Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 December 1888 — Page 2

The gtpublicay. r- 111 •' ,' 'T ,■’ Gwx E. |i iwtHAix, Publisher. - . »~ RENSSELAER, - - INDIANA

Tnit Mt UAltogether too ranch scrarn- * ble for office by the Republicans—fdF Cabinet positions down to “repairer of mail sacks.’’ It is unseemly. One can not live by office alone. • • Ths dispatches which daily appear in the newspapers of Jhe doings of Kilrain, Mitchell and Sullivan are disgusting. The talk is maintained for a put pose, that so-called “sporting” men—perish the word—may be fully advised of the braggadocio of these blatherskites and at the proper time be properly gulled. Self-respect inc people care very little about them. < Tub fifty Congregational and Methodist ministers of Chicago who the other day adopted resolutions condemning in the most sweeping way the publication, sale and reading of Sunday newspapers managed to put themselves in a queer predicament. According to a dispatch from Chicago they hate made themselves liable to prosecution for conspiracy under the Merritt, taw, which provides imprisonment in the penitentiary for people who conspire to injure financially any legally conducted business. There is not much likelihood, of course, that any of the clergymen will be prosecuted under this act; the Sunday newspaper is not allowed to justify itself by resorting to such a device:Jbut the minisof Illinois will probably see the necessity of knowing and obeying the laws of the State hereafter.

Mrs. Lucy Parsons, wife of one of the Chicago “martyrs,” has unfo.riuna.tely returned tb this country from Europe, where she has b en hob-nobbing with her ilk. She takes the very first opportunity, upon her arrival of giving her very weighty opinion, upon affairs in this country as compared with affairs in Europe, and, as is to be expected of such as she, with an unfavorable opinion of this government. Mrs. Parsons is small potatoes and few in a hill, and yet it is aggravating to have such fistes barking at one’s heels. It is unfortunate, we stated, that she should have returned, and our reason is that it will force the proper persona to suppress her long and loose tongue, together with several others that are wagging in the old way. There is not room enough here for such as she and the country would be very well satisfied if they would leave, never to return.

Tns smoldering discontent with educational methods has broken out in England in a great flame. An able protest against the mischief of competitive examinations has been signed by nearly all the leading Professors of Oxford, Cambridge, London, Edinburg, and by members of Parliament, authors and clergymen. The objection is, first, to the dangerous pressure of such examinations; and, secondly, to the misdirection of energies and aims. The latter point is illustrated by the statement that young men at the Universities are led to believe that the main purpose of education is to enable them to win some great money prize. The moral damage is pointed out with equal directness. Our American education is full of the same mischief, the indirection of purpose, moral perversion and physical overpressure. The whole prize system is a nuisance, and should be abated. No young man is benefitted by having his aim diverted from securing thorough mental equipment and development to securing honors and prizes.

IN ACTION.

War Not As Historians Tell It, But as Fighting Men Know It to Be. New York Voice. One who has fought on many a battlefield writes the following thrilling description of the work of a battery of six guns: Did you ever see a battery taxe .position? hasn't the the thrill of a cavalry charge, nor the grimness of a line of bayonets moving slowly and determinedly on; but there is a peculiar excitement about it that makes old veterans rise in their saddles and cheer. We had been fighting on the edge of the woods. Every cartrge box had bifen emptied once or more and one-fourth of the brigade had melted away in dead and wounded and missing. Not a cheer is heard in the whole brigade. We know that we ’are being driven foot by foot, and that when break once more the line will go to pieces and the enemy will pour through the gap. Here comes help! Down the crowded highway gallops a battery, withdrawn from some other position to save ours. The field fence is i scattered while you could count thirty, I and the guns rush for the hill behind i us. Six horses to a piece—three riders to each gun. Over dry ditches where a l former would not drive a wagon, through clumps of bushes, over logs a foot thick, j every horse on the gallop, every rider ashing his team and yelling—the sight behind us making us forget the foes in front. The guns jump two feet high as the heavy wheels strike rock or log, but not a horse slackehs his pace, not a aan,noneer loses his seat Six guns, six sixty horses, eighty men, race

