ms of tljc Xlleck. 
HOME NEWS. 
Saturday, Dec. 11, 18S6. 
The House committee have agreed on a 
proposition regulating railways, containing 
the clause prohibiting greater charges for a 
short haul than a long one.... Washington 
dispatches indicate that there is a prospect of 
alien land legislation at this session of Con¬ 
gress. . .Reagan’s Inter-State commerce hill is 
also likely to pass with several amendments.. 
.The report of the engineers of the Hen¬ 
nepin Canal, just made public, is generally fa¬ 
vorable .Senator Ingalls of Kansas, is 
seeking the “soldiers’ vote” by introducing 
several bills still further to increase the pern 
sion list.The Secretary of the Treasury 
estimates that the money needed to run the 
Government 'machine from June 30 *87 to 
June 30, ’88, will amount to a grand total of 
$325,185,789—to a dollar .Senator Beck, 
of Ky., introduced a bill, Tuesday, to provide 
for the retirement of United States legal- 
tender and National-bank notes of small de¬ 
nominations and for the issue of coiu certifi¬ 
cates _..Great fluctuations and excite¬ 
ment in the oil mai’ket during the week—for¬ 
tunes made and lost, especially lost. 
The will of President Arthur, which was of¬ 
fered for probate here the other day, covers 
$150,000 worth of property. The son is to re¬ 
ceive one-half the estate when 30 years of age; 
the daughter one-half at the age of 23, Mrs. 
McElroy, his sister, being ber guardian. 
The amount of greenbacks now out is 
$346,000,000. Duriug the last fiscal year 
$ 44 , 551 , 043,46 of the public debt was paid, 
leaving in the United States Treasury a sur¬ 
plus of $03,926,588,56, a condition of things to 
be found in no other country on the globe.... 
.The United States Supreme Court de¬ 
cides that a criminal cannot be extradited for 
one offense and tided for another. Chief Jus¬ 
tice Waite dissents.Thousands of 
dollars’ worth of fishing nets are frozen up in 
the lakes with no hope of saving them. 
.The estate of the late Charles Frauds 
Adams, admitted to probate Monday, is val¬ 
ued at $1,256,000, and Is divided among his 
family.A delegation from Dakota are 
at the National Capital to secure from Con¬ 
gress the opening for settlement of 16,000,000 
acres of the Sioux Reservation.Monday 
conversation by telephone was carried on over 
wires 830 miles long—the distance between 
Houston, Texas, and New Orleans and 
return. A new telephone, the invention 
G. L. Barriett and W. W. Nelms, young men 
of Houston.The rumor that the Domin¬ 
ion Government has sent an agent to Wash¬ 
ington to aid in negotiating a fisheries treaty 
is denied. “Canada stands upon the basis of 
the treaty of 1S18, as relates to fisheries, and is 
content to rest there,” says the the Toronto 
Mail, the Government organ .Blatherskite 
Rossa has been elected chief of the Philadel¬ 
phia Fenians, a separate branch... Large quan¬ 
tities of crude opium are imported by Chinese 
into British Columbia, where the duty is only 
20 per cent ad valorem. There it is made into 
a merchantable commodity, and smuggled 
into Washington Territory where the duty is 
$9 per pound.E Price Greenieaf, of 
Boston, an old curmudgeon, has left Harvard 
University $750,000 to fund scholarships and 
aid the college library....The Iowa Su¬ 
preme Court has affirmed a decision of the 
lower courts in favor of the Prohibition law. 
.“Jim” Cummings who has over and over 
again said that be committed that St. Louis 
train robery, in his latest letter, says he is tired 
of being chased around the country by detec¬ 
tives, and offers to return $25,030 of the stolen 
money if they let him go in peace, Frother- 
ingham the express messenger in the robbed 
car is in jail as an accomplice, for want of 
bail .The Hon. William T. Price, mem¬ 
ber of Congress from the eighth Wisconsin 
District, died Monday.... Archbishop Ry¬ 
an announces that under the decrees of the 
Baltimore Plenary Council balls for charita¬ 
ble purposes are prohibited. 
The],wifej of “Bill Jones, the avenger,” who 
fired at Guiteau as the'latter was riding from 
the court-room to the jail, has filed a bill for 
divorce, and charges that her husband is a 
worthless vagabond and sot..Tbe Gran t 
Monument Fund amounts to only $123,7u9, and 
the Committee, despairing of raising more, 
seem inclined to build suc-b a monument as tbe 
money will procure. The Elevated railroad 
in this city intends’to extend its line to Riv¬ 
erside Park , where Grant’s body rests, to ac¬ 
commodate tbe large number of visitors to his 
tomb; a'small fee from each would lessen the 
number or increase the Monument Fund or do 
both.Twenty-eight prominent citizens 
of Philadelphia iuvite all other citizens to 
help them.get a good Mayor for the city. 
