Morning journal and courier., 1881-11-01

The tax list sent in by the.WaSer Company this year is $3O4 1000, so over $5,000 comes back to the city if we receive taxes from the company. If we buy we pay taxes to other towns. Figures won't lie, but those who have figured in favor of buying seem to have omitted many things.
 There is a considerable growth of legal literature in regard to the right of bisyclists on highways The general rule of courts seems to be to treat bicycles precisely like ordinary vehicles, but the law is not well es- abolished, and there is now contest in prog ress in which the bicyclists' league is trying to compel the opening of Central Park to wheelmen In England it has been held that a too rapid bicyclist could be punished under the law against fast driving.
 It having come to the ears of MT. J. H. Moves, the leader of the Oneida Community, that he was to be called as a witness to prove the insanity of Guiteau, he addressed letter to Mir. Scoville, in the course of which he ex- pressed himself as follows: "I do not be- ieve in his insanity, and I recollect no act or symptom of insanity in his life while under my observation. I think he was born with a special genius for mischief, and has had a real inspiration for it all his days; but that is not saying he is insane, unless we also call natural genius and inspiration for good things, such as invention, music, etc, insan- ity. I understand insanity to be unsound- ness-disease of the brain and I do not think Guiteau has that, any more than bears and lions have it. With these views and the memory of my sore experience with your client, am afraid I should have to testify strongly against your main plea, and perhaps should be the means of sending him to the gallows.''
 Some recent experiments of Herr Stebler show that the views held by some botanists that light has no direct effect on germination must be modified He finds that the ger imitation of certain agricultural grasses, such as meadow grass, is much more favored by light than by heat An experiment made with two groups, of 400 seeds each, showed that there germinated 62 per cent. in light and per cent. in darkness. Similar results
 
 59 per cent. germinating in light and per cent in darkness. Sunlight being very va riable force, experiments were further made with gaslight, and with the same result, viz, that light fayors the germination of certain seeds, especially grass, and that these ger minate either not at all, or very scantily, in darkness The fact was verified by Herr Ial,1 1r ,ho1o af Tn fhe case of seeds. that germinate quickly and early, such as clover, beans, or peas, Herr Stebler thinks that light is probably not ad- vantageous.
 Mr. Jennings writes from London to the New York World that English landlords are about as badly off as their brethren in Ireland. There is no ssboycotting" in England, and a landlord can drive home on dark night without fear of being shot, but rents are as difficult of collection as in Ireland, and enor- nous quantities of land are being thro VII upon the owners hands Mir. Jennings continues The only district that has es- capped the general visitation is the grazing country in Cumberland, Westmoreland and the West Riding of Yorkshire, where the soil is so poor and the region so mountainous that wheat growing is impossible and rain rather beneficial than otherwise. In every other county the farmers have not only lost heavily, but are on the edge of bankruptcy. A series of good seasons would of course help them, and their burdens might be light ened by the readjustment of local rates and the simplifcation of the process of transfer but the best authorities admit that English agriculture cannot under the most favorable circumstances withstand the American compe tition of the future. The Duke of Teck has been over in Ireland in connection with { scheme for retaining the waste lands, and theorists here recommend as sovereign cure that efforts be made to put the commons, ii not the moorlands, under cultivation. But anybody who has travelled in England and the States knows that land rescued from it