Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 November 1883 — Dress of Laboring People in Japan. [ARTICLE]

Dress of Laboring People in Japan.

During the past season Boston erected 831 buildings; Npw York, 1,905; Philadelphia, 3,334; and St. Paul, 4,000. The cost is not given in all cases. Up to the Ist of September the building expenditures of Mew York aggegated $33,804,214, against $44,793,186 in 1882 and $43,391,300 in 1881. One-eighteenth part of Dakota has been set apart for educational purposes. These lands cannot be sold for less than $lO per acre, and large tracta, it is thought, will bring more. They aggregate 5,500,000 acres, and are valued at $82,500,000. There will be no excuse for ignorance in the gTeat wheat land of the future. A Presidential campaign is a little more lively and exciting in the United States of Colombia than in the United States of America. The political—con-" dition of Colombia resembles that of Mexico a few years ago. It is a constant and bitter warfare between stubborn factions. There are now three aspirants for the pext Presidency—Nenez, Wilches and Otalora—and the partisans of each are hot with anger at the pretensions of the others. A revolution is threatened.

Mr. Edward Payson Weston, “the father of long-distance pedestrianism," is about to undertake a remarkable feat in connection with the work of the Church of England Temperance Society, with which he is prominently connected. He proposes to travel over the highways of England and Wales, on foot and in ordinary costume, fifty miles daily for 100 consecutive days, Sundays excepted. He will travel only during the day time, and will lecture each evening on “Tea versus Beer.” He will be accompanied by two friends and a represenative of the press in a carriage. '

Governor Sheldon reports a population of 150,000 in New Mexico, against 118,430 in 1880. Of the 150,000 inhabitants three-fourths, or 112,000, speak the Spanish language, and cling to the old customs of the country. Of the remainder, the majority are of the enterprising and venturesome pioneer class who are interested in developing the resources of the country. Modifications in the Jaws, suggested by Governor Sheldon, would have the effect to stimulate immigration, and when the American element is in the majority the real progressive movement in the Territory will begin.

In his recent address to the Agricultural Society of New England Hon. George B. Loring said that the farmers of that section were getting wealthy. He said: “The decline of eertain branches of farming, especially of those staples that can he more cheaply produced elsewhere, is attended by an increase of all those products that enter into immediate home consumption; and honce it is that the number of farms has increased, the production of butter has been enlarged, the sale of milk has become an important branch of the dairy, and the aggregate value of the annual products of the soil is greatly enhanced.” An English clergyman in Berkshire recently rebuked Sabbath-breaking in a way that some people might resent. The peaceful village was startled in the midst of its Sunday afternoon quiet by the loud, and rapid tolling of the, church bell for twenty minutes. The town turned itself inside out trying to find out what was the matter. It was finally announced that the rector, while engaged in a pastoral visitation, had been scandalized by the sight of a lawn tennis party in the grounds of one of the principal houses in the parish, and he had taken this means to remind the erring members of his flock of the injunction of the Fourth commandment.

The little village of Annsville on the Hudson has derived its existence for nearly half a century from the Annsville wire mills,which employed upwards of 400 men at good wages. Recently the wire mills were destroyed by fire, and threw out of employment nearly all the working population of the village. The proprietors of the wire mills decided not to rebuild, and last week leased Sharp’s rifle works, at Bridgeport for ten years, where they will in future carry on their business. As a result the storekeeper* of Annsville pave been forced to close up, and the village is rapidly becoming depopulated. A more desolate looking place can hardly be imagined:* According to the New Orleans TimesDemocrat, Southern progress during the last four years has been of a most ■olid and satisfactory character. The assessed valuation of the eight Southern and Southwestern States increased between 1879 and 1883 from $1,215,662,128 to $1,710,498,798. In the same States the railroads have increased from 11,604 miles to -17,891. The value of raw pro-

ducts raided in those states increased from $398,000,000 to $567,000,000. The trade of New Orleans f in domestic products increased from $159,000,000 in 1881-82 to $200,000,000 in 1882-83. As this increase has taken place without any inflation in prices, it shows that the South entered upon a promising career of material prosperity.

Let every young man who wants to open a correspomdence with some beautiful girl, “with a view to matrimony,” carefully examine the lining of his new hat. A yoijng woman inja Connecticut bat factory, some months since, was inspired with the happy idea of putting her name and address on a card slipped inside the leather lining of a hat she was finishing. The purchaser of this head covering wrote to the factory girl, and the correspondence resulted in a wedding. All the girls in all the hat factories at once followed the example of their former companion, and now another wedding has taken "place consequence. In the latter case the wearet of the hat came from New Orleans toseek the writer of the card and his fate.

Cart. Webb’s death at Niagara recalls the similar fate of a man in Sicily just 100 years ago. Nicholas, surnamed “the diver,” on account of his many wonderful exploits, undertook in the presence of thousands of spectators to dive to the bottom of the Sicilian gulf, where there is a dangerous whirlpool, and bring up something which had\been thrown in. He made the attempt and succeeded. Again something more precious was thrown in, and again he succeeded. Finding tliat in the second attempt he encountered some submarine difficulties which he had not expected,he declined te make another attempt, but a Sicilian nobleman throwing in a gold cup studded with brilliants as a prize, he dived into the surf and was seen again.

A war of France with China would strke British trade a hard blow, while scarcely affecting French. The total tonnage entering and clearing from Chinese ports in 1882 was 17,388,852 tons. Of this 172,381 tons were French, and 10,814,779 tons English, The German, of other foreign, tonnage is next in amount to the English, being 882,856 tons, while the American is only 167,801 tons, although in 1877 it was 556,126 tons. The Chinese tonnage is nearly 5,000,000, and is the only formidable competitor to the English. It will thus he seen that to France an interr ruption of the Chinese trade by a blockade of the treaty ports would, from the purely commercial point of view, he a comparatively small matter, while to England it would be a subject of almost transcendent importance.

The laborers in Japan have adopted a style of dress and undress that is admirably conducive to the largest attainments of comfort durjng their labors, and especially so is it with the headgear worn by them, which consists of a bamboo or grass saucer-shaped article, that is placed on the top of the head without encircling the brows, being retained in its position by means of strings attached to the hat or head-: cover, both before and behind the ears of the person wearing it, which are tied beneath the chin. Usually there is a ring of cotton or of bamboo about an inch in thickness, and some four or five inches in diameter, placed between the top of the head and the hat, which allows of perfect ventilation over the cranium, and, as they are nearly as largo as an ordinary sun umbrella, they afford ample protection from the rays of the sun to the neck and shoulders. Sunstroke is not one of the ills that the Japanese are subject to. If the farmers who labor under the scorching sun of California during the harvest days of July and August had such protection as the Japanese hats, or, rather, head and shoulder protectors, afford, they would adjudge them a blessing and a boon. The granger’s hat that I have seen w orn by the farmers in the valleys of California, with their wide brims flopping about their faces, and shoved tightly upon their brows, are not to he compared to the Japanese article.— Letter from Japan.