Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 July 1891 — Page 3

IT IS GOD’S RAIN.

A Practical Lesson Drawn From the Signal Service. Che Bible Student Should Not Wnde th Too Deep—A Silver Lining to the Darkest Cloud. Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at Brooklyn last Sunday. Subject: “Hath the Rain a Father?'’ Text. Job xxxviii, 28. He said: This Book of Job has been the subject of unbounded theological wrangle Men have made it the ring in which to display their ecclesiastical pugilism. Some say that the Book of Job is a true history; others, that it is an allegory ; ethers, that it is an epic poem; others, that it is a drama. Some say that Job lived eighteen hundred years before Christ; others say that he never lived at all. Some say that the author of this book was Job; others, David; others, Solomon The discussion has landed some in blank infidelity. Now, I have no trouble with the Books of Job or Revelation—the two most mysterious books in the Bible —because of a rule [.adopted some years ago. I wade down into a Scripture passage as long as I can touch bottom, and when l ean not: then I wade out. I used to wade in until it was over my head and then I got drowned. I study a passage of Scriptifre as long as it is a comfort and help to my soul; but when it becomes a perplexity and a spiritual upturning I quit. In other words, we ought to wade in up to our heart, but never wade in until it is over our head. No man should ever expect to swim across this great ocean of divine truth; I jo down into that ocean as I go down into the Atlantic Ocean at East Hampton, Long Island, just far Miough to bathe; then I come out. I never had any idea that with my weak hand and foot I could strike my way clear over to Liverpool.

I suppose you understand your Family genealogy. You know something about your "parents, your grandparents, your great-grandpar-•nts. Perhaps you know where they were born, or where they died. Have you ever studied the parentage of the shower? “Hath the rain a father?” This question is not asked by a poetaster or a scientist, but by the nead of the Universe. To humble ind to save Job, God asks him fourteen questions: about the world's architecture, about the refraction of the sun’s rays, about the tides,about the snow crystal, about the lightnings, and then He arraigns nim with the interrogation of the text: “Hath the rain a father?” With the scientific wonders of the rain I have nothing to do. A minister goes through with that kind of sermons within the first three years, and if ae has piety enough he gets through with it in the first three months. A sermon has come to me to mean one word of four letters: “Help!” You ill know that the rain is not an orphan. You know it is not cast out of the gates of heaven a foundling. You would answer the question of tny text in the affirmative. Safely noused during the storm, you hear the rain beating against the window pane, and you find it searching all the crevices of the window sill. It first comes down in solitary drops, pattering the dust, and then it del-

ages the fields and angers the mountain torrents, and makes the traveler implore shelter. You know that the rain is not an accident of the world’s economy. You know it was born of the cloud. You know it was rocked in the cradle of the wind. You know it was sung to sleep by the’storm. You know that it is a lying evangel from heaven to earth. You know it is the gospel of the weather. You know that God is its father. If this be true, then, how wicked is our murmuring about climatic changes. The first eleven Sabbaths after I entered the ministry if stormed. Through the week it was dear weather, but on the Sunday the old country meeting house looked like Noah’s Ark before it landed. A few drenched people sat before the drenched pastor: but most of the farmers stayed at home and thanked God that what was bad for the church .vcs good for the crops. I committed a good deal of sin in those days in denouncing the weather. Ministers of the Gospel sometimes fret about the stormy Sabbaths, of hot Sabbaths or inclement Sabbaths. They forget the fact that the same God who ordained the Sabbath and sent forth His ministers to announce salvation, also ordained the weather. “Hath the rain a father?” Merchants, also, with their stores filled with new goods and their clerks hanging idly around the corners, commit tne same transgression, .fhere.have been, seasons when the ’ whole spring and fall trade has been ruined by protracted wet weather. The merchants then examined the weather probabilities with more interest than they read their Bibles. They watched for a patch of blue skj. They went complaining to the store, and came complaining home again. In all that season of wet feet and dripping garments and impassable streets they never once asked the quesaion, “Hath the rain a father?” So agriculturists commit this sin. There is nothing more annoying than to have planted corn rdt in the ground because of too much moisture, or hay all ready for the mow dashed of a shower, or wheat almost ready for the sickle spoiled with the rust. How hard it is to bear the' agricultural disappointments. God .has.infinite resource.B, but Ido not think He has capacity to make

