Helena weekly herald. [volume], May 17, 1888, Image 1

About Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900

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Volume XX2.
Helena, Montana, Thursday, May 17, 1888.
No. 25
<fll.ciL1cch)il1Ijrral.l.
R. E. FISK D. W. FISK. ft. J. FISK
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Helena, Montana.
THE W ASHERW OMAN'S SONG.
Wring out the old, wring out the new.
Wring out the black, wring out the gray,
Wring out the white, whine out the blue—
And tints 1 wring my life away.
An occupation strange is mine;
At least it seems to people droll
That while I'm working at the line
I'm going, too, from pole to pole.
Where'er I go I strive to please.
Front morn to night 1 rub and rub ;
I'm something like Diogenes-
1 almost live within the tub.
To acrobats who vault and spring
In cireuses I take a shine ;
They make their living in the ring.
And by the wringer 1 make mine.
My calling's humble I'll agree,
}4ut I am no cheap calico
As some folks are who sneer at me ;
I'm something that will wash, you know.
I smile in calm. I strive in storm,
With life difficulties 1 cope.
My duties cheerfully perform ;
My motto : While there's life there's soap.
Wring out the old, wring out the new.
Wring out the black, wring out the gray,
Walng out the white, wring out the blue—
Anil thus I wring my life away.
PEACE.
•'Who knows how often lie ©flondeth?"
When Conscience's white light burns dim
In doubt of Kight that word desoendeth
Alone, from Him.
We cannot tell ; we see but blindly
Thro' the strange cross-lights given to all ;
By rules than all our own more kiudiy
We stand, or fall.
*© if, in this inspired disorder
We seem at times to lose our way.
And by man's laws to cross the border,
We can but pray.
We can but say, wc know not wherefore.
Man's evil may be oft God's good ;
We think he understands; and therefore
'Tis understood.
W'e can but feel the mystic teaching
Has told us over and again
For God s eommnnds to slight the preaching
Commands of men.
Hrangc mystery ! 'twas so forever ;
Then let the yearning spirit rest.
Through the long trouble of endeavor,
Upon His breast.
Know that he knows ; all else will follow
As surely as the light the dark.
And as the flight of hawk or swallow
Rests on the Ark.
love does not «how OLI).
When I was twenty she was ten.
Within my arms I held her then —
.She was a child—It was not wrong,
Since then seems not so very long.
N'ow she is twenty—to be bolder
I ought, since I am so much older—
And yet 1 feel somewhat afraid
Of thoughts that come in one decade.
Candv and dolls I used to bring,
And get a kiss for everything ;
And vet for naught would I turn back
This havoc of the almanac.
As childish gifts are out of place,
1 watch the roses on her face ;
"So you remember ?" "Yes,'' said she,
"That you were then so kind to me."
At once I grew discreetly wise,
î-ome words 1 spoke lit up her eyes,
I put them bravely. Well, what then
W thin my arms she drops again !
IN CHURCH* *
I feel a solemn sanctity.
Sweet rest of soul is mine,
My heart abides in pious peace—
My bonnet sets divine!
Grace, like a river, tills my soul.
In ehattened joy I sit,
1 feel religion's deepest power—
My saeqtie's a perfect tit.
A holy fervor penetrates
My soul's remotest nooks.
An earnest, chastened, fervid joy
How neat that ribbon looks !
The good man tells of Christian peace,
Tiie organ's anthem swells,
I bathe in streams of pure delight—
My dress cost more than Nell's.
0 holy rest ! O Sabbath calm !
O chastened peace serene !
1 feel thy deep abiding spell—
How dowdy is Miss Green !
I feel a pure religious glow,
O rapture undefined—
I know my bonnet looks so nice
To those who sit behind !
IT MAKES A DIEFEKENCE.
1 have observed that if by chance
On some elite occasion,
A swell dotli on a lady's train
Make damaging invasion.
The etiquette of time and place
Tiie lady's rage will scatter.
And with a smile she'll say : "Good sir.
It isn't any matter."
But should lier lord make that misstep
In going to their carriage,
A- like as not she'd season the
Amenities of marriage
With. ' There, you horrid, clumsy lout!
Was ever such vexation ?
Some itay those hoofs of yours will rip
The eartli from its foundation."
FRIENDS.
It's an overcome sootli for age an' youth
An' it brooks wi' nae denial *
That the dearest friends are tiie mildest friends.
And the young are just on trial.
