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6
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Philadelphia Zoological park, 9; Central parte, Now
York, 6; Denver city park, 5; Buffalo city park, 4;
St. Louis city park, 4; Montebello kennels, Phila
delphia, 4; herd of Frank Rockefeller, Belvidore,
Kansas, 3; in parks at Pittsburg, Toledo, Roches
tor, Omaha, San Francisco, Winnipeg and other
places, 30; individuals or small numbers in the
hands of various persons, 36; in Germany and
othor foreign countries, 114:"
THE atlompt to "breathe life into the corpse of
the Fourteenth Amendment," according to
tno Washington Post, deserves from southern
statesmen nothing more than contemptous morri-
ment. The Post declares that the proposed re-"
duction of southern iepies?ntftion in congress is.
an absurd controversy and in support of this posi
tion quotes from the Boston Post as follows: "The
republican club oi tlm city ol New York now comes
forward with a spur to tho laggards in Congress
who hesitate to cut down the representation of
those southern states which prescribe educational
qualifications for voters. They say that there was
a plank in the republican platform promising to
do this and they want immediate action. Tho
Now York republicans point out exactly where
tho cut is to bo made. From eleven of the south
ern states nineteen members of congress are to be
taken. This reduction is based upon tho number
of illiterates, mainly colored persons of voting
age, who cannot read and write, and, therefore,
are disfranchised. The demand is made practi
cally along the line3 of the bill introduced early
in tho present session. Will this scheme ever bo
carried out? No, indeed. If it were to be applied
to tho South, it would have to be applied equally
at the North; and that never would do. Right
here in Massachusetts our suffrage laws disfran
chise for illiteracy as many as are excluded from
tho polls in Tennessee for the samo reason, half
as many again as in Arkansas, twice as many as
in Florida, and almost as many as in Louisiana
and North Carolina. If it is wicked down there, it
is wicked up here. And unless a republican con
gress is ready to wipe out one or two Massachu
setts congressmen, it will not venture to rob tho
south of nineteen." t
OF THE young men who entered the United .
States army under the act of Feb. 2, 1901,
nearly 100 have terminated their connection
with the service. Referring to this fact, theArmy
and Navy Journal says: "Some have been unable to
pass their examination ' for promotion and have
been dropped; some are the victims of court-martial,
neglect to pay their debts and the duplica
tion of pay accounts being tho chief offenses, and
others have resigned to escape a court-martial.
The foolish conduct of some of these disgraced
officers would seem to justify the plea of insan
ity which has been offered in an unusual .number
of cases. Our army is, unfortunately, too familiar
with the sifting process to which it must always
bo subjected under our system, or want of system,
in the selection of officera when a large number
are appointed from civilians, many of whom have
no proper appreciation of the responsibilities they
assume in accepting a commission. The army
Will bo all right when it is shaken down -and has
rid itself by a healthy process of elimination of
the men uniitted for military service.
SEVERAL yeavs ago according to a writer in tho
Now York Herald, Japan instituted an official
search "for the secret of a powerful nation
ality," and conceded that secret to the liberality of
the United States patent office. The Herald writer
explains: "A special commissioner in the person
of Korekiyo Takahashi was sent from Tokio to
Washington to make an official study of American
conditions and to report upon them. Mr Takahashi
called upon Dr. P. B. Pierce, at that time the ex
aminer of designs in the United States Patent Of
fice, and in the course of a conversation the doctor
asked why it wasxthat Japan was so anxious to
establish a patent office. 'For this reason said
tho commissioner. "We have been asking in
Japan, 'What has made the United States such a
great nation in such a short time?' Wo have in
vestigated, and wo have found that it was patents,
and wo will have patents.' Senator Piatt, speaking
?4 a bin for tne reorganization of the
patent office declared that the establishment of
the patent office in 1836 "marked th? most impor-
SwCh in .e history of our development-I
think tho most important event inUho;hisory 'of
our government from the- constitution t6 'thcivil
The Commoneiv
IT IS pointed out that the patent idea has been
of slow growth, and tho Herald writer adds:
"At tho time of tho colonies England'3 atti
tude toward her dependencies wras to force upon
them everything for consumption that possibly emild
como from an English mill, while In every way
discouraging and even forbidding tho manufac
ture of anything that would, compete with tho
English mills. England in thoso days had her
patent laws and sought a tariff for the protection
of her manufacturers, yet prior to the reign of
Georgo III. English patents had been few. In
1800 only ninety-six patents were issued in Eng
land and in 1850 only 523 grants were made.