for the brOw of a hill as if he who reachad it first would be knighted. A moment ago the battery was a con{uaed mob. We look again and the six guns are in position, the detached horses hurrying away; the ammunition chests open, and along our line rung the command! “Give them one more volley i g. a ini, a _i__ i i iif fh> wnr-' 0 . TV™ have scarcely obeved when boom! boom! opens the Jjattery, and jets of lire jump down and* scorch the gretn trees under which we fought and despaired. The scattered old brigade has a chance to breathe for the first time in three hours as we form a line and tie down. What grim cool fellows these cannoneers are! Every man a perfect machine. Bullets splash dust in their faces, but they do not wince. Bullets sing over and around; they do not dodge. There goes one to the earth, shot through the head as he sponged his gun. That machinery looses just one beat, misses just one cog in the wheel and then works away again as before. 4

Every gun is using short fuse shell. The ground shakes and trembles, the roar shuts out all sounds from a line three miles long,and the shells go shrieking into the swamp to cut tre es short off, to mow great gaps in the bushes, to hunt out and shatter and mangle men until their corpses can not be recognized as human. You would think a tornado was howling through the forest, followed by billows of fire, and yet men live through it —aye! press forward to capture the battery. We can hear their shouts as they form for the rush. Now the shells are changed for grane and cannister, and guns are fired so fast that all reports blend into one mighty roar. The shriek of a shell is the wickedest sound in war, but nothing makes the flesh crawl like-the demortf* cal singing, purring, whistling grape shot, and the serpent-like hiss of canister. Men’s legs and heads are torn from bodies, and bodies cut in two. A round shot or shell takes two z men out of the rank as it crashes through. Grape and canister mow a swath and pile the dead on top of each other. Through the smoke we see a swarm of men. It is not a battle line, but a mob of men desperate enough to bathe their bayonets in the flame of the guns. The guns leap from the ground, almost as they are depressed on the foe, and shrieks and screams and shouts blend into one awful and steady cry. Twenty men out on the battery are down, and the firing is interrupted. The foe accepts it as a sign of wavering and come rush on. They are pot ten feet away when the guns give them the last shot. That discharge picks living men off their feet and throws them into the swamp, a blackened, bloody mass. Up, how, as the enemy are among the guns! There is a silence of seconds, and then the flash and roar of more than 3,000 muskets and a rush forward with bayonets. For what? Neither on the right nor left nor in front of us is a living foe! There are corpses around us which have been struck by three, four, and even six bullets, and nowhere on this acre of ground is a wounded man. The wheels of the guns can not move until the blockade of dead is removed. Men can not pass from caisson io gun without climbing over winrows of dead. Every gun and wheel is smeared with blood; every foot of grass has its horrible stain. Historians write of the glory of, warBurial parties saw murder where his. torians saw glory.

What Advertising Does.

The power of word® is illustrated by the followings related in the Mechanical News: A wealthy man who owns a country residence recently became dissatisfied with it and determined to have another. So he instructed a real estate agent famous for his descriptive powers to advertise it „ior private sale, but to conceal the location, telling purchasers to apply at his office. In a few days the gentleman happened- to see the advertisement, was pleased with the account of the place, showed "it to his wife and the two concluded it was just what they wanted and they would secure it at once. So he went to the office of the agent and told him that the place he had advertised was such a one as he desired, and he would purchase it. The agent burst, into a laugh and told him that was a description of his own housewhere he was then living. read he advertisement again, cogitated .over the “grassy slopes,” “beautiful vistas,” “smooth lawns,” &c-, and broke out “Is it possible? Well, make out my bill for advertising and expenses, for, by George! I wouldn’t sell the place now for three times what it cost me.” , The Western papers speak of a man taking his private car and skipping for a journey of two or three hundred miles, as though it were a matter of every-day occurrence. Sucn indeed is the fact Private cars in Chicago are almost as common as yachts in New York. Every man, from the attorney of a railroad down through the boundless ramifications of its management until the clerks are reached, control the movements of a private car to a greater or less degree. A Chicago railroad attorney will step into his own car and take a run down to Milwaukee in the most matter-of-fact manner in the world. It never occurs to him that he is doing an unusual thing, and yet to a New Yorker the performance seems based upon wealth in unrivalled magnitude.

MARVELOUS MEMORIES.

