Connecticut western news., 1879-04-02
NOTES AND COMMENTS.

to lasG year 1nundatlOns and the failure of the first wheat crop but the real cause lies in the permanent helplessness of the fellahs condition. He is so mercilessly taxed that he is forced to live from hand to mouth, and it is i'm possible for him to make any prepara- tlon against the day of temporary need, while he is so oppressed with work and so reduced by insufficient food as to lose all hope and energy and all power of physical or moral resistance. The sole and simple cause of their misery is to be found in their crushing taxation and ln the injustice with which it is extorted from them. And to what is this due 1? Simply to the necessity of meeting the financial demands required by the ex- travagant. expenditures of the Khedive and his government. Matters have now reached such pass that every turn of the screw by which the payment of 8 coupon is forced from the Khedive, in spite of deficient revenue, represents anothor pang of torture inflicted on the unhappy fellahs.
 Neal Dow claims great and good practical results for the prohibitory law Tn Maine. MT. Ingraham, member of the Legislature, recently said, in an official report, that drunkenness had in- creased and business interests declined. MT. Dow replies that there is not a distillery or brewery in the State, and that the importation of liquor is ex- ceedingly small. He thinks that $5OO,- GOO year would cover the value of all the liquor smuggled in. "Our vast West India trade" he says, "used to be little else than sending lumber of many kinds to the islands, and taking home rum for our own consumption, and molasses to be converted into New England rum in our distilleries, also for home use. In those old rum days the people were poor and unthrifty; now, everything in the State, in that respect, is reversed, as the result of the vast saving, direct and indirect, coming from the law which has driven the rum trade out. Portland, in 1866, lost SIC, 1000, 900 1n confagration, but it's valuation is now greater than ever, having gained $480, 900 last year under prohibition :; while Boston, with free rum (license), lost $7O,O00,0O0; and New York and Brooklyn, with rum enough, have not gained, 1 think"
 Pete Mccartney, formerly very successful counterfeiter, has for three years been convict in the Illinois State prison, where he is to remain seven years longer. On being convicted, he gave $1O.O00 to his pretty wife, to live on until he could rejoin her, and she promised to wait faithfully for his re- fease but she lately made up her mind to get divorce from him and marry Dr. Mason, with whom she had fallen in love. Mccartney learned of her in consistency, and determined to have his revenge. He employed accomplices to involve the physician in charge of passing counterfeit money, and then went on the stand as witness for the prosecution with story of former partnership in tho printing of bogus Treasury notes. The prisoner only got out of the scrape by bringing score of patients to prove an alibi.
 The secret marriage of the young daughter of ex-Governor Hubbard, of Connecticut, to her fathers coachman, seems to have excited no less degree of interest in Connecticut than did a similar event in Kentucky twelve or fifteen years ago. The young lady was the heiress in her own right to large estate, and her family was one of the most distinguished in Kentucky. A divorce was granted between the two young people after few months, and the husband, having had year of ex- travagant dissipation, went back to his horses, and was, until lately, employed in livery stable at Louisville. In the case of Miss Hubbard, however, reports from Norwich represent the husband as an cstimable young fellow, and it will
 be the groom's own fault if he does not make his bride as proud of her choice as she seems to be happy in having made it. Shepard belongs to 8 good family of plain people, honest and re- spectable. He was formerly public
 hackman. A belief prevails among those who know him we'll that he has been controlled by sincere affection
 and will treat his wife Loyalty. Miss Hubbard is just IS years old. Her older
 brother, some five or six years ago, mar ried the daughter of German operative in Colts factory. Their married life ii said to have been exceptionally happy } -Currie, the desperado who shot dow1 7 the unarmed actor, Porter, in Marshall Texas, severely wounded Barrymore l and, except for her piteous appeals t doubtless would have killed Miss Cum mins, in whose behalf the two gentle men interfered, was already on th' l record as the murderer of two men an( s woman in Ellsworth, Kansas, nin' 3 years ago. His picture is in the Rogues : Gallery at Memphis, and reward o 6 $500 for his capture is still outstanding It is certainly a matter of wonder t.
 those not familiar with life in Texa that man with the blood of three per = sons on his hands, and with rewar' : for his capture widely published, shoul' - secure position of trust with railroa' = company under his own name, an < should be allowed at large, drunk, wit pistols upon his person. His antece :, dents, as the reports from Marshall tn day after the murder clearly prove, wer