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Ink Slings.
—The trial of the Australian ballot
system in Montana proved its efficacy in
counteracting the boodle method of run-
ning elections.
—It would be a novel experience for
the people of Pennsylvania to have the
State treasury in honest hands. Tt
would also be a profitable one.
—Private DALZELL’S case is a remark-
able one. Through the sheer force of
cheek and jaw he has achieved a notorie-
ty far beyond the deserts of so insignifi-
cant a character.
—Ex-President CLEVELAND is said to
be growing stouter. In stalwart growth
the cause of tariff reform is keeping pace
with its illustrious defender It is also
growing stouter.
—The Republican committee of
Philadelphia bas expended $10,000 for
tax receipts for the use of party voters
There is boodle enough in the city gov-
ernment to reimburse such an outlay.
~The Pan-American congress will
hardly succeed in devising a plan to
bring into our ports the products of
South America which we are doing all
we can to keep out by tariff taxation.
Z —The Republican State Committee is
repeating the baby method of exciting
the emulation of its party voters by the
offer of prize banners. This will do for
a party that has no principles to vote
for.
—The negro-butcher CHALMERS has
withdrawn from the canvass as Republi-
can candidate for Governor of Mississip-
pi. He shows himself to be more capa-
ble of shame than the party that nomi-
nated him.
—The world didn’t come to an end on
Wednesday as was predicted by the
crank prophets who are never so happy
as when laboring under the delusion
that there is going to be a wind-up of
sublunary affairs.
—In his desperate battle for political
supremacy in Virginia MAHONE has
been given absolute control of the federal
patronage in that State. It will only
make his defeat the more signal and the
disgrace of the administration the more
complete.
—The great manufacturing town of
Norwich, Connecticut, went Democratic
last Monday for the first time since the
establishment of the Republican party.
Tariff reform and the Australian ballot
divide the honor of that glorious
achievement.
—The party managers are having a
ticklish case down at Howard. Three
fellows want the post office, and it
wouldn’t do to make two of them mad
before the election ; hence the appoint-
ment has been postponed until after they
shall have voted.
—New York hasat last opened sub-
scription books to raise money for the
Celumbus exposition. The experience
with the Grant monument doesn’t en-
courge the expectation that the Gotham
population will trample each other down
in their mad rush to subscribe.
—We haven't heard any of the weath-
er prophets refer to the unusual number
of squirrels this fall as indicating the
kind of weather we are going to have
next winter. The thousands of frisky
litttle tails ought to point to something
more than ordinary in the meteorologi-
cal line.
—Itis a mean St. Louis man who
says that Chicago people after they die
always think they have got to heaven,
whether they really have or not.— Somer-
ville Journal—This may be so for the
reason that any place they go to after
they die is so much better than Chicago
that they very easily mistake it for
heaven.
—After four months from the occur-
rence of the great calamity, the payment |
of the $1,600,000 relief money to the
sufferers at Johnstown commenced last
Monday. If this money had been in
the custody of the fellows who manage
the State treasury we would almost be
inclined to believe that they had been
favoring pet banks with it for specula-
tive purposes.
—Master Workmar. PowprrLy de-
clares that he believes that the time will
come when the world’s workers will toil
only five days in the week. But this
isn’t the boon that the true worker is
looking for. He is willing to work
{ull time, but he wants full pay for it.
He isn’t hankering after more time to
loaf, nor does he believe that it would
be to his benefit.
The election in Connecticut on Mon-
day filled the measure of bad luck that
has attended the Prohibitionists all along
the line. The Prohibitory amendment
was defeated by an adverse majority of
of about 30,000. Considering the com-
parative population of the State it was
as bad a defeat as the one they sustained
in Pennsylvania, and clearly indicates
that the land of steady habits doesn’t
want to make them any steadier by con-
Ol 54,
The Licking That Mahone Is Going to
Get.