There's a rival bauid wi' young an' auld,
And it's him that has bereft me !
Fur the surest friends are the auldest friends,
And the maist o' mine hae left me.
There are kind hearts still, for friends to fill,
And fools to take and break them ;
1 it the nearest friends are the auldest friends.
And the grave's the place to seek them.
An Old "Virginia Law.
A relic of the ancient time was revived in
Virginia recently, when counsel fora man
about to be tried for murder asked that the
Indictment be quashed because the foreman
cf the grand jury that returned it was the
owner of a grist milL The old law forbade
the possessor of a mill from serving on a
Jury.-Nashville American.
11
An Interesting Talk with the Cal
ifornia Senator.
BUILDING THE CENTRAL PACIFIC.
Its tYouilerfill Snow Sheds—Hie C anadian
I'acific and American Itoads—The Sen
ator Airs His Views tin the Relations
ol tiie Road with tiie Government—All
Three Minute Horses Thoroughbreds.
[Special Correspondence.]
Washington, May 3.—I heard one of
the most remarkable stories of American
history last night. It was told me by
Seuator Inland Stanford, and it was the
story of the building of the Central
Pacific railroad. I called upon Senator
Stanford at his house on Farragut square,
and we chatted together iu his library.
He is a tall, striking looking man with a
big head, a rosy face, blue eyes and brown
Lair. lie is plain in his ways, and is
ready with an answer to any question pro
pounded to him on almost any subject,
lie is a man of ideas, aud he is an especi
ally interesting talker in the line of re
miniscence. His whole life has been a
continuous romance in which hard work
and success and failure have gone hand
in hand. He was a young lawyer in a
small town in Wisconsin, making about
$1,500 a year, when the fire which burned
up his office and library drove him west
ward. He went, intending to make some
money and go back to Wisconsin to live,
but the problems of the Pacific coast
threw their arms about him, and he is
grappling with them still. He was the
first Republican governor of California,
and was elected to that position in the
fall of 1861. He was a strong friend of
President Lincoln, and it was mainly
through him that California was saved to
the Union. ***
I asked him as to the building of the
Central Pacific railroad. He said:
"No one supposed the road could be
built, and had we known the difficulties
Df its construction I doubt whether wo
would have attempted it. Even in Cali
fornia no one outside of the company
would have anything to do with it. We
tried to get subscriptions to the stock in
San Francisco, but we could only sell ten
shares of $1,000 each, and tho man who
bought these shares was a foreigner and
a Frenchman. A little stock was sub
scribed at Sacramento, but subscribers as
a rule thought that they were putting
their money into a bole and they doubted
whether they would ever get it out again.
We had only enough money of our own
to complete thirty-one miles of road, and
the road building of today is nothing in
comparison. In going over the Sierra
Nevada mountains we built 150 miles of
railroad which cost more than the build
ing of the whole line between Chicago
and the base of the Sierras, and for three
winters we worked on the mountains
with the snow falling to a depth of thirty
six and forty feet. I slept many a night
in the snow during those days, and had
to brush away the snow for a place to \
lay my blanket. All of our mate
rial had to come from the east, 17,000
miles by water, and we had then to haul
it up the mountains through the snow.
To give you some idea of our work in the
Sierra Nevadas, wo used on the average
500 kegs of powder each day, and the
snow sheds on these mountains cost us
about $'2,000,000. We had from 10,000 to
12,000 men working on these mountains,
and we had to work under the snow. We
ran tunnels into it to get at the rock to be
excavated, and we bad domes under the
snow, and in these domes the masonry
was laid and the Btones were lowered
through the snow drifts."
"Two million dollars seems a good deal
to pay for snow sheds," said I.
"Yes," replied Senator Stanford, "it
Joes, but the ordinary man Las no idea of
what these snow sheds are. They are a
mass of the heaviest timbers, braced and
cross braced in every direction. We had
to build somo of them strong enough to
support snow drifts of from 60 to 100 feet
deep, and some had to be built against the
mountain sides on a slope, so that the
avalanches, with the trees and stones
which accompany them, might sweep over
tho structure and not hurt the trains.
Even now the snow drifts through these
sheds and sometimes fills them, and when
it does it often takes sixteen locomotives
for a single snow plow in the work of clear
ing them. We had thirty-seven miles of
these sheds, and it might have been better
to have tunneled under the Sierra Nevadas
below the snow belt, and I think such a
tunnel will sometime be built. It would
Deed to be about ten miles long and would
cost about $5,000,000.
