THE RURAL MEW-YORKER. 
MARCH 47 
'ms xrf iljc Week 
HOME NEWS. 
♦ 
Saturday, March 10, 1888. 
Three bills for cutting down the surplus 
have lately been introduced into Congress,one 
Republican and another Delnocratic tariff bill 
and a Democratic bill with regard to internal 
revenue taxation. All tax bills being money 
measures, must start in the House, and as the 
Democrats have a good working majority 
there and are also in charge of the Govern¬ 
ment, their measures attract most attention. 
In matters of special interest to farmers the 
Democratic Mills tariff bill enacts that after 
July 1, 1888, the following articles will be on 
the free list:—Wool, wood for wagons, posts, 
palings, etc., salt, flax, straw, tar, hemp, bag¬ 
ging, beeswax, bard and soft soap, hempseed, 
rapeseed, cottonseed and linseed oils, coal; 
all barks, beans, berries, balsams, buds, bulbs, 
bulbous roots and excrescences, such as nut 
galls, fruits, flowers, dried fibers, grains, gums 
and gum resins, herbs, leaves, lichens, nuts, 
roots and stems, vegetable seeds and seeds of 
morbid growth, weeds, woods used especially 
for dyeing and dried insects, cotton ties and 
hoops. Vegetables in their natural state or in 
salt or brine. Dates, plums and prunes, cur¬ 
rants. Zante or other figs. Meats, game and 
poultry. Milk, fresh. Egg yelks. Beans, 
peas and split peas. Hemp and rapeseed and 
other oil seeds of a like character. Lime. 
Garden seeds, linseed or flaxseed, broom corn. 
The duties on the following articles are low¬ 
ered: The proposed figure in each case is put 
first, the present duty second:—castor oil, 40 
cents—80 cents per gallon; a big reduction is 
made on all grades of sugar and molasses and 
also on leaf tobacco; rice a reduction of one- 
fourth cent per pound; raisins, 1 % cent per 
pound—two cents; potato or corn starch, one 
cent per pound—two cents; brooms of all 
kinds 20 per cent ad valorem—25 per cent. It 
is expected that this bill would reduce the cus¬ 
toms duties from 50,000,000 to 55,000,000 dol¬ 
lars a year, the free list alone constituting 
$22,200.000. Then a further reduction of $25,- 
000,000 would be made by the new bill relat¬ 
ing to internal revenue. This, in brief, pro¬ 
vides, that after July 1, 1888, all taxes on 
manufactured chewing tobacco, smoking to¬ 
bacco and snuff, all special taxes upon manu¬ 
factures of and dealers in said articles, and all 
taxes upon wholesale and retail dealers in leaf 
tobacco shall be repealed. Manufacturers of 
cigars shall pay a special tax of $3 annually, 
and dealers in tobacco $1 a year; but no tax is 
required from a person for selling his own 
product at the place of manufacture. All 
laws which impose restrictions on the sale of 
leaf to! acco are repealed. The effect of this 
bill will be to allow a producer of tobacco to 
sell to whom he pleases, even if his tobacco is 
manufactured into chewing or smoking to¬ 
bacco, instead of requiring him to hunt up a 
licensed dealer as at present. The fourth sec¬ 
tion repeals the laws which impose penalties 
for dealing in tobacco without license. The 
bill leaves untouched the tax now fixed by law 
on cigars, cigarettes and cheroots, which yields 
a revenue of from eight to ten million dollars 
annually. If this bill were to pass the 
reduction of revenue would be about 
$20,000,000 on tobacco, and about $5,000,000 
on the various privilege taxes apart from to¬ 
bacco, especially on fruit brandy. 