weather to please all the farmers. Sometimes it is too hot, or it is too cold; it is too wet, or it is too dry; it is too early, or is it too late. They forget that the God who promised seed tiine and harvest, summer and winter. Cold and heat, also ordained all the climatic changes. There is one question that ought to be written on every barn, on every fence, on every hay-stack, on every farm: “Hath the rain a father?” If we only knew what a vast enterprise it is to provide appropriate weather for this world we would not be so critical of the Lord. Isaac Watts, at 10 years of age, complained that he did not like the hymns that were sung in the English Chapel. “Well,” said his father, “Isaac, instead of your complaining about the hymns, go and make hymns that are better.” And he did go and make hymns that were better. Now I say to you, if you do not like the weather, get up a weather company have a President and Secretary and a Treasurer and a Board of Dircctors and $10,000,000 of stock, and then provide weather that will suit all of us. There is a man who has a weak head, and he cannot stand, the glare of the sun. must always have a cloud hovering over him. I like the sunshine; I can not live without plenty of sunlight, so you must always have enough light for me. Tv o ships meet in midatlantic. The one is going to Southampton and the other is coming to New York. Provide weather that, while :t is abaft for one ship, it is not a head wind for the other. There is a farm that is drying up for lack of rain, and here is a pleasure party going out for a field excursion. Provide weather that will suit the dry farm and the pleasure excursion. No, sirs, I will not take one dollar of stock in your weather company. There is only one being in the universe who knows enough to provide the right kind of weather for this world. “Hath the rain a father?” My text also suggests God’s minute supervisal. You see the Divine Sonship in every drop of rain. The jewels of the shower are not flung away by a spendthrift who knows not how many he throws or where they fall. They are all shining princes of heaven. They all have an eternal lineage. They are all the children of a King. “Hath the rain a father?” Well, then, I say if God takes notice of every minute raindrop he will take notice of the most insignificant affair of my life. It is the astronomical view of things that bothers me. We look up into the night-heavens and say: “Worlds! worlds!” and how insignificant we feel! We stand at the foot of Mt. JBlanc or Mt. Washington, and we feel that we are only insects, and then we say to ourselves: “Though the world is so large, the sun is 1,400,000 times larger." We say: “Oh. it is no use, if God wheels that great machinery through immensity- He will not take the trouble to look down at me.” Infidel Conclusion. Saturn, Mercury and Jupiter are no more rounded and weighed and swung by the hand of God than are the globules on a lilac bush the morning after a shower. God is no more in magnitudes than he is in minutiae. If He has scales to weigh the mountains He has balances delicate enough to weigh the infinitesmal. You can no more see Him through the telescope than you can see Him through the microscope; no more when you look up than when you look down. Are not the hairs of your head all numbered? And if Himalaya has a God, “hath not the rain a father?” I take this doctrine of a particular Providence, and I thrust it into the very midst of your every-day life. If God fathers a raindrop, is there rnything so insignificantin your affairs that God will not father that? When Druyse, the gunsmith, invented the needle-gun, which decided the battle of Sadowa, was it a mere accident?

God is either wrong in the affairs of men, or our religion is worth nothing at all, and you had better take it away from us, and instead of Bible, which teaches the doctrine, gvie us a secular book, and let us, as the famous Mr. Fox, the member of Parliment, in his last hour cry out: “Read me the eighth book of Virgil.” O! my friends, let us rouse up to an appreciation Of the fact, that all the affairs of our life are under a King’s command, and under a Father’s watch. Alexander’s war-horse, Bucephalus, would allow anybody to mount him when he was unharnessed, but as soon as they put on that warhorse, Bucephalus, the saddle and the trappings of the Conqueror, he would allow no one but Alexander to touch him. And if a soulless horse could have so much pride in his owner, shall not we mortals exult in the fact that we are owned by a king? “Hath the rain a father?” Again, f: my subject teaches me that God’s dealings with us are inexplicable. That was the original force of my text. The rain was a great mystery to the ancients. They could not understand how the water should get into the cloud, and, getting there how it should be suspended; or, falling, why it should come down in drops. Modern science comes along and says there are two portions of air of different temperature, and they are charged with moisture, and the one portion of air decreases in temperature so the water may no longer be held in vapor, and it falls. And they tell us that* some of the clouds that look to be no larger than a man’s hand, and to be almost quiet in the heavfins, are great mountains of mist 4,000 feet from base to top, and that they rush miles a minute. But, after all the brilliant experiments of Dr. James Huston and "iSaussurc and other scientists, there

