THE CENTRE REPORTER
FRED KURTZ, - - EDITOR
The fellow who said this was going to
be a cold winter should have no Christ.
mas gift for lying.
———————————
Another prize fight is likely to end in
death, which is the way all that kiad of
work should end in nntil prize fighters
are all dead, The fight alluded to came
offnear Plymouth, Pa., the other day.
—————————
This issne closes Vol. 62 of the CENTRE
Reporter. Our next issue, January 9th,
1890, begins Vol. 63. A good
but as spry as a brook tront yet, and as
the Reporter keeps up with the times it
will always be young, and ontspoken up-
ripe age,
on topics of public interest.
A merry Christmas and happy
Year to all.
New
LASS
There is only one member of the
Fifty first Congress without an assign.
ment to committee duty, That man is
Mr. Cheadle of Indiana. He is a Repub-
lican, and his punishment comes in this
way: He refused to vote for the caucus
candidate for speaker, and supported
the “blind preacher,” declaring politics
had vothiog to do with congressional
prayers,
INI
Mr. Andrew Carpegie says that steel
rails can be produced in this country as
cheaply as in Eogland. Why, then,
cannot iron beams, rafters, joists, col-
nmps snd all other formus of structural
iron, be produced as cheaply in tnis
country in England? And why
should Mr. Carnégie be protected by a
boanty of 828 ¢ ton on these wanufac-
tures? Mr. Carnegie, if not too modest,
might answer these questions in his next
lecture,
as
Strangely rotable events of the past
few days: The disappearance of Mr.
Dittwuap, of the Qaaker Oily bank,
Philadelphia, who disappeared although
seen a very short time before he was
missed, yet no trace of him has been
found.
“The death of the famous lawyer and
railroad man, Franklin B. Gowan,—was
he murdered, hid he shoot himself acci-
dentally, or did he commit suicide, in
his room in the Metropolitan hotel in
Washington,
Williamsgrove picnic a black eye. He
says it is pot rua by the Grange, but it
a private speculation, and that imposiv
tions are practiced in the management
Other prominent Grangers are of the
same mind as Deoming The Grange
seems to be misled by a few corn cobs
who care only to prostitute this noble
ofder to getting office and private gain.
The Grange was organized for better
purposes and many of its members are
getting to see the nefarious aims of a
few in the order.
The low prices of farm products at
this time have hardly ever been paral
leled, The Decembis return of pricés to
the department of agriculture hows that
the lowest average estimated value of
corn in former years was 31 8 cents in
1878, and since that date 328 in 1885.
The present average is 20.1 cents. The
average of wheat estimates is 70.0 cents.
This is not the lowest, na the average in
December, 1884, was 64.5, in 1888, 68.1;
in 1886 687 cenis. The average price
of oats is lower than ever before reports
ed. In 1878 it was 24 6 cents per bushel;
at the present it is 23 cents. Prices of
barley, rye and buckwheat are also very
low, The average value of the potato
crop 18 42.1 cents. The lowest averages
reported were 40 cents in 1384 and 40.4
The Boston Herald says the hoftest
region on tho earth ig on the southwest
ern const of Persia, where Persia borders
the gulf of same name. For forty cons
secutive days in the months of Jaly an d
August the thermometer has been
known not to fall lower than 100°, night
or day, and to often run up as. high,
as 126° in the afternoon. At Bahrin,
in the centre of the torrid part of the
torrid bels, as thouch it were nature's
intention to make the region as unbear.
able 78 possible, no water can be oblains
ed from digging wells 100, 200, or even
500 feét deep, yot a comparatively num
erous population contrive to. live there
thanks to copious springs, which break
forth from the bottom of the gulf, more
than sa mile from shore,
The water from these springs is ob-
tained by divers, who dive to the bot-
tom and fill goatskin bags with the cools
ing liquid and s-ll it tor a living. The
source of these submarine fountains is
thought to be in the green hill of Os.
man, some 600 or 600 miles away,
.