.Dr. Douglass, who lost his health in car¬ 
ing for General Grant, has gone South to 
spend the Winter. He will be at the Hot 
Springs in Arkansas first, and later in Florida. 
Mrs. Douglass is with him, and her daughter, 
Miss Justine Prindle, joins them later. 
.The late ex-Senator Sharon’s bequest of 
$50,000 to Goldeu Gate Park, in San Francisco, 
will be devoted to a play-ground for children. 
Among its features will be a large dairy build¬ 
ing in which milk, eggs, bread and other sim¬ 
ple food will be supplied at cost. 
.Frederick Douglass says there were 
4,000,000 negroes in this country at the time of 
the emancipation, and that he now estimates 
the colored population at 7,000,000. 
The distribution of the $60,000 voluntarily 
paid by ex-Gov. Hoadly of Ohio as bondsman 
of Mannix, assignee of Archbishop Purcell, 
among the creditors has begun. It only pays 
1 l .' per cent on the claims, hut the creditors, 
mostly old or middle-aged women, rushed 
eagerly and gratefully to the office of distri¬ 
bution. Some 170 individuals were paid on 
the first day, ana the enormity of the Purcell 
swindle can be recalled by noting that this 
number reached only through letters A and B 
on the list of creditors. The claims reached 
all the way from $5 to $10,000, but only about 
a dozen were over $1,000.Lewis H. 
Stanton, only surviving son of the great war 
secretary, is a stock farmer at Morris, Minn., 
and is collecting material for a biogrrphy of 
his father, although he will not himself write 
it.The Supreme judicial court of Mass. 
in full bench have decided that a member of 
the Law and Order League is not competent 
to sit on jury in a case depending on the evi¬ 
dence of one of the League’s spotters. It was a 
liquor selling case.The sixth annual 
meeting of the federation of trade unions, 
comprising, it is claimed, 500,000 members, 
has been in session at Columbus, Ohio, duriug 
the week. The trade-unions are devoted to 
effecting a scheme by which each union can 
have absolute control of its own affairs, and 
yet can draw for assessments on all the unions 
when one of them establishes a strike. This 
and a determination to keep out of politics 
mark the distinction between the unions and 
the Knights of Labor.It is generally 
believed at the City of Mexico that diplomatic 
questions of grave importance will soon arise 
between the United States and Mexico, grow¬ 
ing out of the position taken by President 
Cleveland against the right of Mexico to try 
Americans committing offenses against Mexi¬ 
can law while on American soil. The news¬ 
papers of all shades of opinion stand by the 
government in this matter, on the ground that 
the principle is a sound one and approved by 
some of the most highly civilized nations of 
the world. _Baltimore pays the premi¬ 
um on $500 accident insurance for each of its 
firemen, and iu case of death gives an addi¬ 
tional $500 to the family of the deceased. 
Very hard cider is said to be quite popular as 
a beverage in Iowa “since Prohibition.”. 
.. ..The “ State” of South Dakota having been 
refused admission by Congress, has elected 
executive officers and a legislature, and pro¬ 
poses to put a State Government iu operation 
on the 15tli instant. A proclamation calling up¬ 
on the legislature to meet at that date has been 
issued by “Arthur C. Mellette, Governor; A. 
E. Frank, Lieutenant-governor and President 
of the Senate, and Thomas V. Eddy, Speaker 
of the House of Representatives,” attested by 
“ H. S. Murphy, Secretary of State,” and 
done “by virtue vested by the constitution 
and legislative enactment of tbe State of Da¬ 
kota,” aud it is given out that “business” is 
meant without question or doubt. 
.The life of General Lee, just published, 
shows that the number of paroles issued at the 
time of the surrender was 28,231 .... Capt. 
James B. Eads says the project to build a ship 
railway across the Isthmus of Panama with 
Government aid will be abandoned, and the 
enterprise will be continued under a private 
corporation. ..Prominent grain 
dealers of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore 
and Chicago are making arrangements to 
form an association for the purpose of carry¬ 
ing their own insurance on grain in regis¬ 
tered warehouses .The collapse of 
the great strikes at Chicago, Ill., Amsterdam, 
N. Y., Peabody and Salem, Mass., has given 
a severe blow to labor organizations. Of late 
large numbers are deserting the K. of L. The 
shoe unions at Lynu, Mass., which are tired of 
supporting the tanners, are losing their mem¬ 
bers in great numbers. There was a total 
failure to support the strikers at Peabody. 
Powderly’s circular asking for an assessment 
of 25 cents per member has caused much dis¬ 
content, as each local body has to support its 
own organization. There is a general feeling 
that things are going wrong; and the public 
and many of the Knights think things have 
been carried too far. They wanted the earth, 
waxed fat and kicked—kicked other laboiiug 
men especially—and it was too much for them, 
_George A. Maiden, of Lowell, and Mr. 