s an infinite mystery about the rain, i There is an ocean of the unfathomable in every rain drop, and God says j to-day as He said in the time of Job: “If you cap not understand one drop of rain, do not be surprised if mj! dealings with yod are inexplicable. Yes, God also is Father of all that rain of repentance.. Did you ever see a rain of repentance? Do you know what it is that makes a man repent? 11 see people going around trying to repent. They can not repent. Do you know no man can reSmt until God helps him to repent? ow do I know? By this passage: “Him hath God exalted to be a Prince and a Savior to give repentance,” O! it is a tremendous hour when one wakes up and says: “I am a bad man, I have not sinned against the laavs of the land, but I have wasted my life; God asked me for my services, and I haven’t given, those services. O! my sins God so give me. ” When that tear starts it; thrills all heaven. An angel can no-, keep his eyes off it. And the Church' of God is the Father of that rain, the Lord, long suffering, merciful and gracious. O! that God would break us down with a sense of our sin and then lift us up with- an appreciation of this mercy. Tears over our wasted life Tears over a grieved Spirit. Tears" over an injured father, O! that God would move upon this audience witl a great wave of religious emotion! The King of Carthage was dethron ed. His people rebelled agaius him. He was driven into banish ment. His wife and children wer outrageously abused. Years wen’ by. and the King of Carthage mad< many friends. He gathered up ; great, army. He marched agaii toward Carthage. Reaching th. -gate of Carthage. The best nisi of the place came out Bare footed and bareherded, and wit ropes around their necks, crying so mercy. They said: “We abused yo’ and we abused your family, but w cry for mercy.” The King of Carthage looked down upon the peopl from his chariot and said: “I cam' to bless, I didn’t come to destroy. You drove me out, but this day § renounce pardon for all the people •pen the gate and let the prepl come in. ” The King marched in an • took the throne, and the people al ■ shouted: “Long live the King!' My friends, you have driven th» Lord Jesus Christ, away from you hearts, you have been maltreatin,! Him all these years: but He comeback to-day. He stands in front o' the gates of your soul. If you wil! only pray for His pardon, He wil meet you with His gracious spirit, and He will say: “Thy sins and thy iniquities I will remember no more. Open wide the gate; I will take the throne. My peace I give unto you." And then, all through this audience, from the young and from the old. there will be a rain of tears, and God will be the Father of that rain.

A Country of Easy Going Habits Harper’s Magazine for July. The evidence gathered from th< most various sources about the Par aguayan native was always the same. An English ex-naval officer and exelephant hunter in Africa, who ha; a cane distillery near Paraguari. was of opinion that Paraguay is not going to improve in the immediut-. future. In twenty or thirty year* time, when the population has in creased and life become inore dii-i cult, there may be a change. At pres ent the people have inandioca am oranges in abundance; they need not work, and they will not wo»k. Tin gentleman thought that the Para guayans were most happy under th severe tyranny of Francai and Lo pez, when they were all practical!, slaves, and he regretted that foreign ers are now allowed to come in am buy land. becau.se it means to th natives an ultimate loss of nation ality. Another 'Englishmim. wlb had been three years cattle farmin; at San Ignacio, told me that eve since he had been there he had nevgot a stroke of work out of the n: tives dwelling on his land; they liv on oranges, mandico and matt and will not work. On his »fltanei. he has 20,000 orange tre-xs, bv> so want of means of transpotation th fruit has no market value. Unde the trees the oranges lie on the soa foot deep, and the cattle eat the. and fatten well. The observer snj. gested that it might be a good thin, for Paraguay if the governmeu caused the orange trees to be cu down, as the government of Cost Rica once had the bauaniers di stroyed, with a view, to stamping ou laziness and obliging the peoffie t> work for their bread. All this see n, strange. Nature and the Jesuit have given these Paraguayans th means of life and of oblivious fellcit in the shape of mandioca, oranges mate, and tobacco. They en ; oy climate so delightful that clothes at scarcely needed. And yet the niei dlesome Europeans are surprise and irritated because they do u< work.

The Usual Thing.

Puck. Bursar (Nebigh university): ‘ ‘Ol Mr. Millard has left us $400,000 ii his will.” President (ditto): “Oh, dear Telegraph to Filem <t Robben an offer a first mortgage on our Librar; building as a retainer.” Not in His Study. New York Weekly. Lady—“ls your father at ho:iy dear?" Minister's Little Daughter “Yes’m, he’s in his sernionizin, room.” “You mean his study, I presume. “No’m, we don’t f call it a study an;, more. Pa doesn’t want anv one ft suspect him of heresy, -

TIN PLATE.