Christmas,
As the scholars are not agreed, within
five or six years, as to the year in which
Christ was born, it is hardly to be ex-
pected that the precise month and day
of the Nativity should be aocurately as-
certained. It isgenerally acknowledged
that the received chronology, which is
in fact that of Dionysius Exiguaus, in the
gixth century, and which places the
event ia the year of Rome 754, and ie
about four years too laste; yet the world
will go on counting from that year, in
spite of Bibleal scholarship. And so,
whatever uncertainties there be about
[ the season ot the year, it will suffice for
{most of us that the Christian world,
for at least fifteen centuries, has ob-
served the 25th day of December as the
day of the Nativity. If it ba not the day,
it is at least harl to dispute it, It was
vot, however, without a good deal of dis-
pute that this day was fixed. It would
seem reasonable that the anniversaries
of the later events of the Gospel should
be remembered by the disciples who
witnessed them, bat the Nativity was al-
together obscure, and in the earliest per-
ohservance of this day we find a great
discrepancy. communities of
Christians celebrated the festival on the
1st or the 6th of January, others at the
time of the Passover, and others at the
feast of Tabernacles, Long before the
reign of Constantine, however, the sea
son of New Year had been adopted for
the celebration of the Nativity, though a
difference existed between the customs
of the Eastern and Western churches,
the former observing the 6th of Januory,
as the Armenians to do this day, and the
latter the 25th of December. The custom
of the Western church at last prevailed.
According to St. Crysotom, Julius I, who
was Bishop of Rome in the middle of
the fourth century, on the solicitation of
St. Oyril, of Jerusalem, caused diligent
inquiry to be made, and following what
appeared to be the best authenticated
traditions, settled authoritatively the
25th of December as the anniversary of
Christ's birth, the “Festorum omniam
metropolis.”
Some
. —— —
The laws of the Western States and
Territories everywhere recognize and
protect the rights of the first or “prior
appropriator ” of water. Ifthe first set
tler on the banks of a stream draws off,
in his ditch, one-half or the whole of the
customary flow to irrigate his farm, he
has the right to take bis one-half or the
v hole flow forever, to the entire exclo-
sion of any subsequent settler. But the
same rule applies fo rivers of large size
As the quick-witted Westerner stands by
the side of one of the great rivers and
looks over thousands of acres of desert
land along its banks, he sees a fortune in
the situation. Only get capital enough
together, organize 8 great company, dig
an immense cana! which will “appropri-
ate” all the water in the river, and you
command the whole valley. It isthe po-
sition of the Western railroads repeated.
Instead of waiting for settlers to come
and dig little ditches as they need them
an immense capital digs one huge canal
watering thousands of farms, and then
draws settlers by advertisement and
boom. 8o all over the West, throughout
Colorado, in centre and southern Calis
fornia, in Montana and Idaho, on the Salt
and Gila Rivers in southern Arizona,
there are great compani 8, with capitals
running into the millions, putting this
idea into effect, The canals they dig are
twenty, thirty, or even fifty miles long,
The largest are a hundred feet wide and
ten feet deep, very rivers in themselves.
They follow the contour of the country,
running back farthe and farther from the
river as the latter falls away. The main
canal gives off lateral branches at fre
que tiotervals, and by an ingenious sys
tem of gates, crossings. and ditches sends
watel to every foot of arable ground bes
tween it and the river. The land belongs
to the Government, and is taken up by
individual settlers at merely nominal
prices under the the “Desert Land Act”
Bat the water belongs to the canal com«
pany, and it is this water that the settler
really pays for. From “Water Storage
in the West,” by Walter Gillette Bates,
in January Scribner,
esas I MN
Granger Deming, of Dauphin, in ex-
posing, in the State Grange, the private
speculation in the Williamagro¥e pionic,
and the impositions practioed at it, fore
got to mention that this was the pienic
for which a lonatic member of the legis.
lature from Centre county originated
the ridiculously unconstitutional propos
sition to appropriate $5,000 out of the
people's money to fix up the ground.
