Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 August 1893 — TOPICS OF THESE TIMES. [ARTICLE]

TOPICS OF THESE TIMES.

WORLDS COLUMBIAN EXPO- • . SITTON. ” Miracles have been wrought. Triumphs have been won. Marvellous things have been accomplished. Visions of the night and day dreams bright have taken solid form and assumed a tangible substance. Forth from the matrices of human thought complete and perfect have been cast shapes of beauty that are near divine. Palaces of cloud land and vistas of enchantment charm the eye and enthrall the soul. The bewildering beauty, fhe7rnagnificent grandeur. the vast extent, the sense of yet other unreVealed splendors that may lay beyond the soaring dome and swelling arch that yet obscure the view of further glories on the gulden the thoughtful beholder as perhaps no earthly view and not until he shall st and before that Great White Throne is he likely to again look upon so noble a perspective, so exalted an outlook. Dull, indeed, is he who can stand in the Peristylegazing westward toward a setting sun in silence upon that aggregation of temples and palaces and domes, with its shining perspective of glistening w’aves and golden statues and imposing monuments, and glittering pinacles and waving flags and streaming banners —and remain unawed, unmoved and uninspired with nobler thoughts and brighter hopes and thrill of great desires. Saddened he may be by the thought that all that beauty is but a fleeting show, as evanescent as the clouds from which the scene might well have dropped —but the impression on a sensitive mind is lasting, ennobling and refining to the last degree. “Life is short and time is fleeting.” Soon, too soon will this opportunity of a life time have joined the great procession of the things that were. Go now. Go soon, if but for a day, while yet you may.

LEGAL TECHNICALITIES.

Industrious and honest people who work year in and year out for 11.50 a day 0r.... eX£a_leSS,.pay their way and still retain an interest in life, though “Jordan may be a hard road to travel,” will find it difficult to express their feelings of detestation and contempt for such pitiable specimens of the genus dude as have lately developed .in New York, but can hardly lack for language to condemn a Judge that would decide that these effeminate creatures were a sort of privileged class, endowed by reason of their descent from wealthy ancestors with certain prerogatives not accorded to the common herd. One case in point is that of young Lloyd Aspinwall, who can not make both ends meet and obtain what he considers the “necessities of life” on an assured income of $60,000 per year, even having been driven to the extremity of soiled lined and ragged underwear. As a last resort he committed forgery to obtain more funds, and defends himself against creditors, who sought to garnishee lis income, on the ground that the Supreme Court of New York has held in a similar case, brought be:ore that tribunal, in which one Osoorne, whose income of $35,000 per annum had been garnisheed by credtors, that the amount is necessary to maintain him in his station in ife. If such incomes are to be held sacred from the clutches of the law in order to maintain the dissipated egatees in all manner of riotous living, then honestv and industry aave no proper place in this country ind anarchy has indeed a cause and ?ood excuse for organized existence.

UNDEVELOPED GOLD MINES. Western miners, like all producers, are amenable to .the universal law of supply and demand, although they have been very reluctant to obey its mandates.and have persisted the overproduction of silver in the face of a long continued, steady and ruinous decline, in the markets of the world, in the price of their commodity. But a new era seems to have set in throughout the Rocky Mountain region. Miners in many places are turning their attention to the development of gold and copper properties with gratifying results. The Helena, Mont., Independent estimates that at least $1,000,000 more gold will be produced in that State this year than last. Fresh and valuable gold and copper discoveries are being constantly made, and longneglected properties, allowed to remain undeveloped because the production of silver seemed to be more profitable, are now given the attention that should have been bestowed in the past. The Independent sees in the financial depression ayd the ruinous price of silver a divide influence at work to punish the people of Montana properties

this may be, if the outcome of the present financial depression and silver agitation shall result in the dis-; covery and development of unlimited gold mines, th ere wil 1 be fe w indeed who will not be able to see that it has been a blessing in disguise. Nor is the hope of such a culmination unreasonable or chimerical. Gold in large quantities has been known, for many years, to exist in the almost inaccessible fastnesses of the mountains, but modern progress has brought these reseviors of wealth within man’s reach, and quartz and ore that a few years ago were value--1 css and a positive obstruction to working silver mines, have become, by reason of recent improvements in machinery and methods of working, a source of a gold- supply of the greatest value. It is now possible to mine gold in worked out silver mines at a fine profit, and this new field of enterprise is only limited by the possible development in the efficiency of machinery and the energy of miners and prospectors. Now that dire necessity compels, great things may be with reason hoped for in the near future in this direction, and we can all join in the hope that the promised and assured relief may not be too long delayed. ILL-BRED NOBILITY. The descendants of Christopher Columbus in our day appear to be imbued with a very evident desire to profit in a financial way by the interest which has been awakened among the American people in their ancestral line. While in this country the dignified Duke of Veragua permitted it to. be understood that the fortunes of his family were greatly reduced through disastrous speculation, and closely following his departure for home a movement toward raising a fund for his “benefit was started, with every prospect of success, among a certain class of capitalists and men of wealth. Recently the leaders of the movement have cabled the Duke asking if such a fund would be accepted in case it was tendered. The reply was promptly received that it would be very agreeable indeed. Now comes the Marquis de Barboles, a younger brother of the Duke of Veragua, and a member of the party that but recently were the Nation’s guests, and complains to a correspondent that the subscription should not have been entirely for the Duke's benefit, as he, himself, was also a descendant of Columbus, had spent a large sum of money during his recent visit to the United States, and was, in fact, poorer than the Duke of Veragua. The Marquis thinks he should have a share of the “swag. ” It appears to be a bad case of family jealousy on the part of the. Marquis, and a rather matter-of-fact indifference to the finer proprieties, as Americans are accustomed to look at such things, on the part of the part of the Duke of Veragua. While the Duke can hardly be blamed for accepting a gift of such munificence as is contemplated, the natural conclusion will be that he values money more than the honor of His position and the glory of his ancestral line. American nabobs can certainly find a better use for their superfluous w’calth than to give it to the glittering representatives of European nobility. With the want and misery that stares them in the face on every hand, they might well heed the proverb that “charity begins at home.”