Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1903-02-02
TOPICS OF THE TIMES

| There is quite a flood of trust busting
| bills in the New Jersey legislature. But
! the octopus smiles serenely in q state
| where his stay is made congenial.
japanese is the latest language to be
added to the fist taught at the Univer-
sity OF Chicago. Professor Yashiaka, q
graduate OF Northwestern University,
has been selected to teach the Ian
guage. There are a number of students
in the university who expect to go to
Japan as missionaries.
In some parts of The United States
Films are becoming an important ele
| ment of the voting population. One adj
vantage they have over Immigrants
| from many European countries is that
the proportion of illiteracy among them
| is inf1nitesilnal, Il of / per cent only,
| while among the immigrants from
| southern Italy, Russia, Portugal and
Poland it varies from so to TO-. BY the
Hast census there were in the United
States 63,440 natives of Finland, of
whom 10000 resided in Michigan. TO-
| 700 in Minnesota, 500 in Massachus-
etts, 1000 In New York, $500 in Ohio,
200 in California. 200 in Washington,
and 300 in Oregon.
The house committee on postoffices
and post roads has authorized a favor
able report on the bill introduced by
Mr.. Gardner of Michigan to prevent
robbing the mails and to provide safer
and easier method of sending money by
mail" 1t provides for a system of post
check notes which are made exchange
able at money order postoffices and
banks.
Some doubt has been thrown by re-
cent travellers upon the correctness OF
| the accepted notion that China is land
of teeming population. 1t has been stat
red that the human hives along the sea-
board and the great rivers of China
ought not to be taken as a basis for es-
Inmates; that in those parts of the en-
pire which lie off the main routes OF
traffic the natural and artificial water
courses) the population of China IS
comparatively thin. A census recently
taken by the Pekfn government for the
purpose Of assessing taxes to meet the
Indemnity payments seems, however, to
prove the accuracy of the older esti-
mates. The census shows that the eigh-
teen provinces of China proper contain
| 4O77373Ob inhabitants; that Manchu-
rim has 100000, and Mongolia, Thibet
10, 100000. The total population OF the
empire is 426,447.325, according to this
enumeration. The absolute reliability
of Asiatic statistics is questioned; new
ertheless, the agreement of the results
of the census with the accepted esti-
mates is so close as to invite conf
dence. The statement that the Chinese
empire contains one third of the human
race will hereafter be regarded more
than ever as an approximate truth.
SIS
An enemy Of tobacco says: 1T is q
sin to render the breath impure, &c.
mouth filthy, and the whole body AN of
fensive tobacco picgle, by using the.
poisonous narcotic
According to Luke Scott, OF Indianap-
oils, "Oil in the Hoosier state is by no
means giving out, and every little while
a neat little strike is made. AT present,
in the tract near Marion, there are
more than hundred wells working or
about to be bored A st. Louis COM
pany has bought tract of $50 acres of
oil land, and will sink a. hundred wells
on the one tract. Oil is running about
ten barrels every twentyfour hours,
and is now worth $1.10 barrel"
Probably the first railroad ever built
in the United States principally to haul
watermelons will be a branch line
which the Burlington is getting ready
TO construct in southeast Missouri tLls
spring, The line will be fifty miles
long, and will run thru a district which
Is distinctively the home of the water
produced there to keep one railroad
busy during the season hauling them.
Parker--what's wrong? You seem
worried.
Streeter-I am. wrote two notes
one to my brother asking him If he took
me for a fool, and the other to Miss
Golding asking her If she would be
mine. While was out somebody tele-
phoned Yes and don't know which of
'em it was.-Chicago News.
The far-reacling reforms in the Irish
lald system which are to be announced
within month by the British govern
meni. and which are only imperfectly
understood as yet In England, are au-
|thorttatiyely described in the Review
of Reviews for February by Mr.. Wal
ter Wellman, the newspaper CORE
snondent, who has recently returned
from Ireland, where he made a thor
ough investigation of the whole subject,
and had personal interviews with all
tho higher officials and government rep
resentatives entrusted with the task of
emancipating the Emerald Isle from
the thralldom of centuries.
Roy HARE, employed by the Coop