Indianapolis Journal, Indianapolis, Marion County, 30 August 1885 — Page 4

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TEE SUNDAY JOURNAL RY JNrt. C. NEW A RON. WASHINGTON OFFICE—SIS Fourteenth St. P. S. Heath, Correspondent. SUNDAY, AUGUST 30, 1885. ' TWELVE PAGES. Telephone Colls. Beefnes* Off** 238 | Editorial Rooms 242 The Sunday Journal lias the largest, and best circulation of any Sunday paper in Indiana. Price five cents. TWO SOETS OF LIES. The power of the press depends wholly on SU accuracy mid honesty. It doesn’t matter how able a paper may be, how widely informed, how scholarly aftd acute in its discussions, if Us motives may be plausibly impugned, or its accuracy questioned, its influence is weakened lost. The most cogent argument ever wade will lose its force on a man who thinks it is made from bad or interested motives. The lawyer whose character most fully assures a jury that ho is in earnest and says ©idy what he means, is the lawyer who will carry a jury with him all the time, however shrewd and plausible the opposition. Lord Bacon’s apothegm that ‘‘an assertion is like a long bow that shoots the harder as the strength of the bowman is greater, but an argument is like a cross bow, that shoots with equal force whether discharged by a giant or a child,” is some degree sound, but not wholly. An argnment is more like an assertion than he thinks, in its dependence for force on confidence in the man who uses it. The world moves very much more closely in the direction of confidence than logic, and the man who is trusted will do the ruling all the tims against a man who may bo impregnable in logic. Wherefore we say again that the press is powerful in proportion to the confidence felt in its honesty and correctness. Ability is a wnaller factor in its infiuonco than the general belief that it never says anything insincerely ©r incorrectly. When some adventurous reporter attempts a hoax which, on its face, is plausible and likely to be generally believed, lie commits a crime against his profession for which he •uglit to be expelled from it and punished by legal enactment. newspaper lie is not a private “blow-in-my-lug" lie. As Thackeray says of tl.e criticism of his “Kickleburys,” in the London Times, “a man can’t be abused in the T imes and pretend that nobody knows it.” What is said in a paper is preached from the house-tops and rung from the church steeples. If it is only' a deception as to news, that disturbs nobody’s peace, affects nobody’s business. stirs nobody’s temper; still it is a break in the integrity of the press that makes the public more likely to distrust all that is said, and to make all news communications of less Interest —an effect that will surely react on business and be felt in the bank account. It is an indirect robbery as well as direct forgery, and the statute should punish it with fine and Imprisonment. Libel suits are no reparation, for the injury does not affect individual credit, and the deceived papers have no ground for libel. They are damaged ten-fold worse than any lie about them could damage them, by a lie inserted in them that merely fools the readers. Yet they have no ground for a claim of damages. They have been swindled, but not libeled, and for a swindle of that character the law has made no provision. The paper is at once the victim of a swindle and an innocent swindler.

Wo have been led into these suggestions by two or three recent falsehoods of more than usual ’conspicuity. A short time ago there raine from San Francisco a report by telegraph that Maxwell had disclosed his line of defense in the assertion that Preller was living, and the corpse found was that of a “stiff' procured for the occasion. It was a whole lie. It seems now as if that would be the actual line of defense, but it wasn't then. Maxwell had made no statement at all. A reporter had manufactured the whole affair. Now, the lie hurt nobody that read it, for it didn’t concern them in the least whether there was such a defenso or a combination of facts to sustain it or not. But it hurt the character ©f the press reports. If so plausiblo a statement were a mendacious manufacture, what atateineut of the press could be trusted? It was a crime against the fourth estate and the supremacy of truth. Again, a letter of Mr. Bayard concerning the Keiley caso was paraded in the press dispatches. It was a forgery, out and out. But who could suspect it, when it tilted its place so aptly? Again, but a few days ago we had the story of a bigboned yeoman of Montgomery county who conquered three burglars, tied them, took them to the woods, hitched them up to a tree and gave them each a hundred lashes with a tough, excoriating switch. It was a lie. Nothing of the kind ever occurred. The inventor of it is a criminal against public trust in the sources of its daily information, a swindler not one whit better morally, and only by mischance less guilty legally, than the forger of a check. No one needs to be told that such things as these must injure confidence in the press. It is unjust, for the press is no less a victim than the public, but it is made the agent of an infinitely wider deception, and suffers as any detected deceiver must. It is not probable that any paper has lost a render from the exposed and exploded lies referred to; but, if there is io be more of them, when will the end come, and what will be the effect when it does come? The reports of interviews giving the speculations of this or that statesman, or prominent

THE INDIANAPOLIS JOURNAL, SUNDAY, AUGUST 30, 1885-TWELVE PAGES.

