Morning journal and courier., 1893-06-16

EDITORIAL NOTES.

I
 of Paris, @ rather curious list of articles
 was pledged during last year. The most
 numerous among them were bed sheets, of
 which 91, ,1s4 pairs were pledged; there
 were 649 cider down quilts, 254 fans, 3S2
 boxes of mathematical instruments, 1,972
 saucepans. 460 sewing machines, 67 pi-
 amos and 977 looking glasses.
 It is proposed to redeem the pine barrens
 of Michigan. from which the timber has
 been removed, by sowing two plants.
 spurry and the flat pea. Phs first makes good feed for cattle and sheep and it's roots bind the earth and help to form @ firm soil. It is thought that millions of acres in the Psninsular State, now utterly worthless, may thus be made to serve the usss of man.
 The new law of the State of Washington prohibiting the sale of cigarettes has been declared unconstitutional by @ United States court at Seattle. It was contested by New York firm on the ground that the sale of cigarettes sent into the State in the "original packages" meaning the small boxes in which they are put up, is matter of inter State commerce which cannot be regulated or prohibited by State authority. The court seems to have taken this view, and of course there will be an appeal. Few have any conception of the progress which photography has made in the direc- ton of taking instantaneous impressions. An object travelling at the rate of 10000 miles an hour can be photographed by means of the electric spark, while, if a re- volving mirror Is introduced, objects tray cling at the enormous speed of s0,000 miles an hour can be taken. To photo graph the latter class of objects, the mir TOT, which is worked by electricity, must revolve 1,024 times every second, which gives a speed hundred and fifty times greater than that of 6 bullet.
 Another landmark of old London Is about to suffer destruction. This is the house in Stapel inn in which Dr. Johnson wrote "Rasselas," and in which some of his earlier years in London were passed. The house is situated on the south side of the Garden court, and, from an inscription on the face of the building, 1t appears to have been built in 1899. The architecture of this period is not remarkable for grace, and the building is as ugly as most of the contemporary structures. Nevertheless, the magic personality of the sturdy old doctor has invested 1t with a certain de- gree of interest, and, although the site is fz- %Ha office, the Idea of the destruction of the old house gives pang of sentimental re- gret.
 The winner of the Derby this year is de- cidedly in luck. Captain Hugh AcCalmont, theowner of Isinglass, had two granduncles, Robert and Hugh, who for over half a csn- tury carried on most successful stock broking business in London. One of them married a sister of the late Earl of Cairns, but died widower and childless, leaving his share of the family fortune to his brother Hugh. The latter remained 8 bachelor and, when he passed over to the great majority, left the entire fortune in trust for his grandnephew to inherit on the day when he attained the age of thirty two, which happened to bs the day after he won the Derby, which latter good for as great a distinction as can come to a man.
 When the Germans go to war again they will be well prepared. There has lately krfa nS kha r&s af &la Kaiser, of which much has been predicted, and the reports of the efficacy of the guns and of the explosive shells exceed the bounds of all experience. An eighteen caIibre gun, which is small in comparison with the heavy ordnance now used on naval vessels, fired missile at target under the emperor's direction. The shell missed the target and ploughed its way through a wood at one side for 1500 feet. The Kaiser was disturbed by the mistake of the gunner, but soon found ths shell had produced an effect which, to his mind, entirely excused the man. A large area of the woods was set on fire by the explosion of the shell and the scattering of It's frag- ments. The space covered by the splint- CTS was an oval 250 feet in diameter and 300 feet in circumference. Twenty years ago the best gun would not throw splinters in circuit of more than fifty psces. The German Emperor thinks that with the new gun and with new powder the secret of which is his own, his artillery will be able to sweep whole divisions of an enemy's army out of existence.
 In a recent debate in the Norwegian Storthing Mir. Aarestead, member for one of the chief agricultural districts in the country, maintained that the landowners and farmers were steadily falling deeper and deeper into debt. Those who now, he
 said, in reality own the soil of Norway are the Bank of Norway, the Land Mortgage
 bank, the savings banks, and traders in
 towns. The mortgage debt on Norwegian
 agriculture has more than doubled In the
 last twenty years. He estimated that the Norwegian peasant proprietor owned in
 reality only about one-sixteenth of the
 value of the land, houses, and forests in
 the country, and that the interest on the
 land debt at 4 per cent. now amounts to
 one-sixth of the total yield of agriculture
 in Norway. He declared the condition oi
 the farmers to be desperate, and that un,
 legs serious steps were taken they would
 be entirely ruined. In his reply the Min
 ister of the Home Department threw doubt
 on the accuracy of the statistics brought forward and thought they were somewha
 exaggerated. AS regards the increasing indebtedness of the landowners or farm
 CTS, he pointed out that the value of lant had been increasing, but added that he sav no possibility of the agrarian debt bsipt taken over in part by the State.