The New Tariff in Effect July 1. Mountains of Cases of th* Metal Brooch! in to Avoid the Higher Chargee. A special from New York san: The clause In the McKinley tariff bill which affects tin plate went into effect at mid* night June 30. On the 30th there was a rush by importers to get all the plate on the wharves and in bond on which the duty was not paid through the custom house before the close of' business in order to escape the additional tax Imposed on that article under the law. Chief Clerk of Customs Couch said this morning that he had no figures at hand to judge even approximately of the amount of tin plate in bond or which has arrived in this country within the past few days, but the number of cases of tin whien were entered to-day and yesterday was enormous. From the mountains of cases of tin plate on the European steamship docks it would seem that the vessels had discarded all other freight on the other side and sailed for this port with full cargoes of tin. The Servia, Runic, Wyoming, Ethiopia, Galileo and Spain brought more than 200,000 cases of the metal yesterday, aud the same number of cases was expected to-day. Many of the vessels sailed from across the water a day ahead of schedule time. The importers made it an object for the steamship companies to make tin plate a preferred cargoThe St. James Gazette takes a gloomy view of the future of the tin plate industry in The Gazette says that the tin-plate lockout is the beginning of the decline of a great British industry! and that the skilled workingmen will seek and find remunerative employment in America.

SLAUGHTER OF SLAVES.

Two Hundred Killed in a Day by an African Prince. Finding the Slave Market Closed, the Captives Are Fut to Death by Hundreds, A letter just received from Sierra Leon says that the vigilant suppression of the slave trade along the coast and the consequent inability of the warlike races to disposeof the captives at a profit has caused a revival in the most terrible form of ths slaughter and bloodshed which formerly made every chief town in the Interior a Golgotha. Coomassie, it Is said, has agalg witnessed the killing of as many as twf hundred victims in one day, and the death drum is heard in the streets even more frequently than the British Ashantee expedition, when it was hoped that such things were put to an end forever. The savage Wangarus recently made a raid into Dagqmba, completely devastating the villages and carrying over 2,000 captivs. They were unable to get rid of the prisoners as slaves and held a sacraficial feast, which lasted three days, in which every captive perished, not even children being spared. It is universally admitted in the settlements that the approaching extinction of the slave trade in western Africa is making war far more merciless than ft used to be.

HIGHEST IN THE WORLD.

Pika’s Teak Railway Successfully Opened— A Squall of Snow. The Pike’s Peak railway is now in successful operation. The first passenger train reached the summit at 5:90 on the 30th. The train consisted of an engine and one car, occupied by sixty-five people, mostly excursionists from Denver. The lower terminus of the line is 8,400 feet above sea level and the upper is 14,417. The distance is nine miles, and the steepest grade is 25 per cent., or a rise of one in forty. On the way up a slight snowsquall was encountered, and on the summit the air was unpleasantly cool, even with heavy overcoats. The engine used on the train weighed forty tons. It operates by cog wheels alone. The rear of the locomotive is elevated so that the boiler is nearly level when on the heaviest grades. As the engine pushes the train up-hill instead of pulling, it has no use for a pilot or “cow catcher,’’ and Indeed resembles in hardly any respect the ordinary locomotive. The passenger coaches do not differ materially from the ordinary Pullman coach, but are constructed so that the passengers may sit comfortably in a horizontal position when the car is on an incline. Altogether the line is said to be the most novel, as well as the highest, railroad in the world.

RECIPROCITY WITH VENEZUELA

Another South American Republic Agrees to Exchange Goods with Us. The Department of State has received a cablegram from the United States minister at Caracas conveying the Information that the Congress of Venezuela hAd responded favorably to the reciprocity provision of the tariff act of 1890 of the Congress of the United States, and has conferred upon the President of Venezuela full authority to enter with the President of the United States upon a commercial arrangement and put it in operation without farther delay, The following patents have been allowed citizens of Indiana: J. D. Calpha, of Mount Carmel gate; J. Dushane, of South Bend curry comb, wrench; P. J. Harrah, of Bloomfield, thill support; W. F. Johnson, of Mooresville, corn-planter; S. F. Lamb, of New Albany, wagon brake; F. L. McGahan, of Indianapolis, two patents for electric motors; J. V. Rowlett, oi Richmond, lawn-mower handle. Four men were killed at New Haven Pa., on the 80th, by a locomotive boiler

IMMIGRATION.