man, the opinions of Buggison, of Ohio, and Buggleton, of Tennessee, are nothing. Nobody trusts them. Five interviews out of six are contradicted in fivo hours after they appear. Nine out of ten imputed opinions and speculations of partisans are denied or qualified. It is understood that they mean very little more than a sort of mental exercise of a correspondent, something to “keep his hand in,” or a desperate effort to maintain an average of matter with an eye to wages. These are all readily appraised at their fair value as movers of public sentiment. We don’t care for them. It is the lie direct, the story of an occurrence that the public has no reason to doubt, an invention of incidents that enlist public interest that we object to. Mulhattan inventions, Locke “moon hoaxes,” fish stories, Pierceville snake scares, are a different thing. They are such obvious lies or exaggerations of small truths that the distrust of them does not affect the character of the press. One thinks of them as “Tony” in Beaumont, and Fletcher’s “Wife for a Month” says of his huge fish lies: *• “I tell you more, there was a fish tahen, A monstrous fish, with a sword by ’s side, a long sword, A pike in’s neck, and a gun in’s nose, a huge gun, And letters of mart in’s mouth from the Duke of Florence.” —“This is a monstrous lie.” “I do confess it. Do you think I’d tell you truths?” A lie that nobody will believe, and is not made to be believed, but to make fun, is one thing. These inventions that deceive the public about matters that they want to know only the truth of are a very different thing. They ought to be by law, like forgery or fraud. THE INCREASE OF INSANITY. Commenting upon the facts that there are a hundred thousand insane persons in the United States, one to every 550 people, and that the ratio has greatly increased in the last thirty years, Dr. W. li. Fletcher asks what are the real and what the apparent causes of this increased tendency to mental disease, and whether these causes may be held in check or diminished. Among the apparent causes the Doctor places increased hospital capacity, and the various charitablo means taken to preserve the life of the chronic insane, who would otherwise, by exposure, privation and suicide, be thinned out, but are now preserved to more than usual old age. Another apparent cause is the popular change of opinion regarding the treatment of insanity. Fifty years ago to bo sent to an insane hospital ostracised one as completely as a term in the penitentiary. This is all changed now, and a brief residence at the asylum is no more detriment to social standing than a visit to Hot Springs or southern Florida. Simple, odd or eccentric pcoplp, harmless enough, fall in the way of professional experts, or among the great body of people, especially in cities, who have no patienco with crauks of any kind, and are sent to hospitals by relatives or neighbors who do not care to be bothered by them. Dr. Fletcher does not regard our system of education as a notably exciting cause of insan itv. He says: “In Indiana the evidence is rather to the contrary, tho great majority of insane coming from the ranks of the poor, where nature has supplied little mentality to begin with, and art lias done less. They rep-* resent a class that can bo tauglit little, save the cruder forms of manual labor. Most of our insane originally had a ful lack of wit.' Overstudy and too much learning have iu no instance that l can trace disturbed tho equilibrium of tho brain. The more learned we grow tho better the organization of tho mind, and the more prejudice is shaken off. I believe an education would have prevented many from becom-

ing insane." The Doctor is also in sympathy with the growing belief that the increased use of alcoholic beverages and narcotics is not, in itself, a prime cause of insanity. In most cases where the insanity is attributed to drunkenness, an element of heredity predominates, and it is as likely that the insanity was the cause of the loss of moral sense and will power suggesting constant or periodical st imulation, as that drink caused the insanity. Os the fifteen hundred patients in the Indiana Hospital, drunkenness is attributed as a cause in less than ono per cent. Specific and avoidable disease is doubtless productive of more insanity than drunkenness. Among the real and combatablo causes of insanity are assigned the emigration of weakminded, diseased paupers from Europe. * ‘These, like noxious weeds, have been uprooted and east upon us, where a better soil exists. Fertilized and nourished by an almost profligate charity, they take root, and by transplanting gain the strength of at least a superior virility.” Also, by prohibiting, or, a * least, discouraging, the marriage of those “who can only breed those bodily and mental defects which the state spends millions to cure.” Dr. Fletcher thinks many are sent to hospitals because there is a class of examining physicians who do not discern between disagreeable eccentricity and insanity that requires treatment. “The readiness with which sotuo of them recklessly and ignorantly sign a paper for commitment of a person ns insane with whom they have had but a few minutes’ acquaintance, or none at all, for a few dollars in lees, is shown on the official records of many institutions.” He recommends a board of examiners for each county, which, in all cases of alleged insanity, should take the testimony of the family physician, as well as of other witnesses, and that this board should have no interest in the number of inquests held, but bo paid by the State an annual compensation. “The present mode of insanity inquests (so-

