The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1880-08-05
EDITORIAL NOTES.
= Bernhardt spells her name


Bernhardt spells her name
Sarah,
The god of Mr.. Swinburne'sidola-
try is Victor Hugo, to whom he in
diets sonnet about once a month.
The great Frenchman reads them all,
and considers Swinburne the first of
living English Wrists.
Paris mourns the sudden death
of the young, accomplished and es-
Unable Duke of Richelieu at the age
of thirty-three years. He leaves an
heir only five years old by his wife,
a daughter of the banker Heine.
The ex-Empress Eugene landed
at st. Helena on the 18th instant, and
inspected the house where Napoleon
the First died. She then visited the
tomb in which the remains of the
Emperor were at first deposited, and
then embarked for England.
Gen. Grant never declines any,
thing. He has accepted an invita-
ton to visit Boston in September
and eat a big dinner along with all
the New England governors. He no
doubt accepts this invitation the
more readily since some Boston CAPT
talists have elected him president of
a New Mexico mining company at a
salary of $4,000 year.
The mortality among the babies
in New York continues undated.
For the twenty-four hours ending at
noon on the twentieth no less than
seventy-six children died from the
effects of the heat alone, an increase
of twenty-siX over the deaths of the
previous day. This excessive death
rate among the little ones will, it is
hoped and believed, not be maintain
ed for any length of time. A little
cooler weather would be ofvast bene-
fit TO the suffering children crowded
in many of the narrow streets of the
great city, and this may now be ex-
pected, as the cheated term" has
about reached its limit.
Three negroes were recently ar
rested and tried before a justice of
the peace, at Olinda, Lamar county,
Alabama, for mutilating the bodies
of white people buried in the Poplar
Springs graveyard, near Olinda.
They plead guilty, and said they
dug up the bodies for the purpose
of getting the bones in the hands,
which they say, if carried in their
pockets would make them lucky at
cardplaying. On their way to Jail,
as they passed the graveyard, they
pointed out the graves they had dug
into. Citizens went to the grave
yard and dug up one grave which
the negroes had pointed out, and
found one arm and forearm and
both hands removed from the body.
Prof Bell, inventor of the tele-
phone, is a favorite of fortune so far
as both honors and emoluments go.
He has made much money, and now
is receiving decorations galore. The
French Chamber of Deputies rec
commended him to be the recipient
of the Volta prize of $4,000 francs,
and this recommendation must be
doubly flattering to Mr.. Bell since
Dumas, the eminent chemist, was
chairman of the committee which
counseled the award. The Volta
prize was founded several years ago
as reward to persons producing the
best practical results in the develop
ment and application of the electric
force, and the earliest prize was
awarded to Rumkorff, the inventor
of the electromagnetic coil bearing
his name.
| Commissions LeDuc is putting
some of his theories into practice.
He has lately returned to Washing
ton from Georgia, where he selected
several sites for government tea
farms. From the experiments which
he has already made, he thinks he
has solved the problem of tea cult
ure in Georgia. The quality of the
tea produced is equal to that of any
| imported tea. The cost of produc-
ing it is twenty cents a pound, and
it is readily sold in the market for
from forty to fifty cents pound. If
LeDuc makes tea culture in the
South a success, he will have accom-
plished something that will go a
| great way towards relieving him
| from the ridicule which has been so
generously heaped upon him for the
last few years.
-For the second time within
twenty years the flourishing city of
Manila has been laid in ruins. This
time, as was stated by our telegram,
the killed number more than 800, a
figure which falls little short of
that reached in the terrible earth
quake of 1868, but the destruction of
property, public and private, seems
to have been as great now as then.
When the Duke of Alencon visited
the Philippines in 1866 he found the
whole city temporarily constructed
of wood, and after this new expert
ence it is not likely that Spain will
venture upon the use of any other
material IN rebuilding this so often
devastated capital of her Asiatic en-
pire. The lesson of Manila is iden-
tical with that read by the disaster
of San Salvador in 1873.