Birmingham state herald., 1897-01-10
NOTE AND COMMENT.

NOTE AND C0MMtNT.. A St. Louis paper prints returns from all over Missouri of candidates for the Missouri postofflces.- The list covers a page and cne-half. sWhat are we. here for?,' sS.~ If Mir Platt is sufficiently vindicated he may decline the senatorship. The public could afford to applaud such step on the principle of small favors thank fully received
 Ex-Lieut. Gov Halle will be missed at the inauguration ceremonies in Boston. He is in Washington as president of the National Association of Woolen Manu- lecturers, looking after tariff matters But W. Murray Crane will be on hand at the state house. He arrived in Bos- ton from New York last night. They have succeeded in preventing child labor in the factories of Illinois to a large extent but it still sticks in the
 sweat shops of Chicago; and in the opin- ion of the state factory inspector, Miss Florence Kelly, 1t will be necessary to prohibit the tenement-house contract clothing business altogether If this em- ployment of children is to be wholly abolished.
 Dr. Parkhurst's war on MT. Platt has now turned into a spluttering of gall covered gibes at the eminent reformers who formerly labored beside him in op position to the great boss. This is natur al enough, perhaps, since the doctor is a
 thorough irreconciliable who hates the
 mar, who knows when he is 'licked' as he hates Tammany vermin "wriggling on hot shovel" as he once expressed it. The New York magazine with which
 George w. Cable, the eminent novelist, is to be connected, is now revealed ais Current Literature This is monthly of long standing and much value, and 1t needs just such reinforcement of taste and judgment as MT. Cable will furnish to fulfill it's idea. MT. Cable will become it's editor, and that should greatly en- nance the position and prosperity of this literary periodical.
 Only about 40 per cent. of the eligible
 women voters of Wyoming appeared at the polls last election day, against 85
 per cent. of the men. This appears to
 have been an unusually light womans s vote for that state, and the republicans
 attribute it to the candidacy of a woman
 on their ticket of presidential electors which would otherwise have won. Fur ther explanation would seem to be need ed. Was 1t feminine jealousy?
 The aggregate losses from fire during the year 1896 in the United States and Canada amount to $115 655, 500, against
 $129, ,S39, 700 in 1895 and $12S ,246 400 in 1894.
 These are the figures of the New York
 Journal of Commerce, which adds:
 The reduction of over fourteen millions
 in the fire loss account for 1896, as com
 pared with 1895, has been very decidedly
 felt by the fire underwriters. They had
 in the year just closed happy combina-
 tion of high rates and light losses, and
 their gains have been very handsome. In
 fact veteran underwriters feel that the
 effect of prosperity will soon be to de-
 velop rate wars in various sections.
 Since the final exposure by the courts
 of the begging letter imposter George
 Brooks, the English papers have made
 considerable fun for their readers by
 printing extracts of letters from cele- brated or titled personages to this clever rogue and alleged author, in which they called upon him to stand firm under per- secution and beat down these dastardly attacks upon his honor. Among the most curious of these are the following, first from the bishop of Derby:-- ,s sla, r'
 have long considered you thinker and writer of, no ordinary vigor. I sim cerely regret that cannot offer you more than the enclosed small check.
 And second from w. E. H. Lecky, the historian:-
 I think "Industry and Property" use- full work, and I do not at all regret having subscribed to it.
 And third from Sir Theodore Martin:
 Live down the islanders ofyour enemies. Their shafts have already got sorely blunted. And go on doing your good work for the cause of order. and sound economies. safss