The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1895-02-15
BETTEI. TINES HEAD.

0thefW Use tiity VIII receive no ilteHllOH.
BETTEE TIMES HEAD.
1t is a we'll known fact to those
whose business calls them to be up
and about at all hours of the night
that as general rule the period of
greatest darkness is just before day
light begins to break. This has be-
come so generally recognized that it
has been framed into IL proverb, and
is applied very APPLY to many other
conditions beside those of light and
darkness.
In the lives of nations, us well as of
individuals, there are periods of de-
preston, when the best laid and best
meant plans and calculations fail for
awhile and everything goes wrong
We frequently find in private life that
about the time we are ready to give
up in despair, things take Il turn and
in a short time the sun is shining from
behind the clouds which shrouded
our lives in darkness. Communities
have the same experience and the
lives of nations bear wonderful re-
semblance in many ways to the lives
of individuals.
We have been passing through a
period of great business depression
and also of great disaster. There were
very few people in the United States,
nay, in the whole world, who did not
feel more like dancing on the grave of
the year 1894 than watering its sods
with tears. Storms, strikes, fires, ac-
cidents on sea and land, pestilence,
famine, hard times and sudden death
were the events that made up its his
tory and it's story shall be forever sung
in minor key. But such periods
must come to close by natural limi-
tation and such state of things can
not last forever.
Without attempting to look over
and confirming our view TO our own
country, it may be said with some de-
gree of confidence that we are on the
threshold of better times. We have
been drunk with our own prosperity
and have acted in too lavish and
spendthrift a manner, and when the
unhealthy excitement wore off, we
were dizzy and weak and unable to
A4.omprehend for awhile our true posi-
zion. We have had year or two to
sober up and get upon our feet again
and put ourselves in shape to meet the
conditions that confront us.
To speak more practically, farmers,
Business men and manufacturers have
found that they can no longer depend
upon the large profits of former years
and must curtail their expenses. Ger
tain lines of work have been found
Sunprofitable with the new order of
&hings and will be abandoned and
those only followed where a living
profit can be made Our farmers
must give up to the prairies in raising
gfan and cbnfine themselves more to
fruit, cztia dairy products, poultry
si3d such Kings. The prairie farm
SSxs-5een taught the folly of
GROWING too far ineS the desert ana
Rasiii tfansfef their surplus energy to
'sthe broad and smiling fields of the
sunny South, where there is ample
room for millions. Very many of
them have already done so or made
preparations so to do. All manner of
men are realizing that to make money
they must make their business an ex-
act science and not figure on the doc
trine of chances.
This wholesome policy of retrench-
ment is already beginning to have it's
good effect. According to the trade
reviews nearly every week furnishes
smaller list of business failures than
the corresponding week last year.
The vast over-production of manufac-
tured products on hand is beginning
to be used up and business prospects
for the coming year are looking better.
Altogether we may conclude that the
country is still safe and that the man
is uOG "lltC ilCl
taph.
The victorious japanese army is
still keeping up the, to them, pleasing
operation of smashing China. The
last news from the seat of war con-
firms the report of the capture of Wei
Hai-Wei, China's last graf stronghold.
The next move of the Japanese will
be toward Foo Chow, capital of the
province of Fukien. The Chinese
commissioners who had been sent to
Japan to negotiate terms of peace
were informed by the japanese gov
eminent that their powers were not
considered full enough, and have been
recalled by their own government.