The St. Johns herald., 1897-08-21
WASHINGTON LETTER.
Secretary Sherman Has Come
 Back to Washington.
m Our Regular Correspondent. l

Back to Washington. From Our Regular Cores spondent.
 WASHINGTON, August 13, 1897.
 There are many opinions as to why John Sherman should have returned to Washington and taken charge of the state department at this time. Some say that the old man intends to make a fight to knock out the Hanna Mckinley plan of kicking him out of the cabinet after the Ohio election; others that he has a scheme of his own to get even with the administration for the treat ment he has received by getting it into some new complication, but the gener- ally accepted idea is that he is in Wash ington solely to enjoy bossing the state department, privilege that is denied him when MT. Mckinley and Assistant Secretary Day are in town. Mir. Sher- mans virtual acknowledgment of his | ignorance of the nature of the instruc, tions gwen to Minister SewaN concern Hawaii is proof of how little he knows of the important part of the foreign pol icy Of the administrat on Mir. Day has had exclusive charge of all matters re- lating to Hawaii and Cuba.
 MT. John " Foster, the gentleman who is credited with having written the instructions to Ambassador Hav that were -;srad E fir. sherman, Eas 1e- turned from his sealing mission 10 Gu- rope. 5f. says it Was successful; Prof. Eluott, Of the smithsonian institution. says it was a flat failure. Which of them is right will not be known until after the international conference, which meets in Washington next October, shall have been held.
 The Spanish minister has only to tip the wink to the secretary of the treasury to put all the machinery of the United ! States customs service at work hlllbus 1 ter hunting. His latest was an allega- tion that arms were about to be shipped from Bridgeport, Connecticut, or there abouts, to the Cubans. Special orders were at once sent to all the officers of the customs service in that vicinity to turn themselves into detectives to please the Spanish minister
 Of course every man has a right to have and express an opinion on subjects before the public, and yet opinions may be expressed in such way as to make man appear to be gloating ovei the mls-
 fortune of something that he opposes, - which causes them to strike most peo- } ple as being in bad taste, or even worse. l To the latter class belong the publicly expl essed opinion of Mir. Preston, dire' tor of the United States mint, on the decline in the price of silver. With l the usual gall of the know-it-all, MT. Preston tells the public not only that he T knew the decline in price was coming Il hut that he knows the decline IS going
 to keep on until the price gets down tt
 forty cents an ounce. The belief IS ire
 sistible that Mir. Preston's talk repre- y sents his wishes rather than his knowi a edge on this subject
 p Patent office officials has testified ! the disUarment p.oceea."s, aga'Hs e John Wedderburn & Co.,, now going on
 that practically one-balf Of the neaT' V- 8O0 apDlicatous tor pateut- He'd D. '- Wedderburn & Co. during the past U" voars have been for what was unpaIeh' i' ahlA and that large percentage ol LII D. ,rhicb contained devices tha
 were patentable, were Of such q 'iili.i'
 nature that it was practically "a0'iil F. money for their inventors to pay TOT oU c. taining the patent. They also testlue' or that either knowingly, or through lacl ,s of knovIedge that should be part c O. the equipment of every patent at'orhe s. Uoddarhurn x Go. have sought to SC ot c,re money, and often secured It, iron Id +boee would-be inventors as fees for az es plying for foreign patents and Tor adVel or Using for sale these unpatentable de ii.o vices.
 1T Not q little joking has followed tn e. naming of the new submarine torped
 hoat. which a small party of otilcIa
 wont over to Baltimore to see launche
 from the Columbian Iron works. Tee
 dv" Roosevelt. who is always trying
 do sonatbinc out of the common, chri
 tened the boat "Plunger.
 The order issued by Commissioner
 Patents Butterworth, providing that
 attorneys practiclng before the patel
 office shall be registered, and prescrI