Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1900 — CURRENT COMMENT [ARTICLE]

CURRENT COMMENT

More young men are/studying medicine than are studying raw and theology combined. More young men are studying theology and medicine in Illinois than in any other State, although New York leads in the number of law students. The census will show only the medical, law and other students in the professional schools. There is no record of the thousands who for economy or other reasons are reading law and medicine in the offices of active practitioners. There are 23,778 young men in the medical colleges of the United States; less than half as many—ll,B74—in the law schools, and only about one-third as many—B,26l—-in the theological seminaries. The four States having the largest number of professional students are Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania and Missouri, as follows: The- Mcdiology. Daw. clue. Total, N'ew Y'ork 97*5 -.228 2,440 Illinois 1,177 1,279 2.009 5,45.) Pennsylvania . 742 587 2,605 3,834 Missouri 567 371 2,212 3,150 A movement has been started by citizens of Minnesota to make a national park at the sources of the Mississippi river. As the primeval forests in the borders of the United States are rapidly decreasing, owing to the operations of lumbermen, it is felt that it will not be long before the people will have no means of knowing how old America looked in its original state. The regions around the headwaters of the Mississippi now constitute about all of the original dense woodlands left. The place has aaother attraction in being the home of the Indians whom Longfellow rendered celebrated In his poem, “Hiawatha.” These red men are living there in about the same way they did centuries ago, and while they are harmless, their wild ways are an interesting relic of the past, William Charles Harris, a soldier of Great Britain, and an American citizen, died at his home in Nevada, Story County, lowa, n few days ago in his seventieth year. He was born at Bristol, Eng., Nov. 2, 1830, ran away to sea at 14, was two years a sailor, ten years a soldier, five years an American plainsman and pioneer, and thirty-eight years a peaceful lowa farmer. His most famous exploit was riding in the immortal charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, and although he passed unscathed from that trying ordleal, he was fourteen times wounded in battle, and carried In his head a silver quarter, which had replaced bit* of skull broken by a bayonet.

Mr. and Mrs. Paul Reicke of California are iu charge of a signal station on the brow’ of a lofty peak in the Sierra Nevada mountains, where they keep a sharp lookout, field glass in hand, for fires which might break out in the snowsheds that skirt the railroad through the rocky wilds. If a small flame should pass unnoticed for an hour the whole chain of sheds might be consumed and the tracks endangered. The woman watches by day and her husband by night. The first authentic discovery of traces of a prehistoric race in Alaska was made recently by prospectors in the foothills of Mount St. Elias. A copper mine was unearthed which had been worked ages ago. Kettles, tools, spear-heads and otter articles, made in a crude manner from copper, ware found. During the siege of Pekin-1 be members of tbs diplomatic corps ami tho missionHIU'R who were Shut up !r the British