Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 March 1888 — Page 6

NOBODY KNOWB_ Nobody know* how the children fret, Qtthe little trials dally met; Nobody knows—but mother. Nobody knows of the mother’s tears. Of the heartfelt prayers and the anxious tears; Nobody knows -but mother. Nobody knows of the dally cayer. Of the daily troubles which some one bean, <» Nobody knows- but mother. The constant worries of eyery day, That furrow the cheek and make the hair gray: Nobody knows—but mother.

A DOCTOR’S STORY.

lam a physician. . I hare made a Ufa-long study of the human brain, and may, perhaps be pardoned if I say that my opinions upon diseases of the mind now carry considerable weight among members of the profession. It was only a week or two since I was called to a large asylum for the insane in Northern Ohio to examine a case which baffled the skill of the local doctors. After disposing of that matter I took an unprofessional stroll through the institution in company with my old friend, the superintendent. The asylum over which I now made a tour of inspection was a most beautiful building, resembling in its appointments the homes of the weal'by and opulent. We wandered through room after room and along successive halls and corridors where men and women in every stage of insanity passed the time in various harmless amusements, or were restlessly confined in the care of warders and nurses. Of ail the misfortunes to which humanity is heir, this loss of reason is, to my mind, the saddest by far; and, though I might be expected to have grown hardened by long years of familiarity with all nh’ases of weak intellect, I never cease to feel devoutly thankful for that greatest of all benefits conferred upon men by a beneficent Creator—a sound brain.

We had passed through the greater part of the enormous institution and were approaching that portion of the building set apart for the residence of the superintending physician—my friend, Dr. Habershon. Taking from his pocket a key, Dr. Habershon inserted it in the keyhole of a door. Before turning it he looked at me in a strange manner and said: “If you were not an old med.. Hartley, and ar familiar with strange cases as I am myself, I should warn yon to keep your countenancs and betray no surprise on entering here. And I speak, anyhow, so as to be on the safe side.” Si eaying, he turned the sey in the lock and opened the door. We qu’etly entered a very neat but plainly furnished room, and I confess that, although I have witnessed queer, weird, wild and oft-times blood curdling sights, I never felt so startled in all my life as I did at that moment. The room was not by any means dark, for it was well lighted by a large window running ail along one side, but placed above the re ich of a man, even though he should stand upon a chair; yet at the farther end of the room I noticed a student lamp burning over a plain pine wood table, upon which rested a human skull and some writing paper. Seated at this table,‘pencil in hand, was a man about the same age as myself and Dr. Habershon (40 years) gazing intently upon the skull. What startled me so severely was the fact that when I had last seen that man more than fifteen years since—l had seen him in exactly such a posi ion, with precisely similar surroundings. And yet, what a difference! Then he had just graduated at the head of his class from our college, and was looked upon as one of the most promising young physicians in the country—now, he was a helpless maniac! “Ramsay?” 1 involuntarily queried, only nartially believing my own eyesight Habershon nodded. “You need not speak to him; he won’t reply. It is just six o’clock. He will sit at that table gazing at the old skull until daybreak and he will thrn throw himself upon his bed and sleep until noon. That’s the way he used to do, you know, and I hnmor him all I can. Poor old Ramsay; I owe him a good deal, you know, Hartly, sou remember all about it?”

“Yes, I remember the story, though 1 had almost forgotten it.” Ramsay, Habershon and myself were all students together in Philadelphia. We were in the same classes in college, and jointly occupied the same suite of rooms. Furthermore we were all making a specialty of studying the human brain, and ths only point wherein we materially differed from each other was that Ramsay knew more than we two follow® together. True, Ramsay was, in regard to his theories and speculations, wbat many people would call a ‘ crank”—but then successful cranks are esteemed to be geniuses, and certainly Ramsay was, in my as near the one as the other* * We three fellows ail flitted iu the same social set, and although both Ramsay and Habershon knew good and beautiful girls by the score, the. fates decreed that they should fail in love with the same young lady. And yet, strange enough, they never displayed bad feeling toward each other, nor even' sought to make the lady’s position an unpleasant one on account of the rivalry. It seemed to me, an onlooker, as though there was a tacit understanding between them, that no undue influence