called) in many States is a mere farce—the certificate of a physician or two, the word of one person perhaps, a justice or two, all interested in fees, who often do not view tho person to be condemned save at a distance, constitutes the process. Fully one-half of the patients received in the Indiana hospital are committed without their having any knowledge of the proceedings whatever.” Admission to lunatic asylums is quite too easy. Persons should not be cared for at the public expense who have the means to maintain themselves. “To furnish a home for all adjudged insane free of expense, is to offer a premium on the cultivation of the disease, besides robbing the people of personal pride and honor which should piotect them from such self-degradation. Tho peevishness of adolescence, the peculiarity and petulance of. old ago (senile dementia) should rarely be regarded as indications for removal from home and freedom to a hospital.” In conclusion, Dr. Fletcher states the common opinion that tho number of insane may be reduced by improved methods of treatment; Among these are the minimum of mechanical restraint, workshops, garden work, schools, and such employments and amusements as belong to a well-regu-regulated home. Successful treatment means educated and trained attendants who have taken as a life vocation the care of the insane; best of all, healthy, middleaged men and women of family, for the men’s wards as well as for tho women’s. These in place of tho young male attendants and giddy women, who come and go so that the entire corps is changed about twice a year, would add permanent interest, kindness and homelike comfort to the w-ards and make them truly homes for the insane.

The present superintendent of our great hospital evidently feels that political rotation is the main detriment to making the asylums of the State approximate to tho ideal ho has so cleverly drawn, and which the money spent on them, under honest management by the trustees and officers, would make them. The offices, from superintendent to kitchen scullion, have been political gifts, as is well known to tho public. How unfortunate this is when applied to their internal managment is tersely and vigorously stated by the Doctor, and was no doubt shared by the officer ho displaced. Dr. Fletcher says: “Os all curses that can be thrust upon an institution for the insane, of all cankers, blights and cancerous growths that eat out the vitality of good purpose in the treatment of the insane, is the employe whoso sole qualification is his politics. They seek the place because they are young, or because they are old, or because they are useless to themselves or others, or they want to be attendants until they can get something else, or, last but most common, becauso they or their friends are of great value to tho party in power.” This is, of course, no news. He who runs can read it in the management of all our charitablo institutions. The point to be noticed is that this is the deliberate and well-considered opinion of one who came to office by the very means he so honestly and forcibly ridicules' and condemns, but who has the courage to speak his convictions in tho most public and open manner. MINOR MENTION. It is said that tho son of Preston S. Brooks says “he can’t see why his father’s affair with Senator Sumner created such a wide interest.” The father tried to murder the Senator with a cane in the United States Senate chamber, while tho latter was sitting unwarned and unarmed in his seat. That’s .all; and it is a wonder that anybody should care for a little thing like that Tho “chivalry” presented Brooks with goldheaded cancs and gold cups for his during and gallantry iu beating an unarmed man, sitting down, over the head with a club. Another case of tho same quality occurred a little earlier, and in this the Journal came near taking an unpleasant interest. Albert Bust, member of Congress from Arkansas, got mad at Horace Greeley for some of his “abolition” talk, and one day found the short sighted Horace behind his spectacles, looking beamingly but blindly along Pennsylvania avenue. The exasperated and chivalrous Democrat, with a friend to back him, attacked the philosopher, hit him one or two blows without very serious damage, swore a volume of dirty profanity, largely saturated with mean whisky, and was interrupted by the spectators who speedily gathered. A public meeting in Arkansas passed resolutions of thanks to their representative for what they called “his manly and courageous defense of tho constitutional rights of the South,” and voted him a gold medal, or a gold-headed cane, or both. For this generous demonstration the Journal expressed something a little short of admiration, and imagined the speech that would be delivered by the gentleman designated to present tho medal or cane, or both, to tho modest and