.... A Grand Jury in Charleston, S. C., recom¬ 
mends the erection aud use of a whipping¬ 
post for vagrants and wife-beaters. At 
4 o’clock Wednesday afternoon a fire burst 
out in the mailing-room of the Evening Union 
newspaper at Springfield, Mass. The flames 
shot up the elevator shaft cutting off escape 
by the stairway. Most of the 50 employes 
escaped by way of the roof in the rear; but a 
lot of men and women who crowded into the 
editorial rooms, had the alternative of being 
burnt to death or jumping to the sidewalk 
below. They jumped. Six were killed at 
once; one died since; five or six seriously iu- 
6 * red.The city elections in Maine, 
onday, resulted generally in increased Re¬ 
publican majorities; Lewiston, Auburn and 
Ellsworth were recovered from Democratic 
control; the fusion of Democrats and Pro¬ 
hibitionists failed to elect Neal Dow, Mayor 
of Portland, against the union of the Repub¬ 
licans with the Liquor Party. 
.... A Wood Distilling Company has been in¬ 
corporated at Jacksonville, Fla., with a capi¬ 
tal of $200,000 for the purpose of obtaining 
alcohol from sawdust. Wood tar and crude 
acid are the first products. From the acid 
are obtained crude wood alcohol, turpentine, 
creosote, oil, etc. One ton of sawdust will 
produce $11.80 worth of merchantable pro¬ 
duct. The company will condense 100 tons of 
sawdust daily and employ 100 hands. 
Workmen are demolishing the old slave mar¬ 
ket at Nashville, Tenn.Canada has 
spent $50,000,000 on her canals, and now it is 
contemplated to spend $12,000,000 more to se¬ 
cure a 14-foot draught from Lake Superior to 
tide water. The canals now contribute about 
$500,000 a year to the Treasury and it is pro¬ 
posed to make them free in spite of the pro¬ 
tests of the Maritime Provinces which insist 
that all the advantage of the measure will ac¬ 
crue to Ontario.The trotter Jersey 
Prince, valued at $10,000 and having a record 
of 2.2114, died Tuesday at Waverly, N. J. 
. ...Blair, Senator, wants only $500,000 for 
that colored fair at Atlanta, next year. 
. The latest Iowa idea is a coal palace, which 
is to be built in Oskaloosaof big blocks of coal 
and to be finished by the middle of August.... 
.... Congress is going to grapple with Trusts, 
two bills having just been introduced with 
regard to them. The first is that of A. B. 
Thomas, Republican, Wisconsin, which de¬ 
clares it unlawful for any Trust to ship or 
transport from one State to another or to any 
foreign country, or from such foreign coun¬ 
try to a State in the Uuited States, any ar¬ 
ticle of merchandise purchased, controlled, or 
acquired, held or used, with tne intention to 
unduly enhance the price of such article in 
the .market,_or_to_the consumer. Violation 
of the law is made punishable by imprison¬ 
ment for not less than two years nor more than 
five years. Another by Democratic Repre¬ 
sentative Breckenridge of Kentucky, prohibits 
the formation of pools on any imported ar¬ 
ticle upon which duties are payable, and pro¬ 
vides for the indictment and punishment by 
fine or imprisonment of violators of this act. 
It also provides that when Trusts are formed 
upon such articles, provided the Trusts con¬ 
trol 65 per cent, of such articles imported into 
the United States, such articles may be ad¬ 
mitted duty free during the continuance of 
the combination. It will be no easy job to make 
a bill which will effectually control Trusts... 
Hurrah! That social pest, the practical 
joker, has been fined $1,000 for kicking a 
man’s feet from under him as he leant against 
a counter. For once Chicago deserves praise. 
.W. K Vanderbilt, nowin France, has 
hired a $10,000 cook—it’s a man of course. 
Doesn’t his arrival here violate the law about 
contracts for foreign labor? Anyhow the fel¬ 
low interferes with our own $10,000 cooks.... 
..Kansas now has 307,949 
acres of artificial forest.This country 
issued 1,248 patents on electrical devices in 
1887.The death is announced of 
Mr. Rosenberg, of Milwaukee, one of the 
largest dealers in wool of that section . 
The Kansas Immigration Society proposes to 
spend $20,000 this year to advertise the State.. 
... The Chicago Times has dropped from five 
to three cents a copy .The fire losses in 
the United States and Canada during Febru¬ 
ary were $11,213,500, or over $4,000,000 above 
the average.The Secretary of the Treas¬ 
ury is advised of an organized movement for 
the emigration of German convicts to this 
country, and has taken steps to guard against 
the landing of all such passengers. 
