Indianapolis Journal, Indianapolis, Marion County, 12 October 1897 — Page 4

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THE DAILY JOURNAL TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1897. Washington Office—lso3 Pennsylvania Avenue Telephone Calls. Business Office 238 | Editorial Rooms...A 86 TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. DAILY 11Y MAIL. Doily only, one month I -70 1 ally on'y, three mofiths 2.00 Daily oniy. one year 8-00 Dally, including Sunday, one year 10.00 Sunday only, one year. 2.00 WHEN FURNISHED BY AGENTS. Daily; per week, by carrier 1? c £ B fcunday, single copy 0 cls Dal/y and Sunday, per week, by oarrler 20 cts r, WEEKLY. t 1 Reduced Rates to t'lnli*. Subscribe with any of our numerous agents or send subscriptions to THE INDIANAPOLIS JOURNAL, • Indianapolis. Iml. Persons sending the Journal through the malls in the United States should put on an eight-page Paper a ONE-CENT postage *tamp; on a twelve nr sixteen-page paper a TWO-CENT postage stamp. Foreign postage is usually double these rates. ..All communications Intended for publication In thts paper must, in order to receive attention, be accompanied by the name and address of the writer. If it is desired that rejected manuscripts be returned, postage must In all cases be Inclosed far that purpose. THE INDIANAPOLIS JOURNAL Can be found at the following places: NEW YORK—Windsor Hotel and Astor House. CHICAGO—PaImer House and P. O. News Cos., 217 Dearborn street. CINCINNATI—J. R. Hawley & Cos., 154 Vine street. LOUISVILLE—C. T. Deering, northwest corner of Third and Jefferson streets, and Louisville Book Ce., 266 Fourth avenue. 6T. LOUlS—Union News Company, Union Depot. WASHINGTON. D. cT— Riggs House, Ebbltt House, Willard's Hotel and the Washington News Exchange, Fourteenth street, between Penn, avenue and F street. What would the city have “propagated” In the Taggart bog, anyhow? Frogs? Boodle, beer, bribery and the News are the reliance of Tammany Taggart to-day. Make a cross In the circle in which the emblem is the eagle to vote the full Republican ticket. If walls could talk, those of “the little room off the barroom” could tell some Interesting stories. The work to-day Is at the polls. If done well by Republicans, Mr. Taggart and Tammany will be beaten. A vote for Taggart Is. a vote to continue the Tammany methods so popular with the present city administration. There Is not a Republican in a precinct who cannot aid the precinct committee in getting out the vote to-day. So it seems the Park Hoard’s engineer put a draughtsman to platting the Taggart bog In June last “just to try him.” Ah. Every page of the record of the administration of Taggart which has been made public shows blackmail and corruption. Mr. Taggart has held office for ten years. When a public officer begins to feel that he Is the Whole Thing it is'time to turn him down. "The little room off the barroom” at the Grand Hotel seems to have been a favorite place for transacting certain kinds of municipal business. Mayor Taggart's wicked partners seem to have had a string to his bog land. They persisted in pulling it Into the park system in spite of him. The public has been Mr. Taggart’s oyster to the tune of $300,000 or more during the past ten years. He should be permitted to seek subsistence elsewhere. It is astonishing how the Taggart bog land persisted in getting Into the park schedule in spite of all efforts to keep it out. It is a very determined piece of land. It would be Instructive to know how many inspectors are forcing contractors to pay them a salary In order to escape annoyance or to be permitted to cheat in their work. The "open book” Is not the emblem of the Taggartitee on the ballot, but of John F. White. A closed and padlocked book w'ould be a fit emblem for Tammany Taggart.

Mr. Taggart should get rid of that bog land as soon as possible. A piece of property that Insists on selling Itself to the city In spite of the owner’s wishes is not safe to hold. For a newspaper that professes entire sanctification the News’s editorial page contains entirely too many lies to the square inch these days. The people are “on to” its hypocrisy. Councilman Dewar says that when the agreement of Feb. 26, including the Taggart bog in the park system, was signed by Holt and Lieber, “Mr. Taggart gave him a warm grasp of the hand.” Why? If Mr. Bryan should fail to hold Nebraska in the Popocratic line this fall and Henry George should be elected, mayor of Greater New York, the latter will then be the logical candidate of the Popocraey for President in 1900. A Western exchange which is disposed to be critical says that Mr. Bryan gets from SSOO to $2,5*10 for a speech, all of which comes out of the pockets of poor folks “who are worked in the name of suffering and oppressed humanity.” There is not an intelligent and fairminded man in the city who has examined the evidence who does not believe that the offense of the mayor in connection with the park territory is vastly more culpable than that of Mr. Holt. Os course Mr. Taggart's mime did not appear as owner of that tract of land ■which the Park Board was to have the “privilege” of purchasing for $15,0w0. The omission of the name was a feature of the scheme to deceive the public. The News is “satlslled” that thert is nothing in the queer stories about the mayor's land. It was satisfied that W{ s nothing in the Holt story until 1 o< confessed by paying the money back. Up* *i\ mayor resigns the News will have faith in him. It is astonishing how many "clerical errors” are to be found in the administration books. Even if they accept the official explanation of the peculiar entries, prudent taxpayers will feel that anew deal is desirable in the matter of bookkeepers. Nothing in journalism can equal the shamelessness of the News in Its treatment of Councilman Dewar. Yesterday morning one of its best reporters was sent out to interview him. but the truthful Interview was not satisfactory. Then another reporter was sent to him who knew the kind of story the editors wanted, and he wrote It out, putting words into Mr. Dewar's

