Saturday Evening Mail, Volume 17, Number 29, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 8 January 1887 — Page 1

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Vol. 17.—No. 29.

... 5

THE_MAIL.

A PAPER FOR THE PEOPLE.

Notes and Comment.

Sidewalks* toll tales in snowy Weather. See that yours tells a good one.

A short message to Congress: Don't talk so much and work more.

The new year starts out with a list of appalling accidents from travel by land and sea.

There has been as much frost in the air as any one could reasonably ask for since Christmas.

Illinois has seven lady county school superintendents. The Illinois people believe in the "wimin folks."

Mr. Cannon is a candidate for Senator to succeed Gen. Logan. He will doubtless make a great deal of noise if elected.

Two more railway wrecks and the cars and their victims licked up by the flames. When is the new style of carstove to make its appearance?

Notv if "Jim Cunnings" can got paper and ink enough ho can keep tho St. Louis papers up on all that goes on in the Missouri prison for the next seven years.

When it comes to runing for the Legislature the farmers seem to get there. There are HOof them in tho Minnesota Legislature and 113 in that of Connecticut.

Senator .Jones denies with a great deal of indignation that he is crazy, av has been charged. Tho old gentleman should accept a verdict which lets him down so eaHV. __

R. A. Proctor says that in sixteen million years not a drop of water will ieuiaiu on tho surface of the earth. Hi is will bo a bad state of a flairs for our milkmen.

Mr. Randall proposes to reduce the surplus by abolishing the entire system of internal revenue taxo*. This will hardly suit tho 11,000 Democrats who have cosy ofllces in tho service.

N

Tho Illinois Legislature has a "superintendent of ventilation." If tho piesent body is anything like the last, before the session is ended he wlil.be acting s* superintendent of Irrigation—internal.

Mr Beochor's contribution this week is a thoughtful and interesting article about money-getting and the greed that

is sapping

our national life. No reader

of The Mail should let. its length deter him from reading it. The Chicago water supply is being reduced by the freezing of I^ake Michigan, and there is consternation at this stato or affairs. The sharpest pang arises from tho feoling that without water beer cannot bo manufactured.

The spectnelo of dlsgustod Con. Meagher trying to break away and come home, and our other representative refusing to go into his party caucus, keeps the big state of Torre Haute at tho fore at the Stato capital. Senator Schloss must do something out of the ordinary to help boom his town.

A Boston gentlemen of philosophic mind gives this advice "free gratis" to vouug people for tho coming year: Rise eurlv, dross sensiblo, live temperately, avoid worriment during tho day, seek innocent amusements, and save something. Everybody can do that, and everybody ought to do it.

In thooventof Washington territory be lug admitted as a State, it is said our Terre Haute boy, Charley Yoorhees will surely be elected to the United States Senate. Father and son in the senate chamber would be a remarkable spectacle, but the great State of Torre Haute is capable of doing remarkable things.

We have a great country. Last year we built over s.ooo miles of new railroad. Some of the greatest European nations have not all told as many miles of railway as the United States builds in a single year. And we do other things on a scale or corresponding magnificence. Tho Mayflower experiment was an undoubted success.

The temperance-prohibition question is in a fair way of being settled definitely and permanently. Representatives from twenty-seven American colleges held a meeting this week and organised an in-ter-collegiate prohibition association, whose decision In this matter will doubtless go thundering down through ages as the last thing needed to settle the question.

Says

a bright and hustling exchange:

"The man who has only a pint cup and has it full ought not to pass many sleepless nights over the knowledge that his neighbor's qnart cup is op to the brim. Iet him hustle himself and get his hands onto a bigger cup." Or, better still, perhaps, let him et as much en joyment out of his own small cup as his neighbor can get out of his larger one.

The other day the newspaper# had two accounts of men who were apparently miraculously stricken with physical

RRE HAUTE, IND.,

asphemous utter-

ent in answer

ances. One was a jWfane Georgia juryman who hoped that GRd would paralyze him and he was taken at his word. The other was the case of a soldier who hoped the Lord would strike him dumb and this apparently happened to him. The latter case was rather vague, however, and left room for a good deal of inference. It would seem that Brother Talmage is not going to lack material for his sermons this year,

Mr. Meagher isn't tilling such a prominent position before the public just now as he did a while ago, and it is said that dissatisfied with the treatment received at the hands of his Democratic friends", he was on the point of coming home before the Legislature convened. Mr. Meagher has the best end of the bargain. He can get along without the Democratic Legislators, but they can't very well get along without him.