should be brought into play, but that, knowing how both loved and admired her, the object of their admiration and esteem should be left quietly to choose between them. , Grace Thorneycroft was a most beautiful and estimable girl and, though JJ have been an old bachelor ail my days, I do not wonder that any man should have sought her for bis wife. One day Grace, with her, father, mother and a brother, were down to Atlantic City, where they took a sailboat and went out. A sudden squall overtaking them the frail pleasure boat was upset and Grace was the only member of the party who escaped with her life. She Was picked up in a fainting condition and tenderly cared for, but when restored, physically, it was found that her mind was shattered—she was insane. All that wealth, combined with skill, could do, was done for Grace, but it availed nothing and the physicians and friends at last gave up the case as bopeles*. Habershon was himself almost crazy with grief and could not bear to go near the poor girl. As for Ramsay, he shut himself up in his den —a small, barely furnished room where he was in the habit of pursuing his studies and experiments. There was a determined expression on the fellow’s face and when I'’looked in on him (which was seldom) he was always busy with his paperj and books—sometimes engaged in dissecting the brains of dogs and other animals, and once examining a human brain. He seldom spoke or even so much as remarked my presence, though once he said in an excited tone: “I shall cure her, Hartly—it shall be dme at any cost.” So for days and weeks he sit over that bare pine table gazing at the skull in front of him—ever and anon iapidly penciling diagrams of the human brain and of the nervous system.

Late one evening I was sitting with Habershon when there came a ra"p the door and R unsay entered. He was very quiet, but knowing him as well as I didi could tell he had something beyond the ordinary on his mind. “Boys,” he said, “I think I have found what I have been searching for— I think I can cure Grece. I say think, because, after all, it is only a theory of mine and may utterly fail, but I think not. Perhaps you say I should not theorize and experiment on a woman horn, &s you know, I love. Well, it won’t do any harm to her and it may do her all possible good. To-morrow morning I shall try to do the work.” Then, turning more particularly to Habershon, he continued: “Ed., you and I both love Grace Thorneycroft. Now, in the presence of Hartly, here, I want you to promise me, that whatever the consequences of my operation, you will care for Grace as long as she lives, and, if necessary, care for me too.” The next day, in the forenoon, Ramsay, in the presence of the two physicians who had been in charge of Grace, began his operations. I. was an interested observer from a distant part of the room, but Habershon could not be induced to be present. Ramsay told the older doctors that if bis theory proved perfectly successful in practice he would be able to give his method of cure in writing for the benefit of the world—at present, he said that it was utterly impossible for him to intelligently explain his ideas. However, he guaranteed that the attempt would be perfectly harmless to the patient and the doctors stood by reedy to prevent any undue or dangerous experiment. For mvself, I have not the least idea to this day just what the means were which Ramsay employed to produce tbe end he bad in -view, nor have I any theory to advance. The whole thing was a strange affair to me then and appears just as strange when I look back upon it from the pi epent moment, with all the experience which I have gained with fifteen years’ practice. Ramsay first of all administered a draught to Grace Thorneycroft, who was seated in a reclining chair. A few minutes later he made a small incision in an artery in the patient’s right arm, which movement he followed by making a similar incision in an artery of his own left arm. The two arteries he then connected by means of a 1 silver tube. Facing his subject, Ramsay tapped her head, near the base of the brain, two or three times with his knuckles, and then gazed into her eyes. Ten minutes passed slowly by and no perceptible difference was noticeable in Grace’s condition. Tin more minutes, and a gleam of intelligence seemed to be forcing its way into the face of the poor girl—but, strange to relate, a wild, far-away look was settling upon Ramsay! Another ten minutes, and Grace Taornej croft recognized every one in the room, including myself, while John Ramsay was led away from the newly conscious girl,a raving mani <c!