Whitaker, editor of the New England Farmer, 
are being urged for Secretary of tbe State 
Board of Agriculture iu place of John E. Rus¬ 
sell, elected to Congress. The choice is made 
by vote of the Board, and the office is in no 
sense political.The President has ap¬ 
pointed Thomas Moonlight, defeated Demo¬ 
cratic candidate for Governor of Kansas, to 
be Governor of Wyoming, in place of Francis 
Warren.Young James G. Blaine, who 
lately married, and to whom his father allows 
$1,500 a year, has started in life as a news¬ 
paper reporter in Pittsburg.The British 
residents of New York city and vicinity have 
decided to celebrate Queen Victoria’s jubilee 
anniversary Juno 28 next, at an expense of 
$10,000, and if the subscriptions run over that 
they will be used to endow a Victoria hospital, 
or a sailors’ club, or something .... Paducah, 
Ky., is greatly excited over the reported ex¬ 
istence of diamond fields there.Mme. 
Patti is to be paid $150,000 for her six mouths’ 
singing in this country.The discovery 
of a veiu of coal under the site of Omaha, Neb. 
promises richly for tbe city’s rapid develop¬ 
ment.The Canadian Pacifi i railway 
people are engaged iu a project to run a chain 
of ocean cables from Australia to New Zealand, 
Fiji Islands, Fanning Islands, Sandwich Is¬ 
lands and thence to the city of Vancouver, the 
termiuus of the road. Snow fell about 
Asheville N. C., Monday to the depth of 26 
inches. The weight of the snow crashed in the 
roof of the Ashville toboeco works and a 
large stock of smoking tobacco was rained. 
The storm in many parts of Virginia, aud in¬ 
deed in the most of the South was most unusual. 
Snow fell in many places to the depth of 12 
and 18 inches.Forest fires are sweep¬ 
ing over the entire low region of South Caro- 
nina. No rain of any consequence has fallen 
since July. Dense volumes of smoke almost 
hide the sun from Charleston. Many of the 
old plantation mansions have been destroyed. 
...Officers of the navy 
are not particularly pleased with the decision 
of the Second Comptroller, which holds that 
travel between the Ignited States and Alaska 
is foreign travel, aud therefore that no mile¬ 
age con be allowed for it.At a meeting 
in Chicago the other night, at which Marshall 
Field presided, a million and a half dollars 
were subscribed tor a new Opera-house and 
Exposition Building.... Indiana, Connec¬ 
ticut, New Jersey and West Virginia are fol¬ 
lowing Ohio in the matter of organizing per¬ 
manent Republican dubs and a State League. 
done likewise because convinced that the ten¬ 
ants couldn’t pay the full amount; and still 
others have been forced by the National 
League to make concessions. In case of refus¬ 
al the League collects what it thinks a fail- 
percentage, and from it supports the tenant 
in his fight with his landlord—indeed the 
League is ruling Ireland just uow more than 
the Government. The latter is resolved, how¬ 
ever, to suppress the former and inaugurate an 
era of coercion. Several prominent Leaguers 
have already been arrested, and are held for 
trial, aud the Government intends to help the 
landlords to evict tenants who refuse to settl e 
up. To pass laws for this purpose Parliament 
will assemble next mouth—a month earlier 
than usual—and effective but rather arbitrary 
means will be adopted to do away with obstruc¬ 
tion from Irish members, and them English, 
Scotch and Welsh sympathizers. As the Lib¬ 
eral-Unionists are sticking more closely than 
ever to the Conservatives, tbe two combined 
will have such a majority that they can pass 
what rules and laws they may please. 
AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 
FOREIGN NEWS. 
Saturday, Dec. 11, 1886. 
Europe is no nearer a condition of assured 
peace than it has been for months past. The 
Bulgarian trouble is apparently as far from 
settlement as ever. The Turkish government 
has interceded ou behalf of the Mingrelian 
prince, but its overtures have beeu repulsed 
by the Bulgarian Regeuts, who have declared 
that they will never consent to his eaudidacy, 
though they would be willing to consider the 
claims of a candidate proposed directly by the 
Porte. The latest news is that there is to be 
an offensive and defensive alliance of the 
Balkau States, Bulgaria, Roumania and Servia, 
In Germany a fear of war appears to be grow¬ 
ing. A meeting of the Frontier Defense Com¬ 
mission was held Saturday, which is repre¬ 
sented as in effect a council of war, and which 
was attended by the Emperor and some of the 
most eminent military men. Un the Berlin 
Bourse there has been a marked depression and 
a heavy selling of international securities, 
principally Russian. This tendeuey of the 
market is generally connected with the uneasi¬ 
ness growing out of the political situation. 
