Pike County Democrat, Volume 30, Number 28, Petersburg, Pike County, 17 November 1899 — Page 7

ALL IN GOD’S HANDS. Dr. Xalmage on Divine Interposition in Human Affairs. f«le of Xatto»» Well as of ladlvldaals Settled la Heavra —World Not Governed ta « Hiphaurd Way. (Copyright. 1899, by Louis Klopsch.) Washington. Nov. 12. The idea that things in this world are»at loose ends and going at haphazard is in this discourse combated5 by I>;\ Talmage. Th§ text is Psalm il9, 8: “Forever, O Lord, Thy word is settled in Heaven." This world has been in process of change ever since it was created— mountains born, mountains dying, and they have both cradle and grave. Once this planet was all fluid, and no being such as you or I have ever seen could have lived on it a minute. Our hemisphere turns its face to the sun and then turns its back. The axis of the earth’s revolution has shifted. The earth’s center of .gravity is changed. Once flowers grew in the arctic and there was snow in the tropics. There has been a redistribution of land and sea, the land crumbling into the sea, the sea swallowing the land.' Ice and fire have fought for the possession of this planet. The chemical composition ot it is different now from what it once was. Voloanoes once terribly alive are dead, not one throb of fiery pjulse, not one breath of vapor—the ■ocean changing its amount of saline quantities. The internal fires of the ■earth are gradually eating their way to the surfaces—upheaval and subsidence of vast realms of continent.

High up in the palace of the sun at least five things are settled—that nations which go continuously and persistently wrong perish; that happiness is the result of spiritual condition and not of earthly environment; that this world is a schoolhouse for splendid or disgraceful graduation; that with or. without us the world is to be made over into a scene of arborescence and purity; that all who are ad*joined to the unparalleled One of Beth-' lehem find Nazareth and Golgotha will be the subjects of a supernal felicity without any talcing off. Bo you dbubt my first proposition— that nations which go wrong perish? We have in this American nation all the elements of permanence and destruction. We need not borrow from others any trowels for Upbuilding or torches for demolition. Elements of ruin—nihilism, infidelity, agnosticism, Sabbath desecration, inebriety, sensuality, extravagance, fraud; th|y are all here. Elements of safety—God-wor-shiping men and women by the scores of millions, honesty, benevolence, truthfulness, self sacrifice, industry, sobriety and more religion than has characterized any nation that has ever existed; they are all here. The only question is as to which of the forces will gain dorcinancy—the one class ascendant, and this United States government, 1 think, will continue as long as the world exists; the other class ascendr!ant, and the,United States goes into such small pieces that other governments would hardly think them worth picking up.

Have you ever noticed the size of the cemetery of dead nations, the vast Greenwood and Pere le Chaises where mighty kingdoms were buried,? Open the gate and walk through this cemetery and read the epitaphs. Here lies ^Carthage, born 100 years before Rome, great commercial metropolis on the bay of Tunis, a part of an empire that gave the alphabet to the Greeks and their great language to the Hebrews; her arms the terror of nations, commanding at one time 16,000 miles of coast; her Hamilcar leading forth 30 myriads, or 300,000 troops; her Hannibal carrying out in manhood the oath he had taken in boyhood to preserve eternal enmity to Rome, leaving costly and imposing monuments at Agrigentum a ghastly heap of ruins; Carthage, her colonies on every coast, her ships plowing every sea; Carthage—where are her splendors now? All extin