This was a fanny piece of corn cob legis.
lation at which even the Patrons lsugh~
ed, as they knew that the public trees.
ury was wisely shut against fool schemes
and to the credit of the order they
nt their foot in it,
of such original
Political Arithmetic,
The way the Republicans managed to
organize the Montaua senate is probably
about as great burlesque in representa-
tive government as this country has ever
seen, That body is composed of 16
members, but an absentee of each party
reduces the number to 14, seven Demo-
crats and seven Republicans, On Thurs-
day a Republican member moved the
senate proceed to the election of officers,
A Democrat the aves
noes, The governor ruled
this unnecessary, and refosed to have
the roll called, although his
waa directed to the fact that the consti
tution of the State gives to two mem-
bers of the senate the right to demand
He held the consti-
tution did not apply until the senate was
organized The Republican candidates
for senate offices were then elected by
called for
Republican
attention
the ayes and noes
ballot the chair again refusing the ayes
and nays, they receiving seven voles ont
of 19.
The refusal to have the ayes and
noes called was to prevent the fact of
no quornom appearing on the record. It
was a double villainy, A well known
decision of Speaker Blaine in
for the chair’s information, in
which Mr. Blaine “held that there was
no power in the chair to compel mem-
quoted
the house could conduct business; that
house made no difference so long as a
majority did not answer to the roll-call,,
The chair replied that his decision had
been made and be changed,
If this organization stands the Repab-
licans boast they will elect
States senators.
The constitution of
would not
two United
the United States
defines a quornm as follows: “A ma~
jority house shall eosnstitule a
guoram business, but a smaller
number may ajdourn from day to day.”
Of course these proceedings of
Montana senate are revolutionary, and
justify any form of resistance
is defined by our highest
thority, and
cepted, as a majority of the legislative
body. Therefore the Montana Repub.
licans rest their case on the assertion 7
is a majority of 16, and a refasal to allow
of each
to do
the
A guorum
litical aa
has been universally ace
political arithmetic may not
the journal.- Post,
ADDOAr
Pittabargh
-
a
Poverty and pauperism again prevail
to an alarming extent among the miners
in certain portions of Northumber land
county, and tt affairs
about Treverton, Shamokin, and Mount
Carmel, and in Coal township is causing
uneasiness among the
zoos of those places. Eaforced idleness
bas created distrust and bred dis
content everywhere. Treverion, a pros.
perous village of 3,000 inhabitants only
two months ago, has hardly 2000 souls
within its borders now. Actual hunger
bas forced the people to quit the place,
leaving unpaid bills and house rents,
At Mount Carmel thousands of men and
boys are idle, and the alarming state
affairs exists at Shamokin and
township. The numberotidie men at
each of these places is augmented
daily, The foreign element composes
most of this army of idle men, and the
men are in many cases becoming sullen
and angry. Through sheer fear the call
for bread was at first heeded, as the men,
women and children begged from door
to door, Some of the idle men had sav-
ed from their earning, but this was soon
consumed in baying “Polinski,” a favor.
ite alcoholic beverage, But since food
has been denied them, threats of vio-
lence and murder are heard. Hungar-
ians and Italians by the hundreds have
left these places, Many have gone to
New York, Philadelphia and Boston, as
their friends have sent them money.
