Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1882-05-26

Now that no mutilated coins are in circula-
ton it is hard to realize that they we're so
common few weeks ago. Just so long as
the people would put up with them they pass
ed from hand to hand at par value, but as
soon as the government, banks and railroads
refused 10 take them at any price they drop
ped out of public sight.
The majority Of the committee of the
American Bar Association, appointed TO con-
slider the problem of the best method of re-
lieving the Supreme Court report against the
plan of dividing the court into sections, and
in favor Of the establishment Of intermediate
appellate courts as proposed by Judge Davis,
whose bill has already passed tbs Senate.
Sad stories of abuse come from Louisiana
convict camps. 1t is said that the wretohed
men are ovorworked underfed, and beaten
without mercy; that white man who escaped
from a camp in Orleans parish was lashed
when Tecaptured in the most horrible manner;
that negro convict was overcome by the
sight, and, knowing that he should suffer in
the same way himself, committed suicide by
cutting his throat.
Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire
are the only states which retain the EXecu-
tive Council The proposition to abolish it
in Massachusetts was defeated in the Legisla-
ture last week by large majority.
A more misery person ia seldom heard of
than the testimony recently taken in the New
York surrogate's court in the contested Burr
will contest shows Miss Sarah Burr to have
been. This old woman lived almost as mean
ly as the poorest occupant of the most wretch
ed tenement house in the city, and was
miser of the most revolving kind yet at her
death she left three millions TO be expended
in charity and for religious objects.
Chinaman, being defeated by some of his
relatives in a lawsuit about burial ground,
murdered three of his opponents. The Grim
inal was sentenced 10 death, and, as it is q
principle of Chinese law that the punishment
shall be as far as possible commensurate with
the crime, his wife was sent into penal servi-
tude and his son sentenced TO mutilatiOn. His
daughter, luckily for herself, was engaged to
be married, and she was accordingly delivered
10 the family of her betrothed to be married
| when she comes of age otherwise she would
have shared her mothers fate.
There has been much discussion in the pa
pers as 10 the success or failure Of Prohibi-
| ton in Kansas and the effect it has had upon
the prosperity of the state. Influential jour
| malls say that the state was never more pros
porous and the population never increased
| more rapidly. As 10 the political aspects OF
the question the Fort Scott Monitor sums up
the situation thus 'At least three-fourths
of the Republican voters of the state are pro-
hibitionist, while the Democratic party is
hopelessly divided npon the subject with the
organization of the party probably in the
hands Of the anti prohibitionists. The dis
oussion of the Gubernatorial question, which
has a near relation 10 the same subject, has
developed the fact that there is no public
man in Kansas with either the courage or to-
merity to take the field as an avowed oppo-
nent of prohibition.