guisneu. wnore are her swords? The last one broken. Where are her towers ar.d long ranges of magnificent architecture? Buried under the sands of tlie Bagradas. As ballast of foreign ships much of her rad'iant marble has been carried away to build the walls of transr-Mediterranean cathedrals, while other blocks have been blasted in modern,times by the makers of the Tunis railway. And all of that great and mighty city and kingdom that the tourist finds to-day is here and there a broken arch of what was once a 50mile, aqueduct. Our talented and genial friend, Henry M. Field, in one of his matchless books of travel, labors hard toprove that the slight ruins of that city are really worth visiting. Carthage buried in the cemetery of dead nations. Not one altar to the true God did sh^ rear. Not one of the Ten Commandments but she conspicuously violated. Her doom was settled in Heaven when it was decided far back in the eternities that the nation and kingdom that will not serve God shall perish. ' Our own nation will be judged by the same moral laws by which all other nations have been judged. The judgment day for individuals will probably come far on in the future. Judgment day for nations is every day, every day weighed, every day approved or every day condemned. Never before in the history of this country has the American nation been more surely in the balances than it is this minute. Do right, and we go up. Do wrong, and we go down. I am not so anxious to know what this statesman or that warrior thinks we had better do with Cuba and Porto Rico and the Philippines as I am anxious to know what God thinks we had better do. The destiny of this •

nation will not be decided an yonder capitoline hill or at Manila or at the presidential ballot box, lor itl wiH be settled in Heaven. , Another t^ing decided in the high places of the universe is that this world, with or without us, will be made over into a scene of arborescence and purity. Do not think that such a consummation depends upon our personal fidelity. It will be done anyhow. God’s cause does not go a-begging. If all the soldiers of Jesus Christ now' living should become deserters and go over to the e nemy, that would not defeat the cause. A large part of the F/ble is taken up with telling us what ibe world will be. There is a large army, human and angelic, now in the field, but God’s reserve forces are more numerous and more mighty than those now at the front, and if He could in Gideon’s time rout the Midianites with a crash of crockery, and if He could in Shamgar’s time overcome a host with an ox goad, and if in Samson’s time He could defeat an array with a bleached jawbone, and if the walls of Jericho went down under a blast of perforated ram’s horn, and if in Christ’s day blind eyes were cured by oistment of spittle, then God can do anything He says He will do. As yet He has taken only one sword out of a whole armory of weapons. Do not get nervous, as if the Lord were going to be defeated. The redemption of these hemispheres was settled in Heaven, and Isaiah and Kzekiel and Habakkuk and Malacki and St. John only reported what the Lord God Almighty had decided upon. My only fear is that our regiment will not get into the fight to Jo something worthy of the Christ who redeemed us and we be left in lazy encampment at Tampa when we ought to have been at Santiago.

Oh, that coming day of the worm s perfection! The earth will be so changed that the serinonology will be changed. There will be no more calls to repentance, for all will have repented; no more gathering of alms for the poor, for the poor will have been enriched; no hospital Sunday, for disjointed' bones will have been set and the wounds all healed, and the incurable diseases -of other times will have been overcome by a materia mediea and a pharmacy and a dentistry and a therapeutics that have conquered everything that afflicted the nerve or lung or tooth or eye or limb—bealthology complete and universal. The poultice and the ointment and the panacea and the catholiccm afid the surgeon's knife and the dentist’s forceps and the scientist’s X ray w ill have fuliilled their mission. The social life of the world will be perfected. In that millennial age I imagine ourselves standing in front of a house lighted for levee. We enter among groups filled with gladness and talking good sense and rallying each other in pleasantries and in every possible way forwarding good-neighbor-hood ; no looking askance, no whispered backbitings, no strut of pretension, no oblivion of some one’s presence because you do not want to know him; each one happy, determined on making some one ^Ise happy; words of honest appreciation instead of hollow flattery; suavities and genialities instead of inflations and pomposities; equipage and upholstery and sculpture and painting paid for; two hours of mental and moral improvement; all the guests able to walk as steadily down the feteps of that mansion as when they ascended them; no awakening next morningwith aching head and bloodshot eye and incompetent for the day’s duties; the* social life as perfeet as refinement and common sense and culture and prosper*ty and religion can make it; the earth made better than it was at the start, and all through gospelizing influences, directly or indirectly, g^ I suppose the greatest tidal w’ave that ever rolled- the seas was that which in 1868 was started by the Peruvian earthquake. At Arica, Peru, the wave was

