The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 18??-1882, 1881-09-09
Current Topics

Samuel Spicer. who recently died ;
pauper in the York County (Pennsyl
vania) Almshouse His death Is one o.
the ficst among those who have beer
insured as "a speculation under Tn,
''death-bed insurance" L.ania that ha,
OF late broken out in parts of that
State. The end Of this system must
be like that of the famous women's
savings-bank in Boston. The promo.
ters of these enterprises may succeed
in collecting enough money on premi.
ums to pay the policies that fall due
while sufficient is in course of accumu.
lation to leave themanagers handsome
profit, after paying the expenses of the
litigation, to establish that the premi-
um-payers have parted with their
money as the fool does.
Vice-President Arthur is not reach
ing out for the powers of the Presi-
dency. He is far wiser and more pat
riotic than some of his oflicious friends.
Military matters are exciting much
attention in Italy at the present time.
The Italian landwehr was recently
called out for service for the first time
this year in order to take part in the
man9uvres of the regular army. This
force consists nominally of $1,000 men.
Work is advancing rapidly on the forti-
icatiOns of Rome, and six new forts
are to be built, making the total num-
Der of detached forts which form the
chain of defence round the capital
eighteen. In order to insure the COM
pletiOn of these works before the end of
the year, the ordinary force of work.
men has been Increased by detachments
of forty men from each of the prisons
of Rome and Naples
The anti-probibition majority in
North Carolina will probably reach125,-
600. Only one prohibition county
has been heard from, and its majority
was only 81. Evidently the people of
that State are not yet ready tO cast
aside the Glowing bowl"
The Detroit Post and Tribune wants
the Michigan state troops who 60 to
Yorktown to put their best foot fore
most as there will be 10000 militia
present at the celebration. That is
what we all want. In the days of the
rebellion, when Greek met Greek,
Michigan men never remained i'm the
rear.-La'asiag Republican.
A plague of rats has appeared near
Dagneaux, in France. Innumerable
swarms, which seem to come from the
direction of Lyons, have invaded many
cOmmunes, doing great damage to the
crops. Some farmers have killed from
five to six thousand rats in their fields
in single day.
The Louisville COurier-J Journal keeps
alive it's hope that the President will
recover by recalling the following ex-
perience: "There is man in stones
throw of us as we write, who is pret-
ty live man yet, who lay in his bed
eighteen months with bullet through
the body and a shattered leg, and in
that time he fell off from 100 to seven
ty-live pounds. He had pyemia badly,
and gangrene, and chillS, and diarrh9a,
and erysipelas, and had to be nourished
again and again for week at time,
by enema, because his stomach rejected
food, and got so weak that he was un-
able to indicate that he was conscious,
aud was worried with morphine, and
was cdV(intoa a dozen times for pus cav
tiles and assesses. He had everything |
that anybody had said the President |
WAS threatened with, and had it bad, |
on account of which and other cases |
more or less similar we are disposed to |
trust nature and good constitution |
and pluck against all the scien tific |
theories which leave experience out of |
consideration"
The so-called dynamite Council
has sent out to the world a mass of |
gibberish upon the Irish question,
which is written in the first, second |
and third persons, and would be writ
ten in the fourth if there was one, and
is as uninteresting and unimpor-
tant document as one so extravagant |
could we'll be. The only portion of it
which will attract any public attention
is that in which the Council hint
their intentions of destroying "a few
hundred English merchant ships" so
as to cause 1.-THE shipping merchants
and insurance companies Of England"
to petition Mr.. Gladstone for a recon-
sideration of the Irish question, and ex-
press the opinion that ''after September
l it will be well for all peaceable
people to avoid patrOpizing ships
that sail under the protection of the
English flag" 1t is also added that"as
the work of the future will be neces-
sarily secret, it is deemed well to avoid
giving names of officers" This is dia-
bolical, even supposing that these ras-
calls have not the courage to carry out
their threats. But if there are any
dynamite explosions on board the
European steamers, the question will
alise whether tho men who issued this
proclamation, and whom itneed not be
difficult to trace, will not have got
themselves into the moose at last. If
A. announces that he intends to kill B.,
and b. is found dead, which. marks of
violence upon him, the law. will be
justified in labOring to see whether
there is any connection between the
two facts.
The exports of ice from Norway are,
very naturally, heavy and important.
From 6O, 100 tons in 1870 they increas-
ed to 218,200 tons in 1873, and declined
to 1880 in 1879. Nearly one-half of
he quantity shipped goes out in winter.
During the first ten months of 1880
l47,OOO tons were shipped, and the ag.
gregate for the year was $4,000.
France took, in 1873, 2O,925 tons;
Great Britain and Ireland, which is the
chief customer I67 00O Tho Jrn;tad