Terre Haute Weekly Gazette, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 21 November 1878 — Page 4

%iu $gnklg gazette.

The DAILY GAZETTE is published every afternoon except Sunday, and »old by the carrier at 30o. per fort, right, by mail. $8*00 per year $4.00 lor six months, $2.00 for three months. THE WEEKLY GAZETTE is issued every Thursdry, and contains all the best matter cf the six daily issnes. THE WEEKLY GAZETTE is the largest paper printed in erre Haute, and is sold for One copy per year, $1.60 six months, 76c three months, 40c. All subscriptions xnoBt be paid in advance No psper discontinued until! all. arrearages are raid, unless at the option of the proprietor, A failure to notify a discontinuance at the end of the year will be ccnsidered^a new en gagement.

Address all letters, WM.C. BALL & COGAZETTE. Terre Haute.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21,1878.

The stoi\ of the capture of the men who committed the Stewart grave robbery, published in the Gazette to day sounds just a lit"le fishy.

It is one of the curious coincidences of crime that Burke should be one of the aliases of the man arrested and now in jail in New York for robbing the Stewart grave.

Now that the cipher dispatches are ntifl being discussed, it might be a good thing to read the following telegram, which was not in cipher:

Washington, D. C. Nov.

Z. Ciiaxdlkr.

A mono the humorous phases of the Massachusetts canvass, which resulted in the annihilation of Butler, was the following squib, which first saw the light in the Boston Post "For many years you have revuea us Benny mine Worse than traitors you have styled us, Benny mine So w$iH sail in different boats, And you cannot have our votes, For you've turned too many coats, Benny mine, Benny mine You"have turned too many coats, Benny mine."

Citv Engineer Simpson— Bishop Simpson, as he is called—laid out the carve of the street railroad track, where it switches off from Main street to north Sixth. In relavs, numbering from twenty to one hundred persons on the watch at a time, the citizens of Terre Haute have superintended the job. For two days past, if the men standing on the corner of Sixth and Main watching: the work could have been supposed to be Hies, there would have been proof positive that a sugar barrel wot. exposed in the middle of the street.*? 4'

THE INDIANA SENATORSHIP. In the New York Times of the 14th mst. appeared a Washington dispatch, giving the view* of our distinguished townsman, Co). Thomas H. Nelson, in reference to the Senator ship in this State. His statement that "Mr. Voorhees' election, both for the short and the long terms is absolutely certain," will be very generally recognised here as correct in every particular. But we give the dispatch itself as follows:

Washington, Nov. 13.—The report which recently appeared in some western journal that the election of Mr. Voorhees to the United States has become doubtful, because some prominent hardmoney Democrats Intended to oppose him, is contradicted by Hon. Thomas H. Nelson, of Indiana," formerly United Slates Minister lo Mexico, who arrived here to-day. Mr. Nelson declarer that Mr. Voortiees' election both for the short and the long terms, is absolutely certain. The question of his election was made a distinct issue of the campaign in Indiana, and all the Democratic mem* -fcers of the Legislature stand committed to Mr. Voorhees. Mr. Nelson is of opinion that all the Nationals—six or seven in number—will vote for Voorhees,

iheir votes are necessary to elect him, ar.d will take sides with the Democrats on

Sirty

issues generally. Mr. NeUon rthermore asserts that 150 votes, prop erly distributed, ^rould have secured a majority of the Legislature for the ReKblkans, as in 8 or 10 counties the xwecratic majority for candidates for the Legislature ranged only from 10 to *5 votes.

THE CITY HALL MARKET HOUSE. proceedings, shows that a proposi

Reference to the report of the Council tion is before that body for consideration. It relates to the Fourth street market house, which has also been known by the appellations of the City Hall and the Alhambra. It is no news to citizens of Terre Haute that the stately edifice on south Fourth Street has not been a brilliant success, This is true, at least bo far as its use as a maiket house is concerned. Theuppe part, since the old hall was divided up into a council chamber, a city court room, and offices for the various city officials has proved amply sufficient for all the uses to which it ha6 been put. Pleasant, convenient, roomy and contiguous quarters have been furnished by it for the City Government But the down stairs

portion has been abandoned to vacancy, and the citv father, who has penetrated its resources, and walked its level floor, has felt like one who •rod *lone some market hall deserted, whose butchers had fled, whose stalls were dead, and whence all but himself had departed.

