Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 August 1901 — Page 6

The WeeKly Panorama.

tt/cman and the Kjtchen. t/tme. Schmahl, editor of the Avant Courier, goes even further than Mme. Sarah Grand in her advocacy of woman’s enfranchisement. Mme. Schmahl would apply the ax to the underpinnings of our domestic institutions. “The kitchen must go," says she, “before women ineet the responsibilities of the twentieth century and specialize their work according to their tastes.” That is, if women are to have free scope for their intellectual development during the present century, they must abandon the cooking stove and the pantry, the refrigerator and the china closet, the kneading board, the rolling-pin and the broom, and devote themselves exclusively to what Mme. Schmahl regards as the higher pursuits. How are they to do this if they expect to have husbands, children and the happiness for which the soul of every good woman yearns in these days? Can they the kitchen and still preserve domestic peace? Or, to put it in a broader way, will It be possible for the woman of the twentieth century to eliminate the kitchen from her home life?

The Chinese Bride Carrier.

Perhaps the queerest trade among the Chinese of San Francisco is that of bride carrier. There are three women following this occupation in Chinatown and making a comfortable, if spasmodic, income. The excuse for this trade Is' the

CARRYING A BRIDE.

Chinese custom of making the bride an idler on her wedding day, forbidding her either to walk or stand, and requiring her to be carried from her husehold to that of her husband by some one of her own sex. It would perhaps be permitted that the bride’s mother or some of tier female relations should perform this delicate attention., but of late this is considered not at all “swell” among upper-class Chinese and their imitators. The real, fashionable thing to do and the lucky one as well is to have a regular professional with a reputation for luck and a correct and inside knowledge of the ceremonies to be observed. And when a Chinese family wishes to put on a little extra “dog" over the marriage of a daughter, all three of Chinatown’s professionals are hired. '

Cotton in Central Asia.

The ambition of Russia to raise all the cotton it needs seems to be on the way toward fulfillment. Thomas Smith, United States consul at Moscow, reports that 233,500,000 pounds of cotton were shipped into European Russia from central Asia last year by way of the Caspain Bea. The total production of central Asia is now 800,000,000 pounds. This is not a large quantity of cotton when compared with the nearly 6,000,000,000 pounds which has been raised in one year in the United States, or with the 3,300,000 000 pounds exported by this country last year. But the size of the Russian crop is significant because of the rapid increase it shows over previous years. Russia is raising at least ten times as much cotton as it did a decade ago.

A youthful President.

Francisco L. Alcantara, a graduate of the United States Military Academy,

has been elected president of the state of Aragua, Venezuela. Young Alcantara’s father was president of Aragua some years ago, and later was president of the republic. Francisco was graduated from West Point four years ago. He was a special cadet, ad-

mitted by President Cleveland on request of President Andueza Palacio. The young man's political advancement has been rapid and well, and although he is only 27 years old he has beeh elected to the presidency of one Of the most Important states of Venenuela. He is the youngest man occupying so high an office.

HOW MRS. CUMMINS WORRIED SENATOR GEAR.

A. B. Cummins, the nominee of the lowa Republicans for governor, is in many ways a remarkable man. The story following, by one who was on the scene, shows another side of the Cummins family, says the Chicago Tribune: “I was in Des Moines in the winter of 1894 when Cummins was a candidate for the United States Senate, to succeed that gritty old veteran in politics, John Henry Gear. There were

[six candidates, as I remember. Gear, of course, was the lion. Then there was another who had a big railroad influence. Then there was a plucky fighter, an editor from Sioux City; Another candidate hailed from - Council Bluffs. He was the plain people’s candidate, as he called himself. He used ’ to help the farmers cut their hay, and so on. Then there was a man from the center of the state. He had long hair and was an impressive sort of fellow. The other man was Cummi ns. Tail, rather, swarthy,