"It is hard to conceive today the cost of
railroad building in the west in 1S63. We
had to pay from $200 to $300 per ton for
barley and oats, and hay cost us $120 per
ton. * The first two locomotives we used
cost us in freight and actual value $70,
D0O and the first ten engines we bought
cost us $191,000. It cost $2.000 in freight
to carry' the first locomotive around Cape
Horn to San Francisco, and our cars were
made in the east, taken to pieces, brought
around Cape Horn or across the Isthmus,
landed at San Francisco, carried by boat
to Sacramento, and there put together.
We had to haul much of our water for
steam and for the use of our graders, and
when we came to a spring we would carry
it for miles in pipes- Alopg 500 miles of
the road there was not a free that would
make a board, and we had to carry nearly
all of our fuel. And then we had a great
deal of trouble with our laborers. At the
first mining excitement they would lea
us, and at one time, of 1,100 men wbo
we transported.' 1,000 went off to the
mines and left only 100 Nearly all ^
•li« managers were present on thexrround.
and we superintended the work ourselves."
* ■*
"When did you first begin the road?"
"We began to consider the matter in
1860. Mr. Judah, C. P. Huntington, Mark
Hopkins. Charles and Edward Crocker and
myself then became interested in it.
There had been talk of it before, and in
1853 a road to the Pacific was surveyed bv
act of congress, but nothing was done.
We decided that the thing was practica
ble, and we had five surveys made across
the Sierras to choose the best route. We
took the Dutch Flat route, asceuding the
mountains from the west at a rise of
nearly 7,000 feet in eighty three miles.
We had to go almost 3,000 feet down
along the sides of precipices to descend
the solid walls of granite above Doner
lake, and we thought that when we
completed our road we would have
a monopoly, and that our only com
petitors would be the ox teams and
the steamers. We organized our company
with a capital of $8,000,000 under the law
of the state of California, and then got
the legislature of Nevada to allow us to
build across its desert. This was before
congress had anything to do with it, and
the first Pacific railroad act was passed in
1862. The first work we did on the road
was at Sacramento, on the 8th of Janu
ary, 1863, and wo completed it in 1869.
We received, all told, just $27,000,000
from the government in bonds, and there
is no truth in these statements as to our
getting $100,000,000 and more out of the
treasury. The $27,000,000 in bonds we
had to sell, so that we got only $20,000,
000 for them, and the road, all told, cost
about $41,000,000. We were allowed to
issue $20,000,000 in bonds ourselves, and
how it was possible for us to get $100,
000,000 out of the $40,000,000 we received
is a problem for mathematicians.
"And just here I want to say that it is
impossible to estimate the money the
United States has saved by this railroad.
It has never paid us as high rates for
carrying the mails as it used to pay the
stage lines. The government paid Wells,
Fargo & Co. $1.750.000 every year for
carrying the mails before this road was
built. The mail in their case was not to
exceed 1,000 pounds. As soon as our rail
road was completed we had to construct a
special car lor mails, and we carried
eighteen tons of mail matter and two
messengers. The government controls
this car, and we often have to put one or
two extra cars on to carry the mails. In
the time of the Wells and Fargo express
the heavy mail went by Panama, and only
the letter mail was carried by them. Now,
we carry everything, aud yet the
government has never paid up to
this date quite $1,000,000 a year to
both the Central Pacific and the Union
Pacific for this service, whereas, as I
have stated, it paid Wells & Fargo $1,750,
900 a year. We have thrown a number of
states and territories open to settlement,
and we have done an incalculable amount
of good to the country. It is not truo
that we have not done what we promised.
The company has performed all its obliga
tions. It has never made a cent at the
expense of the government or of the
peojAe. We had to rush the building
through at double cost because the gov
ernment wanted the road, and it did not
fulfill its obligations to us in surveying
the land according to its contracts. As
to the lands of the government, they have
doubled in value. They were -worth
nothing at the time the railroad was
built, and they are now worth a great
deal. We had to build cross roads in
addition to the Central Pacific, and we
have built altogether 6,000 miles of road."
*
• •
"How about other Pacific roads?"
"They all compete with us, and the
Central Pacific railroad is today mainly a
California road. For a time we had prac
tically the whole business of the country,
and our only competition was the steam
ship line by Panama. Now, there are the
Southern Pacific, the Atlantic and Pacific,
the Northern Pacific and the Canadian
Pacific. The Canadian Pacific now takes
freight in bond from San Francisco and
carries it north, and ships it across the
country to the eastern United States
cities at less rates than we can offer ac
cording to the interstate commerce law.
