VOL.13. NO. 46
ESTABLISHED IN 1886
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LINCOLN. NBBR., SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1898.
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2 OBSERVATIONS. 8
Ai Woodward is chairman of the
committee lor the revision of the city
charter. Would it not be well to ap
point someone to revise his revision?
Say some common man who compre
hends the parts of speech and their
relation to the ideas of a statesman
and patriot. Otherwise the next gen
eration of patriots who are now in
school will lose their way when they
undertake to explore the city charter.
In a maze of pronouns and dislocated
sentences the meaning of their vener
ated forefathers will be likely to
escape them, and should they chance
to be councilmen their notions of what
is the law according to the charter
must be as vague as the present
revisor's.
Walt Mason explains in a depart
ment conducted by him in one of the
city papers that gentlemen do not spit
on the floor in public places. Well,
the objects who use the Funkeand
the Oliver for target practice must be
called something and "men" is so
dignified and honorable and ancient a
term that I hesitated to apply it to
she nasty and numerous habitues who
ruthlessly and selfishly destroy pretty
gowns and transform an elegant opera
house into a disgusting place. The
offense in question is committed by
well dressed men whose appearance
indicates that the occasion is worth
dressing for. But ladies in their
vicinity tuck their gowns about them
and endeavor to protect themselves
and their frocks against the tobacco
spitters, but in vain, for they seem to
think that all the proprieties were
complied with when they assumed
tall collars and expansive cuffs which
they take pains to keep jerked into
the view of their nauseated neighbors.
Tall theatre hats are a nuisance, but a
manager who discriminates against
them without isolating a corner and a
tank for tobacco chewers has only be
gun his public service.
The report of the secretary of the
Lincoln charity organization society
is encouraging to those who have
persisted, in spite of opposition, in
the scientific, treatment of pauperism
and .poverty. According to this re
port the average number of applicants
for aid in the first three years of the
association's existence, viz.; in the
years 1893, 1894 and 1895, was 731. In
the last three years the average num
ber applying for aid was 533. Since
the establishment of the wood yard
the number of applications have been
fewer. The last two years the num
ber has dwindled to an average of 450
The society is a clearing house and in
vestigating committee. When an ap
plication for aid is made to the society
the secretary refers the application to
the church or society or club of which
the impoverished applicant is a mem.
ber. In the year ending October 31,
1898, it is known that 30 were Metho
dists, 10 were Baptists, 50 were Catho
lics were Episcopal, 16 were Presbyte
rian, 4 were Seven Day Adventists, 4
were members of the Salvation Army,8
were United Brethren, 10 were Luth
eran, 2 were Congregational, 4 were
Christian, 2 were Hebrew, nine were
miscellaneous and 207 belonged to no
church, or 153 were church members,
while 207 had no church connection.
The Episcopal, United Presbyterian,
Congregation and Hebrew churches
have the reputation for looking after
their own poor and these statistics
show that it is, at least locally, well
earned. The report further states
that 102 applicants came from Ne
braska and 24 from Omaha, which is
remarkable in a report supposed to
give only the names of things instead
of the real facts.
When the agents of the society are
satisfied that help outright is needed
applicants invariably receive it, but
unremitting effort is directed to help
ing the poor to aid themselves and
the steadily decreasing averages of
the last three years indicate that the
intelligent attempts to lift the poor
out of thepauper class have been suc
cessful in a large number of cases.
The W. C. T. U convention in St.
Paul decided on Monday to give up
the Woman's Temple which the union
throughout the United States has
made self-denying efforts to pay for.
The object has never seemed quite
adequate to the contributions de
manded. To what degree the temple
was to extend the cause of temperance
or what relation that sky scraper bore
to the rum fiend has never been clear
to the rank and file of the W. C. T. U.
workers. Local societies have never
theless loyally continued to make do
nation to an object which only faith in
the board of directors made expedient.
The first cost of the building was
enormous and the rentals which were
counted upon to pay -the mortgage
have not paid the interest on it, while
the local temperance work has suffered
from the amount subtracted from the
local subscriptions to send to Chicago.