What Men May Do Who Cultivate Their Faculties. Welcome. - ' ' Mr. Stanton, the United States War Minister during the great civil war, had a very retentive metnOry, and was especially WH uptnDickens’works. One evening in the early part of 1868 Dickens, then on a reading tour in the States, was dining with Charles Sumner when Mr. Stanton and some-.others' were present. The War Minister was put to the test, and when started, could repeat from memory a chapter from any of Dickens’ books showing a much greater knowledge of the works than their author could boast. Mr. Stanton accounted for this intimiate knowledge of Dickens by mentioning the habit which he had formed during the war of invariably reading something by the author of “Pickwick” before going to bed at night. The late Bishop Prince Lee, first Bishop of Manchester? was similarly gifted. It is related bi him that being once, at an evening party, started by a lady with a line quoted from “Marmion,” he went right on with the poem from memory, and could have recited the whole. As a further test, the same lady quoted a few words from a conversation in “Ivanhoe,” whereupon the Bishop repeated the whole chapter correctly from memory. But greater than any of these was Lord Macaulay. From a very eerly age the retentiveness of his memory was extraordinary. When only 3' or 4 years of age, his mind mechanically retained the form of what he read so that, as his maid said? he talked “quite printed words.” Once as child, when making an afternoon call with his fattier, he picked up Scott’s “Lay of the Last Minstrel” for the first time, and quietly devoured the treasure while his seniors were engaged in conversation. When they returned home the boy went to his mother; w ho at the time was confined to her bed. and sitting down at the bedside repeated what be had been reading, by the canto, until she was tired. Later in life his wonderful memory was alv ays a subject of interest to his friends, and occasionally was put to searching tests. One day at a board meeting of the British Museum Macaulay wrote down from memory in three parallel columns on each of four pages of foolscap a complete list of the Cambridge senior wranglers, with dates and colleges attached, for the 100 years during which a record of the names had been kept in the university calendar. “On another occasion,” says Trevolyan, “Sir David Dundas asked: ‘Mulcaulay, do you know vour Popes?’ “No,” was the answer, “I always get wrong among the Innocents.’ ‘But, can you say your Archbishops of .Canterbury?’ ‘Any fooi,’ said Macaulay, ‘could say his Archbishops of Canterbury backward,’ and he went off at a score, di awing breath only once in order to remark on the oddity of there having been both an Archbishop Sancroft, until Sir Davis stopped him at Cranmer.” Macaulay once said that if, by any possible chance, all the copies of “Paradise Lost and the “Pilgrims Progress” in existence were destroyed, he could write both out again, complete, from, recollection. When O’Connell made his motion in 1634 for the repeal of the union, Mr. Tennant, member of the Parliment for Belfast, delivered a speech lasting for three and a hall hours, full of figures and calculations, entirely from memory, in which he trusted so completely that he sent the manuscript of his speech to the newspapers before he delivered it. His confidence was not misplaced for the oration was spoken without a single mistake, or even a momentary hesitation. Another Irish M. P., Mr. Robert Dillon Brown, member for Mayo, had the same useful faculty. He would dictate a speech to an amanuensis, and twenty-four hours afterwards, without looking at it or without thinking of the matter in the meantime, could repeat it word for word. Woodfall, the editor of the Morning Chronicle, and, brother of Junius’ publisher, was able to report accurately in the morning** the debate of the previous evening without taking any notes. In some cases the mental action involved in feats of this nature would seem to be quite mechanical and unintelligent. In the newspapers of January, 1820, there are accounts of an extraordinary man, who was known as “Memory-

comer Thompson.” This man,although he could hardly remember anything he heard, could yet retain perfectly the names and descriptions of large collections of objects that met his eye. He could take an inventory of the contents of a house from cellar to attic merely by surveying them, and could afterward write it out from memory. He could draw from recollection accurate plans of many London_ parishes and districts, with every street, alley, public building, public house, etc., duly noted, down to the minutest topographical detail; such as pumps, trees, bow-windows And posts, all correctly marked. 6onspi<uous in instances of this mechanical kind of memory are to be found among the famous mental calculators. Jefedhh Bux-. ton was a celebrity of this kind about the middle of the las- century. He had but little education, and indeed was not able to write his own name, I But in arithmetic and in abstruse cafculations his ]powers were wonderfuj. Tie following is a specimen of the probleps which when put to test, he solved mtntally in