It is now a certainty that WiLriax
Manoxg, the choice of the administra-
tion for the Virginia bosship, and the |
Republican candidate for Governor of
that State, is going to get the most
complete licking that was ever admin-
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istered to an unscrupulously ambitious
politician.
a united Democracy, which in itself is
sufficiently strong to handsomly whale
any Republican candidate that can be
put in the field in the Old Dominion,
but a Republican opposition has sprung
up against him which extensively iu-
cludes the better element of the party
in the State. These opposing Repub-
licans held a conference in Richmond
last week where they organized the op-
position which they have set on foot
against the Boss, and that they mean
dead-earnest business in shown by the
manifesto they have issue which con-
tains a bill of indictment charging him
with a most comprehensive assortment
of political offenses, including systemat-
ic corruption and bribery.
Harrison miscalculated the influ-
ence which the official patronage that
would exert in Virginia politics. The
more decent portion of his party spurn
him and his official spoils, and the par-
ty managers who expected to make a
point by the prostitution of the offices
to partisan use will have the humiliation
of defeat as the pay for their dirty busi-
ness. Quay too will find that the
money raised on his $10 certificates
and put into the Virginia contest has
been just that much campaign ammu-
nition wasted.
The Presidential incumbent has
made a good many blunders in the
short time he has been in office, but no
other one of them has equalled his
blunder of trying to make Virginia
Republican by backing the little rebel
and repudiator, BiuLy Manon, for
Governor with the offirial influence of
his administration. He didn’t make a
worse break when he put Taxxeratthe
head of the pension bureau, and scarce-
ly anything could be as bad as that.
A —————
The Organs Getting Scared.
What is the meaning of the follow-
ing expression of anxiety by that stal-
wart Republican organ, the Philadel-
phia Inquirer ?
The loss of Pennsylvania to the Republicans
this year means its probable loss next year,
when a Governor, Legislature, twenty-eight
Congressmen and a United States Senator are
to be chosen. A reduced Republican majority
this year means a perilous uphill fight next
year, with all that will then be involved.
With a mammoth majority ranging
at about 80,000, which its party has
been having for some years past,
should not a Repablican organ be
ashamed to even intimate that there is
a possibility of defeat in Pennsylvania ?
To show fear undersuch circumstances
is to admit that something very wrong
has been done that may turn this
great preponderance of popular favor
against its party.
Evidently breakers ahead are com-
ing within range of the organic vision,
otherwise the Inquirer would be calm,
serene, confident and happy in the un-
questionable prospect of certainjvictory.
It wouldn’t be caught squealing in
i a dubious and undignified manner. But
it is conscious of the weakness of a
candidate who was the Speaker of a
House of Representatives that habit.
ually cringed to the corporations and
the money power and turned its back
on the working people, he heing largely
responsible for that sort of legislative
action. Itis also very evident that
the farmers can have no friendly
feeling for the presiding officer of a leg-
islative body that has paid no atten-
tion to their demand that corporate
wealth should bear a portion of the
taxation which has been unduly im-
posed upon farm property.
With the wage-earners and the farm-
er having a grievance against the Re-
publican candidate, there is reason for
the party organs to apprehend “the
loss of Pennsylvania to the Republi-
cans this year.” But considering the
recent big majorities they should be
heartily ashamed that it is so. Doesn't
it indicate that even so blind a thing
as an organ can see that there is some
thing rotten in Pennsylvania
than there ever was in Denmark ?
c——————
more
fining the popular beverage exclusively
to cold ater.
guard of pure election,
The secret ballot 18 the safe. !
He is rot only opposed by |
| bargain or not, as there was no means.
| :
i Cenvention,
The Reform Ballot.
The Australian ballot method was
used in the Montana election and effect-
ed all the good results that were claim-
ed for it by those who favor its adop-
tion. It enabled the voters to cast a
strictly secret ballot; there was no
bulldozing, for the method of voting
prevented anything like the cocrcion
which can be exercised when the bal-
lot is not surrounded by entire secrecy ;
and if there was any attempt at bribery
it was entirely at the option of the vot-
er to carry oat his part of the corrupt
of knowing how he voted. The objection
that the Australian system consumes
too much time was not sustained by its
working in Montana. The booths am-
ply accommodated the voters, enabling
them to vote rapidly and without em-
barrassing delay.
