Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 February 1889 — Living on a Penny a Day. [ARTICLE]

Living on a Penny a Day.

It is abroad statement, but the authority of Hugh McCul’och is good, that no bank in the United States the capital es which was a cash recl.ty, and whose managers were not thieves, or the borrowers of its money, has ever failed*. AU bank failures, he asserts, are fraudulent; and all who are responsible for such futures are betrayers of trusts, and should be punished as criminals. It is a good fact to bear in mind, and to use as a test in all possible future collapses. Banking on a sound basis is absolutely secure; it is not a venture in which depositors may be or may not be swollow&T •p in failure. It is not a failure, but a rascality, when the bank breaks Wiu-babbbd fencing has proved to be a godsend to English farmers. They are using it around their fields quietly, to annoy and prevent fox-hunters .from trampling their crops. They say nothing of the sort, of course, only keep on putting up the barb as a convenient and cheap fence. The homes and hounds are so often injured that the masters of hounds say they must give up hunting altogether unless the fences are removed. There is no law to prevent the use of the wire, and not likely to be. Bo a revolution is wrought in the manner of English barristers and gentlemen by the bits of twisted wire invented for us on our Western prairies, where timber is scarce.

Sir John Macdonald, with a Parliament chosen less than two years ago, and a working majority that has been steadily increased by special elections, is threatening to appeal, to the country on the question of th- status quo against annexation and reciprocity. As the term of Parliament will not expire until 1893, this premature dissolution will astonish Canadians. From an American point of view this appeal against annexation will betoken a perturbed state of mind in the Dominion highly favorable to a future policy of expansion. If the Canadian Premier, with a Parliament which has still a three year’s lease of office, finds it necessarry to go to the country on the issue of the maintenance of the British connection, annexation must be risking rapid strides.

Th« National Geographical Society is making a special study of tornadoes. The hoars of frequency are said to be 130 to 4a. m. and 4:30 to sp. m. During records covering eighty-eight years, , 4*ooo persons have been killed and 6, 0 0 injured. The mumber of casualties greatly is increasing, because these storms once swept over wild lands, which are now dotted with cities and vil ages. Missouri alone has lost nearly $100,000,000 of property thereby in ■ half a century, On the average 146 tornadoes will occur each year in the United States. They never occur west of the 100 meridian. The width of their tracks varies from 10 feet to 10,00<>, the length from 300 yards to 209 miles. May leads all the months in the frequency of such storms. A Philadklphia judge has just rendered a decision which is interesting to all who ride in street-cars. A passengei tendered a five-dollar bill in payment of his fare. The conductor could not change it, and after an altercation put the passenger off the car. The" passenger brought a suit for assault and battery against the cenductor. In his charge to the jury the judge said: “When a oassenger gMs on a street-car it is his duty to pay his five cents fare, and if he cannot pay it, it is his duty to get off and if he does not get off, the

conductor has a right to use as much force as is necessary to put him off. Any man who has a SIOO bill, if the rule were otherwise, might ride Ground in street-cars for the ba'ance of his life without paying fare.” Under instructions the jury acquitted the conductor. The railroad companies of Philadelphia are said to be great y pleased with the result of the suit They say that they have lost a large number of fares simply because passengers persisted in handing conductors bills of so large an amount that they were unable to break them. The president of one of the roads stated tl at he knew of a man who succeeded in riding free twice a day for six months simplv by playing the large bill racket on aonductois.

London Hoapitel. .♦ Dr. T. R. Allison has been trying the experiment of living on meal and water for a month. Hia dailv allowance is one pound of whole meal, made into a cake with distilled water, and one quart of water.! His account of his condition after a week is cheering. In the first tew days he felt hungry, but about the fourthday this disappeared, and be had no longer any craving for other food His brain was clear, his lung capacity had increased five inches, and both his sight and his hearing had improved. He had lost seven pounds Weight, but seems to regard this as rather an advantage. Altogether he feels * thoroughly satisfied with his experiment. It is a very economical one, the wheat for seven days having cost only eight pence. “This,” he says, ‘is living on almost a penny a day and enjoying it.” J