perfectly possessed when others were on the rampage, he was the one man whom foxy old Gear really feared. 1 was in Gear’s room one night with his manager, young Blythe, a shrewd railroad lawyer. He had all the pins in their proper places and told old John Henry Gear to go to bed. “ ‘Have you seen Cummins tonight?’ asked the senator. “The lawyer said he had not, but that Cummins’ headquarters were dark and nobody was about. “ ‘Then I stay up,’ said the wily old politician. ‘I don’t go to bed until 1 know where Cummins is.’ “His manager laughed and said he knew Cummins was at home —Cummins lives in Des Moines—and in be 3. “This did not satisfy John Henry Gear. ‘He can plot as much mischief there, or more,’ retorted Gear, ‘than anywhere else. Do you know Mrs. Cummins?’ The old man’s manager said he knew her in a casual way. “ ‘I know her the other way,’ said the old senator. ‘She’s the smartest

woman in lowa. I wish there was) some way to get Cummins a way from home.’ “This compliment I for Mrs. Cummins, from a man like! John Gear, meant a good deal; The old man, however, went to bed. The next day he summoned his manager j and said: “ ‘What did I tell! you? Do you know what Cummins and his wife did last night? See here. Here’s an invitation from Mrs. Cummins to me, to dine at her home this evening the other candidates! That’s Mrs. Cummins’ work.’ “Young J. w.

Blythe asked if that wasn’t all right. “ ‘Nothing gives me greater pleasuse,’ said the lynx-eyed senator, ‘than to be Mrs. Cummins’ guest ordinarily. I honor her. But this fihesse on her part is not according to the old way of political battling in this state. It’s a sort of lace-handkerchief, kid-glove way of getting the enemy into a corner and smothering him with perfume.’ “ ‘But you are going?’ asked Blythe. “ ‘Going? What else can I do? There’s where she unarms me.’ “The dinner was a pretty one, I was told. Mrs. Cummins went to the spread on the arm of the old senator. The other candidates were in their places. Not a word of politics was uttered. A few games, some music, and it was all over. “John Henry Gear won in the caucus and was elected, of course, on joint ballot. All the candidates spoke after the caucus, but the cleverest speech was that made by Cummins. And while he was talking old man Gear, radiant and bubbling, was assuring Mrs. Cummins of his admiration for her husband, and promised, so I was told, that when he finished the term for which he had just been nominated he would get out of the way for Cummins. But he didn’t. In 1900 old John Henry capered as gayly into the field as a spring colt and won. If Cummins lives he will reach the senate. He is, in his peculiar way, one of the smoothest politicians in the country.”

"Soddies" in Colorado.

Sod houses, or, as they are locally termed, "soddies,” are now being built in large numbers in eastern Colorado. They are made of oblong pieces of sod cut from the prairie, about eighteen inches in length, seven inches broad, and from three to four inches thick. No foundation is required, the sods being simply laid on the prairie, and up goes the structure. '.‘Soddies” are cool In summer and warm In winter, and when the snow-laden wind is whistling without a cozy sodhouse, In which there is a good corncob fire, la not to be despised.

TROVBLE AT PANAMA.

The battleships lowa and Wisconsin were ordered from Puget Sound to San Diego last week from which the former will sail for Panama, where disturbances of a serious nature have been taking place. The invasion in Venezuela by so-called Colombian troops may bring about an international crisis. It is believed in Venezuela that the troops are not being paid by the Colombian Republic at all,

Boston Murder Mystery.

Though the woman whose headless body was some time ago found in the Chelmsford woods of Massachusetts has been positively identified, by a set of false teeth, as Mrs. Margaret Reilly Blondin, only one little part of the great murder mystery is solved. Even the time of the murder is uncertain; the place where it was done is unknown. An unbroken chain of facts point to Joseph Wilfred Blondin, the victim’s husband, as the murderer, but he is at large. All the tell-tale exhibits in this remarkable case have now been got together by the state and city police in Boston in the hopes of throwing some new light on the time, place and circumstances of the murder, which may lead to the solution of the mystery and the capture of the criminal. Obe Motive Found, The motive for the Blondin crime is still a matter of speculation. It may have been a desire on the part of the miserly husband to get hold of the S4OO which his wife had saved before her marriage and then be rid of her. He had another wife at St. Polycarpe, Canada, a much handsomer woman than Margaret Reilly. He wanted to go back to Canada to get a position on a St. Lawrence river steamboat, which his father had lately found for him. He would hardly have dared to take back a second wife, as he would quickly have been prosecuted for bigamy.

