surrender the jurisdiction which it has usurped, and send claims to courts and local matters to the States. Changes of the rules of the House of Representatives will accomplish nothing. The disease is too deeply seated for that short probe. We are, indeed, not the only sufferers from special legislation. One of Mr. Gladstone's reasons for asking for an Irish legislature for Irish affairs is that the imperial Parliament may secure time for the consideration of the concerns of the empire. Here in the United States a too great centralization has resulted in the paralysis of the central power. Congress can not legislate for the whole because it is too busy with the affairs of the different parts. The work of legislation must be reformed altogether. Washington Post (Dem.), May 9. THE whole country will be encouraged at this point by the indication afforded that the President will stand firm to protect the treasury from the extravagance of Congress. Even leaving out of view the absurd and buncombe pension schemes of Senators Logan and Blair, which unaided would suffice to bankrupt the treas ury, there have been introduced private claims enough to constitute a serious raid. The care with which the President examines each detail will impose a strong check upon extravagance in this direction, and his method will afford little hope to the friends of the river and harbor bill and other such schemes of gigantic jobbery that their miscellaneous grab will secure the end sought in their log-rolling conspiracy. Beyond question the people are with the President on the side of honest and economical expenditure of public money. N. Y. Herald (Ind.), May 10. These In such THERE are cases where a special act granting a pension is justifiable. are where the exact formal proofs required by the pension laws are not obtainable, but where yet there is sufficient evidence to show a meritorious case. instances Congress may grant relief, but these are few. The President rightly tells Congress that it has been careless with the people's money in passing most of the two hundred and forty bills dumped in one day on his table. Twenty-seven of them, it seems, granted claims which had never been presented to the Pension Bureau-surely extraordinary violations of law by Congress, which is the lawmaking power, and which ought to be also a law observing power. The President is right, and every honest pensioner will stand by him and approve of his admonition to Congress. Pittsburgh Dispatch (Ind.), May 9. PRESIDENT CLEVELAND gives Congress the benefit of sound sense on the pension business. If the bureau appointed to dispose of pension claims is not in shape to perform its duty, Congress should give its attention to passing general laws to make the bureau adequate rather than hustling through a lot of special pension bills with such haste that one of them, at least, reduced a pension which it was intended to increase., Let us hope that Congress will profit by the advice. Philadelphia Record (Ind.), May 9. THE private pension claims that are passed in increasing numbers every session of Congress are such as have no merits under the most liberal construction of the general pension laws. By vetoing two of these pension bills President Cleveland evinces his determination to do what lies in his power to arrest this abuse in legislation. MR. HEWITT'S CALL FOR A HALT. Mr. HEWITT, of New York, made the following remarks in the House of Representatives May 5, which have elicited the comments below: The Democrats of this House have a majority. There is a bill pending which will reduce taxes about $25,000,000. I know that efforts have been made to prevent the consideration and passage of that bill; and I will go with the gentleman from Iowa in sack cloth and ashes if necessary in order to make atonement for the failure of this House and my party and Administration to fulfill the pledges that they made to the people, when they asked for their votes and received the verdict which placed them in power. shall be traitors to every obligation which we have assumed, to every duty which we are sent here to fulfill, unless we wake up to the sentiment of the people upon the great question, and instead of imposing taxes and making new appropriations, reduce the taxes and lighten the load on the energies of the people. New York Tribune (Rep.), May 7. We MR. HEWITT expresses a notion that taxes are excessive. Accordingly, all the ills that flesh is heir to seem to him to result from unremoved or unreduced taxation. In his speech, the other day, he mixed up dynamite bombs and pensions, riots and revenue, the "red terror" and the tariff. His fixed idea misleads him. The truth is that the people of this country are not suffering from taxation. They are not unemployed or starving, and riots are not prompted in any case by suffering in any degree. If Mr. Hewitt will open his eyes, he will see that it costs less to live on the same scale in this country than it did twenty-six years ago, when the Democratic party became disgusted with itself and concluded to go out of power. But the wages of working people of every class are far higher than they were then, and their condition has immeasurably improved. Riots are caused, as Mr. Hewitt can see if he will, not by any actual suffering, but by false notions which, it must with reluctance be said, Mr. Hewitt hintself has at times helped to inculcate. But if taxation is the source of trouble, why does not the majority reduce it? That is a very natural inquiry. And Mr. Hewitt thereto replies with considerable heat, also very natural, that the majority is failing to fulfill its pledges, and is a "traitor to every obligation," and that he would like to "go in sackcloth and ashes" about it. Really, nobody prevents. What he demands is that instead of voting away more money, the majority shall reduce taxation. His criticism is just. The Democrats have made a false issue before the people, pretending that taxation took $500,000,000 or $600,000,000 a year from the earnings of American citizens, more for monopolies than for government. But Mr. Hewitt's committee, instead of cutting off this vast burden, brings in a bill to reduce taxes $25,000,000, and even that picayune and paltry excuse for a measure has so little attention that Mr. Hewitt berates his party about it. Philadelphia Press (Rep.), May 7. The limit of endurance on the part of the tax-payers has been reached, and it is breaking out in riot and death and dynamite; and it will not stop until the pressure and load of taxation is removed. This is the language spoken by Mr. Abram S. Hewitt in Congress on the very day which brought the reports of the lawless outbreak and the fiendish murders committed by the red-handed anarchist assassins of Chicago. Nay more, the declaration that "it is breaking out in riot and death and dynamite " shows that it had direct reference to the bloody events of that deadly hour. Such an utterance from such a source at such a time calls for one answer-it calls for instant and indignant rebuke, and its only possible palliation is that the man had so utterly lost his head that he was no longer responsible for what he