Morning journal and courier., 1880-04-12

II. Baudrillard has stated that in one of the
 rural communss in Picardy he ascsrtAined the
 number of children among the best of of the peasants to be thirty seven for thirty five
 families. The illsgitimste births of 1878 numbered 67,912, being 1000 over and above those of ths preceding year.
 As the months roll by and nothing more is heard from Mr. Edison about that electric light with which he promised to illuminate a darksnsd world, disappointment dsspsns into distrust. One of the correspondents writes {:
 stFrom what I know Of the man--and have watched his course narrowly for long time T believe that kdison's prosperity is making him indifferent to the outcome of his experi- rsnts with the electric light. He is going oa with it because he is bound to do so by his coatract with his company. But I believe that he himself regards his light either as toy to Kill time with, or as an inexpensive means of affecting the stock market from time to time, and setting on foot speculation in gas azd electric lighting shares. He is certainly without any sense of responsibility to the public. He makes the widest sort of asser- tions without facts wherswith to support them, and be sxsrts himself to the utmost to threw dust into .hs eyes of all serious inves- tigators who go to his shops to inquire into the value Of his light'' The public will be slow to belive that Edison is thoroughly dis honest. It is more charitable to think that he has lost his ''senso Of proportion"
 The case of colorsd cadet Whitaker, ac- cused of cutting his own ears at West Point, is giving risa to sorns remarks concerning the state of affairs at that institution. Senator Hoar says he is afraid the instructors at West Point have nos tried to impress upon the classes there that the bassst thing they could do WAS to treat young colorsd youth as person to be exiled from all the sympathy and associations Of humanity on account of the color of his skin. The Poughkeepsie Eagle discredits the story that Whitaker was his own nutiIator and, 1t also very properly To- grsts that General Sehofisld gave his opinion on the case in advance. It further says: eve can excuse the Generals enthusiasm over the high tons' of the corps, but We look back to last July and find that some of the stoney' cadets of the third class wsre engaged in the most pfutal outfa&es upon memDorS CT tne fourth class-and when one of the fourth class told of them he was oveYpowered one night in his tent and pounded unmercifully- pounded and beaten ten times harder than was the colored cadet Whitaker. We recollect too that the cadets found guilty of the out rages denounced ths actions of the officers, who had been watching them at the sink, as dfshonorable. It has got to be 50 that an en- tErsly new idea of honor exists at West Point, and if Cadet Whittaker's story is true perhaps that particular kind of honor is shielding his assailants from detection. la view of what has bsen psrpstratsd st West Point within one ahort year. commencing with the outrages at the sisk referred to above, followed by the notorious proceedings on the night of the 1st of January, whom cadsts dragged a cannon to the roof of the barracks and woke up the whsls department, and ending with the pres ent alleged outrage on Cadet Whitaker, it doss seem as though there is an element of in- subordinRtion in that department which ought to be checked in the severest possible man