Morning journal and courier., 1885-09-16
EDITORIAL NOTES.

Where are the civil service reformers! Will they stand idly by and see the school principals assessed to pay the expenses of running the school rings tieketa
 The Sacramento river in California has become 30 badly clogged and filled up with debris washed down from the mines worked in the last twelve months by the hydraulic process that passenger and freight boats can no longer reach Sacramento City. It is pro posed that the nation shall, through Congress pay for the removal or the impounding of this debris. It was all appropriation of $250,000 for this purpose that was condemned by Secretary Lincoln in the winter of 18S2-3.
 A writer in Bradstreet's makes an inter esting calculation concerning the financial loss the community suffers by the preventa- ble deaths of children in New York. He takes Thorald Rogers estimate of the pro- ductive value of each one at S750. The diff ference between the death-rates of the chill dren in Great Britain and in New York city is 26.66 in the thousand. Assuming that by proper care the death rate in New York could be reduced to the British rate, New York annually loses 7,S72 children that might be saved. The productive value of these is $2, ,570 150-the gross amount lost to the community. Taking the estimate of the New York Aid society, that for $20 each these lives might be saved by giving them rural instead of urban rearing, it will appear that the actual annual loss by overcrowding in tenement houses is nearly two and a half millions year.
 New Hampshires new law to promote the purity of elections prescribes oath which ought to be binding. Any voter can chal- lenge the vote of any other voter at any town meeting and the moderator shall not receive the vote until the challenged voter shall sub scribe to an affidavit in which he swears that he has not hired nor induced nor attempted to hire CT induce by payment or influence in any way, either by promises, money, place, threats or intimidation, any voter to stay away or avoid voting at any meeting After swearing through a labyrinth of legal merry go-rounds the voter must then swear that 'tthe vote I now offer to cast and the votes propose to offer to cast at this town meeting are, in accordance with my solemn convic- tions of duty to my country, uninfuenced by any payment, promises, offers of emolument, offers of reward of any kind, loans of money or other things, threats of intimidation what soever. So help me God"
 The microscopic determination of the diff ferent qualities of iron and steel is now re- garded one of the most valuable aids in 1na at4l1uroica1 industries Thus tha al of iron are double pyramids, in which the proportion of the axes to the bases varies with the quality of the iron. The smallness of the crystals and the height of the pyra- mids composing each element are in propor- tion to the quality and density of the metal which are seen also in the fneness of the sur face, and as the proportion of the carbon diminishes in the steel, the pyramids have so much the less height. In pigiron and the lower qualities of hard steel the crystals ap- proach more closely tine cubic form. Forged iron has it's pyramids fiattened and reduced to superposed parallel leaves, whose strue- ture constitutes what is called the nerve of the steel, and the best quality of steel has all it's crystals disposed in parallel lines, each crystal filling in the interstices between the angles of those adjoining these crystals hay ing their axis in the direction of the porous sion they undergo during the working. Prac- tically, good steel has the appearance, micro scopically, of large groups of beautiful crys- tals.
 Lawyers occasionally make mistakes which result in the loss of cases, but they generally charge for their services whether they blum der or not. The Supreme court of New York holds that in a case of this kind an ig norant or incompetent attorney not only has no legal claim for compensation, but is lia- ble to his client for any loss or injury sus- tained by the client through the Incompetent cy of the former The law on this point is