said. The language is as untrue in fact as it is disgraceful in spirit; it is as misleading in its implications as it is mischievous in its effect. What taxes do these anarchist demons pay? Is it the tax on bombs? Under what "pressure and load of taxation" are they suffering? Is it the load of restriction on instruments of murder? What hardships have they borne up to "the limit of endurance?" It is a shame to his own reason and an insult to the intelligence of the country that Mr. Hewitt applies such termís to these irresponsible knaves. They pay no taxes; they share none of the burdens of Government; they have no stake in law or in order; they are simply outlaws who are the common enemies of society and peaceful rule Nor is it true that there is any class of tax-payers which suffers under Federal burdens, or that there is any load of Federal taxation which justifies or excuses the extreme and violent language of Mr. Hewitt. He was opposing a bill for the relief of certain officers of the volunteer army, and he protested that the Treasury couldn't spare the money. Very well, let him resist the appropriation, if he chooses; but let him not be guilty of the reckless misstatement that the country is suffering up to "the limit of endurance" under a weight of taxation wrung from the sweat of labor; and most of all, let him beware how he puts himself among the instigators of riot and assassination by justifying their crimes! For this is what his crazy declaration is equivalent to. If it means anything, it means that a wrong is being put upon some classes so great that they have reached "the limit of endurance" where they can not help" breaking out in riot and death and dynamite." It can not be supposed that Mr. Hewitt in any sane moment means any such thing. Let him, then, recall his ungoverned language, and apologize to the House and to the country. Rochester Post-Express (Ind.), May 6. Mr. Hewitt evidently means all that he says. It is entirely true that the Democracy will be recreant to its pledges if it does not reduce taxation. In the last national platform are these words: "The Democracy pledges itself to purify the Administration from corruption, to restore economy, to revive respect for law, and to reduce taxation to the lowest limit consistent with due regard to the preservation of the faith of the nation to its creditors and pensioners." Yes, if the Democrats in Congress do not reduce taxation, they will, as Mr. Hewitt says, " be traitors to every obligation" which they have assumed. But other parties have members in the House of Representatives. There are 141 Republicans, for instance. What is their duty on this question of reducing taxation? Are they pledged to pull back in the traces and do what they can to prevent tariff legislation, or are they pledged to reduce taxation? In their last picturesque conglomeration of principles and promises they pledged themselves to "correct the irregularities of the tariff and to reduce the surplus." Why do they not go about it? The fact that the Republicans are in a minority does not excuse them. They should at least show the people that Republican promises are not made, like pie-crusts, only to be broken. They should make an attempt to reduce taxation and carry out the pledges made when votes were wanted and talk was cheap. The Democrats should do the same thing. New York Star (Dem.), May 7. NO PATRIOTIC soldier of the Union will desire, for selfish reasons, to wreck the Government that his valor helped to save. The pension business has already been overdone, and it was time that some man should step forward and cry halt to a movement inspired as much by the protectionists' desire for a continuance of a high tariff as by the demagogy under which its advocates delight to masquerade. Mr. Hewitt is one of the men who are in a position to make this protest in behalf of the common weal. He has already demonstrated his unwillingness to deplete the public treasury in the interest of either localities or individuals. But a few weeks ago he made an earnest and convincing argument against the attempt to make the State of New York a pensioner on the country's bounty. His protest against the job to have the Erie Canal, in this State, enlarged at the expense of the Federal Government was just to the people of the whole country and honorable to Mr. Hewitt and to his State. If New York needs to enlarge one of her own internal improvements, she is able to do so without standing, cap in hand, like a mendicant, on the steps of the Federal Capitol soliciting alms. Mr. Hewitt represented the honorable public sentiment in this State when he opposed such a scheme. He likewise represents the sentiment of the most manly and honorable of the soldiers who saved the Union when he insists that they are able to maintain themselves and families without asking alms of the people of the Union. Common-sense as well as moral courage impelled him to take such position. Mr. Hewitt has given another illustration to his distinguished and useful career in Congress by the course he has pursued during the present session. Buffalo Courier (Dem.), May 6. IN the House of Representatives yesterday a bounty bill was under considera tion, when Congressman Abram S. Hewitt gave expression to a widespread public sentiment by emphatically objecting to legislation "giving an unknown sum, an untold sum, from the treasury of the United States, which could only be brought out by the coined sweat of the laboring men of the country." A system of laws has been enacted which, in practical appreciation of the services of those who defended the Union and suffered for it in the late war, surpasses everything that has been done at any former time or in any other country. The readiness of the Government to give a substantial expression to its gratitude, however, must have its limits in justice toward the masses of the people, who have to bear the public burden and include tens of thousands of former soldiers or their representatives. The financial condition of the country is not such as to justify new and large expendi tures not required by public necessities and obligations. The present Congress thus far has shown no disposition to reduce taxes, and a strong inclination toward new appropriations that will prevent reduction if they do not render necessary an increase of taxation. Congress may discard Mr. Hewitt's words of warning, but if it does the time must soon arrive when they will be regretfully remembered. Washington Correspondence Buffalo Courier (Dem.). ONE of the bravest speeches that has been made in Congress in a long time was that of Mr. Hewitt on one of the numerous pension schemes known as the veteran bounties bill. Year after year Congress has steadily voted millions upon millions of dollars upon the demand of any demagogue who has come along with the proposition to pension anybody. It is highly creditable, of course, to the Representatives in Congress from the various portions of the country that they are willing to care for the old soldier at any cost, even in these recent years of depression in trade and over-taxation of the people; but there is a limit to generosity. It