Butchers, who ^it

was thouglil would deem it mete to sell meat there, have failed to meet there at all. It was too close for their use, and too hot and too everything-else-bad that nobody thought of and they never said anything about when the erection of the building was under discussion. Gardners have very generally occupied the stalls on the outside of the building and at the curbstone, but the rental trom them "--has scarcely sufficed to pay

the wages

of the market master. This is the present condition of affairs. Now comes before the perplexed conncil J. C. Greiner, and others, who offer to lease the lower floor of the building for one year, paying a rental of $1,000. The Council is to still have the right, under this proposition, to use the stalls on the outside of the building, and at the curbstone, for market purposes. They further ask that some „inexpensive improvements- „/'be made in the way of fixing the partitions and doing some plastering. It is their intention, the building being thus subdivided into store rooms, to open in it several small stores in different branches of trade, thus making a sort of bazar of 5 '-pi it. X' ?.

The Council has taken the matter under advisement until a special meeting to be called Friday night. If any citizen has any views the columns of the Gazkttk are open to him

fcion*

8,1S76.

Hon. M. L. Stearns: Florida must be made Republican. Troops and money will be furnished.

their expres-

Br* Mi Mi I

AFTER THE NORTH POLE, 1 he Naree expedition went fifty miles nearer to the North Pole than any other ofwhieh any record ever was made4 But there are still about

400

miles inter

vening between a point reached by the sledge party and the pole. Nares declared that the story about an open sea. was a myth—that there was nothing but eternal ice-fields, where no living man could make his way. Captain Howgate seems to have based his expedition on the theory that there was no such thing as an open sea. He proposed to establish posts, or relays, at freque tervals, and to slock them with all the arts of subsistence. Sledging' ?,3parties would push on from one outpost to another which would be establised as 60 many reserves The Bennett expedition wut pursue two lines of investigation, one by way of Spitzbergen, and the other by way of Behring straits. The vessel for the latter expedition is now on her way to San Francisco, from which point she will depart on her interesting mission in the spring. It will be noted that the ice has been unusually thick in the Polar Sea, as approached from Behring Straits, this year. It is interred that one extreme will be followed by another, and that the coming summer will be favorable to Arctic explorations on this side during the ensuing year. It is many years since any attempt has been made to explore the Polar Sea by way of Behring's Straits.

This route has not been a favorite one with explorers. But four or five years agojwhaling ships fodnd o,ien water in a very high latitude, and it was then affirmed that they could have reached the Pole and Arctic explorations been in their line of business. No doubt, this theory had more of fancy than ot fact about it. But then there was a great breadth of open water, and none of the ships that year ventured to the extreme limits ^ofv this open water. If there had been an exploring steamer then and there at work, no doubt, important discoveries would have been made. It is hoped that some such good fortune awaits the Bennett Polar Expedition. It is to be noted, however, that the more recent expeditions are fitted for the contingencies of ice barriers and sledging expeditions over vast fields of ice. There will be at I6ast over half a dozen Arctic expeditions in commission next year, and scientific men are hopeful ol very important results.

PERUVIAN BARK.

Nothing can be more certain than that if the present reckless manner in which the bark of the cinchona tree is gathered is continued, it will not be long before every trace of that species of vegetation will have disappeared in Peru and Ecuador. I

The quantity shipped to England, according to the best authorities, amounts to 3,000,000 pounds per annum, which, of course, involves the destruction of an immense number ot trees. Seeing the drift of things, English^capitalists began the cultivation of this tree in India in 1S61, and with such success that it is believed that in the future the principal supply will come frani the Himalayas and not from the Andes. There is no drug whose qualities have been more thoroughly tested a? a febrifuge, and which is in greater demand. One of the sources of weakness of the south during the rebellion, was its lack of quinine.. It is required in immense quantities for crmies in the field, to counteract the ef

fects of the malarious places in which they are often encamped. The trade is a great and important one A million of plants were set out in India at the time stated. We have the authority of Orton. in the Andes and Amazon, that Dr. Taylor of Riobamba. in Ecua-. dor, found one tree which gave $3,600 worth of quinine. The general vield is from three to five pound* in a quintal of bark.