Massachusetts, of all the American colonies, had
the .first patent office and .the first patent in its
history wa3 granted to Samuel Winslow, covering
ton years of a new process for making salt. If it
is questioned that such a process, strictly speak
ing, is an "invention," then the first invention
of the colony was a scythe, perfected in 1646, with
papers issuing to Joseph Jenks for fourteen years.
In none of the other colonies aro records of pat
ents issued prior to 1717. In the original draft
of- the United States constitution there was no
clause covering patents or copyrights, and in tho
convention acts of August 18, 1787, Madison sug
gested that provisions be made securing to auth
ors tho benefits of their works for a limited time
and to "encourage by premiums and provisions tho
advancement of useful knowledge and discoveries."
On Sept. 5, 1787, the copyright and patent clauses
of the constitution wore submitted. The organic
patent for the nation was passed on April 10, 1790.
THE department of commerce and labor recently
published a statement regarding the savings
deposits of different countries. The figures
given for Canada are as follows: "Number of de
posits, 213,638 jv total deposits, $60,771,128; average
deposits, $289.14; amount per inhabitant, $10.99."
A Montreal reader of the New York Times says
that these figures are very misleading, and adds:
"In the first place no date is given, but as a mat
ter of fact the above figures 3hould be dated Juno
30, 1903. Comparatively few Canadians deposit
their money in the postoffice or government sav
ings banks, and therefore the figures quoted do
not "reveal different degrees of what might be
termed the 'saving capacity' of the people of this
country. The Canadian banking system is so
thoroughly developed and understood that tho
people place the great bulk of their savings in
the chartered banks, as will be seen from the fol
lowing figures, which are taken from the govern
ment report of Oct. 31, 1904, and are therefore ab
solutely correct.
Savings deposits in chartered banks.... $315,323,000
Postoffice savings ban.:s 45,287,000
Government savings banks lOOOO
Special savings banks, (under government
supervision) 23,542,000
Total $400,786,000
THERE is besides the foregoing other savings in-
stitutions whose deposits according to tho
limes reader, aggregate more than $20,000,000. The
Times informant concludes: "So it will be seen that
the total of what may be called the legitimate sav
S nnn SPof Canada amounts to not less than
$420,000,000 instead of $60,000,000, as quoted by
the Department of Commerce and Labor. The
postoffice and government savings banks nro th
only institutions that publish the number of the
dX&i ' " ta, im to ascertain
definitely the 'average deposit.' I can, however
speak for one of the chartered banks, (tte Sov
ereign Bank of Canada) of which I am generll
manager and JJiis institution has over $5,000,000 of
sav ngs deposits, divided among some 2400 0 de
positors, or about $209 per head. If this is anv
criterion, the savings depositors in all the char
tered banks of Canada would exceed 1,000,000 in
number I think I am on the safe side when I
?SL iat?e haveVeast WOO.OOO savings depos
itors in Canada instead of 213.000 odd for which
the department of commerce and labor gives us
credit Taking only the figures above quoted
'a ldiact.lh, amount Per inhabitant" in Can
ada is $72,87 instead of $10.99, the figures given
by the department of commerce and labor."
THE grandfather of President Roosevelt was tn7
, ?tt man t0 nav,Sate a steamboatbn the Ohio
naues c. Allen in an interview with the St.
VOLUME 4, NUMBER 51
Loui3 Globe-Democrat. Mr. Allen explains: "Capt.