o j feet high and swung warships a mile forward on the land. At San Pedro, Cal., the wave was GO feet high. It moved on to the Sandwich islands and -ubmerged some of them and beat against the shores of New Zealand and rolled np the beach of Japan and stopped not until it had encircled the entire globe. Oh, what a wave! But the earthquake that shook the mountain where our Lord died started a higher and swifter and mightier tidal wave that will roll round and round the earth until all its rebellions and abominations have gone under. That was an exciting scene after the battle of Bosworth, which was fought between Richard III. and- the earl of Richmond, the king falling and the earl triumphing, when Lord Stanley brought the crown and handed it to the earl, seated on horseback, while the dying and the dead of the battle were lying all around. But it is a more thrilling spectacle as we look forward through the centuries and sfce' the last armed and imperial iniquity of the world slain and the crown of universal victory put upon the conqueror on the white horse of the Apocalypse and all nations “hail the power of Jesus* name.” That, the whole earth will be. redeemed is one of the things long ago settled in Heaven.

Another thing decided in that high plajie is that all who are adjoined to the unparalleled One of .Bethlehem and Nazareth and Golgotha will be the subjects of a supernal felicity without any taking off. The old adage says that “beggars mu6t not be choosers,” and the human race in its depleted state had better not be critical of the mode by which God would empalace all of us. I could easily think of a plan more complimentary to our fallen humanity than that which is called the “plan of salvation.” If God had allowed us to do part of the work of recovery and He do the rest, if we could do three-quar-ters of it and Hg do the last quarter, if we hould accomplish most of it and He just put on the finishing touches, many could look with more: complacency- upon the projected reinstatement ^of the human family. No, no!

We must have our pride subjugated, our stubborn will made flexible and a supernatural power demonstrated la ua at every step. A pretty plan of salvation* that would* be, of human drafting and manufacturing! It would be a doxology sung to ourselves. God must have all the glory, not bne step of our heavenly throne made by earthly carpentry; not one string could we twist of the harp of our eternal rejoicing. Accept all as an unmerited donation from the skies, or we will never have it at all. “Now,” says some one. “if Christ is the only way what about the heathen, who have never heard of Him?” But you are not heathen, and why divert us from the question of our personal salvation? Satan is always introducing something irrelevant. He wants to take it out of a personality into an abstraction. Got our own salvation settled, and then we will discuss the salvation of other people. “But,” says some oue. “what percentage of the human race will be saved? \Vha$ will be the comparative number saved and lost?” There Satan thrusts in the mathematics of redemption. He suggests that j ou find out the mathematical proportion of th» redeemed. But be not deceived. I am now discussing the eternal welfare of only two persons, yourself and myself. Get ourselves right before we bother ourselves about getting others right. O Christ, come hither and master our easel Hero are our sins—pardon them; our wounds—heal them; our burdens—lift them; oursor>ows—comfort them. We want the Christ of Lartimeus to open our blind eyes, the Christ of Martha to help us iu our domestic caires, the Christ of Olivet to help us preach our sermons, tht Christ of Lake Galilee to still our tempests, the Christ of Lazarus to raise our dead. Not too tired is He to come, though He has on His whipped shoulders so long carried the world’s woe and on Ills lacerated feet walked this way to accept our salutation.

By the bloody throes of the mountain on which Jesus died, and by the sepulcher where His mutilated body was inclosed in darkened crypt and by the Olivet from which He arose, while astonished disciples clutched for His rob^s to detain Him in their companionship, and by the radiant and omnipotent thrope on which fie sits waiting for the coming <j>f all those whose redemption was settled in Heaven, I implore you to bo\y youi.head in immediate and final submission. Once exercise sorrow for what you have done and exercise truslt in Him for what IJe is willing to do, aind all is well for both worlds. Then yOu can swing out defiance to all opposition, human and diabolic. In conquering His foes He conquered yours. And have you noticed that passage in Colossians that represents Him “having despoiled principalities and powers. He madb a show of them, openly Triumphing,” so brings ing before us that overwhelming spectacle of a Roman triumph? When Pompey landed at Brindisi, Italy, returned from his victories, he disbanded the bijave men who had fought under hint and sent'-them rejoicing to their homes, and, entering Rome, his emblazoned chariot was followed by princes in chains from kingdoms he had conquered, and fiowers such as only gre\y under those Italian skies strewed the way, and he came under arches inscribed with the names of battlefields on which he had triumphed and rode by columns which told of the 1,500 cities he had destroyed and the 12,000,000 people he Had conquered or slain. Then the banquet was spread,*

