12 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
TAN. 4 
Saturday, December 28,1889. 
The first notable effect of the platform 
of confederation between the Farmers’ Al¬ 
liance and the Knights of Labor appears in 
a political storm cloud in Alabama. 
Hitherto the domination of the Democratic 
or “White” Party, it is said, has been 
maintained there by absolute obedience to 
the decisions of party caucuses. This alone 
has insured compact party lines and vic¬ 
tory. The platform adopted by the Al¬ 
liance and Knights at St. Louis emphati¬ 
cally calls for several measures which are 
considered wickedly heretical alike by 
Democrats and Republicans. Moreover, it 
says that in order to carry out these meas¬ 
ures, both organizations will support for 
office only such men as can be depended 
upon to embody them in statute laws, “un¬ 
influenced by party caucus.” It is alleged 
that this principle, if carried out in Ala¬ 
bama, would mean death to Democratic 
and white supremacy. The Alliance is 
composed exclusively of white men, 
but the Knights admit colored men 
also to their ranks. It is probable 
that a large number of Alliance men 
at the South will desert the order 
rather than vote outside of party lines. 
Just now, however, there is a fierce politi¬ 
cal wrangle in Alabama, which is intensi¬ 
fied by the fact that B. F. Kolb, the State 
Agricultural Commissioner, who is a can¬ 
didate for Governor at the next election, in 
August 1890, is the choice of the Alliance, 
and must therefore be supported by the 
Knights. It is not unlikely that similar 
political excitement will spring from the 
same cause in some of the other Southern 
States also.James W. West, ex¬ 
editor of the Chicago Times, has been con¬ 
demned to State’s prison for five years and 
a fine of $1,000 for over-issuing 112 shares of 
that paper, worth 8125,000. Pending the 
result of a new trial, he has been released 
on $15,000 bail. 
The great Grant locomotive works are to 
be removed from Paterson, N. J., to Chi¬ 
cago, where a location has just been bought 
for them for $602,000 in the town of Cicero, 
a suburb of the Windy City. 
There is much rejoicing in the Prohibition¬ 
ists’ camps throughout North Dakota at 
the prompt passage of a stringent Prohibi¬ 
tion law by both Houses of the Legislature. 
.It has just been decided that 
Bedloe Island in New York harbor, the 
site of Bartholdi’s statue of Liberty, belongs 
to New Jersey, and many New Yorkers re¬ 
joice that what they call the “ monstrosity” 
has been transferred to another State. 
.Reports are numerous of severe dis¬ 
tress among the Oklahoma settlers, espec¬ 
ially among the colored part of the com¬ 
munity.Major A. J. Burke, the 
highly-respected and popular New Orleans 
embezzler of about $400,000 of the public 
money, has made his way to Honduras, 
South America, where he has a controlling 
interest in some gold mines. He has with 
him from $250,000 to $800,000. There is no 
extradition treaty with Honduras. 
There’s a considerable negro exodus from 
Georgia to Arkansas. 
Speaker Reed’s House Committee on Agri¬ 
culture is as follows: Funston, Kansas, 
Chairman: Conger, Iowa; Pugsley, Ohio; 
Allen, Michigan; Brosius, Pennsylvania; 
Bliss, Michigan: Hansbrough, North Da¬ 
kota: Hill, Illinois; Wilson, Kentucky, all 
Republicans: Hatch, Missouri, heading the 
Democratic contingent: Stahlnecker, New 
York; Morgan, Mississippi: McClammy, 
North Carolina; Forman, Illinois; Brock- 
shire, Indiana; Joseph, New Mexico. All 
laws relating to agricultural matters are 
referred to this committee, and then suc¬ 
cess or failure will depend almost entirely 
on its action. The chairman has special 
power, as he makes the reports ana can 
generally pocket or pigeon-hole any meas¬ 
ure to which he is opposed unless it is very 
strongly supported m the committee or in 
the body of the House. 
In this country the epidemic of influenza 
or grippe appears to be jumping about in a 
curious fashion. It is said that Boston has 
25,000 cases; New York and Philadelnhia 
claim to have many, and most other East¬ 
ern towns and cities are said to have some. 
Chicago, of course, claims to be fully 
abreast of any place in the country, and 
Denver insists that two-thirds of her popu¬ 
lation are suffering from it. Cheyenne, 
Duluth, Oklahoma City, and other lively 
towns in the West also claim to have 
genuine cases. Many doctors, however, in¬ 
sist that not a genuine case has yet occurred 
in this country. Ordinary colds and throat 
troubles have been mistaken for the epi¬ 
demic, they say. The fashion has out¬ 
stripped the disease across the Atlantic.... 
