Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1893 — Page 2

' THE REPUBLICAN. Qeo«b E. Mabshaxx, Publisher. II ■■■ I " ■ ■!» RENSSELAER - INDIANA

' If you are not fond of gum, “lick” the envelope and it will “get there just the same.” M. Eiffel is to bridge the Neva at St. Petersburg with a structure to cost 114,000,000. ' Thb Pope, the Kaiser and Presi-dent-elect Cleveland lead the world as recipients of advice on the proper manner of conducting their affairs. A Rochester man claims to have invented a self-patching jacket and trousers for small boys, and wants to pose as a great public benefactor. Rev. Sam Small has retired from the ministry and re-entered journalism as an editor of the Atlanta Constitution, believing that he can find a larger audience and do more good in that field. £ A scientist asserts that “it takes 5,232 bees to weigh a pound.” When a single well-organized bee. feels well and comes with his sticker end he has convinced many a fellow that he weighed over a pound.

Forty-four electoral colleges formally cast their ballots at the van ous capitals on the 9th of January, and Congress will complete the programme by counting them at Washington on the 9th of February. Av actress attempted to slash the throat of a theatrical manager with a razor recently, but his life was saved by his fur overcoat collar. The reason for the theatrical fur collar has always been a mystery, but is now apparent. A Rochester, N. Y., hatter, who presented President Cleveland with his inauguration hat eight years ago, has secured a huge advertisement from the daily press without cost to himself by presenting the Presidentelect with a similar tile to be worn on the 4th of March. The enterprising hatter of Rochester can learn our advertising rates on application. Local option in Massachusetts is being carried to a greater degree of severity than has ever obtained in any other section of the country whore that method of regulating the liquor traffic has been tried. As the law now stands, each town votes whether it will have license or not, but Boston proposes that hereafter each ward in the city shall decide for itselfonthesame-point.

Lottie Fowler, a Boston medium, has had a seance in which she obtained a lengthy interview with Jay Gould. Many people will be glad to know that Jay has seen the error of his ways, and is now prepared to admit that he pursued the Almighty dollar rather too vigorously for the good of his own soul and other people, but he is now bending the energies of his great intellect towards more benign objects and expresses a hope that all will yet be well with him. Official figures recently issued show that during the calendar year 1892 the loss of property from fire in the United States and Canada aggregated $132,704,700. This is $5,000,000 less than during the year proceeding, but more than $25,000,000 in excess of the total loss in 1890. These figures would be startling, were it not that the people of this country, had, through unfortunate experience become used to contemplating large figures in this connectton. It is an extent of loss that would be considered impossible in any European country outside of Russia, thoroughly equipped and efficient fire departments as constitute the oride of many cities in the United States. The death of Rutherford B. Hayes» leaves Grover Cleveland in sole possession of the uncertain honors attaching to the position of an ox-Presi-dent, and that distinguished individual will resign them to Benjamin Harrison on the 4lh of March, when be will for the second time be insulated as the Chief Magistrate of the Great Rcp.ibhc. It has been said that J ‘Republics are ungrateful,” and this proverb is givon additional emphasis by the fact that we now .have, and in the near future are likely to have, but one living exPresident, tor whom our laws make BO provision by way of honor, rank or pecuniary reward. It is an open question whether the country is a gainer by this povsimony. True, the government wiH survive, and those, who from time to time may succeed to the offlow will ba amply able- to

administer its affairs, but tht United States might in many probable instances be largely the gainei by making some provision for tht future of ex-Presidents, whereby we might profit by their experience anc at the same time preserve and add tothe dignity of tho retired ruler or the greatest nation on the earth. Ballooning was invented more than one hundred years ago by Montgolfier, a Frenchman. There were then great expectations of its development. Thirty-three years agc John Wise with three companions sailed from St. Louis, Mo., to Henderson, N.Y, a distance of 1,150 miles, in less than twenty hours. Several air ships were on the stocks last year, but none were launched. Now comes a St. Louis man seeking capital to build another. There does not seem to be much progress in the art of aerial naviganion. All the air ships have thus far proven worthless, while the balloon has often proved of great value. It may be that the Frenchman who is now building a rigid baloon will arrive at better results than have yet been attained in this branch of Science, from which so much has been looked for and so little of practical benefit obtained.

