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The question of the expedien cy of municipal ownership of gas works having again been raised in several of our great cities, the latest facts as to Philadelphia's experience in this business are interesting. It appears that for the last year the receipts of the Phila delphia gas bureau at $1 per thousand feet, were $3,155,956. The current expenses were $2, 985,514. This leaves a net profit of $170,443, of which $54,589 was expended in perma nent improvements in connec tion with the gas plant, and $115,854 was added to the revenue of the city available for other departments. In ad dition to this, the city gets its gas free to an amount which, if sold at the usual rate, would have added to the city treasury $638,498. It will have to be al lowed that this is an altogether favorable showing, not only for the municipal ownership of gas plants, but for dollar gas as well. The grand jury has returned two indictments against Ex County Commissioner Albert Swenson. Both are for the same offense, but one charges that he solicited a bribe and the other that he agreed to accept a bribe. The matter grows out of an effort to secure the payment by the county of certain claims against the St. Louis county agricultural associations for material and lsjfoor on the fair grounds, one being for $750 to C. H. Dibbell & Son, and another $980 to J. H. Noyes & Co. To these were added an ap propriation of $500 by the county for the benefit of the county fair,, making the total $2,230. It is charged that Mr. Swenson proposed and agreed for a consideration of 10 per cent of the amount to secure the allowance of the claims. Mr. Swenson was arraigned Tues day and given until Friday to plead. Bail was fixed at $500. THE LABOR WORLD Col. Brice masqueraded at the Bradley-Martin ball as Layfay ette. Grover Cleveland ought to have been there in the disguise of Old Hickory, and if that wouldn't quite cap the climax of sacrilege, perhaps they could have per suaded Mark Hanna to rig him self up in the character of George Washington. Philanthropist Hartley wants to make the poor devils who walk over the new bridge pay toll. Then his company can catch their nickels whether they ride or whether they walk. Well, so long as Mr. Hartley's com pany owns the bridge that's all right, but when the tables are turned and the two cities super sede Gli's aggregation of philan thropists as proprietors, it won't work at all. Just when the bridge changes owners the ex action of tolls becomes a great outrage. A commendable busi ness policy in the twinkling 3f an eye becomes a bold, bad rob ber. The Fargo Argus has passed into the hands of J. J.Jordan. Mr. Jordan is one of the bright est newspaper men in the north west. Until the Fargo fire of June 7, 1893, in which Mr. Jordan was a heavy loser, he published the Daily Republican, which was, at that time, the most widely read paper in the west. Our first work in journalism was conducted under the editorial supervisal eye of J. J. Jordan and many a time the blue pencil caused us to look with regret on the result of many hours of laborious work. We wish the Fargo Argus and its new pro prietor every success. Rummaging in an ash can in Grand street, New York, to see if he could find a crust of bread, because he was hungry and had nothing to eat, was the heinous crime for which Antonio Piccer olli, an aged Italian, was fined $1 in the Essex Market court. The Law. Mr. Samuel Gotnpers, presi dent of the A. F. L., in a recent address expressed the opinion that the law of supply and de mand is not immutable be cause it could be modified, and that the law of gavitation could also be modified by supplying a matress for a man to alight on when jumping from a three story building. Modifying the effect of a law and modifying the law itself, are two very different things. The great federation of labor of which Mr. Gompers is presi dent, in its recent convention suggested, so far as we are in formed, no method whatever to modify either the law of sup ply and demand or the law of gravitation. Certainly neither strike nor boycott modifies the law of supply and demand, and when a man loses his job and falls into the pit of idleness, who supplies the matress upon which he may alight. Take for instance the com pressed air engines to be used as soon as they can be manu factured, on the New York ele vated railroads, by which at least a hundred firemen will be thrown out of employment and twice as many more engaged in handling coal, in what way is the law of supply and de mand to be modified? Take the thousands and one labor saving machines which daily multiply idle hands and increase the demand abnorm ally for employment, and in as great a ratio decrease opportuni ties for employment even at starvation wages, and then ask the A. F. of L. how it proposes to modify the law of supply and demand, and the answer is silence. Certainly joining the A. F. of L. does not solve the problem whatever else it may solve. Neither strike nor boycott nor an expensive Washington lob 5