A new extradition treaty between this 
country and England, including Canada, 
is now before the Senate for confirmation. 
By its terms the number of extraditable of¬ 
fenses is largely increased, the most im¬ 
portant addition being that of embezzle¬ 
ment, so that if the treaty be ratified Can¬ 
ada and the United States will cease to ex¬ 
change a class of undesirable residents who 
have hitherto secured immunity from pun¬ 
ishment.From a multitude of places 
all over the country comes news that the 
recent “cent famine” is over, owing to the 
holiday outlay of the stored-up contents of 
children’s savings-banks.It is said 
that considerably over half the seamen in 
the American navy are not even natural¬ 
ized.Jessup, Georgia, a few miles 
from Savannah, is in the turpentine and 
sawmill region where thousands of negroes 
are employed. Christmas morning Job 
Brewer, a negro desperado, shot to death 
Deputy Sheriff Barnhill for having killed 
a “pal” a few days before while resisting 
arrest for gambling. Then Brewer shot 
and wounded Marshal Legett. Soon 75 
armed whites collected and a dozen or 
more armed negroes fled with Brewer to a 
neighboring swamp of 400 acres, which was 
well known to the desperado. The whites 
furiously attacked the fugitives and two of 
them were killed, while 26 dead negroes 
had oeen found last Thursday. Reinforce¬ 
ments from the surrounding country soon 
swelled the number of whites to 500 besides 
two companies of militia, and the negroes 
too received considerable accessions. Thurs¬ 
day morning the whites broke into the jail 
at Jessup and lynched two captured rioters. 
Several others have been shot down in the 
neighborhood of the swamp. The trouble 
is now considered over, though doubtless a 
few deaths may still occur. A uumber of 
colored people have been warned to quit 
that section. Christmas witnessed smaller 
race riots in four other parts of the South, 
three of which were started by whites and 
one by negroes. In all cases men instantly 
took sides on the “color line” regardless of 
the merits of the quarrel. This is getting 
to be more and more the case all over the 
South and is a serious menace to that sec¬ 
tion . 
The Duke of Connaught, the sixth child of 
Queen Victoria, is to visit Canada in 1890, 
and may suceed Sir John Ross m com¬ 
mand of the British troops in the Dominion 
..The unexpected death of Henry 
Wolfen Grady, the brilliant young South¬ 
ern editor and orator, which took place at 
Atlanta, Ga., last Monday,from pneumonia, 
at the age 38, has made a profound impres¬ 
sion in the South and indeed throughout all 
the country, and caused universal sorrow 
and regret. No newspaper mau in the coun¬ 
try was more highly esteemed and popular 
in all sections and among all classes. 
During 48 hours in Chicago recently, seven 
persons were killed at railroad crossings 
and during the year 1889, 260 Chicagoans 
met death in the same way.The 
latest estimates place John D. Rockefeller’s 
wealth at $129,000,000.Wall Street 
is troubled by the report that the Sugar 
Trust magnates are once more jumping on 
their own stock, in order to depress the 
price of the Sugar Trust certificates so 
much as to force the public and speculators 
to sell them. The certificates were sold at 
125; since then they have been hammered 
down to about 70 and by still further de¬ 
pressing them to 50 and then buying them 
in, Havemeyer, Matheson, Keen. Potter 
and the other “ big guns,” will, it is claim¬ 
ed, make a clear profit of $7,000,000. 
The weather at sea has been extraordinarily 
severe of late. More than a dozen ocean 
steamers are overdue at this port, some of 
them for considerably over one week and 
one for 13 days.What extraordinary 
Christmas weather has prevailed all over 
the country ! Christmas Day here was like 
a fine, sunny day in May, and to-day is just 
like it. Reports from nearly all parts of 
the country speak of unprecedentedly fine 
weather for this season. 
Great damage has been done by heavy 
downpours in southern California within 
the last few days. All trains, north, east 
and south, are cut off from Los Angeles. 
The damage on the Santa F6 Road amounts 
to over $200,000, and that on the southern 
Pacific to $150,000. Enormous reaches of 
country are unaer water, and the losses to 
farmers and fruit-growers are heavy. 
