Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 August 1889 — New Guns for the Navy. [ARTICLE]

New Guns for the Navy.

Reports of Boards of Health in the Southern cities show that the death nto per thonsand among negroes is far higher th*n among whites, In some eases this excess of mortality is 120 per cent., while the average is folly 50 per cent. This is one of the facts which show the falsity of the reasoning of the philoeophefs who contend that the is going to outnumber the Caucasian in the Southern States threequarters of a century hence. A woman preacher of Ohio has had come difficulty in securing a license to perform the marriage ceremony. This out an lowa protest that in that State and in Michigan and in Illinois there are many women serving as ministers, and withal officiating at marriages. To be sure, and as it should be. There is no rational objection to a good sermon or lecture from a woman. They make our best teachers and professors, and may do as well as preachers. The day of prejudice, pure and simple, that enables a musty old Judge of Probate to quote Paul and refuse a woman her legal right to do what she can do right well is past, or ought to be past. Public sentiment has settled down grimly to this, that the conspiracy of an organized body of men to commit murder, and the actual assassination of an American citizen, deserves, and must receive, the most prompt and terrible punishment possible under equity and * law, and that the conspirators of every grade must be made to feel that this is the last, as it is the first, attempt of native-horn persons to wreak their organic vengeance on those who have been untrue, or supposed to be untrue, to secret oaths. If this be not so, we shall in time have condottiere from Naples, and Highbinders from Canton, and clans from every quarter, all operating as thugs to make life miserable and unsafe.

There are 600 children reported in the poor houses of Illinois. Other States allow the same abnormal outrage to continue. With them are some of the moat debauched of adults, insane as well, in some States. Immorality of the grossest sort is openly practiced, asd ot a child escapes pollution. There re probably over 5,000 cnildren being educated by the States in this unwholesome manner. It needs another How* aid to work a reform. Our prisons,jails and penitentiaries are bad enough,but our poor houses are the worst of all. It has long been held by the decent poor to be the worst possible disgrace to be driven to resort to these public institutions. They are filled by tramps and prostitutes and vagabonds, and prostitution is one of their common features. Not a child should be allowed inside their doors. , A cock-and-bull story to the effect that an English syndicate was forming with a capital of £10,000,000 for the purpose of controlling the dry goods trade of the United States has been cabled to this country and published in double leaded type in a leading New York newspaper. The enterprise is following in the lines, it is stated, of the brewery investments. Didit ever occur to these English investment alarmists that the United States has twice the population of the United Kingdom, to say nothing of infinitely greater natural resources, and that, moreover, the average Yankee can take care of himself when it comes to business as well as any one in the world? The tail, so far as we know, has never yet succeeded in wagging the dog, and the United States, in the respect noted, have become very decidedly the dog. An English syndicate might as well be formed to regulate our atmosphere. -

The ordnance bureau of the navy department has completed two of the ten-inch steel breech-loading reflos for the monitor Miantonomah, says a Washington letter to the Boston Post These are the largest and most powerfully built guns yet turned out for the navy. One of them is at Annapolis awaiting trial. The other has been fully tested, with gratifying results, as it compares favorably with the best products of renowned European ordnance works. The muzzle velocity attained was 2,000 feet per second. The range conld not be determined owing to the lack of a sufficiently large proving ground, out tt Is estimated at ten miles. Soon after the contracts are awarded for the construction of the two new 500-ton gunboats preparations will begin at the Washington ordnanceyard for the manufacture of this peculiar ordnance, which is to be made up entirely of rapid-fire guns of extraordinary calibers as compared with guns of this type now in use in our naval vessels. The largest guns of this kind will hosts inches in caliber, but owing to the simplicity and compactness of their mechanism and construction Hwy will not materially exceed in weight the six-inch rifles of the kind now In use, although they are fully equal to them in range and accuracy, and are vastly superior in Offensive power by reason of their rapidity of llro. I

“AT CLOSE QUARTERS.» The Tiger Hunted the Duke, bul Royaflty was Too Muohfor Him. During the recent stay of the Due d'Orlcans in India he visited Lord Duffertn at €alcmtaclgaars : i^a»i : er hunt was organized, which lasted six weeks and ranged over lGOtnilea of country. The duke shot eight tigers. One incident be relates ar follows: “Two cubs of a tigress had been shot and the mother hemmed in by a line of elephants. There was an idea ih at she was crouching in a small stream, but none of our elephants could be got anywhere near ft After some time my elephant, being pluckier than the others, was induced to move forward and push the tree down. While thus engaged the tigress sprang out from beside it with a roar and a tremendous leap right to the top ol my howdah, smashing the front of it—breaking my gun with one blow of her paw and exploding the right barrel before I had time to fire. This is the gun," producing a double-barreled rifle broken in two pieces just below the barrels, the trigger guards and metal plates wrenched off and twisted by the force of the blow, and with one barrel discharged, the other still a 1 half-ccck.

“Fortunately for me,” continued the prince, -‘she then tumbled backward, possibly startled by the explosion, and made off for the jungle. My elephant, mad with fright, bolted in the opposite direction, and for a considerable distance nothing would stop her. When at length we got back to the others we found the whole line of elephants so demoralized that we had to give up the sport for the day and return to the camp. Next morning we cornered our game in nearly the same spot, and I had the good luck to bring her down just as she was crossing the river.” “What became of the mahout when the tigress leaped on the elephant?” was asked. “Oh, he managed to slip round in some extraordinary way under -th«elephant's ears, and was unhurt, but lost his head-dress.”