gallant recipient. It was very widely copied. Mr. Rust encountered it, and sent word to the Journal office that ho should pass through Indianapolis on liis way home, and would do unto the editor as ho had done unto Mr. Greeley unless an abject apology was made. It was never made, and Mr. Rust never came to Indianapolis. A Chautauqua correspondent tells a pathetic story of how, years ago, an old man living in Connecticut was so irresistibly attracted by tho descriptions of tho great summer resort that ho resolved, sooner or later, to see tho wonderful place. He was then past sixty and poor, but he began and continued to save small sums from his scanty earnings until, finally, last June found him in the possession of SOS, and he decided that the long deferred pleasure must be enjoyed. Thirty-five dollars would not permit of tho luxury of railroad travel, so tho old man walked, reaching his destination in time for tho grand opening, tired but happy. During tho entire month ho was faithful in attendance at all tho lectures, concerts, aud other means of grace, and at its close expressed himself as fully repaid for all he had expended, and as feeling twenty years younger. So enamored is he of the spot that he has resolved not to return to his Connecticut and uncultured home, but to remain in tho neighborhood of Chautauqua until

next year. All of which is very affecting, and go 38 to show that even a tramp should not despair while the great American university exists for the purpose of leading him to a higher intellectual life. The announcement that the government’s stock of postal cards has run low and may even be exhausted before a fresh supply is obtained, will not create any wild excitomont or alarm in the community. The postal card was a useful invention, and has its patrons now, but the day of its popularity has passed. Asa circular it is of service, and is convenient for the briefest of business communications; but for other purposes it has not usurped tho place of enveloped ietters. Postal clerks will be slow to testify that tho card is going out of fashion, but it is, nevertheless, true that even those people who loudly advocated its introduction and enthusiastically sounded its praises abandoned its use in personal correspondence after a short trial. The postal card is convenient and cheap, but nine persons out of ten, and not sticklers for style and elegance only, unhesitatingly select paper and envelope whon writing tho briefest notes. Maxwell, the man who is suspected of knowing all about the St Louis mystery, is undecided as to whether he will practieo medicine after lie gets out of jail or whether ho will go into the newspaper business. He inclines to the latter, however, as it seems to him “such a nice, easy life that a man with literary tastes ought to be able to do very well in it” If Mr. Maxwell has any true friends they will advise him that a nice, easy life in jail, with oysters and frogs’ legs, and pie brought to him every day by ladies of the elite St Louis society is far preferable to any kind of a newspaper job. If he knows when ho is well off he will stick where he is. A New" York woman gave her husband a dose of his own medicine, as she stated in a note left behind her, by taking SJO out of the savings bank and going off for a week’s junketing at the seashore, leaving him with five little children to caro for and no servant-giri. Instead of taking tho -matter philosophically, he pursued her, begged her to return, and, on her calm refusal to do so until she got ready, called upon a magistrate, who laughed at his woes. The injured husband then went home, and is now engaged, it may bo supposed, in “’tending baby.” Tho enfranchisement of woman is taking strides quito awful to contemplate. A Newark, 0., woman stepped out a secondstory window tho other night, climbed a picket fence and walked ten miles before she waked up to know wliat she was doing. Had she been wide-awake she would not only have taken a different way to get down stairs, but would have required tho services of a step-ladder, two chairs and a man in climbing over the picket fence, and then would have torn her dress off tho waist. With such impediments in their course it is better for women to travel in their sleep. Georgia comes proudly to the front with a young woman who possesses marvelous powers of mind-reading. The common place mindreader, who by painful effort points to some article on which the thinker has his attention fixed, is as nothing compared with this newlydiscovered prodigy, whose method is simply to walk up to a man, look at him a moment, and tell him what ho is thinking about. Lulu Hurst, the “Georgia Wonder,” will now make way for tho “Georgia Terror.” “The father of Miss Nourse, tho young lady who committed suicide by drowning herself at Louisville a few days since, killed himself with poison in Lafayette, Ind., in 1807. Ho was at the timo editor of the Journal of that city.” Ho was for a timo a contributor to the Journal of this city, in the later years of tho war, writing iu a scholarly style, with unusual force and clearness, and a still more unusual eleganco of chirography. At least, the Lafayette man was tho contributor here, whether he was father of the Louisville lady or not.