As I have before remarked, I have no explanation to offer—l can only chronicle bare facte. Ramsay was a man of genius, surely, though in the one act of his life in which he proved that genius, he partially failed; and, in that by losing his mind he was unable to give his theories to the world, his genius will never benefit posterity. Habershon married Grace Thorneycroft two yean after, and they have always taken the best care of the man who saved a woman’s reason at the expense 9 his own.

GRANDMOTHER.

The KfftecUi of Her Influence Seen Through Centuries o< Time. Wielding « Tremendous Power tn Earthly Things Either tor Good or Eril-Guldeo Opportunities Which Should Never be Neglected, Rev. Dr. Talmage preached in the Brooklyn Tabernacle last Bunday. Subject, “The Grandmother and Her Grandchildren.” Text, “Timothy, i., 5: “The unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Loir.” He said:

In this love letter which Paul, the old minister, is writing to Timothy, the young minister, the family record is brought out. The fact was that Timothy needed encouragement. He was in poor health, having a weak stomach, and was dyspeptic, and Paul prescribed for him a ton’c—“a little wine for thy stomach's sake”— not much wine, but a little wine,and only as a medicine. And if the wine then had been as much adulterated with logwood and strychnine as our modern wines he would not have prescribed any. But Timothy, not strong physically, is encouraged spiritually by the recital of grandmotherly excellence. Paul hinting to him, as I hint this day to you, that God sometimes gathers up as in a reservoir away back of the active generations of to-day a godly influence, and then in response to prayer lets down the power upon children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Toe world i.» wofully in want of a table of statistics in regard to what is the protraciednees and immensity of influence of one good woman in the Church and world. We have accounts of how much evil has been wrought by Margaret, the mother of criminals, who lived near a hundred years ago, and of how many hundreds of criminals her descendants furnished for the penitentiary and the gallows,and how many hundreds of thousands of dollars they c»t this country in their arraignment and prison support as well as in the property they burglarized and destroyed. But will not some one come out with brain com irehensive f nough.and heart warm enough, and pen keen enough, to give us the facts in regard to some good woman of a hundred years aco, and let us know how many Christian men and women and refoimern and useful people have been fouud among her descendants, and how many asylums and colleges and -churches they built, and how many millions of dollars they contributed for humanitarian and Christian purposes? The good women whose tombstones were planted in the eighteenth century are more alive for good in the nineteenth century than they were before, as the good women of this nineteenth century will be more alive for good in the twentieth century than now. Mark you, I have no idea that the grandmothers were any better than their granddaughters. You can not get very old people to talk much about how things were when they were boys’and girls. They have reticence and a rioncommitalism which makes me think they feel themselves to ba custodians of the reputation of their early comrades. While the dear old folks are rehearsing the follies of the present, if you put them on the witness stand and crossexamine them as to how things were seven ty veara ago the alienee becomes oppressive. A celebrated Frenchman by the name of Vol ney visited this country in 1796, and he says of woman’s diet in those times: “if a premium was offered for a regiment most destructive to healih, none could be devised more efficacious for these ends than that in use among these people.” That eclipses our lobster salad at midnight. Everybody talks about the dissipations of modern society, and how womanly health goes down under il; but it was worse a hundred years ago, for the chaplain of a French regiment in our Revolutionary War wrote in 1782, iu bis book of American women, saying: ‘ They are tall and well proportioned; their features are generally regular, their complexions are generally fair and without color. “At twenty years of age the women have no longer the freshness of youth. At thirty or forty they are decrepit.” In 1812 a foreign consul wrote a book entitled “A Sketch of the United States at the Commencement of the Present Century,” and he says of the women of those times: “At the age of thirty all their charms have disappeared.” One giant < hc the portraits of the women a honored years ago, and their stvle of dress, makes us wonder how they ever got their breath. All this makes me think that the express rail train is no more an improvement on tr e old canal boat, or the telegragh do more an' improvement on the old-time saddlebags, than the women of our day are an improvement on the women of the last century. But still, notwithstanding that those times were so much worse than ours, there was a glorious race of godly women seventy and a hundred years ago ..who held the world nack from sin and lifted it/toward virtue, and without their exalted and sanctified influence before this the last good influence would have perished from the earth. Indeed, all over this land there are seated to-day—not so much in churches, for many of them are too feeble to come —great many aged grandmothers. They sometimes feel that the world has gone past them, and they have an idea they are of little account. Their head sometimes gets to aching from the racket of the grandchildren down stairs or in thent xt room. They steady themselves by the banisters as they go up and down. When they get a cosfl it hangs on to them longer than it used to. They can not bear to have the grandchildren punished even when they deserve it, and have so relaxed their ideas of family discipline that they would spoil all the youngsters of the household by too great leniency. These old folks are “ the resort when great troubles Come, and there is a calming and soothing power in the touch of an aged hand that is almost supernatural. They feel they are almost through with the journey of life and read the old book more than they used to, hardly knowing which moet they enjoy, the Old Testament or the New, and often stop and dwell tearfully over the family record half way between. We hail them to-day whether in,the house of God or at the homestead. Blessed is that household that has in it a grandmother Lma. Where she is angels are hovering round