The most reliable reports from the San Juan country, seem to indicate that gold in considerable quantities has been found in that region, but not sufficient to justify the expectations of the horde of miners that have flocked to the fields. To the traveler and student, however, it seems that the country affords great inducements for further exploration. It seems to have been a favorite resort for the cliff-dwellers, or other races of a pre-historic age. A large stone fort has been already discovered, and the hand-holes cut in the rocks to reach it are still visible. There is every evidence that the desert waste was at one time a thickly populated settlement, but no one has as yet offered a satisfactory solution of the problem as to how these people obtained sustenance surrounded as they were for long distances by nothing but sand and rocks. Thf. government of the United States year after year, at great expense, stocks our streams and lakes from hatcheries, and yet in all the States the most wanton vandalism and waste prevails, and any attempt to enforce the statutes for the preservation of the finny denizens of our waters is met with the most determined opposition on the part of large numbers of people, and public opinion in the localities where such laws are needed is such as to render them a dead letter in the majority of cases. An Indiana judge has recently decided in cases brought before him by the Indiana State Fish Commissioner. that the possession of a seine is no evidence that the possessor intends to use it for unlawful purposes, and as a result of this technicality a large number of prosecutions have been dismissed, while the “outraged” offenders have now combined to keep the hook and line anglers off their lands, and are backed by the approval of their communities. A fish cannot swim a mile in Lake Erie without running into some kind of a trap, and tho hoggishness of the market fishermen in those waters can scarcely find an equal. Oregon is doing the same kind of porcine work on the Columbia and Willamette rivers. What is needed is a stringent, sweeping law that would stop all net fishing for five years, and let the fish have a start. Added to this must come a more rational way of thinking on the part of large numbers of people, who must be made to see their great wrong in seeking a trivial present gain, and a few hours sport, at the expense of the utter annihilation of so important a source of food supply.

A Unique Offering.

Harper's Bazar. The patience and skill shown by native artificers in foreign islands in the construction, so to speak, of certain feather cloaks, of whfch it is said but three are in existence, and these destined only for royal shoulders, have often been matters of surprise. But now a far western sister will present at the great coming Exposition an opera cloak made of carefully selected prairie-chicken plumage, using only certain (Jelicate feathers, of which only five or six can be furnished by one bird; these are sewed upon a foundation one by one, so nicely overlapping as to present a singularly rich surface. This remarkable shoulder wrap will be about five feet in length, and is to be bordobed with South Dakota otter fur. This piece of home-made handicraft will, it is said, represent ten years of unflagging industry. Don’t have money transactions with your friends if you can avoid thorn. All of us know how other people should spend their money. ■ ■

ON SACRED SHORES.

The Ichthyology of tho BibleBreakfast by the Sea of CiaHlcr—"Lesson of the Fishcf?—Tnlwag®** | ■ . iwryiP»n« „ : •* - .A Dr. Talnrigc preached at Brooklyn, last Sunday. “The Ichthyology or tho God Among the ..Fishes,Uen. L 20— “And ClodEnK' Let the waters bring the moving creatures life.” He said: What a now' book ' the Bible is! After 36 years* preaching from it and discussiii<’ over 4.000 different subjects founded on the God the book :s as fresh to me as when I learned, with a stretch of infantile memory, the shortest verse in the Bible, “J.nsus wept,” and I opened a few weeks ago a new realm of Biblival interest that neither my pulpit nor any one els'e's had ever explored, and having spoken to you in this course of sermons on God everywhere concerning the “Astronomy of the Bible; or, God Among the Stars;” the “Chronology of the Bible; or, God Among the Centuries;” the “Ornithology of the Bible; or, God Among the Birds;" the Mineralogy of the Bible; or, God Among the Amethysts;" this morning, as I may be divinely helped, I will speak to you about the Ichthyology of the Bible; or God Among the Fishes.” Our norses were lathered and tired out. and their fetlocks were cut out by the rocks, and I eould hardly get my feet out- of the stirrups as on Saturday night we dismounted on the beach of Lake Galilee The rather liberal supply of food with which had started from Jerusalem was well nigh exhausted, and the articles of diet remaining had, by oft repetition three times a day for three weeks, ceased to appetize. I never want to see a fig again, and dates with me are all out of daty. For several days the Arab caterer, who could speak but half a dozen English words, would answer our .requests for some of the styles of food with which we had been delectated the first few days by crying out, “Finished." The most piquant appetizer is abstinence, and the demand of all the party was, “Let us breakfast on Sunday morning on fresh fish from Lake Gennesareth,” for you must, know that that lake has four names, and it is worth a profusion of nomenclature, and it is in the Bible called Chinn areth, Tiberias, Gennesareth and Galilee.