Pension Commissioner Raum wants to 
push the pension business, and demands 30 
more physicians for his bureau. 
Both Houses of Congress took a recess a 
week ago until January 6.There 
is a good deal of excitement in Virginia over 
the passage by the legislature of a bill in¬ 
corporating the American Tobacco Com- 
E any as likely to create a monopoly, and a 
ill has been introduced in the House to re¬ 
peal the act of incorporation. 
There is great excitement in Florida, about 
25 miles south of Jacksonville, over the dis¬ 
covery of new phospate beds. Speculation 
is running wild. Land that a few weeks 
ago could be readily bought for from $5 to 
$25 an acre is now in demand at $100 to $200. 
Local holders are getting suddenly rich— 
speculators may possibly do so hereafter. 
The railroad from Jacksonville to the scene 
of excitement has never done so heavy a 
business.There is great destitution 
among the farmers in the eastern part of 
North Carolina. Heavy and continued 
rains in summer kept the land covered 
with water and caused a total failure of 
the cotton and wheat crops and a disastrous 
shortage in the corn crop. Negro laborers 
are leaving as fast as they can. Governor 
Fowle has been urged to call a special 
session of the legislature to afford State re¬ 
lief to the sufferers: but he has hitherto re¬ 
fused to do so. 
Trouble being expected in Oklahoma at the 
local elections on December 30, two com¬ 
panies of United States troops have been 
ordered there.Numerous stories are 
rife of very inhuman treatment of foreign 
laborers at the phospate mines at Jackson- 
boro, South Carolina. The Congressional 
House Committee on Labor is likely to in¬ 
vestigate the matter. The State authori¬ 
ties emphatically deny the charges. 
Vicksburg boasts of a $160,000 fire. 
The legislative muddle in Montana still 
continues. There are two legislatures— 
one Republican and the other Democratic— 
and all attempts at a compromise by giving 
one United States Senator to each party 
have hitherto failed. Looks very much 
like the “reconstruction period” in the 
Southern States. The political papers all 
over the country view the trouble strictly 
from party lines; but both the ^reat par¬ 
ties appear to be right in some points in the 
matter and wrong in others. 
In Rawlins County, Northwestern Kansas, 
the towns of Atwood and Blakeman have 
been bitterly competing for the honor of 
being the county-seat. Instead of going to 
war about the matter, however, like so 
many other ambitious Western towns, 
Blakeman aided by the railroad, has raised 
a fund to buy up all the houses in Atwood 
and add them to her own number. Al¬ 
ready 47 dwellings and stores have been 
bought and moved and the purchasing com¬ 
mittee is negotiating for most of the re¬ 
mainder. The Atwoodites being hard up, 
couldn’t refuse a good offer. The Blake- 
mauites are now confident of success at the 
coming elections. 
Canadian journals have lately published 
summaries of the public accounts for the 
fiscal year ended June 30, 1889. From 
these it appears that the total receipts on 
account of thecousolidatedfund amounted 
to $38,782,870, an increase of more than 
$2,700,000 over the preceding year. The 
customs and excise receipts amounted to 
over $10,600,000. The total expenditure 
on consolidated fund account amounted to 
$36,917,834, a slight increase over that for 
the preceding fiscal year. The largest item 
of increase is that of interest on the public 
debt. The net public debt at the close of 
the fiscal year amounted to $237,537,041 
and the gross public debt to $287,722,000. 
The debt of Canada has increased consider¬ 
ably during the last two decades, owing in 
large part to expenditures on public works. 
In the accounts for the last fiscal year in¬ 
creases were shown under the heads of pub¬ 
lic works, railways and canals, ocean and 
river service and lighthouse and coast ser¬ 
vice. 
CONSUMPTION SURELY CURED. 
To the Editor : Please inform your read¬ 
ers that I have a positive remedy for above 
named disease. By its timely use thousands 
of hopeless cases have been permanently 
cured. I shall be glad to send two bottles of 
my remedy FREE to any of your readers who 
have consumption, if they will send me their 
Express and P. O. address. Respectfully, 
T. A. Slocum, M. C., 181 Pearl St., N Y. 
— Adv. 
FOREIGN NEWS. 
SATURDAY, December 28, 1889. 
An official French commission is on its 
way to investigate the Panama Canal—to 
ascertain the true condition of the work, 
the feasibility of its completion and the 
probable necessary expenditure. Over $260,- 
000,000 have already been sunk in the Big 
Ditch—$120,000,000 more than would be 
needed to complete it according to De 
Lesseps’s first estimates, and not much 
over one-third of the work has been done. 
