The Opelousas courier., 1901-01-19

semblage In the harvest field. The
other day there were working on a
Surrey farm a couple Of clerks, a COM
positor, a solicitor who had been I'M.
able to scrape up the money to take
out his certificate; a medical man
down on his luck" a pawnbroker's
assistant, and Of course q Journalist"
The journalist explained that he was
there for the purpose of copy" He
intends to write an article and call it
"Haymaking by Eminent Hands,"
It is quite possible to be too smart
sometimes. A little messenger boy in
New York City was called as witness
for the plaintiff in a suit involving
heavy damages against q street car
company. How fast was the car 60
ing round the curve at the time the
plaintiff says it struck him?" asked
counsel for the company in his cross
examination. "Pretty fast, sir," was
the answer. "And how fast is pretty
fast?" snarled the lawyer. 1.-THE cars
don't 60 fast round that curve to-day.
l suppose they don't run 'em as fast
this fall as they did last spring when
the plaintiff says he was struck, ehy"
The boy was silent a minute. mo,
sir, they don't run 'em as fast now"
he said; "they killed so many people
going round that curve they mad to
slow up"
The recent Woman's Congress in
London would not have been complete
If some one of the delegates had not
read q paper on the decline of
In the present day. This duty de-
volved on q Mrs. Farnell, who told the
congress that there was a marked de-
cay Of good manners among the wom-
en- Of Great Britain; that mere rough
ness Is priced as an excellence, and
that grace Is rarer than in the past.
This theory must command assent, on
the doctrine that what everybody says
must be true. Not only do all author
tiles agree that this decline in
Is going on all over the world, but
there has been a period in the
history Of any country when the same
melancholy doctrine was not asserted
with equal emphasis. There is, how
ever, a certain consolation in rejecting
that this theory Of the decay of man
ners in only q part Of the broader and
gloomier theory Of the degeneracy Of
the human race, which w are assured
on the same evidence has been going
on since the beginning Of history.
Statistics Of the population Of the
cities Of the United States containing
over $4,000 inhabitants have been COM
pleted by the Census Office. Those
cities, which number 159, have a popu-
lation Of 10, ,625, as compared with
a population in the same cities of
H. 1856, 4S9 in 1890 and Of 9,933,927 in
1880. 1t is worthy Of note that the
cities in question showed a smaller alb
solute increase in the decade just
ended than in the preceding one
s 1926 less, while the percentage of in
crease was only 1875 per cent. for the
decade ending in 1900, as compared
with 49.5 per cent. in the preceding de-
cade. OF the cities referred to, nine
teen have 100000 or more inhabitants,
nineteen have between 100000 and
100000 population, forty have between
$4,000 and 100000 inhabitants and
e~ighty-one cities have between $4,000
and $4,000 inhabitants. AS compared
with the thirty-eight cities having
over 100000 Inhabitants at present,
there were only twenty-eight in 1890
and twenty in 1880.
One Of the notable humors Of the
Parliamentary campaign In England
has been contributed by Captain Oliver
Young, who participated in the bonn
bardment Of Alexandria and the con-
quest of the Soudan. Despite these
experiences, or perhaps because OF
them, Captain Young is an opponent
of the Government, and his admira-
ton of the War Office is not profound.
At a recent political meeting he told q
story to illustrate the amazing con-
volutions of red tape. He was wounded
at Suakim, he said, and sent to the
hospital. BY some mistake he was re-
ported dead, and a tombstone to his
memory-which still ornaments the
battlefeld-was erected. When the
error was discovered, the War Office
not only asked, but insisted, that ne
should pay a guinea to Y the cost
Of inscribing his name on the stone!
Well, somebody had to pay for ', n
evidently the departmental mind, ap-
palled at the idea of an inaccurate
entry Ia the accounts, could think OF
no other expedient than the imposition
of a murtuary expense upon the living
man fer whose benefit 1t would have
been paid IL he had been dead.
British ExiIes Pine for LondoR.
Exl.es from home, pioneers, trav-
elers far away from England and
mora sne.ciallv LondOners, tell you