Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 December 1893 — TOPICS OF THESE TIMES. [ARTICLE]

TOPICS OF THESE TIMES.

DERELICTS. Abandoned vessels or wrecks on the high seas are technically known to mariners as derelicts. Large numbers of these are afloat and are a constant and menacing danger to navigation. No less than 332 abandoned vessels are shown officially on charts and maps, and the probable course that they will drift from point to point has been also marked down with varying accuracy. At least 625 derelicts are known to exist of which no accurate information has been preserved or reported. The navigator, however skillful, has no protection from the danger of collision with the floating hulks that ever sail, unmanned and lonely wanderers on the mighty waste of waters. Doubtless many of the inexplicable disappearances of ships have been due to this cause. During the recent special session of Congress a joint resolution was passed providing for the reporting, marking and removal of these abandoned hulks from the North Atlantic Ocean. A more valuable service to mankind could hardly be imagined, and it would seem that all civilized governments would gladly co-operate in this effort to re'tnove so great a danger from the path of commerce. During the past year thirtyieight collisions with derelicts have been reported to the Commissioner of Navigation. How many other collisions there may have been none can tell. It is thought by experts that the scheme for governmental supervision of the derelicts is entirely practical, and not necessarily expensive.

COLUMBIAN WRECKAGE. The World’s Columbian Exposition expired-in a blaze of glory, and with the single exception of the tragic death of Mayor Hariison, the enterprise, so far as the public were permitted to know, passed into history unmarred by dishonorable deed or reprehensible action on the part of the management. All felt that their great success was a well merited reward for honest endeavor in behalf of the amusement loving public. One by one, however, circumstances have come to light that are quite the reverse of creditable to those responsible for them. Responding to seductive invitations extended on behalf of the lady managers, the Countess Salazar, of Naples, Italy; Mme. Magnusson, of Iceland, and Mme. Korany, of Syria, came to Chicago with exhibits, of woman's work from their respective countries. They had reason to expect to make a profit on the sales of their exhibits, but utterly failed to do so. They are ladies of culture and refinement, and now after hoping against hope, through all the time of of the Expositon, that fortune would surely at last favor them amid the general affluence that prevailed on every hand, they find themselves practically penniless in a strange land, neglected and even shunned by the persons through whose instrumentality they have been brought into their present unhappy condition. The very fact that these ladies are of distinguished lineage and of education, elegance and endowed with all the attributes of true ladies, seems to have operated to their disadvantage from the start. They were totally unaccustomed to the mad rush of American life, and as a natural consequence “got left” in the scramble for spoils, That such disoppointment is common all will admit, but nearly all will feel that the ladies should have been looked after by the managers, who had almost unlimited financial resources at command, at least to an extent that would have assured their safe return to their native shores in comfort if not with the financial reward that their self-sac-rificing efforts merited.

THE OTHER SIDE. It is the fashion of a majority of people to rail at men of great wealth as common enemies of the mass of mankind, and to bewail a social system that produces multi-millionaires and tramps and paupers in numbers so disproportionate. To people accustomed to this line of thought any statement calculated to controvert such ideas will seem preposterous and far-fetched. To their minds there is but one possible conclusion to be reached —and that is that the millionaire has acquired his wealth ; by wrongfully taking from others their just dues, either by fraudulent means inaugurated by his own craft and baneful enterprise, or by skillful adaptation of bis business life to modern conditions, gambling customs or governmental laws. Mr. Andrew Carnegie, at New York, recently, in a public address, discussed the matter from a different standpuint. Taking a broad view, he held that the millionaire is a benefit to his country, or .rather that he Is the

natural product of an enlightened and progressive people. India has but ope millionaire, the Imiian Prince, and there is no country where the masses of the people are in such a down-trodden condition. In R ussia there are no millionaires except those who have inherited royal estates, and the condition of the common people of Russia excites the sympathy of the world. England has great millionaires, and the working people of that country are far superior to those of any European country. In this country, where we have so many millionaires, the American working man is able to waste what would keep a German or French working man in comfort. Mr. Carnegie held that an obligation rests upon every millionaire to guard his surplus wealth as a sacred trust which is given him that he may use it to elevate and improve the condition of his fellow man. Philanthropists, should not pay much attention to the “submerged tenth” of the population who are degraded by intemperance and rendered worthless by vice. A millionaire who gives money to a beggar who doefe not work uses his money in a way to increase crime and pauperism, and thus becomes an injurious member of society, and in no other ■way can he be justly regarded as a common enemy of mankind.

THE COLUMBIAN MUSEUM. Few people, unless of a poetic and imaginative turn of mind, would care to wander through Jackson Park with the thermometer at zero and the wind howling through the peristyle until the very ears of the Golden Statue of the Republic tingle —nevertheless the scene would not be without a charm and attractiveness peculiarly its own. The work of dismantling the exhibits is said to be progressing very slowly. A great many of the exhibits are being transferred to the Columbian Museum. Italy and Spain have both donated their entire exhibit in the Mines Building. The Korean forestry exhibit is another late contribution to the same enterprise. Additional subscriptions of Fair stock are daily received by the managers. Auction sales of furniture and odds and ends are almost daily held. The Presbyterian Sunday School exhibit has been removed from the grounds. This exhibit never saw the light during the Fair. When the Directory decided to open the gates on Sunday, those having this exhibit in charge refused to open it for inspection and Director General Davis declined tQ allowed them to remove it, so it remained in the original packing boxes during the entire time. Lady Aberdeen’s Irish village on the Midway Plaisance is being demolished as fast as the weather will permit. Patriotic Irishmen design making up the available timbers into souvenir canes, and the probability is that a good many “souvenir canes from Lady Aberdeen’s Irish village on the Midway Plaisance" will be manufactured from timber that was never near that noted thoroughfare and placed upon the market to beguile the dollars from a credulous public.

THE FINANCIAL OUTLOOK. From the weekly market letter of Clapp & Co., bankers, of New York, we gather that a spirit of hopeful confidence is prevalent in all lines of business in the great metropolis. The American’s traditional belief in his country’s future has again thrust aside the depression of the past summer, and sunlight is breaking from the threatening clouds that have so long darkened the financial sky. There is an increased disposition to invest in good securities, and this fact alone is considered a reliable sign of an improving market. Exports, as is always the case at this season, have fallen off since Nov. 1. Southern exports have also fallen off. The receipts of larger hogs have been more liberal than was anticipated. There has been packed at New York, up to Nov. 25, a total of 730,000 hogs, against 810,000 at the same date last season. The receipts of wheat from July 1 to Nov. 25 were 34,000,000 bushels of winter wheat and 66,000,000 bushels of spring wheat, against 62,000,000 bushels of winter wheat and 98,000,000 bushels of spring wheat for the year previous. England’s flour market is depressed by burdensome supplies from the United States, added to unprecedented shipments from Russia and India. The esti* mated output of corn in sixteen leading corn States is placed at 142,883,000 bushels. On this basis it is held that prices have reached the lowest possible point and are more likely to advance than decline. An advance is looked for in oats, the visible supply the world over being comparatively small. California is shipping barley to Chia* •nd Europe on a large scale.