The age-herald., 1898-02-21
CURRENT TOPICS

The Kansas Pacific railroad was sold on
 last Wednesday to a syndicate composed of
 so-called board of reorganization for the
 sum of s6.sOs.0OO. This sale is the result of
 a movement of the government to collect
 the amount due 1t from the road in ques- tion.
 1 The amount owing by the road to the
 United States is s12 eo1 .ooo, upon which the
 government agreed to take 4s cents on the
 dollar in discharge of the entire obligation.
 A syndicate was formed to purchase the property. against which was a claim of
 the first mortgage bondholders amounting
 to $63Os.00o, the government demand of
 s12.se1 900 and the consolidated claim
 amounting to $11 TEA, ,00O The syndicate has | arranged with the holders of all these se-
 eurities and the first mortgage bondhold-
 CTS will receive. in cash and securities, 12S
 cents on the dollar for their claim, or $7,878,-
 900. or 900 profit. The third mortgage
 bondholders will receive 115 cents on the | dollar for their ciafm-a bonus of $1 250, ,600- while the government will lose s6, 900 on | it's claim.
 
 syndicate makes g, ,725, ,Oo0, while the govern
 ment is a loser of nearly s70OOO0o by the trade Since this negotiation has been go- ing on the third mortgage bonds of the road have advanced in value from S4 cents | to s114 making for the holders more than l 8, 900. It was understood that the gov ernment was to pay off the first mortgage bondholders and take the road unless the
 syndicate paid the government in full it's | entire claim, and check was said to have | been issued by the treasury for that pur- pose. But according to the statement of | the attorney-general this was not done, and | the deal was closed with the syndicate weeks before the public knew anything about it.
 | At all events, now that the sale Is made and the road has passed into the hands of | the syndicate it is evident that the govern
 ment is out of pocket nearly $7,O00,000. while | the syndicate is ahead about much
 more Perhaps it is good thing to be rid | of the road at any cost. Since all the crimes. disease and ills of l life are commonly charged to heredity it is | not strange that many persons are fully convinced that the human race may be | brought to a state of absolute perfection if marriage could only be limited to those who are physically and intellectually fully qualified for it.
 l Mr. Parker a member of the Ohio legis- | Iature, is not the first man who has under | taken to bring the race to state of | ideality by legislative enactment. Bills of this character are by no means new, but | they have never received, except from the most visionary, any serious consideration. | There is no doubt that if every human be- | ing should form his or her matrimonial al- dances upon strictly scientific conditions | the whole human family would be improved | and many of the ills of which we now conn.,
 plain would, perhaps, become unknown. But it is impossible to make or enforce any l law that will be effective to accomplish what MT. Parker designs to bring about by | This bill, in brief, prohibits the issuing Of his bill now before the Ohio legislature marriage licenses to persons who are not | free from insanity, dipsomania, hereditary | insanity, tuberculosis or consumption. | Why kleptomania, degeneracy and other
 forms of predisposition to crime are l omitted from the bill Is not clear. While | there is little doubt that it would be a | great advantage if all marriages should be
 
 | sense to suppose that the evils of our pres l ent lax system can be remedied by legisla- tive enactment, while they can be very
 greatly lessened and modified by teaching | the people the plain laws of health and heredity.
 | The effort u1as been trdied to make men | temperate and sober by law, and 1t has fn- yariably failed The phiTanthropic have | resorted to the plan of teaching to the young in the public schools the physical | effect of the use of alcoholic beverages, and this is tine rational way of fighting the | Iiouor traffic. If it were fact that the l race was declining in vfgor ,virflity, l strength Or longevity, is is possible that l some legal restraint of marriages might l be necessary, but such is far from being l the case. None of the evils Mir. Parker | seeks to eliminate is gaining in it's ratio with population. Proper instruction and | advice can accomplish far more to re- strain doubtful or improper marriages than all the laws, however drastic they may be that could be enacted.
 | A bill has been introduced into congress | the purpose of which is to define train wrecking with the intent to rob, and to provide the death penalty as punishment l therefor. The alarming increase of this crime has made it imperative that some means be devised to put stop to it | Since 1890 there have been 21S occasions | in which railway trains have been 'held l up" in the United States, in which seven- l ty-eight persons were killed and sixty seven injured by being shot. In 1890 the number of "hoId-ups'' was twelve, and this increased with each year until 1895. when it was forty-nine. The next year there was decrease to twenty-eight, but in 1887 there were thirty, in which four of the robbers were killed and three in- | jured. while our passengers and train men were killed and eight were more or less seriously injured In addition to the thirty train robberies there were ten at- tachs upon stage coaches. While thesc "hold-ups'' made their appearance first at the west, the older states of the Mis- sissippi valley have latterly become the fovarita buutiy,r prollnf1s of fhe train rob