a few minutes: Find how many cubical eighths of an inch there are in a quadrangular mass measuring 13,145,789 yards long, 2,642,832 yards wide and 54,965 yards thick When in London in 1754 he was taken to see Garrick as ‘Richard 111. at Drury Lane. The play did not interest him, but he occupied himself in reckoning the nuihber of words he heard and in counting the number of steps made by the dancers. JJie American boy, Zerah Colburn, who came to Lonidon in 1812, was a similar phenomenon. He had noknofledge of the. rules of arithmetic, and was quite unable to explain how he arrived at the answers to the problems submitted to him. -Mental power of this nature would seem to implysn unwholesome development of one of the brain at the expense of the rest. The retentiveness oi such a ory as Lord Macaulay’s is greatly Ao Be preferred to the abnormal mental activity of an animated calculating machine.

Death by Electricity.

Indianapolis News. Capital punishment by hanging ih New York State ends, according to law, on January 1, next, the mode of punishment to take its place being death by electricity. But the details were not prescribed. The Medico-Legal Society of New York City has in consequence been “trying it on the dogs,” as the best way to apply means of death. It has reported, “after mature deliberation” that the death current be administered in the following manner: A stout table covered with rubber cloth, and having holes along its borders for binding, or a strong chair, shoud be procured. - The prisoner, lying on his back or sitting, should be firmly bound upon this table or in the chair. One electrode should be so inserted into the table or into the back of the chair that it will implunge upon the spine, between the shoulders. The head should be secured by means of a sort of helmet fastened to the table or back of the chair, and to this helmet the other pole sho.uld be so joined as to press firmly with its end upon the top of the head. We think a chair is preferable to a table. The rheophores can be led off to the dynamo through the floors, dr to another room, and the instrument for closing the circuit can be attached to the wall, The electrodes should be of metal, not over one inch in diameter, somewhat ovoidal in shape, and covered with a thick layer ot sponge or chamois, skin. The poles and the skin and hair at the points of contact should be thoroughly wet with warm water. The hair should be cut short. A dynamo generating an electro motive force of at least 3,000 volts should be employed. Either a continuous or alternating current may be used, but preferably the latter. The current should be allowed to pass for thirty seconds. The rough statement of the thing for every day use is that the positive pole is placed on top of the head, the negative between the shoulders. The electric current flows from the positive to the negative and in its nature tends to expand in passing, so that it fills the whole diameter of the neck, which is about half way between the top of the head and the middle of the shoulders. In the neck center all the nerves, and consequently the electric current in passing severs them —the medulla oblongata—a part of the brain which is the most vital —together with all of the great nerves of the neck and the spinal cord, which exercises jurisdiction over the movement of the lungs and heart. The result is death absolute and instantaneous, realizing, in fact, the common saying that “he won’t know what hit him.”

His Face Acquitted Him.

There used to be in practice in one of the southeastern cities of Massachusetts, says the “Listener” in the Boston Evening Transcript, a well-known lawyer who had a considerable degree of success at the bar in spite of an infirmity of speech that he never could get rid of. His stuttering appeals in behalf of his clients were sometimes fearful and wonderful deliverances oratorically, but'his opponents used to say that they really gained in effectiveness from his stuttering, because the jury not only sympathized with hi n, but had tirhe to take in and digest all his points. One day he Was called to th i Bristol county court room' before Judge Pitman and a jury to defend a very tough looking citizen, who had been arrested on a charge of selling liquor without a license. The man had a bad reputation and a bad face; whisky had been found on his premises, and if ever a man was convicted before he was tried it seemed to be this one. But his stuttering lawyer was equal to the emergency. He cross-questioned the policeman who made the seizure: “You s-s-say you found li-ii-li-liquor in this map’s house?”

“Yes.” s . “W-w-w-hatrkihd of li-liquor w-w-was it?’ “Whisky." < 7. “Um. Now, h-h-how much w-h-hisky did you f-f-f-find?” “About half a pint, sir.” “H-h-h-haif a pint, yes. Now, g-g-g-gentlemen of the j-j-jury, I want you to take a good 1-1-1-long look at my c-c-c-c-lilient.” , j - The jury took a good look at him. He wasn’t a very pleasant sight to see; his nose was a sort of purple vermillion and considerably exaggerated in its proportions at that; his brows were low and shaggy and his eyes bleared. “Now, g-g-g-gentlemen of the jury,” tfie lawyer went on, “I want you to ; t-t-t-tell me if my c-c-c-li-lient looks like j a man that would s s s-sell a half pint of whisky if it was all he had in tie j house.” „ ; j I The jury acquitted the man without leaving their seats.

