Middletown transcript., 1876-02-19
Maryland Affairs.


Wigan, Somerset county. over the body Of a
little girl named Mary Evans, aged six years,
the daughter of Samuel Evans. About one
pound of gun-powder was borrowed from
Evans by neighbor, and returned on the
following evening. Mrs. Evans received the
powder, and left basin containing it at the
bottom of the stairs. The child being shortly
afterward sent up stairs on an errand with
candle, stumbled against the basin and drop
ped the candle into it. The powder exploded
and the child was SO injured that she died.
SCARLET FsvER-This dreadful disease
which so ravaged our county last winter has
again broken out in the upper part of the
county. Mr.. Chas E Starkey, residing near
Busles lost three children by it few days
ago, all three dead in the house at the same
time. The house in which Mr.. Starkey lives
was occupied last year by family who lost
several children, and it is supposed that the
disease has fingered there ever since Centre
pille Observer.
The recent temperance convention seems to
have given very decided impetus to local
option in Wicomico county. Petitions are
being extensively circulated for signatures,
and many of the most influential citizens are
attaching their names thereto The friends
of the movement claim that they will soon
send On fifteen hundred names to the Legisla-
ture praying for the passage Of local option
act.
Jesse 7. Comegys, of Centreville, proposes
to exhibit himself at the centennial as one oil
the greatest curiosities Of the age. He claims
to have written rs love letters in his time,
been lifted 76 times and was confined in Jail |
g l6 days for writing love-letters. He is |
rhaps the only man ever put in Jail for fall |
.ac 10 love.
lie farm of the late John Shippers, situate
in Elk Neck, Cecil county, has been sold to
johnson Shippers for $500. The farm con-
tains 2l4 acres, about 100 acres of which was
cleared land.
The Cecil county school board proposes to
create bonded debt for the purpose of sup
plying deficiency in the school fund, and
will memorialize the Legislature for power to
that end.
The granite quarries at Port Deposit are
doing large business, employing about two
hundred men. About twenty car loads of
granite are shipped every day.
Rea Pattison, son Of William F. Pattison,
postmaster at Cambridge, has received an ap-
pointment as paymaster' clerk on board of
government monitor.
Several Elktonians have migrated to Vir-
yinia, where land is cheap and the people
social and intelligent.
o. P. Clemson, Of EIkton, has sold his
lrotter Bendigo for 50, $50 to gentleman in
Baltimore.
Peach growers in the vicinity of Elkton say
the peach prospect was never worse than now.
The REAL EVIL OF GRANTS ADMIN
IsrRATIoN.-We. for our part, see far
more danger to the government in pop
ular familiarity with or Indifference to
the evils which General Grants ad-
ministration has fostered. than in the
possibility Of the election Of any man
for three terms. 1t must not be for
gotten. in estimating or in criticising
his political career, that it is the very
fact Of his strong claim on the popular
gratitude which has made his two ter ms
SO demoralizing. and it is almost always
by men with claims on popular graft
tude that the seeds Of political ruin are
sown. If he had not been successful
general in dark DAYS, he would have
become odious before 1872, but with
the halo of war about him. not only
have a terrible number of faults
been forgiven him, but they have come
to lose the appearance of faults and to
take on that Of virtues. No ordinary
President could. for instance, have
been allowed to give government like
this Mussulman flavor, by appoint
ing high public functionaries through
pure personal caprice. When Presi-
dent Grant first began to make extra
ordinary and, as it seemed, scandalous
selections for places in the civil service,
his friends maintained that we must
not reproach him. that he was simple
minded man, who was necessarily in
this matter in the hands Of the Senators
and Representatives but he speedily
dissipated this theory by appointing {
Simmons. Of Boston, in defiance Of the
Of the district. and
of St. Louis, in defiance of
The whole State delegation In short,
he administered the government neither
On the old American .spoils" system
nor on the new "civil service reform"
system, but on the Sultanic or Turkish
system. which says: II like Musta- :
pha; put the Vizier's robes on him.
and give anybody who says be is
hief one hundred blows with stick"
Nation.