To our extemporized table on Sab- : bath morning came broiled perch, } only a few hours before lifted out of the sacred waters. It was natural that cur minds should r evert to the only breakfast that Christ ever prepared, and it was on those very shores where we breakfasted, Christ had in those olden times struck two flints together and set on five some' shavings or light brushw’ood and then put on larger wood, and a pile of glowing bright coals was the consequence. Meanwhile the disciples fishing on ! the lake had awfully “poor luck,’|i and’every time they drew up the net it hung dripping without a flutter- ' ing fin or squirming scale. But ! Christ from the shore shouted to : them and told them where to drop ’ the net. and 153 big fish rewarded | them. Simon and Nathaniel, having ; cleaned some of those large fish, I Drought them to the coals which ; Christ had kindled, and the group who had been out all night and were ' chill and wet and hungry sat down ' and began mastication All that scene came back to us when on Saboath morning, in December, 1889, just outside the ruins of ancient Tiberias and within sound of the rippling Galilee, we breakfasted. Well, the world's geography has changed, and the world’s bill of fare has changed. Lake Galilee was larger and deeper and better stocked than now, and no doubt the rivers were deeper and the fisheries were ; of far more importance then than now. Do ydu realize that the first living thing that God created was the fish? It preceded the bird, the quadruped, the human. The fish has priority of residence over every living thing. The next thing done after God had kindled for our world the golden chandelier of the sun and the silver chandelier of the moon was to make the fish. The first motion of the ' principle of life, a principle that all ■ the thousands of years since have j not been able to define of analyze, the very first stir of life, was in a fish. No wonder that Linnmus and Cuvier and Agassiz and the greatest minds of all the centuries sat enraptured before its anatomy. Oh, its beauty and the adaptedness of its structure to the element in which it must live; the picture gallery on the sides of the mountain trout unveiled as they spring up to snatch the flies; the grayling, called the flower of fishes; the salmon, ascending the Oregon and the Severn, easily leaping the falls that would stop them; the bold perch, the gudgeon, silver and black spotted, the herring, moving in squadrons five miles long; the carp, for cunning called the fox of fishes; the wondrous sturgeons, formerly reserved for the tables of royal families and the isinglaqs made out of their membrane; the tench, called the physician of fishes, because when applied to human ailmeats it is said to be curative; the lampreys, so tempting to the epicurean that too many of them slew Henry ll—aye. the whole world of flakes! The Lord by placing the fish in the

