8 HARRISBURG TELEGRAPH A NEWSPAPER FOR THE HOME Founded jJji Published evenings except Sunday by THE TELEGRAPH PRINTING CO., Telegraph Building. Federal Square. E. J. STACK POL.E, Fres't and Editor-in-Chief P. R. OYSTER, Business Manager. GUS M. STEINMETZ, Managing Editor. Member American Newspaper Pub 'ishers' Associa tion, The Audit Bureau of Circu lation and Penn sylvania Associat ed Dailies. Eastern office. Story, Brooks & Flnley, Fifth Ave nue Building, New ern office. Story, Brooks & Finlev, People's Gas Build —- Ins, Chicago, 111. Entered at the Post Office In Harrls burg, Pa., as second class matter. By carriers, ten cents a t week; by mail. $5.00 a in advance. SATURDAY EVENING, MARCH 24 The scientific spirit means the ha bitual determination to see straight, to report exactly and to give an abso lutely honest reaction upon the situa tion in which one finds himself. —H. C. KIXG. A MILLION, PERHAPS MORE A MILLION men for the army Is the decision Washington ap pears to have reached. A mil lion, yes, perhaps many more. In ad dition to the Regular Army the Na tional Guard and the volunteers, men i to be used as the first line of defense, "there must necessarily be a large and ! efficient "home guard" made up of men beyond the ordinary enlistment \ age, to relieve younger men of the duty of guarding munition plants, railroads, bridges, tunnels, armories, supply depots, wharves, hospital, pub lic buildings, etc. The Germans have not been able to get a single man across the English j channel, much less make a landing j on Canadian soil, so it is reasonable j to suppose that in the course events In Europe appear to be taking there will be small danger of actual inva- j sion of America. To what extent our j troops will be needed elsewhere it is j difficult to say, although it is certain [ that not a few of them will be as signed to the region of the Rio Grande. The greater peril to America lies within. The snakes in the grass j which the Imperial Government has turned loose upon America have! shown that they will strike hard and j ■without warning, regardless of life ( or property, if the opportunity is pre- { sented. Pennsylvania, it is suspected. I Is alive with these representatives of | Berlin. Dr. R. F. Bacon, director of Mellon Institute, at Pittsburgh, and chairman of the national industrial preparedness committee, in a report isued to-day says Pennsylvania alone is capable of supplying the entire; needs of the nation in time of war. j It would appear then vitally necessary i to the national welfare to guard most carefully the vast Industries of the j Commonwealth, and to this duty u "home guard" could be assigned. One j of the first steps to be taken should 1 be to insure the safety of these vast 1 industrial resources. A million men j may suffice for the Army, but a vastly j larger number will be required to pro-! test our mills and factories, our rail- j roads and shipping. HOWARD UNIVERSITY HOWARD University, whiclv Is to the colored race what Yale or Princeton, or Harvard Is to the white, has just completed a half cen tury of successful work for the up lift and advancement of its students, and for colored people In general, for the radius of its influence for good lias not been by any manner of means confined to those who have been grad uated from its courses. The university has given diplo mas to 4,591 students since 1867, Including 1,000 physi cians 844 teachers, 771 lawyers, 423 ministers of the Gospel, 324 den tists, 264 pharmacists, in addition to ! many who have gone forth from its classes into other useful walks of life. ! Among the Howard men in Harris burg are such prominent representa tives of the colored race as Dr. Steph en J. Lewis, W. Justin Carter and Dr. Charles H. Crampton, not to mention Dr. B. B. Jeffers, of Steelton. All over the nation the students of Howard are making names for themselves In the every-day work of Ihe community and are doing much t<fr the advance ment of the people among whom they labor. It is gratifying to note that where the university was graduating dozens and scores a few years back, its stu dent body now numbers hundreds every year. There can be no better Indication of the desire of the colored people of the country to improve themselves and their condition in life than this vast incerase in the enroll ment at Howard, which is in the realm of higher education what Tus kegee is to the industrial development of the Negro of the South. READ AND COMPARE WE wish that every American voter could read the Congres sional Record for those days when the so-called "filibuster" was being carried on in the Senate. We wish that every voter could read and ponder upon the speeches made then j by Republican senators —such as ; Polndexter, of Washington, and Weeks i and Lodge, of Massachusetts, to men tion two extremes both in geography