A commission of the government went
last year to Japan, and they took the
Canadian Pacific and the Canadian ships.
It is true the company has grown in busi
ness, but competition has grown faster
than business. All of these road3 have
their agents in San Francisco, and you
will find them soliciting business in com
petition with us.
"How about the Canadian Pacific?"
"I don't know whether it will pay or
not. They receive a great deal more from
their government than we ever did. They
got $60,000,000 and a big land grant, and
they got it outright. The money we got
from the government was <mly a loan.
We had to pay a high interest, and were
not as well off as most borrowers. When
we undertook to build the Central Pacific
the government practicaiiy assured us
that we would have no competition, and
we understood that it would not aid other
roads to compete with us. Had we known
differently I doubt whether we could have
put the road through. It is done, how
ever, and the rails will stay and the trains
will run whatever be the action of con
gress and the government in regard tous.
1 think the Central Pacific road was well
built, aud we run through trains at a uni
form rate of twenty miles an hour."
*
* *
I asked Senator Stanford as to his horses
which were burned the other night, but
he did not like to talk of them, and the
conversation drifted into horses and horse
breeding generally. "I became interested
In thoroughbred horses," said he, "through
ill health. My doctor had ordered a vaca
tion for me, and had told me that I must
go away on a tour. I could not leave at
the time, and he advised me to drive as
much as possible. I bought a little horse
that turned out tofbe remarkably fast, and
It was in the using of it that I became in
terested in the study of the horse and its
actions. I had those instantaneous t>ho
tographs taken of the horse in motion,
and I began to buy fast horses and breed
them. It was a very expensive amuse
ment at first, but it is now profitable, and
I think that it is useful as well. We are
raising a much finer class of horses in the
United States now than ever before, and
I believe that by proper breeding we can
double the working powers and the stay
ing powers of our work horses. 1 believe
the thoroughbred makes the best work
horse as well as the best running or
trotting horse."
"How about fast horses?"
"I do not think there are any very fast
trotters who have not a trace of thorough
bred olood, and I don't believe that any
horse without such a trace has ever made
a mile iu three minutes."
Frank Q. Carpenter.
A Hat Story.
Even rata are net without their good
qualities. Miss Frances Power Cobbe tells
us a ttory of a French convict who was re
formed by a rat—a man who was long the
terror of prison authorities. Time after
time be had broken out and made savage
assaults on his jaile rs. Stripes and chains
had been multiplied year after year,and he
was habitually confined in an underground
cell, whence he was only taken to work
with bis fellow convicts in the
prison yard ; but his ferocity long
remained untamed. At lait it was observed
that he grew rather more calm aud docile,
without apparent cause for the change, till
one day when he was working with his
comrades, a large rat suddenly leaped from
the breast of his coat and ran across the
yard. Naturally the cry was raised to kill
the rat, and the men were prepared to
throw slones at it, when the convict,
hitherto ferocious, with a sudden outburst
of feeliDg, implored them to desist and al
low him to re cover his favorite. The prison
officials for ODce were guided by happy
compassion, and suffered him to call back
his rat, which came to his voice and
nestled back in bis dress. The convict's
gratitude was as string as his rebellious
disposition had hitherto proved, and from
that day he proved submissive and orderly.
After some years he became the trusted
assistant of the jailers, and finally was
killed in defending them against a mutiny
of other convicts. The love of that bumble
creature finding a place in his rough heart,
had changed his whole character. Who
shall limit the miracles wrought by affec
tion, when the love of a rat could trans
form a man ?
WB —BL Oriental Politeness.
The Gazette de France publishes some
curious notes upon the eitiquette of the
East. For instanc", a Tarkish offendi,
when speaking to another about himself,
always says "your servant," your valet," or
"your slave," and to the other he says
"your high" or "yonr eminent personality."
Instead of saying "I saw yon at the theatre
the other night," he would always say:
"At the theatre the other night I saw the
dust of your shoes"—after all, a rather
doubtful sort of compliment. But here is
the Turkish form of invitation to dinner:
"My Generous Master, My Respected
Lord : This evening, if it pleases Allah,
when the great king of the army of stars,
the sun of worlds, appioaching the king
dom of shades, shall put his foot into the
stirrup of speed, you are invited to en
lighten us with the luminous rays of your
face, which rivals the suu. Your arrival,
like the zephyr of sprimr, will drive away
from us the somber Digbt of solitude and
isolation."
