Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1886-11-03


feelings of anxiety caused by the now
locally widespread belief that the surface of
the earth in that section is gradually sink
ing.
THE RIGHTS OF RAILROADS.
The United States Supreme Court rem
dered its decision on the 24th ultimo in the
case of the Wabash, st. Louis and Pacific
Railroad Co., the plaintiffs in error, against
the people of the State of Illinois. The
specific allegation was that the railroad
charged Elder & Mckinney Is cents per
100 pounds for transporting goods from
Peoria to New York City, and on the same
day charged Isaac Bailey & F. o. Swan
nell cents per 100 for the same class of
goods from Gilman, Illinois, to New York,
Gilman being Sc miles nearer New York
than Peoria. The discrimination, it was
alleged, was in violation of the law of H.
linois, which prohibits any charge for the
transportation of passengers or freight
within the State of Illinois proportionately
greater than would be charged for the trans
portation of like classes of freight ''over a
greater distance of the same road" The
gist of the decision is contained in the con-
clusion as follows:
THE GIST OF THE DECISION.
"When it is attempted to apply to trans
portation through an entire series OF states
a principle of this kind, and each one of
the States or half dozen shall attempt to
establish its own rates of transportation, its
method to prevent discrimination in rates
or to prevent it, the deleterious influence
upon the freedom of commerce among the
States and upon the transportation Of goods
| through those States, cannot be Over-esti-
mated. That this species of regulation is
one which must be if established at all, of
general and national character and cannot
be safely and wisely remitted to local rules
and local regulations we think it clear
from what has already been said, and if
it be regulation of commercials we think
we have demonstrated it is, and as the H.
lnois court conceded it to bet must be of
that national character, and the regulation
can only be made by general rules and
principles which demand that it should be
done by Congress under the commerce
clause of the constitution"
The judgment of the Supreme Court of
Illinois, which was adverse to the railroad,
is reversed, and the case remanded to that
court for further proceedings in conformity
with the above opinion. Opinion by JUS
tice Miller.
DISSENTING VOICES IN COURT.
Justice Bradley delivered dissenting
opinion in which the Chief Justice and JUS
tice Gray concurred. In this opinion it is
conceded that Congress might, if it saw fit,
regulate the matter under consideration,
but not having done so it is held that the
State does not lose its power to regulate
charges on its own railroads in its own
territory, simply because the goods or per-
sons transported have been brought from or
are destined to point beyond the State
borders.
STEEL PENs.-Mr. Henry Bore has COL
lected from various and generally original
sources s,all the known facts concerning metal
ic pens. Some of these references run back
so far as the fourteenth and even the thir-
teenth century, and, curiously enough in the
case of the MSS. of Robert d'Artois, the
forger scribe is said to have used bronze
pen in order to disguise his writing and
make his deception more safe. A Roman
metal pen is said to have been found at
Aosta, not mere stylus, but a bronze pen
slit, and there is some evidence of pen or
reed of bronze nearly as early as the inven-
ton of printing in the fifteenth century.
A hundred years ago some steel pens were
made in Birmingham for DIR. Priestly, and
some of these passed into the hands of Sir
Josiah Mason, in his early days with Mr..
Harrison; but all seem to have been lost.
The first pen of metal of definite date, be-
yond all question, is one in Dutch patent
book of 1717. About the same time polite
ode of Pope's refers to ''steel and golden
pen," but these were evidently luXuries
only, and it was not till about fifty or sixty
years ago, that metallic pens became more
generally in use. In the "Local Notes and
Queries" in the Birmingham Weekly Post,
definite evidence has been given of steel
pens as early as 1906, and more commonly
in 1877; but it was about 1928 or 1924 that
the great revolution came by which pens
were made by q cheaper process-the hand
screw press, which pierced the pens from
sheet steel. Previously pens had been made
from steel rolled into tube fashion, and the
joint formed the slit; but these required con-
siderable labor to shape them into pen form.
The use of the screw-press belongs to the Pc
riod of John Mitchell, Joseph Gillot and Jo-
siah Mason; but on careful review of the
facts, it seems to be clear that John Mitchell
has the best claim to be considered as the
original introducer of press-made pens.
A SENSE OF HONOR.-There is little
doubt that the thing which most needs to be,
preached to this generation of Americans
by ministers of the Gospel, by both clerical
and lay instructors of youth, by all who
have public interest or private authority, is
a sense of honor! 1t must be shown and
insisted upon that every position in life
where one person is employed by another
to do certain work imposes an obligation
to fulfill the duties of the place with an
honorable and disinterested regard for the
interests of his employer. 1t must be
shown that this view Of employment ap-
plies to the cook, the errand-boy, the cash
ier, the legislator, the governor, the Presi-
dent. This is trite, and apparently
simple, and somewhat stupid, view of the
opportunities of a ''smart" and ambitious
American of our day. But unless this COM
monplace view of responsibility is laid hold
of by increasing numbers in the future of
our country, we will 60 to pieces, but we
will say that our calamities willincrease and
that we will get into trouble, and not soon
out of them compared with which the dan
gers and distresses of the past will seem