COMPETITION AND COMBINATION.

New Yorr Sun. ' / Th£ recent cataclysm in the stock market did not take by .surprise those who had been waTcning the course of events in the railroad world. The war of rates in the West and Southwest, which long ago compelled the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, the Missouri Pacific, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, and the Chicago, Rock Island. and Pacific Railroad Companies to reduce their dividends, and which must inevitably soon affect their competitors in the same way, is alone sufficient to account for the fall in the prices of speculative stocks, without the aid of gold exports and the selling of London holders. The only surprising thing is that the public has not taken alarm sooner. Nothing is known now which was not known six months ago, and prudent operators then sold out with the confident expecta ion of buying back at the profit, but it seems that their example was not generally followed. Most people, apparently, never see a falling brick till it hits them on the head, and investors usually w'ait till their property has depreciated to the lowest point before they find out that anything is the (natter with it. As might be expected, they are now full of wrath against the officers of their companies. Without undertaking to say that these gentlemen do not fully deserve all the abuse that is heaped upon them, I must remark that censure of their conduct comes much too late to be of use. The mischief that they have done can not be undojjp, and it is even doubtful whether it can be obviated in the future. The clearing house scheme, which for a day or two was hailed as a panacea, proved on further examination to be worthless. Like other Utopias, it was found to be adapted only to the case of mortals in a state of perfection, and would not answer for ordinary men. Now there is talk oi a gigantic railroad trust, like the Standard Oil Trust, the Sugar Trust, and other similar devices. A controlling interest in each of the belligerent companies is to be vested in certain selected managers, and upon them is to be devolved the task of fixing rates and of preventing cutting. If practicable at all, the first step of this scheme will require months for its successful accomplishment, and after that would come a long and bitter struggle with courts and /legislatures, the result of which, judging from past experience, could not fail to be disastrous to it. It is none the less true, as I have on other occasions pointed out, that the only permanent antidote to destructive competition in railroading, as in all other kinds of business, is combination. This the workingmen of civilized countries long ago discovered,and they have acted upon it with success. Their unions fix reasonable rates of wages, and maintain them in-spite of all efforts of employers to bring about reductions. One by one the employers have also learned the lesson, and formed,under various names, combinations of a similar character. The principle which lies at the bottom of them is the substitution of the joint action of an organized body for the irregular efforts of individuals. The more skillful and enterprising surrender for the benefit of their less gifted comrades the right to work or to do business independently, and accept, in the place of a large but uncertain remuneration which they might obtain by crushing their competitors, a smaller but more steady one. The struggle for existence is suspended, and not only the fittest survive, but also the less fit who would otherwise go under. Undoubtedly, therefore, if the railroad managers, who are now doing their best to ruin one another, could and wou'd abandon their mad efforts and combine for mutual assistance, they would reap a similar benefit. Whether they unite in a clearing house or in a trust or in the old pooling arrangement is immaterial. The essential is that they should make common cause together and present a solid front to their customers, instead of inviting by their quarrels inroads at every weak point.

The obstacles in the way of such a consolidation of railroad interests are,nevertheless, formidable. Even-the preliminary step of organization is extremely difficult and slow of accomplishment. Jt took the Standard Oil Trustyears to absorb enough of the oil refineries of the country to render its success tolerably certain. The Sugar Trust was not formed until more than half the companies now in it were brought to the verge of bankruptcy for want of its restraining agency, and it still lacks the cooperation of several important refineries. The White Lead Trust was delayed in a similar way long after its promoters undertook to create it The fire insurance companies©! this city have never been able to act in harmony in maintaining rates, although most of them have not for ten years earned enough to pay losses and expenses, and only live by drawing upon the accumulated profits of an earlier and more prosperous period. When, therefore, we consider what an army of men, is engaged in the management of railroads in the West and Southwest alone, without considering the rest of the country, as presidents and vice-presidents, superintendents, freight agents,pa- senger agents, and in numberless other capacities, and when to tnis is added the conflicting interests of stockholders who have bought their stock at various prices, it