The Remarkable Increase In Immigration to America. Figures From Official Sourees—The Course of 1 the Empire Westward. The immigration into the United States from 1820 to 1890 is the subject of a special report which has been prepared by Major Brock, tho Chief of the Bureau of Statistics of the Treasury Department, and will soon be published. No official record was made of the influx of foreign population to this country before 1820, but the immigration from the close of the revolutionary war to that time is estimated at 225,000. The arrivalsof immlgiants from 1821 to 1890 have reached 15,641,(588. The proportion of arrivals from Europe has increased from 68.89 per cent of the whole immigration in the decade from 1821 .to 1830 to 91.67 per cent, in the last decade, from 1881 to 1890. The following figures give the arrivals of each nationality during the entire period from 1820 to 18£0: Germany, 4,551,719; Ireland, 3,501,683; England, 2,460,034; British North American possessions, 1,029,023; Norway and Sweden, 943,330; Austria-Hungary, 464,435; Italy, 414,513; France, 370,162; Russia and Poland, 356,353; Scotland, 329,192; China, 292,578; Switzerland, 174,333; Denmark, 146,237; all other countries, 606,006. The only leading countries from which arrivals have fallen off during the last ten years are France and China. The year of the largest immigration yet reported was that ended June 32, 1882, when the arrivals were 788,992. The immigration from Italy to the United States was 15,401 for the fiscal year 1881, and has steadily increased until 1891, when it was 52,003, and the present year ending June 30,1891, when the total for ten months has reached 51,153, as against 34,310 for the corresponding months of 1890. The immigration from Hungary, Russia and Poland also shows a rapid increase. Of the arrivals during the ten years from 1881 to 1890, 3,205.911, or 61.1 per cent., were males and 2,040,702 or 38.9 per cent, females. The greatest proportion of females has come from Ireland. The smallest percentage of females from Italy and Hungary. The classification of the character of the immigration during the past decade shows that only 26,250 males were of the professional class, 541,552 were of skilled labor, 1,883,325 were of miscellaneous occupations, 73,327 made no statement In regard to occupation, and 7 <9,450 were without occupation. Of the 2,040,705 females 1,724,454 were without occupation.

IOWA REPUBLICANS.

Enthusiastic Convention Held at Cedar Rapids. Hiram C. Wheeler Nominated for Got. ernor on the First Ballot—The Platform, lowa Republicans held a most enthusiastic convention at Cedar Rapids on the Ist. The platform, as finally adopted for presentation to the convention, indorses the McKinley tariff law in the warmest terms, and particularly commends the reciprocity provision and its interpretation and observation by Presldedt Harrison and Secretary Blaine. Liberal pensions to disabled soldiers and their widows are. pledged. The financial question is briefly disposed of by the indorsemeutof the present law, of which Conger, of lowa, has credit of being the author. The Harrison administration is indorsed, and the large, appropriations of the last Congress are defended as having been necessary for the fulfillment of the obligations welfare and development of the country. The prohibition plank of the platform of last yeai is reaffirmed, and the Democratic party and Democratic officials are arraigned for conspiring with the law-breaking element for the violation and non-observance oj the prohibitory law. The course of lowa’s Senators and Representatives in the National Congress is commended, and particular eulogy is extended to Senator Allison for his liberal and patriotic course as chairman of the Senate committee on appropriations. A liberal appropriation foa the State exhibit at the World’s Columbian Exposition is urged. For Governor Hon. Hiram C. Wheeler, of Odebolt, Zack county, was nominated on the first ballot amid great enthusiasm.

The appropriation for printing and engraving the final volumes of the eleventh census becomes available to-day, and the Superintendent of Census has received the final volume on mines and mining, which will be printed at once. Thereport shows that the total value of the mineral products of the United States at the eleventh census amounted to *556,896,440, the greatest total ported for any country. It far outstripsthe product of Great Britain The total number of industrial mining establishments ft given as 30,000. The number of persons who find employment in mining industries is 512,114. The annual wages paid them aggregate *212,409,80). The capital employed in actual mining op erations amounts to *1,173,000,000. The final volume of mines and, mining will be followed in a few weeks by that on transportation, wealth, debt and taxation. In dlans, statistics of churches, Alaska and the compendium. Mr. Blaine’s health took a turn for the worse on the Ist and his physician wa> called in. It,l* asserted that heisimprovingih health, however, and his ailment o' this date was a “spell” from which h« speedily recovered. Just now he is but a shadow of his former self. His complex ion is very sallow. Part of his troubld Is prostration of the nerves. His voice hat lost its volume and steadiness, and after a short talk with one of his family he be come* hoarse and choked and cough* quit, frequently. It la very hard, so the Tamil' physician says, to make Secretary Blain understand that be most have perfect re*%,

NEW WEATHER.

