Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 November 1893 — Quaker City Maxims and Jokelets [ARTICLE]

Quaker City Maxims and Jokelets

Fifty-two “favorite sons" of the great Keystone State are members of the present Congress. Six of them are United States Senators. Two Senators and twenty-eight Representatives make up the delegation of Pennsylvania. The others are serving constituencies in twelve States and one Territory. Thi gold fields in the British colonies of South Africa are booming. The reports from the new Eldorado are marvelous. The wealth of the country in diamonds, gold, copper and coal is seemingly inexhaustible. Future developments it is believed will far exceed the products of the past, which have been fabulous. A fortune is said to await the man who will invent a cheap and harmless coloring matter that will give a pink tint to butter. A New York firm now sends butter to a faroff island of the sea, but is compelled to first color it pink, as the natives refuse to buy any other color. The “dyestuff” now used is a French preparation, and is very expensive. A cheap substitute is badly needed in order that the tratfic may be extended and the profits increased. The roof of the new National Library at Washington is to be capped with a dome that will rival the great white dome of the capitol. Unlike that famous structure, however, this dome is to b&gilded. More gold will be used on this dome than on any gilded dome in the world. There are* some 10,000 square feet to be covered. The dome is now covered with a shroud of canvas under which the workmen are carrying on the tedious task of applying the gold leaf. Six weeks of good weather will be needed to complete the work. The gold leaf is being made from pure gold by a Baltimore gold beater especially for this contract. The movement to raise a fund for the Duke of Veragua is said to have been a failure. There does not seem to have been any great and irrepressible desire on the part of the great body of the American people to give away their honest or dishonest dollars to a man who had squandered his ancestral estate in an attempt to popularize the Spanish national pas time of bull-baiting at the French capital. The “Dook" is doubtless a very nice man, but it is highly improbable that he will ever have to saw wood for a living. With our starving thousands of unemployed workingmen, it would seem that the surplus wealth of our great millionaires might be better employed than in helping to swell a gift fund to a titled aristocrat who owes his finan cial emharassments to his own folly and barbarian tastes, and the information that the snobbish attempt to bestow such wealth in that way has failed will be received with gratification by the majority of people. The frantic efforts of tradesmen of all departments of business, as a rule, are considered essential to success, the intense competition of the day having produced a feverish haste and nervous tension which are denominated “business enterprise.” Occasionally, however, we hear of a merchant of the old school who still survives and scorns the aid of modern innovations to hold his trade or attract new traffic. He is generally an “old settler” who “was there first,” and often the the financial and social mogul of the village or town he thrives in. Such men are admirable characters in their way, and though “Young America" denounces them as “old fogy’’ and talks about “first-class funerals” before the town can catch up with the procession, the “old man” moves on in the even tenor of his way, holding his old friends and as a rule gaining the respect of new comers. This peculiarity of character seldom survives in large cities, the rush and drive of the multitude seldom stopping to weigh the merits or pass upon the failings of business men. The New York Sun, however, has discovered such a man in that city. He deals in old furniture. His store is chaos. No pretensions to style or even cleanliness. Prefers to buy rather sell anything that pleases him. Hates to exhibit goods. His prices arc high. Yet he is locally famous, does a large business, and his trade extends to cities hundreds r of miles distant. “Long may he live and prosper.” Columbian concessionaries nearly wrecked the Exposition at its inception by shameless extortion, and much of the uncertainty as to the

final outcome of the enterprise that prevailed in the early summer was due to this cause. These outrages hdppily were to a great extent re- 2 moved, and the public finally became aware that it was within the possibilities to visit Jackson Park without being metaphorically if not actually “held up.” The Columbian Exposition concessionaries have received the magnificent revenue of $4,000,000 from concessions at the Fair —the Ferris wheel, intramural railroad, roller chairs, restaurants, various, villages, pop-corn, soda water, etc. The people having privileges paid from 20 to 50 per cent of their profits into the general fund. Doubtless the management were swindled on the round up to some extent the same as the general public, but reasonable people who visited the Fair during the summer and fall must concede that the prices charged for necessaries were low considering the time and place. Visitors to Chicago from almost any part of Indiana, if they have com fined their expenditures to actual necessities, have made an investment and acquired information and inspiration that would be cheap at ten times the money. This expenditure has not been an extravagance, in the case of the great majority, but rather a solid acquisition that will yield a rich return that should only cease with life itself. Last winter an oyster that had in some unknown manner lost its life in a bowl of church festival oyster soup precipitated a miniature riot in a Hoosier rural community, and the victim (the rioter,, that is.) was landed in jail before he recovered from his “surprise” at the unusual spectacle that temporarily unsettled his reason. Now comes the startling information from Missouri that trouble has been brewing for five years in a church in Callaway county as to the price that should be charged for a dish of ice cream at the festivals and socials given by the ladies of the congregation. The cream question became a leading issue, and involved the entire membership. A serious feud was the result. Three members Tesigned. ' Cne eider was removed. The case was carried to the Presbytery, appealed to the Synod, and further appealed to the General Assembly. In the latter body it was thrown out, 70 to 71. The question was referred back to the Missouri Presbytary, and a committee was appointed to visit the church. The price of ice cream in the meantime has become involved in a dense cloud of uncertainty. Church socials are declared off. The community is at daggers’ points. The outlook for oyster soup, with or without oysters, is bad for the coming winter. The exchequer of the Ladies’ Aid Society is empty. There is a prevailing air of gloom and discontent, and a firm con viction in the minds of saint and sinner that the world is out of joint, and that if we are not “on the stroke of the midnight hour,” and on the brink of everlasting destruction, we ought to be. With questions so vast .and momentous claiming the entire attention of our best citizens, and rending into non-cohesive fragments the very foundations of good morals, and of society itself, the outlook for tariff reform and the growth of an undivided public sentiment in the more trivial issues of free coinage or the repeal of the Sherman bill become more than ever an “ignus fatuous” that will still elude the grasp of political reformers or Papal emissaries, and will make the “star-eyed goddess bow her head in shame and wring her hands in despair. “And now abideth faith, hope and charity, these three. But the greatest of these is charity.”

Philadelphia North American. Never swear at all. Or, if you must swear, swear off. Football maxim: There’s many a kick 'twixt a fight and a l s ck. Many a man can pass a football and yet not be a good quarter-back. Many an unsuccessful dramatist has discovered that the world indeed is one of all work and no play. The people will not have forgotten by 1896 how unwise it is ever to change a certainty for an uncertainty. In the Senate an old maxim ha; been reversed. The Senate is taking care of J. he hours —and the minutes are taking care of themselves. When you see a man constantly in the company of a married woman it is better to ascertain his relationship before making comments. Gear , erally he turns out to be her husband. Philadelphia Times. Maybe the footballer wears his hair that way so his laurels won’t hurt his brow. The chrysanthemum comes late, and even then doesn’t seem to have had time to comb its hair. Penn, being a Quaker, wasn’t a fighter, but once “he landed it wasn’t long before Philadelphia was laid out. ’