Morning journal and courier., 1892-05-18

A few such days as yesterday would do much to restore confidence in New En- gland weather.
 A bill is now before the Massachusetts legislature making it a criminal offence to charge more than eighteen per cent inter est per annum on small loans. If this bill becomes law it will amount to little. There is no way to prevent usury.
 It is now announced that gout is not the result of spirits, because it is rare in Scotland. nor of wines, for it is rare in Spain and Italy, nor of beer, for Germany has little of it. It is said to belong ''to the most civilized times and nations, to the stronger sex, to the most vigorous period of life, to the higher classes of so- ciety, and to the most able"
 The streets of Berlin are soon to be en- riched by large number of so-called "Urania pillars" of which it is proposed to set up in all 300. These pillars will be about IS feet high, constructed of cast iron, and will each contain clock, meteor ological instruments, weather charts, as- tronomical and geographical announce ments, and also, as in the streets of Paris, a plan of the neighboring streets in en- larged form to enable strangers to find their way.
 A Roverness employed in an English family writes to a London paper complain ing, and not without a caune. of the scant wages paid for private instruction. She says that she is re quired to teach Latin and music in addition to the regular studies, to accompany her pupils on their daily walks, and to be constantly in their company from 9:30 a. m. to 4:30 p. m., for which she receives the magnificent sum of $75 per year. This is about half of what a second-rate household servant is paid. The governess of the novelist and the gov erness of real life are evidently two sepa- rate and distinct characters, if this partic- ular governess is a sample of the class. The granite cutters strike is not upon a question of work or wages. The workers have no fault to find with their pay nor the employers with the work done. The hitch is right here: The employers and men have contracts fixing the pay from year to year and nearly all of these con- tracts run from January 1 to January 1. The employees of one concern made 8 de- mand that contracts with them should I date from May 1. The employers ob- jected and explained that, ss their years end January 1, and their contracts for
 supplying material and 80 on are con- formed to these dates so far as possible,
 they could not during their business year risk an unsettling of so important an ele-
 ment as the price of labor. The organized men threatened strike and were told that such action would lead to an organized
 lockout by employers, and the strike came
 and the lockout.
 The managers of one or two large life insurance companies have come to the conclusion that they have carried the plan of extending their business about as far as
 it can be put in profitable or useful opera
 ton, and official announcements have been
 sent out by these persons that hereafter they will fix as limit the life insurance liabilities at the amount of $100, ,000, ,000.
 When they get beyond that point in any
 year 1t is their intention to cease making l any efforts to solicit new business uuti
 tho natural results of human mortality
 bring tho aabilities of the company dow1 bslew ths huadrsA milliea dellay NRs