•nd God is in the room. May her last days be like those lovely autumnal days that we call Indian sumtnsr. * I never knew the joy of having a grandmother; that is the disadvantage of being the youngest child of the family. The elder members only have that benediction. But though she went up out of thia life before I began it, I have bear I of her faith in God, that brought all her children into the kingdom and two of them into the ministry, and then brought all her grandchildren into the kingdom, myself the last and least worthy. It is not time that you and I do two things, swing open a picture gallery of the wrinkled faces and stooped shoulders of tbe past, and call down from their heavenly thrones the Godly grand mothers, to give them our thanks, and then persuade the mothers of to-day that they are living for all time, and that against the sides of every cradle in which a child is rocked beat the twoeternities. Here we have an untried, nndisensaed and unexplored subject You often hear about your influence upon your own children—l am not talking about that What about your influence upon the twentieth century, upon the thirtieth century, upon tbe fortieth centnry,upon the year two thousand, upon the year four thousand, if the world lasts so long. Tbe world stood four thousand years before Christ came; it is not unreasonable to suppose that it may stand four thousand years after His arrival. Four thousand years the world swung off in sin.four thousand years it may be swinging back into righteousness. By the ordinary rate of multiplication,-of the world’s population in a century your descendants will be over six hundred, and by two ct nturies at least over a hundred thousand, and upon every one of them you, the mother ot to-day, will have an influence for good or evil. And if in two centuries your descendants shall have with their names filled a scroll of hundreds of thousands, will some angel from heaven to whom is given the capacity to calculate the number of the stars of heaven and the sands of the seashore, step down and tell us how many descendants you will have in the four thousandth year of the world’s possible continuance. Do not let the grandmothers any longer think that they are retired, and sit clear back out ot sight from the world, feeling that they have no relation to it. The mothers of the last century are to-day in the Senates, the Parliaments, the palaces, the pulpits, the bankinghouses, the professional chair, the prisons, the alms-houses,the company of midnight brigands, the cellars, the ditches of this century. You have been thinking about the importance ot havthe right influence upon the nursery. You have been thinking of the importahce of getting those two litt’e feet on the right path. You have been thinking of your child’s destiny for the next eighty years, if it should pass on to be an octogenarian. That is well, but my subject sweeps a thousand years, a million years, a quadrillion of years. I cannot stop at one cradle, I am looking at the cradles that reach all around the world and across all time. I am not talking of mother Eunice, I am talking of grandmother Lois. The only way you can tell the force Of a current is by sailing up the stream; Or the force ot an ocean wave by running the ship against it Running along with it we cannot