The author, to whom we have above referred, says of it: "The tree is indigenous to the Andes, where it is found on the western slope between the altitudes of 2,000 it. and 9,003 ft., the species richest in alkaloids occupying the higher elevations where the air is moist Dr. Weddell enumerates it species, seven of which are now found in Ecuador, but the only one of value is the C. Succirabra (the Calisaya has run out), and this is now nearly extinct, as the trees 'have been destroyed to obtain the bark. In another place he says: "Tins species is a beautiful tree, having large, broadly oval, deep green, shining leaves, white fragrant flowers and red bark, and sometimes, though rarely, attains the height of 60 feet. A tree five feet in circumference will yield 1,500 lbs, of green bark or 800 lbs. of the dry. The roots contain the most alkaloid, though the branches are usually barked for commerce. The true cinchona barks containing quinine, qninidine and cinchonine, are distintiBguished from the false by their splin-tery-fibrous texture, the latter being re in

Good authorities unite in declaring that there Is every reason to believe this tree will grow successfully in many parts of the United States. The highly ornamental agricultural bureau «f our beneficient Government 6|^uld direct its attention to this subject.

NEW AVENUES OF TRAVEL. One of the interesting features of modern commerce is the return to old routes, which had been abandoned for more than a thousand years. Thus the route across the Isthmus of Suez had been 1 FTisii closed for many centuries. The canal of the Pharaohs was still visible, and the construction of the Suez canal is only an enlargement of apian conceived ana executed 4,000 years ago. Engineering science has constructed a better highway But the race which built the pyramids saw the advantages of a canal across the isthmus, and it was fitted to the barges and the flotillas which could navigate both the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. A French engineer restored this old route of commerce and never in any age did so truch merchandise pass over this route as now. The' theory that abandoned routes, suitable only in the olden time for caravans and barges, never would be restored, has been exploded. The ancients selected the best routes. They are the best for modern times. The route across India by Suez is of incalculable advan tage to Great Britain, who will hereafter control it. But she is seeking other routes, not new ones, but for years has been looking into the routes which were famous centuries ago. There is the Euphrates river, debouching at the head of the Persian Gulf, a river once navigable for a thousand miles or so, down which came the commerce which enriched Persia.

England has obtained possession of Cyprus. It is but a short distance to the mainland and Syria, and but a short distance thence to a navigable point on the Upper Euphrates, whence steamers could descend to the Persian Gulf, and by a short water route reach the Punjaub. Of course the route across Syria, would be over a part of what is at present Turkish territory. But 110 great difficulties would probably be encountered in securing the right of way. This route is substantially the old caravan route, which otjee had for halting places Panaascas, Baalbeck and Palmyra. It was the route, also, which Alexander the Great made in his time the greatest highway of commerce in the known world. When the Mohammedan Arabs became masters cf Syria, this route was closed, as well as that across the Isthmus of Suez. The trade for a time took a roundabout way. The route was mountainous to the Oxus river, and thence to the Caspian, thence up the Volga, and across the highlands to the Don, and so down the Black Sea to Constantinople. The Turks finally closed this route, and for all practicable purposes, it has been closed to this day. It is not a recognized route to India, although its possibilities have long been recognized by Great Britain, and thai Government always, insisted that if Constantinople fell into the hands of Russia the latter would have the commercial key to an important route to India. A railroad from the Biack Sea might be extended towards the Persian GuH and even if a caravan route were

opened

EE TERRE HAUTE WEEKLY GAZETTE

it would be of the greatest im

portance. Russia

has now a caravan route to

Northern China, or rather there sucji a road partly over Russian territory and partly outside, over which teas, silks and other costly merchandise are brought

into the latter country. M. de Lesseps sometime ago proposed to the Czar tc construct a railroad trom