Others cross the Atlantic to the home of
their childhood, muttering words of diss
content and cursing the “Land of the
Free”
The present dullpess in the coal re-
gions and the depopulation of the towns
is attributed to the open winter of 1886,
and the same condition of weather just
now,
eT | Loves §
ie conagition of
substantial citi~
hina
of
in “oal
sensi IOS MAS SAB
The street railways of Philadelphia
with their low fares, carried last year
150,000,000 passengers, and the average
dividends on the actual paid up capital
is 17 per cent. That is certainly a good
investment. The receipts of the 10 aes
tive companies were $7,168,177 and the
expenses $4,412,710. The reduction of
fares his iccraased the receipts withouf!
a corresponding increase of expenses.
the average cost of carrying a passenger
having never been so low as this year—
loss than 3 cents,
wo
Milwaukee at the present time is the
Eastern terminus of a flour blockade
that extends as far West ss Minneapolis
aad bide fair to last for several weeks.
Can’t Handle the Freight.
Although this is not the banner month
in receipts and shipments. the Chicago
roads have never been so pressed for
cars as thug far daring December. The
facilities for ocean transportation seem
utterly inadequate to take care of the
vast amount of traffic, especially grain,
with which trunk lines are gorging the
seaboard cities. Especially is this the
case in Baltimore, where millions of
means of shipment which do not come.
The Baltimore elevators are now crams
med to their utmost capacity, necessi-
tating the temporary storing of the grain |
on tracks in the cars in which it was]
received, Thousands of ears are no idle
in Baltimore for this reason, and there
is no speedy prospect of breaking the
glufand freeing the loaded cars,
A careful computation made on Friday!
from figures in the Rock Island offices
shows that over 27,000 cars are now on|
their way to Baltimore, all of them]
loaded with corn. This vast amount of]
corn can be better realized when it is
known that it wou'd make a corn cake a!
foot hight a foot wide, and over 3800
miles long, These huge corn shipments
are explanation of the fact that the Chis}
cago east and west bound lines are do- |
ing the largest business in their history.
Enough traffic is being offered to more
The roads are
because they)
compelled to refuse it
upon them.
mn A AI MSNA
The Old and the New Journalist,
The managing editor of a larpe daily!
powspaper, a few days ago, gave a
would be contributor permission to pre-|
pare a two-column
topie for his journal
mate was that the article could be pre
pared in on But]
the writer declined the task, saving that
it would require six weeks’ labor,
The difference
mates was the difference between the old
on a given
y editor's esti
e, or at most two davs
between the two esti
and pew jourpalism. The contributor
belonged to the old time when Hterary!
snposition thought to be
mighty and mysterious toil, using up
the phosphorus of the upper regions of
In that ponderous old school
was
ie
the soul.
{ thought it was reckoned that a man’s
brain would blow up if he applied any
of high it, and if =»
writer spent two hours in steady com-|
wort pressure 1o
position the proper thing was to go t«
i.
Fine times the newspaper would have
bed and send for a doo
in getting out if the old notions prevailed
be ub
TOUAY .
f
Lightning speed is the word alike for]
and pressmen.)
The speed at which editors and report-|
ers prepare their matter for the modern)
pewspaper would indeed blow up the)
brain of the old fashioned literary and
encyclopedic person. Mr. Murat Hal.
stead has been writing a column an
hour of newspaper matter for nearly
forty wears, and his powers have not
failed in the slightest. His former «di
torial assistant, the late F. B. Plimpton, |
wrote at the same rate. This is the reg-
ular standard speed which all newspaper
writers aspire to reach. Some other
American editors have reached it,
The local reporter whose work is in
fino print can generally prepare a
column in an hour and a half to two
hours. Reporters are frequently paid
by the column in the large cities, The
one cent papers often pay no more than
$3 a column, At that rate the reporter
earns $20 to $20 a week and finds his
own material. He must or he could not
get his living,
It is not apparent that either the
quality of newspaper work or the health
of the writers suffers from this electric
speed. Many newspaper editors live to
be old men, and they are the youngest
old boys of their generation. Modern
newspaper work is not so encyclopedic
as that of the past was, but it is far
more readable and contains far more of
the life of the time,
-—
Writers, Comix MiloTs
§
In some parts of Kansas com is selling
on the farm this year for 20 cents a
bushel. A bushel of coal delivered on
the same farms costs 21 to 23 cents a
bushel. The Farmer's Alliance called the
attention of the farmers to the fact that
it might lessen the demand for coal, as
well as perhaps raise the price of corn,
to cease buying the coal and use the
corn for fuel. Accordingly, corn is now
looks wicked when Dakota farmers are
said to be suffering for food. But the
question is, Is it any more wicked to
burn corn for fuel than it is to put the
price of coal so high that a bushel of
corn will not pay for a bushel of coal?