is the business of Congress to be just before it is generous, and this it has not been. It has yielded to every demand made upon it, not by the old soldier, but for the old soldier, and piled burden after burden upon the taxpayers of the country until the load is becoming too grievous to be borne, It is, of course, very perilous to any man's political future, especially if he be a Democrat, to stand up in his place in Congress and say that there are other people to consider besides the old soldier at this time. New York Sun (Dem.), May 7. BROTHER HEWITT is wild in his talk about the crushing weight of United States taxation as the chief cause of the strikes and riots. The taxation he refers to-whisky and tobacco being left out--amounts to about $3 a head per year, and anybody can stand that. It is the gold standard! Brother Hewitt. It is the gold standard! Troy Telegram (Rep.), May 7. CONGRESSMAN HEWITT surprised his associates in the House on Wednesday by a vigorous denunciation of extravagance. It had no effect, however, for as soon as he finished talking the bill to which he objected was passed by an overwhelming majority, proving that economy is not a virtue recognized by the Democratic majority. MAIL SUBSIDIES. Charleston News and Courier (Dem.). countries; we produced exactly what they needed; they desired to treat with us. The whole difficulty lies in our lack of transportation there, while all the countries of Europe have such lines established largely on the basis of government subsidies. It is proposed now to organize steamship lines to Brazil and Central America by paying American vessels for carrying our mails there. The amount needed is small, in comparison with the great results to be attained; it is needed, moreover, for but a short period of time. A Brazilian steamship line once established will very soon develop a trade with Rio, Bahia and Pernambuco, and in a short time obtain so much freight and passenger business that no other assistance whatever will be needed from any source. N. Y. Star (Dem.), May 10. WITH free trade and free ships we do not doubt that our maritime supremacy would long since have been established. The country was nearly on an equality with England when that policy was begun. Our loss of shipping cannot be attributed to the British cruisers, for the decrease of tonnage has continued since quite as rapidly as during the war. But the question as to whether we shall pay a reasonable and appropriate compensation for carrying the mail does not necessarily involve the protective principle. We pay the mail service by land without reference to whether it is self-supporting or not. In fact, the maritime postages are now contributing every year a considerable sum for the support of land mails which are not self-supporting. It seems to us just that all the postages earned at sea should go to pay the sea service. The appropriation made by the Senate is considerably less than the surplus revenue obtained from the maritime maiis, and, therefore, it is proper that the House should concur in it. Considerations like these induced the last Congress to make an appropriation for the carrying of the mails by American ships. We are glad to see the matter brought up again in a form which will relieve the department from all responsibility about it. THE Senate has passed the amendment appropriating $800,000 for the transportation of United States mails to Central and South America, China, Japan and other foreign countries. It is exceedingly gratifying to know that Senator Butler did not vote for so great and utterly inexcusable a waste of the public money. Senator Hampton was absent or he would doubtless have voted with his colleague. There is one point in connection with all these matters which Senators and Representatives should not fail to consider. Every dollar added to general or special appropriation bills is a dollar added to the burden of the taxpayer, and every large grant of public money in excess of the present revenues of the Government is in the interest of the protective tariff. Congress has recently passed a law increasing the annual appropriation for pensions by $6,000,000. A pension bill that would require the expenditure of $222,000,000 has been favorably reported in the House. The bill pensioning all veterans of the war with Mexico, which has been passed by the House, will take $50,000,000 additional out of the treasury. Other measures providing for large appropriations have been favorably reported in either one or the other house of Congress. The strongest advocates of all these measures are the openly avowed champions of the policy of protection, and they are playing their cards so that the Government shall be unable to reduce taxation. By fair means or foul, the nose of the American workingman is to be held to the grindstone while his pockets are rifled for the benefit of the monopolists and manufacturers. Last year the Federal taxes yielded only $17,000,000 more than was needed to provide for the expenses of the Government. Almost every appropriation bill that has been passed by Congress means higher taxation. By increasing the obligations of the Government the protectionists intend to make it impossible to revise the tariff. They have a double motive in this: First, they intend to protect certain industries, and, second, they intend to place the blame upon the Democratic party, which came into power upon the explicit promise of reducing taxation to the lowest point consistent with the economical administration of the Government. The people, however, have one hope left. President Cleveland is pledged to carry out the provisions of the platform on which he was elected. Unlike many of the members of his party, he believes that pledges are not made to be broken. He has the right of veto, and we are confident that he will exercise it to the fullest extent. New Orleans Times-Democrat (Dem.). Oshkosh, Wis., Times (Dem.), May 9. IT WILL probably never occur to these Republican statesmen that the proper way to build up and strengthen American shipping is to build up and strengthen American trade with the South American countries; and that the proper way to build up and strengthen trade with these sister republics is to stop taxing to death their trade with America. If there existed a brisk trade between the United States and the South American countries American ships wou'd be doing a good business, carrying our commodities to foreign parts and bringing the goods they have to sell in return, and there would be no need of subsidizing American shipping and taking the money to do it with out of the pockets of the people. The reason the English ships are doing a good business. is because England has large commercial intercourse with the people of the South American countries. She does not ship her commodities to South America and make her ships return light because the goods of the South American people are taxed so high they cannot land upon English shores. MR. EUSTICE made a very strong appeal in the Senate against the penny wise policy of certain Senators who would leave this country without hope of trade for the future; who, to