SATURDAY EVENING, and temperament—and those made by Senator Williams, of Mississippi, and Senator Lewis, of Illinois, on the Democratic side. Wo wish, too, that every voter could read the speeches mado at various times of critical import to the nation by Senator Stone, of Missouri, chair man of the great committee which considers questions affecting our for eign relations. We wish that every voter, having done this, would seriously reflect and try to decide which group is the more worthy of confidence, the more likely | to render a sound and sober judg ment. the more likely to be actuated | by pure and patriotic motives, and the more to be preferred as counsellors to a President who is confronted by grave international and domestic problems. ! Uneasy lies the head from which the ! crown has been lately removed. A TEST OF SINCERITY THE death of Ambassador Guth rie at Tokio leaves an Impor tant diplomatic post to be fill ed at a time when the delicacy of our foreign relations demand the best service that can be rendered. The President's selection for this post will demonstrate whether he is really dis posed to act himself in the spirit of his second inaugural address wherein he adjured his fellow citizens to be j ware of the faults of partisanship, j If he should designate some man I of diplomatic training—like Henry I White or David Jayne Hill, for exam ple—tho country would at once know that our first line of defense is no longer to be entrusted, at Its most ex posed points, to tyros and politicians. But if he takes one of the numerous "lame ducks" who now Infest Wash ington clamoring to be taken care of, we shall know that the next four years will be no different from the last and that we shall continue to be at the mercy of "deserving Demo crats." April 2 will doubtless be observed as All Fools' Day for Germany. BREADSTUFFS AND THE TARIFF THE total value of breadstuffs Imported into this country dur ing the calendar year 1916 was $26,385,000, notwithstanding the fact that 18,000,000 non-producers on the European firing lines had to be sup plied from food-producing countries. In 1912, a full year under tho pro tective tariff law, we Imported sl*9,-! 277,000 worth, and In 1913, three months of Democratic disaster, our j imports totaled $25,790,000, the last! three months of 1913 the total being $13,390,600, compared with $3,882,000 during the last three months of 1912. If any farmer believes that free trade does not affect his business let him paste those figures in his hat for j his brain to absorb. And there has never been a time since" the passage' of the Democratic tariff law free-list ing most of those breadstuffs when the bakery man sold his oven-prod ucts at less than the 1912 price, so the consumer got no benefit and the loss In revenue had to be taken out of tho pockets of the American public. The Democratic tariff did give us a bread line before the war broke out, but the American workingman who, J prior to the passage of that law, had three squares a day of American "vit tles" did not relish the idea of living by bread alone. When the great war is over, the tide of breadstuffs imports will again turn in this direction, if the present policy is persisted in, and they will not come down on us as gently as manna from heaven either. The Socialist party lias split on the question of defending the nation. Those who don't want to defend it might be put to "digging trenches for those who do. HENRY HOICK THE Valley Times-Star, of New ville, suggests a monument for the late Secretary Henry Houck, for thirty-eight years deputy superin tendent of public Instruction. Says that newspaper editorially: The Valley Times-Star suggests that a fund be started at once for the erection of a monument to his memory, and that each child now in attendance at the public schools throughout tne State of Pennsyl vania be asked to contribute one penny toward this worthy object and let the honor be theirs. Certainly, something should be done to commemorate the vast and lasting impress Dr. Houck made upon the public school system of Pennsylvania. He was Influential In the movements for compulsory education, free text books, longer terms in rural schools, | living salaries for teachers and many | improvements of lesser Importance, t His memory should not be permitted to face with the generation that knew him best. THE CITIZEN'S DUTY Our culture, therefore, must not omit the arming of the man. Let him hear in season, that he is born unto the state of war, and that the commonwealth and his own well-being require that he should not go dancing in the weeds of peace; but warned, self-collected, Hnd neither defying the thunder, let him take both reputation and life in his hand, and with perfect urbanity dare the gibbet and the mob by the absolute truth of his speech and the rectitude of his be havior. So wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay on "Heroism." The senti ment is peculiarly applicable to the situation in which the American peo ple find themselves to-day. Read It again. BUYING MORE FROM FRANCE MANUFACTURES of silk were Imported into this country during the calendar year 1916 to the value of over $37,000,- 000, a gain of nearly 50 per cent, over the year before, the great est gains being recorded from France and Japan. Of woven silk fabrics, $4,- 683,000 worth came from France, and $3,315,000 from Japan in 1914, and $5,657,000 from France, and $6,485,- 000 from Japan in 1916. French em broideries increased from $2,672,000 In value In 1914 to $3,689,000 In 1916; Japanese silk wearing apparel from $386,000 In 1914 1916. War cannot offset tarlff-for revenue-only, it appears. ' ~~ ' "> The Days of Real Sport By BRIGGS J Labor Notes 1 San Diego (Cal.) Pressmen's Union has raised wages $1.50 for the first six months of tho year and an additional 50 cents a week will be paid during the remaining six months. Steps have been taken to Insure that almost every available foot of tillable land in England and Scotland next year will be under cultivation. To accomplish this women must be put ii the fields to take the place of men of military age who are giving serv ice to their country in France or els©*- where. The International Molders' Union of North America recently concluded an agreement with the Central Mold ers' Association of Scotland by which the two organizations will in the fu ture Interchange membership cards. This agreement is similar to those al ready in existence between the I. M. U. and all other European molders' unions. Private employment agencies In Ohio will be subject to strict regula tion at the han4s of the State Indus trial Commission if the House follows the lead of the Senate In passing a bill which alms to put an end to the Im portation of strikebreakers and to pre vent fee-splltttng between employers and agencies. Shakespeare's Prestige (Toronto Mail and Express.) In Stratford, during one of the Shakespeare jubilees, an American tourist approached an aged villager in a smock, and said; "Who is that chap Shakespeare, anyway?" "Here were a writer, sir." "Oh. but there are lots of writers. Why do you make such an infernal fus over this ono? Where I turn I see Shakespeare hotels, Shakespeare cakes, Shakespeare chocolates, Shake speare shops. What the deuce did he wrle—magazine stories, attacks on the government, shady novels?" "No, sir; oh, no, sir," said the aged villager. "I understand he writ for the Bible, sir." Sun Didn't Stand Still (Philadelphia North Ahierican. ) Joshua's command to the sun and moon to "stand still" only mean that they should be "eclipsed," according to Dr. Thomas Dick Wilson, professor of Hebrew at Princeton Theological Seminary. The word usually translat ed "stand still" In the Bible is the Heb rew damu, said Doctor Wilson, which really means "eclipse." "When my students come to me," he said, "with doubts as to whether God actually up set the laws of gravitation at the re quest of Joshua, I say: 'Don't worry. Nothing of the kind took place.' " The Sweep Toward Freedom The developments In Russia are a part cf the great spirit of social unrest plainly apparent to all of us. Where it will lead to or when it will stbp can not be told by man. In different periods it has taken on different forms and some countries have been more backward than others —among them Russia. But the sweep toward freedom has been irresistible. The victory in Russia —even though it may not be perman ent or altogether satisfactory to its promoters —is one of the first fruits of the war. Age-long aspirations of the people in other lands will be realized during the period of reconstruction to follow the war. The war will be a terrible price to pay even for all this. But it has always been so. Four thousand battles were fought to win freedom of speech, and blood ran jiko water. Vicarious sacrifice—that is. the giv ing up of life for the sake of another —is the law of the universe In every kingdom—mineral, vegetable and ani mal. It Is the supreme law of the spirit ual world, for the natural law that governs elsewhere, also controls here. And so—back of the abdication of I the czar Is the sacrifice of blood.