Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1893 — TOPICS OF THESE TIMES. [ARTICLE]

TOPICS OF THESE TIMES.

THE CORINTHIAN CANAL. The opening of the Corinth canal, irr Greece, on the 17th ult., marked the culmination of one of the most remarkable engineering enterprises ever carried to eompletion by man. The canal was projected six centuries before the Christian era. and its construction was actually begun-by the Roman Emperor Nero in the first century, who, soon desisted, and more than 1,800 years passed away before work was again resumed, by the Hungarian revolutionist, Gen. Turr, under a concession from the government of Greece. The canal follows the old lines established by Nero’s engineers across the Isthmus of Corinth and is but 6,200 meters in length. It has been entirely constructed in the past ten years, at a cost of $14,000,000, and steamers can pass through it in less than an hour. It will doubtless be .of great advantage to Athens, and i will shorten the time from Western i Europe to Constantinople and the Orient by nearly a day. The opening of the canal was celebrated with great festivities in which King Georgios I. of Greece and a multitude of distinguished men took part. It is one of tho most interesting public works in the world, and is remarkable both on account of its commercial importance and historic associations.

EGYPTIAN ENTERPRISE. The land of the Pharaohs, where ancient civilization and arts had reached a high state of perfection long before the dawn ottheChristian era, relics of which are still in existence that astonish the modern world and baffle the science of scholar and engineer, after a lapse of many centuries of ruin and degradation, is apparently pwaking to the importance of resuming its relations with j the balance bf world, mid although it can never hope to resume its ancient place as the most advanced among nations, it can well hope to adopt, and profit by, the progress of modern thought in its many triumphs over material things. The Egyptian government, which is of the most paternal character, practically owning and cultivating the soil, is taking steps for the storage of water for supplying the people during the low stage of the Nile, so that summer rice may be grown, and is vigorously pushing the reclaiming of desert land in order to extend the cultivation of sugar cane, which is a highly profitable crop. In pursuance of this policy Egyptian engineers have pushed their investigations to the headwaters of the great river in [the great equatorial lakes. It is proposed to build dams at the outlets of the Albert and Victoria Nyanzas and connect them by telegraph with the lower Nile, so that the supply may be regulated with some degree of accuracy. The great annual floods pour down a volume of water that is wasted, even if it does -not do untold damage. The project of regulating this flood by means of natural reservoirs held in check by dams at the headwaters is believed to be entirely practical, and if carried out will be another great victory l?y man over the forces of nature. The same means would prevent the great and ruinous floods on the Hong Ho in (JJhina, that so frequently destroy untold thousands of human beings, and the terribly destructive visitations that with almost yearly regularity devastate the lower Mississippi region in our own country.

TIME THE HEALER. “Time at last sets all things even” is a very old adage, and a very untrue and misleading one. Unfortunately time does not set all things even, and a very large percentage of the wrongs endured by the human race at the hands of their fellow men are never righted, on this earth, at least. The usual application of the lidage is that he who treasures up a wrong and waits will in due time be avenged by the course of events over which he practically has no con trol. The hope for revenge is a very human desire, and in many cases a very laudable one, but unhappily it cannot be said to be a very satisfactory solution for the wrongs or remedy for the misfortunes that mark the pathway of life. Time indeed brings many changes, and the onward sweeping years reveal a kaleidoscopic change in the conditions of all. Those who in their youth gloried in the sunshine of prosperity, in middle life and old age are often doomed to hardships and poverty and disease, while the child of their pauper tenant, through long years of honest toil and well directed eftort, has come to a position of affluence atad power that is gall and wormwood to the old-time haughty neighbor. Such contrasts and changes are common enough, indeed, in this

free'land of ours, but are by. no' means the rule. But the-kaleido-scope also turns in a larger field, afid tne changes that result are startling and often sad. How the years roll back to the older class of people as they read of the meeting of the widows of Gen. Grant and Jefferson Davis at Cranston-on-the-Hudson, lastjweeh. In itself an event of no importance, yet potent for a transformation scene such as no magician ever dreamed of. Time the healer has made it possible and even proper for these relicts of departed chieftains to meet on a footing of mutual regard and esteem. The bitterness of the past has disappeared, and these lingering representatives of the warring elements that drenched the land in blood scarce three decades ago can well exchange civilities and weep their retrospective tears together. A NEW “PLAN.” James Buchanan, of Indiana, Gen. Wca ver r otvarious localities, Edward Bellamy, of down East, and many other visionary philosophers, have from time to time evolved and developed sundry and divers schemes to insure to every man, woman and child, .without regard to age, color, sex or previous condition of servitude a free and independent income untrammeled by the laws of supply and demand, the state of foreign trade, or the depressing influences of Wall street gold bugs or western Napoleonic financiers. In later days “Peffe.ri.sni” has had its sway, and Kansas has been a hotbed for the development of financial dreamers and impracticable reformers. The very latest phase of this tendency of mod em thought is the “plan” of Cyrus Corning, of Topeka. He proposes, to increase the circulating medium and ignore the Constitution and Federal Government at one fell swoop. Money will abound in lavish quantities. The People’s party in the meantime will die, though that, is not a necessary tenet of the scheme, but rather a result of its beneficent workings, the transcendent condition of mankind when they shall come under the workings of the “plan” making all such organizations superfluous and unnecessary. The. silver question will also be silenced forever. Interest will be reduced to the actual cost of making loans. The element of capital does not enter into the “plan.” Mr. Corning has worked his plan at. Bennington, Kan., to his own satisfaction by the aid of a Mr. Robbins, who furnised the capital that is to be the death of all capital. Mr. Robbins was a country merchant. His store was transformed into a labor exchange. Exchange checks in the denominations of United States money were issued, money, according to Mr. Corning's ideas, having no value except as a medium of exchange. Anything which the people will accept as money is money. The exchange had everything in stock that farmers want, and would buy everything that farmers had to sell, paying out and receiving the exchange checks as so much cash. Government money received for farm products sold „ abroad was turned into goods. Exchange checks were used as money in all private trades between farmers. The plan is for managers of exchanges to give bond for the redemption of all checks issued by them. The Bennington Exchange has been in operation for eight months, and is declared to be an unqualified success. A similar exchange has just been started at Topeka and arrangements are being made to start others in various localities.

A MUNCHAUSEN WANTED. A startling and blood-curdling horror may be looked for any day in the neighborhood of Lincoln Park, Chicago. It has been a surprise that some enterprising agent of the Associated Press has not before this given to the world an account of it —in advance. Such oversights are almost culpable in purveyors of public intelligence. The material for the coming tragedy is furnished by the wild beasts in the cages of the famous pleasure ground. They occasionally break loose and wander at will along the aristocratic thoroughfares of the North Side. ' The elephant went on a jamboree recently. The sea lion got out of his tub and sailed into the lake. A man was bitten by the wolves accidentally released. A bear roamed into the surrounding wards. All the conditions are favorable for a first-class casualty. A Winchester rifle might come very handy for World’s Fair visitors. Miss Braddon has realized Sir Walter Scott’s ambition, to make £IOO,OOO by fiction. She has fiftythree novels standing to her credit and is still able to supply & new' one when it is demanded. Time was when Miss Braddon said that if she eould’make sls a week aba would be happy.