Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1877 — FACTS AND FIGURES. [ARTICLE]

FACTS AND FIGURES.

It is estimated that 2,000,000 buffalo hides are awaiting shipment from the trading posts west of Dallas, Texas. They are proud in San Francisco of their Hack Company, with a great stable of 100 teams and a capital of $250,000. Mu. Dodge, the statistician of the Agricultural Department, states that during the past year 4,000,000 hogs, of all ages, have died of cholera, being a money Toss of $20,000,000 to the farmers. One-fifth of toe loss was in Illinois, and next in order are Missouri, lowa and Indiana, Florida,*Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. They have a wonder in full blast near Yankton, Dakota. It is a large rock that, burns constantly, looking like an immense coal of fire in the night, and sending up columns of dense black smoke by day. It burns constantly and of itself. The rock looks as if it might contain coal, but of very poor quality. The fire reduces the rock to a very bright red cinder, which snaps like artillery, and the cause is as yet unknown to the people of the neighborhood. Taxation in Great Britain is $875,000,000 a year for National purposes, and $161,5(g),000 for local purposes—total, $588,500,000. This is at the rate of fifteen or sixteen dollars per capita. The National debt is $3,600,000,000. The National debt of Great Britain is about $900,000,000 less than that of France, and the annual burden of interest it imposes is less than half what toe French debt imposes. Our National debt, less cash in the Treasury, was $2,068,377,842 on the Ist of June, of which about $1,700,000,000 was interest bearing. Our local debts, including $367,146,023 of State debts, were estimated at $1,007,907,890 in 1875. These debts aggregated $545,427,650 in 1870, according to toe United States census. The Cost of Wars. —The Economist places the loss in men during the various wars from 1852 to 1877 at 1,948,000, of which 750,000 died during that of the Crimea; 45,000 in that of Italy, in 1859; Schleswig-Holstein, 3,000; United States civil war, 800,000; war of Prussia against Austria and Italy in 1966, 45,000; Mexican, Cochin China, Morocco ana Paraguay expeditions, 65,000; Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71, 215,000, of whom 150,000 were French and 60,000 Germans; and loss by massacres of Christians in Bulgaria and Armenia, during 1876-77,25,000. The exDenseof the Crimean war is placed at $1,700,000,000; Italy, $300,000,000; United States—Northern section, $4,700,000,000, Southern Section, $2,800,000,000; Schleswig-Holstein, $35,000,000; Prussia, Austria and Italy in 1866, $330,000,000; Mexico, Cochin China, Morocco and Paraguay, $200,000,000; Franco-Prussian war, $2,500,000,000; Total, $12,065,000,000.