Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1881-06-01

MOWER COUNTY, !
-
VARIOUS TOPICS.
The eighth annual Union soldiers reunion
will be held this year at Cincinnati, September
15,. is and II. These reunions begun in Cald-
we'll, Ohio, in 1874, have been increasingly sue
cessful. Last year President Hayes was pres
ent, In 1879 General Garfield delivered an ad-
dress, and nodoubt the president will be ex-
pected to attend the meeting again this year.
ACCORDING to calculations Of the German
geographer Hiepert, the last proposal of the
ambassadors in Constantinople would cede to
Greece 1890 square Kilometres Of territory,
while the area sceded by the treaty of Berlin
reached 20,075 square kilometres. There is,
therefore, q diminution Of area amounting to
6,875 square Kilometres, Of which 1886 are in
Epirus and 1;;ss8o in Thessaly:3
The British census Of 1871 showed that the
rural population Of England was not 5tincreas-
ing, and fears were then expressed that the
next census might show an equal falling off.
This fear, we learn, has been more than real
lied in the west of England, where the present
returns are said to show that decrease in the
rural population is going on rapidly. The
country languishes while the towns increase,
and the evil win grow until feudal anachron-
isms are.swept away.
FEARING that the Delaware farmers will not
raise enough beets, the Delaware Beet Sugar.
company has leased about three hundred acres
CT land in different portions of the state, for the
purpose of raising sufficient number of 'beets
to supply the deficiency caused by the apathy
of farmers who cultivate them oiH ona limited
scale. In order to economize labor, tie COM
pany has imported a number Of German and
French beet cultivators, which are capable of
cultivating four rows of beets at one running.
SENATOR MORRILL,, Of Vermont, has plan
conceived by him several years ago for remedy
ing the inconvenience and unhealthiness of the
presidential quarters at the national capital.
It is the; construction of 9 duplicate White
House, to be placed some distance south of the
present one and to be connected with it by a
broad and spaoiess corridor, the new building
to be devoted entirely to the private use of the
president and his family, the old one, remodeled
in part, to be given up wholly to executive and
public use.
SEVERAL hundred passengers arrived on one
steamer at San EEapcisco. the other day, from
the Australian Goipntes sahd Honolulu, nearly
all Of whom aretsavsaing through America on
their way to Europenfor q tour, of pleasure.
This happens frequently, and these travellers
spend money freely on the way. California
newspapers regard the traffic with Australia
and New Zealand as much more promising, at
least for the present, than that with China and
Japan. Our exports OF domestic products to
the Australians colonies already exceed the
value of those to China and Japan two-fold.
EM1dRATIoN from Ireland is being largely
stimulated by the troubles of the people. The
Irish peasant thinks that the land to which
everybody is going is the land for him. Agri-
cultural operation for this year in Ireland have
not commenced in large sections of the coun-
try, and everywhere uncertainty and confusion
prevail. The people think more of evictions
than they do of the future means of subsist-
ence, and next year tenants in arrears will lie
-unrae off than they are to-day. Land bills will
put no crops in the ground and produce no
food.
QUEEN v1cToR1A's visit to the grave of Lord
Beaconstield has given rise to surprise at sew
E1Irn o,,I 10 H..
visit gains somewhat in its significance of the
queens feeling from the English newspaper re-
ports of it. 1t was by her special desire, it is
said, that the entrance to the vault remained
open until after she had made her visit, in order
that with her own hands she might place q
porcelain wreath upon the coffin itself. Few
persons were, Of course, present to witness the
scene, but it said by some OF those who were
that the queens emotion was apparent.
A CASE which has probably no precedent in
the annals of justice. has recently been tried at
Helbronn, in Wurtemberg. laborer, fearing
that charge of fraud and embezzlemert might
be brought against him, commanded his own
son to hang him, saying that he could never
live if the disgrace of imprisonment fell upon
him. The son was obedient and carried out his
fathers order. The authorities arrested the
son, and tried him for hanging his father. The
son pleaded obedience. The court convicted
him and sentenced him to imprisonment for
three years and nine months.
The latest statistics show 41,678,O0O school
children in the world, so fa1 as the census-tak-
ers were enabled to ascertain, These have
about 1,000,000 teachers. First in, proportion
to population comes the United States, with
8, 1873, 1876 pupils and 2N,144 teachers. Both
here and in France the school children form
one-hfth OF the population. Prussia, with L.
0o7,776 pupils and 1886 teachers takes the
third. Next come England and Wales, where.
as in Prussia, school children are one-sixth of
the population. Austria then files into line.
In Japan there are 2,162,692 school children,
but the total population is not known.
The abolition of prlmogeniture has had the
greatest effect, within the present century. in
emptying the chateaux and castles in France.
Fortunes have been so often divided down, that
there are fewer great incomes than there were
among the French aristocracy. It thus hap.
chateau may only have furnished one nook of
it, and his roomy stables may have only one or
two horses at the stalls. To withstand the ef-
fects of the abolition of primogeniture, many
French families agree to enjoy their revenue in
common. But full chatteaux, with several gen.
erations of relatives in them, even under the
methodical life of Frenchmen, may not be per-
successful.
WHILE in England 80, in Germany IA, and in
France IS letters are transmitted per annum
per head of the population; in Russia the num-
ber is under one per head. The Moscow cor
Of the Cologne Gazette attributes
this partly to the knowledge that in Russia let
ters are opened in the most unscrupulous man
ner. Every post official, every captain of dis
trict or police officer, or other appendage of the