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.VOLUME 6, NUMBER 52
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A REMINDER OF the dismissal of the negro
troops is given in the Associated Press'
report of-the president's New Year reception.
Followirig is an extract from that report: "It
was ' generally remarked that the proportion of
.-negroes in the line was smaller than in previous
years, but a number of negro civil war veterans
and Spanish war veterans joined with military
and patriotic societies in extending greetings to
the president."
THIS INTERESTING "story of the times" is
told by the Pittsburg Press: "'Where's
the president of this railroad?' asked the man who
called at the general offices. 'He's down in Wash
ington, attendin' th sessions ou some kind uv in
vestigating committee, replied . the office boy.
'Where's the general manager?' 'He's appearin'
before th' interstate commerce commission.'
'Well, where's the general superintendent?' 'He's
at th' meeting o' th' legislature, fightin' some new
law.' 'Where's the head of the legal .department?'
'He's in court, tryin' a suit.' 'Then where is the
general passenger agent?' 'He's explainin' t' th'
commeroial travelers why he can't reduce th'
fare.' 'Where is the general freight agent?' 'He's
gone out in th! country t' attend a meetin' o' th'
grange an.' tell th' farmers why he ain't got no
freight jCars.' 'Who's .running the blame railroad,
anyway?' 'Th' newspapers.' "
SECRETARY SHAW'S annual report attract
ed more than usual attention this year. The
secretary says:. "There is no occasion for alarm,
our only anxiety need be lest we fail of facilities
to properly garner, store, transport and market
our multiplied, blessings. Let every man be of
good cheer and try to be conservative in every
thing except thankfulness." -
CCORDIG TO THE 'secretary .report . the
'tx receipts for the calendar year, 1906, amount
ed to- $625,000,000 and .the expenditures at $566,
000,000, or an excess of receipts over expendi
tures of $59,000,000. As there has been no change
in the tariff laws or the. laws relating to internal
revenue, Secretary Shaw says the large increase
in,, receipts is due solely to the extraordinary
trade, activity. The total expenditure, however,
for 1906, as compared with 1905, he says, shows
a decrease of but $5,000,000. The books show
surplus receipts oyer expenditures of $25,000,000,
as compared with a deficit of $8,000,000 for the
corresponding months of the previous fiscal year.
The cash in the treasury is $190,000,000, as com
pared with $171,000,000 a year ago, an increase of
$19,000,000. The cash in national bank deposi
tories is $159,000,000, as compared with $65,000,
000 a year ago, an increase of $94,000,000, and
the total cash in the. general fund is $356,000,000,
as, against $242,000,00 a year ago. Against this
cash there are liabilities at the present time $13,
000,000 greater than at the same time last year.
The available cash balance has increased during
the year $101,000,000."
rp HE PARAGRAPHS in Secretary Shaw's re
i. port relating to money in circulation are
particularly interesting at this time. He says
that during the last twelve months the money in
actual circulation exclusive of the amount in the
treasury vaults, has increased over $200 nnn non
Of .this increase $145,000,000 is availabk fo bank
IaTonehis$"0h(l00f;000 !S 1U natinal ban
muon. This, he says, "seems to be a comulPtP
answer to the oft-ropeated and ill-advisej TcrUi-
Cism that the lnflfrmr.rW f,. -" -rm
saw in tr'Ts
is traceable in no respect, and in no degree to the
independent treasury system of the United states
He Says thf mnnlfoat nmi n,imtt., i- .7 ai . a
been oau d by np7ecedeS prospey .
this country and reasonable prosperity every
where. The people of the United States; he ul
i "oi""i ier cupua, more food, more
clothes, morfi of Avnrvti.in i, ""' moi,
w,vWmwu UI1U unusual Business
activity calls for an unusual amount of actual
money and of credits ba,sed on actual money. As
to our currency system, Secretary Shaw says
that in his judgment it permits adequate expan
sion, but that its weakness is its failure to pro
duce contraction. The volume of money, he con
tends, does not respond to the volume of our
business. The annual increase may be sufficient,
but there is no annual contraction during the
dull summer months. "Only the unthinking and
ill-advised," he says, "charge the admitted strin
gency solely or largely to stock and bond specu
lation." Just now speculation in real estate is at
high tide and the opinion is expressed that very
likely as much money is tied up in options and
margins in real estate as in options and margins
on stock and bonds.
ACCORDING TO THE New York World there
were seventy-two lynchlngs in the United
States in, 1906. This was seven more than in
1905, but fifteen less than in 1904 and thirty-two
less than in 1903. In 1901 there were 135 lynch
ings and in 1902 the number was ninety-six..-Fourteen
states were represented in last year's
list of lawless executions, Maryland being the
furthest north. The distribution of lynchings was
as follows: Alabama 5, Arkansas 4, Florida 6,
Georgia 9, Indian Territory 1, Kentucky 3, Louisi
ana 9, Mississippi 13, Maryland 1, Missouri 3,
North Carolina 5, South Carolina 6, Tennessee 2,
and Texas 6."
MEMBERS OF THE liberal party in the Brit
ish parliament say that a large amount of
public money is being expended for the payment
of hereditary pensions which have no longer the
right to exist. A London cablegram to the New
York World says: "Several such pensions 'con
ferred; by the .nation for services rendered to the
state, are now being paid to persons who had
nothing whatever to do with the matter and who
are not even direct descendants of the original
personage on whom the pension was conferred.