— 1 The Syracuse Journal. Parade of the Auto My auto 'tis of thee, Short cut to poverty, Of thee I chant. I blew a pile of dough On you one year ago, Now you refuse to go, Or won't or can't. Through town and countryside You were my joy and pride, A happy day . I loved thy gaudy hue. Thy nice white tires so new, Now you look bumxfor true In every way. T o thee, old rattle box Came many bumps and knocks; For thee I cry. I paid for thee a price, 'Twould buy a mansion twice. Now they are yelling Ice, I wonder why. % HAHRISBURO fifijSflfl TELEGRAPH T>Ctlttc* u 'pnvKCijCtfCuua By the Ex-Commltteeman Changes in the election laws of the ] State will be made by the present Legislature in only a few details*. The' date of the fall primary will be moved • because it now falls on the Jewish New Year, but outside of that it seems ■ to be pretty well understood that there will be little doing in the way of' alterations. Even the reformers will not have many changes to suggest for the state, although they have plenty i in mind for Philadelphia. The proposition to abolish the party square will not be seriously considered and as for the corrupt practices act bills they are so much like those of previous sessions that not much will be done with them. Other bills which look like the Wasson collection of 191S will not get much attention either. Except for the preliminary herald ing of the corrupt practices act the Democrats have not done anything in the way of alleged election reforms. They have been so busy trying to get credit for bills that they have been getting in each other's way and not accomplishing much of anything. —Attempts aro being made to main tain the working alliance between the remnants of the Flinn-Van Valken burg wing of the old Progressive party and the Vare-Magee contingent. It is said that plans for this session have not worked out as hoped and that some newspaper organs are just wait ing for the chance to break away, as they cannot afford to be with anyone who happens to be in power. Being "periodicals of protest" means dollars and the alliance boosters have their hands full just now. —The Pittsburgh situation appears to be tuning up in advance of the mayoralty election this fall. The usual charges that mark the start of a cam paign in that city are being made and most of the officials in power are being vehemently assailed. Threats of im peachment are as common as com plaints of lack of freight cars in that city. —Dr. Ira S. Pope, a graduate of Mayland Agriculture College, has been appointed chief meat inspectQr for Philadelphia. —District Attorney E. Lowry Humes, chief Democratic ringmaster just now, announces at Erie that he is going to break up the Republican ring in Venango county. Me might turn his attention to some fooi price rings also. —William Draper Lewis says that the coming election offers to people of the state "a great opportunity" to get reforms in municipal elections. He spoke for two hours in Philadelphia last night on proposed changes in the Philadelphia charter. —George T. Conrade, former Phila delphia legislator, died at his home yesterday. He was a select council man. —Some interesting news coming from nearby states. The Delaware legislature has closed its biennial ses sion and New Jersey and Maryland are through with such matters. George W. Goethals is to become chief engineer of New Jersey roads and Ohio Is going slow on taxes on cor porations. —The Philadelphia Press gives prominence to-day to a charge by a Philadelphia man that the Philadel phia police force is as rotten as it was in 1909. —J. A. McEvoy has been picked out for the nexUpostmaster of Parkesburg. The present postmaster says the Job does not pay. —G. E. Langloff, guardsman and prominent lawyer, is being urged for appointment to succeed the late Judge Brumm In Schuylkill, i —Mayor Kevin, of Easton, is urging bond issues to improve streets. —A Greensburg dispatch says: "S. E. Gill and W. G. Theurer, reporting for the State Board of Charities on the investigation held recently into con ditions at the Westmoreland county home, have sent the facts of the in vestigation to District Attorney C. Ward Elcher. The district attorney is now considering these facts and says that action wIU probably be taken next Monday. With regard to the Immo rality charges the Board of Charities says that the facts did rot substantiate the charges that thero was Immorality between employes and Inmates or be tween employes, but that the showed strongly that there was im morality between the inmates. Poor Director R. D. Wolff and Superintend ent Charles Seanor were exonerated of the charges of improper conduct against them. The board finds that there was abundant testimony to show that there was mismanagement at the i home." THE PEOPLE'S DEATH PENALTY AND THE BIBLE ; 7o the Editor of tlte Telegraph: At the hearing before the Judiciary General Committee of the House and j Senate in joint session in the Hall of | the House of Representatives on March 20 on the Wells-Hess bi11,.! which provides for the abolition of | capital punishment. Rabbi Joseph ! Krauskotf, of Keneseth Israel Syna gague, Philadelphia, closed his earnest and eloquent plea in fuvor of the bill with a quotation of the Sixth Com-1 mandment, "Thou shalt not kill." The j learned Kabbi knows, of course, that i this commandment forbids murder, 1 and that it does no violence to the ori- [ ginal words in the text to render It, j "Thou shalt not murder." And he also knows, tho writer is convinced, that the legal killing of a murderer under the Old Testament law, as now under the civil law, is not murder. Were this not true, the Scriptures of the Old Testament would flatly con tradict themselves. For they direct and command that "the murderer" or, "whoso kiileth any person, tho mur derer shall be put to death." This law for the punishment of the mur derer was so well defined In the Pentateuch that it applied only to what we now know as murder in the first degree. The Decalogue, which in cludes the Sixth Commandment, is supposed to have been delivered to Israel 14.1 B. C., and at that time | and throughout the whole period of Israel 1491 B. C., and at that time era the penalty for the violation of this Sixth Commandment was death. But the principle involved in this pre- ! scribed penalty Is much older than the j Decalogue. It was iirst delivered to! Noah, 2348 B. C., In this form; "Who- ! so sheddeth man's blood, by man shall ! his blood be shed." The Rabbi also j was emphatic in his affirmation that! only the Giver of life lias the right to take that life. This statement need ; not be called in question in view of the I acknowledged fact that the Creator I under the Old Testament dispensation ; delegated that power to the civil mag- : lstrates, for he commended them to punish jvith death the murderer. With j these facts In evidence It also seems in every way proper to resent the! thought that tho death penalty is a "relic of barbarism." It is of God, the all-wise, and it was In the conscious- • ness of the first murderer when he ex- j claimed, "Every one that lindeth me j shall slay me." That death was to be the perpetual penalty for Ilrst degree murder is a convlct'on which rests on a very solid foundation. The law is universal as stated in Gen. 9:6—"Whoso shed deth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." The reason for this law is universal and perpetual, as valid to-day hi America as it was over four thousand years ago when Noah's ark rested on Ararat. This reason God gave to Noah in these words: "For in the image of God made lie man" (Gen. IX, 0). This Is an inalienable and fundamental characteristic of man. There were capi tal penalties in those ancient times for various other crimes, but in no other case'is the reason for the death pen alty the same as in the case of murder. Until, therefore, man ceases to bear the image of God, the divinely pre scribed penalty for first degree murder is death at the hands of the civil au thorities, unless the penalty is abro gated by the same authority which originally presented it. But not only was the penalty of death made obliga tory, Just as It is to-day in the statutes of Pennsylvania, but the sentence was absolutely Irrevocable. The power to pardon, or to commute the sentence of a murderer, was denied to this State under the Mosaic, or rather the divine, law. In following the law as given in Numbers XXXV, 30, It Is command ed: "Moreover ye shall take no satis faction for the life of a murderer which is guilty of death (Num. XXXV, 31). "Satisfaction" is a redemption price, a ransom, an atonement, anything In place of the infliction of the penalty. I As the foregoing facts are unassail- I able, another statement made by | Rabbi KrauskofT deserves special con ; slderatlon. The learned Rabbi might 1 be presumed not to be very familiar ; with the teachings of the New Testa ! ment. However, his liberal views are I well known, and he is admired and | loved by many eminent men in the j Christian church. He insisted in his 1 Impassioned plea for the abolition of | the death penalty that in the New | Testament the jus talionis, of which ; he claimed the death penalty was a j part, has been abolished. On the con : trary, not only is the prooj of this I proposition lacking, so far as the j death penalty is concerned, but there are clear recognitions in the Scriptures of the New Testament of the continu ed and permanent obligations of the divine law that murder should be pun ished with death. The "sword" still Is in the hands of the constituted MARCH 24, 1917. powers of the State. From Matthew to Revelation its use In the punish ment of the murderer is recognized and enforced. For this symbol of the "sword" is by no means limited to war and slaughter, as appears from sundry passages of Scripture; butJ* specifically the symbol of power aTTO authority in the State to punish crime by inflicting the death penalty. Here it is the sword of retribution which the magistrate bears. Of this power the Jews had been deprived prior to the advent of our Lord by the Roman government, ami so the Koman cruci fixion was substituted in his case for that of stoning, the punishment among the Jews for blasphemy and other crimes. And