The Chicago police are discussing the adoption of the fire engine as one of the features of their department, with the view of using it against mobs. They will use it on the Anarachistic crowd the next,time it makes an outbreak,'and tl* .illness of the weapon will receive fl**J§Bcal demonstration. If there is I

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thing more than another of which the Anarchist has a holy horror, it is water—whether applied oxternally or internally.

It is said the members of (500 building societies in Philadelphia own 50,000 homes. The same thing is true to a greater or less extent, in all the cities and smaller towns. For the most part these people have saved money out of moderate salaries by thrift and economy and have thus come to own their homes. Many a family in Terre llaute own their little homo by the help of these building and loan associations, and every young man before bethinks of a wife should invest in one.

A young woman worth fifty-thousand dollars belongs to the Salvation Army in Lafayette, and goes parading through the streets with that crowd of religious cranks, singing hallelujahs and playing tambourines. She is "beautiful, of course. All young -women who make such public displays aro beautiful, welleducated, etc. The friends of the Lafayette belle should adviso her to expend part of her fiftx j&ousand dollars in buying's^sacHldlroilfWSI^e, which doennot always accompany riches.

A Boston preacher ordered oho of his parishioners to leave his church because she had placed only ten cents on the plate as a Christmas offering. Evidently the parishioner had not mastered the art of dropping a ten cent piece upon the plate with the air of a millionaire, at the same time lfiaking it sound like a ten dollar gold piece. This is a fine art that is acquired only after long and patient practice, and the good deacons of every church, who make the collection could tell

Homo

interesting stories about it if

thoy only would.

Mr. Green Smith is just about ripe enough to pull. After monopolizing the attention of tho people and the courts for weeks past, receiving adverse decisions on every hand, his attempt to defeat the will of tho people, as indicated by his action on Thursday, should bring down on him the condemnation of all honest people. Mr. Smith is a very small pattern out of an inferior quality of goods, and his attempt to over-ride the law and tho people is an outrage that should not be countenanced. Whether there is or not, there should be some remedy for such conduct. _____

Anew board of police commissioners has been elected in Indianapolis, and the first step taken was to keep the newspapers from getting the news, simply because tho police system had been given the criticism it justly deserved. The commissioners will find they have undertaken a larger contract than enforcing the eleven o'clock law. The policeman, be he ever so efficient, who can keep an enterprising newspaper reporter from getting the news, need never be out of a situation. He can always get a place in a dime museum as curiosity.

Ben Butler has a scheme for preventing such railroad horrors as have occurred this week. His remedy is to hang a director for every casualty of the kind that occurs, and they wiil soon cease. Whether this woutd prove the proper remedy or not is uncertain, but there ought to be some severe punishment for the carelessness which permits of such horrors. Whether the fault be with railroad managers who overwork their men and render them unfit for service, or with the employee themselves, some example should be made of the individuals who have committed such wholesale murder. Such casualties as have occurred this week are almost enough to frighten the average person out a railroad journey for all time to conif.^

It is estimated that the new life Insurance written during the past year will mount well upto#W,000,000, a sum considerably in excess of that for 1885. But this does not include the vast amount of insurance taken by the assessment societies, of which there are many

that do a large business. If this could be ascertained and were added to the former figures the grand total would be indeed enormous. Life insurance in some form has justly come to be regarded as the chief safe-guard of the hdtae and family and there are few prominent men nowadays who do not invest in it. When a prominent man dies one of the first questions asked is the"amount of his life insurance. Capitalists are almost invariably large life insurers in one form or another. When soundly conducted the business is oft the utmost benefit to the community.

About the only form of "grave-yard'' insurance that the people of this section succeeded in escaping, was that by which children's lives were insured. We Jiad marriage insurance, old folks' insurance and all that but wrerefortunateenough to escape the other form, which has just been declared illegal by a New York court. It is just a little remarkable that we did escape as Terre Haute was a faithful field forthat kind of insurance, and thousands of dollars have been thrown away on risks in unreliable companies—thrown away by men who knew the companies were unsafe, but lived in hope that their insurance would pay out before the scheme collapsed. The graveyard insurance scheme has about run its length in this vicinitv, but the decision of the New York court brings these facts

fC.

to mind.