And here is the formn'a for an invitation
to a soiree or raki party :
"My Noble and Respected Friend : This
evening, when the silvery bark, the moon,
now fourteen days old, shall iloat upon the
surface of the blue sky, spreading around
love and tenderness, we shall be reunited
at the village Roumili Hissar, in the place
called Hozietti, Mollah, a locality full of
delights, and all the night until the awak
ing of the dawn we there shall taste the
joys of dry water and wet fire (cognac and
raki). We will not admit of a delay of
the thickness of a hair. May the power of
sails and oars hasten your arrival, which
will he a source of joy for allyoar friends."
Do Kind Deeds Now.
Do not keep the alabaster boxes of your
love and tenderness sealed up until your
friends are dead. Fill their lives with
sweetness. Speak approving, cheering
words while their ears can hear them, and
while their hearts can be thrilled and made
happier by them. The kind things you
mean to say when they are gone say before
they go. The flowers you mean to send
for their coffin send to brighten and
sweeten their homes before they leave
them.
If my friends have alabaster boxes laid
away fall of fragrant perfumes of sympa
thy and affection which they intend to
break over my dead body, I would rather
they would bring them out in my weary,
troubled hours and open them that I may
be refreshed and cheered by them while I
need them.
I would rather have a plain coffin with
out a flower, a funeral with a eulogy, than
a life without the sweetness of love and
sympathy. Let us learn to anoint our
friends beforehand for their burial. Post
mortem kindness does not cheer the bur
dened spirit. Flowers on the coffin cast no
fragrance backward over the weary way.
The Age ot Fishes.
] From the Swirs Cross. |
Crows are commonly said to live for 100
years, and turtles are said to have even
longer life ; but if Prof. Baird be right, the
greatest animal longevity is possessed by
fishes. Prof. Baird says that as a fish has
no maturity, there is nothing to prevent it
from living îedetinitely and grow continu
ally. He cites in proof a pike living in
Russia whose age dates back to the
fifteenth century. In the Royal Aquarium
at St. Petersburg, there are fish that have
been there 140 years.
Always Heady.
[Judge.]
The Rev. Mr. Hithard, in a sermon on
"The Offense and the punishment :"
"And now, the evidence having been
taken, and your consciousness of sin hav
ing been established, what would you do if
arraigned at the bar to face the great Judge
of acts and motives ?"
"Sleepy lawyer, (just waking to meet the
eye of the clergyman and the significance
of the query)—"Move for a stay of sentence
and a new trial on the minâtes."
BISHOP TAYLOR.
HE TALKS ABOUT HIS MISSIONARY
WORK IN AFRICA.
He Is Now in New York Attending the
Big Methodist Conference—Picture of
the Bishop ami His Famous Missionary
Steamer, the Henry Reed.
The African mission of Bishop William
Taylor, who is now in New York attend
ing the big Methodist conference. Las
been singularly successful. He was ap
pointed a missionary bishop at tho last
general conference, and is the only man in
the Methodist church bolding that office.
Since tho beginning of his work 3,000
natives have embraced Christianity under
his ministrations. He has under his
supervision some fifty preachers, sixteen
of whom are women. Bishop Taylor states
that Liberia, with its settled communities
of Christian Africans, with its organized
government recognized by the nations,
and its social regulations, will be used by
him as the base and support of his future
operations. lie has arranged for opening
a dozen industrial schools, the chiefs of
the different tribes visited having agreed
to plant and attend to the first crops of
food required by the mission, to furnish
building sites and to erect buildings.
Bishop Taylor agrees to provide teachers,
preachers and all other things necessary
to put the mission in a self supporting
way.
"To adequately understand the difficul
ties which a missionary in Africa has to
surmount," he says, "it is merely neces
sary to state that the languages and dia
lects of the natives are innumerable. The
Bible has been translated into sixty-six
different tongues, yet this is but a small
proportion of the actual number of lan
guages spoken. It is estimated that there
are nearly 6U0. I can say from experience
that it is no play to pick up a language
in the study of which all the rules of your
own grammar simply help to puzzle you.
