Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 April 1893 — Hans Christian Andersen. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Hans Christian Andersen.

TVoiiES continue to forge to the front. The last Legislature c? Maine granted suffrage to the fair sex in local elections. Totai abstinence advocates claim that this will be more effective in checking the evils of intemperance in that State than the prohibition law, which of late years has been a dead letter in many localities. A very shrewd swindler has been profiting by the ignorance ©f th& Mexican greaser. He succeeded in disposing of an unknown quantity of confederate money before he was arrested. The scheme was original and worked well, and the probability is that it was largely profitable, as the penalty can not be extremely Tc* Pope intends to beatify Joan of ArS;' but it is not known that this oeremony tPPHI be of any benefit to Jenny or anybody else. However it Is very kind in the Pope to announce his willingnessyo confer this honor on a heroine deaathese many years, as he is the only person on the face of the globe who can beatify anybody dead or alive.

President Carnot lias also raised 1 the rank of the French Legation at Washington to an embassy. Congress recently passed a bill giving the President power to raise the rank of our Ministers to Ambassadors, and President Cleveland will doubtless avail himself of the privilege in the case of our Minister to France as well as to England; Four thousand women have registered for the spring elections in Topeka, .2,354 in Leavenworth, 1,000 Jr. Ijawrencc, and a full registration has taken place in other leading cities in Kansas. Kansas politics certainly needs straightening out. The male sex has proved themselves entirely incompetent to conduct the government and the ladies should now be given a chance.

Uxcle Sam will soon have reason to be proud of the navy which in the past has been a fruitful source of •trouble and in many cases of positive disgrace. In armor and projectiles our navy now leads the world. The cruiser New York has recently broken the record for speed, and progress and a spirit of enterprise is a characteristic of the new era which may bo said to have begun within the past four years.

Whiskers or no whiskers is a question that agitates British army circles, and to the discussion of which the various army publications are devoting considerable space. The regulations on the subject are clear, but exceptions and evasions are constantly coming to the surface. The rule provides that officers and men shall Hot shavetheupper Np at all. Some officers of high rank wre said to disregard this regulation and thereby set a bad example to the service by a clean shaved face. Chicago sharps have devised a new trnd highly profitable scheme for doping unwary and credulous people who have a desire for elegant articles at a nominal outlay of cash, and their victims are numerous among the class who are “tco poor to sub scribe.”. A man living in Spencer, Mass., saw an advertisement that on receipt of one dollar an eiegant engraving of the “Landing of Columbus” would be sent. He forwarded the amount and received by return mail a Columbian two-cent stamp.

Were it not for the semi-annual revolutions which eventuate in South America with all the regularity of the equinoctial storms, many of its capitals would become health resorts of great popularity with people of wealth and leisure. One of the capitals possessing superior advantages of this character is Bogota, the seat of government of the United States of Colombia. It is located on the San Francisco river, on an elevated plateau, 8,863 feet above the sea. Two lofty mountains tower to the heavens above the city, and the climate is described as a perpetual autumn, the temperature seldom rising above 50 degrees. Tite greatest and most picturesque international naval _ review ever known in the Western Hemisphere will be held in the waters of New York Bay on the 27th inst. The great development of our navy in recent years makes it possible for our government to make a creditable display without recalling war ships from foreign stations, consequently no duty is likely to be neglected in

order to participate in the pageant. There are also quite a number of new war ships that have never yet been on station—duty. The —navy will after the review be dispersedto various quarters of the globe, but a strong fleet will guard our own seaboards. t Geographical boundaries assume various fantastic shapes,and the gerrymander boundaries of legislative and congressional districts in various States ha ve been the source of a vast amount of newspaper common t and ill-feeling. Perhaps the most uniqueoutline of this character in the United States is that of Warren county, Tennesse, whose boundary is almost a complete circle. The county is almost exactly in the geographical center of the State, and McMinnville, the county seat, is almost exactly in the geographical center of the county, and the roads radiate from the court house like spokes from the hub of a wheel.

Laws of a restrictive character still remain unrepealed on the statute books of many eastern States, many of them dating back as much as two hundred years. Occasionally a spite work prosecution is brought under their provisions, but in the main they remain a dead letter, and serve only as an amusing reminder of the strait-laced ideas of the Puritans. England still has many of these practically obsolete laws, and recently a wholesale prosecution of small tradesmen for Sunday violators was instituted at Birmingham under an old act of Charles 11. Two hundred summonses were out at last accounts and the end was not in sight.

The mutton industry of New Zea land has grown to vast proportions. There are now twenty-one freezing establishments in the colony, with a capacity of 4,000,000 sheep a year. A new cold storage warehouse recently built on the Thames in London has a capacity of 200,000 carcases, John Buil has of late years changed his diet to a great extent and eats more mutton and less beef than in the days of war and con* quest. Whether this change has anything to do with the more pacific temper of that great power, and whether it has changed the disposition of the domineering Briton to such an extent that home rule for Ireland is nearly in sight, we leave for some more learned dietist to de termine.

The M. D.’s down East have invoked the aid of the law as a protection of their interests and, as they allege, for the protection of the health of the people as well. Two bills have been introduced in the New York Legislature looking to the restriction and regulation of the sale of patent medicines. One bill authorizes the State Board of Health to analyze chemically any compound offered for sale in the open market on receipt of a fee of 650, and to determine whether the use of such compound will likely prove detrimental to the public health, and also making it unlawful to sell or offer for sale any such mixture or compound not prescribed by a regular physician, uuless the same shall have received the approval of the State Board of Health after such examination as prescribed by law. The second bill makes it a misdemeanor to offer for sale an}’ proprietary medicine not preseribed by a regular physician. Such restrictions are the worst kind of class legislation and can not be productive of much good to the community. Some safeguards in this direction may be proper, but such iron-clad laws as these proposed statutes will only make matters worse.

Chicago News. Johannes Gelert, the sculptor, has just completed a model in clay of his new statue of Hans Christian Anderseh. It was unveiled yesterday in his studio at 333 Oak street and* a select company of friends gathered around

to view the new work. It is of heroic size and represents ttie famous old teller of fairy stories sitting reflectively on a stump of oak. One knee is slightly drawn up. Between the fingers of one hand there is e pencil, and an open book rests light ly on the knee. Just behind th« stump there is a swan, with neck, gracefully curved backward.

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.