1

It is doubtful whether a better plan could be devised for reforming a man than that pursued by Judge Mack, who frequently, after sentencing a prisoner to a term in the penitontiary, releases him on good behavior. A man may not be totally bad, or even deserving of a term in prison for his first offense,which perhaps had features connected with it that commend him to clemency rather than a rigorous enforcement of the law. This week, for instance a prisoner was convicted of larceny and sentenced to three years' imprisonment, and then, it being his tirst offense, he was released on his good behavior, with the promise that if he drifted into bad company, frequented saloons or drank liquor, he would be arrested and his sentence be enforced. A man who cannot reform with such pportunities placed before him is not entitled to further clemency. With everything to giin by behaving himself,-any. failure..to avail -himself. of his advantages should bring upon him merited sontence. But the judge of a criminal court cannot better be engaged than in attempting to reform some of the most deserving of the criminals. If he saves one out of a score he confers a favor not alone upon the individual but. upon the community. One good man outsido the ponitentiary is worth more than any number on the inside. However, horse thieves for their own peace of mind, had better not attempt to work a scheme for reformation upon Judge Mack. He has a natural antipathy for horse thieves and they do not fare the very best at his hands.

That was an important step taken by the manager of the leading Chicago theatre this week in reducing his prices of admission all the way from thirty to fifty per cent. It is a step that has been demanded for a longtime by the amuse-ment-goers of the country, and it will not be long before the action will become general. Such a reduction does not mean greatly reduced profits for managers, who are doubtless in many instances entitled to greater rewards than they receive. It means, on the contrary, an increase in the size of audiences that jwill more than make up for the" decreased price. It cannot help but do this. Shrewd managers have made the experiment, and are profiting by the experience gained. A reduction in amusement prices does not mean that "ten cent" shows are to bo the style—although the favor with which this class of amusements has met, establishes that the fact that the people would patronize those managers who have the shrewdness to see the drift of public opinion and "cateh on." It may mean a reduction for some of the high-priced actors and actresses, who have been in the habit of demanding a small fortune for their services by the week, but it will develop deserving members o% the profession who have been o'ershadowed by some great name. The reduction in Chicago was made by J. M. Hill, and it is not likely that the man who made such successful stars as Margaret Mather and Den man Thompson would have made snch a step unless he knew it would increase his earnings. The theater—despite the rantings of a few bigots—has a good mission to perform and it will come nearer performing that mission when its preachings are placed within the reach of all classes.

fill

ART AND ANATOMY. Peoria Transcript.

The Chicago clergymen who witnessed the ballet disagree as to the moral effect of such performance. It would seem that one set of preachers were looking at the artistic movements of the dancers the others at the limbs. One was studying art tho other anatomy.

Hood's Sansaparllla has cured thousands of cases of rheumatism. This is abundant reason for belief that it will core yen. Try it.

TIE LEGISLATURE..

AIL hope of profitable legislation at the Statecipital must be abandoned. That partytpolitics may be promoted, the people s-^interests will be sacrificed. The two Bouses met last Thursday morning. The llbuse readily organized with the th% election of Warren G. Sayre, of Wabash,'As Speaker, and the other Republican nominees for the minor offices. The Senate organized before the new members jfere sworh in. The Democratic majofftv adopted a resolution recognizing ^Uenator Smith, the President pro tem.iidt the last Senate, as President of this innate, notwithstanding the vigorous protest of the Republicans at this revolutionary proceeding. This act will compel Col. Robertson, the Republican Lieutijuant Governor-elect, to seenre the chaifuext Monday by quo warranto, if at all* The Democratic caucus nominees were fleeted in the Senate by the full Dem% ratic vote of thirty-one, the Republicans declining to name any candidates.'^

The action of the senate is looked upon as a victory for Gray. If the Gray men can pl*oe Smith in succession to the governorship, Gray then could bo elected to tho linited States senate and leave a Democrat to succeed him as Governor.

The senate refused to go into joint session to hear the Governor's message, and that document in printed form was sent to each house.

