I4.UGUST B, MM.
The Commoner.
5
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JOHN BURROUGHS, writing in Harper's Ma
zino, disputes the claim that any of the lower
animals is capable of thought. After recounting
many interesting tests, Mr. Burroughs said:
"Animals have keen perceptionskeener in many
respects than our own but they form no concep
tions, have no powers of comparing one thing
jfcvith another. They live entirely in and through
their senses. To all that inner world of reflec
tion, imagination, comparison, reason they are
strangers. They never return upon themselves in
thought. They have sense memory, sense intel
ligence, and they profit In many ways by experi
ence; but they have not soul memory or rational
intelligence. All the fundamental emotions and
appetites men and the lower animals share in
common, such as fear, anger, love, nunger, jeal
ousy, cunning, pride, curiosity, play; but the
.world of thought and thought experience, and the
emotions that go with it, bolongs to man alone.
It is as if the psychic world were divided into two
planes, one above the other the plane of sense
and the plane of spirit. In the plane of sense live
the lower animals, only now and then just break
ing for a moment into the higher plane. In
the world of sense man is immersed also; this is
his start and foundation; but he rises into the
plane of spirit, and here lives his proper life. Ho
is emancipated from sense in a way that beasts
are not."
ACCORDING to a statement made by Dr. Thom
as Darlington, commissioner of health, the
city of New York loses 23,000,000 annually
through tuberculosis. Speaking before the sum
mer school conducted by the New York charity or
ganization society, Dr. Darlington said: ii3stl
mating the value of a single life at $1,500 not
necessarily a high estimate and taking only
those lives betwen 1G and 45 years, the loss of
life in this city alone from tuberculosis mounts
up to the startling sum of $23,000,000 annually.
The general sanitary .conditions are still bad in
New York, and the inflow of immigrants, who
must be educated in right living, is constantly in
creasing." .
THE medical officer of the London, Eng., school
board has made an Interesting report, in
wnich he points out that "word deafness" and
"word blindness" are two remarkable defects
found among the school children. This officer
recommends the creation of special schools for
defective children where speech of a normal kind
is taught and where clear articulation is insisted
on. The London correspondent tot the Chicago
Inter Ocean quotes from this officer's report as
follows: "To a considerable number of children
reading and writing beyond the most rudimentary
attempts seem almost impossible of acquirement.
Many of these have marked mental feebleness;
others seem scarcely amiss in many respects. The
want of literary ability is probably more general
than is supposed. There are many cases of in
ability to recognize words, or to spell anything
like the words dictated, while at the same time
the child has fair to good faculties in other re
spects, such as mental arithmetic."
SOME typical cases are given by the London
medical officer and there are described by
the Inter Ocean correspondent as follows: "The
following lines were dictated to a boy who can
do any ordinary arithmetic, but is totally word
blind: "The drinks were ale and mead, drinks
which were made in dark English forests with
fermented honey.' The boy wrote as follows i
"la base us erans and krsut erans was -loots boath
in hast Enitsh louss ins harest lacnt." Three
years later, when earning 18 shillings a week, this
boy correctly wrote in .arable figures the sum
583,121 2s 11 3-4d from dictation. When asked
to write the sum in words, he wrote: 'Soed oein
dnuted edhoth snita anerount," signed his
name, 'Ted Smith.' Another reads: "It has three
birds in if as To see best in td.' He mistakes
the letters C and S constantly. Ho quickly and
correctly does difficult sums in mental arithmetic,
and can describe with great minuteness any
scene he has witnessed; his memory is only bad
for word symbols. His intellectual processes are
carried on entirely in pictures, and the visual
word center seems entirely wanting. Another
,5oy, who does his school work well and can draw,
. 'letter blind and can not ten a single letter
in his name. A fourth has a wonderful faculty
of observation and excellent reasoning powers,
but can not romember how to make the signs
1, p, 7 and 9.
REPRESENTATIVES of the pacmng houso
strikers at South Omaha have said that if
tne strike continues much longer and tho packers
obtain from the federal courts extraordinary
writs against the strikers, that tho latter will
insist upon an enforcement of the criminal clause
of tho anti-trust law. A nowspapor dispalch
from South Omaha under date of July 2G, says:
"Union men of South Omaha will have their day
in court from tho present indications. Boforo
bloodshed begins they will use tho law, if possible.
There aro strong reasons to believe that tho union
mon will endeavor to enforce the criminal clauso
of tho anti-trust law and prevent tho packers from
further, raising tho price on their products. This
movement, if seriously Intended, is bolug made
"quietly and with tho utmost precaution. That it
is contemplated is a certainty, for within tho
last twenty-four hours representatives of the in
dependent packing houso movement have been in
the city conferring with tho striko leaders aud
their friends."
GOVERNOR MURPHY of New Jorsey recently
complained that other states than New Jer
sey were making bids for tho organization of
trusts. As is well known, Now Jersey is tho homo
of the great trusts, the laws of that state being
framed so as to make a trust organization decided
ly easy, and comfortable for the organizers. A
writer in the Boston Globe says trial even Massa
chusetts is showing a disposition tp rival New
Jersey. The Globe writer adds: "Tlje amount of
stocks and bonds Incorporated in Now Jersey con
solidations . seem almost incrediuio. J'At least 25
consolidations could bo mentioned, involving an
avowed capital of nearly $2,500,000,000, which havo
been formed since Jan. 1, 1899, and only those aro
included that have $10,000,000 or over of capitali
zation. No reference has been made to such con
cerns as the Amalgamated copper company, with
a capital of $75,000,000; tho American woolen com
pany, with a capital of $05,000,000, or tho Ameri
can cycle company, with a capital of $80,000,000.