It turns out that smokeless powder is,
Homes for Oty Working People.
‘Whatever is British must have a long
and dignified name, hence it is not
strange that the ““ Allotments and Small
Holdings’ associations” of England mean
something much better than at first
In fact, the
association with the long name seems to
be ane of the best plans yet devised to
sound one might suppose.
to city working people. The plan is ex-
plained by Sydney Evershed in The New
Review,
He purchases a tract of land within a
He divides it
into streets and squares, and also divides
few miles of a large city.
each acre into plots of a quarter acre.
On each quarter acre he erects a working
at of al $750.
man’s al
cottages are bull pairs, making
The
one central wall «
cottage fi cost ut
in
ie wo, for the sake of
It is
idea as that of the blocks of houses in
cheapness in construct the same
are only
cities, except that here ther
two houses together,
Each cottager will thus possess a house
to himself and a garden where all the
vegetables he needs can be grown, and
where he can gain health and recreation
which will
his
renew him day by day for
city toil. The feature absolutely
unique in the plan is this: The working
man will
pay no car fare to or from his
place of business in the city. That will
his rent.
the cottages contracts with the railway
to
much,
fq
a
be included in The owner of
transport his tenants yearly at s
and he himself pays the sum
un the money paid him by his tenants
1 the tenant can afford it, he is ul
lowed to purchase his home at cost,
The cottages are well built, have three
bedrooms and
thu
drained.
give all
men, including the
an ample water supply,
is fenced
ground and properly
Mr. Evershed believes he can
these advantages to working
free pass, for a rent
of about $1.25 per week, and still clear
44 to J per cent. on the money invested.
That is twice as much as many investors
now. They
Mr. Evershed’s plan is in no
in a humane
Nineteanth century effort to feed and
simply
y the world's work ss
well as pigs and horses are fed and shel
tered,
Unless something of this kind is done
unless homes in the country are provided
in which for working men to rear their
families, the race wiil deteriorate rapid-
ly. The deterioration is seen already
fully in the pale faces and dwarfed
i
SOOO
city born and
Crowding in tens
a min
and third generations of
bred working people
is nature,
which will in time destroy large
ment houses against
nnn
ers of our population.
Knights and Farmers
Dec. 3 the National Farmers’ alliance
met in St. Louis. It is an organization
of agriculturists founded by Evan Jones,
of Texas, in 1875. At first it was merely
a combination of small farmers to resist
the encroachments of the rich ranchmen.
Then its scope enlarged and it took in all
matters pertaining to the advancement
of agricultural interests. The associa
tion spread rapidly through the south.
It is there that it flourishes most. By
degrees, however, it is extending to the
north as well.
There is now a Farmers’ alliance,
offensive and defensive, embracing a
membership of not less than 2,250,000.
Rumor is gradually taking the shape of
fact that there is to be a union between
the Farmers’ alliance and Knights of
Labor. The Knights now nungber 250,
000 in good standing, dues paid up. They
and the farmers have found that they
have interests and aims in common
enough to warrant united action. In
addition, it is said that the Federation of
Labor, the society of the united trades’
unions, will in time join the organiza
tion. The three societies are not to be-
come one, but will remain separate and
act in concert on general questions. If
the project succeeds, there will be formed
the most powerful co-operative alliance
of modern times. It can control any
political party and make or unmake any
politician at will. If the societies hang
together, the question of labor and capi.
tal and all the other great economic
questions will be settled their way as
surely as water runs down hill.