The Harrison administration resort-
ed to every means to carry the four new
States. The official power it was able
to exert was brought to bear upon
every one of them, and Quay’s pecu-
niary methods were put to work, There
can scarcely be a doubt that Montana
3 | would have been carried as the three
he placed at the disporzl of Manone |
others were, if it had not been for the
Australian ballot boxes. They were
the barriers against which Republican
power and corruption beat in vain,
The same ballot system was also
tried for the first time in Connecticut at
the election on Tuesday. How it work-
ed is told by the following account of
its operations dispatched to the New
York Sun :
The new secret ballot law worked beautifully
in this town for the Democrats to-day. Forthe
first time in the history of the Republican
party here the straight Democratic ticket was
elected at a town election. Since the civil
war times this town has been known all over
southern New iungland as the “Citadel of Con-
necticut Republicans.” To-day every buttress
of the citadel which has been shaking for sey-
eral years, got a clean knock-out blow, and
the old thing was tumbled into the moat of
public repudition. The secret ballot helped
to do it, for in no part of the Union his policial
bulldozing on the part of the mill owners been
more flagrantly and audaciously exercised. In
some of the mill villages it has been worth a
mill hand's job for him to vote openly, as he
had to do under the old-time ballot, for Dem-
ocratic national or township officers. Often
the hands employed by the most powerful
corporations were driven in the mill teams in
squads of thirty or forty to the polls, and an
overseer walked with the voter to the boxes to
be sure that he cast the ballot the bosses had
prearranged he should deposit.
That the Australian plan of voting
put a stop to this system of bulldoz-
ing is shown by thechangein the vote of
Norwich and other Connecticnt towns. i
No wonder that Speaker Boyer and |
his Republican legislature objected to
a system that would relieve working- |
men from the control of bulldozing em- |
ployers at the elections, and thereby
put an end to the supremacy of the
monopoly party in Pennsylvania.
A Preliminary Skirmish.
They had quite a spirited time in
the Clearfield county Republican con-
vention last week in the election of
delegates to the next Republican State
As the porty candidate
for Governor will be nominated next
year the selection of the delegates had
reference to that coming event which is
already beginning to cast ahead of it
quite a large sized shadow. The friends of
Hasrizas and of DeLaMarir contended
for the Clearfield delegates, and as it
should go without saying that the in-
fluence of the redoubtable Adjutant
General laps considerably over the con-
fines of his own county, it easily in-
cluded Clearfield and carried the dele-
gates for him,
The Impression seems to have spread
abroad that it was a fight between
Quay and that faction of the party
that has organized an opposition to the
Boss, but we cannot see how this can
DeLadarer has all
along been cousidered the favorite of
the Beaver statesman, hasn't IT AsTINGS
been generally regarded as his pet?
When our distingaished townsman’s
name has been mentioned in connec
tion with the governorship, hasn't it
be, for although
invariably been attended with the re-
“Pax’s all
backing Lim?” Js
mark : right—Quav’s
it possible that
the straight forward, ingenuous and
honest Boss has a pair of favorites for
the next gubernatorial nomination ?
But be this as it may, the Clearfield
that the fight
started in earnest
contest demonstrates
for (rovernor has
among the Republican politicians and
that ITasTixas is a candidate whether
LLEFONTE, PA., OCTOBE
Awaqury apg
OANISINIAVH
i
J68 ke
FEDERA
L UNION.
Quavisfor him or not. Butitisn't like-
iy that gubernatorial lightning will keep
striging Centre county all the time, It
wouldn’t be long enough between flash-
es to nominate DAN next year.
Prolonging an Interesting Case.
The Williamsport papers of Satur-
day made the encouraging announce-
ment that the Lycoming judicial con-
test is progressing, as the case for the
respondent will be closed on the 12th
inst., when the contestant will begin to
introduce the sur rebuttal. What a
satisfaction it must be to the taxpayers
of the county to know that after the
contest has extended through nearly a
year, with a heavy draft on the county
surplus, the ‘sur rebuttal has been
reached. A good, healthy sur rebuttal,
in the bands of skillful lawyers and
learned judges, ought to have enough
life in it to last for another year, and
by that time some other device may be
resorted to for the extension of this in-
teresting case.