and out of the chalices filled to th* brim they drank to the health of'the conqueror. Belisarius, the great soldier, returned from his military achievements and was robed in purple, and in *he procession were brought golden thrones and pillars of precious stones and th* furniture of royal feasts, and amid the splendors of kingdoms overcome he was hailed to the hippodrome by shouts such as had seldom rung through the capital. Then also Hti< came the convivialities. In the year 374 Amelian made his entrance to Home in triumphal car. in which he stood while a winged figure of Victory held a wreath above his head. Zenob'a. captive queen of Pa mvra, walked behind his chariot, her person encircled with fetters of gold, ufider the weight of which she nearly fainted, but still a captive.' And there were in the procession 200 lions and tigers and beasts of many lands and 1,600 gladiators excused from the cruel amphitheater that they might decorate the day, and Persian and Arabian and Ethiopian epnbassadors were in tht procession and the long line* of captives, Egyptians, Syrians, Gauls. Gotbs and A’andals. It was to such scenes that the New Testament refers when it spoke of Christ “having despoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them, openly triumphing.” But, oh, the difference in those triumphs! The Roman triumph represented -arrogance, cruelty, oppression and wrong, but

Christ s triumph meant emancipation and holiness ard joy. .The former was a procession of groans accompanied by a clank of chains, the other a procession of hosannas by* millions set forever free. The only shackled ones of Christ’s triumph will be Satan and his cohorts tied to our Lord’s chariot wheel, with all the abominations of all the earth bound for an eternal captivity. Then will come a feast in which the chalices will be filled “with the new wine of the kingdom.” Under arches commemorative of all the battles in which the bannered armies of the church militant through thousands of years of struggle have at last won the day Jesus will ride. Conqueror of earth and hell and Heaven. Those armies, disbanded, wilj take palaces and thrones. “And they shall come from the east and the w|st and the north and the south and sit down in the kingdom of God.” And may you and 1. through the pardoning and sanctifying grace of Christ, be euesta at that rcyai banquetl ' ■ i . ' ,

IMPERIALISM, PLAINLY. | Tke Trac Import of the IdaliUtM. Uoa’i Attltite on the Phil* tppime QiciUok. Insidious methods are always used (or the introduction of that which is ; rpid of merit. Under the name of pa1 triotism venality shelters her hideousi ness, and under the name of liberty crime against Uod and man is often committed. Mme. Roland once exclaimed: “Oh, liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!” She was mounting the scaffold steps to execution on the block as one of France's purest patriots. The crime was committed in the name of liberty. The flag is the potential representative of our country. An appeal for its defense quickens every sturdy and generous imr pulse. On the moment men are ready to do and die that its folds shall not be insulted or its colors dimmed. To trail it in the dust is one of the capital sins. To prostitute it for selfish purposes, to use its significance that per- | sonal thrift may foUow, is to invite the condemnation of every liberty-lov-ing man. To use it against those who pleaded for its purity and the protection of its character is but little less than sacrilege. In this day it is heing

used to engraft an imperial policy on our country. In tire name of the starry banner an effort is being made to destroy a people which has been under the yoke of tyranny for centuries. It was properly used to drive froin the Philippine group of islands the decaying monarchy of Spain. Under its ample folds liberty was enriched. The tyrant was driven from Luzon and all the people of those islands rejoiced. Under its stars and stripes an attempt is being made to reenslave the Filipinos. To them onr government says: “You must be dependants. We will inaugurate government for you, and we will enforce the government which we give you. You must not question. You have nothing to do with the matter but to obey. If you claim that another system is better suited to your people you are insurgents—traitors. You do not know what is good for yourselves. The United States, does. You shall not become a part of the great republic. You must simply and quietly obey. If a question is asked as to where lies hidden the basic principle on which rests our government we answer: ‘Our people are in charge of the destinies of your people. We need these islands, but not to make them sharers of our liberty and participants in the exalted glories we are winning. You are unfitted for the enjoyment of liberty. You are ignorant and debased and need a master. We will be your master and you will be our subjects. In short.