Von Moltke has openly declared in the legis¬ 
lature that Germany needed an increase of 
the army by 40,000 men, so as to be ready at 
an early day to tight for the retention of Alsace 
and Lorraine. The geueral impression is that 
war will break out in Spring. All the conti¬ 
nental nations are doing their “level best’ to 
be ready for the eontiict-by increasing their 
armies, drilling aud organizing troops, and 
manufacturing the most deadly weapons. 
In France the Ministry of M. de Freycmet 
has resigned because the Chamber of Deputies 
voted for the total abolition of the office of 
sub-prefect (something like our county shei ills) 
contrary to the wishes of the Ministry, which 
was willing to consent to a partial abolition. 
There has been difficulty in getting anybody 
to endeavor to form a ministry, but M. Gob¬ 
let, the late Minister of Public Instruction, 
has at length undertaken the task under 
strong pressure from President Grevy. Bou¬ 
langer remains Minister of War in the new 
Cabinet, aud is still the popular military hero 
of the Republic. Since Thiers’ tiino French 
Cabinets have changed, on an average, every 
eight months.Iu the United Kingdom 
the great trouble is still in Ireland. Urged by 
Government a large number of landlords have 
made voluntary reductions of rent, amount¬ 
ing to from 15 to 50 per cent.; others have 
Saturday, December 11,1886. 
The Chicago live stock Exchange indorses 
the resolutions passed, the other day, by the 
National Cattle growers’ Convention protest¬ 
ing against the advance in rates on li ve stock 
aud dressed meat made by the pool railroads 
running east from Chicago, and begging the 
railroads to make rates that will not unjustly 
discriminate against the cattle interests of the 
West.A revolution will be effected 
in the shipment of apples from Nova Scotia 
by the discovery that large steamers can go 
ud the Bay of Fundy close to the centre of the 
apple-growing district and load on the spot, 
thus saving the freight charges by rail. 
The cotton yield the last year amounted to 
6,387,436 bales.The to 
bacco sales for November at Danville, Va. 
were 1,619,828 pounds at an average of $8 33 
per 100. The sales for the corresponding 
month last year were 8.389,998 pounds. 
Several of the companies engaged in import¬ 
ing frozen meat into England are reported to 
be in a precarious condition financially, owing 
to the low prices of meat.and some of the for¬ 
eign shippers are also said to be embarrassed. 
.Little demand for hops in Canada, 
large purchases of foreign stock when cheap, 
now come into competition with home-grown, 
causing farmers to sell cheap. ... 
.The frozen meat trade of New Zealand 
has become an important service to that colo¬ 
ny, the exports since January 1 amounting to 
more ttmu 600,000 carcasses of mutton.. 
.Eight proprietors of second-rate hotels 
and restaurants in Hartford, Conn., were ar¬ 
rested the other day for using oleomargarine 
on their tables without displaying a placard, 
“oleomargarine butter,” as j'equired by law, 
under a penalty of $50 fine. These will be re¬ 
garded as test cases... 
A law- in South Carolina prohibits any sale, 
barter or receipt of seed cotton, between sun¬ 
down and sunrise, as a check upon stealing of 
cotton by negroes, aud yet the Charleston 
News aud Courier says the stealing and un¬ 
lawful barter of the article is an intolerable 
nuisance.Since the oleomargarine law 
went iuto effect, the Dairy Commissioner of 
Connecticut has examined 50 suspected sam¬ 
ples, 85 of which proved to be bogus butter. 
Arrests of sellers of the stuff are very frequent 
all over the country. A National Foul 
try Union has been organized in this city with 
a capital of $10,000, divided into 1,000 each,and 
will bold its first exhibition in February next. 
... .Southern Illinois wheat fields are reported 
to be infested by clim b-bugs..Statisti¬ 
cian Dodge, of the Agricultural Department, 
says there are about eighty sw ine to ever 100 
Of the population in this country, while in 
Europe there are ouly 15 to each 100 persons. 
.The National Consumers’ Meat Com¬ 
pany has leased a portion of tbe Manhattan 
Market in this city tor a receiving station, aud 
has changed its Western depot from Dakota to 
Kansas City. 
For an irritated Throat, 
Cough, or Cold, '■'■Brown's Bronchial Troches ” 
are offered with the fullest confidence in their 
efficacy.— Adv. 
Crops & iUiu'hcts 
Saturday, December tl, 1886. 
The latest reports from the winter wheat 
sections are uniformly more generally favora¬ 
ble than for a number of years. In Illinois, 
Ohio, Indiana and Missouri tbe reports state 
that the grain is looking unusually good. In 
Michigan, Wisconsin aud Kansas, while the 
reports are not so favorable, the fields are 
looking promising. The plant is reported as 
vigorous and went iuto Winter iu unusually 