It must also be a source of joy to the
Lycoming taxpayers to learn that a
new batch of witnesses have been sub-
penaed and that the three learned
Jjddges have spit on their hands with
the determination of taking a fresh
hold on the case. A local paper, speak-
ing of the contest, says: “The ques-
tion now is whether or not the three
judges will open the ballot boxes; if
they do, the contest may be indefinitely
continued.” It may be taken as a pret-
ty sure thing that the ballot boxes will
be opened, for both the judges and the
lawyers seem to have caught on to the
profitableness of keeping this case in-
definitely continued. The taxpayers
“they pay the freight.”
How Things Were Reformed.
Two years ago the present Republi-
sean office holders in this county got
into office on false preteaces. A good
many well meaning people were in-
duced to vote for them on the repre-
sentation that the county affairs were
in bad shape and needed improvement
Harrison administration.
which Republican rale would bring
about. This was represented to be
particularly the case in the commis-
sioners’ office which was held up as be-
ing a fit subject for reform.
The voters who, helped to bring
about a change should have known
better than to be humbugged by such
false pretences. They can now thank
themselves for having the weakest and
most incompetent administration of
the commissioners’ office that ever
mismanaged the aflairs of a county.
The large balance that was left in the
“treasury by the last Democratic board
has gone nobody knows where. So
| far as county interests are concerned it
“couldn’t have been worse applied if it
had been actually stolen. The result
1s that there is not the means on hand
| to provide those bridge facilities which
every county owes to the travel-
ing community. Months have passed
i ard no preparations have been made to
rebuild some of the most important
bridges carried away by the flood. The
bridges generally are reported to be
ina bad conaition.
The $40,000 Democratic surplus
would now be of great service, but it
has evaporated through the channel of
mismanagement. The boasted scheme
of ranning the county on a two mill
tax has proved but the idle dream of
muddle-headed financiers, and the
clumsy and dishonest expedient of an
underhanded increase of taxable valua-
tions won't sapply the deficiency. It
hasn’t prevented an actual increase of
over $6,000 taxation, notwithstanding
the sham claim that a 2 mill tax is
suflicient to meet county expenses.
The upshot of such mismanagement
will be that the next Auditors’ report
will show an alarming increase of the
county liabilities, unless the Commis.
sioners shall positively refuse to make
such improvements as the convenience
of travel, the reputation of the county
and the welfare of the community im-
peratively demand, which seems to be
their intention,
~—KprsoN has returned home from the
Paris exhibition where he was as great
a celebrity as the Hiffel tower. They
made a baron of him and gave him the
cross of the Legion of Honor, but such
gewgaws don’t add anything to the dis-
tinction of the man who invented the
electric light and the phonograph.
im . a EE SERA RS
The Rejected Veterans,
The Republican soldiers of Centre
county, who were led to expect official
fayors at the hands of the dispensing
power, may be entirely satisfied with
the shabby treatment that has been ac-
corded them, or they may not. That
is entirely their business. But to the
disinterested observer the manner in
which they have been used for the
benefit of a few scheming ‘ringsters,
upon promises of rewards which have
never been fulfilled, has a ludicrous as-
pect whatever may be its appearance
to the victims who suffer from it.
Braver’s record of disregarded pled-
ges to Centre county soldiers who help-
ed to elect him Governor, furnishes a
page in his political history that cannot
be read without contempt. The same
indifference to the soldiers’ claims is
being shown in the distribution of the
offic al favors in this county under the
Was it a
soldier that got the prize of the Deputy
Collectorship? Is it possible tha
among the “defenders of the flag,”
whose praises the Republican poli-
ticians are continually mouthing, one
could not have been found as compe-
tent and worthy of filling the office of
Deputy Collector as Ep, Omampers?