first course of the menu in paradise, i making it precede bird and beast, > indicated to the world the import- ; ance of th e fish as an article of human food. The reason that men and I women lived three and four and five ; and nine hundred years was because i they werekepten parched com and j fish. ~Wc mix up a fantastic food j that kills the most of us before 30 ■ years of age. Custards and whipped I sillabubs and Roman punches, and ' chicken salads at midnight are a gauntlet that few have the strength to run. The reason that the country districts have furnished most of the men and women of our time who are doing the mightest work in merchandise, in mechanics, in law, in medicine, in theology, in legislative and congressional halls, and all the presidents from Washington down—at least those who amounted to anything—is because they were in those country districts of necessity kept on plain diet. No man or woman ever amounted to anything who was brought up ou floating- island or angel cake. What made -the apostles such stalwart men that they could endure anything and achieve everything? Next to divine inspiration, it was because they were nearly all fishermen and lived on fish and a few plain condiments. Paul, though not brought up to swing the net and throw the line, must of necessity have adopted thediet of thepopulation among whom he lived, and you see the phosphorous in his daring plea before F»lix, and the phosphorus in his boldness of all utterances before the wiseacres on Mars hill, and the phosphorus as he went without fright to his beheading, and the phosphorus you see in the lives of all the apostles who moved right on undaunted to certain martyrdom, whether to be-decapitated or flung off precipices or hung in crucifixion. Phosphorus shining in the dark without burning. Indeed the only articles of food that Christ by miracle multiplied were bread and fish which the boy who acted as sutler to the 7,000 people of the wilderness handed over—five barley loaves and two fishes. Know also in order to understand the ichthyology of the Bible that in ! the deeper waters, as those of the i Mediterranean, there were monsters that are now extinct. The fools who became infidels because they cannot understand the engulfment of the recreant Jonah in a sea monster might have saved their souls bystudying a little natural history. “Oh,” says someone, “That story of Jonah was only a fable.” Say others. “It was interpolated by some writer of later times.” Others say, “It was the reproduction of the story of Hercules devoured and then restored by the monster.” But my reply is that history tells us that there were monsters large enough to whelm ships. The extinct ichthyosaurus of other ; ages was thirty feet long, and as late as the sixth century of the Christian era up and down the Mediterranean there floated monsters compared with which a modern whale was a sardine or a, herring, j The shark has again and again been ■ found .to. have. KwallowedA.. man en-..J tire. A fisherman on the coast of i Turkey found a sea monster which ! contained a woman and a purse of ■ gold. Notice also how the Old Testament writers drew similitude from the fisheries. Jeremiah uses such imagery to prophesy destruction, “Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them.” Ezekiel uses the fish imagery to prophesy, “It shall come to pass that the fishers shall stand upon it from En-gedi even to En-eglaim; they shall be a place to spread forth nets; their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many," the explanation of which is that En-gedi and j En-eglaim stood on the banks of the ; Dead sea, in the waters of which no fish can live, but the prophet says that the time will come when these waters will be regenerated and they will be great places for fish*. Furthermore in order that you may understand the ichthyology of the Bible you must know that there were five ways of fishing. Ono was by a fence of reeds and canes, within, which the fish were caught. But the Herodic government forbade that on the shores of Galilee, lest pleasure boats be wrecked by the stakes driven. Another mode was by spearing—the water of Galilee was so clear, good aim could be taken for the transfixing. Another was by hook and line, as where Isaiah says, “The fishers shall also mourn, and they that cast angle into the brook shall lament." And Job say. “Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook?” And Haubakkuk says, “They take up all of them with the angle.” Another mode was by casting net or that which was flung from the shore, another, by a dragnet or that which was thrown from a boat and drawn through the sen as the fishing smack sailed on. Suppose Igo around in this audience and ask these Christians when th'jy were converted to God. One would answer, “It was at the time I lost m.y child by membranous croup, and it was the night of bereavement,” or it would be, “It was just after I was swindled out of my-prop-erty, and it was the night of bank- [ ruptcy,” or it would be, “It was during that tirae when I was down with that awful slckuss, and it was the night o! physical suffering,” or it would be “ft was that time when slander took after mo, and I was maligned apd abused, and it was the night of persecution.”' Ah, my

