Morning journal and courier., 1889-04-09
EDITORIAL NOTES.

It doesn't take great idea long to get around in the West A church in southern Illinois in about to have fair, in which one of the features will be the pigs in clover with real pigs. A large fac-simile of the toy will be built in the hali and prize will be given to the man who pens the porkers.
 The first Arbor Day was observed in Me- trees were planted. There are now growing in the State 605, ,O00,00O trees. In other States many millions of trees have been planted, and at the present time thirty-four States observe an Arbor Day. A hundred thousand acres of valuable dunes on the Bay of Biscay were planted with trees by Bremon- tier, which now yield France an annual in- come of hundred and thirty thousand francs.
 A new Maine statute includes in the order of "tramps" whoever goes about from town to town, asking for food or shelter, ,or begging or subsisting upon charity. It was put in force a week ago and the first case was strong illustration of its injustice. Two able bodied men were returning to their homes in Massachusetts after spending their winter ehopping in the forest. Unfortunately their wages had been exhausted and on their ap- pearance at the Biddeford police station to ask for shelter they were arrested and sub- jected to penalty of 60 days imprisonment of 10 hours day at hard labor-this is the inaexible punishment of the letter of the law
 r, T ,l~s1a sas, seem to have done 50 pretty we'll. The female mayor and the council, composed ex- clusively of women, have introduced num- bsr of salutary reforms, and law and order prevail there. The ordinances relating to the observance of the Sabbath are rigidly en- forced now for the first time is Oskaloosa. The shops must all be closed on Sundays, ,and can open its doors to Sunday customers. All boys under eighteen years of age are obliged by ordinance to get off the streets after 8 o'clock in the evening, under penalty of arrest. The tobacco chewers too, have also been made to feel the influence of the rule of the women, and there is no longer any ex- pectorating of tobacco juice on the sidewalk.
 A traveller who recently returned from Pekin asserts that there is plenty of swell in that city, but very little to see. Most of the show places such as the Temple of Heaven and the Marble Bridge have one by one been closed to outside barbarians, who cannot even bribe their way. The houses are all very low and mean, the streets are wholly un- paved and are always very muddy and very dusty ,and as there are no sewers or cesspools the flthiness of the town is indeseribable. He adds that the public buildings are small, and in decay and tumble-down condition, and the nearest one can get to the emperor's palace is to climb to the top of some build ing outside the sacred enclosure and surrep- titiously peep over the wall through an opera glass. Even then he does not see much.
 A number of the most distinguished law yers in Massachusetts, including Judge E. R. Hoar, ex-Governor Gaston, John Quincy Adams and others have issued declaration that the proposed prohibition amendment to the constitution would be inappropriate, in- asmuch as that instrument is stan organiza. tion of government, and declaration of