The song that has had and is having a great run, and justly so, is one the words and music of which are the work of our Indiana poetess, Mrs. D. M. Jordan, of Richmond. It is entitled, “Break into Beautiful Blossoms.” The verses have all the richness and smoothness incident to Mrs. Jordan’s writing, while tho music well bofits the rythmical melody that sings itself in the words. It is a beautiful parlor ballad. The publishers are Wm. R. Snow & Cos., of Richmond. Pittsburg claims possession of a young man with a broken heart who is never known to smile, and who shuts himself alone in a dark room at midnight and pours his misery out through the strings of a violin in wails like the cry of a lost soul.” Pittsburgers should not be proud. The easo is unique only in the fact that elsewhere young men afflicted with the midnight violin craze have broken beads also, if the neighbors can get at them. A Boston paper proffers tho information that it is the fashion to be “literary” at summer resorts this year, and that crochet work and embroidery have given way to the summer novel. This is the natural reaction from too much fancy work. The woman who has accomplished one or more crazy quilts realizes the need of resting her mind, and finds nothing better adapted to that purpose than the average summer novel. THE rUITiOSOriIER. Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?—“As You Like It.” The Grumbler may be all right in his peculiar way, may be an excellentcounter-irritant for the thousand and one things that persistently go wrong in this world, and may, in a more or less disagreeable manner, do much to regulate aud corroct such things as confessedly stand in need. But how much better, how much more agreeable, is The Philosopher, who, while he may sometimes “clip an angel's wiugs.” does so much to assuage pain and to temper tho innumerable disappointments that fall to the lot of humanity. Everybody knows someone such He is a young-old man, or an old young man, it is hard to say which. His conversation, his generous charity toward a fate that he insists has Hit him as hard as it could drive, yet failed to knock him out, would make him out as having journeyed up and down this world for eons. Why, tho fellow moralizes aud deduces, and finally philosophizes, till you almost begin to wonder if he hasn’t broken tho Methuselan record, and rounded up at least an even thousand summers and early falls. But his years, so far as physical appearance goes, are not so mauy, and it may bo that two score would cover them in, with a few to spare.* The writer knows one of this kind—a fellow serene at his best ostate, and uever turbid or roily like The Grumbler. Ho modestly confesses to being a philosopher in a humble way, and says that it pays; says it is a kind of catholicon for nil manner of mental disorders, a cocaine for even physical hurts and wouuds.