I was appointed to my work in Africa four
years ago, and sailed from New York on
Jan. 22, 1885. I took with me fifty-two
missionaries. After a short stay in Liver
pool I set sail for Africa, and landed at
8t. Paul de Loanda, on the west coast,
where a large mission house had been
prepareu for me. While staying there
many of my workers became ill. One of
them died because he would not taku
quinine, which is tho most effectual rem
edy for African fever. Finally I got the
permission of the governor of Angola to
establish five mission stations—the first
at Loanda, the second at Dondo, the third
at Uliangue-a-pepo, the fourt# at Ma
i
V:
BISHOP TAYI.OR AN» HIS 6TEAMER.
lauge and the fifth at Lulaaberg. Dondo
is a considerable town, situated about 240
miles from Loanda. It is laid out in long
streets, and has sidewalks, lamps and
many other improvements."
*
« *
It is necessary in prosecuting mission
ary work in the interior of Africa to use
the waterways of the continent. Bishop
Taylor has a small steamer on the Congo
river, in which he makes periodical jour
neys into the country. It is built in sec
tions, and can be taken apart and trans
ported from one stream to another to suit
his convenience. His work is confined
mostly to that part of Africa known as
Congo Free State. According to Stanley's
estimate, it embraces over 1.000,000
square miles, and has a population of 27,
000,000. The natives are barbarians, and
it Is said that some of them have been
guilty of cannibalism. When a king or
chief dies they kill ten or twelve persons
in a most savage manner, and adorn their
houses vmh the skulls. They believe in
fetiches and witchcraft.
When a man dies they believe that
some one has bewitched him, and they
try to find out wbo it was, that they may
put him to death.
The country along the upper Congo is
ravaged by Arabs in pursuit of slaves. In
traveling along the upper Congo one may
see villages that once contained 5,000 and
6.000 inhabitants desolate and in mins.
The Arabs surrounded the villages and
burned them, having either killed tho
people or carried them into slavery. From
tfce mouth of the Congo for nearly 130
miles the river is navigable by the largest
vessels. Then come the falls, or rapids,
which extend about 180 miles. The de
scent is 900 feet. When Bishop Taylor's
steamer, the nenry Reed, ascended the
river it was taken to pieces at the foot of
the falls, and one piece was given to each
native to carry. With it was also given a
scrap of paper describing his load. At the
end of their journey they came to the
bishop, saying:
"Master, here is my load; look at the
paper; 6ee it is all right. Now give me
my pay and I will go home. "
To do justice to their honesty it may be
stated that not a rivet was lacking. Above
the falls a steamer can go 1,200 miles on
the main stream, or 3,000 miles on the
stream and its branches.
"A n .n who goes out to the Congo as a
missionary must be not less than 25
years old, of sound health, and careful
about adapting himself to the exigencies
of the weather," said Bishop Taylor
to your, correspondent. "Total absti
nence is an absolute condition of
health. A man must learn what not
to do. A young man came there and *•
sisted upon walking eighteen miles a day.
In a short time lie was dead Above all
a man must not become frightened. There
were three men who came out from Eng
land, and on the voyage the people on
board the vessel frightened them, telling
them that they would surely die. The men
made their last wills and testaments
and expected o die. Shortly after land
Ing they were taken with fever. They
gave up all hope. The missionaries tried
to arouse them, but it proved useless.
They sank down into a mood of despair
and died."
The future of the Congo Free State is
very promising. Stanley, the explorer,
estimates the ivory production alone to
amount to $150,000 annually, but of
course ivory cannot be classed as a staple
production. The vegetation is luxurious,
and as soon as experienced botanists in
vestigate the country many valuable herbs
will undoubtedly be discovered.
The temperature of the Congo district
is in the dry season, which answers to our
winter, about 72 degs. In the hot season
the average is 90 degs., and the limit
about 96 degs. There is always a fine
breeze blowing, so that the weather is
never suffocatingly hot. The country is
fenced in by mountain chains and threaded
with navigable rivers. There are in all
over 7,000 miles of waterways in the Congo
district.
ANOTHER TRUST.
How the Chicago Cattle Syndicate
Controls the Market and Make
Serfs of the Western Stock
men—A Denial of the
Senator's Alle
gations.