the frontier of Russia along the valley of the Oxus for the purpose of holding the key of the commerce of the Persian gulf, and ultimately to make it a Russian railroad as well to India. These facts were well known to the British Government, which determined that thereafter there should be no short routes to India not under British control. That is the policy of Great Britain to-day. Cyprus, a poor island in many respectf, is in some sense the island key of one of the short routes. The Russian system of railroads has already reached the frontier of Persia. The Czar has a close alliance with the Shah, and would have little difficulty in reaching out toward the Persian Gulf through friendly negotiations. It is now almost certain that the plan of a railroad has been projected from the Levant to the Persian Gulf, or to a psint on the Euphrates, where the navigation to the gulf would not be impeded. In 1872, a comjnittee of the British Parliament reported that the political and commercial advantages of this route across Syria would be exceedingly great and that it would be worth while to secure them.

In Ae new turn of events, the short route to India has become of greater importance to England than ever before. She must be able to reach the frontier of India 5n the fewest possible days. The strife for commercial and political preeminence has been opened. The shortest road to India has become of vital importance to Great Britain, and it is hardly of secondary interest to all the nations of Northern Europe.

CONCERNING WOMEN. The meeting of the "Women Suffragists" at Indianapoli? last week has served to revive in the West theflaggiqg interest felt in the discussion of woman's works and wcth. Whether the result of the agitation which these reformers have started will ever be the placing of the ballot in their hand may well be considered a doubtful question. That it has succeeded, as Mrs. Lucy Stone fcaid, in modifying and greatly changing many of the laws in reference to their personal and property rights is a notorious fact. At the head of this agitation will be found American, women. The wc. men of other countries have received their .inspiration from America on this subject. It was a keen-witted American woman, who had traveled ex. tensively, that 6aid, comparing the wo men of different nationalities, she found the English women the best educated the Irish women the most virtuous the French women the best informed and most public-spirited the Italian women laziest the German women thej most domestic and the best house-keepers* Comparing the American women with all these, she accredited the latter with more genius than the English found that'ihey strongly resembled the educated Irish woman in modesty and personal independence were not so domestic or such splendid-house-keepers as the German though they are as palnolic as the French, but not so attentive to political p-r.^nd were far more active than tne Italian. 1 1 1 appear from this testimony that thw American woman is the best off of all women in the wprldThe fact is indisputable. She has more legal rights in Indiana and State? enjoying similar constitutions, than men have in the most advanced Governments of the continent.

With the exception of suffrage, she has all the legal rights that men hold in the American republic, and when dispensation from military duty is brought to balance the disqualification to vote, it would seem as if she ought not wish for more. In Michigan, her property rights are better guarded than the men's. The western states, in swift succession, have knocked down every barrier in the way of her equality before the law, and the virtual effect has been to accord her a superiority. She has social rights the like of which are unknown to her sex on the continent, and exist but in slight degree in Great Britain. It is notorious that a woman cannot travel with propriety unattended in Paris, even at high noon, and while she somewhat better off in London, her solitary presence is in danger of being considered equivocal. In the United States, she may journey from Atlantic to Pacific, from Maine to the Gulf, and she will meet everywhere deference and attention the very (mors on the railroads and steamboats will play the gentleman in her presence. In no part of the world are women treated with profounder respect than in the western mining regions, whose heights and ravines the feet of civilization have not touched. In her home she is absolute mistress. The highest ambition of an American husband, the truest happiness that earth can furnish him, is to make his wife happy, his home attractive. In view ol these facts, with which every intelligent woman who has beeu abroad, is perfectly familiar, do not the peevish cries of "slavery," "down-trodden woman," the "subordination of sex," and similar nonsense from certain quarters, appear unreasonable?

It is the sentiment strictly of the American man that "she is no true women for whom a man may not find it in his heart to hav a certain gracious and holy and honorable love she is not a woman who

're:urn* no love, and asks no protection." While there are so many noble men affording the protection, and so many faithful tnd high minded-women returning the love, it would seem as it the social aspect «.f American life were not a proper suhject for despairing comment and that the honor of American manhood and the trustfulness and devotion of American women, should be, in spite of spasms ®f disgrace, a reasonable cause for hope and pride.

