"Cbe Conservative.
biiintion means the downfall of other
men and other combinations. One
preacher is preaching to 5,000 , twenty
preachers around him consider seventy-
five a full house , and a hundred a per
fect jam ; one physician making $10,000
a year , and forty little doctors in the
neighborhood not making their grub. A
Wanamaker selling $60,000,000 a year
means many little merchants applying
for clerkships in his store. It is the sur
vival of the fittest , it may be. When
God made the world He made mountains
towering into the clouds and valleys be
low the level of the sea ; He made lakes
and oceans ; He spread out the prairies of
the West and piled up mountains around
the little valleys along the ranges of the
Bookies and the Alleghenies. In the
ocean's waters we find whales and some
very small fishes , and when the whales
come along the little fish have to hide
out. I have traveled over this country
from ocean to ocean , and from Montreal
to Galveston , annually for twenty years.
I have watched the progress of events
and the processions as they marched. I
have yet to know of a single instance
where combines and trusts hurt the
masses or permanently raised the price
of any product. I am a thousand times
more willing to deal with the trusts and
combines and purchase their products
than I am to put my money into their
institutions and imperil my holdings ,
conscious of their want of stability and
fearing their final downfall.
Of course these great combinations
affect legislation , if they do not control
it in many instances , but while they
may procure legislation in their own in
terest , yet they have one eye upon the
public sentiment all the time , conscious
that they can go just so far and no
farther. Here and there they have shut
down a manufactory or closed up an
institution and affected some individ
uals , but we are not looking from that
standpoint. When we look at the 70-
000,000 of our population , we say they
are only procuring cheaper and buying
these products for less money than they
could have done under other circum
stances.
With the final disintegration of trusts
and combines which will inevitably
come when financial disaster and
shrinkage of values shall come of
course , the surplus of their product will
be thrown upon the market , and only
the stockholders in these trusts and
combines will suffer. As sure as that
the sun shines , whenever any institution
becomes unwieldy because of its size
and bulk , it will finally fall of its own
weight.
I am an expansionist , and I believe
that one of the causes of the stringency
and shrinkage of values in this country
is because we have not gone out over
the seas with our products as we should
have done. While there is a demand
for our products of the farm and manu
factory of this country there will always
A * rt
be plenty of money ; but when wheat
and corn and cotton and all kinds of
manufactures are a drag on the market ,
and no demand for them , then we have
stringency and hard times. But when
the highways over the seas shall be
laden with our products into foreign
countries , and the gold is brought back
in the ships , then we shall flourish
perennially. These great combinations
are the only powers in this country that
can do this thing for us. A negro and
an old mule can make corn and cotton ;
a fellow with a two hundred dollar saw
mill can make lumber ; but only aggre
gations of wealth can build ships and
open markets in foreign countries.
BRITISH HUMOR.
Most of the books of travel and explo
ration published before 18GO or there
abouts , treating of this part of our
country , contain maps of the regions
described , which are not only curious ,
but highly interesting and instructive ,
since they show at a glance the progress
of knowledge between one book and the
next. Each expedition brought to light
more data as to the course of rivers and
the situation of mountains , and thus
with every successive decade , the
curtain that hung over the mysterious
West was raised higher and higher ; un
til by the time the Pacific railroad went
through , the maps assumed much the
shape that we know today. The crudeness -
ness of these early charts is not a defect ,
but rather one of their chief charms ;
every guess and blunder of those pioneers
neers , thus preserved to future genera
tions , has a story of its own , to any one
who can read them.
But in the atlases furnished to the
reading public by the publishers of the
present day , one looks for things to be
shown as they exist. Therefore a book
of maps in the writer's possession has
aroused a considerable degree of wonder
in his mind. It has the appearance of
having been compiled , so far as regards
details of United States geography , by
an imaginative British subject , who felt
free to represent things as it * seemed to
him they ought to be.
He does not dismiss the Trans-Missis
sippi country as the Great American
Desert ; not quite so bad as that. He
has learned from books of travel that
there are settlements in this region , and
some of their names even are known to
him ; but he em grievously in their
distribution. He allots five towns to
Nebraska , which no doubt seemed ample
for so barbarous a district. There is
Omaha , at the mouth of the Platte ,
on its left bank , to begin with. Then
there is Nebraska City ( highly honored
to be mentioned at all ) a hundred miles
north of Omaha , next to the Dakota
line. Kearney Oity follows , on the
south side of the Platte , half way across
the state. Next comes Ash Hollow , in
the northwest quarter. There is no such
postofllce as Ash Hollow , nor any sta-
; ion so named in the railroad guides ;
and it seemed likely at first that the
artist had invented a town for that
vacant region and given it such a name
as he deemed an American might be
stow. But afterwards it was recalled
that General Harney in 1850 , chastised
the Ogallalla Sioux upon a battle
field of that name , which name was
kept alive for a time by the team
sters along the Oregon trail , which
passed near it.
But as for the remaining town , Dan
ville , in the southeastern corner , it is too
prodigally foisted in ; it can be nothing
but a child of the map maker's brain ,
whose artistic sense evidently felt that a
town was needed there. There is no
Danville and there never was any
Danville. But this finishes the tale of
Nebraska cities. Lincoln , it is painful
to say , does not appear at all , unless a
place with that name in Iowa , some
distance north of where Sioux City
ought to be , represents it.
Now this is not an antique map , but
appears in an English publication ,
bought new in an every-day book store.
It is entitled "Marcus Ward's "Shilling
Atlas , " and while it is not dated , it
professes to give "the latest information
from the best authorities. " It has ,
moreover a Latin motto on the title
page "Floreat Hibernia ; " and that
*
may throw some light on the eccen- \
trioities mentioned.
A. T. RICHARDSON.
POOR CHINA.
V
When the powers get through with
China , then will come the turn of the
churches ; and then the unfortunate
nations will lose what sense of
direction may still remain to them.
For where Russia goes , there will go the
Greek church. But in those northern
provinces nearest to Russia , is precisely
where the Holy Roman church has been
most active , who looks upon the Holy
Orthodox church as a deplorable schis-
matio , whose ways are death. Then
there will be the Church of England , '
actively promoted no doubt where Great
Britain's sphere of influence extends :
admitting that the others were once
*
but pointing out wherein they have > ' <
1-
utterly fallen from grace. And sprink
led over the whole field will be the vari
ous American churches , in all their families - t <
ilies , genera and species ; not regarded
as churches at all by the others , but
snorting in turn at all their preten
sions , ecclesiastically hostile among
themselves meantime , and most active
propagandists Withal. So that the poor
Chinaman , among so many striving for
his soul , and each , insuring that he shall
be damned if he submit his fate to any
of the others , will really have no path
open to him save unto the deep sea.
t iS10 te ft