Morning journal and courier., 1888-06-07
EDITORIAL NOTES.

The recent overfowing of the Elbe' and vistuia in Germany, according to German estimate, did $s, 500, ,0o0 damage. The suffer ing has been very great. The German gov- ernment is considering plans for preventing these disasters which involve storage reser- voirs, better dykes and perhaps some means towards reclething the naked mountains with timber.
 Dr. N. A. Randolph, an English physician, mentions that mipnows which throve in brook water and remained alive in it with out food for many days died in few hours when placed in distilled water prop~ erly aerated. He holds that one of the chief dietetic advantages of salads and un- cooked vegetables in general is that the mineral elements have not been removed out of them.
 Up to last Saturday the receipts at New York of potatoes from Great Britain since October 1 were 3,411, $40 bushels against 1O6, ,047 bushels for the same period the previous year. This, in spite of the pro tectiye duty of fifteen cents per bushel, iu- dicates what would become of potato raising in this country if the duty were entirely removed. In some cases the pota- toes arc brought practically as ballast, the freight paid being hardly enough to cover the expense of putting them aboard.
 The petition from Boston, presented by Congressman Barrett, asking that the civil service rules be extended to the Indian de- partment, is notable one. It is signed by Frederick o. Prince as chairman and about 200 others, among whom are Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Freeman Clarke, Henry l.. Pierce, Francis A. Walker, George M. Stearns, Phillips Brooks, Robert Treat Paine, Gamaliel Bradford and others equally prominent. The memorial argues that the Indian service should be entirely divorced from politics and that persons should be appointed and retain ed only with reference to their fitness for the work required or them. There is certainly great need of reform in the Indian depart- msnt.
 John Brennan, of Sioux City, Iowa, is an ! out-and-out Blaine Irishman, as he puts it, and he gives this advice to Irish voters in this country: The Irish independents-the Blaine men of S4-of right should be found ! in the ranks of the Republican party. It l is not for us to make race, or class, or creed our rallying cry, not to invoke new Ireland in America, but for ourselves to be- come, in spirit and in practice, truly, in- tensely, 6ercely Afnerican-more American than the Americans. We are race 6l
 wage workers whose highest interests are inseparable from the industrial prosperity 1 of America We are part of this American l nation, flesh of it's hesh, bone of it's bone, every fiber of our bodies, every pulse of oul l hearts. Our place is with the industry, the
 conscience, the intelligence of the American
 people in the ranks of the Republican party for it's principles and it's nominees.
 India is making more rapid progress
 than is generally appreciated. Sir William
 Hunter declares that India's cotton and juts
 mills are already formidable competitors o
 the Lancashire manufacturers, and that thu
 smelling of iron has advanced to state a
 which there is good promise of practical com
 mereial success. The point of greater i'm
 portance to our own country is the condition
 and prospects of India as wheat producing
 land With reference to this Sir William re ports that the amount exported since 157