Bjt it improbable that American women are inferior in education, and, inferentially in practical usefulness to their, sisters across the ssa. This fact should be taken into serious consideration by the leaders of th« suffrage movement. The average American woman does not need the ballot half so much as she needs arithmetic and the science of contented and successful houskeeping. The constitution of the United States is not in so urgent want of amendment as the girl's courses of study. Let the suffrage leaders combine to get rid ol the flippant and cuperflciai in women's education, and substituting for it 'he useful and the practical. An energetic crusade against those glittering frauds called "Young ladies' academies" will render morel service to American women, national Btrength, and domestic happiness, than the ballot ever can or will.

MR. IN'GERSOLL AS A LITERARY CRITIC. The western "Pope," as New England calls him, appears in a new role, or rather acts an old character in a new dit&s. Mr. Ingersoll's peculiar talent and special calling are too familiar to need comment. He has the art of saying what he likes, and of saying it bravely. In his rhetoric he-is peculiar to himself in his love of liberty he is American. As a literary critic we must say he also stands alone, for he has no living critic of distinction with him in some of his estimates of poetic products, and in his attempt to array all great poets against re ligion he chooses unfortunate illustrations.

In regard to his criticisms of Dante, Milton, and other poet*, he is successful in raising a laugh, but it is with borrowed wit. He seems to hare taken his judgement of Dante from Voltaire, the «ource of his lecture on the ''Mistakes of Moses." A flippant Florentine critic speaks in Romola thus: "You don't expect us clever Florentines to keep saying the same things over again every day of our lives, a6 we must do if we hold the truth. We cry down Dante just for the sake of vanity." The truth seems stale to Mr. Ingersoll. Probably he does not intend us take him seriously when he wants us to reject Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Milton from the list of great potts, as we must do if we swallow Jiis maxims. As to Dante's^title to greatness as a poet we can safely leave him with Carlyle's chapter on the "Hero as a Poet quoting from the great German critic, Tieck, the epithet for the cammedia "a mystic, unfathomable song." One may also compare the judgements collected by Longtellew, surely dqual at least to any in this country as' a tester of poetry. James R. Lowell, another poet, in the

American cyclopedia, may be taken as an anti-spasmodic dose. Some of the audacious statements quoted from his lecture as delivered in New England, have been modified, but the venom is there still under insinuaations. He endeavors to leave the impression that all poetry is merely secular and should be confined chiefly to domestic life.

The impression intended to be left by the orator that no great poet can believe in religion, can be corrected from the soul utterances of the men whom he arrays against religion. Burns writes agains* hypocrites and not against decent representatives of religion. Perhaps it was not convenient for him to recite the following words from Burns' epistle to a to a Young Friend: "An Atheist's laugh's a poor exchange For

Deity offended. He seems not to have heard of Woidsworth, and the later crowned poet of England. It seems that he ignores Goethe's "Confessions of a Fair Saint" in Wilheim Mei6ter. And, when he said "solemnity and stupidity are twins .f superstition," he forgot that great Lenton's "Three Reverences." Carlyie cannot bt called misinformed or partial, and he says Burns "fell in an age, not of heroism and religion, but of skepticism, selfishness, and triviality." Probably Carlyle's essay on Burns will last] quite as long as Mr. Ingersoll's lecture, and Carlyie compares Milton and Cervantes with the Scottish bard to the disadvantage of the latter, saying that those heroic poets were upheldjby the invisible goodness.

His summary of church history in Europe, that the "church was good for nothing but to keep the peasants under the feet of the nobility," is a travesty unworthy of a literary man before an intelligent audince. eNot even Buckleor Draper would be guilty of such a hweepng generalization. His pictures of orthodox Calvinism were after Nast's style and *hat is enough to say of them. The Calvin of his picture never existed.

Shakespeare's last will and testament contradict* our orator's insinuation, that no great poet can believe in religion. It

seems to be true, in fact, that, the very opposite of Mr. IngersoHV doctrine must hold as Jarves, a distinguished art critic, says: '•Herein lies also the scope and direction of art, Godward. All true art must have a common aim. namely, through beauty toeducaU man to a better understanding and more perfect love of the creator." Any one who will compare Voltaire's unsympathetic criticisms with those of Tainc on .Milton wiil see that the highest French criticism of today is far in advance ot that of Voltaire, which after a century has been discard ed. Mr. Ingersoll surely does not expect us to take him seriously in this retrograde movement. He is perhaps playing with our creduality, to see how gullible Hoosiers are. It is not probable that the applause of the uncritical will change the opinion of the poet Longfellow, who spent much of his life in translating Dante.

