Morning journal and courier., 1885-09-11

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 It is estimated that there are one hundred million acres of land on the Pacific coast of the United States that are especially adapted to wheat culture. Of this California has twenty-five million, or one-fourth of the whole; Oregon has eighteen million acres; Washington territory has sixteen million acres; Colorado and Idaho, ten million each; Montana, Utah and Wyoming, seven million each; and the great bulk of all this wheat land lies untouched.
 All who are trying to bring about a re- form in school management are accused by those who do not want reform of not knowing anything about school affairs. It is very true that it has been hard work to find out anything about them under the present management, but it is believed that with some new men in the board the igno- rant reformers might learn something. Will not the kind gentlemen who deplore the ig- norance help to dispel it by voting with the ignorant this ysars
 It is probable that an effort will be made this winter to induce Congress to abolish the $200 tax levied upon commercial travellers who come into Washington. It ought to be done. Under the present system @ broker hires office room and takes out license, pos. ing as the alleged Washington agent of half dozen or more outside firms. The firms send their drummers to the city. They use the brokers license and his office as sample room, do all the drumming" and each firm pays the broker from $50 to S15O year, ac- cording to the amount of it's trade.
 The southern farmers are not so unhappy they might be. The cotton crop will be much larger than that of 1884; the corn crop will be the largest raised in the South for many years-perhaps the largest ever known; the sugar crop, while it will per. haps not be larger, will be produced on much less acreage than usual, and therefore at less expense; rice is better in Louisiana, and little change is reported from other States; wheat will probably show an i'm provement over last year; oats and small food crops are generally good, and the yields will equal, if not exceed, that of last year.
 Almost everybody in this country has thought that General Gordon was a martyr and hero, but Judge George s. Bachslder, the American representative in the interna- tional tribunal at Cairo, who has just re- turned to New York, brought back with him a not very favorable opinion of the general. He says General Gordon, whom he saw and of whom he had heard much from those who knew him well, cared for nobody but himself and had the same disregard for death as the orientals among whom he had lived for so many years. He was pious, but bloody, and would have made the Soudan groan with his despotism if fate had not cut short his career in Khartoum "To us in Cairo" says Judge Bachelder, Che was anything butia hero. Cor don brought about his own destruction by disobeying orders."
 Commenting upon the fact that there is one insane person to every five hundred and fifty Americana and that the ratio has great ly increased in the last thirty years, Dr. W. B. Fletcher says that an apparent cause is the popular change eff opinion regarding the treatment of insanity. Fifty years ago to be sent to an insane asylum ostracized one as completely as term in the penitentiary. That is all changed, and brief residence in