In the house yesterday morning the republicans gave the democrats a dose of their own medicine, by adopting just "Us arbitrary and extraordinary rules as the senate did the day before. The effect in either house will be that the majority can summarily and quickly unseat any member of the minority, rightfully or wrongfully.

Altogether affaire at tho State capital are deplorable and disgraceful.

WOMEN'S WAYS.

The-ompress

of Austria wants to visit

this country, having always longed for a ride on the prairies. The late Mrs. Theresa Lamb, of Lawrencebu»g, Ind., left $250 for the care and support of a terrier dog.

An Oakland (Cal.) paper has been sued for libel by a widow for speaking of her decease^ husband as having "gone to a happier Jjome/^i ^t-ar^m^y^church festival in New ftave» uie other evening," Kirs. Nancy Gorman, who was 91 years old that day, sang a song of her childhood in a most agreeable and vivacious manner

Mrs. Miller, of Washington, is the apostle of a new dispensation in the way of woman's dress. Her creed is waists instead of corsets, layers of underclothing fitted smoothly to the body, and the drawers to match the gown, a sort of adaptation of Lady Habberton's "divided skirts," with slight differences. f~ "In a book-binding factory," says Harper's Weekly, "some eldetly women were busily folding printed sheets, making eight pages on one sheet. 'Have they been with you long?' asked a visitor of the superintendent. 'Twenty years,' was the reply. 'And doing nothing but folding sheets?' 'Nothing but that for twenty years.'''

Boston Home*"'journal: Feminine modesty is evidently at a discount in Providence. The judge who is trying the notorious divorce case which is apparently agitating all Rhode Island gave notice that much of the evidence would be of a character not fitted for the ears of ladies. Instead of absenting themselves the ladies have ever since flocked to the court room in great numbers, and it is said that in all the history of Providence there have never been so many feminine spectators at a trial as there have been during the present week. 1

StV Ji-I" LITTLE SERMONS,

Cheerful looks make every dish a feast. Envy is dumb in the presence of virtuous worth. Cv'"

Man is more honored by vTrtue than by the title of degree. An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie for an excuse is a lie guarded.

So live that your life shall ever give evidence that you are ruled by reason and in tho possession of a sober mind.

Be always more willing to suffer than to offer a wrong. The unkindness of others is no justification or palliation for your own.

Every life is the better for some adversity. Perpetual sunshine is weakening, and the heart of man hungers under the lassitude is produces.

A single duty neglected weakens the web of life, and is liable to disarrange the moral machinery so that its proper working is no longer a matter of certainty.

True modesty has such a sway over intemperate and licentious tongues, that they are unconsciously forced to recognize its merits by being silent in its presence.

A Chinaman who can get $1,000 together in this country and return home will rank as a big gun all the rest of his life and live on the fat of the land.

Never attempt to shovel without gloves.

SATURDAYiEVENING, JANUARY 8,1887. Sc\ entecnth ear.

handle a snow

[Written for The Mall.] A KANSAS MEDLEY.

A high rolling prairie and a country well drained, Soil in which the moisture is readily retained. A dozen jack-rabbits with very lengthy ears Lots of prairie dogs and a few prickly pears. County-seat contests, newspaper wars, Fussing over things for which nobody cares. Churches andSunday schools.to spread Gospel light Flourishing drug stores to make people tight. Sunflower blossoms and cotton-wood trees Now and then a dust cloud wafted by the breeze, Alkali waters and big sand hills Deep bored wells and high wind mlll.s. .Some sod-houses with very little room Enterprising cities with«a very big "booin." Money speculations and bargains in lands Coal seven dollars and a blizzard ou hand.

MePherson, Kas. F. M. MOOUK.

HINTS TO BARBERS.,,,:

Never wash your hands. It takes soap, and that you want for your customers. When you get a customer in the chair, lather up to the roots of his hair and seize him firmly by tho nose. He likes it, because he can breathe through his ears, and if the soap gets in his eyes it makes him shed tears for his dead and gone mother-in-iaw.

Don't forget to ask him if he wants a shampoo, and if he says he washes his own head, tell him sneeringly that you thought so. JjTj,*1* V*

If you have mfed up your leisure with peanuts and whisky, do not forgot to get in front of your customer as much as possible and blow in his face. If you have got him, professionally, by the noso, he can't tell but it may be gin and onions.

