison estimates the world’s cotj ton crop at 5,330,000,000 pounds. Of 9,390,000 acres in Switzerland, 1,520,000 are under cultivation. Russia has the greatest amount of live stock of any counti’y in Europe. Russian farmers hold an average of twenty-seven acres to each family. Potatoes were introduced intc Massachusetts from England in 1629. The average annual product oi each laborer in India is estimated at $50. The cultivation of potatoes in France has increased fivefold since 1820.

THE FAIR SEX. Prince Francis of Teck, brother ol the bride of the Duke of York, Is said to be engaged to marry Miss Nellie Bass, daughter of the wealthy London brewer. Jay Gould in his will required that the unanimous consent of the other heirs should be obtained in advance to h > marriage of his daughter, Miss Helen Gould. That, it is said, she has secured. A SAILOR HAT. The tailor-made girl tells you jshe wears a sailor hat. The maiden ol frills and ruffles makes the same remark. But when the two hats are compared, they have little family resemblance. The one which is firmly on the head of the tailor-made girl is prim and stiff, made of dark straw and with no other trimming sajve a plain ribbon band.

A fluffy girl seen in Washington the other day wore a sailor hat of another st rt. It was of cream-col-ored straw. The rather low crown was ra’sed a trifle by means of a black velvet band. A bla^t 151 W of Wales plume stood [/ at the front, wh'le other curled around it. Loops jri| of pale blue velvet were ■■ 1 other trimming. The r /. - hat was lined with blue ranged in narrow bands,., There are three women important positions in the Mj,';;* Office at Washington. One Sarah .1. Noyes, who is the Second Assistant Examiner electrical division; thesecond Tyler, the Second Assistant iner of farming implements: and third is Mrs. Francis R. Assistant Examiner of Civil EnjH neering. All three positions requiM thorough technical knowledge. S Loveland, Colo., has a Co-opera« f ive Exchange Club numbering ty-four women. They do not deal in. money at ail, only labor and products. — A HOUSE JACKET. Insertion is popular this summ In this dainty house jacket it shew?, t j excellent advantage Ti iaC is made of pale-blue 1 vv tr. in 1 with diagonal bands t V' , .<te..cicnnc8 inser im. .Vi

The skirt is very full and is finished with a ruffle of the lace. Narrow pale blue ribbons are run in ano out through the belt and tie in front in a bow with many loops. Such house jackets are also made of white lawn trimmed with straw colored insertion and lace. A small troup of Hawaiian swin.J rners are in San Francisco. Witi the exception of one woman who has some grace the women are pro nounced by an Examiner reporter “flabby, unwholesome, gelatinous.’' Once in the water, however, they could loaf there all day, and the endurance of those “lumps of brown women,” as the Examiner calls them, is something incredible. It is said that when between two of the Hawaiian islands the boat of a native woman and her white husband sank beneath them the woman swam wit! the man until he was dead, and then brought his body to shore, swimming sixty miles.