we are about to enter on an imperialistic career. We must commence it by enslaving.others. You can be made tributary to our aims. We cannot take from our own people a single right which they now enjoy, but we deny to you whatsoever we may. To appeal to our people in a direct manner to become imperialists would be to have pur appeal rejected with scorn. We must approach our desire by indirection. You shall be the instrument by which the path to imperialistic power shall be gained. We must practice deception. So, under the plea of patriotism and under the folds of the flag we will destroy the republic and take our place among imperial powers.’ ” That answer is not strained. It represents the true state of the intents of the administration of William McKinley. How long will our people Remain deceived? When will their patience tire and revolt? These are questions which will soon be answered.—Cincinnati Enquirer.

PARAGRAPHIC POINTERS. - f . --Mr. Brva*i will continue to have his clothes made with a vest, pocket large enough to hold Nebraska.!— Chicago Record (Ind.). J c -One big mistake Senator Hanna makes in hia speeches is to forget that the average American voter has an abnormally developed conscience, and no party has. ever been successful that failed to appeal to it in some shape or form.—Atlanta Constitution. -The preliminary report of the Philippine commission, hastily put together for publication at the president’s “request,” is obviously issued just now as a first-class campaign document. As sfuch it naturally shares the amiable and well-known infirmities of that species of literature.— N. Y. Post. V , —In his political speeches recently Gov. Roosevelt, of New York, has been laboriously demonstrating how far he falls short of the true presidential stature. We have bad some small and narrow men in the white house, but let us hope the good sense of the people will never descend to j the selection of a political xnounte- | bank like Teddy for the chief magistracy.—Houston (Tex.) Post; -T*o elect his man Nash, Senator Hanna has urged the republican emj ployers of labor in Ohio to coerce their employes into voting for Nash. The same game elected McKinley in 1896. ; Then fdr the first time in the history of the republic the theory was ad- ' vanced that the employer knew better how to cast the employe’s vote than tha employe himself did. That’s Hannaism. This year they are at it again.—Toledo Bee. | -Mr. Hanna is eertainly sincere in his defense of the trusts*. He can see in the destruction of competition » great benefit to both the crushers and the crashed. The masses are blind to the good that is coming to them through, the curtailment of busi- | ness and the discharge of hosts of employes, but it is perfectly dear to Mr. Hanna, the statesman for whom Senator Sherman was turned down, and who stands to-day as the head of the republican party.—St. Louis Post

TRYING THEIR BEST. ;T Ute AtaUlttrtUom I'llsy ExMfllMt. ml Pren«re to Carry- lmv*r* Imllst Measures. In the decision reached by President McKinley and his cabinet advisers to urge upon congress in December tbs immediate passage of a joint resolution declaring it to be the intention of the government to permanently retain the Philippines, it is evident that the ad' ministration proposes to exert all the pressure possible to commit thia country to imperialism. This decision followed a cabinet discussion of a report of the Philippines commission. The report had-failed to gratify the president by officially indorsing his Philippine policy. The most that could be obtained from the commission was an utterance to the effect that the war in the Philippines should be vigorously prosecuted until order had been reseored. That this stubbornness On the part of the commission proved a keen disappointment to Mr. McKinley may easily be believed. That | it also alarmed the president may also. be credited.