To say that one could not have been
{found among the veterans of this coun-
ty fit to perform the duties of that of-
fice is to pay but a poor.compliment ‘o
their ability and worth. After all the
Republican prating about the. obliga-
tion of the country to those who fought
for its flag, that office should have
sought a suitable soldier instead of be-
ing sought and found by a favorite of
the ring that manages the official pa-
tronage in this county. This, we say,
should have been done to preserve a
consistency between Republican pro-
fession and performance in regard to
the claims of those for whom the bos-
ses always show such great; deference
when there are no offices to be given
out.
In the matter of the post offices the
soldiers, particularly those who are
poor, are meeting with the same
kind of treatment. At Milesburg the
poor veteran RAGER is rejected and the
post office is given to Bocas who'is well-
heeled financially and draws a big pen-
sion. At Coburn HosterMAN, who
never fired a shot at a rebel, is preferred
for postmaster to CooNry who was rid-
dled with rebel bullets and is poor in
consequence of his disabled condition.
The same sort of love for the defenders
of the old flag is shown at Lemont
where the veterans BarHate and
ARMSTRONG, who weren't afraid to ex-
pose their bosoms to the storm of bat-
tle, find their applications for the post-
mastership set aside in order that. the
office may add to the snug profits of
druggist Evererr who was careful not
to expose his precious person to rebel
marksmanship. But the most dis-
graceful of these instances of ingrati-
tude was the one at Aaronsburg where
the maimed soldier SyLvius,indigent in
consequence of ivjuries sustained in
fighting theenemies of the Union,had his
application for the post offie cast aside
with contempt in order that the oftice
might become the prize of Mica Mus
SER, a local political manager whose
circumstances don’t require the assis-
tance of official pap.
Nor are these snubs of the veterans
confined to the post offices. In the
matter of the gaugershipat the distillery
at Coburn the application of the old
soldier JonN Stirer was thrown out
and the place given to Samunt Uren,
a local politician who never did any
military service.
This is the record of the official fa-
vors that have been accorded to the
old soldiers of Centre county. In every
instance the preference has been given
to some henchman who could make
himself useful to the county bosses
who control the offices. The veterans
may like this sort of treatment. It is
not for us to sav whether they should
like it or not. That is entirely a mat-
ter of their own feeling. But to those
who stand oft and take a disinterested
view of the way they are stood aside
when they ask for their share of the
official rewards, the treatment accord-
ed them looks like a combination of
injury and insult.
SS v———————
-—— When the wage-carners and far-
mers get through with their reckoning
with candidate Bover there will Le
little left of that 80,000 majority.
Spawls from the Keystone,
—Lackawanna county has abolished all its”
toll gates.
—Lock Haven people now have ‘their mail
matter delivered.
—Despite the unfavorable weather the Allen-
town Fair netted $8000.
—The goose bone prediction is that it will
be an open winter with an early spring.
—The prick of a thorn caused the death of
William Cox, of Cochranville.
—A chestnut bur faund on Sharp Mountain
contained seven nuts.
—A new iron rod mill will be put in operation
at Allentown in a few weeks.
—A Frankford citizen complains of the
| Slaughter of song birds in the suberbs
—A blow on the head during a fistic encoun-
ter has crazed J. Lember of Scranton.
—Cattle in lower Berks county are dying in
large numbers from a form of epizooty.
—Up to date the roster of the West Chester
Normal School contains 460 names.
—Fannie Fern, a war horse with arecord of
fift een great battles, is dead at Sharon.
—Thieves at Norristown tied up the watch
dog and robbed Jagob Romig’s shoe store,
—A dog and a hawk were seen in fierce com
bat near Norristown recently; the bird was vic-
tor. :
— Many valuable cows at Durmor, Lancaster
county, have been disemboweled by a vicious
boar.
—Five persons have been killed within a
year by vicious bulls in Chester Couniy within
a year.
—School directors of Ridley have warned
shopkeepers not to sell cigaretts tothe school
children. wt
n
—The water wheels of some mills along the
Delaware near Easton were clogged with eels
recently. ]
—Bethlehem shopkeepers have formed .a
trust and resolved not to trust Lebigh Univer-
sity students.