In fact the total capitalization which has been
consummated in that state would be almost past
finding out."
THE organization of a trust In New Jersey Is
a very simple affair. Tho New Jersey meth
ous are described by a Boston Globe writer in
this way: "Five wealthy men from Wall street
can go to New Jersey and announce that they
have a patent worth untold milirons. They then
can issue, after incorporation, stocks and bonds
upon their own rating of their own property. The
real value of their patent may bo but $40, but
as long as they say it is worth $40,000,000, it has
to go for that. They havo an arrangement in
that1 state known as tho 'annual franchise tax.'
Stripped of all subterfuge this device means that
if a trust is once organized and wishes to continue
business, it can do so by paying a beggarly few
thousand dollars yearly Into the Now Jersey state
coffers, through the franchise ax clause In tho
state's Incorporation laws."
IT IS pointed out by this same authority that
the policy of dealing gently with tho corpora
tions is nothing new in New Jersey Tor men as
far back as 1791 went to that state lor Incorpora
tion. No less a personage than Alexander Hamil
ton is said to have organized in 1791 a corpora
tion called "the contributors to the society for the
establishment of useful manufacures," with the
modest capital of $1,000,000. The ball thus started
has been rolling ever since. It is further shown
that the trusts pay nearly all the expenses of
tho commonwealth and that even the courts
appear to aid legislation favoring the trusts.
Pointing out that other states have gone into tho
trust business, the Globe writer asks: "When
will an aroused national intelligence make all
states ashamed to loose these bogus and preda
tory corporations upon their helpless neighbors?"
IN THE federal court at Omana, the attorneys
for the packing house strikers applied to
Judge Munger for a modification of tho restrain
ing order. Judge Munger declined to make tho
modification, but explained: "Orders aro often
construed to different purposes, xsut In law they
must bo construed as applying lo the languugo
of tho bill of complaint. This order Is not to pro
vent auyono from doing nnything ho has a legal
right to do. I do not think thdro is anything
in tho order, which if properly construed contains
anything objectionable. There Is nothing In It
which prohibits a lawful gathering or meeting
ordered for tho legitimate duties of pcaco. Tho
court docs not think picketing tor observation is
unlawful, unless for purposes or violence aftor
ward. Tho court does not think tho law is any
different today than It was at tho time of tho
Union Pacific doclslon. Thcro is nothing In tho
order that will provont tho strikers from doing
legal acts. Nor can it bo construed as to pro
hibiting different unions from acting within thoir
legal rights." C. J. Smyth, attorney for tho
strikers, says that ho regards tho order on its
faco as one of tho most swooping evor issued in
the United States. Ho adds, however, that Judge
Munger's explanation has tho effect to modify tho
order so far as concerns its original interpreta
tion. It was annouced July 27 that Judge Munger
had gone on a fishing trip and attorneys for tho
packers stated that they had asked that another
judgo bo asked to enforce Judge Munger's ordor.
Of course, It was admitted that tho "othor Judgo"
would interpret Judge Mungor's order ana tho
interpretation might differ considerably from
that placed upon it by Mr. Munger himself. The
packers claim that tho ordor has neon violated by
the strikers and that they will probably ask that
citations for contempt be issued against a larga
number of working mon at South Omaha.
REFERRING to the claim made by tho re
publican national platform that ,"a demo
cratic tariff has always been followed by business
adversity; a" republican tariff by business pros
perity," the New York Times presents some inter
esting reminders. The Times ssys: "Tho repub
lican party came into power in 1801; this clearly
fixes tho period In which tho comparison between
the republican and democratic tariffs and their
consequences must bo made. Since that dato
there have been a half dozen times of great de
pression In business which were accompanied by
enough excitement of tho public mind to bo called
panics. The first occurred In tho spring of 18G1,
and was duo wholly to tho impending contest
with secession. The second occurred In 18GG-18G7,
when the number of failures ran up to 2,780, and
tlio liabilities of failed concerns to $9G,U6G,000.
In 1873 there was a third depression, which has
become memorable in our history, when tho
failures reached 5,183 and the liabilities the then
unprecedented amount of $220,499,900. Five ycara
later thero was a fourth Interval of stagnation
and disturbance, when the number of failures
nearly doubled and the liabilities again Increased,
this time to $234,383,182. In 1884 tho fifth de
pression caused the record of failures to reach
almost tho same figures. Finally In 1893 wo had
tho appalling total of failures at 15,542 and tho
total liabilities at $34G,779,889."
COMMENTING upon tho above snowing, the
Pittsburg Postsays: "Yq are glad to see
special attention called to the situation In 1877,
tho most disastrous of all, for It Is well remem
bered in Pittsburg. It was the year of the rail
road riots and general strikes. It was tho year tho
state was covered by a standing army and citlzons
were shot down in tho streets by scores. It was
tho year of a republican tariff, a republican presi
dent, a republican congress and a republican gov
ernor and state legislature, as well as a republican
panic is business and industrial circles."
TH E census bureau of the department of com
merce and labor has issued a bulletin relat
ing to the negro population of the United States.
From this bulletin facts are compiled by a writer
in the Atlanta Constitution as follows: "In tho
south negroes aro about one-third of the popu
latlon, both in tho cities (30.9 per cent) and in
country districts (32.G per cent). Since 1840 tho
increase in the negro population of the south has
been less rapid than that of the white popu
lation. During tho past decade the negro Increase
in tho country districts was only about two-thirds
that of the whites, and five-sixths in the towns.
Tho center of the negro population Is in DeKalb
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