mouth that he never uttered. And this is independent journalism. There is not a “partisan organ” In Indiana that would have been guilty of such an infamous proceeding. A BANE LESS LIE. Late last night a small sheet, bearing the head-line used on Truth, the campaign paper issued semi-occasionally by C. F. Smith in furtherance of his candidacy for mayor, was issued and circulated about the streets. It contains but little reading matter, and all it does contain is devoted to what purports to be an expose of street railway affairs. In brief, it states that a sum of $500,000 was last winter to be extorted from the Citizens’ Company. The little handbill goes on to say that Mr. C. F. Smith recently had a conference at Pittsburg with H. Sellers McKee, who told him that the agreement concerning the extortion of the money from the Citizens’ Company had been put in writing and that three copies of It were In existence. It Is then charged that a prominent physician was to receive a large sum with which he was to “fix” the Indianapolis newspapers. Mr. McKee is quoted as saying: Mxis Ross was down for a stipulated sum, and Harry New was to have $20,000 if the deal went through. I, myself, held the $20,000 in escrow lor Mr. New. The Sentinel was also in the deal. An effort was made last night to bring this matter to the attention of Mr. Smith, but he could not be found. Under the circumstances, and this accusation being made on the eve of an election, the Journal, in absence of Mr. Smith, does not charge that gentleman with responsibility far it. But the Journal, speaking for itself and for Mr. Harry S. New, says that this charge, so far as it relates either to this newspaper or Mr. New, whether made by H. Sellers McKee, C. F. Smith, or any one else, is absolutely and unqualifiedly false. NEWSPAPER HYPOCRISY. The Indianapolis News has traveled a long and crooked road since its founder established for it a reputation for honesty and fair dealing. It still affects to possess those virtues, but the Imitation is so tawdry as to deceive no one. Even old-time friends who have clung to it because of early associations have become disgusted with its pretenses, and the hypocrisy and unfairness of its course during the present campaign have proved particularly odious to readers who looked to it for facts upon which they might judge for themselves as to the merits of the respective political tickets. There is a class of citizens who believe In nonpartisanship in municipal affairs and prefer to judge of candidates by their individual merits solely. The Journal believes that the best results in local as well as general government can be obtained through party control, but It believes also In securing clean, honest and trustworthy men as party candidates. When tlrts is not done in its own party it believes in having mistakes rectified by the removal of the objectionable man from the ticket; when it is not done by its opponents it believes in setting forth the truth concerning the unfit aspirants to places of trust that the public may protect itself against them. Surely, the same honorable course might be expected from a paper which assumes more virtues than are on the calendar and claims nonpartisanship as its specialty. The Journal has nothing extenuated nor aught set down in malice concerning the Taggart administration. It has told the truth as it has found It, it has published facts and offered proof of Its assertions. The N-ws has not told the truth. It has lied and nrsrapresented persistently both in Its news and editorial columns. It has tried to conceal the unpleasant facts about Mr. Taggart and his friends where it could, and has boldly denied their truth where something must be said. It has published garbled interviews with citizens of whom it professed to be seeking information; it has indulged in sneers and innuendoes concerning the Republican candidate—it had no facts to his detriment. It has. in short, proved itself untrustworthy and mendacious, and more bitterly and narrowly partisan than any party paper of the Journal’s acquaintance. Its humble and obedient truckling has perhaps made it solid with the Taggart administration, but it has surely lost the respect of Its best class of readers and has proved Its boasted “independence” to be a ridiculous humbug.

CAMPAIGN IX GREATER NEW YORK. No local campaign in this country has ever attracted so much attention as that in progress in the Greater New York. There were thiee candidates in the field—the Republican, Tammany and the Citizens'—when anew factor appeared in the remarkable Henry George. With the exception of Tammany’s, the candidates are men of wide if not of national reputation. General Tracy, the Republican candidate, Is one of the ablest lawyers in the country, and was one of the ablest and most progressive secretaries of the navy the country ever had. He laid down the law that no mechanic should be discharged for any cause except inefficiency, and, having laid the law down, it was rigidly enforced. Mr. Low, the Citizens’ candidate, stands for nonpartisanship and business methods, as if they are not possible under a Republican or Democratic administration? In 1888 and 1892 Mr. Low voted for Mr. Cleveland; still, he calls himself a Republican. He was mayor of Brooklyn one term, but was not a greater success than the best of the partisans. Tammany’s candidate is the choice of Boss Croker. He is neither well known nor locally popular. Henry George is the apostle of the single tajc and the common proprietor of many vagaries. Intellectually he Is an able man. With three candidates in the field, he came near being elected mayor in New York about a dozen years ago, having the support of the Knights of Labor. The votes which Mr. Low will receive will come mainly from the Republican party. On the other hand, the bulk of the George vote will come from Tammany. The enthusiasm which Mr. George calls forth would lead to the belief that he will take nearly half of Tammany's strength. Tammany has made a bluff by putting up SIOO,000 to SBO,OOO that Tammany will win. If, however, George has the support which he now appears to have he will stand a better chance of election than does the candidate of Tammany. Four-fifths of the vote which Mr. Low will receive will come from the Republican party. The managers of the Low party, for the most part, are mugwumps rather than Republicans or Democrats. The Democratic contribution to the ticket is about one-fifth of the votes cast for it. They are the Cleveland Democrats, and they show great dexterity in getting their names on the Low ticket. Indeed, their eagerness for place Is much like that of other persons—partisans and the vulgar.

