The Opelousas courier., 1898-09-10
NOTES AND COMMENTS.

The new monitors will be the most
formidable vessels of that type ever
built. And there are some who think
that type the most formidable ever de-
vised.
The great commercial products of the
Philippine Archipelago are ugar,
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-story records will
be broken, and the wonder will not
cease while the veterans remain eliss.
There is a private in a Wisconsin
company and he is certainly, a patriot
ic American who desires to fight and
uphold the honor of his country. In
1870 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 a 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 a formidable
competition with the Far East. In
China, Japan and Formosa, but a small
portion of the great camphor forests
now remain, owing to the wasteful
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 that
camphor could be produced p%roftably
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 a Russian linguist, Eng
list, Russian and Chinese will be the
only three languages in use two hun
dred years from now. During the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries,
the whole of Continental Europe and
Of Asia, with the exception Of China,
will have adopted the Russian Ian
guage. English will be spoken in
Great Britain, Australia, Africa and
America, and Chinese will be the Ian
guage of the Celestials and the Oceanic
Archipelago. There are at present $50
distinct languages spoken-S9 Euro
pean, la African, 1913 Asiatic, lit Oc-
eanic and Alt American, while in the
Russian Empire alone sixty different
tongues are found.
Russia is experimenting with giant
searchlights mounted in balloons and
containing electric burners connected
with dynamos on the ground. She is
also introducing tall observation tow
ers put together out of sections dis
tributed among the men while on the
march. In their drills with these a
squad of sixty men al erect COM
plete structures in twenty minutes,
thus enabling the officers In command
to survey a much wider extent of terri
tory than would be possible without
these devices. The Prussians already
have an excellent system of army bal
looms with Photographic and other
equipments, and in luls particular take
the lead of all the European nations.
The ordinary receipts of the Govern
ment in a year amounts to about $780,
OOO, 900. The ordinar- expenses of the
government vary little from year to
year, they have exceeded $685., 100000
in no year since the close of the Civil
War. The annual receipts and ex-
penses of the railroads of the United
States are nearly three times greater.
One cannot note the names of the
ships of the American navy without
approaching the wisdom of those who
honored the cities and States of the
South and the North impartially in
these designations. The Boston and
the Baltimore, the Concord and the
Raleigh, fought side by side at Manila,
and every section of the country is
represented in the vesse4s Of Admiral
Simpsons fleet.
We are beginning to miss our mer-
chant marine, says the New York Com
mercial Advertiser. The long delay
In starting the Philippine army on it's
long voyage shows how serious is the
lack of merchant ships of our own. In
our early sea fights, the merchant mar
Inc was the making of the navy. A