The People's Journal, 1891-03-12

' Columbia, Dartmouth and Williais, Colleges have dispensed with the coin coinmoncement - moncement coinmoncement orations. The cultivation of oysters 'promises to be as great an industry as that of can cansung - sung cansung tomatoes. Railroad statistics show that more people are killed while walking on the track than from any other cause, which Is an argument, thinks the Mai and 14 14press, - press, 14press, for enforcing the laws forbidding this practice. A new law in Missouri provides that the. fees of no exegutivo or nministerial effleer of .any county, O 1i W of . the salar1d ftotualle paed .Jcort deputies, shall exceed e sum of $5000 for any one year. The cedulas-or dovernment loans of money on land mortgages-first precipi precipitated - tated precipitated financial disaster in the Argentine Republic, asserts the Philadelphis Record, and they contimue to play an ii iiportant - portant iiportant part in the affairs of that-unfor that-unforitunate - itunate that-unforitunate country. Baron lothschild has umrged English 'high schools to pay more attention to the 'teaching ot living languages. lie claims that English clerks qualified to corre correspond - spond correspond in French and English are great rarities, and that English merchants are obliged to emiploy foreigners to attend to their foreign business. "If you are going to kill a man," says an English surgeon of renown, "and want to do it quickly and without suffer sufferig, - ig, sufferig, hang him. If the lingnian knows his uusiness, the victim does not feel as much pain as if shot through the heart or brain. It's all over in the tenth of a second." Two hundred thousand dollars a year ire s1;ent by the London (E'nglnand) School Board in enforcing the attel(danco of children. They are advised, by tihe Boston Transcript, to try the French plan of getting children to school by good lunches. The discovery of the full text of Aris. tottle's "Treatise on thu Constitution of Athens" among a lot of Egyptian papy papyrus - rus papyrus recently receivel by th Brit ish donihaards t ha n U Ucisco - cisco Ucisco ConAide'&, will be oreat. Interest to all classical scIolarS. l0rhap; 'ItO Iext lucky find will bo the lost books of Livy. Great anxiety is felt in Switzerland concerning the decadence of the watch making industry, which, next to the tex textile - tile textile industry, is the mainstay of the in inhabitants - habitants inhabitants of the country. Tho prollts are dwindling down, as the United States and England are every year be becoming - coming becoming more powerful rivals in this field. The demand, too, for Swiss watches is falling ofi considerably in cer certain - tain certain countries, notably in this' country and in France. Pennsylvania is taking an important step) in the dlirection of better roads; - step that, in the opinion of the New York Tribune, every State should take. Rlailroad traveling has become so general and so perfect that the com.non high highways - ways highways of the land are largely overlooked. Yet on thenm is the vast bulk of traveling and transporting done, after all, and upon their condition depenat to an in incalculable - calculable incalculable extent the comfort and con convenience - venience convenience andi prosperity of the vast bulk of the peolie. Thle implrovement of county roads is a topic that should standl well towvardl the hieadl of the list in every legislative assembly, until we have brought ourselves at least to an equality with the Romnans of two thousand years ago. ________ The 1?hiaway Ago recently published a clever article by Joseph 0. Kerbert, United States Consul at Para, Brazil. The subject of the article is "Railroad "Railroading - ing "Railroading in Brazil," but its objbet relates more particularly to that vast alluring phantasy of ebullient statesmanship known as the "Pan-American Railroad." This might better be tormed the Tright TrightR~opo - R~opo TrightR~opo Air Line, for it is proposed to bridge the valleys and tunnel the peaksa of the Andes, traversing the great water. shed of South America by balancing the road-bed on the knife-edge of mountain tops. Aside from the facts that such a railroad would cost a thousand times more than an ordinary road simply to lay the rails, that an ocean steamship can carry freight faster and cheaper than a freight train, that the major p~ortion of the country to be traveled has no p~opu p~opulation - lation p~opulation worth the name, Mr. Korbort gives as a peculiar obstacle to railroads in Brazil that they must tunnel the forests and a new p~athi must be opened after every train, because "the dense growth of vegetation is so rapid that a p~ath cut in the morning is overgrown In the night." Thh~i last fact settles the Pain-American railroad scheme, declares the Chicago Neros. No self-respecting locomotive engineer wvill hamndle the lever of an engine which is obliged to .. shovo a lawn-mower ahead of it.