“But you are too young for a philosopher, n I ventured to suggest. “Wo11,” he began, and a far away look of minglod trouble and peace came into his eyes, “perhaps I am, aa the years come and go, but when a man lives two years in one, as I used to, it doesn’t take long to grow pretty old before you know it” Again a shadow of something swept over his face, and almost as quickly disappeared. I had caught him unawares, while his faithful Philosophy was astray. Summoning his comforter, he was ready for mo, and a look of contentment succeeded whatever may have been in his honest face. He was ready enough for mo now, and showed it. “I said,” b&wenfc on, “that I had once been used to living two years in one, and so I was.” He paused for a moment, then starting again, energetically—“Do you see this gash, this seam, or whatever you may call it, in my left cheek, extending from my eye almost to the corner of my mouth? That camo in one night, and was as visible next morning as though some enemy had drawn a knife-edge through its furrow. It was an enemy, I afterwords learned, though I did not know it then, and tried to rub it out, feeling that it had been caused by lying with that cheek to the pillow. I could not rub it out that day, nor the next, and it has persistently stuck to me since. That summer I grew ten years older, and much more than ten years wiser, and I don’t know but that on the whole the distress I suffered, for it was real, has been more than compensated in what I have learned. Life has beon better since, and I know better how to enjoy it. Even pain has been pleasanter, for Philosophy, who came to me then, has pointed out tho soft sides of it, the places to touch it without rewounding. and, best of all, how to bury it, weep over it, and turn away and find surcease of sorrow. Strange—isn’t it?—that, with ‘crows’ feet' gathering about my eyes, and more than a few white hairs asserting themselves in beard and hair, I should look on the world with kindlier, if not younger eyes than ever before. I tell you, my friend, I have learned as much at tho feet of Philosophy as you have at those of Gamaliel. I don’t want a gash in my right cheek, and 1 mean so to philosophize my way through the world as to never worry about the unavoidable, nor to borrow trouble. I am happy and mean to continue so.” And thus hf went on, soothed and soothingly. # * * Tho Philosoper is pained to hear of threatened labor strikes. He remembers the thousands of wives and babes already scantily clothed and fed, it may be, who would undoubtedly suffer if “the boys” should go out on a strike. There is many a household now where comfort and happiness reign, where hunger, and distress, and distrust would come in event the husband and father quit work. With ail its poverty and its deprivations, the world is full of happinoss. The cottage of the brakeman and of him from the engine-house and machine-shop is that of a prince, compared with the habitations of former generations. He dresses better, lives better and is better fed than anybody under royalty of two centuries ago Say what you will, in the home of the temperate mechanic and laboring man there is genuine happiness, and the constant tendency is to the still greater betterment of his condition. The world is moving in the right direction, and each succeeding generation builds above tho preceding. The secret of this is co operation. We may not all be rich; indeed, we may not all want to *be rich with the conditions generally attached, but we may, every one of us, he comfortable and happy. More than this is vanity at and vexation of spirit. One hand must wash the other. Labor must support capital, and organized, active capital must encourage and employ labor. A grudging spirit on either side is mutually harmful. Labor cannot afford to wantonly or stubbornly antagonize capital, any more than passeugors could be induced to scuttle the ship upon whoso safety their passage depends. Neither can capital oppose and grind its employes. There must he freedom of action on either side, and if this be so. matters will so adjust themselves that vexatious labor questions will never be long in settlement, strikes will not be needed and lockouts unknown. The Philosopher has lived long enough to observe that the professional labor reformer and agitator never gets rich, never; nor do any who follow them. Tho laborer who thrives is the quiet one, that one that always is about his business, punctual to the minute and conscientious in the discharge of every duty. He has noticed that the men who are in easy circumstances today are the men who made good records when thoy were employes, and as a rule with few exceptions these are the only kind of men who have succeeded above their fellows. Os course, there are exceptions, and there are many honest, industrious men who have failed in accumulating much; hut their failure has been the result of exactly the same mishaps that tumble down millionaires and wreck capitalists. Against such accidents there is seemingly no safeguard. But it pays every time to he temperate, industrious and generous. The children of the man who does not drink beer and loaf about saloons seldom have cause for humiliation in comparison with others. The laborer who loves his family better than himself, better than beer and blood, is not often the man who has need of going on strikes, and he is never an agitator unless he is mentally out of balance. There is too much of good in the laborer’s lot, too much genuine happiness in company with wife and babes, to warraut a laborer following any hare brained “reformer,” who is never satisfied. Let us all be careful to move slowly, and not to mistake the sophistries of professional agitators for sound logic. The interest of wife and children is too sacred to bo frittered away without the carefulest consideration, and no call of organized or unorganized labor should make a