Morning journal and courier., 1881-12-13
EDITORIAL NOTES.

Some of the dwellers in ''Helrs Kitchen D situated at 551 and 553 West Thirty-ninth street, New York city, are interesting peo- pie. One of them, John Mooney, was ar rested Sunday for killing his wife. When examined he testified that he had frequently beaten his wife. ''She had a habit of con- tradicting me,'' he said, land I could not stand that. Moral suasion was entirely thrown away on her. It took physical force to make her see point. She could stand a good deal She was tough, she was.''
 District Attorney Bates, of Utah, suggests 8 new way of dealing with polygamy. He says that all Mormon office-holders are po- lygamists, and urges that law be passed ex- eluding men having more than one wife from all places of trust or profit, political, corpor- ate or religious, forbidding their sitting on juries and disfranchising them. To get around the difficulty of proving the mar riages, heretofore found almost insurmount- able, he would have it provided that 'com- mon report or cohabitation" should be taken to show polygamy, and then, because the saints would rather lose wives than power, he thinks the trouble would be ended.
 Swiss papers are complaining bitterly of the conduct of the French police to Swiss sojourners of the poorer sort in France, whose sole offence appears to be that they are respectable and industrious working peo- pie. The police of the republic, they say, are just as arbitrary, as unreasonable, and as ignorant as ever were the police of the em- pire. While Frenchmen are allowed free en- try into Switzerland Gin Geneva alone there are %, 900 of them), and may seek work any where without let or hindrance, hardly day passes that Swiss citizens, whose sole offence is asking for employment, are not summarily arrested and, without any sort of trial, sent out of the country. Swiss citizens in regu- ar employment are expelled on simple po- ice order.
 W. A. Anderson points out in the FSaeman's Journal that the wires which supply electric
 lights in cities should be put underground. The current of electricity necessary for a
 light is so strong that if wire is too small or is defective at any point it becomes heated SOA-ANe0SAe@AS near it. or if not properly insulated the cur- rent is likely to leave it and take 8 course where it will do mischief Again, and this danger is worst of all, if the wires of light and of telephone or telegraph circuits happen to touch each other, fire may be started wherever there is an instrument on the lines of the latter. Fires have been repeatedly caused in all these ways, and the insurance companies have taken the alarm and are try ing to compel the use of large wires very carefully insulated, but it is evident that bet ter security is needed than can be given by any possible precautions of the kind.
 Colonel E. 0. Boudinot, the Cherokee chief of the Indian territory, feels that there is great injustice done to the civilized tribes of Indians by the law made to prevent the feecing of ignorant sayages, which renders it impossible for an Indian to make Q con tract. Suppose" says he in an interview, s1 wanted to sell you my horse or my watch, and you agreed to purchase, the contract would not be valid unless approved by the Secretary of the Interior. That is what the law says, and the law may be very good one to protect the plains Indians, but it works nothing but harm to the civilized ones In St. Louis can buy just what want. If. .Igo any where near the border, say Fort Smith, man is afraid to sell me drink of liquor or a cigar. He looks round to see that there is no witness. Now the Indians who live in houses, till the land, spend their money to encourage schools, and generally lead the