By a strange mischance the discovery that the body found in the Chelmsford woods was that of Mrs. Blondin was not communicated to the Boston police until after it had been printed in the morning papers. So Blondin read of how his secret was out hours before the same papers-came to the eyes of the police. He at once left Boston and took a train to New York. This is evident from the fact that next day the baggage master at Fall River received a letter from “James Marrou,” New York, which read: Dear Sir: Would you please send my bicycle and my trunk to New York station; you find the check in this letter and send me check to this address. New York. JAMES MARROU. Chief Watts, head of the Boston Detective bureau, and Chief Wade of the State police had already found the trunk at Fall River to be Blondjn’s without a doubt. It was sent on to New York in the hopes of catching the owner when he should call to claim it. By June 13, when the trunk and letter containing checks should have arrived in New York, such a sensation had been aroused about the murder that Blondin, alias Marrou, was too wily to apply for either letter or trunk. K.ni'de.r Are bloodstained. This trunk is now in Boston at police station No. 3. When opened it was found to contain four butcher knives, stained with what is apparently human blood, though an effort had been made to wash them clean. The trunk also contains Blondin’s marriage certificate to Margaret Reilly. The most careful examination of the room where the Blondins lived failed to show any trace of blood on the floor walls or on any article in the room’ There was no evidence of any struggle,, such as broken furniture. There is a theory that Blondin may have choked his wife to death and let her body lie till the blood had almost ceased to flow, then cut off the head, put the body in the trunk and so disposed of it In the Chelmsford woods. The grips in which Mrs. Blondin’s head and

but that they are filibusters from British Guiana and Honduras who are paid by those governments. It is evident that some such belief also prevails in the State department at Washington, otherwise the two greatest fighting machines in our navy would not be ordered to be in readiness. We already have several small gunboats close to the scene of hostilities.

THE BATTLESHIPS IOWA AND WISCONSIN.

shoes are thought to have been carried have already been found and are held as a part of the state’s evidence. Description of Dondin. Blondin has such a singular looking face that he should be easy to recognize anywhere. He has a strong, protruding jaw, a slight cast in the right eye; his face is slightly pockmarked and he is very bow-legged. This latter is perhaps his most marked characteristic. Were it not for these peculiarities of face and limbs he would be hard to pick out, for he is of slightly less than medium size—five feet six inches—weighs 150 pounds and usually wears only the conventional moustache. He is 33 years of age. He has a tattoo mark of a schooner on his left forearm. He speaks with a slight French accent. The Massachusetts police announce that they are upon the trail of Blondin. After the police lost the clue to Blondin in New York city they took it up again in Canada, from where

BLONDIN’S METHOD OF DISPOSING OF WIFE’S BODY.

Blondin originally came. The police now announce that their man has been tracked to the wild regions in the extreme northern part of the Province of Quebec. No effort will be spared to catch him. The objective point of the fugutive is said to be the tow,n of Perce, near Cape Gaspe. From that point he easily can make his way to the French settlement of Miquelon, where he absolutely will be safe among his old associates, the outlaws and smugglers of St. Pierre.

The Population of Canada.

The present population of Canada is 5,400,000. There has been a gain of 600,000 in ten years. This is the same gain as that of Chicago during the last decade. Ten years ago the population of the Dominion was one-thirteenth that of the United States. It is less than one-fourteenth now. It is natural that there should be disappointment in Canada over this slow growth. There is no doubt that the ease with which land could be had in the United States for a nominal price drew many emigrants here. The Canadians have hoped that when the

These could take care of American interests In an ordinary emergency. They Include the Ranger, which has a main battery of six 4-lnch rapid-fire guns and a secondary battery of four 6pounders, and a Colt gun. She has a complement of 21 officers and 127 men and is In command of Commander Wells L. Field. She Is now at Panama. The Machias has by this time arrived at Colon on the Atlantic side.

supply of cultivable government lands was exhausted the tide of emigration might set their way. But while this country has no longer free lands to offer, it has work to offer, usually at good wages. There' are so many more opportunities to earn money here than in the Dominion that there were living in this country in 1890 nearly 1,000,000 men and Women who were born in Canada. The census returns of nativities for 1900 have not been made public yet. When they are it will become apparent, no doubt, that the emigration from the Dominion to the United States has not been checked.

