Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1890 — TOPICS OF THE TIMES. [ARTICLE]

TOPICS OF THE TIMES.

The building of the Normannia, the steamship which has just beaten all maiden records across the Atlantic, shows the brilliant perfection to which the science of ship building has been brought. Steamers now cross the ocean, in defiance of seas and storms, at a pace equaling the speed of trains. A dozen ships have made 580 miles a day, and the time is near when a mile every two minutes by these monsters will be the usual performance, and the passage between Queenstown and New York be made in the time that a train now takes to go from New York to San Franciseo.

“Multiple voting*’ is the latest plantor maintaining the supremacy of the whites In the South. It proposes to give extra votes to landowners, say one for every 100 acres of land owned in their residence counties. Of ueurse negro landowners would get the benefit of additional votes, but the proportion "of such is estimated at only 10 per cent, to 85 per cent ,of whites. The chief objection seems to be that a class of landed proprietors will be created who will constitute a superior political power and run things to suit their own convenience, totally regardless of the humble whites.

Of the many conventions recently held that of the Christian Scientists, at New York, was perhaps the most remarkable. It is pretty difficult from the transcendental talk of the believers in it, to find out exactly what Christian science is. in general it. means, undoubtedly, that disease is sin, and that to become well physically it is only necessary to become well spiritually. It requires that there be perfect faith in Christ, and the cultivation of a religious character so complete and perfect that the ills and ailments of life will pass away into nothingness. The votaries believb that the imagination is the source of very many of the ailments of mankind, and hence their > ‘faith cure” consists principally of attacks on the mind, rather than the body. It can not be doubted that if everybody lived "with perfect wisdom and in entire harmony with the laws of nature, disease would disappear in due time. The duration of life would also increase as it is doing now in civilizated communities that are gradually getting a better understanding of physical laws.

A writer states that the largest meeting ever held in the world was a repeul meeting addressed by Daniel O’Connell on the famous bill of Tare, Meath county, Ireland, in 1842, when over a million and a half men and women were present. Ireland then had seven millions of a population. To-day it is less than live and a half millions.

Hon. Henry Labouchere. in his paper, London Truth, expresses his sentiments with regard to American heiresses marrying foreign men of title. He writes: “What I can’t understand is how any niece of Uncle Sam can renounce on the hymeneal or any other altar her American birthright. To my mind, a thoughtful American is a prince among men, and higher in the scale of created beings than the finest of fine European gentleman. And I am sure that there is no man more truly chivalrous in a quiet way.”

A correspondent of the New York Sun believes that the Edmunds act, making legal the confiscation of Mormon property was not passed for good moral reasons as it was to destroy the co-operative stores that interfered with a lot of sharks who wanted to control the trade of Utah. He concludes: “I have not a word to say iri defence of polygamy, but I have more respect for the Mormons, who had no houses of prostitution and no illegitimate children to put into foundling hospitals, than I have for the hypocrites who from unworthy motives secured the passage of the Confiscation act.’’

Attention is called by patriotic citizens to the fact that n early $70,000,000 of American money passes through the hands of English bankers for use in the Argentine Republic. There is not a single American Lank anywhere in that great country, and the great number of our countrymen who have settled in Buenos Ayres are obliged to do all of their business through English houses. There have been attempts to start American banks down there, but the general lethargy with which the proposition has been met among New York capitalists has always resulted in a failure, and the plan has now been given up. A member of the PanAmerican Congress, in speaking of this condition of things, recently said: “The Yankee is the shrewdest business man conceivable at home, but once out of his native country he is an easy prey for all other nations.”.