THE INDIANAPOLIS JOURNAL TUESDAY. OCTOBER 12, 1897.

At one time the Low organization, which has dene ail in its power to antagonize the regular Republicans, had 102,000 votes attached to its pledges, but that was at a time when it was generally believed that Mr. Low would receive the Republican indorsement. The indications are that with so excellent a candidate as General Tracy many of the 102.000 will renounce Mr. Low and vote for Tracy. There has been an impression that the Republicans should have indorsed Low, but it seems that so long as they furnish fourfifths of the vote for an independent ticket they should be consulted in reference to a candidate, and should not be asked to support a ticket made up of mugwumps and Cleveland Democrats. DECENCY AND GOOD CITIZENSHIP. A vote for Taggart is a vote for decency and good citizenship.—The New’s. A vote for Taggart is a vote for a man whose administration has been marked by more scandals than any one in the history of the city. A member of his Board of Works was forced to resign for an unbecoming business transaction—after public opinion became too strong to permit of his retention. His chief of police resigned for good and sufficient reasons—after the public demanded a change. A member of the Park Board accepted $5,000 from a sewer contractor and resigned—after the public found him out. Half a dozen people, including two members of the Park Board, are involved in an effort to sell to the city for $30,000, later for $15,000, a tract of bog land worth $1,200 belonging to the mayor; none of these men has yet resigned. The mayor asserts that he ordered his land withdrawn and professes Ignorance as to how it ever got back, but his professions do not explain how the land got in in the first place nor clear him from the suspicion that he was willing to profit by a disreputable deal—until he got found out. The mayor has not yet resigned. A vote for this man, who Is himself smirched, and whose administration has been a series of scandals and a monument of mismanagement, the News says is a vote for decency and good citizenship. Indianapolis Is in a bad way if the voters have no better idea of decency and good citizenship than this.

BIRDS OF A FEATHER. The Taggart organs are just now engaged in abusing Sterling R. Holt and* extolling Thomas Taggart. They tell us but for Mr. Holt none of the evils which have attended the Taggart administration would have existed. Even the getting of the Taggart bogs into the park territory is charged upon Mr. Holt. And yet Mr. Taggart alone would have been benefited by the sale. A great howl of righteous indignation is kept up over the five-thousand-dollar scandal, yet all the evidence presented goes to show that the mayor knew of it some time before the exposure. One of these days Mr. Holt may feel it to be his duty to himself to tell the names of those who got portions of the $5,000. Mayor Taggart and Mr. Holt have been inseparable friends—Siamese twins in politics and business. The mayor has been a more facile manipulator, but Mr. Holt has been the man who has furnished the brains and real stamina. Putting the firm name in the order of the capacity and influence of its members it would be Holt & Taggart. For ten years, in polities, they have been friends of the bed-fellow variety. No two men have been closer and more confidential. Their intimacy has been of the David and Jonathan quality. If Mr. Taggart shall be mayor again, Mr. Holt will in some manner be his adviser as he has been in the past. It will continue to be the Holt-Taggart administration as of old. Mr. Holt is not now directing the campaign, because the panic-stricken leaders have resolved that the only way to save Taggart was to throw Mr. Holt overboard. If they had not lost their heads a week ago the News would have been defending Mr. Holt as it now defends the mayor. It is idle to assume that Mr. Holt would do anything without the knowledge of the major. It is absurd to say that all the scheming to keep the mayor’s bogs in the park territory' was done by Mr. Holt in ignorance of the maj'or himself. Mr. Taggart did know it and his knowledge makes his offense vastly more damaging than that of Mr. Holt. The News, which brazenly declares that there is nothing improper in the mayor’s connection with the putting of his bogs, at five times their market value, in the park limits, should go from the defense of the Indianapolis Tammany to the succor of the original Democratic Tammany in New York. The New York Tammany is utterly without an organ. The World supports Mr. Low, the Journal Mr. George, both utterly' repudiating the Tammany over which Croker presides. In no respect is the New York Tammany worse than that of Indianapolis. It put saloon keepers under tribute, and so does the Taggart Tammany; it blackmailed contractors, and so does the Taggart Tammany; it uses the public money for campaign purposes, and so does the Taggart Tammany. These crimes of the New York Tammany independent and regular Democratic papers like the World and Journal will not support. Similar offenses on a smaller scale the truly independent News rushes to ttie front to defend W'ith all the zeal of a new-born convert. New York’s Tammany would give half a million dollars for such a thick-and-thin defender of its infamies. The Indianapolis News is the only paper that seems of the disposition to fill the bill. The Hon. Tom Johnson, who was once well known in this city, has created a sensation by attempting to make a deal whereby the Low and George people should support the same legislative and county tickets, that of the Low organization. Mr. Low’s inexperienced manager was beguiled by Johnson into agreeing to a deal; when Mr. Low heard of it he stopped it, but had hard work to induce his executive committee to give up a deal which would have injured Low very much and at the same time have cooled the ardor of scores of George men who are now candidates on local tickets. No one can understand what Tom Johnson means, but the wise suspect that he has some scheme affecting the franchise of a street-railway in Brooklyn which he owns. Observe the phraseology of the last clause of the Holt-Lieber agreement, made on Feb. 26: “In addition to the above named and described (.lards) we reserve the privilege of purchasing for $15,000 land at Belt road and White river.” The “privilege of purchasing” is good. First Colonel Holloway was blamed for the entries in the books of the Park Board, which made it appear that the mayor’s bog land was on the list of lands to be purchased by the city. When it was found that this would not do Mr. Spencer acknowledged to a "clerical error” or so, and just as he

