Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1883-01-24
Notes and Notions.

OF the Argus attended the jackson dinner in |
Boston last week and responded TO a call, say
ing among other things 6 wish to God that l
could say that in 1884 Vermont would cast
FIVE electoral votes for Benjamin +. Butler
The democrats about here don't feel so, or |
didn't before they read Atkins speech"
THE flow of money from this country to |
Germany for the relief of sufferers by the
floods has already begun. A subscription
made in New York in the morning can be
cabled to Germany before noon and distrib-
uted to the needy before night. II mil
lion dollars were sent to Germany as an
American fund, the whole sum could be adj
vantageously used at once.
SPRINGFIELD REPUBLICAN: "Governor
Butler has gone off to Washington for a
whole week in the midst of session to " look
after his private business" He is the same
man who made great fuss the other day
because he did not find the agricultural Of
fee open at thirty minutes past eight in the
morning, when the secretary was attending
farmers institutes and his clerk was sick
abed. As humbug, the reform governor
is success"
GOVERNOR CLEVELAND Of New York has
again received the democratic nomination
for president, this time under most extraor-
binary and picturesque circumstances. An
assemblage of long-haired, tobacco-stained
Tennessesns has solemnly let loose an eagle
"a olive" eagle, the graphic telegraph in
forms us-besripg upon his neck medal
with this inscription: "For president
Cleveland of New York for vice president
Bate of Tennessee"
| BosToN TIMES "Hiram Atkins of Yer
mont is smart man. He came TO the But
Ter send-off and pledged the electoral vote
of his state if-if-wel not to put too fine
a point upon it, if he could get it. That
must have been highly encouraging. The
soldiers of Vermont will all go for But
Ter. He disgraced one of their regiments
without evdence-indeed against evidence
and without cause or reason, and never
half decently recanted. They would like
to see him in position to need their votes"
| New York SUN: "The man who wrote
a letter to the mayor OF Boston, announcing
that he was going to kill Governor Ben But
Ter, failed to pay the postage on his commu.
nicstion. The mayors clerk, who was sent
to the postoffice for the letter, retained for
the want of postage, presumably supplied
the money necessary for its release. Was
it the public money which was thus en-
ployed2 Governor Butler is stirring the
ancient commonwealth by his vigorous &C
ton for retrenchment. Let him look into
this matter.
THE old emperor Of Germany made very
humane remark in ordering second con.
tribution from the imperial fund for the
sufferers by flood. The old Kaiser said it
was "intolerable to him to think of the hun
dreds shiyering from cold and hunger while
he was sitting in warm ROOM" If the
old Hohepzolern will hereafter carry out, in
the ways of life, the principle that under
lies his excellent remark, he will deserve to
be ranked as one of the few Christians who
have ever put in practice the golden rule Of
the Founder Of Christianity.
THE state of New Jersey is greatly exer-
cised over the question of railroad taxation.
Governor Ludlow discussed it at length in
his message few days ago, and it forms the
subject of the report of special committee
of the New Jersey Assembly which has Just
been published. This committee, which
was appointed last winter, intended to
consider the taxation of other corpora
tions also, but it found that it had all it
could do in dealing with the railroads
alone. The committee, like the governor,
thinks that steps should be taken to compel
the railroads to pay more taxes, and that
new legislation is needed. 1t would have
the taxation of railroads placed in the
hands of commission. As the questions
involved are next to be debated in the legs
lature, it is evident that this is going to be
an interesting winter in Trenton.
MAINE has abolished capital punishment
and the roll of murderers grows steadily
longer. In 1870 the convicts undergoing
life-imprisonment for murder were six per
cent of the whole number in 1876, ten per
cent; in 1882, twenty-five per cent. Nearly
forty men are now in prison under this SEN
tence, and the number bids fair to go on
gro wing Commenting on this the Amer
lean of Philadelphia says: 1t is rather
curious that, with the decline of the belief
in everlasting punishment in the future life,
grows the unwillingness to pass the worst
criminals on to what people now profess TO
regard as another stage of probation. 1t is
because people doubt the validity of their
own reasoning that, like Voltaire and Did
erot, they feel no certainty that there is no
endless hell, and therefore incline to act as
though there were one ? Or is it that both
the disbelief in hell and the disuse of cap
ital punishment have the same root-more
vivid appreciation of physical suffering than
of moral degradation p