Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 October 1890 — TOPICS OF THE TIMES. [ARTICLE]

TOPICS OF THE TIMES.

Bishop Taylor of Africa has told tK ? the Kock River Methodist Conference, now in session in Chicago, that there are thirty-five thriving missions on the Congo making no end of male converts, but that the females are brought up by neighboring polygamists and thus deprived of means of Christian training and instruction. To obtain a native female even for a purpose so benignant and humane as that of converting her, it is necessary to pay cash down. The ruling figure at present, the Bishop says, is about S3O, and a sum equal to the •purchase of nine of them flowed immediately into a hat which was passed around the Conference for that purpose.' From that receptacle it flowed into the Bishop’s pocket, and when he returns to his field of work and has lime to turn around it is safe to say that at least nine colored Congo females will be put in the way of shlvation in short order. But there is nothing to awaken exultation in this respect. According to the early calculations of the Bishop, not precisely verified, yet true, there are ic the easin of the Congo about 50,000,000 human beings, and as according to jueteletand other distinguished statisticians the females in all societies commonly outnumber the males, it follows hat if evangelization is to perfect its work in the Bishop's stretching and populous diocese it must embrace at least 25,000,000 females, each one of whom must be bought and paid for before the conversion can take place. At present rates this would cost almost as much as a new Franco-Prussian war; but if prices should- advance step by step with conversions, as the pagan dement diminished, there is really no telling what might be the cost. It would collapse the most swelling system of missionary finance ever dreamed of.

I met the other day an American, iong resident abroad, who has seen something of Hfe in Russia. He tells no such tales of horrpr as Kennan has published to the world, became he has come in jeontact with only the business men of the empire, but he says that the tyranny and corruption of Russian officials can not be faintly guessed by those who do not know Russia. A manufacturer in St. Petersburg was interrupted at a dinner in a friend’s house with the news that his factory was on fire. He hastened to the spot, found, to his relief, that the firemen could control the fire without serious damage to the building, and returned to the dinner table. N ext morning he learned, to his astonishment, that the building had been destroyed. He hurried to the chief of police and made an angry complaint, accompanied with threats of a suit against the city. “It will be useless for you to sue the city,” said the chief of* police. “You saw the chief of the fire department at your factory last night, did you not?” “Yes.” “And you did not give him 500 roubles?” “No,” said the manufacturer; “and I now see my mistake. I should have remembered th fit nothing is done in Russia without bribery.” The report just issued by the Australian Commission appointed to consider the schemes submitted in answer to the offer of £25,000 as a reward for some means of ending the rabbit pest' in Australia, shows that 1,400 schemes have been considered and rejected. The carrying power of sheep tracts has been diminished by the abundance of rabbits from 80,000 to 8,000, and the value of farms has been reduced i from the same cause from £30,000 to £B.OOO. The Commissioners have ' made up their minds that such devices ( as trapping and poisoning are Vain. | In the seven years from 1882 to 1889 ; the New South Wales Government spent £732,286 on such experiments without effect. The Commissioners look for a remedy only to the ihven- i tion of a disease. The report therefore is largely taken up with a consideration of the various diseases which inventors are anxious to propa- 1 gate among the rabbits. These include small-pox, glanders, hydrophobia, and tuberculosis, one person suggesting tapeworm as a remedy. M. Pasteurs invention, fowl cholera, receives most attention, but the Commissioners regard it as a failure. Probably the' greater heat of the Australian climate ' has changed the conditions under ; which successful experiments were made in France. Finally, the remedy 1 which the Commissioners look forward to. failing a convenient disease, is the gradual enclosure of the land; They ; recommend obligatory wire fencing, j Meanwhile the offer of is still i open to any who can win it. The Women’s Silk Culture Association of the United States, wjiich was incorporated in May, 1880, and which has its headquarters in Philadelphia, has issued its tenth annual report. The result of the ten years of work by this association, while not of a striking nature, when the size of the country and the immense consumption of raw silk are considered, are, nevertheless, in many respects encouraging. Something hah certainly been accomplished toward a better understanding of the principles of silk culture, and some advance has been made toward the introduction of the art of rearing tne worms and reeling cocoons. The tangible results of the efforts of these Philadelphia ladies in the interest of silk culture may be briefly summarized as follows: The association has bought, raised, and reeled 12,000 pounds of cocoons; it has bad made some 2,000 yards of silk dress goods; has sold some 1,500 pounds of reeled of j raw silk; has made some forty United States flags and dozens of silk handkerchiefs, fringes, ribbons, brocade velvet, trimmings, sewing silt, etc. It presented seventeen flags to

the Central and South American countries through their delegates to the Pan-American Congress, and it presented to Mrs.l James A. Garfield “the ’ first silk dress made from silk raised tn this country.’' It has also made ex- . ‘its of work, reels, and reelers at ■of the more prominent agriculIrs helii jn differeat sectioiis of ural ix v ilß3Oc .; at i an takes a ec ? aa S. 'on in urging*that silk culsoun posiU. relied upon as a disture should «. iadurtry , but should tmct and seprnm. to othe jl occupations be made auxiliary lif afld thro h connected with farm * ications g ,^ n . the medium of its f4)ward9 the dqubted y doing much . 3 industry eventual popularization of 2k. * the which ought, sometime, toy, e cr-ite farmers of America a large agg>income. The association daring’ last year sent out 11,053 mulbe r r> trees, which were disturbed to twen-X l eight States. —Manchester Unia®. J

The universities of England are extending the area of instruction on. an attractive system, which might be adopted with profit in the United States. The correspondent at Cambridge. England, of the Western Christian Advocate, describes the method in these words: “One of the most noticeable features of modern educational enterprises has been the rapid development of systems of provincial lectures, designed to supplement the fundamental teaching afforded by schools. Attendance at the great residential universities is far cheaper than it used to be, owing to the large number of scholarships, exhibitions, etc., offered, but still the •jniversitiesi are inaccessible to thousands who crave for their instruction but have neither the time nor the money required to get that instruction. To meet, in part, this want, the University of Cambridge set on foot a scheme pf local lectures, so as to convey university teaching to those who are unablq- to come to the university for it. So successful has been its venture that Cambridge has been followed by Oxford and London, thus covering England with a network of literary and scientific instruction. In addition to its regular course of lectures Oxford has for the last three years organized a summer gathering somewhat ou the order of the Chatauqua plan, and last year the uewlyfdrmed Home Beading Union inaugurated a similar meeting at Blackpool. All tbis wholesale dissemination of high-class instruction cannot'fail to have far-reaching effects upon the people in widening their mental scope and placingbeforethernnewideals.”