The New Jersey High License County-Option 
Law, just passed by the Republicans over 
Democratic Governor Green’s veto, goes into 
effect Mayl .The Supreme Court of 
Alabama has declared an act establishing a 
colored university unconstitutional. 
.... In the N. Y. Legislature the Laud Bill 
lowers the charge of grain elevating to a 
quarter of a cent per bushel, and three-eighths 
of a cent for weighing and delivering. Now 
it costs the canal boatmen three cents per 
bushel, the charge being controlled by an 
Elevator Trust which has already cleared 
$150,000 by reduction in labor, as a smaller 
force is required to do the work of the combi¬ 
nation than was required by the individual 
members.In spite of a protest from 
Chicago, the lower House of Congress has 
accepted the invitation to the French Expo¬ 
sition next year, and appropriated $300,000 to 
defray expenses. Chicago has con¬ 
tributed $10,000 for the relief of the sufferers 
at Mt. Vernon, but the distress there is still 
very great _Peter Herdic, the “Lum¬ 
ber King” of Pennsylvania, inventor of the 
“boom” for arresting floating timber, and the 
cab which bears his name, died here March 2, 
aged 66.The bitter rate war which has 
been waged between the Chicago and Alton 
and Wabash Western roads has been settled, 
and on Monday next prices will be advanced 
to nearly the rates which prevailed before the 
war began. The figures agreed upon between 
St. Louis and Chicago are 38, 28, 19, 14 and 9 
for the five classes, and $22.50 per car for live 
stock. 
_Canada through the Governor-General, 
has invited Newfoundland to join the Feder¬ 
al Union.The House Judiciary Committee 
will report favorably on a bill to relieve the 
United States Supreme Court by establishing 
an intermediate court.Archbishop 
Corrigan of this City has at last excommuni¬ 
cated McGlynn and his followers. They can’t 
be buried in consecrated ground. 
Among the objections urged against some of 
the chief Republican Presidential candidates 
are that Judge Gresham decided a well-auger 
case once that “cost Indiana farmers mil¬ 
lions.” And Hawley married an English 
woman. And Sherman voted for Chinese 
immigration. And Allison’s friends are anti¬ 
railroaders.Even the necessaries 
of death are tied up by Trusts. There is a 
coffin Trust and undertakers’ Trust. 
Mrs. Cleveland has requested her friends to 
deny the report that Mrs. Folsom is to marry 
Secretary Bayard.The Boston Her¬ 
ald’s profit-sharing experiment results in the 
distribution of $15,000 among the employes 
of that paper at the end of the first year. 
Each man gets an increase of four per cent on 
his salary.The Massachusetts House of 
Representatives has ordered to a third read¬ 
ing the bill granting license suffrage to 
women. It is reported that the natural 
advantages of the mouth of the Brazos River 
in Texas will lead to the construction of a 
harbor, and that an excellent one can be 
formed by cutting a channel across the bar. 
The locality is to be made the terminal port 
of Jay Gould’s Southwestern system, and 
speculation in real estate in the vicinity is 
said to be going on at a great rate. At pres¬ 
ent there isn’t a good accessible harbor at any 
place on the Texas coast, Galveston harbor, 
in spite of constant efforts to deepen the bar, 
being unfit for large trans-Atlantic vessels, 
drawing over 15 feet of water.The 
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fd railroad has 
bought for $697,000, 19,000 acres at Dumbar¬ 
ton Point and along the' south end of San 
Francisco, which gives terminal facilities for 
reaching San Francisco by ferry. It is said 
that ships and wharves will be constructed. 
The road has secured the right of way from 
Mojave through the San Joaquin Valley, 382 
miles. This will provide another transconti¬ 
nental railroad. The first steel rail ever 
made in Alabama was turned out at Birming¬ 
ham on Monday of last week. The Grand 
Jury here has failed to find a “true bill” 
against Gould and Sage for that Kansas Pa¬ 
cific jugglery of $3,000,000. The par 
value of the N. Y. Sun stock is $100 a share; 
but a few shares sold for $3,350 each a few 
days since .... 
