the Conservative * i misfortunes of a. well meaning but un fortunate investor. They develop sturdy qualities of manhood by offering fifty per cent interest as a reward for persistent paying. Then , too , the mem ory of most people has become painfully deficient. Talbot and company aid men to acquire more perfectly the art of remembering. To do this , depositors are not notified when their weekly in stallments are due. The penalty of forfeiture , in case of forgetting , affords a wonderful stimulus to memory. Talbot bet and company offer investors a busi ness opportunity unsurpassed. It affords splendid inducements to develop per sistency , to quicken the memory , and at the same time enable the "plain people" to make fifty per cent interest , or in lieu thereof adorn their simple garb with sparkling diamonds. . _ The republicans A YEAR AGO. . . x . , have been forced to modify their platforms of last year to harmonize with the more recent imperialistic plans of the administration. The Massachusetts platform of 1899 reads strangely now. It contained the treasonable declaration for a government for the Philippines , "as free , as liberal , and as progressive as our own * * * in accordance with the sacred principles of liberty and self-government upon which the American republic so securely rests. " Republican platforms for. 1900 , after passing the rigid censorship of Hanna , are intensely practical and are not burdened with idle appeals to sentiment. Self-government , though hitherto regarded as a sacred heritage from the fathers , becomes very insig nificant when compared to the financial j ; i philosophy of Hanna. The ancients METEMPSYCHOSIS. , very generally be lieved that souls passed from one animal body when it died into another to begin life anew. In treating of this theory in his most instructive and complete work upon "Evolutionary Ethics and Animal Psy chology , " Dr. E. P. Evans , on page 114 says : "Pythagoras claimed to have a distinct recollection of his pro-existent actions and experiences. Socrates main tained that all acquisition of human knowledge or learning is nothing but remembering. Plato would condemn all cowardly and effeminate men , such as dandies and dudes , to be reborn as women ; frivolous and flighty and feather-brained persons , to become birds ; those who neglect the study of philosophy and seek only sensual in dulgence , to be transformed into beasts and the dull and foolish , to descend to the lower level of fishes and molusks. If the condemnation of Plato could be carried out today and all "the dull and foolish" who are attending political conventions at Sioux Foils , Cincinnati Philadelphia and Kansas Oity this year , bo transmuted into' 'fishes and molusks , " there would be no water left for irriga tion ; and oysters would bo more numerous than populists by sixteen to one. one.St. St. Augustine held that men might be changed into beasts by sorcery , and seriously suggested that the Golden Ass of Apuleius might be autobiographical. When the stories of the" Silver Asses" of modern times come to be written they will constitute the largest series of auto biographies which the world has over beheld. The corruption r CUUAN POSTAL . FRAUDS. i UaS covered in the Cuban postal department is a good object lesson. It forcetuiiy demonstrates tne error of the present policy of insular government. The outrages committed in the South by the "carpet baggers" are now being duplicated by their kind in Cuba. These abuses logically result from taking the government out of the hands of the people and placing it under the control of men who have no interest in the country except to plunder and rob the people. Corruption in the South was almost intolerable until the "carpet bagger" was extinguished and the southern people permitted to administer their own government. President Mo- Kinley might profitably study the re construction period of American history and draw therefrom some helpful observations. Prominent THE VALUED . . th ° err0rB POLICY LAW.amOUS of insurance legis lation is the valued policy law , first passed by the state of Wisconsin , and since adopted by 21 states. This law makes the amount of insurance in force , at the time of the burning of the property , conclusive evidence of its real value. The law , as pointed out by Mr. Dean in his splendid work upon the Rationale of Fire Insurance , converts insurance from simple indemnity for loss by fire into a bet that the property will burn in a given time and places the means of causing the event in the hands of the insured. Opportunities to do evil encourage evil. The valued policy law places a premium upon arson and vir tually gives the endorsement of the law to the act. It leads men to insure property for more than the real value in the hope that it will burn. If one policy holder out of five hundred burns his property because of the inducements afforded by the law , it doubles the cost of insurance to the remaining 499. It enables the guilty to thus profit by their own misdeeds at the expense of the honest insurer. Why place such a premium upon dishonesty and so imder- value honesty ? IiBtead of a na- BRYAN AND TOWNE. tional convention of populists the Sioux Falls convocation of vagarists became - came at last merely a Town meeting. It dictated to the Kansas Oity san hedrim , which meets on July 4 , the necessity of the nomination of Towuo to the Vice-Presidency. Mr. Towno has been always a blatant protectionist republican not differing from Wm. McKinley more than one blue-mass pill difforeth from another. Mr. Bryan has been a free trader all his lifo. The hitch-up of a team which will secure the support of free traders and protectionists too is a marvel in poli tical jockeydom. The edict of a populist directory is uttered to control an alleged democratic convention and compel it to nominate a republican. The republicans THE LOCIIREN DECISION. are very much wrought up over the Lochren decision. They see in it a menace to the most cherished tenet of republicanism , viz. , protection. The Evening Post thus comments upon the republican dilemma : Imperialism is but a gilded toy com pared with the dear old grinning monster before which the party has gashed and cut itself all these years. If the two cannot peacefully divide the republican worship , imperialism will bo the fetish to be cast out , so as to leave protection without a rival near the throne. And if the supreme court gives the word , the republican managers will take the lead in the very act withdrawal from the Philippines. " THE CONSERVATIVE TREES. TIVE , in this issue , calls attention to the catnlpa tree and an exhaustive article thereupon by John P. Brown. During the last twenty days the editor has planted , at Arbor Lodge and upon Joy Morton's farm , more than eight thousand trees , and more than five thousand of them are of the hardy varieties of the catalpa , including the speoiosa and the Japanese. Forty years hence they will be worth to their owners an average of five to ten dollars each. What better investment can be made for certainty of profit and satisfactions ? Plant trees ! Just as soon as OIL. Smyth , the great law expounder who draws populist salary for being attorney-general of Nebraska , has driven the Standard Oil Company out of business in this Com monwealth , prosperity for caudle fac tories will begin. The next fusion leg islature will make it a penal offense to use petroleum in this state. Smyth is the biggest lawyer and the best self-adjusting philanthropist since the Hon. Julius Oooley first burst upon the legal profession in Omaha.