appreciate the force. In estimating maternal influence we generally run along with it down the stream of time, and so we don’t understand the full force. Let us come no to it from the eternity side, after it has been working on or centuries, and see all the good it has done and all the evil it has accomplished multiplied in magnificent or appalling compound interest. Toe dis sere nee between that mother’s influence when it has been multiplied in hundreds of thousands of lives, is the difference between the Mississippi River way up at the top of tbe continent, starting from the little Lake Itasca, seven miles long and one wide, and its mouth at the Gulf of Mexico, where navies might ride. Between the birth of that river and its burial in the sea the Missouri pours in, and the Ohio pours in, and the Arkansas pours in, and the Red and White and Yazio Rivers pour in, and all the States and Territories between the Allegheny and Rocky Mount ains make contribution. Now, in order to test the power of a mother’s influx ence, we need to come in off of the ocean of eternity and sail up toward the one cradle, and we will And ten thousand tributaries of influence pouring in and pouring down. But it is after all one great river of power rolling on and rolling forever. Who can fathom it? Who can bridge it? Wno can stop it? Had not mothers better be intensifying their prayers? Had they not better be elevating their example? Had they not better rousing themselves with tbe consideration that by their faithfulness or neglect they are starting an influence which will be stupendous after the last mountain of earth is flat, and the last sea has been dned up, and the last flake of the ashes of a consumed world shall have been blown away, and all the telescopes of other worlds directed to the track around which our world once swung shall discover not so much as a cinder ot the burned-down and sweptoff planet. If a mother tejl a child if he is not good some bugaboo will come and catch him, the fear excited may make tbe child a coward, and the fact that he finds that there is no bugaboo may make him a liar, and the echo of that false alarm may be heard after fifteen generations have been oorn and have expired. If a mother promise a child a reward for good behavior and after the good behavior forgets to give the reward, the cheat may crop out in some faithlessness half a thousand years further on. If a mother culture a child’s vanity and eulogize his curls and extol the night-black or sky-blue or nutbrown of tne child’s eyes, and call out in his presence the admiration of spectators, pride and arrogance may be prelongtd after half a dozen family records have been obliterated. If a mother express doubt about some statement of the Holy Bible in a child’s presence, long after the gates of this historical era have closed and the gates of another era have opened, the result may be seen in a champion blasphemer, but, on the other hand, if a mother walking with a child sees a suffering one by the wayside and says: “My child, give that ten cent piece to that lame boy,” the result may be seen on the other side of the following century in some George Muller building a whole village of orphanages. If a mother sit almost every evening by the trundle-bed of a child and teach it lessons of a Savior’s love

and a Savior’s example of the importance of truth and the horror of a lie/ and tbe virtues of industry, and kindness, and sympathy, and self-sacrifice, long after the mother has gone, and tbe lettering on both the tomoatones shall have been washed out by the storms in innumerable winters, there may be a sianding, as a result of those trundlebed lessons, flaming evangels, worldmoving reformers, circulating Summerfields, weeping Paytons, thundering Whitefields, emancipating Washingtons. Good or bad influences mav skip from one generation or tw o generations, but it will be sure to land in tbe third or fourth generation, just as the Ten Commandments, speaking of the visitation of God on families, says nothing about the second generation, but entirely skips the second and speaks of the third and fourth generations. “Visiting the iniquities of tbe fathers upon the third and fourth generations of them that hate Me.” Parental influence, riaht and wrong, may jump over a generation, but it will come down further on, as sure as you sit there and I stand here. Timothy’s ministry was projected by his grandmother Lois. There are men and women here, the "ona and daughters of the Christian Church, who are such as a result of the consecration of great-great-grandmothers. Why, who do you think the Lord is? You talk as though His memory was weak. He can no easier remember a prayer five minutes than He can five centuries. This explains what we often see—some man or woman distinguished for benevolence when tbe father and mother were distinguished for penuriousness, or you see some young man or woman with a bad father and a hard mother come out gloriously lor Christ and make the church sob and shout and sing under their exhortations. We stand in corners of the vestry and whisper over the matter and say: “How is this, such great piety in sons and daughters of such parental worldliness and sin?” I will explain it to you if you will fetch me the old family bible containing the full record. Let some septuagenarian look with me clear upon the page of births and marriages and tell me who that woman was with the old-fashioned name of Jemima or Betsy or Mehitable. Ah, there she is, the old grandmother or great-grandmother, who had enough religion to saturate a century. Go 1 fill the earth and the heavens with such grandmothers; we must some day go up and tiank-these dear old souls. Surely God will let us go up end tell them of , the results of their influence. Among our first questions in heaven will be, “Where is grandmother?” They will point her out, for we would hardly know her even if we had seen her on earth, so bent over with years once, and there so straight; so dim of eye through tbe blinding of earthly tears, and now her eye as clear as heaven; so full of aches and prins once, and now so agile with celestial health, the wrinkles blooming into carnation roses, and ner step like the roe on the mountains. You must see those women of the early nineteenth century and of the eighteenth century, the answer of whose prayers is in your welfare to-day. God bless all the aged women up and down the land, and in all the lands! What a happy thing for Pomponious Atticus to say when making the funeral address of his mother: “Tnough I have resided with her sixty-seven years I wok never once reconciled to her, because there never happened the least discord between us, and consequently there was no need of reconciliation.” Make it as easy fir the old folks as you can. When they are sick get for them the best doctors. Give them your arm when the streets are slippery, Seay with them all the time you can. Gi home and see the old folks. Find lhe place for them in tbe hymn book. Never be ashamed if they prefer styles ot apparel a little antiquated. Never say anything that implies they are in the way. Mike the road for the last mile as smoothe as you can. Oh, my ! how you will miss her when she is gone! I would give the house from over mv head to see mother. 1 have so many things I would like to tell her; things that have happen-d in the twenty-four years since she went away. Morning, noon and night let us thank God for the good influences that have come down from good mothers all the way bark. Timothy, don’t forget your mother Eunice, and don’t forget your grandmother Lois. And hand down to others this pal rimon* of blessing, Pass along the coronets. Make religion an heirloom from generation to generation. Mothers ot America, cobsecrate yourselves to God and you will help consecrate all the ages following! ’Do not dwell so much on your hardships that you miss your chance of wielding an influence that shall look down upon you from the towers of an endless future. Martin Lather was right When he consoled his wife over the death of their daughter by saying: “Don’t take on so, wife; remember that this is a hard world for girls.” Yes, I go further and sav: It is a hard world for women.' Aye, Igo further and say: It is a hard world for men. But for all women and men who trust their bodies and souls in the hands of Christ the shining gates will soon swing open. Don’t you see the sickly pallor on the sky? That is the pallor on the cold cheek of tbe dying night. Don’t you see the brightening of the clouds? That is the flush on the warm forehead of the morning. Cheer up, you are coming in sight of the celestial city,

English as She is Spoke.

Pioneer Press. Talbot is pronounced Tolbut. Thames is pronounced Terns. Bulwer is pronounced Buller. Cowper is pronounced Cooper. Holburn is pronounced Hobun. Wemyss is pronounced Weems. Knollys is pronounced Knowles. St. Leger is pronounced Sillinger. Cockburn is pronounced Coburn. Brnnghwm is pronounced Broom. /Norwich is pronounced Norridge. Colquhoun is pronounced Cohoon. Cirencester is pronounced Simister. Hawarden is pronounced Harden. Grosvenor is pronounced Grovenor. Salisbury is pronounced Sawlsbury. Besnchamp is pronounced Beecham. Marylebone is pronounced Marrabun. Abergavenny is pronounced Abergenny. Marjorihanks is pronounced Marchbanks.

TRADE AND LABOR.

Philadelphia Record. A $2,000,000 iron and coal company has just been organized at Tinneville, Ky., the center of a rich mineral district. Electric railroads have been laid in thirteen cities. One of them, at Montgomery, Ala., covering eleven miles, carried 1,000.000 people last year. The crematory for the consumption of garbage at Chicago has been completed. It is the intention to erect similar buildings in each district of the city. _ Work on the main building of the Southern agricultural works, at Atlanta. Ga., has been carried oh night and day, electric lights having been introduced. It ia said 1 hat the strike of the employes of tbe Boston A Sandwich Glass Companv, at Sandwich, Mass., is killing local trade and practically ruining the town. Thq Richmond (Va.) State says: “Southern merchants are placing heavy orders in Philadelphia, New York and Baltimore in anticipation of a vigorous spring trade.” W. H. Tift, of Tifton, Ga., has purchased 19,000 acres of yellow pine timber lands for $19,000, making his present possessions of timber land in Georgia 100,000 acres. The Wheeling, W. Va,, Chamber of Commerce has issued a call for a meeting of business men on Feb. 28 to devise means of attracting immigration and manufactories to that city and the State in general. At Birmingham, Ala , the real estate craze has ended, and many speculators have been mulcted. Nevertheless enterprises are busy and new ones talked of. Additional mineral lands are being discovered throughout the State. A list of the names of thirty-five saloon-keepers who sell boycotted Milwaukee beer in New York has been furnished by the Journeymen Brewers’ Union to the Central Labor Union, and the secretary of the union will send copies of it to all the labor organizations. A large number of union cigar makers of New York have formed the Internal Bivenue Abolition League, through which to agitate the removal of the tax on cigars. President Strasser, of the International cigar makers’ Union, says they must not take part in any such agitation A convention of textile workers will be held in Philadelphia on Feb. 17, and the carpenters and joiners will hold their convention in Cleveland on March 6. Each local assembly of these different crafts will be entitled to one delegate for 100 members or majority fraclion thereof. - Superintendent Bierman, of the Troy (N. Y.) water department, has written a letter in which he disapproves ot the plumbing done by the department for the general public, in that it is not only not properly within the scope of the department, but competes with the in-

dividual plumber besides. The Pittsburg German Trades Assembly proposes a novel way of enforcing the boycott on Milwaukee beer. It will secure the names of all saloon keepers who continue to sell the boycotted beer, and when the May license c sees shall come up the assembly will protest against each of the saloon keepers being granted a new license. Russia is awakening to the importance of improving her milling industry. The Minister of the Agriculture has called for a meeting in February of a congress of millers, agriculturists and all others interested in grain and flour. The object of this meeting is to discuss the present condition and future prospects of milling in Russia. The proposed repeal of the law imposing a revenue tax on cigars arid manif-“ factored tobacco continues to agitate the cigar makers of New York, who are divided on the subject. Those who are in favor of the abolition of the tax will have a mass meeting on Feb. 14, in Everett Hall, where prominent speakers will deliver addresses. Says the Savannah News: “Gen. George T. Frye thinks there is no doubt that the Atlantic, Atlanta A Great Western railroad, of which he is president, will be built. He says work on it will be begun in April next, and that the entire line will be completed by July 1890. The shops of the company will be located at Savannah or Atlanta, according to the inducements offered. Ths Sloss Iron and Steel Company own all the land and buildings in and around Coalburg, Ala., to the amount of 13,000 acres, and a large number of houses. The little village is regularly laid out in streets and is furnished with hydrant water, which is supplied by the waterworks at the mines. There are over 12* frame dwelling-houses, which the company rent at from $1 to $1.50 a room per month. These dwellings are well built, containing from two to six rooms; According to the Kansas City Star: “A new. society, called the WHeel, is being organ: z?d among the farmers in southwest Missouri. The wheel is an organization which claims as its intentions the uniting of farmers and the breaking down of monopolies. They do this by, as they claim, compelling merchants to sell to all members of the Wheel at 10 per cent, above cost price, and in case the merchant refuses their proposition they will put up a stere of their own and furnish the members all