1t has come out at last that the Roths-
childs are bebind the syndicate to buy
American breweries with British money.
From Europe, Asia and Africa money
has rolled into the banking houses of
the Rothschilds till they are embarrassed
how to invest it. There is no safe and
profitable enterprise in which to place
such great amounts in Europe. War
may open at any time. What then? The
United States is a great, rich and grow-
ing country. It is at peace with all the
world, and likely to remain so. It bas
THE WEEKLY PRESS,
PRILADELPHIA,
One Yearfor One Dollar.
For 1590 will be es much better than The Week
ly Press for 1580 as we can make it. With every
sue during the new year i will be
An Eighty Column Paper
Each of the fifty two numbers will contain ten
Pages, or eighty columns, with a total Sf #8he
year of 5X pages, or 4190 polumns, Them, it
will be “as big as a book,” as the saying 8
Paper of Quality,
Not only will it be as bigas a book, but it will
be 8 paper of quality as well as of quantity, It
Will conleln the pick of everything good.
Paper of Variety.
The idea is that The Weekly Press shall be
both clean and wide awake, Tt will discuss ail
subjects of public interest snd importance.
The writers on its list include: Julle Ward
Howe, E. Lynn Lipton. Prof. N. 8 Shaler,
Louis Pasteur, W mm Black, Edmund Gosse,
Edgar W, Kye, Opie P. Bead, and, indeed. al.
mos every popular writer of note in this coun
try and quite 8 number of distinguished wri
ters abroad, In Sction, an sitraction of the
year will be “Esther,” by H. Rider Haggard;
another serial story, already engaged, will be
“Come Forth,” by Elizabeth Btaurt Phelps,
A Farmer's Paper,
The best conducted agricultural page in Amer!
ca. llustrations,
A Woman's Paper.
The “Women's page” of The Weekly Press is
sione worth the subscription price. Is {lus
trations sre altracting attention everywhere,
A Children’s Paper.
The special department for children is now ad-
dressed to the school children and school
terchers of America. Let the children join the
new Bainboy Club just s d. let them
compe for the prizes—all in bright, whole-
some, lastruct’ ve hooks,
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By special srrangement with all thé leading
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Sample copies furnished free upon application.
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ae
E SUN.
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TH
Some poople ree with he Sun's opinions
about men and things, and some people don't;
but everybody likes 10 get hold of the newspaper
which is never dull and never afraid to speak its
mind,
Democrats know that for twenty years The Sun
bas fought in the front line for atic prin
ciples, never wavering or weskening in its loyalt
terests of the party it serves with
feurioss intelligence and disinterested vigor. At
times opinions have differed se to the best means
of accomplishing the common purpose; it is not
The Sun's fault if {4 has seen further into the mil
gone.
Eighteen hundred and ninety is the year that
will probably determine the result of the Presis
dential election of 1892, and perhaps the fortunes
of the Democracy for the rest of the century. Vie
tory in 1897 is a duty, and the beginning of 1890 is
the best thine to start out in company with The
Bun,
Daily per year
Sux ¥ Is vet apegmeairi
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Address THE SUN, New York.
sara pA
When Vanderbilt bought Maud 8,
000 was a price for a horse that took
he breath away. But we are far beyond
that now. The present high-water mark
is $105,000, which was paid for the §-
year-old trofting horse Axtell,
Instead of sending criminals to banish-
ment in Siberia, it is said that Russia
now proposes, in deference to American
journalists, to scatter them about hereaf-
ter through different parts of the em-
pire. Dear, dear!
The Parnell commission sat 120 days,
and did not amount to anything. The
only points scored were against itself
and the British government. Five hun-
dred witnesses were examined, twenty-
eight of them being named O'Connor,
twenty-four Walsh and twenty-two Mur-