The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1882-08-17
EDITORIAL NOTES.

A $1,000 diamond was found re-
Gently in the bed of a creek near
Danbury, North Carolina. AS it
was in the rough and other large
ones have been found in the state,
the charge of sailing will not hold.
The last trip of the swift speeding
ocean steamship Alaska, from Liver
pool to New York, was made in
only 46 minutes less time than her
previous trip, which is the fastest on
record, the actual time being seven
days, two hours and thirty-six mill
utes-almost as fast as a railway
train. In five consecutive days she
made 423, Alb, 425, 428 and 426 miles.
A touching admission of a belief
in the doctrine of life beyond the
grave was furnished at the recent
funeral of Harvard student whose
classmates contributed a beautiful
floral design bearing the mystic
symbols IS. Y. L." The touching
admission was not apparent until a
member of the class interpreted the
phrase embodied in the letters to be
See You Later"
Cremation is more practiced in
italy than in any other country.
The Gorine furnaces at Milan are
almost constantly going. But the
present Italian minister of the inte-
rior has gone far to. Illustrate the
desire of having the ashes of ones
mother -in-law placed in all aesthetic
vase on the mantel. shelf. He has
decreed that all incinerated human
remains must be placed in either a
church or cOnsecrated ground.
William Booth, the general of the
Salvation army in England, receives
and disburses, with absolute control,
$250,000 year. He owns or rents
in his own name, 250 buildings used
for religious meetings, directs the
work of $4,000 exhorters, and pub
fishes paper. The Var Cry, which
circulates 100000 copies a month.
He is well-educated, very winning
as a speaker, clear headed and arbi-
trary in management, and. according
to general opinion, an honest zealot.
The wheat crop in Ohio is esti-
mated in round numbers at 100000
bushels, as against 100000 last
year, aud the corn crop at 65, 100000
against 74,000O00 last year, and a
good showing on all other crops.
Most gratifying accounts are pub
lished of the quality and quantity of
harvested wheat in Nebraska, and
particularly of the prospects in other
crops. Corn has come on with such
a rush that farmers say they can
hear it grow in the night. Dakota,
Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin still
make most fiattering reports.
London is said to be afflicted with
"plica polonica," disease of the
most horrible kind, incurable and
rendering its victim an object as
hideous to behold as the leper of the
east. The hair, instead of dividing
into fine and silky threads. con-
glomerates into thick matter, with
only one thick root, which bleeds OIL
being cut, so that no relief can be
obtained, save by cauteriZation of
the whole mass. The report has
caused a greater scare than any pro-
duced by the Fenians.
Investigations into the aims house
management in Philadelphia reveal
the fact that at least two childless
married women of that city have
gone to the institution and obtained
young babies which they have pass
ed upon their husbands as their own.
The motive in each case seems to
have been merely to satisfy the long
ing of the husband for child, which
the mother was not able to satisfy
in the ordinary way. The aims
house authorities seemed in each in
stance 10 have been privy to the
fraud, and the husbands entirely
capable of being duped.
A veteran distiller of Illinois says
that the country to-day, with a popu-
lation of 50,000,000, drinks less whis-
ky than it did twenty years ago,
when the population was only half
as large, and this falling off he at
tributes to the increased consump-
ton of lager beer, which he denom-
mates "the worst enemy whisky has
to face in the United States to-day"
He also advises the friends of the
trade not to fight the temperance
movement openly, conceding that
"the moral and religious sentiment
of American society is against the
traffic"
Baron Reuter-, the famous news
agent, was employed when boy in
a brokers' office in Frankfort-on-
Main, and he it was who first dis
covered the idea of duplicating
stock messages from London and
other large cities by means of mani
folding, and by which large amounts
of money were saved on telegraph
tolls. Reuter- got his first start by
getting one early message and
manifOlding it. He sold this to a
number of brokers at reduced rates,
and yet made a handsome per cent
um on the price of one message, and
thence conceived the idea of estab-
fishing general news agency.
Baltimore has a population OF
about $4,000, and church member
ship of III, ,689. The Roman Catho-
lie church leads, with a membership
of 10000. The Methodists come
next, with S,642 then the Lutherans
with 14,474; Protestant Episcopa-
tians, 1851 1; Baptists, $500; Presbyte-
rians, 1895 Reformed, 4109 !; Friends,
1908. The Catholic church includes
the whole Catholic population in the
number above given, while the mem
bership of the protestant churches
has stricter tense. The Netcs, which
gives the figures, concludes that
there are IN Baltimore at least 162, ,00C
persons who are not members of any
christian church.