Natchitoches populist., 1898-08-19
NOTES AND COMMENTS.

The great commercial products OF the
Philippine Archipelago are sugar,
hemp, tobacco, copra and coffee, and
their Importance, as articles of export,
are in the order given.
The ability to read the Constitution
of the State, which is required of a
voter, is held by the Supreme Court
of Wyoming TO be an ability to read it
in the English language.
In a recent speech Mayor Rose, of
Milwaukee, said he wished that every
woman whose husband was at the
front might wear some distinctive
badge, so that he might take off his
hat to her
The Minneapolis Times wonders why
our young men take to the law instead
of to the farming. We suppose, COM
ments the St. Paul Globe, it is because
they look forward to being appointed
receivers of bankrupt banks at from
$1,000 to $4,000 a year. That beats
farming.
American armies have thus far been
the worlds most fertile sources of war
stories. The Civil War added about
five thousand titles to the Nations
list Of books Of home origin. But
when the American soldier begins to
embody in literature his recollections
of foreign experiences incident to the
present war all war-st0ry records will
be broken, and the wonder will not
cease while the veterans remain alive.
There is a private in a wisconsin
company and he is certainly patriot
ic American who desires to fight and
uphold the honor of his country. In
1879 he graduated from West Point
and served five or six years in the
army. Ever since he has been lead
ing a private citizens life, and when
the present war began he decided to
go to the front, He failed to close his
business in time to receive commits
sion, but this made no particular diff
ference with him, and he enlisted as a
private.
The cultivation of the camphor tree
in Florida has been so successful that
the section promises TO be formidable
competition with the Far East. In
China, Japan and Formosa, but small
portion of the great camphor forests
now remain, owing to the wastefu
methods OF obtaining the gum from
the trees, which in many were cut
down entirely. In Florida, on the
other hand, it has been found thai
camphor could be produced profitablJ
from the leaves and twigs, obtaining
a pound of the gum from seventy-sev.
en- pounds Of the cuttings. The tree re
quires no fertilization, and is ex.
tremely ornamental.
According to Russian linguist, Eng
list, Russian and Chinese will be th'
only three languages in use two hun
bred years from now During THE
twentieth and twenty-first centuries
the whole Of Continental Europe ant
of Asia, with the exception of China
will have adopted the Russian Ian
guage English will be spoken il
Great Britain, Australia, Africa ant
| America, and Chinese will be the Ian
guage of the Celestials and the Oceani
Archipelago There are at present So
distinct languages spoken-S9 Euro
pean, ia African. 1913 Asiatic, III DC
eanic and III American, while in tn
Russian Empire alone sixty differcn
tongues are found.
Russia liz experimenting with gian
searchlights mounted in balloons an
containing electric burners connecte,
with dynamos on the ground. She i
also introducing tall observation tow
! ers put together out of sections dis
tributed among the men while on tn
march. In their drills with these
squad of sixty men can erect com
plete structures in twenty minutes
thus enabling the officers in comman
to survey a much wider extent of terri
| tory than would be possible withou
these devices The Prussians alread
have an excellent system of army bal
looms with Photographic and othe
| equipments, and in ais particular tax
the lead Of all the European nations.
| The ordinary receipts of the Govern
ment in a wear amounts to about $3.50
! 100000. The ordinarv expenses of tn
government vary little from year t
| year, they have exceeded $685., 100000
in no year since the close of the Civ
| War The annual receipts and e1
penses OF the railroads of the Unite
States are nearly three times greater
One cannot note the names of til
ships Of the American navy withol
approaching the wisdom of those VIII
honored the cities and States of tn
South and the North impartially
these designations. The Boston an
the Baltimore, the Concord and tn
Raleigh, fought side by side at Manil
and every section of the country
represented in the vesse.s OF Admiri
Canncouis Hoot