vindicate an idea, would seriously cripple our commerce and affect all our industries. The question of paying a proper amount for the transportation of mails between this country and South and Central America has, as Mr. Eustice shows, nothing to do with free ships, with free trade or protection. It was an independent question that had to be considered by itself. Great Britain has paid large subsidies to its steamship lines for the transportation of its mails to South America, and thus given its merchants a foothold in that country that they had since maintained and increased. France, Italy and every other country, whether favoring free trade or protection, has followed this same policy. Against all these the American merchant marine has contended under such great disadvantages that our trade has been driven almost altogether from the southern half of the continent. This commerce is ours by every consideration. We were nearer to these N. Y. Times (Ind.) MR. GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS says that, looking at the matter as a civil-service reformer, he should say that "the course of the President, however courageous and however sincere, must be a compromise between his party on the one hand and the interest of reform on the other, and the inevitable result of such a course will be disaster." Mr. Cleveland was chosen President by a party, and he can only carry out any policy he may conceive by means of a party's support. He can not subordinate the whole conduct of his great office to the single question of the manner of appointing subordinate officers. That he has been courageous and sincere in maintaining his promises in regard to civil-service reform, no fair man attempts to deny. But he can not force a reform more rapidly than public opinion will sanction; he can not. attempt to widen the scope of this particular reform beyond the limits already presented by law. The only security for this reform, as well as for the many others to which Mr. Cleveland is pledged, lies in that very system of judicious conciliation and compromise which Mr. Curtis bewails as leading to disaster. Mr. Curtis declares that he reaches his dreary conclusion by looking at this question "as a civil-service reformer." Suppose he broadens his view and looks at the question, as a practical man, in the light of history. What great reform has ever been accomplished, except by gradual progress, in which what was from time to time gained fell far short of anything that enthusiasts aimed at? Nay, what great reform has ever been brought about under constitutional government but by the agency of a political party gradually advancing step by step to a more complete committal to the principle involved? Let Mr. Curtis consider these things, and he will see that the President is doing well, and that he is by no means confined to two roads, each of which leads to inevitable disaster. Harper's Weekly (Ind.), May 8. IN the present state of public sentiment upon this subject, and the general intel ligent conviction that the spoils system, if not arrested, will be fatal to our institutions, as already it interferes seriously with the proper and economical operation of the Government, it is plain that if the President could make no change without a distinct removal, changes, under a President of reform principles, would be made only for legitimate cause. The course pursued in reappointing the New York postmaster would be the rule in every post-office under similar conditions. Postmasters would be displaced, not because they held certain opinions, but because they were poor postmasters, or because they allowed those opinions to make them violent partisans. The plea that unless the whole body of offices are made the prey of a successful party, party cannot be effectively maintained, is false. Party is just as strong in England as it is here, but it does not control the civil service. Moreover, if a party can be effectively maintained only by distributing money in the form of salaries among an army of placemen, it is not a legitimate party; it is a conspiracy-"an organized appetite" for plunder. The situation in England is the standing refutation of the assertions of Messrs. Vance and Ingalls and the other champions of party success by patronage and not by principle. A Democrat, echoing Senator Ingalls, said the other day that he didn't want Democratic success if he couldn't have a Democratic night-watchman put in the place of a Republican. But when he was asked upon what policy or measure the Democratic party and the Republican party differed as parties, he smiled, and said that he thought Mr. Randall was sound upon protection. The Democratic party, by its members of Congress and its press, has been trying for a year to persuade the President to turn Republicans out, and the Republican party has been trying to keep them in. If the one were all turned out and the other all turned in, there would yet be no more a distinctive party policy upon either side than there is now. The only result would be that the service would be filled with inexperienced men, and the public interests would be necessarily injured. If the object of a civil service be to give every citizen a chance to draw money from the public treasury, changes should be made every month, that all may take their turn. But if the object be an efficient transaction of the public business, what is needed is to secure the best officers, and to change them when they become negligent or inefficient. The Nation (Ind.), May 8. Now, what have the Mugwumps to say? They perceive, in the first place, that, to whatever extent Democratic discontent exists, it exists because civil-service reform has found a lodgment in the White House. There is no complaint that Mr. Cleveland has violated any principle held dear by the Democratic party. It is not alleged that he has gone counter to the Democratic platform, or to the pledges made before his election. The only complaint from that quarter is that he has not cut up and served out the public patronage fast enough. This is not a complaint that grieves any Mugwump. On the other hand, there is a complaint that the President has come short in some rather glaring cases of the terms of the letter which he voluntarily addressed to Mr. Curtis on Christmas day, 1884. This is a subject which we have discussed from time to time, and which we shall reserve for separate treatment. There is also a complaint that the civil-service reform law has been violated in some places, notably in Baltimore and Indianapolis. These appear to be two very rotten spots. Now, the violation of a statute of the United States is a much graver matter than differences of opinion concerning a voluntary pledge, as to which there may be much latitude of interpretation. Such violation cannot be tolerated here and there by those who have civil-service reform at heart, any more than counterfeiting can be tolerated here and there by banks. We believe that it will not be tolerated by the President if the facts shall show that an infraction of law has been committed, or that its spirit has been violated by any person who holds his commission. At all