Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 October 1893 — THINGS WORTH KNOWING. [ARTICLE]

THINGS WORTH KNOWING.

Goodland, Ind., has a “street of nations” which it proudly proclaims is a “Midway Plaizance” of greater antiquity than the thoroughfare so famed and infamous, and the further claim is made that for its size it can give the Chicago fake points on dissipation and low-down debauchery. -—e 4. - It will boa surprise to many readers to be told that the survivors of the famous Mpuntain Meadow .Massacre, that took place away back in theso’s, have recently held a reunion. The suit against the Mormon church for $216,000 is still being yr wecuted, and the plaintiffs still hope fora verdict in their favor.

Ferdinand Ward, the amateur financier who has been in retirement for a number of years, as a result of the schemes which wrecked the firm of Grant & Ward and left General Grant penniless, having been released, announces that he is about to publish a book in which he will tell all he knows about the matters leading to the collapse and his own imprisonment. The A. P. A. is spreading rapidly. There is no doubt about it. Down in Texas they have organized an “Alligator’s Protective Association.” The ’gator farms are regarded as a good investment but the business is regarded as an “infant industry” as yet. Protection of the young saurians is deemed desirable. Hence this last version of the latest political fad —the “A. P. A.” It is safe to say that there is' no politics in this organization.

The Midway Plaizance, previous to the inauguration of the movement that resulted in the selection of Jackson Park as the site for the World’s Columbian Exposition, was an unimproved driveway in the vast projected park system of Chicago. The name has now become a term for all that is cosmopolitan, amusing and bizarre, either in the business, political or theatrical world. The San Francisco Mid-Winter Fair will have a weak imitation of this noted thoroughfare.

The . new Governor-General of Canada wears a full beard. This much may be stated with certainty. He is Lord Aberdeen and is also known to be a Presbyterian, a philanthropist, a Gladstonian, and a Scotchman. His grandfather was Prime Minister of England forty years ago. The present Governor General has held many positions of honor, having been Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and is said to be a very able man, and far superior in every way to the average English nobleman.

The accounts given in the Chicago papers of the events of “Chicago Day” at Jackson Park arouse mingled feelings of regret and consolation. Regret in the reader who was so unfortunate as not to be there; consolation in the mind of the reader who was so lucky as to stay at home. Wonderful as the spectacle of 750,000 people in one gathering must have bfeen, sensible people will have cause to congratulate themselves that they escaped the discomforts, disadvantages and dangers inseparable from so overwhelming a multitude. Such a concourse of people is a phenomenon that would probably be impossible in any other city or place on the globe. Great is Chicago, and her star still mounts toward the zenith in undimmed splendor and undiminished glory.

It is a matter of comparatively small importance and little interest to inland residents as to who wins in the annual Yacht ••aces that are indulged in by the swells and snobs of our eastern seaboard and the heirs to titles and great estates from abroad. Nevertheless the average American will feel gratified nt the outcome of the last contest in which American enterprise and energy got away with the slow-going representatives of John Bull on the blue and rolling deep. “We” are generally on top in such contests, and “our” innate pluck and unswerving determination tn triumph has had but another opportunity to display itself in the contests between the Vigilant and Valkyrie. In June “our” firet men took all the prizes at the London tournament, and " now “our” sailors wont return the cup they long have held, but impolitely do their best at home as well as abroad. Im the midst of the prevailing epidemics of train robbery, prize fighting, suicide and smallpox that have claimed so large a share of public in the West, comes a thrilling tale of a “rakish, blaqk,

plraUcal sloop” that has been “hovering” off Long Island’s shores from which predatory excursions have been made upon portable property on ’and. People with vivid imaginations begin to talk about a “carnival of crime” and “red handed robbers," and dream of stone walls, and portcullises, and battlements, and dark, unwholesome dungeons wherin to keep the “monsters of mysterious deeds” as soon as they shall be caught. But the country is fast regaining its normal condition. There has not been a train robbery for a week, the smallpox at Muncie -is under control, the prize ring at Roby is effectually shattered, and suicides even are of less frequent

The end draws near. Soon the opportunity will be gone. The World’s Columbian Exposition will officially cease to exist October 31. It has been a wonderful recreation for the people and they have availed themselves of the privilege in a large hearted manner. Nevertheless, like all pleasures of a superior character, it has been an expensive experience, and the average Western business man will view with composure the- withdrawal of an attraction that has in many cases played havoc with his trade, and in far too many cases prevented the collection of long standing claims that the pressure of the times made doubly important to him. No person who could honestly go will regret having made the expenditure, but the World’s Fair expenses have made a material and perceptible drain on the financial resources of many a little community that could illy endure the strain.

They have “politics” in Old England, and the public speakers “over there” are evidently up in the amenities of a campaign to quite as great a degree of proficiency as the most energetic “hustlers” that aspire to distinction on our American platforms. Lord Randolph Churchill in a recent speech severely criticised Mr. Gladstone, calling him a “common quack,” and denounced the home rule bill as “hair-brained and insane;'” Growing heated, he declared that if the House of Lords had not rejected the home rule bill, he would ‘ ‘himself have voted for the abolition of that body.” Again, across the channel, Mr. John Redmond. in a speech at Dublin, declared^'‘that the independent Nationalists who consented to submit to the rejection of the home rule bill by the House of Lords were either fools or slaves.” From •these specimen quotations it will be seen that “politics” abroad is quite as practical as at home, and our ward heelers and school house hustlers would feel quite at ease if by some chance they should find themselves in the slums of London or the bogs of the Emerald Isle.

There are only two lawyers in Iceland. In the rock at Gibraltar there are seventy miles of tunnels. England imports about $5,000,000 worth of silk per month. Cider oil is a popular drink in the Pennsylvania backwoods. A Mexican says he owns a nine-hundred-and- seventy - two-carat diamond. The State of Georgia will spend $1,063,651.81 for the public schools this year, more than ever before in its history. It is interesting and somewhat disquieting to note how much more identification it takes to cash a check than it does to get lynched. The little island of Malta has a language of its own derived from the Carthagenian and Arabic tongues. The nobility of the island speak Italian. The Arctic whale never migrates to the southward, as most species of whales do, because of its inability to live in the heated waters of the southern seas/ In Peru there are 18,000 Europeans, 50,000 Chinese and 350,000 uncivilized Indians or aborigines. The total population of the country is two and a half millions. The late Justice Blatchford had a great fancy for almanace and calendars, of which he collected a very large number during the time he was a member of the Supreme Court bench. In England 150,000 velocipedes are turned out annually. In France, where they used to laugh at the wheelmen, there are now 200,000 proprietary wheelmen, and perhaps as many more who hire wheels. The first horse cars in New York were run along the Bowcry in 1833. Now there are nineteen street railroads in that city, using 2,000 cars and 20,000 horses and currying 225,000,000 passengers yearly. France, Belgium, Greece, Italy and Switzerland constitute the.Lat.in Union. The coins are alike tn weight and fineness, differing only in name. The same system has been adopted bv Spain. Servia, Bulgaria, Russia and Rovmania.