The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-09-13

quent claim to the territory, pon claim jumping in short But man is so weak that the very marks become objects of his attachment. and he hates to see them rooted out.
 We do not here allude to the possess sor of a snug sinecure, who sees him self, pro bono publico, abolished. The axe has been laid to the foot of the sinecure tree so long that he Is SUD- posed not to exist. The body politic like the Aud Kirk O Glasgow, stands as crouse as a cat when the feas are kaimed aff her, and abody is alike pleased So, at least, they tell us. It is unlikely that the sinecurist was l pleased, but no doubt he had to pre- tend that he was, When the day comes, as it seems coming, that a grad uated income tax will direfully dim finish the modest products of "unearned | increment" some of us, to be consist ent, will have to simulate glee. And ' it will be "a large order But the landmarks, of the removal of which we complain, are not as rule of a kind really important to our Wellbeing. Rather they are sentiments, old asso- citations, which are ruthlessly destroyed | by the horrid leveller progress.
 Perhaps they are literal landmarks which have to go, the old church or the | old tree. They have to g6-granted. The highbaeked pews were unsightly. and architects were driven to semi- luracy by the galleries, and the organ placed where it ought not to be; no doubt your restoration is an improve ment-for you. But they were land marks to us, and it is too much, it is milk to expect us to give you thanks for removing them. It is you that should give thanks if we abstain from cursing. A proposal was made the other day for the cutting down of hgedges at crossroads corners, so that motorists might avoid collision, by be- | ing able to see each other (and police traps) afar off Now this will doubt less be an improvement. If 1t does nothing else it may perhaps make the roadhog cease from footing But how the roads will be spoilt It Is these ragged hedges run out of all shape, with old decaying oaks, swaddled in ivy cables, hanging over them that make half the beauty of English lanes. It is not given to every one to perceive the beauty of utility, Except to those for whom "thereis money in It, high farming Is not ornamental. When all the trees which may overshadow the crops or burn the soil beneath them, are gone, and the hedges are replaced by strands of barbed wire strained to iron standards, the crops may do bet ter, and-we hope they will pay for production.
 Scattered through the country are many oaks mentioned as marks In "Domesday Book" so that they must, even then, have been sizable trees. They are now quite useless, mere shells, for the most part. No ship builder would give three half crowns for their timber. Some of them may even be gangerous to life and limb in high gales But we shall grieve when they go. We have lived to see the all most rtotal extinction of windmills. at all events in the south of England, and we have had a great loss in them
 What finish they gave to land- scape! The watermills are going, all most gone. Is it our fault that we can- not admire the new steam mills, bare brick tails with their short breathed engines snorting within them? Rather, it is our great misfortune
 Old customs, too. fall at every stride of progress beneath the scythe It is rumored, for instance, that the Bidden- den cake is to be abolished As very few, except in the immediate neighbor- hood, have ever heard of it, it's loss will not greatly affect the world. We shall, doubtless, bear up. It was left, how ever by two sisters who were unfor- tunate enough to be Siamese twins or a double headed nightingale, to be given as a sort of memorial of them to all strangers attending church at Bid dened on Easter Sunday It Is a flat tablet of dough with hideous bass re- lief on it of the two poor ladies joined youngs man remarked In 1895. "They are vefy durable and many be kept as curiosities for twenty years It would take the same time to digest them if eaten" It mast be admitted that the cake Is an uncomely confection. But as nobody does eat it it has done no | ak sn ga.