The expensive machinery is rotting, all 
work has ceased, and most of the work¬ 
men have gone away, and destitution and 
lethargy have settled down on the lately 
busv route of the canal. The investors, 
mostly French and Spanish economical 
working people, have not yet realized the 
ruin that has overtaken them owing to the 
collapse of the enterprise. 
The influenza epidemic or grippe is still 
spreading steadily in Europe and has as¬ 
sumed a more serious form, being fre¬ 
quently complicated or followed by pneu¬ 
monia or bronchitis. Wherever it has ap- 
f eared the death rate has greatly increased, 
n most affected towns and cities the hos¬ 
pitals are overcrowded, and the doctors and 
undertakers overworked. In many places, 
schools have been closed, public works and 
private industries have been partly or en¬ 
tirely interrupted, and Christmas festivi¬ 
ties suspended. Relapses are particularly 
dangerous and the Czar is reported to be in 
a critical condition owing to one. 
Gen. Boulanger emphatically denies the re¬ 
ports that he has consented to make a lect¬ 
ure tour in this country. 
Two new conspiracies against the Czar 
have been lately discovered, and high army 
and navy officers are said to be implicated. 
.The Marquis de Chaux, first hus¬ 
band of Adelina Patti, who is now turning 
vocal notes into bank-notes at the rate of 
about $5,000 a night in different big cities 
in this country, has just died. 
Emin Pasha is slowly but surely recover¬ 
ing at Bogyamo, from the effects of his 
tumble through an up-stairs window just 
after a hilarious champagne dinner. Hen¬ 
ry M. Stanley is about to leave Zanzibar 
for Cairo, Egypt, where be will pass the 
winter at work on a book describing his 
marvelous travels, adventures, and dis¬ 
coveries in the Dark Continent. 
In Brazil there has been a good deal of 
fighting and bloodshed between the Repub¬ 
lican and Imperial adherents at Rio Janeiro 
and other places in that vast, disjointed 
country. The land is thinly inhabited, 
means of communication are difficult, 
roundabout and slow and it takes a great 
deal of time for news of any kind to pass 
from one province to another. Then it 
takes more time for the scattered people 
to decide what action to take, and still 
more for the rest of the world to learn what 
the result of the decision has been. More¬ 
over, all telegraphic communications at 
least are certainly under strict supervision 
by the powers that be. A general election 
to decide upon the future form of govern¬ 
ment has been put off for nearly a year. 
Every week gained by the Republic, how¬ 
ever, will add greatly to its stability in 
case it acts nrudently and energetically. 
The annual income it promised to allow 
Dom Pedro and his family it now refuses to 
grant. It has also confiscated their private 
property ; but magnanimously promises to 
pay the pensions granted by tne imperial 
family to poor, superannuated dependents 
and other objects of benevolence or charity, 
out of the income from that property. 
According to this morning’s cablegram, the 
grippe caused 600 deaths yesterday in 
Paris. Hitherto it has been regarded as an 
inconvenience, now it is looked upon as a 
veritable plague.There is a bitter 
quarrel between England and Portugal 
with regard to the enormous claims set up 
by the latter to possessions in Africa, ex¬ 
tending across tne continent and from the 
Zambesi to Lake Nyanza. The claims are 
considered outrageous by the English, as 
they cover a vast territory some parts of 
which have been explored and made known 
to the public solely by British subjects. 
Then again, large sections are highly val¬ 
uable and therefore much coveted by Great 
Britain as likely to afford splendid oppor¬ 
tunities for future settlement by English¬ 
men, the greatest and most successful col¬ 
onizers of the globe. Just now the dis¬ 
cussion has assumed a belligerent tone, and 
a part of the British Mediterranean fleet 
has been ordered to Lisbon; but although 
Portugal is likely to be diplomatically sup¬ 
ported by Germany and France, war is ex¬ 
tremely improbable, as it would be a con¬ 
test between a puny dwarf and a stalwart 
giant. Most likely the matter will be 
finally settled by arbitration. 
In Japan, according to the proposed re¬ 
vision of the treaties with European and 
American Powers, foreigners may go any¬ 
where, engage in any business, or own land 
in any State of the Empire. In the ports, 
where foreign interests are involved, a 
mixed jurisdiction of Japanese and foreign 
judges will have control over all cases aris¬ 
ing between foreigners and natives. 