was getting beyond his depth Mr. Joe Bell, deputy city attorney, jumped in and assumed the pressure. It does not appear yet what right he had to dictate entries in the Park Board’s books, and nobody has Come forward to vouch for him. By* special postoffice delivery, on Sunday, one Pritchard sent a marked ballot to hundreds of Republicans in the Seventh ward showing them how to vote for him. He also inclosed a note asking for their votes, but he gave no reason why any Republican should vote for him. He did not even pledge himself to vote against Pogue run steals. The circular Is an impertinence. The Taggart managers have been very persistent in their demands upon saloon keepers for contributions to the Taggart campaign fund, in many instances saloon keepers have done the soliciting, and when their associates in business have failed to come down they have threatened them with boycott and police persecution. “A vote for Taggart,” says the News, “is a vote for decency and good government.” The open taking of SIO,OOO of the public money as a campaign fund is, according to the Infallibility, “decency and good government.” Highway robbery will soon be classed among the virtues by the teacher of ethics in Tron’s alley. In the now celebrated agreement signed by Holt and Lieber on Feb. 26, 1897, they referred by name to the Davidson property, the Dean property', the Bobbs property and the Kirland property, but when they came to the Taggart property they described it as “land at Belt Railroad and White river.” Councilman Furyear, the Republican candidate for re-election in the present Sixth ward, is a worthy man who follows successfully an honorable calling. He Is a reliable man who has discharged his duty in the Council with intelligence and integrity. He deserves every Republican vote In the Sixth ward. Everybody knows that if the Republican candidate had been smirched by even a suspicion of a part in disreputable transactions public opinion would force his retirement from the ticket. People do not look for a high standard of morality among Democrats. hence Mr. Taggart remains. Mr. Taggart gave positive instructions on Feb. 8 that his bog was not to be considered among the park lands, did he? If he meant what he said on that date he has precious little influence with the administration, else the land would not have figured in the Park Board proceedings until June. The News heard the chatter about the mayor’s land many months ago, and made an investigation at that time. It had little faith in It from the start, because it did not believe Mayor Taggart, whatever else he might be, to be a fool. We very soon satisfied ourselves that there was nothing in the story in any way discreditable to any one concerned.—The News. This is a little confusing, “It” obviously means the News, but who are “we.” The professors seem rattled.

BUBBLES IN THE AIR. The Real Thing. Mudge—Won’t you try one of these cigarettes? They’ are the real thing. Y’absley—l thought they smelled as if they were all wool. A question, First Statesman—l hear that there are some fellows going around offering bribes. Second Statesman—That is something that ought to be taken in hand as soon as possible. “Which—the fellows or the money?” Not a Sanatory Affair. “Old Acheim look* as if he were failing in health.” “I don’t know whether he is failing in health or not; but I know he was never in the habit of falling for his health.” Narrowness. “Opposition to knickerbockers,” said the golden-haired dreamer, “is simply evidence of narrowness of mind.” “Oh. not necessarily of mind,” was the answer of the vision with the Titian locks and Junoesque proportions. FIAT PRICES. Recollections of the Days Lamented l>y the Silverite. Boston Transcript. The years immediately preceding 1873 are red letter ones In the diary of the fiatist. Since that time humanity, especially that portion incident to the United States, have been rapidly degenerating and the world has become decidedly less worthy' of the compliment paid to it by these persons in consenting - to remain therein. And j'et it is occasionally borne upon one’s mind that there must have been roses on the thorn, desert places in that paradise, which the fiatists have forgotten may be. So active is one’s lack of memory we may perhaps say that we dotibt not few of the readers of the Transcript remember the fact that Frank Stockton once wrote a book on housekeeping. This book, the joint labor of Frank and Marian Stockton, appeared in 1872 and was admitted into the Boston Public Library in January’, 1873. It was entitled ‘‘The Homo; Where It Should Be and What Should Be Put Into It.” There is nothing Stocktonian, as we now know the author, about this book. It is an exceedingly practical, useful and prosaic treatises on how to furnish a house, where it should be located, and how to live decently and yet within one’s income—a problem which really seemed as vexing at that time as now. The eighth and last chapter of the book is our present interest, tis it tells how to furnish a house on SI,OOO, a modest sum, one may think. But it is a modest house—only five rooms—and an examination of the details makes one gasp at the prices there stated in New York and which are undoubtedly reliable. Here, for example, is a kitchen clock for $3, which one can buy in Boston now for 85 cents. Other prices are, coal scuttle, $1.38; tin slop pall, $1.50; waffle iron, $1.75: ash kettle and sifter, $4.50; clothes wringer, $8; upright roaster and jack. sl6, and a japanned plate warmer. $6.50. Think of being asked to pay for two Scotch Holland window shades $3.90. American ingrain carpeting at $1.50 per j'ard, Britannia coffee pot $2.75, plain French white dinner set SSO, one dozen goblets, cut glass, $4; solid silver table*spoons, S3O per dozen. In the bedroom, chintz for curtains for two windows cost $4.90, a hair mattress S2B. springs for the bed (and Just think of x’hat sort those awful springs were in those days), $5, two feather piliows only SB, and one pair blan-ko-ts SIS. In the parlor and sitting room combined In this house of 1873, fourteen yards of Nottingham lace for the two windows cost $36, part of a suit of oiled walnut furniture, consisting of a sofa, ,arge easy’ chair and small easy chair SB4, and think of the ghastliness of that word “easy.” A sewing chair should cost $5 and a walnut table with marble top sl6. Sixtf*>n yards of Venetian carpeting for the hall and stairway must cost $37.50, and eighteen stair pads $3.75. Biddv’s room was to cost furnished S7O. Here are some of the items; Twenty-five yards of rag carpeting. $25; three pairs of cotton sheets. $3.39; bedstead, $3; small table. $2; rocking chair, $3; and a $lO hair mattress# That New England relic of barbarism. the feather bolster for the best bedroom, cost just $6. There is an item of $9.25 for an icepick, which causes terror until it is found to be an error of the types. Altogether, the house is furnished in a way which we could not to-day call comfortable. There Is no mention of a piano, a sewing machine, and many of the "refinements of modern civilization.” which few of us care to he without, and the same house to-day could lie furnished with the same things for about S4OO. It will, therefore, be seen that while wheat may not be so high now as it was then, it ought to have been over $2 to make up the difference. In fact, the more one examines the facts, the more he marvels at the enchantment which the distance of twenty-five years has lent to the view of the stlverites. The Naumkeag mills, of Salem, Mass., which for more than a year have been running four days a week, started on full time in all departments yesterday. About 1,500 skilled operatives are employed by the company.