There was under consideration in the
Senate recently a bill for the establishment
of a bureau of animal industry and to
facilitate the exportation of live stock and
their products. Vest, of Missouri, spoke of
what he termed the cattle syndicate, and
said that the people were helplessly w ritbiog
under it. It was the most terrible tyranny
ever exercised. There were five men or
firms in the city of Chicago which regu
lated the price of cattle every day. They
met every night and fixed the price for the
next day. The stockman who found from
the market quotations that cattle were
three cents or three and a half cents a
pound, shipped his cattle to Chicago; but
when he got there he found that the syn
dicate had put beef down to two or two
and a half cents. He could not store his
cattle, as they would be diminishing every
day in weight and quality, and so he wis
coerctd to sell.
He went to an agent of Armour's and
was told that the price was two and a half
cent ; he went to another Armour agent
and got the same answer. He was met all
over the city with the unvarying response,
"two and a half cents per pound," and he
had to take it. So that that these men
owned the cattle raiser's property,and con
fiscated it as absolutely as if they possesM-d
t îe right to take it from bis farm without
paying him one cent.
"Talk," said Mr Vest, "about trusts!
Talk about pools! The cat 1 le pool cf Chi
cago is the most infamous tyranny that
ever existed in the United States. They
have got their collar on the cattle producers
of the entire West, and I know no remedy
for it. The statesman who would invent
the remedy would deserve a monument
more enduring than the Capitol. He would
con r er the highest benefaction on the people
of the Northwest and of the cattle raisers
of the country."
Mr. Plumb had also something to say on
the same subject. In his opinion the first
combination in the country was the com
bination of beef and pork packers, having
its headquarters in Chicago. There was
no trust or combination—the Standard Oil
trust, the sugar trust, the copper trust, or
any other trust—that had so powerful or
so baleful an influence as that combina
tion. For years the prices of cattle to the
producer had been going down. They had
gone down, he thought, fifty per cent. In
the same time the price of meat to the
consumer had gone up, and every single
dollar of the difference had gone into the
pockits of that combination at Chicago.
PER CONTRA,
A representative of Mr. Armour was
visited and shown the foregoing. He said
in reply :
"There is no combination here between
the buyers of cattle for any purpose. Each
house requires so many cattle for its day's
work, and the buyers are instructed to buy
that number at the lowest price they can
secure them for. The price of cattle is
regulated by the supply. When there are
plenty of cattle in the yards the price is
lower and when the supply is light the
price advances. This would not be so if
there was a combination to manipulate the
prices. There is no combination among
packers and there never has been. The
statement that packers know just how
many cattle may be coming into the yards
and their quality is not so."
"The difficulty with Mr. Vest and Mr.
Plumb is that they assume to represent
the cattle raisers' interests without know
ing anything about the business."
Several live stock commission men seen
said the packers could not control prices if
they tried. There were too many rival
packing centers and rival concerns. The
low prices of cattle were due to large sup
plies.
Tradesmen in Japan.
The boys seen in nearly all the places of
skilled labor suggest what is the fact, that
apprentices begin to learn their trades usu
ally much earlier than in our country, so
that when majority is attained the mas
tery of the crafts is thorough. Another
striking feature of the Japanese system is
that of heredity. Skill inns in family
iines. Not a tew of the famous artisans of
the present decade are descendants in the
ninth, tenth, and even twentieth genera
tions of the founder of the establishment.
I once employed a carpenter in Fukui,who
was prond of his ancestry of wood-workers
through twenty-seven generations; and the
temple records show snch boasting to be
trne, though.often adoption interrapts the
actaal blood line. At a papermaker's
establishment in Awotabi, in Echizen, I
dined with the proprietor, whose fathers
first established the industry a millennium
ago, the national history showing also that
the Coreans before the ninth century of onr
era, visited the place.
THE CHINESE AND THE COMETS.
Ancient Accounts ol Sui-Sing or
H rush-Mars.
[Discursive Essays.]
During thousands of years in the history
of man, the ignorance of the human mind,
even among nations of high culture, trom
the highest in rank to the most humble,
has been such that when physical phen
omena have presented themselves to obser
vation, the character of which was not
properly understood, kings and great men
of all nations have fancied that such ap
pearances have been sent as an omen to
indicate the approach of some extraordi
nary event or some impending calamity.
They have imagined these phenomena to
have been produced by Nature expressly
to communicate some important incident
connected with their good or ill fortune or
with their lives. Hence the state of
national opinion in nearly all countries,
and from ancient times regarding the ap
pearance of comets, in the present day,
notwithstanding the advances made in
physical astronomy, considerable diversity
of views exist as to the origin of
these cosmical bodies. Many myriads
are supposed, by some astron
omers, to circulate in the solar sys
tem, though less than a thousand have
been accurately observed in Europe in
their passage through known constella
tions; while the orbits of scarcely four hun
dred have been calculated from direct
observations made with the required accu
racy. Out of this number the mean dis
ance of fourteen comets from the sun,
ascertained to the present time, is found to
he less than that of the planet Saturn.