Hence it is that the administration will bring exceptional pressure to bear on congress to secure the adoption of an imperialist resolution. A personal conference with the president, called by him and held in the white house, failed to bring the Philippines commission to the president’s way of thinking on the expansion issue. This result waa a somewhat disquieting indication of the trend of public sentiment. It proved also that the imperialists could not afford to take chances with congress. The strongest card in their hand must be played—and it will now be played by the president and his cabinet. rr\ It the American congress truly represents the American people, however, it is doubtful if it will yield to the president on this issue any more readily or to a further extent than di* the Philippines commission in mer&y urging the restoration of order in the Philippines. The people of this country are opposed to imperialism. Ihe president and the adiministration party are committed to imperialism. The national congress is supposed to represent the people. Many of its republican members are open in their opposition to American expansion into the eastern hemisphere. A I faithful congress will mean the rightful triumph of the will of the people over that of the president,; the servant of the people.—St. Louis Republic. ; . -;-i— ■ . CLOSE TIN PLATE MILLS. Beneficiaries of Protection Fall to Keep Pace with McKinley Prosperity.

Not long ago the president and the vice president of a monopoly combine ■ called thelLmerican Tin Plante company appeared before the industrial commission in Washington and told what a beneficent institution the company was. They told how it had put an end to ruinous competition and enabled them to pay right royal wages to the men employed and at the same time^sell tin plate cheaper than it was before the passage of the McKinley tariff. Admiting that the company had closed some mills, they said it had opened more than it had closed. They declared that, while it had reduced the number employed in office work, makixtg sales, etc., it had not reduced the number of men employed in making tin plate. It was giving work to as many persons as ever and paying some of them as much as* $10 a day, which was vastly more then workers in the same line could earn in Wales. In fine, the combine was doing no end of good anil was entitled to gratitude from its employes and the general public. But what is this we hear from Pittsburgh? A dispatch from that center of protected trust industries states that no less than 106 mills in the 89 plants controlled by the combine (whicbisnot a trust, Mr. Hanna would have us understand) are shut down. According to the Pittsburgh dispatch this means a loss cif labor of nearly $371,000 a month. “Over 2,000 men are idle in the rolling mill department alone and thousands more in other departments.” The managers of the combine seem to have made haste to shut down mills and throw thousands of men out of work as soon as possible .after telling the industrial commission what great things they had done for labor and for consumers of tin plate. Like other beneficiaries of protection, they manifest interest in labor chiefly when they are anxious to retain old tariff favors or secure new ones.—Chicago Chronicle.

“Prosperity** the Farmer Gets. What is the Nebraska farmer’s share in the boasted “McKinley prosperity?’* Let the farmer carefully note the facta. Since 1S98 the articles -which the farmer must buy have increased in price as follows: Clothes baskets, 331-3 per cent.; galvanized oil cans, 20 percent.; matches, 60 per cent*; galvanized buckets, 100 per cent.; soap, 15 per cent; washboards, 50 per cent.; starch, 100 per cent.; salt, 50 per cent.; Svire clotheslines, 100 per cent.; barbed wire, 115 per cent.; lumber, 331-3 per cent; nails, 100 per cent.; iron pipe, 115 per cent.; iron castings, 100 per c$nt.; rolled oats, 35 per cent.; carpet tacks, 60 per cent.; spices, 50 per cent Let the farmer compare these increases with the difference in the price of his products now and one year ago. The farmer who figures it out for himself will see that prosperity has come only to the trusts and the profits of the trusts are wrung from the farmers of thcj nation.—Omaha World-Herald. -The republican papers and speakers axe kept busy defending Hanna from the attacks of members of his own party.—Cincinnati Enquirer. 1' . ■