RAILROADS OF ENGLAND HOW FREIGHT RATES AND PASSENGER FARES ARE REGULATED. An Arrangement by Which All Traffic la Practically Pooled—Work of the Railway Clearing House.

The general manager of one of the great English railways said to me when in London the other day: “There is not much ‘pooling' or dividing traffic receipts now in England. Our own company still maintains a few pooling arrangements, but they are not important.” The fact is, the English railways have arrived at much the same results by an arrangement or agreement as to rates and fares to be charged by competitive companies running to the same points from the same termini. Under these agreements, which appear to be absolutely kept as to passenger traffic, the whole regular traffic of the United Kingdom is practically pooled. For example, there are four great railways competing for the traffic between London and Liverpool—the London & Northwestern, the Midland, the Great Northern and the Great Western. The London & Northwestern is the shortest and most direct way, and therefore the fare is based on that route. Between it and the Great Western there is a difference of some forty miles, yet the fares on all four roads are identically the same. A regular pool once existed between these roads for the Liverpool traffic, but when it expired matters had adjusted themselves in a manner satisfactory to each company, and the compact or agreement has been substantially kept without the form of a pool. Os course, if any one of these four railways began to cut rates they would be met by the other companies, until all had enough of such folly and entered Into an actual agreement again. This, it should be remembered, they have a perfect legal right to do. Thus we have here, and there are hundreds of similar instances in England, a tacit agreement as to competitive rates —namely, that each company shall secure, by legitimate means, all the through traffic it can, the rates of fare being similar at all competitive points. Again, the distance between London and Birmingham is 113 miles by the Northwestern and miles by the Great Western, yet both charge the same and do the journey in the same time. Meantime the Great Western will soon open a shorter route, which may lead to a reduction of time, but certainly not to a reduction of fare. Mr. Frederick Harrison, general manager of the London & Northwestern Railway, was asked about this proposed movement of a rival railway a few days ago, and simply replied: “I cannot say. 1 have heard of the intention of the Great Western to run a tw r o hours’ train between London and Birmingham, but if the Great Western Company or any other company ran from Lodon to Bimingham in two hours, we should do it in the same time or less.” This may be called healthful or legitimate competition. Nor is there anything Utopian about a run of two hours to Birmingham, for the London &: Northwestern Railway now does it in two hours and twenty minutes. The incident illustrates the sort of competition of the English railways, which, while retaining the competitive element when it comes to efficient service to the public, is not disposed to destroy these great properties, as we have in many cases in the United States, by a senseless and needless war of rates. To insure against such catastrophe the English railways may pool their receipts, but the fact that this may be legaliy done seems to have, with a few exceptional cases, done away with the necessity of doing it. Agreements as to the passenger traffic are universally kept, while the rates on goods traffic have certainly not brought the English roads to the unhappy state of bankruptcy which we see on all sides at home. English railways are prosperous: they are employing the full number of hands; they are keeping up their roadbeds and their rolling stock, and they are paying the million or more investors in railway stock an average dividend of about 4 per cent, on the total investment. The English seem to go on the principle that an impoverished railway is a public evil rather than a public benefit. SOME STARTLING FIGURES. Between London and Leeds, by the Great Northern, is IS6 miles, and by the London & Northwestern, 226 miles, but the fares are identical on both lines. There is, of course, nothing like the competition in England which we have in the United States. The primary reason is not difficult to discover, To promote anew railway in England has for nearly a century been a costly operation. While on our side of the Atlantic, during the railway-building periods, rails were laid anywhere and everywhere, on the other side enormous sums of money were being expended in opposition to rival schemes. Some of our railway builders would be astonished at the sums thus expended. The violence of the opposition to new railways in England is almost inconceivable to those engaged in similar enterprises in the United States. The solicitor’s bill for the Southeastern Railw r ay, I have been told, contained 10,000 folios and amounted to $1,200,000. The parliamentary costs of the Brighton & Soutn Coast Railway (a company that I believe is now pooled on competitive traffic with the London & Southwestern Railway), averaged $24,000 per mile. Those of the Blackwell Railway amounted to the extraordinary sum of $72,070 per mile. Here we have the surprising fact of an expenditure of $24,000 per mile—an amount equivalent to the cost of some railways in the United States—for parliamentary expenses to secure the necessary legislation to construct the railway. Indeed, one of the most noted of the royal commissions on British railways estimated in 1872 that the expenses hitherto Incurred by the companies in obtaining parliamentary authority for and in opposing rival schemes amounted to no less than $350,000,000. In one sense this tremendous sum maybe said to have been used to destroy enterprise, in another it has served to prevent schemes that were little better than highway robbery. It has made prosperous railways of these roads that were laid out for legitimate purposes and made the path of the "railway wrecker” more difficult in the British isles. It is a debatable question whether or not this fund has not been well spent, for the misery entailed upon hundreds of thousands by ill-considered and fraudulent railway enterprises in the United States has been greater than any cheapening of freight to the shipper. And, worse than all, it has stamped American railway investments so deep with dishonor abroad that it will take years of honest and businesslike management to eradicate the stain. In comparing English railways with American it may be well to remember that the field in England, although comparatively small, has never been “jayhawked” as in the United States, and that the almost criminal business of building cheap parallel railways, not for the purpose of legitimate transportation, but to destroy prosperous properties, has met with decided and strong opposition. For this reason the great railway systems of England, while competing at certain important points, have, as a rule, a distinct local field of their own. Perhaps this makes it easier for the English railways to agree on rates and stand by the agreements. So far as my observations go, there are agreements as to passenger rates which are absolutely uniform at competitive points and fairly uniform throughout the kingdom. There is rivalry and competition, so far as service rendered is concerned r some companies offering better facilities than others in the way of more comfortable and smarter carriages, dining cars, quicker transit, attractive excursions, etc., but the rates on passenger traffic are as uniform as an irpnelad agreement could make them. WORK OF THE CLEARING HOUSE. This result has been brought about, not because pooling agreements or freedom of contract between railway companies are prohibited, but rather because the right of combination between railways, for the purpose of transmission without interruption of through traffic, for the saving of expense and for the greater convenience of the public has been encouraged rather than denied. Having carefully studied the working of the English railway clearing house, which employs over two thousand clerks and inspectors, I am inclined to think that though this valuable institution has nothing to do with the fixing of rates, its legality would be doubtful under such a decision as that rendered by Judge Peekham. of the Supreme Court, last spring. The primary object of the railway clearing house, as announced In