“Belled Buzzard" Returns.

The “belled buzzard” has returned once more to Boone County, Mo. Such has been the rumor, and it was positively verified by C. S. Ballew of Harg, Mo., six miles east of Columbia, who saw the great bird at close view. The belled buzzard has been famous in Boone County for more years than men can 'remember. It has a bell fastened to its throat, / and has a small iron band also. Sometimes many years elapse between the parting and the coming of the bird, but it never fails to return. The buzzard had been given up for dead this time, and the drought-stricken farmers were even puzzled when they heard a tinkling in the sky and saw the grim bird soaring, but when the bell flashed in the sunlight they knew that the old-time visitor had come again. This may be the last visit of the famous bird, for

it is very old. Mr. Ballew said that the buzzard had turned gray. It seemed weary and sluggish, and apparently Indifferent when he approached, and did not fly until he had a good view of the bell, the origin of which is unknown. There is something sinister in the arrival at this time of the strange visitor, which, perhaps, has seen the dawning of two centuries, and people talk about the bird at times with a touch of superstition.

The Nation Divorce Case.

Mr. Nation’s suit for divorce brought the confessioh from Mrs. Nation that her love for David was a fleeting fancy. She only thought she loved him when she married him twen-ty-five years ago, and now she says that, although he isn’t a bad fellow, he is too slow for her. The husband’s complaint is that the wife has abandoned him and caused him worry and humiliation by her sa-loon-smashing crusade. He says that he has been patient with her and tried to persuade her to return home, but that she has treated his overtures with contempt.

SAYINGS and DOINGS

How the French Gtviwted the Driti.th Lion'j Bail. | The Petit Bleu of Brussels publishes an open letter from the Belgian historian, Barral, to Edmond Rostrand, the author of “L’Aiglon," which touches on a curious point of real or alleged history. Rostand’s wife is a granddaughter of Marshal Gerard, who in 1832 led a French army through Belgium. The object of this letter is to ascertain if Mme. Rostand has any papers of her grandfather which may throw lignt on the attack made by his troops on the British Lion, which stands on a hill at Waterloo. The French soldiers, it seems, endeavored to overthrow this insulting mpnument, and it was all that the marshal could do to prevent its destruction. Now M. Barral has discovered that though the British Lion is still there, its tail has been sadly twisted, and he wants to know how and when. The tall, once borne proudly aloft, flamboyant and aggressive, now trails as limply and tamely as that of the harmless and necessary cat. In the Brussels Museum is a plaster cast marked “Model of the Lion of Waterloo,’’ and this has an erected tail, while the iron on the battle field has a drooping one. • According to M. Barral’s account, the French soldiers broke off the lion’s tail, which was subsequently replaced by a new one or by the old one in a new position. M. Barral has also interrogated the proprietors of the Belgian foundry where the lion was cast about 1830. They state that the original model had an elevated tail, and feel quite certain that the cast was like unto it.

Fair Porto Rican Painter.

Miss Hermlnia Davila of Porto Rico has placed a portrait of Andrew Car-

HERMINIA DAVILA.

hegie on exhibition in the Porto Rican section of the Pan-American. The portrait is done in black and white silk of such minute needlework that -* the effect is similar to steel engraving. The picture presents the head and shoulders of Mr. Carnegie, and is an exact reproduction of a photograph. The frame was also designed by Miss Davila, and she has embroidered many dainty pansies in the four white corners.

Speed of Locomotives Tested.

A locomotive on the New Jersey Central Railroad was recently tested with a train of nine coaches, and made over three miles at the rate of eigthytwo miles per hour, and these performances can be repeated regularly. This is not to say, however, that the average rate of speed of American locomotives is over eighty miles per hour, for it is very much less, but it shows that they have a force in reserve which can be called on in emergencies to make up lost time. The only occurate data for comparing the performances of locomotives are what are technically called “train sheets.” These are official records compiled for the officers of the roads,in which “nothing is extenuated or aught set down in malice,” and they show that, compared with foreign locomotives, our own are far ahead in all that constitutes efficiency, speed and economy.