THE ELECTION IN KENTUCKY? Beturaa Already la WfMt Kaowa wf the I nreporteg C«aatle* Favor Taylor’s Cincinnati, Not. 10.—The Western t'nion issues the following bulletin Kentucky election: “Kentucky—With complete ret urn! from 81 counties and Incomplete returns from 25, making s, total of 118 counties out of 119, three oouna>s re* maiaing unreported, TayteM vote stands 103,09$; Goebel’s, 163,815, tearmg Taylors plurality 1,283. Of the three counties unrejK rted, one gave, in 1897, a democratic plurality of 250, and two gave a republican plurality of 1,135, the different being 885. This added to Taylor’s plurality, at above, gives Taylor a lead of 2,101 trotos. The unreported counties «fe Knott, Lerlie and Martin. The retifbzi of tht election is still in doubt, the probabilities being in favor of Taytpiv% Complete returns from the counties only p&itially reported may nrak.» a material change in the figures. CLAIMS AND COUNTER-CLAIMS. Both Sides Give that They Have Kentucky Louisville^ sions of claims and < _ quiet which the official count or, perhaps, a contest before the legislature* will be necessary, is all that is left oi Tuesday’s election. Above it all vehement cries of fraud, committed oi contemplated are, heard, |ftiich side claims the election of its ticket by a plurality of about 4,000, and present! figures to back up the claim. These figures in some counties varyjwidely, and it is impossible to tell which side, M either, has accurate returns. Claimed to Have the Actaal'.f’j^jralFmi Chairman Long of the republican campaign committee, when asked foi an estimate of the vote on the gubernatorial race, said: M

r have no estimate to give, but 1 can furnish the actual figures. On the face of the returns Taylor's plurality is 4,136. All of the precincts have been heard from. Twelve counties *fe pot official, including the returns from Kenton and Breathitt.” Taylor Sore of His Klectlon. Gen. Taylor said he was sure of hit election by a majority that will not be less than 4,000. Gen. Taylor said that official and semi-official returns from nearly every precinct in the state showed that he had been elected. E Will be the Xett Governor* A"; special from Frankfort- quotes Gov. Bradley as saying: “Taylor hat been elected by at least 10,000 major* ty. and he will be the next governor ol Kentucky.” til On the other hand, returns from democratic sources show a plurality oi 4 the face of the returns of about 2,001 for Goebel, 'this, they claim, is to b« affected by returns from some miss-m§ precincts where the democrats cat hardly do worse than break even. Mr. Goebel and Senator Blackburn in interviews at Frankfort, yesterday openly charged the republicans witk fraud in the Eleventh district, front which thejreturns are coming in very slowly. • * - Contest Before the Legislature. The indications point more strongly than ever to a contest before the legislature, which, there seems no reasonable doubt, will be controlled by tin democrats. Whether or not the mem bers belonging to that party will stand together on questions affecting a contest can noi be foretold. The county boards of canvassers which today, simply count and tabulate the re turns. . The state board of • electior commissioners then reviewst then work and decides all questions affect*" ing contested ballots. This eoriimlsslot certifies to the secretary* of staie tht election of officers receiving the- highest number of votes after the decisior of the commissioners upon coptestec returns have been recorded. --r-* Under the Goebel Law. Under the Goebel law, the duties ot the secretary of state are confined simply to making public the result a» found by the commissioners, the lan guage of the statute being: “It shal be the duty of the secretary of state immediately after the comparison ot the returns,to cause a statement there from of the votes given in every coon „r ty for each candidate, to be published *

in two newspapers.' ' No Appeal Allowed. : There is no appeal from the finding! of the state board of election eOmmis sioners except in the case of, governoj and lieutenant governor. In case of a contest for these offiees the fjnattei ’goes to the legislature., The three members of the board of election com missioners which will finally pass upor the returns were chosen, under the terms of the Goebel law, by the legislature which enacted that measure. They are Judge W. J< Pryor, of Frankfort; C. B. Poyntz, of MaysvUle, and W. J. Ellis, of Ownesboro. All are paid tc be friendly to Gobel, and all are democrats. The law provides fofameeting of these commissioners on the fourth Monday after the election. Armed Uoebel~and Taylor Partisans at Mtddlesboio. ^|||- Middlesboro, Ky., Nov. 9.—SUortlj after noon a number of armed men ot the Goebel faction gathered onCumberU.nd avenue, the principal street A number of Taylor's supporters, aim armed, took up a position on the street near by. Both factions appeared ready ♦o participate in a fight over the eleo tion. Citizens and authorities immediately endeavored to disperse the crowds ant prevent trouble, but a fight seems it* mtnent. .