the act of June £5. ISSO, creating the organization, was for the purpose of affording, in respect to passengers and goods traffic, uniform facilities “as if such lines had belonged to one company." For nearly half a century the railway clearing house has flourished and grown with the railways, until today every railway company in England is a party to this association, and its headquarters on Seymour street, Euston square, has practically become the railway parliament of the kingdom. To be sure, the clearing house has nothing to do with the fixing of rates, either of passenger or goods traffic. It has, however, all to do with the carrying out of arrangements made between different railway companies. In its passenger department the clearing house divides or pro rates the moneys due each company on all tickets issued over more than one road. In its parcels’ department it not only looks after the division of receipts between railways, but between the railway companies and the British government itself, which employs the railways to carry the parcels sent by post. In this way, instead of declaring the association illegal, the British government becomes an active partner in the association, which I believe more than anything else has "brought up the standard of railway companies in England, and which to-day makes them safe and profitable investments for the people's money. In the same way the clearing house takes in hand the freight, or goods traffic, as it is called in England, examines the way bills, apportions the amount and settles the balances between roads by clearing-house checks. I made several visits to this great institution while in London, and upon one occasion spent nearly a day there and found it a marvel of complicated detail, not unlike a permanent census office. Through the courtesy of the secretary, Mr. H. Smart, I was given a sample of every blank used in all the departments, of the classification of freight, of the rules, and, in short, of printed matter of all kinds, showing the stupendous work annually performed by this combination of all the railways in the United Kingdom. A combination. be it remembered, w hich, until the recent consolidation or amalgamation of rates acts, represented charging powers contained in tWO separate acts, under which over $5,000,000,000 of capital had been raised and over 21,000 miles of railway had been constructed. The work of this association, though not the making of rates, is of vast importance to the railways of the country and bears decidedly on the unification of the system. The clearing house, for example, has full power in relation to enforcing classification. Commissioner George R. Blanchard has repeatedly told us how necessary is this power, for fraudulent classification is to-day one of the serious evils which honest American railway managers in the United States have to contend against. Here we have an organization properly equipped for the work of enforcing a uniform classification, a function of great importance. Nor do the minor economies escape the clearing house. Its officers and agents chase up the empty goods trucks, keep absolute track of passenger cars, and. I am informed, see that 95 per cent, of them are returned within a stipulated time. So complete Is the organization that account is also kept of the coverings or tarpaulins, and even the ropes used in tying are followed by the color of their strands (each railway having strands in its rope for identification), and ultimately find their way back to the company to which they belong. EFFECT OF THE SYSTEM. It cannot be denied that the association which has done so much to unify the administration of these railway properties has had its influence upon the general management, and posibly upon the agreements as to ratesAWe have here an organization created by ;kct of Parliament which practically makes all the railways of the United Kingdom, in certain important particulars, as one railway, so far as their relations to each other and to the public are concerned. In the management of the Railway Clearing House each railway company sends a representative. For years, therefore, the managers have come together and discussed interests common to all. In a hundred, probably a thousand, matters of detail they have agreed to a common system of operation. These companies, or the men representing them, are not bound together by an agreement that the Supreme Court may some day declare illegal, but by an act of Parliament that has stood on the statute books for nearly half a century. Back of this comes mutual interest, but the legal tie amounts to something, also. They are bound together in mutual interest, not for the purpose of menacing the public interest, but merely to protect in a reasonable way the great properties which represent several thousand million dollars and to give the public a more uniform, a more equitable and more satisfactory service. The British public have nothing to fear from such an organization, nor would the American public if reasonable safeguards were provided and the work legalized by Congress. A proposition to dissolve t;h6 English Railway Clearing House would be as wild a suggestion as to disband the British Parliament and let the country run itself. The intricate business of transportation, as now carried on, even in a country the size of England, could not possibly be managed without this institution. It has become part of the system, and the public, whether passenger or shipper, would as soon think of going back to the days of coaching and carriers as to abandon the uniformity, expedition and convenience which the work of the clearing house contributes to the commercial and business interests of the kingdom. That this kind of work ultimately leads up to a better understanding between rival railways hardly admits of a doubt. We have had an illustration of the effect of this sort of work in the United States. The Joint Traffic and other associations for the purpose of carrying on our railway business have brougflft so many of our railway managers together in late years in friendly conference that no panic, and scarcely any disturbance, followed the Supreme Court decision in the transmissouri case. Under ordinary conditions such a decision w’ould have been the signal for a war of rates and serious railway disturbance. Whatever may be said of English railway rates for transportation (and this will be a topic for future consideration) the managers of the English railways, by reason of the Railway Clearing House, cooperate together to give the public a more efficient and uniform service and to make prosperous business enterprises out of those great undertakings. Under this system transportation facilities have been extended. quicker service rendered, rates reduced and traffic developed. ROBERT P. PORTER.