it was at the time of his arrest by the Roman soldiers that Christ reaffirmed the Old Testa ment law relative to murder, saying, "For all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." This, Alford declares, is a repetition of Gen. IX, G, and he continues: "This shonld be thought of by those well-meaning, but shallow, persons who seek to abolish the punishment of death in Christian States." "Thus the passage justifies capital punishment as a measure of Just re tribution for murder in the hands of the civil magistrate." And this testi mony In favor of the death penalty by our Lord is repeated in the last book of the New Testament: "If any one shall kill with the sword, he must be killed with the sword," (Gen. XIII, 10>. Between these two extreme books of the New Testament is the letter of Paul to the Romans, in which this same principle is clearly recognized. Paul teaches that the civil magistrate "beareth not the sword in vain" (Rom. XIII, 4). In his capacity as'magis trate he is "the minister of God," "an avenge for wrath to him that doeth evil." Dr. Hodge on this passage says the sword was worn as a symbol of the power of capital punishment. Even profane writers testify to this effect, that "bearing the sword" by u. magis trate was an emblem of the power of life and death. Paul also in one of his speeches recorded In the acts rec ognizes the authority of the State to inflict capital punishment upon those "worthy of death." "If I bo an of fender, or have committed any thing worthy of death, I refuse not to die." This seems clearly to imply that in Paul's judgment there are offenses, or crimes, for which the appropriate penalty is death. If these are correct Interpretations of the teachings of the Bible on the momentous question of penal retribution for the crime of murder, then it conslusively follows that the death penalty for murder in the first degree is the divine order for all civil governments in all times. It must also be clear that all other objections to the infliction of the death penalty fall. If it be urged that capi tal punishment is no deterrent, let it v be remembered that neither was it 'under the Theocracy. If it be objected that innocent men have been put to death, this liability existed two and four thousand years ago. If it be insisted on that wit nesses and jurors are not inerrant, this was true under the Mosaic and the Roman laws. If juries are averse to rendering first degree murder ver dicts, if the foregoing conclusions are well founded, that only means that they have been misled by erroneous teaching on the subject, or are consti tutionally disqualified to act as jurors In murder trials. If death for first degree murder is God's unaltered law from Genesis to Revelation, we only have one open course to pursue—- maintain and rigidly enforce the law us it is on the statute books. EUDIA. Ilarrisburg, March 22. | OUR DAILY LAUGH APPKECIA- . _ TIVE - If I were to tell you how- many tish I caught and ((;•..>- ' j|f| how long they \V Vn were, you would fjpH not believe me. S^r That's all right. | 1 Tell it, anyhow, I I like to hear you ' a o SURELY. /Tl / V h coid.? i ft Y Well, I went fls hinir and I had [3 k to bring back i (I'klsfZ** £ j. gomothlnc- lEtenittg (Efjal k 1 * —■ ... 11 The lirst record of post service in Pennsylvania was recently discovered among u lot of old papers, letters, and ancient meniorbtlia in a house in Thompsontown among- the effects ol a man named Thomson (without 1 lie p), who is supposed to have been ft* descendant of Col. James Burd, for years a resident of Paxton, east ol Harrisburg, and a neighbor of John Harris, founder of Harrisburg, wrote the letter to Col. Burd cor.tat." ing the announcement that the deliv ery of mail in Central Pennsylvania was about to bo started. This lettel from John Harris is addressed to Col. Burd at Tlnian, near Lancaster, whew Col. Burd was visiting at the ttmt As showing the beginning of the pos tal service in the vicinity of Harris burg it is interesting, and it is give® just the way John Harris wrote it— the address being as follows— To James Burd Esquire at Tinia* near Lancaster, by my nlgroe Isaaa.