.. Thursday the only daughter of Sir Donald 
Smith was married in Montreal to Dr. J. B. 
Howard. Among the presents was a check 
for $2,000,000 from her father!. . .Black 
measles are killing many Indians on the Col¬ 
ville Reservation, Wyoming. The 
Senate Thursday passed, the Dependent Pen¬ 
sion Bill, substantially as recommended by 
the Grand Army of the Republic.In 
the N. Y. Senate, Thursday. Coggeshall’s bill 
granting municipal suffrage in part to women, 
was ordered to a third reading, 13 to 6 . 
-The industrial situation has not improved. 
The Lehigh coal strike is breaking up, but the 
Burlington trouble is spreading. There is much 
talk of arbitration, but little immediate 
prospect of it. The railroad company says 
it has nearly all the hands it wants, 
and that there is nothing to arbitrate. 
The engineers and firemen say the 
company exaggerates its success, and that 
the men it has engaged are unskilled and 
doing much damage to the engines and 
other property. There have been several 
bad accidents of late on the roads. The men 
threaten to extend the strike to any other road 
that consents to handle freight from the Chi¬ 
cago, Burlington and Quincy system. They 
will go to work at 3)^ cents a mile for passen¬ 
ger train engineers and four cents a mile for 
freight engineers and 60 per cent of those rates 
for firemen. If other roads refuse to take “Q” 
freight, the latter company will appeal to the 
United States Courts for redress under the 
Inter-State Commerce Law, which compels one 
road to carry the freight received from another. 
FOREIGN NEWS. 
Saturday, March 10, 1888. 
“The Emperor is dead!” “Long live the 
Emperor!’' Emperor William I. of Germany 
died at 8:80 a. m., yesterday, and his son, the 
Crown Prince, was proclaimed Emperor, 
under the title of Frederick III. The dead 
Emperor left $75,000,000, and will be buried, 
probably, on Thursday, in the mausoleum at 
Charlottenburg. The new King of Prussia 
and Emperor of Germany leaves St. Remo 
to-day for Berlin. He signs “Frederick,” 
without reference to Emperor or King. 
Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig, King of Prus¬ 
sia and Emperor of Germany, was born 
March 22, 1797, so that had he lived 13 days 
longer he would have been 91 years old. He 
was the second son of Frederick William III. 
and the beautiful Queen Louise. In 1840, on 
the death of Frederick William III., and the 
accession of his eldest son, Frederick William 
IV., the dead Emperor became heir apparent 
to the kingly throne of Prussia. His brother 
having shown great mental weakness, about 
1847, William became regent, and at 
the head of the military forces he sternly 
put down the rebellion of 1848-9, which 
made Carl Schurz a citizen here. On Jan¬ 
uary 2, 1861, Frederick William IV. died, 
without issue, and his brother became King 
of Prussia with the title of William I. 
At the date of his birth Europe was under 
the lash of the first Napoleon. Frederick the 
Great of Prussia had been only seven years 
dead. The treaty of Campo Formio was still 
unsigned; the expedition to Egypt was still 
unprojected. The Prince was only nine years 
old when the battles of Jena and of Auerstadt, 
followed by the disasters of Eylau and Fried- 
land, reduced Prussia to a remnant and her 
monarch to an effigy. He was 17 when Stein 
and Hardenberg and Arndt had redeemed 
the Fatherland, and when, serving under 
Bliicher, he beheld the downfall of Napoleon. 