man forget his own homo and its dependent inmates For their sake the Philosopher hopes that no strike may come, and that there mav be no repetition of„the destructivoiscenes'of 1877, nor of the awful distress attending the labor troubles in the Hocking valley. Lot temperate counsel and good sense prevail, and all will be well. BREAKFAST TABLE CHAT. • Light blue eyes are the oddity in a pure-blooded Louisville negress. M r. Mowbray Morris has been appointed editor of Macmillan’s Magazine. Rhode Island retains the greatest density of population of all the States. Thk Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Ctrclo has 100,000 pupils in all parts of the world reading the required books for 1880. Tiik wardrobe left by Marie Antoinette in her cell consisted of two dimity jupons, one dress and a jacqnetto in coarse cotton. Thk three months’ leave of absence on which Sir Frederick Roberts is now going home to Kuglaud is his first since he went out to Madras. The causes of a separation between a Georgia husband and wifo were that she had, until after marriage, concealed from him the fact that her handsome teeth

were false, and that he neglected to tell her that he snored in his sleep. They eould not agroe to set one fault against the other. Six thousand letters of Peter tho Great have remained under suppression. The Emperor of Russia now permits the publication of a selection. Tiik Castle of Buda, a homo of Hungarian monarchy for centuries, is to be completely rebuilt by the Emperor Fancis Josoph at a cost of $3,250,000. The prayers of tho famous Fulton-street prayermeeting, in Now York, have been asked for “a church which is prospering every way except spiritually." A Venetian gondolier makes on an average four francs (about eighty cents) a day the year roujad. On this he will marry, rear a family, and put some money away. Prince Leopold, only son of the lato Princ® Frederick Charles of Germany, has started on a long tour in the East. Tho possession of $1,000,000 enables him to do as he pleases. Professor O. C. Marsh, of Yale, has an elegant, moss-covered granite house on Piospect street, New Haven, and some of his friends speak of it as “Thy cold, gray stones, O. C." MONARCH, England's champion bulldog, for which .£IOO had beon refused, has just died. Ho had taken an immense number of prizes, and was considered by oxperts to be the best bulldog since Crib. Osnabruck sent Prince Bismarck a diploma of honorary citizenship inclosed in a casket made of th® wood of a bench in tho ancient Hall of Peace in th® town-house in which the Peace of Westphalia wa* signed in 16 18. The ex-Emprcss Eugenie is making a round of European watering-places as the Countess de Pierrefonds. Tho detective police of Carlsbad, learning that the assumed title was fictitious, reported her as an adventuress. r iilE Swedish Professor Warming, the famous botanist, has gone to tho Norwegian coast to study th® arctic flora. His arrival al/out this time will be opportune, as the mere mention of the Professor’s name will be warming. The remarrying record has again beon lowered—this time by a resident of Webster county, Miss., whose wife died on Monday, and who buried her on Tuesday, took out a license on Wednesday, and espoused her successor on Thursday. The Rev. Robert Laird Collier rosemblos Henry Irving so closely that, when in London, he was mistaken for tho actor by intimate friends. Mr. Collier says that once a member of the Lyceum Theater Company talked an hour with him about dramatic matters, supposing him to be his employer, “Mikado" is pronounced as if it wore written “Mo-kaw-dough,” the accent being on the second syllable. Or, more precisely; the i is the French i with the c sound, ais like the ain far and the final ois long. It is thought by etymologists that the word is a Japanese compound from “mi,” honorable, august, and “kado,” gate, equivalent to Sublime Porte. Mikado is the titular name of the Emperor of Japan. Miss Lydia Thompson, the burlesque queen, will appear this fall. Miss Thompson is now forty-four years old. She is still a young looking woman, who retains the pleasing stage presence and lively manner that made her so popular when she first appeared. She is a native of London and began her professional careor at the age of eleven, making her debut as a dancer at tier Majesty’s Theater, London, in 1852. Her American debut was made in “Ixion,” in New York when she was twenty-seven years old. A Philadelphia bibliomaniac has a collection of nearly seven tons of newspaper clippings on every conceivable subject. There are biographies of every prominent man and woman in the world, anecdote* about them, and editorial comments on their failures and successes. The clippings about Queen Victoria would fill several good-sized volumes. He has a thousand columns of material about. General Grant. It is one of his daily pleasures to arrange this mass of matter in a convenient form for reference. He is going to leave tho whole collection to one of the larg® libraries. The Hartford Courant tells a good story of th® great showman: A day or two ago Mr. Bavnum saw some cattle in his grass at Park avenue and Park place, in Bridgeport, and ordered them to be driven to the pound. When his fanners went out that nighfc to milk there were no cows, and then the truth cam® out. The pasture had been ©hanged without Mr. Barnum’s knowledge, and he had impounded his own cows, and had to pay several dollars to get them out. The Russian censor has defined the meaning of history in Russia. An author, in describing the tent of one of the grand dukes, stated that among its ornaments was “the portrait of a certain actress." Tho censor altered the phrase to “a large map of the theater of war." The novelist objected that his description was “historical," whereupon the censorship replied that “in Russia nothing is historical exoepi what appears in tho official journals."

