People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1896 — A Record Breaking Year. [ARTICLE]

A Record Breaking Year.

Trotting records, bicycle records and) speechmaking records have all been! broken this year. It is almost as easy to break a record as it is to break the moral I law.—Twinkles.

It is reported that the year 1896 is thus far one of the most profitable in the history of insurance companies. There have been both increased rates and decreased losses. The losses for the eleven months ending Dec. 1, 1896, are reported about $12,000,000 less than for the corresponding period of 1895.—Indianapolis Sentinel. The increased earnings are in keeping with those of all the great trusts.

The next legislature of Indiana will probably consider a bill for the abolition of the “quart shop.” It is an institution that no community wants, and is now always able to flourish in localities where the regular saloon is forbidden. While the solons are about it, we would suggest that the drug store bar be given attention, and possibly treated like other saloons; that back doors to all saloons be forbidden; that the regular licensed saloon be protected from all illicit competition, and that every patron of a saloon be obliged to take out a license to drink.

Gigantic trusts continue to be formed with a reckless abandon" that is gradually, bringing the citizens of the country to a realization that there is great danger in sight for the small manufac turer. The latter are gradually being wiped out of buisness existance, as the many failures reported each day testify. Wages of employes are being rapidly reduced by the trusts, and then with another stroke of the pen the selling price of commodifies manufactured by them are increased all the way from 20 to 50 per cent. Fraternal societies are also beginning to complain of the slowness with which assessments are paid, and it is claimed that men are now asking for charity whose names two years ago were published among the lists of philanthropic people as contributors to aid the destitute.