Morning journal and courier., 1883-11-17

Doth branches ot the Legislature which will meet at Hartford this winter. The business men and farmers will have good chance to show what they can do. If they make short session they will be much praised. It would be rather funny if, after the Rgi- tation which the mere mention of a Taxpay- ers' committee has caused some of our Dem ocratic brethren, there should be no such committee. We hope, however, that the gentlemen who think there ought to be such committee will succeed in forming one
 For several years past a majority of the members of the legislature of Massachusetts have been in favor of amending the constitu- The resolution to that effect was adopted this year by the necessary two-thirda in the house of representatives, as 1t has been once before. It other years it has obtained majority, but not two-thirds. Another at tempt will be made this year, and it is to be hoped that it will succeed.
 Mir. Lewis David Cohen, Jewish trades- man in London, declined to serve on 8 coro- ner's jury, on the ground that he was forbid den to do so by the Jewish law. As regards the descendants of Aaron, the high priest, the twenty-frst chapter of Leviticus says: 'sNeither shall he enter into any house where there is dead body" and Mir. Cohen said he was direct descendant of Aaron. He was fined by the coroner, but appealed to the Court of Quarter Sessions, where Mir. Co., hen's objection was defended by his chief rabbi, who had himself declined to attend 8 thanksgiving in St. Paul's over the recovery of the Prince of Wales, on the ground that dead bodies were inferred there. The court remitted the fine. and excused the plaintiff from future service on coroners' juries.
 The action of the Bourbens in Virginia and reports from all over the South have, says the Washington correspondent of the Boston Ad- vertiser, convinced President Arthur that the Republicans will not be allowed to secure an electoral vote in the South next year. He, therefore, wants to have the evidence of the new Bourbon revival in the South for eam- paign purposes. ''The word has been quietly given out at the White House that southern outrages are to be made the most of, and 8 solid North arrayed against the solid South. With this in view, the administration has no thought of abandoning Malone. He will still be acknowledged as the Republican leader in Virginia, without being expected to carry the State. The Danville riot is regard ed as ample lproof that the readjusters are not given fair play. The necGssity of de- lending the ballot-box will be one of the ear- dinal points in the Republican campaign of 1884, and as preliminary step the outrsges throughout the South will be investigated" 1" This is interesting if true, and the oorrespon- dent is one who usually knows what hs writes about.
 The people of this State are interested in the reduction of the cost of obtaining pat : ents. An inventor who is in Washington agitating the question of one-doIlar patent rights says: A proposition will be made to Congress to reduce the price of patent rights to $1, the same as copyrights. The govern ment's fee is now $35, and the agents fees usually make them cost about $10O on an average. The government has accumulated about $2, 300. 900 in these fees. over expenses, which, together with agents fees. is an enormous and outrageous tax upon inventors, the most useful portion of mankind. This. together with the fact that no more than one in two hundred of all the patents granted ever pay the cost of obtaining them or are of any value to the country, makes the patent office even worse lottery than any lottery ever drawn in America, all of which the gov ernment is now striving to suppress. The pension agents' frauds upon the soldiers are only on par with the patent agents frauds upon Inventors, they often practicing both. Of course. uuder $1 fee for patents, all ex- animation of inventions, as in most European governments, will be abolished. The inventor is to write out description of his invention, with claims, and when necessary accom- paay it with drawing, sign 1t in presence