A Rooster in Harness.

The Rev. Charles A. Long of the York (Pa.) German Baptist church, when not occupied with the duties of

his charge, finds diversion in the raising of fancy chickens. The pastor’s pretty little 6-year-old daughter is very fond of her father’s chickens, and she has displayed a peculiar ingenuity in taming and teaching a number of the fowls to perform tricks. Several of them follow her where she wills and are frequently her only playmates. One handsome Black Minorca rooster, harnessed to a wagon, takes a staid old hen for a carriage ride, with little Iva manipulating the reins, as shown in the photograph. The same rooster and several others have been taught to play at see-saw, and they also have other accomplishments. *

People and Events

Blackburn'e "Bride to Be. The positive announcement of Senator Joseph C. S. Blackburn’s impending marriage to Mrs. Mary E. Blackburn, widow of his kinsman, Judge H. H. Blackburn of West Virginia, has aroused Washington society from its summer sleeta. This engagement was announced January 8 and publication met with vigorous protest from the prospective bride and groom. The wedding was originally set for an early date in March and was to have been

MRS. BLACKBURN.

a sequence to the return of the redoubtable Kentuckian to the senate. For some private reasons the nuptials were postponed. Mrs. Mary E. Blackburn is a member of one of the prominent families of Washington. Mrs. Blackburn’s friends believe that her nuptials will be strictly private after the order of the famous Dewey-Hazen alliance, with no previous announcement or invitations to friends. Mrs. Blackburn will be the latest addition to the senatorial brides. Mrs. . Hansbrough held this distinction for three seasons until last winter, when Mrs. Sullivan, wife of the senator from Mississippi, usurped her place of honor. Mrs. Blackburn has been a widow for more than three years. Shortly after her husband’s death she was appointed to a clerkship in the quartermaster geenral’s office or the war department, which she held until last week. Although she has never been prominently identified with society she is a woman of fine presence and gracious manners and will undoubtedly add luster to the history of the Blackburn family in Washington. The late Mrs. J. C. S. Blackburn for many years shared with Mrs. Carlisle the distinction of being the most successful hostess of the blue grass state in official life. Her three beautiful daughters made their debut here and were stars in the social firmament

Senator Deboe’s Victory.

After a long and stubborn fight Senator Deboe of Kentucky has succeeded in ousting Mrs. Gertrude Saunders from the postmastership of “Newcastle, Ky., and the S6O a month hereafter will go to an incumbent who can vote and work for the party. Mrs. Saunders is a widow with ten children dependent upon her for support. She was plucky and fought hard for the sake of her little ones, but Senator Deboe, with the help of the organization of Kentucky, has triumphed at last.

To Meet Slosson.

Lotus Barutel, the French billiard expert, who came to America three months ago with Jacob ow his return from Europe, has been; matched to play George F. Slosson in New York at a date yet to be agreed upon. A deposit of SSOO has been made with a billiard flrm to bind the match, which will be for SI,OOO a side, at eight-een-inch balk line. Mr. Barutel is a native of Toulouse, France, and has been playing billiards professionally for fifteen years. He has met all the well known experts except Slosson. He

LOUIS BARUTEL.

has traveled extensively, giving exhibitions and playing matches in Vienna, Berlin, Buda-Pesth, Rome, Carlsbad, St. Petersburg, Brazil. Portugal, Chile, and Mexico, as well asvin the leading academies of France and America. * Baptists of Malden, Mass., are interested in a suit for back salary which has been filed in the courts of Middlesex county by the Rev. James R. Randolph against the trustees of St Luke's Baptist church. Mr. Randolph claima that he entered into a pontract with the defendant trustees of the church on May 10, 1896, agreeing to serve as pastor of the church at a salary of *SO a month. He claims there is now due him the sum of *1,051.44, back salary, and he sues the trustees to recover It.