The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-10-10

country; 1t requires only physical force, not
legal backing. The United States did not
annex Mexico after they had conquered her,
because they didn't want to. They took
Texas and part of the northern territory of
Mexico, but left the conquered country
practically whole. There is nothing in the
way of law to prevent US from conquering
Cuba, either.
win you please let me know the period of
the dark ages. and why so-called; also of
the middle ages? [ would like TO know If
confessionals have been introduced into
Westminster Abbey. and If confession is
conside red a sacrament in the English
Church Mrs. =. D.
There are no fixed dates for the beginning
and end of the dark ages and the middle
ages. The middle ages, as a rule, are con-
sidered as ending with the Renaissance,
which began about 1853: they began about
1000 years earlier, say $50 A. d. The dark
ages were about the same as the middle
ages. Learning was at a low ebb. or at all
events the revival of learning in Europe
after 1853 made the previous state Of learn
ing seem low by comparison. Confessionals
have not been introduced into Westminster
Abbey. The Anglican Church does not treat
confessions as sacrament.
What were the four questions PROFOUND
ed to Stephen A. Douglas at Freeport by
1S58?-R. c. T.
!. If the people of Kansas shall, by
means entirely unobjeotionable in all other
respects, adopt a state constitution, and
ask admission into the Union under it, be-
fore they have the requisite number of in
habitants according to the English bill
some 93OO0-will you vote to admit them?
2. Can the people of a United States Ter
ritory, in any lawful way, against the
wish of any citizen of the United States,
exclude slavery from it's limits prior to
the formation of a state constitution? g.
If the Supreme Court of the United States
shall decide that States cannot exclude
slavery from their limits, are you in favor
of acquiescing in, adopting and following
such decision a rule of political aetion-
4. Are you in favor of acquiring addition
al territory in disregard of how such ac-
QUESTION may affect the Nation on the
slavery quest on?
VIII you kindly explain the meaning use
and everything relating in any way to
standard time?-M. M
STANDARD time is a system of time
measurements established in this country
in 1888. 1t started among railroad men,
and was adopted by the people at large in
October and November It's popularity
of Is degrees each, and taking the time
of some important place within each belt
as the standard time for all places in that
belt. The time of any belt is thus one hour
earlier than that of the belt west and one
hour later than that of the belt east of it.
The eastern belt takes the time of places
on the seventy-ffth meridian west of
Greenwich, and is thus just five hours later
than Greenwich time is
of the ninetieth meridian; mountain time
is that of the 105th meridian, and Pacific
time of the 10th meridian. In use the sys-
tenn saves the necessity of changing ones
watch continually in travelling. For in
stance. before the system was adopted, a
person, in travelling from Boston to Wash
ington, would have from three to five diff
ferent times to remember. He would leave
Boston by Boston time, Providence by
Providence time. New London by New
York time. New York by Philadelphia time
and Baltimore by Washington time. Now
he travels with only one time and that is
what he has to begin with. If he goes west
of Pittsburg he sets his watch back just
one hour; if west of Bismarck, N. D., he
moves it another hour back, and if he goes
to the Pacific coast he sets it a third hour
back.
Kindly inform me when postage stamps
came first into use in the United States or
among other nations, and when the inter-
national postal law went into effect-H.
A. B.
The first postage stamp seems to have
been used in Paris in 1868, but the service
in which the stamp was used was only local
and soon failed. On May g. 1910. the first
regular postage stamps were issued in Eng
land. Various local forwarders of letters
and postmasters in this country issued
stamps as early as 1S41; the first to do so
was A. M. Grieg's City Dispatch Post,
which was sold to the government in Au-
gust, 1912. Blood & Co., of Philadelphia,
sold stamps in 1884, and the postmasters of
Baltimore, New Haven and New York of
1S45, also sold stamps. In 1877 the govern
ment took UP the business. But Brazil, in
1S43, was ahead of the United States in
taking up the stamp end of the postal bust
ness The other principal countries fol-
lowed in this order: France, Belgium and
Bavaria in 1919; Hanover, British Guiana,
Prussia, Spain and Switzerland in 1850;
Italy, Denmark Baden, Wurtemburg, Sax
ony and the provinces of Canada in 1851
Chill, the Princes of Thurn and Taxis (who
had the postal monopoly in Germany in
1853; Portugal, 1853; India and Norway, 1854;
Uruguay and Mexico, 1856; Russia and
Newfoundland, 1857; Sweden 1858; the Aus
tralian colonies early in the ffties; Greece,
1861; Turkey, 1868; Ecuador, 1866; Egypt,
1866; Bolivia, 1867; Paraguay, 1870. The In
ternational Postal Union was formed in Oc-
tuber, 1874 and went into operation on July
i, 1875.