The bloodless revolution in Brazil had at 
first a very favorable effect on the prospects 
of Republicanism in Europe. It was be¬ 
lieved or at least hoped that the Portu¬ 
guese would imitate the example of their de¬ 
scendants on this side of the water and ex¬ 
pel their new King Dom Carlos I, and set up 
a Republic. Confident hopes were enter¬ 
tained that the Spanish Republicans under 
Castellar would follow suit, and Italian 
Republicans once more took fresh courage; 
while even in England the talk of a Repub¬ 
lic instead of a Monarchy was louder and 
more frequent than ever. The decree pro¬ 
longing the military dictatorship in Brazil 
till next November at least, has, however, 
caused a decided reaction everywhere, and 
the latest cablegrams from Europe indicate 
a growing belief in the restoration of the 
Empire in Brazil. That sensitive financial 
barometer, the rate of exchange, seems to 
indicate the same thing. 
And now British India, with its population 
of 250,000,000, is demanding Home Rule. A 
National Congress composed of 2,000 mem¬ 
bers, is now in session at Bombay. Many 
white men participate and the president is 
Sir William Wedderburn, while one of the 
principal orators is Mr. Bradlaugh, Eng¬ 
lish Member of Parliament, and Radical 
Republican. The present system of bu¬ 
reaucracy by which India is governed in 
an irresponsible and despotic way, and nu¬ 
merous flagrant abuses under it, have been 
bitterly denounced, and claims have been 
put forward that the people of India have 
as much right to control their own govern¬ 
ment as the people of England have to 
control theirs. Such talk among the teem¬ 
ing millions of India may finally lead to 
much political trouble and perhaps rebel¬ 
lion ; but at present, owing to the dense ig¬ 
norance ana apathy of the masses, its ef¬ 
fects must be confined to comparatively 
very few of the educated classes. 
The miners of Belgium have inaugurated a 
general strike, ana strikes appear to be the 
“order of the day” in Germany, Great 
Britain and France also.Charles 
Mackay, the well-known English author 
and journalist, is dead.A committee 
appointed by the French government is to 
examine the plans for that proposed Dridge 
across the English Channel. 
A Specific for Throat Diseases. — Brown's 
Bronchial Troches have been long and 
favorably known as an admirable remedy 
for Coughs, Hoarseness and all Throat 
troubles. “They are excellent for the re¬ 
lief of Hoarseness or Sore Throat. They are 
exceedingly effective .”—Christian World, 
London, England.— Adv. 
AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 
Saturday, December 23, 1889. 
The Holstein-Friesian cow Clotliilde 2nd, 
at Lakeside Stock Farm, during the week 
ending December 1, made a butter record 
of 30 pounds eight ounces, from 569 pounds 
14 ounces of milk, or a pound of butter 
from 18.68 pounds of milk. Her daily feed 
during the test was 19 pounds of grain 
composed of one part wheat-bran, one part 
ground oats, one part corn-meal and one- 
eighth part linseed-meal. The coarse feed 
consisted of 50 pounds of corn silage, 23 
S ounds of carrots, and three pounds of hay. 
ler last calf was dropped October 29. This 
cow is now eight years old and has averaged 
over 19,500 pounds of milk per year, begin¬ 
ning as a two-year-old. As a four-year-old, 
she gave 23,602 pounds of milk in a year, 
She now stands ahead of her dam, 
Clothilde, who averaged 18,579 pounds per 
year. She and her five daughters have an 
average butter record of 22 pounds 13% 
ounces, and an average milk record of 
16,665 pounds ounces per year. 
The Red Polled Cattle Club of America 
have issued a very nicely gotten up Herd 
Book, containing a history of Red Polled 
Cattle, both in England and America; 
minutes of all the annual meetings except 
the last; an alphabetical list of the owners, 
of Red Polls in America; lists of imported 
cows, bulls, transfers, importations, etc., 
with other matter of interest to breeders. 
J. C. Murray, recording secretary, Maquo- 
keta, Iowa. J. McLain Smith, correspond¬ 
ing secretary, Dayton, Ohio.The 
orange growers ot Pomona, California, have 
combined for the prosecution of persons de¬ 
tected in stealing oranges, “without re¬ 
gard to station or condition in life.” This 
pilfering has increased to such an extent as 
to render such protective action impera- 