Thus the annual pension of $10,000 granted by
King William III., nearly three centuries ago on
Henry, of Nassau, and his heirs is now paid to a
Jew named L. Coen. Lord Rodney, the seventh
baron, formerly captain in the Guards, receives
from the state every year a pension of $10,000
because, one of his ancestors was useful to the
nation in the wars against Spain and France over
a century ago. It is calculated that the Rodney
family has received from the state in the shape
of pensions the sum of $1,250,0Q0 since the peer
age and pension were bestowed in 1782. The de
scendants of Lord Nelson, the hero of Trafalgar,
receives" from the state an hereditary pension of
$25,000 a year, and in a little over a century the
family has already cost the nation over $2,500,000.
Lord Seaton, the third baron, receives an annual
pension of $10,000, which has been running for
about sixty years; Viscount Harding, $15,000, be
stowed on his grandfather sixty years ago; Vis
count Gough, $10,000, bestowed on his grandfather
fifty years ago, and Lord Napier, $10,000, bestowed
on his father nearly forty years ago. Many other
members of the leading families of the aristoc
racy cost the nation a large yearly amount in the
shape of pensions."
ONE OF THE most scandalous cases In con
nection with the British pension" business,
according to this London correspondent, is that
of the pension still being paid to the heirs of the
Duke of Schomberg, which was granted in 1694,
an(J originally amounted to $20,000 a year. Part
of this pension was redeemed by the government
cSii large Payment in cash, but there are
sun ?3,500 being paid annually by the nation to a
personage who had nothing whatever to do with
mei Scl!oraherg family. This correspondent adds.
lnen the state still pays annual indemnities and
compensations for old claims like that of the
i kef Cornwall, who was awarded an indem
nity for his discovery of lead coinage. Just now
such a- discovery is not of any value commercially
or otherwise, but the government still pays the
indemnity granted many years ago. It is proposed
to abolish all such pensions in the future if par
liament will consent to pass a bill for the purpose
and it is also planned to propose a bill forbid-
ding in the future the granting of any herediWr
pension from the government. Another agitata
obfn?nf?0t arUg the members of Parliamen to
M no? fi!m le government an annual salary o
$3,000, following the recent example of their
French colleagues. Lord Robert Cecil, son of
thd i late-Marquis of Salisbury, has interested him
self already in the matter, and at a recent seanco
has asked from the chancellor of the exchequer
an annual appropriation of $2,000,000 to-meet the
increase in the indemnity of the members."
HERE IS A STORY told by the New York
World that ought to be read to all the
children: "Kneeling around a' second-hand
Christmas tree, three little boys were found yes
terday by agents of the Children's Society in
an old house near the Catholic Protectory in
the Bronx. They had been living there all alone
for six wee"ks, ever since their father, John
Marlon, disappeared. Their mother they had
not seen since she was taken many months ago
to a sanitarium- for consumptives iri' Sullivan
county. The 'Christmas tree the boys had brought
in from the street They had decorated it with
a few discarded toys picked up' here and there
in the neighborhood. Ragged, hungry, unkempt,
and shivering with cold, they presented a pa
thetic spectacle as they were led away from
the place which had once been a happy home to
them. The children were Michael Marion, aged
fifteen; William, aged thirteen, and James, seven
years old. Their ten-year-old sister, Mar
garet, they said, was with their mother. How
they had lived for six weeks without freezing
or starving, to death was a mystery to Edgar C.
Farrlngton and Obadiah Cunningham; the agents
of the Children's Society, who found them. After
being arraigned in the children's court, they were
taken to the society'srooms and fed liberally and
made snug," , J. " - ' ;' '
AT THE INITIAL performance of a new play
at South Norwalk, Conn., a skin-grafting
scene was enacted and the scene was so realistic
that the performance was interrupted. The South
Norwalk correspondent for the New York World
tells the story in this way: "The heroine re
moved her waist and gave her bare arm to the
surgeon for him to .remove a large piece of cuticle,
to be applied to the woman dying upon a hospital
cot, the secret untold which would prove the. inno
cence of the heroine's lover. With a razor-like
instrument, the surgeon seemingly made a gash
from the shoulder to the elbow of the heroine,
and in the wake of the instrument flowed crihison
fluid. Two seconds later there was more excite
ment in the audience than upon the stage. A
dozen fainting women were carried into the
lobby. Several men also fainted. One man was
seriously hurt by a fall on the tiled floor in a
swoon. Dr. J. W. Vollmer, house surgeon of the
hospital on Randall's Island, New York, the only
physician in the house, worked ' hard to revive
the sufferers. The grafting scene will be modified."
PROFESSOR WILLIAM M'ANDREW, principal
of Washington Irving high school, of New
xorit uity, made a report on the question of wages
and the cost of living at the meeting of the Nerc
York State Teachers association at Syracuse:
He figured the increase in the cost of living since
1898 in part from these comparative prices: Eggs,
28 cents a dozen, now 41 cents; butter, 24 cents,
a pound, now 36 cents; meat increased from 40
to 50 per cent, potatoes 100 per cent, and coal
40 per cent; clothing increased from 20 to 40 per
cent, rents from 40 to 50 per cent, wages of car
penters and other trade workers from 80 to 120
per cent and medical service from 50 to 60 per
cent. Experts estimated, Mr. MqAndrew said,
that the general increase in living since 1898 was
60 per cent. Bradstreet's gave it as 56 per cent,
but the report took the lowest, estimate as a
basis that of F. B. Stevens, which was 46 per
cent. The increase in the cost of living for
teachers from 1898 to now was , placed at $3,900
to $5,400 for a man and from $1,100 tp $1,600 for a
woman. The net results were, Mr. McAndrew said,
placing the Increase in wageBl$9 per cent and
.
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