Roosevelt was a warm personal friend of Robert
Fulton, tho Inventor of steam craft, and soon af
ter Fulton's successful voyage on the Hudson ho
conceived tho idea of launching such a vessel on
tho western rivers. A good deal of doubt was ex
pressed as to the practicability of the undertaking,
but Capt. Roosevelt was enthusiastic, and along
about 1810 made a personal survey of the Ohio and
lower Mississippi to determine its feasibility be
yond all peradventure. The result of his survey
was entirely to his satisfaction, and, returning to
Pittsburg, he began the construction of a steam
boat from plan3 furnished him by Fulton and
Livingstone. In the spring of 1811 the vessel was
launched, and, accompanied by his wife, who had
the true pioneer spirit and refused to be left be
hind, the president's grandfather began his voy
age down tho Ohio. He entered the Mississippi
during the throes of the earthquake which devasted
so much of southeastern Missouri, but weathered
the tumult successfully and continued his trip to
New Orleans, where he arrived a short time after,
tho first man to build a steamboat west of tho
Alleghanies and the first to navigate one on West
ern waters. It is an interesting historical fact in
itseltand doubly interesting for existing reasons."
EVERYONE who has had the grippe, and very
few have been free from that annoying ali
ment, will be interested in a statement made by
an "observing man" to the New Orleans Times
Democrat. This "observing man" says: "There aro
many persons in the world who look upon "the
grip,' as we have come to call it, as a product of
our particular brand of civilization, but they aro
mistaken. True it has npt always been called 'tno
grippe,' a term first used in this country by a
French physician. I was reading some interesting
facts about this curious ailment the other day, fur
nished by W. L. Morgan, who addressed a Balti
more paper on tho subject. According to what ho
.says, grip is a disease known in very. ancient his
tory by the ancient Romans, and moro recently the
Italians, by the name influenza, meaning influ
ence. In 1500 an article was written in London
fully describing it as we have it now, and calling
it influenza, but the French speaking people used
the name of la grippe. The American people, fol
lowing tho English, used the Italian name of in
fluenza until 1842, when John Tyler was president
of the United States and vetoed the bill for re
newing the charter for the United States Bank,
which was a pet scheme of the Whig party. A
few days afterward the grip appeared, the first for
Beveral years, and spread all over the continent
and 500 miles east of the Atlantic ocean in a single
day, President Tyler being one of its first victims,
and thought to be dangerously ill. The. Whig pa
pers declared that it was a judgment, sent from
heaven to punish him for his sin of vetoing their
bill. A French physician rIn Washington called it
by the name he knew la grippe. From that timo
it was called Tyler's grippe till about the year 1860,
when the Tyler was dropped, but la grippe con
tinued to be used. It is a disease with many pe
culiarities; it belongs to all countries; it is never
known where' it starts from; it may not be known
in a country for many years and it will appear
there and spread over an entire continent in a day,
as in this country in 1842, and afflict millions of
persons at the same time. I suppose, after all the
people of ancient times, suffered very much as wo
suffer now, and about the only change that has
taken place is in treatment and the nomenclature
of the medical profession."
IT IS not yet half a century since Colonel Drake
discovered petroleum near the waters of Oil
creek, Titusville, Pa., but a writer in the New York
American says tho total production of crude pe
troleum from 1859' to 1902 forty-three years has
been no kss than 1,165,280,727 barrels. Of this out
put, Pennsylvania and New York contributed 53.9
per cent; Ohio, 24.3 per cent; West Virginia, 11 3
per cent; Indiana, 3.9 per cent; California, 3.6 per
cent; Texas, 2.1 per cent, leaving 9 per cent to bo
supplied by Kansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Illinois,
Missouri, Indian Torritory, Wyoming, Michigan
and Oklahoma.
L. C. McCarn has disposed of his interest tn
the Joplin (Mo.) Daily Globe and retires from tho
editorship of that sterling democratic newsjmwer.
Mr. McCarn has mado the Globe a force in demo
cratic councils and nis .retirement is a distinct
loss to the party. Ill health is tho cause of his
action, and his newspaper and political friends
will join with The Commoner in wishing him a
speedy recovery.