events, the Republican press may rest assured that no pains will be spared by the Mugwumps to find out the facts, and that there will be no hesitancy on their part in proclaiming them. N. Y. Sunday News (Dem.), May 9. IN AN address to the Civil-Service Reform Association on Thursday night Chief Mugwump Curtis exhibited the foolishness of theory in politics. He declared that if the President should adhere strictly to civil service reform theories he would have the opposition of "the entire body of politicians in his party." But Mr. Curtis thought that the President should pursue that course. What could the President accomplish with his "entire" party opposed to him? Mr. Curtis himself, in a more sensible moment, said: Every one who understands the conditions and necessities of party action knows that when a man comes into office as the Chief Executive, as the representative of a party, he is held by that party to accept a trust under the conditions upon which they conferred it upon him, they being the interpreters of those conditions. And the President. like every other President, has felt the necessity for party support. He must have some kind of a party. Does Mr. Curtis imagine that the handful of Mugwumps, without a member of either house of Congress, or a representative in any executive office, would be a party capable of giving the President any support? He is not foolish enough to think that. The only party to which the President can turn for support is the Democratic party. He was elevated to his present office by that party, and he holds it in trust for them. It would be a betrayal of that trust to desert his party for the Mugwumps; and it would be the act of a madman because, without the support of his party, the President would be nothing. And yet Mr. Curtis advises him to pursue a course which Curtis acknowledges would be opposed by the entire Democratic party. To such an absurd position does theory lead a man! ident Cleveland either did not know it or refused to consider it. To make a harmonious Cabinet of such civil-service reformers as Mr. Cleveland desired, he would have been obliged to seek among the Independents or Republicans. He could not have found them among Democrats. We fancy though, that the President had begun to see this even before Mr. Curtis delivered his speech. MISCELLANEOUS. VISIONS IN A DENTIST'S CHAIR. I have always had a horror of tooth-pulling. For the dentist to touch my teeth would start the cold sweat out upon my forehead. Still my mouth was filled with arguments all declaring the urgent and daily increasing necessity for an early visit to the knight of the forceps. It chanced one day that I met the doctor, and I was at the time wild with the combined torture of four decayed teeth. With one look in my mouth, he exclaimed: They must come out! Injuring your health! Affect your whole nervous system! Ought to have come out long ago. Longer they are in the worse for you. Come to my office to-morrow at 2 p. m. All out in five minutes, and no pain." Tooth-pulling is a p'ssion with that man. "A tooth for a tooth" is doubtless his favorite passage of Scripture. "No pain," said I. "Sure, doctor?" "Sure! Beautiful operation! Ether? No! Laughing-gas." In a weak moment I made the appointment. I took my seat in the chair. I have seen the guillotine once used in France, in the revolution. I have looked upon the "block" in London Tower. But that chair, with the long row of bright steel knives and forceps in every conceivable shape lying on the table, in ready reach, had about it a more distinct and terrible declaration of suffering; for with the guillotine and block there was the thought of a minute's pain, and all was over. But here was an array of all the ingenious devices for a protracted agony-large pincers, medium-sized pincers, little pincers; and then a multitude of sharp-pointed instruments, for all the refinements of pain. I was in the chair, a helpless, speechless victim, for the doctor, with an assistant, brought a huge black bag and instantly pushed into my mouth a large tube, terribly suggestive of a gag. "Hold his nose!" exclaimed the doctor, and the assistant held tight the victim's nose. "Now," said the doctor, "draw in as long a breath as you can, and breathe out as little as possible." With all my breathing world pent up in that black bag, no nose for any practical purpose, two strong men over me with the steady purpose of first making me a senseless body, and then to dig, gouge, cut, punch, and pull in my silent mouth to their heart's content-what could I do but obey? I drew in a column of gas, and then breathing back a little, drew another, and so continued. The tormentors complimented me. "That's it! Oh, you are doing nobly!" "Don't let go his nose!" Tormentor No. 2 tightens a little on the nose. "How many has he?" "Four double ones. Shall have to cut a gooddeal." The third or fourth respiration began to tell upon me. Just then I resolved to notice carefully every sign and sensation, both physical and mental. It seemed to me that I was about to put out into a strange and unknown sea, and I determined to keep a faithful "log" of the mysterious voyage, as far as possible, or, at least, to signal with the shores of consciousness to the last moment. The first positive evidence of the effect of the gas was a peculiar tingling sensation. This finally centered at the ears, and resolved itself into the sweetest music. I concluded that after two more respirations I would make an instant and overwhelming assault on the man holding captive my nose, and with one bold dash release the prisoner. But after two more breathings I thought I would let the nose alone. Wondered if noses were a real necessity. Doubted whether the man actually had my nose. Then the music! Could I have spoken, I am sure I should have talked of the harpings of heaven. (Is it some such sensation that deceives the dying, or does celestial music descend to earth when the golden doors are opening to the spirit?) Coupled with these sweet notes was a monotonous and regularly-measured sound, which I now think must have been the noise of breathing. I was still conscious; knew that I was in the chair and taking the gas; saw the doctor and the possessor of two noses. Now I was to have another and quite a different experience. All sounds ceased; but the nerves of the ear seemed to gently quiver like the most delicate vibrations of the strands of some instrument when the fingers of the musician have ceased to touch them; and suddenly there dropped before my eyes a thin, misty veil. Another and another came. I was far out on the unknown sea, and the shore-lights were glimmering dimly and doubtful in the distance. I knew I was going; I am confident that the horror of passing away, that awful sense of letting go my last hold of life, was the very counterpart of death. My little girl was at my side, and the two men had left me. I shall not take the gas, my child; and if I do, I know it will produce no effect; no dentist can touch my teeth and I not feel it." As I seemed to be saying this, I heard some one groan just at my side; it was my own signal of return to consciousness; it