—The death of John Roberts, of Washington
borough, Lancaster county, was caused by a
boil on his lip,
—A horse stuck in the mnd at Allentown
and pulled his hoof off in endeavoring to ex-
tricate himself,
—The combined efforts of three constables
and a team were required to arrest a crippled
tramp at Lancaster,
—A fifteen year old grapevine grows in
Germantown on a trunk which measures two
feet and a half around.
—A marriage license for a 13 vear old child
was refused by the Pittsburg courts. The
mother applied for it.
—A Wilksbarre man has figures to substanti-
ate his statement that Wilkisbarre is the healti-
iest city in the country.
—A Wilkesbarre lad of five years enjoys a
smoke and has a fondness for a 4 year old pipe
of his father’s.
—The Carbondale Leader claims that that
town, with 12,000 inhabitants, drinks 1200 kegs
of intoxicants in a month.
—In an article published in a Wilksbarre pa-
pera preacher denounces many features of
the County fair. !
—The Presbyterian church at Oxford has
deciaed to allow nonegmunicant members
to vote on the selection of a pastor.
—“Honey moon row” is the name given a
row of hosues at West Chester occupied by
newly married couples exclusively.
—On the night following the Reading Grand
Army parade thieves stripped the stores of
their bunting decorations.
—Albert Thaiheimer, of Reading, will give
the soldiers of that city a plot of ground on
which to erect a monument.
—Thieves made a Dunkard’s meeting-house
in Heidelburg township, Lebanon county, a
receptacle for stolen goods.
—Ten members of the family of Edwin
Lutz, at Mountain, Berks county, have been ill
at one time with typhoid fever.
—Crazed by religious enthusiasm Miss Har-
riet Bartlet, of Pittston, climbed the tallest
trees in her efforts to get nearer heaven.
—Finding no milk in thespring house a thief
.
in Fredric township, Montgomery county,
went to the stable and milked the cow.
—Miss Susan Coffroth, young and handsome
of Beartown, Lancaster county, is hopelessly
mad, the result of an unfortunate love affair.
—A Luzerne county man wants the Governor
to set apart a “sparrow day,” when a wholesala
onslaught will be made on the little pests.
—An immoral couple in Sewickly township
near Greensburg, were talken from their house
and cowhided by the indignant neighbors.
Dr. Hand, of Scranton,whose horse was killed
by anjelectric wire some time ago, had a similar
experience a few days ago with another horse.
—The members of a United Brethren Churen
at Greencastle have ‘gone to law to decide
wheter or not theyshall have a pulpit in their
church.
—During the last twelve months Joseph
Sepp, a one armed newsboy of Reading, has
traveled 1200 miles without paying a cent for
car fare. !
—William B. Logan, formerly a Norristown
blacksmith, a resident in Washington Ter-
ritory, writes home that he has just killed an
obnoxious Indian. i
—Four men slept in the store of McKenna
and Brandy, at Cornwall, Lebanon county, on
Wedne :day night, while rurglars carried off
$500 worth of goods.
—The parents of Wiiliam Asperschlag, killed
by the cars at Tioga Junction, Lackawana Co,
have begun suit against the Reading Railroad
Company for $10,000 damages.
—Frank T. Garnet, a farmer of Seipsville
Northampton county, was robbed of money
and clothing amounting to $100 by a tramp
who had been in his employ.
—A beautiful spring of erystal water, where
Vest Chester folk were wont to tarry, has turn-
ed out to be the outlet of a filthy sewer, the
water being purified by percolation through
the soil,
—With Buffalo Bill aspirations, a West.
Chester lad lassoed a meek looking cow.
The animal made things lively for a while
and would have given the youth a milk shake
had not the rope tangled around her legs.
—While Mrs. Joseph Whitlock, of Pittston
was absent from her hcuse a few minutes on
Thursday a monster rat attacked her 6 months
old child, which had been left sitting on the
floor and bit the little one’s hands in several
places,
—Being unable to agree two Italians at
Easton decided to divide their stock of fruit
and part. The division was successful until
it narrowed down to & big block of marble and
a show ease, and they chopped the marble in
half, and each took ashy #t the show case with
tiie huge stones, demolishing it beyond repair.
wi