U It" ' ( ' f 4 / '
. .Oft , .111 * V..J
Conservative.
with chains nt each end of a wood.beam ,
nud having the steam cylinder 82 inches
in diameter , with a stroke of 8 feet , and
erected at the canal company's pumping
station at Rolfe street , Smethwick.
During the present year (1898) ( ) this re
markable old engine , which has been
regularly at work from the time of its
erection to the current year , a period of ,
say , 120 years , was removed to the canal
company's station at Ocker Hill , Tipton ,
there to be re-erected and preserved as a
relic of what can be done by good
management when dealing with machin
ery of undoubted quality. It is worthy
of note that the Birmingham Canal
Navigations favoured Boulton and Watt
in 1777 with the order for this engine
and in 1898 , or 120 years afterwards , the
company have entrusted the same firm ,
James Watt and Co. , Soho , Smethwick ,
with the manufacture of two of their
modern triple-expansion vertical engines ,
to bo erected at the Walsall pumping
station , having 240 horse power and a
pumping capacity of 12,718,600 gallons
per day. "
THE CONSERVATIVE copies the fore
going from the January , 1899 , number
of a magazine called "The Irish Textile
Journal , " which is published at Belfast ,
Ireland. And while the remarkable
durability and usefulness of a well-made
and honestly constructed engine is
felicitously set forth relative to the
Boulton & Watt machinery and its one
hundred and twenty years of work in
England , the oldest employer of steam
machinery , it affords us satisfaction to
give a parallel from Nebraska City and
from among the pioneer engines of this
Trans-Missouri region , which has only
been opened up to civilization since
1854. Here at one of the largest factor
ies for the manufacture of cereal foods
in the whole West , is an engine , made
by the Coopers of Mount Vernon , Ohio ,
which has been constantly in use for
more than thirty-three years. Thus in
proportion to their years of experience
in making engines the American build
ers prove equally efficient , skillful and
honest. Even iron and steel are eloquent
in behalf of faithful and good work.
These engines of great age and service
are perpetually puff ing the workmanship
and probity of their manufacturers.
The readers of
THE 1'OAVEH
OF IGNORANCE. THE C O N S E R VA-
TIVE may find that
the following reflections are part of a
volume of fiction by a modern author.
"It is a common sentence that knowl
edge is power ; but who hath duly con
sidered or set forth the power of
ignorance ? Knowledge slowly builds
up what ignorance in an hour pulls
down. Knowledge , through patient and
frugal centuries , enlarges discovery and
makes record of it ; ignorance wanting
its day's dinner , lights a fire with the
record , and gives a flavor to itu one
roast with the burnt souls of many
generations.
Knowledge , instructing the sense , re
fining and multiplying needs , transforms
itself into skill , and malces life various
with a new six days' work ; comes
ignorance drunk on the seventh , with a
firkin of oil and a match and an easy
'Let there not bo' and the many-
colored creation is shriveled up in black
ness.
Of a truth , knowledge is power , but it
is a power reined by scruple , having a
conscience of what must bo and what
may be , whereas ignorance is a blind
giant who , let him but wax unbound
would make it a sport to seize the pil
lars that hold up the long-wrought
fabric of human good and turn all the
places of joy dark as a buried Babylon.
And looking at life parcel-wise , in the
growth of a single lot , who having a prac
tised vision may not see that ignorance
of the true bond between events , and
false conceit of means whereby sequences
may bo compelled like that falsity of
eyesight which overlooks the gradations
of distance , seeing that which is afar off
as if it were within a step or a grasp
precipitate the mistaken soul on de
struction ? "
When President
TKEASURY Cleveland retired
AND TARIFF. , . , .
from the executive
mansion on March 4 , 1889 , he left an
overflowing treasury. The receipts of
the government were so largo that Mr.
McKiuley and the republican congress
and the republican administration im
mediately proceeded to pass a tariff bill
which was entitled "An Act to Reduce
Revenues" etc.
If the nomenclature of the above bill
had been truthful , it would have read :
"A Bill to reduce Revenues by raising
the Taxes on Imports so as to Reduce all
and Preclude some Importations. "
The farmer was provided for by a
tariff of three cents on foreign cabbage
heads. The industry of kraut-making
was neglected because sauerkraut was
put on the free list. Beef cattle and
swine wore taxed and mules and
horses were taxed upon coming from
a foreign into this country ; but bologna
sausage , which may contain parts of
either of the animals named , came in
duty free , so that the infant industry of
bologna-making was neglected and the
pauper sausage sharps of Europe got the
advantage of the American market.
In many other similar ways the McKiu
ley bill attempted to gull the American
farmer. Under the operations of that
law and the law for purchasing silver
and issuing treasury notes therefor ,
came the panic of 1898 with all its ca
lamity , disaster and distress.
These gentlemen forget that a tariff
purely for revenue affords no protection ,
and that a tariff purely for protection
produces no revenue. They cannot re
member even that the McKinley bill
was to reduce and not to increase reve
nues.
The American Wool Growers' associa
tion declares that a prohibitive duty on
foreign wools must bo immediately on-
acted. Such prohibitive duty is to en
courage the farmers of the United
States to raise inoro sheop. At the present -
ent time 42 per cent of the population of
the United States is living upon farms.
And out of this number it is safe to as
sume that not to exceed one-half raise
sheep at all , and neb one-third of them
are to any great extent engaged in wool-
growing. But the 58 per cent of urban
population in the cities , as well as all
of the rural population of the United
States , wear woolen goods year in and
year out. All therefore consume wool
but only a few produce it. The protec
tionists declare that the law should be
made for the few producers and against
the entire mass who buy garments made (
of wool. :
Thus in economics the mathematical
absurdity that a part is greater than the
whole is assorted. The protectionist for
gets that the power to tax was vested in
government for the sole purpose of rais
ing money to be expended in the pro
tection of the lives , liberty and property
of the citizens. The power was never
intended to be used to take money from
one class and bestow it upon another.
A story is cur-
DE WHY'S ARTICLK. , , J. . „
rent , to the ef
fect that a New York newspaper of
fered Admiral Dewey the sum of $5,000
for an article , and that the response
which came back by cable was :
"Thanks ; I am too busy. " If the story
is true , it occurs to us that this saying
amounts to an epigram , and has quite
as much value , both as a literary effort
for the edification of the men of today ,
and as a monument to mark to our
aftercomers the pitch of some of our
public employees at the end of this cen
tury , as anything Admiral Dewey would
have been likely to express ] if he had
written ten columns. The newspaper
too missed an opportum'ty for doing
some good it might have devoted a
page to the admiral's "article , " printing
it in letters half a foot high ; its readers
might have learned something from it.
* . *
A German authority on forestry an
nounces the discovery in India of a
tree having leaves so highly electrical
that whoever touches one of them receives -
coives a severe electrical shock. Even
upon the magnetic needle this tree ,
which has been given the name of
philotcea electrica , has a strong influ
ence , causing magnetic variations at
a distance of seventy feot. The elec
trical strength of the tree varies accord
ing to the time of the day , being most
powerful at noon.