will be seen that the task of uniting them all on a satisfactory bas s is weH nigh impossible. It has been atttempted repeatedly before this, sometimes with temporary success, but it has as often ultimately failed-for reasons which still exist in unabated strength. Supposing these obstacles to have been surmounted and the combinations to be formed and in successful operation, there yet remains the task of' overcoming the opposition of the public. We all know the character of the legislation against railroad companies, both by States and by the United States, during the past few years, and how the courts, with rare exceptions, have sustained it. Bitter as this hostility is, it is mild in comparison with that which would be evoked by such a great consolidation of railroad companies as is now proposed. Already pooling is forbidden by the Inter-State Commerce act, the local Legislatures have cut down fares and freights, and a bill is pending in Congress to make trusts illegal. It is not to be doubted that, against what is regarded by every Western man as a common enemy, the most radical measures would at once be taken in view of this increase in its strength and efficiency. That the stockholders, and even the bond-hold-ers, suffer in their pockets does not trouble those who profit at their expense. They want as cheap a rai'road service as they can get, and they will make every effort in their power to se - cure it.

It must be said in extenuation of the Western disregard of the rights of railroad owners that they are, to a certain extent, defending themselves against the extortion of, profits in excess of what is commonly regarded as a sufficient remuneration for invested.,capital. It is a well-known fact, though—not so , well known here at the East as it ought to be, that the stock of most Western railroad companies, and even a considerable part of their bonded debt, represent not money actually expended, but a part or an expected increase of value due to the increase of the population and business of the country. A railroad costing nothing for the right of way, and frequently endowed with a munificent grant of lands, will be built in a new Western State or Territory for SIO,COO per mile cash, and bonds to the amount of $25,000 per mile, and as much more stock, will be created to represent the money. The contractors, or the projectors of the road themselves, will sell the bonds for more than enough to reimburse their outlay and take the stock for nothing, in addition to a large cash profit. The pioneer in this sort of enterprise was the Illinois Central Railroad Company, which was built with bonds which it sold at 75 cents on the dollar and which was subsequently paid out of the sales of lands given to it, leading the stock as a pure gratuity to the constructors. In other cases, where the road originally cost all that its bonds and stock represehted, there have been increases of stock . and issues of new bonds from time to time to meet the increase of capital value estimated upon the net earnings. Thus, for example? the present Rock Island, Chicago and Pacific Railroad Company not many years ago doubled its share capital and distributed the new stock to its share-holders without requiring them to give a cent for it. The Union Pacific Railway Company’s stock notoriously never was paid for in money, and its original projectors pocketed a fortune in profits on the sale

to themselves of its bonds. The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Raiiroad Company has gone on distending its share and bond account in a similar way until its debt alone more' than represents the money actually expended for its property. It is true that to duplicate the track, stations and equipment of all these roads would cost far more now than it did tcrbuild £hem at first, but the fact remains that they did not then cost what they are now reckoned to be worth This fact the Western people know full well and conduct themselves with reference to it.

At all events, no combination of railroad companies to suppress competition will be permitted to endure which aims at the dividend of past years. There was a time when neany every railroad west of the Alleghanies, returned its owners ten per cent, per annum. Then they dropped to eight per cent., and have since fallen steadily, until now the Chicago and Alton is the only eight per cent, stock left, the rest ranging from seven per cent, down to nothing. If the descent can be arrested at the present point it will be a great thing, but it seems to be that this is more than can be hoped for. An average of five per cent, is talked of, but ! doubt if it can be attained. Altogether the? outlook is gloomy, and at present I see no ray of brightness in i,t. It is true that freight, and passenger rates have nominally been restored, but nothing exists to prevent their being cut again on the first provocation. Things have got to oe a great deal worse before they will take a turn for the better, and when the turn will come it is yet to soon too predict. Matthew Marshall, Governor Blake, of Newfoundland, has been appointed Governor General of Queensland, the place recently made - vacant by the death of Sir Anthdny Musgrave, a son-in-law of David Dudley Field, of New York A salary of J25,000 and emoluments which are said to be enormous have made the office one of the most desirable in the gift of the British., Government. I