The daily Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1878-1???, 1884-01-04

NOUS. The receipts from the sale of stamps
this quarter will almost, If not quite, equal
those for the same quarter last year. The
deficit on account Of the reduction will be
only about 10 per cent, or between $4,0OO,.
900 and t5,000,000. It was estimated that
the reduction IN letter postage would result
in deficit Of about 100000. This will
be the amount charged to this cause. The
other 100000 or 100000 will be
chargesble to other causes. First, the new
law giving postmssters at small postoffices
oil the receipts from stamp sales instead of
percentage; and, second, the decision of
the supreme court giving land grant rail.
roads the right to demand cash for trans
porting the mails over their leased lines"
The ladies who inaugurated and man
aged the Leap Year ball at Hartman 9
ball last night just covered themselves
with glory and proved beyond doubt that
executive ability is more general smong
the fair sex here than is generally supposed.
1t was a select party comprising upwards
of fifty couples of our popular society peo-
pie. In accordance with the nature of the
occasion the ladies were in the aggressive;
they chose their partners, while the gen.
tlemen had to take their chances, meekly
and snxiously waiting to be in.
vited to take whirl. But
few if any were permitted to constitute
themselves "wall f1owers;' hence the enjoy.
ment WAS general With brief Interruptions
for chatting and punning aud joking, the
dance lasted untl sfter midnight, when
each gallant young lady graciously permit
ted herself to be escorted home by her
blushing male companion.
-Recounting some of the most import
ant disasters which happened during the
year just closed an exchange says "the year
opened with the loss of four or five ocean
steamships, In one of which, the Cimbria,
nearly five hundred men and women perish.
ed. Following the loss of the Cimbris
come the Milwaukee fire, in which eighty
lives were swallowed up. The floods on
the Rhine and Danube destroyed millions
in property and one hundred and fifty lives.
Three hundred persons persisted In burn
ing circus in Poland. Eighty miners we're
drowned at Brsidwood, Ills. Floods in
the western and southern states 10 February
carried of ono hundred people. Ninety
men and women lost their lives in an En-
glsh church panic. A powder factory sx-
plosion at Paris took off 80 and giant pow.
der at San Francisco killed thirty. Two
hundred persisted In the tornadoes which
desolated Georgia, Mississippi and Arkan-
sss, and seventy five we're lost in similar
storms in Illinois AID Wisconsin. The June
foods in the western states swept away so
lives; the Baltimore pier disasters, 10;
the wreck of 40 English fishing feet 375;
powder explosion ct Constsntinople, $50;
church panic in Sunderland, England,
200; cyclones in Minnesota and Dakota,
IS; the earthquake in Ischia, 5000; the
earthquakes IN Java, 100000; railroad &C
cdents in Roumania, $50; the earthquakes
in Asia, Minor, 1000; the Mount Ararat
avalanche, $50; the cholera IN India, $4,000;
and the same disease in Egypt, $1,000; the
earthquake in Persia, 600; the November
gales on the great lakes, 200, and the wreck
of the Gloucester, Mass, fishing feet, 200.
Thess are only the most dreadful of the
long list of casualties which have made
1883 memorable. Leaving out the thou
sands of mishaps by which one or two
lives have been lost, the great disasters OF
the year foot . total death role of more
than 10000. 1t is a grim and terrible
record to look back upon, and one which
all may hope will never be paralelled."