was the ship of life touching the dock; I had got back with two teeth lost overboard on the voyage. A second bag of gas, and a similar physical experience. The music came and ceased. The white veils fell, and again the instant, nameless horror, and then a vision as wild as "the dreams of an opium eater." I thought I was on the New York Central railroad going west from Albany to Buffalo. I stood on the rear platform of the last car, and at my side stood a giant. His head towered to heaven, and on his mighty arm was coiled a rope, said to be three miles long, and to which was attached a hook more than a hundred feet in length. This monster and the entire train were at my command. It seemed to me that I had stopped the train, and then at my bidding the giant threw his hook at a four-story tooth which stood by the road-side, and instantly put on all steam and out came the tooth, leaving the cellar as a deep cavity. "No laughing gas about this," I exclaimed, "but the new and improved method of extracting teeth by steam." In this way it seemed to me that we tore out all the buildings on either side the railroad for thirty miles. Our last grand feat, however, was to pull up an entire village of some ten thousand inhabitants. Out it came, and in the cavity, deep and wide as the crater of Vesuvius, there were men, women, and children all jumping and bounding like maniacs. "What are those?" I asked of my giant, who was laughing in ecstacy in view of his last grand pull. "Those," said he, "are the nerves! The village had the jumping tooth-ache!" "Now for Syracuse!" I exclaimed. "All right!" said the giant. "All right!" shouted the man on the engine. "He's all right," said the doctor, and I was back again, minus two more teeth. Somewhere in the early future is a day when pleasure parties will be made up to visit dentists' offices; when, for the fun of the thing, men will have all their teeth drawn and a "new set" put into the mouth at a moment's notice. By the way, when that deep sleep fell on Adam, and there was taken from his side a rib of which Eve was formed, must there not have been some such suspension of nervous sensitiveness? Who knows what dreams he may have had of walks and talks in the garden of Paradise before he awoke to the consciousness of all the bliss of married life ?-Rev. J. Hyatt Smith, Brooklyn Magazine for May. if your buttons are not all on and your underwear in perfect order. Don't spare THE NEGRO PROBLEM.-The South is being flooded just now with pamphlets and articles on the negro question. We have received two lately-one on "The Negro and the Republic," by Mr. M. Green, of Jackson, Miss.; the other, "Yazoo on the Negro Question," by T. B. Wilson, of Yazoo City, Miss. Both articles contain many truths, and point out the importance of the negro problem to-day, and the still greater importance it is likely to attain in the early future; but the cure proposed by them is, we feel sure, a faulty one, that will not and can not be put into operation. Both gentlemen declare that it is impossible for the Southern whites and negroes to live together; that social or political equality between the two races can never exist; that the feeling of caste is such that there will always be a superior and inferior race, and the latter will be the negro. He, on his part, will always struggle to rise, and, as a consequence, there will be a clashing that will bring about continual trouble. Hence, they conclude that the best thing for the South to do is to get rid of the negroes peaceably, and Mr. Green proposes that they be located on a reservation in the Territories, with the same privileges now enjoyed by the Indians, free from the invasion of the whites, independent and self-governing, and allowed to develop their own civilization untrammeled and unaffected by the whites. The present situation, the mixture of whites and blacks, is, he declares, responsible for nearly all the evils from which the South suffers today. The fact that the whites look down upon the negro is the reason for the prejudice existing against labor as something belonging to a lower and inferior class or race. It cannot be denied that these sentiments prevail to a remarkable extent throughout this section, and that hundreds of thousands of the people entertain them. The testimony given before the Senate Committee on Labor showed this, for fully one third of the white men before it announced their belief that the negro was a positive injury to the South; that he was working less and producing less in freedom than in slavery, threatening to become a burden upon the country, and was at the same time keeping valuable immigration out; and the situation is still further complicated by the increase of the negro in the South, in some portions far more rapidly than the whites. It is unfortunate that such a condition of affairs should exist, for it retards the definite settlement of the negro question. The South has the negro; he is here to stay, and not likely to go. No such wholesale emigration as these gentlemen suggest is desirable or possible. It was possible to banish the Moors and Jews of Spain, four centuries ago, but even then it was a difficult operation and impoverished and ruined Spain. A movement of this kind to-day is out of the question. We must make the best of the negro, and try and elevate him into a useful and productive citizen. He has not done all that his friends prophesied for him; he has not fulfilled the ideas of the Northern philanthropists and abolitionists, but he has, on the other hand, advanced more rapidly than was predicted by those who now want him banished from the South. It was they who asserted that with freedom the negro would cease altogether to work beyond raising just sufficient to live on. The colored people have, on the contrary, worked hard and earnestly, if not as hard as in the days of slavery, far more than was imagined of an uneducated race recently enfranchised from bond. age. They have entered almost all professions and industries; they have advanced yearly in wealth and accumulation; the rest must come in time. Compared with the American Indian, the Polynesian and other peoples, the negro has stood his intercourse with the whites far better than any of them. His development cannot be sudden, as was hoped for, but will be gradual and satisfactory. The colored race can here become, if properly led and taught, of valuable assistance to the South in its development. As for immigration, the negroes cannot long prevent it. The white people have roured over into the border States in increasing majorities; they are coming South, filling up the waste places of the cotton States. With no negro immigration from Africa, but plenty of white immigrants from Europe and the North, the negro question must become of less and less importance every year. This is a better, safer, and surer solution than that policy of barishment which has never been tried without fatal effects.-New Orleans TimesDemocrat. SOME DON'TS For Husbands.