Whistle all tho timo you are giving him change, and make it ten cents short. The chances are he won't count, and if he does pitch it at him with a sardonio "Oh!"

THE LEU SHOW. J-

NOT MODESTY, BUT GOOD TASTE IS CU FENDED.

5

Mrs. Pratt, tho editress of tlie Logansport Sunday Critic, has this to say: Two rocent entertainments in Logansport, Evangeline and Over the Garden Wall, may be considered typical and representative specimens of the American stage at the present day. Tho great craze for spectacular Shows has invaded

every

jx»sibl®J«fQioi.ot,.aitamatio

cept whore the legitimate drama rtternly shuts the door in its face. The day may possibly come when a ballet will be introduced in Julius Cresar or Hamlet to catch the gallery gods and the baldheaded brigade. There was a time when tho Black Crook was a name whispered amid blushes. Women of character did not dream of attending it. Men went and deceived their wives about it. The Black Crook is no worse than any of the modern comic operas, Olivette, Mascotte, and a dozen others. The public has simply grown accustomed to the anatomical display and doesn't mind it. Circuses, with their riders clad in little more than air, have contributed their share toward the acclimating, as one may say, to this new and nude state of atmosphere. The Critic does not regard such entertainments with prudery and horror. Beautiful anatomy is glorious to behold and when faultless and shapely limbs are revealed, unaccompanied by silly and licentious gestures or significant leers at the audience, they are as artistic as statuary, and no man or woman of dignity will regard it an any other light. The trouble at present is in the overdoing of the matter. While the introduction of a graceful ballet, with its wondrous evolutions and gyrations, noiseless and undulating as though swayed by the wind, is an attractive feature of an opera, the continual display of legs of all conditions and sizes palls upon the taste. Not modesty but good taste is offended. Such was the case in Evangeline. The human leg in all its varieties, and its length, breadth, thinth, and thickness dazzled the eye from the uprising of the curtain unto tho going down of the same. Pink, blue, green and yellow legs long, short crooked and shapely ones and gross, beastly ones, limbs formed by nature as symmetrical as the flying Mercury himself might boast, and limbs where art contended with nature for the mastery, and won it —all, all were there and stayed there. It was a relief indeed, when one little maiden appeared Clad in a plain and modest Mother Hubbard scarcely revealing the tips of her slippers.

Over the Garden Wall, though not so oppressively leggish, introduced some of it in the "three little maidens whose mouths and legs were the two salient points in their make-up. Tho Critic is not a foe to legs. Their usefulness is recognizcd openly and honorably, and occasionally a transient glimpse of a pair of unusual'beauty on the stage is a great pleasure, but after the sad satiety the public has indulged in how really refreshing would be a pure and well-clad drama, such as Jatiauschek's Mother and Hon, or Barrett's Yorick Love.

Thaddeus Fowler of Seymour, Conn., who died recently, was a Yankee of the Yankees for invention. He invented machines for sticking pins in paper, for manufacturing iron pins, for sorting pins, for making pins, head and all, at a single stroke, for making needles, for pointing wire, for making horse-shoe nails, for sharpening horse-clipping machines, and for stamping metal. lie also invented a reaping and binding machine, and the "sewing bird" used on ladies' work tables. He died poor, iA./'-

New Orleans Picay une: There is room for everybody in this big world. Friction comes from the fact that too many want the front room.

PIROUETTE AND PASTOR.

HIGH KICKING AND HIGH MORALITY rv- IJTTI.E OCT O' JOINT, or

[Xt, Louis Critic*!

TJT1)DEN LUXURY. [Clara Belle.]

\V,"=

I)r. Cooper, editor of the St. Louis Evangelist, than whom there is no purer- ,, minded, lofiier-prineipled man living, i, says to the Evangelical Alliance:

I can't see how a young man can go 1 (the American opera with the ballet attachment with a young lady with whom he respects, and sit by her side through the performance, with its nude dancing, etc., with out being greatly embarrassed."

