The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-03-12

LIT. kunltz audaclOuSly dnnOuHceS that "Kleptomania is perfectly natural to women"
 The complaint of Senor Du Bose to the State department at Washington that some of the newspaper corre- spondents have abused the privileges granted them in Havana is evidently justifiable.
 Queen Margherita's extravaganza in dress is the one grievance of her loyal subjects. Italian ladies have a reputa- tion for spending more on their dress their husbands and fathers attribute this state of things to the queens fatal example.
 The secretary of agriculture sent an agent to search the interior of Asia for rare seeds. The agent, Professor Neils D. Hansen, has returned with his pockets filled with strange and won- derful seeds. Here are some of the varieties which the farmers will get for nothing this year: Twenty five pound from Turkestan and Bok- hnra which will keep all winter, Vladi- mir cherries of East Russia, raspber- ries of North China and of the noun tains of Semipalatinsk, quinces and pleasters of Turkestan, sand vetch from the region of the Volga and brome grass from western Siberia, which will grow where no rain falls.
 The Republican city convention in Des Moines the other day adopted resolution favoring the adoption of civil-service system for the city based -on merit and fitness, "believing 1t to be desirable in itself, and indispensa- ownership of public franchises,' which the platform also favored; and request ing the senator and representatives from Des Moines to favor the enact ment by the legislature of a general municipal civil-service law. The re- form measure introduced in the Ohio legislature proposes that the merit sys- tenn may be introduced in any city if the voters shall declare in favor of it upon the submission of the question.
 Thn Great Eastern railroad pany's London city terminus is the largest terminal station in the world It covers some fifteen acres of land, and has eigtheen platforms and twenty lines of rail. Over 1000 trains enter and leave the station daily during the summer season. The published gov ernment returns show that the com pany carries a larger number of pas Bengers than any other railroad in the Kingdom, about 125,o00 persons passing In and out of the station daily by train. The total number of passengers carried during 1897 was about 1oO,OO0,0O0, exclu- sive of 3000O season ticket holders, which, estimating each season ticket holder to travel twelve times week, would bring the total up to 11S, S,720 OO0.
 It is estimated that the steam power of Great Britain is equal to the united strength of 1,00O,000,0 900 men. The num- Der of persons employed in her coal mines is but 100000, and of these fully two-thirds dig coal for other uses than for engines, leaving 66666 men to mine the coal necessary to do the work d,000,000,00 The engines are made by 60,000 men, so that 126,666 men furnish the means of doing the work of 1,000,- 00,000, the strength of each being thus multiplied nearly 5000 times. This gives to each man, woman and child of population of S5,OOO,OOO some thirty willing slaves, born fully grown, ex- empt from sickness needing no clothes eating only fire and water, and costing merely the work of one man in 5000.
 Boston shipping men see some rather important objections to the Cape Coo canal scheme. It is pointed out that the freight rates are now figured SC close that owners would, except in very bad weather, prefer to send their yes sels outside of the cape instead of in, curing the expense of the canal. Wher the canal was first projected the rate from New York to Boston for coal wa. $125 to S1.50 ton, and it was thought that toll of twenty-five cents a. tor could be collected. Now the rate il fifty cents ton, and the toll of ter cents, which is the least that could b.
 charged, would eat up large propor
 tion of the profits after the other ex
 penses of the vessel had been paid
 The practical working of the cana