Mi ns Cisneros. Chicago Post. Up to this hour of writing the report of the escape of Miss Cisneros has not been corrected, hence we presume she Is on her way to America to fill a lecture course under the personal supervision of the genial Major Pond. We believe that her escape is wholly due to the petitions sent up to the throne of grace by the tender-hearted ladies of America and England, and is in no way connected with the huge bundle of letters forward* dto Madrid. We are firm believers in the mercy of Providence, but we never did have much confidence in the Queen Regent of Spain. When Miss Cisneros lands in this home of the free and completes her arrangements for her platform appearances she may command us for a reasonable amount of free advertising, although we confess that our interest in her has been sadly shaken by Consul General Lee’s assurances that she "is not particularly pretty.” when we have been led to believe that she is ravishingly beautiful, with lustrous eyes that melt the soul and inflame the heart. Under these changed conditions we submit to her American managers that it would be more profitable to keep her off the platform and pay her to write syndicate letters. The fact that she is unacquainted with our language and has only a small command of her own, should not interfere with the enterprise, as there are not a few bright young men who would gladly write her letters all day at $lO a letter. Meantime we can keep on using the old pictures of Adelaide Neilson and other famous beauties until the young woman has raised herself above want. And now abideth faith, hope and charity, these three. Faith and hope have been pretty effectually squelched by the consul general, but, heaven be praised, charity suffereth long and is kind. A Hu,lind' Reflection**. “Spectator.” In the Outlook. Herself is not with me. It is a good plan sometimes for husband and wife to take a vacation from each other—especially good for the wife. The husband Is the wife’s care, the children the mother's care; and though she always enjoys the vacation better which she takes with her husband and children, it is not always the best vacation for her. In missing herself in many little things and some great ones, I realize how much care she takes of her husband, and of how f much, therefore, she is just now compulsorily relieved. Moreover, an occasional separation of husband and wife enables them to appreciate each other better when the separation is over. Each has an opportunity to study unconsciously other people, and to learn some lessons by the study. The wife is apt to compare her husband with her ideal, and he suffers by comparison. But when she compares him with other husbands, she prefers her own. And on his side, when he sees certain of his own marital infelicities—not to say discourtesies—repeated by other husbands, he thinks them odious, and resolves to amend. So herself and I are spending our vacations apart—she is in Maine, l in Norway. We do not. either of us. like it as well as a vacation spent together, but we shall both be better for it.

GEN. WEYLER’S CAREER HIS BLOODY DEEDS COMPARED WITH THOSE OF THE DI KE OF ALVA. - ' ♦ Spnln'H Present C’nptnln General Greater Diitelier tlmn the Cruel Mors derer of tle Sixteenth Century.