QUERIES ANl> ANSWERS. [All proper questions of general interest will be ad* mitted to this column, and answered, if possible. If the answers cannot be given the questions will be print ed to invite replies from the outside. The column is for the mutual pleasure and prolit of our readers.] GARFIELD AT HOME. To tho Editor of the Indianapolis Journal: Can you give the address of a company that publishes and sells a picture called “Garfield at Home?” Middleton, Ind. j. h. Wo cannot. THE GLOBE. To tho Editor of tho Indianapolis Journal: Is the Globe M. A. Life Association of Indianapolis a reliable company to insure in? Indianapolis. ’ Subscriber. It is young, and lias no assured standing. We cannot advise. • * grant’s book again. To tho Editor of the Indianapolis Journal: Can you inform me how an ageucy for Grant’s book can be secured? Header, Middleton, Ind. Address tho publishers, Charles L. Webster & Cos., Hartford, Conn. DUS. FLETCHER AND EVERTS. To tho Editor of tho Indianap'dia Journal: Does Dr. Fletcher live in Indianapolis? Where doe* Dr. Everts live? BNoblesyille. T)r. Fletcher is superintendent of the State Hospital for the Insane, this city. I)r. Everts i* head of the sanitarium at College Hill, O. GREENBACKS ESCAPE TAXATION. To the Editor of tho Indiananolis Journal: If a man owns SI,OOO in greenbacks, and loans it on interest and takes a note for it, is that note representing said greenbacks subject to tax? Or would it be exempt from taxation the same as if he had the money in his possession. T- C. 8. Coatesvillk. The note, of course, is taxable. Only greenbacks escape taxation. THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION. To the Editor of the Indiananolis Journal: (1.) Who was tho author of the commission that decided that Hayes was President? (2.) Was it* Democratic more than a Republican measure? (3.1 What proportion of Democrats and Republicans vote* for or against it? J. M. 0. Huntsville, Texas. (1.) Abram S. Hewitt. (2.) Yes. (3.) The electoral commission act passed the Seuate by 47 yeas to 17 nays, 10 members not voting. It passed tho House by 101 yeas to 80 nays, 14 members not voting. In the Senate, 20 Democrats voted for it, and but 1 Democrat against it Nino of tho 10 senators not voting were Republicans. In the House, of the 11 member* voting for it, 1">8 were Democrats, aud of the 86 voting against the measure only 18 were Democrats. Os the 14 net voting, 7 were Democrats. JOHN HOWARD TAYNB, ETC. To the Editor of tho Indianapolis Journal: (1.) Will you please give the history of John Howard Payne? (2.) Who blew up Hell (late, in New York harbor? (3.) How many years has the Statehouse been in building? (4.) When may we expect it to be finished? F. M. H. Warren. Ho was an American actor and dramatist, and was born in New York in 1702. In his latter years he occupied the post of consul of the United States at Tunis, where lie died in 1852, Ho was a voluminous writer, but his fame upon tho song of “Home, Sweet Home.” (2.) Gen. John Newton. He is preparing anothe# blast, which will remove the remainder of thw rooky obstructions. (’A) Seven. (4.] In thro* years more, probably.