-Don't trouble yourself to be on hand promptly at your meals. Your wife will keep your supper as warm as toast in the oven for you. She enjoys your tardiness. Don't hurry. It's vulgar to hurry. Don't begin to eat your breakfast as soon as you sit down at the table. Bury yourself in the morning's paper first for about fifteen minutes; then your breakfast will be nice and cold, and less liable to give you the dyspepsia. Your wife enjoys eating hers in silence, and then watching you bolt yours. It increases feminine amiabilty. Don't hesitate to remark on the thinness of the coffee and the toughness of the steak. Remarks on the demerits of the food are encouraging to young housekeepers, and an accomplished cook may thereby be made of an inexperienced and amiable wife. Don't hang up the towel when you have finished using it. Toss it lightly to the top of the picture frame, or on to the headboard of the bedstead. Your wife expects to put it in the clothes hamper, anyway, and by the time she has walked a few yards on the bed springs, or joyfully rescued it from the picture, she will be pleasantly reminded of the hamper and of-you. Don't neglect to kick up a row AROUND THE WORLD ON A BICYCLE-Mr. Thomas Stevens' bicycle excur- A NEWSPAPER Office in Japan.--The office of the Nichi-Nichi Shinbun, a all of a size; the "stick" is not set to the measure of the column, which is twenty ems pica, but to about half the measure-it being the business of the other workmen to impose the lines in columns, take proof, and make up forms. Now, then, the type setting. Armed with sticks and rules and copy, the dozen compositors read the last in an earnest, sing-song way, each rushing to some box far or near for the needed letter, then back ten or twelve feet to the next one; all are on the lively move, rushing and skipping to and fro, right and left, up and down, chasse, balance to partners, swing the corners, up and back, singing the copy, catching one letter here, another there, prancing and dodging, humming and skipping-a promenade, cotillion, Virginia reel, racquet, and all-hands-around upon the same floor at the same time and the same dancers in each-a perfect maze of noise and confusion, yet out of confusion bringing printed order! It was a sight to be seen. "How many different characters are there in this case, anyhow?" we asked our guide. Then our guide asked the printers, and none could answer better than say: body knows, sir! Nobody knows-many thousands." Later on we repeated the same question to a more intelligent person, who said: "At least 50,000." That will account for the remarkable size of the case, and the racing to and fro of the compositors. Just why they intone their copy all the while was not made so clearother than the remark that it was the custom. Tokio monopolizes the Japan newspaper business, there being only one other point-Kofu-in Eastern Japan, where newspapers are printed. The masses of the people are able to read in their own way, but comparatively few can grasp the full flow of Chinese characters. In point of illiteracy, the statistics place this nation at only seven per cent. or next to Bavaria, which is the lowest on the list.—Electrical Review. "No THE ANTIQUE IN WASHINGTON.-Washington is an excellent market for old mahogany furniture, brasses, eight-day clocks, rare silver and china. The surrounding country has been pretty well scoured for it, but in the remote parts of Virginia are still mines of wealth for the collector of antique. These articles are usually bought very cheap by the gatherers of antique bric-a-brac, and in most cases are in a dilapidated condition, but after having passed through the hands of the cabinet-maker and received a coat of oil or varnish, look nearly as good as new. In the time of the old Virginia colonies it was customary to exchange tobacco for old pieces of English furniture, and any one who possessed a pier table or wine chest considered himself well off. Mr. Blaine was a great buyer of old furniture and bric-a-brac, and secured some of the best specimens offered for sale here. Senator Logan's house contains many valuable old pieces, and Secretary Whitney's country residence, near Washington, is furnished throughout with old mahogany furniture. The foreign Ministers are also great lovers of old china, and brass especially. Among some of the articles exhibited here are an old mahogany wine chest inlaid in lighter woods; a sideboard nearly two hundred years old, with brass handles on the doors and drawers, which can be turned into a desk; a pier table, which also answers the purpose of a table. Besides these there is a very rare old set of India china, the set consisting of one hundred and ten pieces, beautifully hand-painted in Chinese scenes. It was bought down in North Carolina, and is said to be one of the oldest and finest of its kind. With a magnifying glass even the window panes in the painted houses may be distinguished. It is valued at $500. This in New York would be considered a moderate price for a set of china, but here it is a big figure. There is also a service of silver one undred and fifty years old, which is very unique. There is no fine establishments here like those in New York, where these antiques are collected. In a few small shops on side streets are found the old carved chairs, the Pekin china plates and dishes, the dingy old brass andirons, and sets of silver that would delight the soul of the connoisseur.-Washington Correspondent N. Y. Sun. ESSENTIALS OF REFORM.-I. If an evil is to be removed, or an important change wrought by the action of the people, the first step is a clear and truthful description of existing conditions, with a plain, brief presentation of the remedy proposed. 2. What is written must be addressed to the average understanding of people without "culture," who work with their hands. What is plain to them will be understood by all others. All rhetorical indirection or display is a fatal disadvantage. Nobody now takes fine writing seriously, not even the authors of it. 3. The first impression upon popular attention must be followed up by frequent, brief restatements, each complete in itself and clear in its iteration of the essential original appeal, and these must be continuously varied and multiplied, without any long pause, till their cumulative effect produces a reverberation filling all the air of the time and compelling general attention. 4. There will be required a few men of known character and influence to employ an agent who understands the evil and believes in the remedy proposed, who shall devote his whole time and energies to the work, with a large measure of freedom of judgment and action as to methods. This agent should be able to employ the pen and the press, as well as the power of personal appeal. At present many efforts to bring about important changes involve fatal waste of energy. The methods followed are often clumsy and inefficient, because they are not based upon the facts of the situation, nor in accord with the natural laws governing the propagation of ideas. "Public opinion, to be effective, must be concentrated," and the publication of valuable writings often avails little, and enthusiastic public meetings produce no change in existing conditions, because the necessary means for the systematic and effective propagation of ideas are not employed. In this country there is often much greater expenditure of money and energy in fruitless efforts for important public objects than would be required for their accomplishment if practical methods were followed. It is not the fault of the masses. "The multitude is capable of willing loyalty to wisdom."