Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 September 1890 — THE HEWS OF THE WEEK. [ARTICLE]

THE HEWS OF THE WEEK.

It 13 amusing for a Western reader to study the census articles in New England papers. For example, the Boston Transcript congratulates the town of Calais, N. H.. on having made a gain of 925 inhabitants in ten years,' showing a total population of 7,100. If a Minnesota man living in such a town were told that it had no greater growth than this in a decade he would sell his property at auction and move Out. Thebe are 609 independent railroad corporations in the United States, and 142 of them operate all but about 17 percent, of the total railway mileaga of the country. The constant tendency is toward consolidation, and good judges predict that within the next ten years the whole business will be pr ctically controlled by ten or twelve of the present companies, This would undoubtedly be advantageous to the owners of such property. •'Let us give the silver law a fair chance 1” said Charles R. Parsons, of St. Louis, in his address to the American Banters’ Association of which he is President. This is sound and needed advice. The law is not yet a month old, but some of the men who think it goes too far in its favors to silver, and others who think it does not go far' enough, ask for its repeal. About a year from this time the country will be able to form an intelligent estimate of the character and influence of this law, but not earlier. Mr. Vice President Webb's declaration that $2,000,000 was in the New York Central's treasury with which. Is necessary, to fight the strikers, sug gests to some people that the Vanderbilt fortune was the one chosen by the London Saturday Review some time since as an illustration of the danger to the public which accumulated mils lions threatened in this country. In that article the Review declared that "the governing financial fact about the Vanderbilt railways is that they are managed to yield and do yield a steady 10 per cent.” Jt ought hot to be difib. Cult, one would suppose, to set apart from this 10 per cent, income of clear profit enough to "down” the Knights of Labor and still leave a fair profit, say 4or 5 per cent. Half of the profits from the Central or Vanderbilt system would amount to many more than $2,000,000 1

Some more rascality has been unearthed by the taking of a census of the. Sioux Indians of the Rosebud mgemiytn South Pdkbta. The ehum eration just completed shows only 5,186 Indians, men, women and children, while for several years past the officials of the agency have claimed there were 7,500 and made requisitions for that number of rations daily, or an excess of 2,334. There was a very neat yearly profit made, no doubti” from the sale of the" surplus supplies thus accumulated. The plea set up by the agent that the ranks of the Indians had been largely reduced by some mysterious epidemic will not wash. There has been robbery of the government pure and simple. It would not be a bad idea, by the way, to try the. Eame experiment at each of the other agencies. Indian agents are not slow to adopt improved methods for feathering their own nests. * There has been the usual amount o false sentiment concerning the recent uprising of the desperate men confined in a Massachusetts prison, against the application of the Bertillon system of identification. There are people in this world who are far less moved at the murder or the spoliation of an innocent person, fhan they are at the adoption of any policy which may possibly hurt the feelings of the murderer or the thief. They would have a prison something between a club and a unis versify, and would sacrifice the punitive idea entirely to the trying of philanthropic experimeats. The fact that these convicts so strenuously oppose the application of the system is the best evidence that it is valuable to society. It must be borne in mind that by far the greater number of person., confined in any of our great penal institutions are professional criminals, who contemplate the resumption of their nefarious calling upon discharge, as coolly as does the lawyer going back to his desk after a vacation* To men * of this class a general and unfailing system of identification would be ruin ous, while to the one who returns to an honest life it would mean nothing. It is only when the subject is rearrested and denies his identity, that it could have any effect upon his reputa« Uor.

t The Egyptian crop Is of superior quality. Gold is claimed to have been discovered, near Madison. The population of Louisville, Ky., by the official count is 161,0(5. Mr. Blaine will attend the opening of the Sioux City, la., Corn Palale. Two men and thirteen horsfes lost their lives in a New York fire on the 18th. A tornado killed two persons and destroyed much property at Manning, lowa, on the 18th. Dion Boncicault, the well-known dramatist, author of many plays, died at New York on the 18th. Gedrge F. Dudley, son of W. W. Dudley, was ordained as an Episcopal minister at Washington on the 21st. A railway engine exploded near Chattanooga, Tenn., oil the 21st. The engineer and fireman were blown to atoms. - An explosion of natural gas similar to the one which recently occurred in Shelby county, Ind., is reported op the ,19th from West Virginia. - The New York Central lias issued instructions to the effect that in no case are any of. the late strikers to be employed by the agents of the company. Twenty-five brick masons, brought from : Pittsburg to work upon the furnaces of | the Hartford City Glass Furnaces, struck jMonday because tl.ey . were not paid-t4or■ j lost time, due to wet weather last, and” j seventeen of them left for Pittsburg. The remainder will return to work. Two German lovers, who were kept from marriage by the mother of the lass, committed suicide simultaneously in New York on the 18th. The lover. When both were ready, gave the command, and two pistol shots ended their lives; The lever could not gain access to the woman, but called to her from beneath her window. A frightful accident occurred.on the Illinois Central, in Chicago, on the -21st. A Burlington express plunged into the rear end of an excursion train on the Illinois Central, killing five persons, fatally injuring another and seriously injuring five others. The accident was due to the carelessness of the trainmen of the Illinois Central. The engineer and fireman were placed under arrest. FOREIGN. The Austrian war-ship Taurus, with a crew of sixty-nine men and four officers, has foundered in the Black sea. Germany, Austria and France are discussing retaliatory measures in view of the passage es the McKinley bill, They want Eurcpe* to combine against America, but are meeting with poor success in their endeavors. Travelers from the coast confirm the re port of the issue of a decree by the Ger mans at Bagamayo authorizing traffic in slaves. The decree was signed by the German commandant and was posted at Bagamayo and Daressalaam. Slave dealers expelled from Zanzibar have established themselves at Baggmayo and are doing a thriving business. It is reported that the Sultan has telegraphed to Europe for assistance. Emin Pasha has reached Unan yetnbo. He found that the Arabs had deserted the district,.