The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1881-01-26
GENERAL SECULAR NEWS
Domestic.

L
delphia has not made anything by being open
on the Lords day, and it is now admitted to be
an entire failure. The building was put up in
great haste and is now sadly out of repair. 1t
Is estimated that to place it in good order
would cost $4,000, which cannot be raised
for that purpose. limitations are thrown out
that the edifce may possibly be made to do
duty in the proposed Worlds Fair at New
York in 1888, the prospects for which are not
particularly bright, though, the name of Elk
President Grant has been placed at its head
When the other day 100000 of
Northern Pacific railroad bonds were offered in
London, English capitalists were ready to take
four times the amount,-a gratifying expression
of British faith in American honor and Amer
lean enterprise.
A whale sixty feet in length and of
proportinate size, has been transported over land
from Basten, and is now on exhibition in Chi.
cago. His whaleship is reported to weigh
forty TONS and is the first marine monster of the
cetacean species that ever visited Chicago
The coffee cart scheme has recently
had an introduction to our streets. On the dav
after Christmas, the first experiment in this
line was made in Chicago Early in tho after
noon an ordinary express wagon, bearing a
large steaming can of coffee, and several huge
baskets of bread took its stand at one of the
saloons of the lowgrade most abound In a
little time the fragrant aroma of the morning
beverage which stimulates but not lnebriates. TO
gether With the strangeness of the spectacle
had drawn quite crowd To the members of
this motley extemporaneous assemblage hot
coffee and generous supplies of bread, were
handed out, gratuitously and bounteously Not
few received the warm lunch given to them
free OF charge, with grateful expressions, and
doubtless were rendered less weak to the odorif.
erous temptations of the street. The acceptable
ness of the enterprise may be judged from the
statistics of the first afternoon. There were dis
posed OF in that time fifteen gallons of coffee
and seventy five loaves of bread Chicaqo
Standard.
The colored people complain that
they are forgotten in the distribution of official
patronage. Mr.. ]. Milton Turner, late Minister
to Liberia, In speech at St. Louis, declared
that no negro is to be fonnd in the two thousand
Federal offices in Missouri, and that the Mayor
OF st. Louis gives no offices to colored men.
Maybe. Certainly the colored people are
bound to be heard from when the ioaves and
fishes are passed round .-Christian at Work.
The expectations awakened about
year ago by the organisation of the American
Union Telegraph Company, that the time for
moderate charges Tor messages was not far dis
tant, have been suddenly destroyed. The
Western Union, which some time ago gobbed
up the Atlantic and Pacific has now taken the
American Union into its nav The Western
Union, the name borne by the consolidated com
pany, is now a tremendous monopoly, approx
mating capital of $S0,000,0O0 made up as fol-
lows: Western Union $53 100000 American
Union, $l7000,000; Atlantic and Pacific. $40
100000. So powerful is the new organisation
that HEREAFTER there will be little hope of perma-
nent competition. The only relief seems to be
inf hno ZONE &c H. Il
even now is making itself felt in the cities
This new consolidation may open again the
question OF the propriety and necessity of es
tablishing agovernment telegraph. Huge com
binations Of capital and individual interests
may cause demand for the State to assume
duties not contemplated in its organic law and
from which it should be kept free if this were
possible; Grasping ambition may in the end
bring about its own defeat Presbyterian Ban
ner.
Mr.. Vanderbilt has issued an order
on the railroads under his management which
will commend itself to the good Judgment of all
decent people. He has forbidden the sale of
" flash" literature on all stations and trains
under his control and the abomnable nuisance
OF having indecent cartoons thrust under ones
eyes in a railroad car is ended 80 far as these
roads are concerned. This action entities Mr..
Vanderbilt to the gratitude of the entire com
muniVy, ana IL Is 70 De hoped that public senti-
ment will be SO forcibly expressed as to stimu
late other railroad managers to go and do like.
WISE
The Je,Oish Messenger says: "There
is sad lack of revival of old fashioned Judaism
so that, instead of $500 members of synagopues
and $500 children in their schools, out Of at
least 10000 Israelites in New York, there NAV
be at least ten times that number interested in
the ancient faith. The curse of all the churches
Christian and Jewish, is that in the statistics
thousands are credited with the profession of
one faith or another who never 20 near church
or synagogue and know no more about the
gospel by Isaiah than they do about the eospeI
by John Is it any wonder, therefore. that
Christian missionary societies find ample room
Tor evs1ngellStIc efforts among Jewish children