The Mena weekly star., 1898-02-09
A BACHELOR TAX.
New Jersey Legislature Will Pass on
 Bill Discouraging Single Blessedness-
AN END TO SEASICKNESS.
Rolling Checks Being Put on Steamships--- National Park at Fredericksburg-Jo seph Smith Not Polygamist-
 Eight-Hour Law Nuuihed.

TRENTON, N. J., Feb. 9.-In all prob- ability bill providing for the taxa tion of bachelors will make it's appear ance in the senate or house this week. The subject has engaged the attention of the law makers in Massachusetts, Virginia and some of the western states, and the bill now being drawn is fashioned after the measures that are before tine legislatures of the south and west. The tax that the bachelors will be asked to pay will possibly be as high as $2 per capita The taxing of single men is not an experiment in the state. For 50 years the single men of New Jersey paid $2 year for the privilege of enjoying the sweets of single blessedness, but in 1887 William McIlroy, who lived in Warren county, became tired of paying for the privi- leges that he enjoyed as a bachelor, and had the measure repealed.
 An End to seasickness.
 NEW YORK, Feb. 9-The value of the rolling checks or bilge keels on ocean steamships as preventive of excessive rolling has been so we'll demonstrated in the course of the past year that nearly all the big liners will soon be equipped with them. The Cunard liner Lucania, while in dry dock re- gently, had the new keels put on, and her trip which ended at this port Sun day was her first trial of them. Capt. Mckay, when asked how they worked, said that the trip, although a tenn pestuous one, had not been such as to test the efficiency of the rolling checks. Capt Mckay said that he believed that the bilge keels would accomplish the purpose for which they were in- tended.
 For National Park at Fredericksburg.
 RICHMOND, Va, Feb. 9.--A bill was introduced in both houses of the leg islature yesterday to incorporate Memorial Park association to care for the Fredericksburg and adjacent bat tlefields. The object of the associa- ton in the main is the same as that of the Chickamauga park commission, and is to mark and preserve the natural features of the battlefelds of Freder- icksburg, Characteristic, the Wilder ness, Spottsylvania and adjacent bat tles of the year 1S62-3 and 1864. Nearly all of the proposed incorporators served on either the union or confeder- ate side during the war.
 Joseph smith Was Not PoIygamist.
 KEwANEE, H., Feb. 9.--Before the conference of Western Illinois Latter Day Saints. Joseph Smith, the presi- dent of that church in America, and son of the Joseph Smith who founded Mormonism, gave a bitter denuncia- tion of the practices of the church in Utah. According to his statement his father had nothing to do with the in- troduction of polygamy. Plural mar riage was brought about by the Utah Mormons eight years after the death of his father, he said, and there was no warrant in the Scripture for it.
 The Eight-Ho Labor Law Nullihed.
 COLORADO SPRINGS, Col, Feb. g. Judge Lunt, in the district court of Ell Paso county, rendered d decision which practically nullifies the eight hour labor law passed by the Colorado legislature some time ago. The case was one against the Colorado Springs street commission for working men nine hours. Judge Lunt threw it out of court on the ground that it was an interference with persons right to make his own contract for labor.