He had been married about twelve years to 
the Princess who survives him when the revo¬ 
lutionary outbreak of 1830 threatened to sub¬ 
vert the Holy Alliance, and he had turned 50 
when the far more serious outbreak of 1848 
gave constitutional liberty a foothold on the 
Continent, and laid the ground-work of Ger¬ 
man and Italian unity. When he ascended 
the Prussian throne, and placed the crown on 
his head with his own hands, declaring that 
he reigned by the grace of God and nobody 
else, Germany was little more than a geo¬ 
graphical expression, beiDg a loose and ineffi¬ 
cient confederation, with the Emperor of 
Austria at its head as Emperor of the Holy 
Roman Empire. When he died yesterday he 
left Germany a united and powerful empire, 
whose capital is the center of European poli¬ 
tics, and whose army is the best equipped, 
best officered, best drilled and most powerful 
on the globe. This marvelous change was 
effected mainly in 10 years—between 1861, 
when he assumed the Prussian crown at Ber¬ 
lin, and 1871, when he was proclaimed Empe¬ 
ror of Germany in the Hall of Mirrors at Ver¬ 
sailles. To see the weak.petty German States 
united into one mighty empire had long been 
his cherishod hope, and as king of one of 
them it became his ambition to effect this con¬ 
solidation. With this view he reorganized 
the army, securing the supereminent services 
of the greatest living soldier, Von Molkte, 
and in September, 1862, summoned Bismarck 
from the Paris Embassy, and placed him in 
charge of foreign affairs and at the head of 
his Cabinet. It was to these two selections 
that Germany owed her marvelous diplomatic 
and military successes during the next ten 
years, and William the Imperial Crown 
of Germany and a glory that transcends 
that of any of his predecessors. In the 
amazing evolution of his inherited domin 
ions which followed, his own share was 
well-nigh as subordinate as that of Louis 
XIII in the humbler exploits of Richelieu. 
In 1864, with the assistance of Austria, the 
Danes were defeated in the Schleswig-Holstein 
war, and as a result Schleswig was added 
temporarily and Lauenburg permanently to 
Prussia. Next, in 1866, with the assistance of 
Italy, Austria, the great rival of Prussia in 
Germany, was crushed in six weeks, and with 
the battle of Sadowa. tne Ilapsburgs were fin¬ 
ally excluded from Germany. As a result of 
this war William found himself at the head 
of the North-German Confederation, which 
consisted of Prussia, Schleswig-Holstein, Han¬ 
over, Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, and Frankfort. 
February 24, 1867, he opened the Reichstag of 
the confederacy in person, and soon afterward 
appointed Bismarck Chancellor. In an evil 
moment,in 1870,Napoleon III,who had become 
unpopular at home, declared war against Ger¬ 
many, expecting to regain his popularity 
“Herbrand” Fifth Wheel for Buggies.— Adv. 
through victory and to be aided by the South 
German States. In both expectations he was 
disappointed. The South German States joined 
the North German Confederation, the allied 
armies invaded France and marched from vic¬ 
tory to victory until, on January 18, 1871, the 
King of Prussia was proclaimed Emperor of 
Germany in the most famous of the palaces of 
the former kings of France. Since then his 
career has been too much before the public to 
need recapitulation here. 
The new Emperor, Frederick William 
Charles, was born at Potsdam on October, 18, 
1831, so that he is in his 56th year. He received 
a thorough scientific education and the doc¬ 
tor’s diploma from the University of Konis- 
berg, of which he is Rector. On January 25, 
1858, he married Victoria Adelaide, Princess 
Royal of Great Britain, eldest child of Queen 
Victoria, and she has borne him six children, 
the eldest of whom, Prince Frederick William 
Victor Albert, now Crown Prince of Ger¬ 
many, was born in Berlin on January 27, 
1859, so that he is now m his 29th year. In 
1866, the subject of this sketch was command¬ 
er-in-chief of the second Prussian army and 
essentially contributed to the decisive victory 
at Sadowa, by his timely appearance at 
Chlum. In the Franco-German war of 1870-71 
he was at the head of the South German 
forces as Commander-in-Chief of the third 
army. The first victory—that of Weissenberg 
—and the greater victory over MacMahon, at 
Worth, were won by him, and he took a very 
prominent part in the movements that led to 
the surrender of Napoleon at Sedan on Sept. 2. 
He won additional laurels at the siege of Paris 
and was made General Field Marshal on Octo¬ 
ber 28, 1870. although it was not customary 
for royal princes to receive that title. Of late 
he has been sorely afflicted with throat trouble 
about the nature of which his physicians do 
not agree. The general belief, however, is 
that it is cancerous, and that his life therefore 
cannot be prolonged more than a few months. 