Sir Ed. Clarke, the English Solicitor General, was the principal speaker at a banquet held at Exeter -to celebrate the coming of age of the local Workingmens’ Union, He reviewed the last twenty-one years, and remarked that Socialism left no man free in his course of life. That Socialism was mischievous, but no oise could deny that there was a Christian Socialism which guided the conduct ol their fellows, and must guide the conduct of every Christian State, and in that sense it was tqo late to protest against the introduction of Socialism into our legislation. The „ workingman of the country asks that his home Bhould be healthy, that his wife and children should not be forced by unchecked competition to hours of (labor which destroyed at once the (home and health. He asked that there 'should be even for the town artisan 'some open space where he might

breathe the fresh airs he 6*ked that his savings should be mad© the subject of special and careful protection bj( the State; he asked that he should be; free, and protected in bis freedom, to combine with his fellow-workmen in order to make terms with the employers as to the wages which iiis labor is to receive; and he* asked that when he differed with the employer as to that reward, or that work, he and his employer should be on equal terms-before the law when these questions were to be debated. (Applause.)

Our railroads are to be protected, as well as our farmers and manufacturers A bill has been introduced into the Senate requiring Canadian roads to procure a license to exchange business with U. S. roads, this license only to remain in force while those roads observe the provisions qf our interstate J commerce law.

The General Conference of the Methodist Church, which assembled recently at St. Louis, adopted a report condemning dancing, card playing, theater going, attendance at race courses, circuses, etc. One reverend Doctor moved an amendment to cover the use of tobacco and opium, but it was ruled out of order. Another wanted the report, to include racing, owning, raising, and selling race horses, baying and selling lottery tickets, renting buildings in which the liquor traffic is carried on, and owning or editing Sunday newspapers, but his motion was voted down.

The Department of Agriculture at Washington has just concluded an in- # vestigation into the condition of farm labor, the eighth inquiry of the kind made since 1865. One of the most notable results shown is the increase of effectiveness and value of Southern labor. Another important conclusion is that there has not been a decline in wages of labor in sympathy with the reduction in prices of farm products. The present average rate of payment, for fa?m labor, leaving out the Southern States, where negro labor lowers' this average, is S2B per month. In no State is there a real scarcity of fiftrm labor, though good help is less plefluiful than poor. All skilled labor can: find employment at fair wages. The self-binder has been a boon to the. farmer, enabling him to do his work with fewer harvest hands. In many places farmers “change work” with their neighbors, combining their forces. In some States the influx of Germans, Swedes and Norwegians causes superabundance of labor, while in Texas, for instance, thousands of acres will be uncultivated this year from the scarcity of hands. In the. South colored laborers are plentiful, but they will not work on farms, and* in Howard county, Missouri, it is claimed that a thousand good, honestj white men and women can find pleasant homes and remunerative wages.

A correspondent of an inquiring turn of mind wrote to the editor of the New York Mail and Express.for an explanation as to why, in a membership of 2,312 in the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, the number of infant baptisms for the year only reached the insignificant number of twelve. Was it that the members of thatl church were iess prolific than the rest of mankind or was infant baptism falling into disuse. Col. Shephard, editor, replied as follows; “The membership includes many young people, some old bachelors, some old maids, some widows, some widowers, many aged and infirm, all of which are not: in the child-bearing period of life; and : it includes rather an unusual, proprotion of non-residents, whose children may be baptized in other countries or States where their parents are temporarily residing. Yet the inquiry is pertinent. After ( all appropriate deductions are made there ought to be at least fifty couples who should bo in the child-bearing range, and this ought at least to provide twenty-five infants a year fdr baptism, or to double the number of infant* baptisms.

That there were only twelve such bap-, tisms in the last yoar does not show that, infant baptism is falling into disuse, for nearly all the children born aro baptized; but it shows that too many: families do not like to continue to obey i the divine command to increase and 1 multiply. Some set up a sort of worldly: wisdom, through lack of faith, and are content with a few children when they might have many.

Judge Crozier, of Kansas, has declared that part of the prohibitory, law to be unconstitutional whiefi empowers the attorney of the State to, summon citizens into his presence and testify on oath, whether to their knowledge intoxicating liquors are sold in such and such places. “Come, let us reason together ’ is the motto which P. M. Arthur, Grand Chief of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, has adopted In the consideration of strikes. Whenever there has been a railroad disposed to meet the Brotherhood and reason with its members, a strike has never occurred. There is no such thing in the Brotherhood as ordering strikes.