Chicago Times-Herald. The methods of warfare employed by General Weyler, commander of the Spanish forces, have been of such extreme and unusual barbarity that the world has looked on in horronstricken amazement. Doubts have been expressed if his equal in cold-blooded ferocity ever lived. A search into history, though, finds such a man in the past of the nation that sent Weyler to Cuba. Fernando Alvarez de Toledo. Duke of Alva, was born in 1508 and died In 1552. In barbarous cruelty he was Weyler’s equal. His family prided Itself on its descent from the Byzantine Emperors. One of the duke'z ancestors conquered Toledo and took its name to his family. He was reared in arms, and at the age of sixteen fought at the battle of Fontarabia. He was taught to despise a nonbeliever in the Church of Rome, and his hatred was the cause of a thirst for blood that distinguished his life. He exemplified the spirit of middle-age chivalry, and at one time rode his horse at top speed from Hungary to Spain for no other cause than a hurried visit to his young bride. To patience and cunning he united a ferocity and thirst for blood scarcely human. No such words as pity cr mercy had any place in his vocabulary. In manner he was cold and haughty and more unapproachable than the imperial master Philip. The Dutch iconoclasts having aroused the ire of Philip 11, this bloody duke was sent to the Netherlands in 1567, with ten thousand trained troops. His name became a terror in the land, and cruelties and barbarous tortures marked his occupation of the country. Women and children were not exempt from the reign of blood and terror, and the indignities to which they were, subjected were too horrible to relate. He established the “Council of Blood," which had for its object the investigation into all cases of suspected heresy, and thousands of people were put to torture and finally death without trial. To defend the country against this bloody despotism William of Orange organized an army and sought Alva in open conflict, but the latter, knowing tnat by a battle he had nothing to gain and much to loose, avoided a meeting by a series of strategic movements. William, losing the support of his people and being unable to pay his troops, was forced to retire from the country. While Alva defeated the Dutch patriots in war, he failed to subdue or pacify them, and, disgusted with this failure and with the intrigues among his followers, he secured his recall to Spain in 1573. During the six years of his occupancy of the Netherlands he boasted that he had put to death more than eighteen thousand persons, aside from those killed in battle and dying from cruelties inflicted upon them. At the sack of Haarlem three hundred men were tied by twos and back to back and thrown into the lake. At Zutphen five hundred more perished in like manner. In appearance this inhuman duke was tall, very slender, with cavernous cheeks, dark, sparkling eyes, with a thin, flowing beard of silver. Asa wretch who would win victory at any price, whose heart had no feeling of humanity and to whom the sufferings of his victims appealed not in the least, he stands unparalleled, unmourned, hated and despised more than three centuries after the grave closed over him. Before leaving Holland Alva assured the people that every city would be burned, save a few which were to be permanently garrisoned. His list of murders is beyond computation. After a single defeat of his troops he seized and beheaded eighteen nobles in revenge; yet did be continually complain of the people’s ingratitude for his clemency, and this after his beheading of the Counts Bgmont and Horn in the public square in Brussels after a mockery of a trial in which no defense was permitted. Those aie sample acts of the bloodthirsty soldier of Spain in the sixteenth century. It would be well to let It lie unremembered were not a revival of those bloody scenes being enacted now In Cuba; were innocent men not the victims daily of a remorseless autocrat; were babes not torn from their mother’s breasts to have their brains dashed out with the butt of a musket or split in twain with a machete; were the mothers not coldly murdered or cast into slimy Spanish dungeons. The Duke of Alva •was the prince of fiends of his time and generation. Has he not a worthy successor now In Cuba? ~ , - Valeriano Weyler is a worthy exponent of the teachings of his once predecessor. A brief outline of his career will tell his story of fiendish butchery. He was born in 1839 of Prussian father and Spanish mother. From 1869 to 1872 he was a captain in the Spanish army in Cuba. Then his name first became hated and despised and then he made enemies who even to-day seek his lire for wrongs done to wives and sweeetnearts. The most cruel general of ancient Rome was a mild infant In comparison with this modern butcher. His orders In Cuba have gone beyond human endurance; no one may leave his own home under pain of torture and death, and un expression of sympathy for prisoners or the Cuban cause, or an adverse expression regarding him or nis army, means death without trial. No statistles can be secured in order to compare the actual number of innocent people who have died at his hand or by his order with the 18,000 murdered by the Duke of Alva, but during the two years of the war in Cuba it is not unlikely that he has given the earlier butcher a close race for bloody precedent But whether or not the sum total outrival Alva, it is certain that for fiendish barbarism this Prusso-Spaniard stands without a peer. Fancy, if you can, a mother and father tied to trees and compelled to witness tho hacking to pieces of their two sons, while afterward their two daughters were stripped, forced to dance before their captors, and finally, by Weylers orders, bo ravished until they died, while the inhuman wretch who gave the orders sat by and looked on. Weyler Is charged with a list of barbaric crimes that defv comparison. Ho takes few prisoners, and it is his delight to come upon a camp of wounded ° r Cubans and put them to the machete rh©y dig no graves, and in a few days the buz-zard-pieked bones are bleaching in the sun. He wages his war upon women and children and rarely chooses a conflict where one can be avoided. Alva lived in an ago when darkness covered the world, when barbaT" ism in war was expected, but Weyler Is of the nineteenth century, an age of enlightenment. He is small In stature and equally small in Intellect. His primal, oharteristlc is ambition, and no factor of humanity, justice or mercy plays any part when the satisfaction of this purpose is at Weyler does not tie men together and drown them. No. not Weyler? He chooses for them a worse fate; he chains them together by the neck, faces them against a blank wall and has them shot in the back. It Is known that upon one occasion he went into a cell and with an immense club beat Into insensibility some twenty prisoners who half starved, were unable to defend themselves. All of them died from the treatment. Loathsome dungeons, in which the tide enters, and where the atmosphere soon sickens and kills, are one of his favorite modes of torture, but he is not averse to adding a diet of salt fish and no water, until the poor victim dies a raving maniac. A comparison of these two—Alva and Weyler—leaves one with the impression that Spain has produced the two worst examples of inhuman thirst for blood. Perfume from Living Plants. Pittsburg Dispatch. Capt. Smee has discovered a method of gathering the scent of flowers as the plant is growing. He takes a glass funnel and heats the thin end over a spirit lamp. He then draws out the stem to a line point. This accomplished, the funnel is filled with ice and placed on a retort stand, the pointed end being placed In a small glass bottle, without touching it. After this the stand and the funnel are placed in a greenhouse* among the flowers whose odors it is desirable to collect. Gradually the vapor rises from the flowers, and. in meeting the colder surface of the. funnel, condenses Into drops on the outside of the glass. From the point of condensation it trickles down until it drops into the bottle. In u surprisingly short time a large amount of perfume Is collected and It is claimed that sV> per cent, of the contents of the bottle is perfume; the rest is water. Strange to say. this essence of the flower needs to be adulterated with spirits of wine. Otherwise it would become sour and useless.