—J. B. Harrison, in the New Princeton Review. SIXTY-TWO CHILDREN.-The most extraordinary case of fecundity that I ever heard of came to my knowledge last week. About twenty-five miles from here, and by rail two or three stations beyond Pompeii, is the historical city of Nocera (the Nucera of the ancients). Twenty times have I paased through Nocera this past summer and autumn, and have always admired the wonderful productiveness of the fields, the vineyards, and the orchards. But there is something strictly true which, in human productiveness, rivals the exuberance of the soil, viz: In the rione (or ward) of Laposta lives Maddalena Granata, aged forty-seven, who was married at the age of twenty-eight to a peasant, just nineteen years ago. Maddalena Granata has given birth to (either dead or living) sixty-two children, fiftynine of whom were males. She enjoys florid health, is robust, and twenty-four hours after her last accouchement was ready to go out to her accustomed labor in the fields. She has no hesitancy about conversing with any one about her extraordinary prolificness. Her physician, Dr. Raphael de Sanctis, of Nocera, says there is not the least exaggeration in these statements. Has any one ever heard of such phenominal fecundity in the whole history of maternity-sixty-two children, alive or dead, in nineteen years; i. e, on an average twelve children every fourteen months! I leave it to your medical or surgical readers to make their researches and see if in all their statistics they can find a parallel case.-Naples Correspond. ent of the Paris American Register. A LUCKY DUKE.-Fortune seems never to grow weary of pouring her gifts into the lap of the Duke of Westminster. He prospers in everything. Owner of two of the finest country seats in England and of acres of the most valuable residence property in London, he is surrounded with every luxury and gratification that almost unlimited wealth can command. He is wonderfully successful on the turf and easily carries off the honors that many rich and famous Englishmen have striven for in vain. Twice he has won the Derby with Bend Or and Shotover, and the list of minor victories scored by his stable is long and impressive. Yesterday his superb colt Ormonde won the two thousand guineas, and he will probably follow up this triumph by capturing the Derby next month, as he has now defeated Minting, his most dangerous antagonist in the great classic race.-N. Y. Tribune. INTRODUCTION OF GAS.-London was the first town or city in Great Britain to be lit by gas. One side of Pall Mall was lighted January 28, 1807, by Mr. Winsor, and the whole of it June 4, 1807. Golden lane was lighted on August 16th of the same year. In 1810 the London and Westminster Gas Company was incorporated, and Westminster bridge was lighted by gas December 31, 1813. By 1816 the use of this illuminant had become very general in London. The Lyceum Theatre was lighted by gas in 1803, and on the occasion of the rejoicings for the peace of Amiens in 1802 the whole front of Messrs. Boulton & Watts' foundry at Soho, near Birmingham, was brilliantly illuminated with gas by Mr. Murdock. Lord Dundonald lighted Culross Abbey with coal gas in 1789.-Building. NATIONALITY OF NEW YORK POLICEMEN.-Of the 2936 members of the New York police force, the World says, 1745 are natives of the United States, 974 of Ireland, 30 of England, 14 of Scotland, and 136 of Germany. Other countries contribute as follows: Austria, 4; Italy, 5; Canada, 13; France, 6; Nova Scotia, 2; Sweden, 2; Switzerland, Finland, Bavaria, Denmark, and the West Indies, I each.-Public Ledger, Philadelphia, May 7. FINANCE AND COMMERCE.. THE BUSINESS SITUATION.-If one looks to the very immediate future there is nothing in the outlook to afford encouragement. All of the conditions are favorable for a season of quite general prosperity except the relations between employer and employe. The reports of crops were never more favorable in the whole country at this season of the year. The condition of the money market is not only sound but most favorable to those who might desire to invest in new enterprises. The falling off in the number and amount of business failures was a sure indication that the turning point had been reached. For most lines of merchandise the demand was so large that an advance of prices was confidently expected, which would once more afford manufacturers a living profit. The factories are now running a larger force than at any time during the past two years. But with all these hopeful indications, business has received a check, and uncertainty has quite generally taken the place of the confidence so apparent early in the season. It is not necessary to enter upon an extended explanation of the causes of this change, or to give the reasons with which to account for the present discouraging outlook, when so many circumstances are favorable to general prosperity. Men speak of but one cause the uncertainty attending the present labor troubles. Trade has been interrupted in some sections because the movement of merchandise has been checked by labor troubles. The suspension of certain industries by strikes and lock-outs during the past week has had a serious effect upon general business, and so long as these continue prosperity can not be expected. Bradstreet's reports that 325,000 men have taken a part in the short-day movement, of whom 175,000 have struck and the others have received concessions without striking. The whole effect, however, has been to create uncertainty and to lead those who intended to engage in new enterprises to retire from them. That railroad earnings have fallen off during the past two weeks is a sure indication of the interruption of transportation. Than the volume of the traffic of the country there is no surer measure of the general industrial and commercial condition of the country. Again, the returns of the clearing houses show unmistakable marks of the stoppage of industrial activity.-Boston Journal, May 10. RIGHTS IN THE FISHERIES.-In a recent number of this journal there were set forth the rival claims of the two parties to the controversy over commercial privileges which is involved in the "fisheries question." The article has attracted considerable attention and occasioned some unexpected displays of temper in the Dominion. It was shown that the Canadian contention was, in brief, that if American fishing vessels entered port to buy bait, or ice, or supplies, or to tranship cargoes, they did so for a purpose foreign to the convention of 1818, and thereby became liable to forfeiture. The American view, on the contrary, is that the ordinary rights of trade belong to our fishermen by virtue of the commercial arrangement of 1815, or the comity which exists between all civilized countries, and are unaffected by the treaty of 1818. In |