Little is really known to outsiders except the 
idle reports spread abroad by the 60 newspaper 
correspondents at St. Remo, who must say 
something to earn their salt. 
Irish affairs are about as unsatisfactory as 
usual. Much distress and compulsory idleness 
in England. The official statement as to pau¬ 
perism in England and Wales during the quar¬ 
ter ended Christmas last shows that the num¬ 
ber of paupers gradually increased from 704,- 
110 at the end of the first week of October to 
758,140 at the end of the last week of Decem¬ 
ber. The latter number represents a propor¬ 
tion of 26 8 paupers in every 1000 of the esti¬ 
mated population.Mr. Goschen,the Chan¬ 
cellor of the Exchequer, proposes gradually 
to refund the British national debt at 2% per 
cent per annum interest, descending annually 
to 2% per cent after 15 years. The beginning 
of the scheme he proposes shall go into effect 
on April 12. If it were accepted the country 
would save from April £1,400.000 aud after 14 
years it would save £2.800,000 annually. 
... England is to strengthen her coast de¬ 
fences at once, and increase her army. The 
cost of the English army is so much greater 
than that of other European troops that it is 
almost impossible to keep so many in the 
field. In a debate on a military bill in the 
House of Commons the other night it was de¬ 
veloped that a German army corps is main¬ 
tained for $7,500,000 as against $35,000,000 for 
an English corps. 
All Europe is greatly perturbed at the 
death of the Kaiser, and much anxiety is felt 
as to the political results. It is felt that dur¬ 
ing the next few months—while Frederick 
III. may be able to reign—there will be little 
danger of war, unless Russia may think it a 
favorable opportunity to precipitate matters 
by pushing her forces into Roumania and 
Bulgaria. It looks as if the Czar might do 
this, as orders have been given that all the 
regular lines of Russian passenger and freight 
steamers in the Black Sea should hold them¬ 
selves in readiness for transport service at a 
moment’s notice, and all the railroads are to 
dispose of their regular business in such a 
way that they can at once drop everything else 
to transport trpops and war material when¬ 
ever ordered. Indeed, there are strong 
indications that Russia is preparing to 
take action as soon as the weather permits 
the moving of troops. . .... 
... English wage-earners are complaining 
bitterly against the large immigration of 
foreign competitors, especially Germans who 
have almost monopolized several occupations, 
such as those of barbers and waiters, besides 
taking clerkships and other situations at wages 
much lower than those asked by natives. In 
France similar complaints are heard, but there 
Italians are as much disliked as Germans. 
Over 250,000 Italians are now doing work 
which the natives think ought to be done by 
Frenchmen. In spite of the open expressions 
of ill-will against Germans there are over 150,- 
000 of that nationality in France.Ava¬ 
lanches still continue to do deadly work in 
Switzerland, Spain and Italy. The bodies of 
over 200 victims have already been recovered 
in the Italian Alps ... A dispatch from 
Tamatave on the coast of Madagascar says a 
hurricane has devastated that place. Eleven 
vessels were wrecked and 20 persons were 
killed. 
Just as we go to press a cablegram announces 
that the immensely advertised fight between 
John L. Sullivan of Boston, and Charles 
Mitchell of Birmingham,was fought this morn¬ 
ing near Paris, France, and resulted in a draw 
after 39 rounds had been fought, in three 
hours eleven minutes, both men being com¬ 
pletely exhausted. The betting was five to one 
on Sullivan, and had it been m proportion 
to his loud-mouthed vaporings it would 
have been 50,000 to 0! His friends are,we are 
assured, “much disappointed.” 
- 
AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 
Saturday, March 10, 1888. 
Three French physicians with a lot of 
chicken cholera virus are on their way to 
Australia to inoculate rabbits with a view to 
getting rid of the pests, the Australian autho¬ 
rities, iu spite of much opposition, having 
etermined to give an ample trial to Pasteur’s 