Mr. Ingersoll makes no distinction between epic, lyric, and dramatic poetry. His favorite style is amorous lyric verses but there are others who prefer, as most students of literature do, the grinder forms of sustained efforts.

He ridiculed the idea of God and a future life as remote from human interests, while everybody feels that the future life concerns the race as intimately as the present. His quotation, l.beautifully recited, from Burns'

uMary

in Heaven" up

set all the sarcasm of his speech in this epic. While we' heartily sympathizewith the idea that hilarity and jolly companionships and family affection are main joys of life, we must reverently suggest to "Pope Bob" that the youth of Terre Haute do not especially need any exhortations to drink whiskey. Burns traces the'glory of Scotland to its religious houses in the Cotter's Saturday Night he describes a pious family at prayer, and immediately says, "Fromjsceneb like these old Scotia's grandeur springs."

Stern, as were some of the logical deductions of an age devoted to metaphys* ics, always so striking a feature of the Scottish intellectual lift, the poems of Burns show unmistakably that strong drink has done Scotland a mighty injury, and that religion has been to her a glory and blessing. A defense of those very parts of Burns' life which were his only shame, and which he himself had the good sense to be ashamed of, will not help the cause of atheism, or whatever is mit is, Mr. Ingersoll champions. The lecture was, of course, witty and genial, but the author has not lost any flesh in earnest study of literature and a really earnest study of Burns, along with Wordsworth, will convince one that the art critics of New England were about right in pkssing him by with meagre notice. The generalizations have not the least pretense to critical accuracy or balance of judgment A literary man who cannot enjoy|Er«chy his and Homer without giving up Burns and Shakespeare must have a narrow poctic appreciation. If the lecture is estimated as simply fen entertainment like a minstrel show, it stands high among popular lectures but if it is taken as a true exponent of the aims of poetie art, it is misleading, and worthy of a Freshman in college.

DIFFERENCES IN PRICES.

COMPARATIVV COST OF WEARING APPAREL IN 1864 AND 1878. From the Pittsburg Commerclal-Gssette.

Some time ago we gave figures showing the differences in prices of various article* of proviflons, when "money waa plenty and times were good," compared with the cost of the same articles now. Eytry man and woman could appreciate the force of these figures, because they tallied exactly with the practical knowledge of every one who bought provisions. Below we append a comparative price-list of at tides to wear, furnished to the Philadelphia North-American by one of the largest dry-goods houses in the country* and which may be relied upon as accurate.

Autumn, 18M. Autumn, 1978.

Prints.. .J ... tiinghams Apron cheeks .. .... Shirting stripes.. Tickings Canton flannels Deo tins Corset jeans Htand. br. sheetings. Brownsheettngs 10-4 (all width sheets. Ji bleached sheetings 4-4 bleached sheetings* Linseys oS Coatos'spool cotton... I Blankets *18@30

Thbse who clamor for inflation, which means higher prices for everything else as well as labor, should study these figures. Just think of it. There is an average reduction in the cost of these articles of from eighty to ninety per cent.1 It took fifty cents to buy one yard of calico in 1864. Now eight yards, or enough for a dress, can be had for the same money. And so all through the*" list Now the tact to be remembered by the inflationists is, that wages go upslowly, while every article of commerce can be marked up each day and once an* era of inflation i» entered upon, no one can tell when the end may come. It would not come short of universal* distress and bankruptcy—evqp worsethan the hard times through which we have just passed. If the laborer can buy to-day only double the quantity of provision' and clothing compared with the prices of 1868, he is still the gainer directly and will gain largely in an indirect way, because the business of the country is now conducted on a healthy basis, and not the result of wild and ruinous speculation. It is to the interest of all, rich and poor alike, to stick to honest money., and good times will surely come, and come to stay.