* The "nlgroo Isaac" is supposed ta have been one of Mr. Harris' slaves. But here is the letter — "Paxton, March 19th, 1771. "Sir, "The Bearer Philip Craft Is Begin ning to take in subscriptions In Order to See If a Sufficient number of Sub scribers can be Got in Order to En courage him to Ride as a Post for 1 Year. If you Like the (word miss ing, paper worn through) please to speak to Captn Green or any you Please to subscribe, he proposes to carry a paper for Every Persoiv for a Year Once a Week for 1 dollar, il Two papers ten ten shillings a year which I think Reasonable. I put 15 shillings to my name as an Encour agement. I would been at Widow Mar tins l>ut a number of Persons came here that I can't get away at Pres ent. "I am Sir with the Greatest Re spects "Your Most Obedient and Most Humble Servant, "John Harris. "To James Burd Esquire, Paxton." Tho letter came into possession ol Dr. Thomas Lynch Motgomery, State Librarian, who is always in search of documents of a historic character, and he permitted the publication ol tho above, as well as the following letter written by Mr. Harris, a year after ho had laid out the town ol Hurrlsburg— Harrlsburg, 11th, 1786. Sir, Be pleased to send by Bearer j the order of Court Appointing you and five Other Gentlemen to Vienl & | make a report on tho ancient public road by the Smith's mill, known by the name of the Hill road as Mr. Graydon wants to report & record it next week. 1 have ydur report Signed by the Six Gentlemen on a separate piece of paper but Mr. Graydon wants the aforesd order also yr complyance will Oblige sir yr most Humble Servant John Harris. • • • Word has reached this city of the death at Richland, of Cyrus F. Hoff man, believed to have been the last survivor of the Legislature of 1856. He was 87 years of age and repre sented Lebanon county. He was a school teacher and an early friend ol the late Dr. Henry Houck. Mr. Hoff nian%na a member of the Legislature which chose Simon Cameron as Sen. ator, and was well known in this part of the State. He was postmaster at his home town for years and also register* of wills for the county. • ♦ • Apropos of the old saying "Some one is always taking the joy out ol life," they have even erected a "no smoking sign" at the local police court. Police reporters since the be ginning of that institution have con soled themselves with a pipe, cigarette or stray cigar, just as their luck hap pened to be going. A good strong pipe often comes in handy when some va grant not unusually careful about a "semi-annual" occupied the chair. A cigar tilted at Just tho right angle to properly impress the culprits has al ways added dignity to the judicial pose of the magistrate. Now, however, it is "Positively no smoking." Requests for information and police protection that come to Desk Sergeant Charles Fleck, at the police station, are many and varied. Usually it la a female voice that declares "two suspicious men are standing outside and I am just as sure as anything that they arc going to fight or break in the house." But local jokers aren't over tho high price of potatoes. Yesterday someone called in and declared he was thinking about buying a peck of potatoes that evening, would the po lice give him protection while he was taking them home. I WELL KNOWN PEOPLE —George A. Baldwin, the Beaver judge who cut down licenses, Is a former legislator. —James N. Lightner, captain of the Lancaster company of the National Guard, will drill Franklin and Mar shall students. —Robert E. Glendlnning, the Phil adelphia aviator, who stirred up the city by dropping imitation bombs on City Hall, is a wealthy banker. —Major Clenon N. Bernthelzel, Dis trict Attorney of Lancaster county, who was here yesterday, is judge ad vocate of the National Guard. —Captain Archibald Mackrell, chief of the detectives in Pittsburgh, wants the officers in that eity to tako care and grow thinner. | DO YOU KNOW Tlmt Harrisburg coal wagons are in use all over Pennsylvania? HISTORIC HAIUIISBURG John Harris gave the jail and court house lot to tho county as the first gift to the new town of Harris burg. Freedom in Russia fFrom the Philadelphia Ledger.] The manifesto cf the Russian Pro visional Government to the nation whereby a vast "underground popula tion" of political exiles is released to the light of the new day from tho prisons of Siberia is not inaptly com parable with the ukase of Alexander II of March 3, 1861, whereby the 6erfs were ireed. When these freedmen be came peasant proprietors they wiP* still oppressed by a burden of taxes insupportably heavy, so that much of the ameliorative effect of the change in the then political status was lost. The present popular government is not in different to the lessons of the agrarian crisis that followed in the opening years of this century. It proposes to grant freedom in fact as well as In name by removing the political disabili ties, of wJi'ch the Jews have been con spicuous victims, and conceding uni versal suffrage to create a constitu tional assembly truly representative of the sovereign will, which In recent events has been so Impressively made manifest. Home rule for Finland )s part of the great scheme. The Governor of Finland Is now a prisoner at Petrograd: and bv an ironic reversal the former presi dent of the Finnish Diet Is released from exile in Siberia. Th* Minister of Justice has made It one of his first acts to release the agr<| grandmother of the Russian revolution Katherlne Breshkovskaya.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers