Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1888 — TEMPERENCE NOTES. [ARTICLE]

TEMPERENCE NOTES.

As we approach the annual day of commencements, the old query occurs, Why call the end of a school year Commencement Day? It is not commencement day for the college, but for that class that is graduatefl. To be graduated is to be grafted. Degrees arc given to the 'senior class, or such portion of it as merits them, and they are thereby graded or graduated, and so enter another career as scholar. Possibly the fact that a good share only enter upon a career of idleness, instead of a higher career of scholarly efforts, has led«to the popular idea that commencement days end something, and that the word is absurd. The word is rightly chosen, it is only the <fter-career of a student that can make it absurd. ___________ The presence of Corean Embassadors at Washington recalls a map of the world, published about fifty years ago by a Corean geographer. The only mention made of America is as follows: “Below the South pole there >« a barren land, by the name of America, which, with the continents we have given, makes up the five. Once a French ship at the Great Billow Mountain (Cape of Good Hope) saw a land in the distance. On reaching it she found it to be a vast level wilderness; this was named America. At hen the night came the stars seemed to the ship’s crew to be much more numerous than they remembered them at home; but when the day dawned they could discover no human being living there. The oply sounds of life which they heard in this great wilderness were the cries of some parrots ih the distance.”

A test case lias resulted in a verdict favorable to Sunday closing of saloons in Cincinnati. A Sailors’ Rest has lieen supported during the past year, at a cost of $2,000, by the W. U. T. U. of Dunedin, New Zealand. An examination of the records of the penitentiary at Joliet, 111., shows that ninety-two per cent, of the prisoners brought there used intoxicants. Leading business men and pastors of Chicago last week presented the city council a petition askingthat the saloon be closed on Sunday. It was received with derision and ridicule. Mr. W. S. Caine, M. P., of England, who has been traveling in Japan, reports that with a population of 37,000,000 that country has only 10,000 paupers. He attributes this to the fact that they drink tea there instead of beer, whisky and other intoxicants. The Supreme Court of Michigan has unanimously declared the local option law of that State unconstitutional. Saloons are opening and deliveries of beer are being made in the counties—3s in .number —that have' votM in favor of prohibition. The Women’s Clyiqtfan Temperance Union of Monroe county, N. Y„ has presented Mrs. Cleveland with an elegant Griffith Club microscope and accessories in recognition of her temperance views. The microscope was made especially for this gift and is of the finest workmanship. - —— -

Petitions signed by hundreds of physicians,school teachers and ministers have been presented to Congress urging the passage of the bill prohibiting the sale or gift of cigarettes or tobacco in any form to boys underxixteen years of age in the District of Columbia. It is a remarkable fact that the first printed circular that waiver. issued by the Siamese government was a proclamation against the importation of opium. This was in 1839. Thus .yi old heathen king, half a century ago, tried to protect his subjects from the direful effects of that trade which so-called Christian England still upholds. Mrs.-Mary E. Griffith, of Salina, Kan., is meeting with splendid success lecturing and organizing W. C. T. Unions and Loyal Tempprance Legions in Indian Territory. Mrs. Griffith meets many educatea Indian .women, several of whom are graduates of Vassar. while others were students in .prominent eastern schools. ’ " '