The most ancient and authentic accounts
of the appearances of comets which, in the
Chinese tongue are called sui-sing, literally
signifying brush-stars or broom-stars, are
given in the registers and records ot the
Chinese comprehended in a period of
nearly four thousand years. These recorf 8
contain a regular series of eclipses, of the
appearance of comets and other astronomi
cal phenomena, extending over a period of
3,858 years, all the eclipses of which were
calculated and represented in diagrams
before they occurred, and were carefully
observed and registered. The Chinese eagle
of sixty years dates from the reign of the
Emperor Fie-hoi, 2857 B. C. Hwang-ti, in
2608, B. C, built an observatory for the ac
curate observation of celestial phenomena
aud the correction of the Chinese calendar.
The metonic cycle of the Greeks was
known to them more than two thousand
years anterior to its discovery by Meto in
Greece. Want of accuracy in the predic
tion of eclipses by the astronomers was, by
a law of the empire, punishable with
death, at a time when it was necessary for
the authorities to obtain the most correct
information in relation to the periodical
occurrence of the equinoxes, the solstices,
eclipses, the appearance of comets and
other phenomena, both for civic, political
and religious purposes. Hence the high
degree of advancement they had attained
in astronomy many centuries anteceden
to the foundation of the most ancient and
celebrated Greek cities or the establish
ment of any of the Hellenic states.
OKOGKAPHIC STKCTIKES.
From W hence the Forces That Have
Elevated Mountains.
Within the past twelve or fifteen years
it has become a widely accepted view
among the geologists of Europe and Amer
ica that the forces which have elevated
mountains are derived from strains set up
in the outer envelopes of the earth by the
secula cooling and shrinkage of its interior;
but it should be borne in mind that geolog
ical science has flourished most in those
countries where the best known and most
thoroughly studied mountains and ridges
are greatly plicated. To the Europeau
geologist the Alps and the Jura have
always been the most commanding anJ in
teresting of orographic structures. To the
Briton the iHighlands of Scotland and
Wales have been equally absorbing fields
of research, in which the solution of
the problem of mountain building has
been attempted. In America eeology had
its first and most rapid growth in the Ap
palachian region, and, when it sought fresh
fields in the I'acific slope, it first found
them in the coast ranges and in the Sierra
Nevada. All of these regions are more or
less plicated ; and it is not to be wondered
at that a universal conviction should have
grown up that plication and mountain
building are only different names for one
and the same thing, or that the process
which built the mountains folded the
strata at the same time. But as soon as
the geologists penetrated the vast moun
tain belt which lies east of the Sierra and
west of the Great Plains, and
proceeded to a careful study of
the forms there presented, a wholly different
state of affairs was revealed. Not a trace
of a systematic plication has yet been
found there. The terms "anticlinal" and
"synclinal" have almost dropped ont of the
vocabulary of the Western geologist. The
strata are often flexed, but the type of the
flexure is the monocliue.
The Rocky Mountain region discloses
whatever it has to tell us about physical
geology with marvelous clearness and em
phasis, but there is no teaching more clear
or more emphatic than the absence of
plicating forces from among the agencies
which have hnilt its magnificent ranges
and hoisted its great plateaus. They have
been lifted by vertical forces acting
beneath them. The country at large shows
no traces of a widespread, universal, hori
zontal compression ; on the contrary, it
discloses the absence of such stress.
Illesscd be the Peacemaker.
[From the Boston Globe. |
Fred D--, five years old, had to learn
a verse to recite at Sunday school. His
verse was, "Blessed aie the peacemakers."
He did not exactly understand what it
meant, and his mother explained it to him,
telling him that whenever be saw two boys
quarrelling or fighting, he must he a little
peacemaker and try to stop them.
The next night as he was being un
dressed he said : "Mamma, I-was a little
peacemaker to-day."
"Were you ?" said his mother, "how ?"
"I saw two little boys fighting in the
street and I stopped them."
"That's a good boy," said his mother,
giving him a kiss ; "and how did you part
them?"
"Why, I jnst ran up and fired stones at
them nntil they stopped fighting and ran
away."