hearers, that is the time for you th go after souls,, vdxai a hlght of trouble is or. them, opsa apt that opportunity to save a soul, for it is the best of all opportunities. But be sure before you start out to the gospel fisheries to get the right kiudrnf bait. “But how," you say, “am I to get it?" My answer is, “Dip for it.” “Where shall I dig for it?” “In the rich Bible grounds." We boys brought, up in the country had to nig for hait before we started for the banks of the Raritan. Wo put the sharp edge of the spade egaiust tho ground and then put our foot on the spade, and with one tremendous plunge.of our strength of body and will wo drove it in up to the handle and then turned over the sod. But make up your mind as to whether you will take the hint of Habukkuk and Isaiaa and Job and use hook and line, or take the hint of Matthew and Luke and Christ and fish with a net, I think manylose their time by> wanting to fish with a net, end they never get r. place to swing the net. In other words, they want to do gospel work on a big scale, or thev will not do it at all. I have seen a man in roughest corduroy outfit come back from the woods loaded down with a string of finny treasures hung over his shoulder, and his gamebag filled, and a dog with his teeth carrying a basket filled with the surplus of an afternoon’s angling, and it was all the result of a hook and line. And in the - eternal world there will be many a man and many a woman that was never heard of outside of a village Sunday school or a prayer meeting buried in a church basement who will come before the throne of God with a multitude of souls ransomed through his or her instrumentality, and yet the work all done through personal interview, one by one, ono by one. God help us amid the gospel fisheries whether we employ hook or net, for the day cometh when we shall see how much depended on our fidelity. Christ himself declared: “The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that was cast into the sea and gathered of every kind, which, when it was full, they drew to shore and sat down and gathered the good in the vessel, but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the world — the angels shall come forth and separate the wicked from the just. So in the church on earth, tho saints and hypocrites, the generous and the mean, the chaste and the unclean, are kept in the same membership, but at death the division will be made, and the good will be gathered into heaven, and the bad, however many holy communions they may have celebrated, and however many, rhetorical prayers they may have offered, and however many years their names may have been on the church rolls, will be cast away. God forbid that any of us should be among the “cast away!”

PEOPLE.

Ex-President Hayes was the first; man to receive the LL. D. degree; from Johns Hopkins. Sixteen years ago, Governor McGraw, of Washington, drove a bobtailed car in San Francisco. Now he holds the reins of the State government. Vice-President Morton has appointed Senator Gray, of Delaware, a regent of the Smithsonian institution, in the place of Senator Gibson, of Louisiana, deceased. TbhScotchmen of Denver propose to erect a SIO,OOO statue of Bobby Burns. A sculptor favorably considered is W. Grant Stevenson, of Edinburgh, who has made half a dozenstatues of the poet. The late Horace Smith, of Springfield, Mass., delighted in giving young men a helping hand, in spite of the fact that he was often deceived. It is estimated that in the last years of his life he lost $50,000 in unsecured loans to his proteges. Joseph Letoumea r a quarter-blood Indian, and Miss Estella Kincade, of Chamberlain, S. D., were marries. 1 the other day. The ceremony was performed while the couple were on » sand bar in the middle of the Missouri river, near Chamberlain. Tennyson left an estate of $250,000; Browning left personally in England worth $83,875; Victor Hugo's personal property was $160.630; Matthew Arnold had but $5,205; Lord Lytton left $366,350. It is not told how much these lamented authors earned with their pen. Senator McPhqrson. of New Jersey is indignant over the rumor tha he has boon slated for the treasury department and has himself bee: authorizing the report. He is now quoted as declaring that he has no idea whatever that Mr. Cleveland intends to pay him that honor. Dr. Pierson, Spurgeon’s successor I in .the pulpit of the Metrojxflitan ! Tabernacle, London, told his congregation recently that the Bible which he uses in his service there contains no less than 500,000 notes by his own I hand! . At least, the Pall Mall GaI zette so reports him. He has hal the Bible ten years or more. Proftvsor Palmer of the philosophical faculty at Harvard argues against any religious to&ehing in schools, becausd the effort to give systematic instruction in religion or ethics to the young has resulted less in improving conduct than in stimulating a morbid self-consoious-ness, which he characterized as a disease. Conduct must be taught by example in school and out of school

PEOPLE.