A Change in the Bureau Makee Us Hopeful Win the Change te the Agricultural Do partinent Make It a Band Affair. Mark W. Harrington, editor of ths American Meteorological Journal, and a professor at Ann Arbor, Mich., has been appointed Chief of the Weather Bureau.. Acting Secretary Grant*Tuesday signed an order discharging the 162 employes of the Signal Service now engaged In the Weather Bureai> The list is headed by Professor Abbe and ends with the first class sergeants. Under the law the Secretary of Agriculture is bound to give preference to these men in making appointments of the force of the new Weather Bureau and with the exception of a few men who elected to remain in what wil) hereafter be the purely military branch of the Signal Service, all of the employes who were engaged In the Weather Bureau are likely to be reappointed. The Secretary was asked for a statement of his views and intentions regarding the future conduct of the Weather Bureau. He said that he could see a great many ways in which meteorological science could be made helpful in co-opera-tion with many of the present divisions of the department, and he believed that in course of time his expectation can be fully realized. In the meantime he proposes to perfect, as much as possible, the prompt dissemination of the weather forecasts throughout the agricultural districts. The meteorological service of the United States Government must go far beyond the mere forecasting of the weather, and ba so extended as to include a thoroughly sys- • tematic Investigation into the climatic conditions of the various sections of the country, in order that a full knowledge of them and of their effects upon plant growth should be available for the farmers. Professor Harrington, who was made chief, has for the last twelve years been professor of astronomy in the University of Michigan, and is about forty-three years of age. He is regarded as an accomplished student of meteorology and climatic problems. Prof. Harrington’s appointment received many strong indorsements, including a majority of the highest scientific authority in the country, the Senators from his own State and many other prominent gentlemen. Lieutenant Finley remains for the present at his post In California. The enlisted force of the signal corps, together with the civilian employes heretofore in the signal corps, electing to remain with the weather Bureau, will by this order, with the exception of those whose appointments expire by limitation, be transferred to the Weather Bureau of the Department of Agriculture.

GAUNT WANT.

Deporable Condition of the Poorer Classes in Berlin. rhe Military Necessary to Prevent Riots for Bread—The Facts Being Suppressed. ' ■ i ' _ According to a Berlin dispatch several eases of death from absolute want among the poorer classes have been covered up by the authorities as being entirely attributable to disease. The is a systematic effort on the part of the authorities, from the Department of State down to the lowsst municipal official, to minimize the misery that prevails owing to the high price >f bread. The police have been known to rebuke persons on the street who were heard talking about the corn duties in a tone of dissatisfaction, and they give a flat tenia! on every possible occasion to the reports of destitution. c 1 In this way they have managed to deceive some of the newspapers, while others are willing to thus misrepresent matter* without being deceived. The truth, says the United Press correspondent, Is that nearly every wage-earning family keenly feels the situation, and the Kaiser is losing, on account of it, much as the popularity which he earned by the advocacy of labor reforms. The Socialists are taking advantage of the general discontent to sow their doctrines broadcast, and expect to reap the harvest at the next election for the Reichstag. 'Military, as well as the police, are kept vigilant for signs of a riot

FIVE MILES OF PETITION.

A Historical Document to Be Presented to the Czar. There will be aboard one of the outgoing European steamships from New York, next week, a document that is destined to live in history. It is the petition of the United States to Alexander 111, Czar of Russia, asking him to mitigate the severity of the punishment meted out to the political prisoners of his country. It contains several millions of signatures, and if put together would be live and one-third miles In length. It will be shipped In ten anormous chests, and will fin a space 34 feet long and broad and six feet In height. The name of the American who goes with t to present it to the Czar Is suppressed for the time being, but it Is stated that he is a Journalist and diplomata of international reputation. All portions of the -ountry are represented among the signers. The Western States have an enorneus contingent, but it is an interesting act that the autographs of Russians and Poles are conspicuous only by their absence. Prominent men in every business and profession are here represented, and here and there are such names as James Russell Lowell, John G. Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Julia Ward Howe and ex-Vice-President Hannibal Hamlin. Secretary Proctor Is not having things all his own way in his Vermont Senatorial race. Unexpected opposition has arisen which has made it necessary for the Secretary to bestir himself,