The only arguments used by Mrs
Matilda B. Caree, ,to whose compli
cated financiering much of the dittl
culties surrounding the temple is due,
to show the temple's connection with
temperance, has been that it was a
nucleus, whatever that means; that it
was something for women to be proud
of that women had accomplished, and
that its final success would be a tit
ting monument to Miss Willard. But
in the face of the impossible sum to
be raised and the fact that an ex
haustion of the union's resources for
this purpose would not materially
benefit the cause of temperance its
release to the mortgage holder has at
last been decreed by a large majority of
W. C. T. U. delegates. Mr. Marshal
Field, who holds the mortgage, has
been very generous and offered to con
tribute 250,000 in cash and 850,000 in
stock, but as 8100,000 is a small frac
tion of the debt on the temple, the
convention very wisely decided not to
continue the diversion of temperance
funds from their legitimateobject any
further.
Every now and then the papers con
tain accounts of wonderful inventions
by Tesla or Edison or some more ob
scure inventor which, when adopted,
will revolutionize businessand systems
of war. Yet nothing revolutionary
has resulted from the telephone or the
phonograph. Business to be sure has
been facilitated by the former, but
we could get along without rt easily.
The phonograph is beautiful, but it is
a toy and an exhibition freak rather
than anything of commercial import
ance and these are the two most mar
velous inventions of the century.
Incredulity is of course quite apt to
be confounded and Mr. Tesla may be
able to focus his machine in .Sew York
on a receiving machine in Paris with
thousands of miles of the earth'scurve
between the two, but it is easier to
believe it after it is accomplished
than before. The reputation of a
wizard is enough to make us gape and
gasp whenever his name is mentioned
because we have been brought up on
fairy tales and do not really know
anything about either the possibilities
or the limitations of electricity. There
are plenty of people who believe in
the Keely motor, and there are just
as many who are willing to take Tesla's
word that he can transmit electric
energy without wires by pointing a
funnel and make it hit the receiver
2,000 miles away through a section of
the earth. When he does this it will
be time enough to believe that light
does not move in straight lines but
can be made to turn a corner. But
previously we prefer to cling to dem
onstrated truth, even though we are
like Gallileo's contemporaries who re
fused, for conscience sake,-to believe
that the world is round.
Mr. Wanamaker has placed 120,00
in the bank and advertised that he
will deliver it to any person who can
prove that any legislator of the legis
lature soon to convene In Pennsyl
vania has been bribed. The sum Is
large enough to make bribing on Mr.
Quay's part very costly as well as
risky. As with certain candidates
who will come before the Nebraska
legislature this winter, there is a
justifiable suspicion that money will
be used to get votes which can be
attracted in no other way, this move
on the part or Mr. Wanamaker is
clever indeed. The man who is will
ing to take a bribe if it is large
enough, will, of course, sell his self
respect to the highest bidder and un
less Mr. Quay can afford to overbid
the market price of 820.000 a vote
quoted by Wanamaker, it will be dan
gerous and futile to offer anything.
So long as nobody has been able to
discover any difference in Pennsyl
vania and Nebraska virtue some such
expedient might be useful In encour
aging the Nebraska legislature to vote
fora senator who will be a credit to
Nebraska instead .of a large dealer in
votes, whose notions of statesmanship
are expressed in figures of how much
it can be made to pay.
Stepniak, in his book on the Rus
sian peasantry, says that the agricul
tural class constitutes 82 per cent of
the entire population which, in 188(5,
was sixty-three million souls. There
fore he says in Russia the agrarian
question is the national question.
"On the moujiks rest the financial,
military and political power of the
state as well as Its interiorcohesion
and prosperity." In the emancipa
tion acts of 18G1 and 18GGthe Indi
vidual allotments of land were not
large enough to enaole the peasants to
raise enough to support life and pay
their taxes from harvest to harvest.
Thus they have had to borrow money
and for security have mortgaged their
labor. So that in effect they are again
enslaved. As a result of the heavy
taxation which amounts to over 92 per
cent of the net produce of the land
and the small acreage cultivated by
each peasant starvation is decreasing
the population at an otherwise unac
countable rate. "A mortality exceed
ing 17 per thousand is abnormal and
due to some preventable cause. This
standard is reached in Norway, in the
rural districts of England and even in
large centres of population of the
United States. In England, when
ever the death rate rises to 23 per
thousand, a medical and sanitary in
quiry of the, district is prescribed by
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