Benjamin Butler had his sentiment Never was he seen without a rose in his button hole. His wife, who died—in 1876, bred in him a taste for the flower and he suppled a conservatory for the culture or this flower. She always sent him fresh flowers daily when he was absent from home, and after her death roses came to him each day from that conservatory, no matter where he might be. The heaviest man in the United States is John H. Craig, of Danville Ind. At birth he weighed 11 pounds; at 2 years of age his weight was 206; at the age of 37, two years ago, he weighed 907 pounds. His height is 6 feet 5 inches. It takes 41 yards of cloth to make him a suit of clothes, Mr. Gladstone’s way of gaining rest and recreation is to change his occupation. He once said in illustration of the soundness of his theory that a perfectly level road kills more horses than a rougher one, because it brings only one set of muscles into play, and that man might profit by the moral of the fact. There is talk in London of the possible appointment of Lord Wolseley to the post of Governor-General of Canada. He is said greatly to desire the place. Lord Roberts is just back from India and there is difficulty in finding a fitting post for him. The suggestion is made that Lord Wolseley mav be sent to Canada, thus leaving the chief command in Ireland for Lord Roberts. “Buffalo” Jones, formerly of Garden City, Kan., who, in 1885,-cor-ralled a few bf the expiring buffalo and started a herd for breeding pur,* poses, has made a very good thing out of this novel enterprise. He now sells a full grown buffakrat sb,-000 and has already realized $65,000 in this business. His latest sale was one of the herd for Austin Corbin’s Vermont game park. Professor Morse, of Salem, Mass., has solved the problem of househeatingin a curious fashion. He has built a house with all its rooms fronting southward and only a passage on the north. Almost the whole southern front of the house is made of glass, and by means of reflectors he is enabled on sunny days to heat his whole house by sunshine alone. At night and on cloudy days he has hearth fires going. He believes that by this contrivance he has the most wholesome heat attainable. When Father Mollinger, tho famous faith-cure physician, died, a few months ago, at Troy Hill, near Pittsburg, it was rumored that he had acquired wealth amounting to millions. Relatives from a distance have recently been visiting his late home to secure their supposed inheritance. But it is now alleged that there is very little property in existence belonging to his estate, and that almost nothing will remain when his debts are paid. The church of which he was pastor will surrender all his possessions except certain relics testifying to miraculous cures, but the courts will be asked to set aside $2,000 for a suitable monument to him. One of the anecdotes being told about Mr. Blaine is the following: At a reception given by him white he was Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives an old fellow from Aroostook had sampled almost all the dishes on the table, and finally he tried a plate of ice cream. Gulping down a great spoonful .he seemed startled and pained. He pushed the plate aside and, looking up, he saw Mr. Blaine surrounded by a group of ladies and gentlemen. He edged up, and nudging the young statesman, said: “P’r’aps ye don’t know it, Mr. Blaine, but that puddin’s froze clear through.” With a rare tact, and without even a smile, Blaine came forward and tasted the “puddin’.” “So it is,” he replied sadly. “It’sjtoo bad, I declare.”

THE BIBLE AND SHAKSPEARE.

Grand Books Which Fed Lincoln's Remarkable Intellect. Any one hearing him express his ideas or think aloud, either upon one of the great topics which absorbed him or on an incidental question,was not long in finding out the marvelous rectitude of his mind nor the accuracy of his judgment, writes the Marquir de Chambrun in Scribner. I have heard him give his opinion . on statesmen, argue political prob- ’ lems, always with astounding precision and justness. I have heard him speak of a woman who was considered beautiful, discuss the partij cular character of her appearance, distinguish what was praiseworthy from what was open to criticism, all that with the sagacity of an artist. Lately two letters, in which he speaks of Shakespeare, and in particular of Macbeth, have been published. His judgement evinces that sort of delicacy and soundness of taste that would honor a great literary critic. He had formed himself by the difficult and powerful processor lonely meditation. During his rough and humble life he had had constantly with him two books which the western settler always keeps on one of the shelves of his hut —the bible and Shakespeare. From the bible he had absorbed that religious color in which he was pleased to clothe his thoughts; with Shakespeare he had learned to reflect on man and passions. In certain respects one can question whether that sort of intellectual culture be not more penetrating than any other, and if it be not more particularly suited in the development of a gifted mind to pres--orre its native originality.