The aegis & intelligencer., 1897-08-13
BY united effort the Democrats of
Maryland can win a signal victory
this fall, and retrieve past losses.
Washington Letter.
From our Regular Correspondent.

| Washington Letter.
From our Regular Correspondent.
WASHINGTON, August 8, lS91.-There are
many opinions us 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 in-
| tends 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 scheme of his own to get even
with the administration for the treatment he
has received by getting it into some new for
| eign complication, but the generally accepted
| idea is that he is in Washington solely to enjoy
bossing the State Department, privilege that
is denied him when Mr.. Mckinley and Assis,
tant Secretary Day are in town. Mr.. Sher-
mans virtual acknowledgements of his iguor-
ance of the nature of the Instructions given TO
Minister Sewall concerning Hawaii is proof of
| how little he knows of the important part of
the foreign policy of the administration. Mr..
Day has had exclusive charge of all matters
relating to Hawaii and Cuba.
| Mr. John W. Foster, the gentleman who is
credited with having written the instructions
TO Ambassador Hay that were signed by Mr..
Sherman, has returned from his sealing mis-
sion to Europe. He says it was successful; Prof
Elliott, of the Smithsonian Institution, says ii
was flat failure. Which of them is right will
not be known until after the international con
| ference, 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 of the machinery Of the L. S. Customs Ser
vice to work at fillibuster hunting. His latest
| waS n alienation a that arms were abput IN he
shipped from bridgeport. Conn. 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 u right to have and
express opinion upon subjects before the
| public, and yet opinions may be expressed in
such a way as to make man appear to be
goatirg over the misfortune of something that
| he opposes, which causes them to strike most
people us being in bad taste, or even worse
TO the latter class belong the publicly express
ed opinion of Mr.. Preston, Director Of the U.
s. Mint, on the decline in the price of silver.
With the usual gall of the know-it-all Mr..
Preston tells the public not only that he knew
the decline in price was coming but that he
knows the dt cline is going to keep on until the
belief is irresistible that Mr.. Preston's talk rep
| resents his wishes rather than his knowledge of
| the subject.
Patent officials have testified in the disbar-
| ment proceedings against John Wedderburn
Il Co., now going on, that practically one-half
Of the nearly $500 applications for patents
filled by Wedderburn & Co, during the past
two years, have been for what was unpateu-
table and that II large pTrrputapn pF bn
,nainder, which contained devices that were
patcntahle, were of such trifIng nature that it
was practically wasting money for their inven.
tors to pay for obtaining the patent They
also testified that either knowingly, or through
lack of knowledge that should be ii part of the
equipment of every patent attorney, Wedder-
burn n Co., have sought to secure money and
often secured it, FROM these wouId-bc iuycu-
tors as fees for applying for foreign patents
and for advertising for sale these unpat-
ontable devices.
Not little joking has followed the naming
of the new submarine torpedo boat, which II
small party Of officials went over to Baltimore
to see launched from the Columbia Iron Works
Teddy" Roosevelt, who is always trying to
do something out of the common, christencd
the boat "Plunger."
The order just issued by Commissioner of
Patents Butterwortb, providing that all at.
tor. eys practicing before the Patent Office
shall be registered, and prescribing the rules
which must be complied with in order to get
upon that register, is one of the most lmiort-
ant ever issued by Commissioner of Patents.
and reflects credit upon Mr.. Butterwurth both
as a lawyer and as an official. His laudubie
aim is to raise the tone of the patent bar, which
has suffered in credit by the federation ON the
part.