Bless your dear, old gentle woman* revcring'heart, doctor. The young lady, sitting beside the young man, has most likolv given him such a free show of her own charms of bust and arm that a few legs in tights seem to him all in the samo category. I have several views upon this nudo business, which I intend to do myself the exquisite pleasure of airing one of these cold Sundays, "after the opera is over." One of these views is that as long as a woman of society, a church member and a virtuous lady, too, will ait before a camera and have her physical beauty of torso reflected, so long will the young man bo able to sit through "Sylvia,' "Orpheus and Eurydieo," or "L'Inferno" itself, with no apparent. "great otnbarrassment." So long as tho* young man can hold his partner in the waltz, can look down from his masculine height upon her undraped loveliness, so long can he sit beside hor with great oquanimity at most any sort of refined, high society operatic naughtiness, and

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not bo one bit embarrassed. The Aliiance, in a mild, Christian way, admits that opera itself is "noble," "refining"/.} and "unobjectionable." But the greatest number of successful operas have their foundation in woman's trusting love and weakness and man's passion and weakness. "Faust" is but tho pitiful story of a German peasant girl, wooed won and deserted by a handsome fellow, bewizarded and bewitched. It is' a story such as the police columns give us very often, of crime following dishonor,and of death crowning all. Yet five thousand delighted people watched Ju'eh through her sweet, sad, ecstatic, mournful Gretchen, and 1 venture that the ugly thread of truth was lost in tho brilliant weave of art. And just so is

the oft'ect of the ballot.

:1

Return wn now to my young friend. As she stood before me, between tho dolling of one habit and the donning of on ha it an do in of a she was a dream of elegance. She was clad to the neck and to the shoo tops, olso I should not have seen her or iiavo. .j thought of exposing hor to my readers. The skirt that fell to the length of acom-

piete dress was a simple, sheet of India

art e*cfc ,• tnmmed twelve inches deep with

old lace of the most intricate and exquisite design, which she said her father's' mother had brought from Europo when' Now York was hardly moro than a villuge. Her corset was of pink satin, edged

with lace, and covered over witli embroidery in white silk, so dolicate that only a close inspection revealed its artistic workmanship. Above it, almost to -r her throat, was a vailing of lace, ending at the sides in little sleevelets of lace, each desked with a pink bow of silk. With childlike gratification she perceived my surprise at and admiration of theso beauties, and this led her to invito tno to examine her treasures in bureau drawers and closets. Lace, silk, satin, nainsook and delicate linen that felt utmost like gossamer in tho hand were substituted in all her garments for the cotton, woolen, flannel and muslin of nearly all the rest of our sisterhood of women. I arn not an inexpensive personage, as women go who work for what they wear, but I declare it sooms to mo as though what this little heiress wears in hiding under the drosses she is seen in costs ner as much for a singlo outfit as my whole wardrobe costs in a year.

THE JE WlSlfHEA VEN. Rabbi Sonneschean of St. Louis, says this of a hereafter: "We may have sinned, we may have done the most outrageous act, condemnod by even the lowest, still there is a heaven and a haven everywhere, anywhere, somewhere for everybody. There is no outcast who is banished forever from the sight of God. Hell is simply a corner of heaven. I speak in human language, but I am happy in the belief that hell is nothing else but some little gloomy corner of heaven, where those who have been sinning are put aside for a while until thoy have been purified and cleansed and can come a little bit more forward and so by degrees reach toward the central point of unspeakable divine bliss and happiness. That is heaven according to Jewish doctrine. And nowlet them come—all the agnostics and all the blind believers. If they cati improve on that, if the agnostic can improve «n that Jewish heaven, with his reason, of which he is so proud, and if that firm believer can improve on that heaven with all the pious mysticism that dwells in his pious heart, I say let thern corne and improve it. There is nothing ab ve that conception.

A FEMALE PROTEUS.

A young woman in Chicago can chauge her dress into four distinct stylos without the removal of an article. A black cashmere dress with a tight-fitting bodice and a hat with wide brim become*

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.,

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upon

a swift displacement of hooks, eyes and buttonsandacrashing squeeze of the hat a.brown woolen dress with corded front bodice and a neat little turban. Another set of manipulations transforms this costume into a brown gown, a coif and all accessories of a brown nun. Once more a tug of the skirts and a yank at the coif and waist makes the nun & fashionable young lady in bright colored alpaca and the original wide-brimmed hat. Unfortunately the young woman has turned her ingenious manner of dressing to the use of imposture and ha» been arrested.

It is to be hoped the bonnet has about reached the bight of its ambition.

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