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THE JACKSON ECONOMIST.
VOL. VII.
CITY OfGUMff.
Municilipal Ownership Its
Crowning Glory.
York JournaL
The methods and results of
British municipal government may
ftestbe studied in the concrete. No
better instances can be selected
than Glasgow. Asa type of the
modern city with highly devel
oped and vigorous municipal life,
aud with complex yet unified in
dustrial and social condition
Glasgow i6 a model to us.
In 18G9 the gas supply of the
city was transferred from private
bauds to the corporation, to be
managed by the Council as an or
dinary department. The original
cost exceeded $2,000,000. Thirty
yoars of management by the au
thorities has given unmitigated
satisfaction to all the citizens o'
Glasgow. The quantity of gas
sold increased from $1,026,000,000
in 1869-70, the first, to 3,126,000,-
000 in 1890 01. an increase of 170
per cent while the population had
grown only 25 per cent. In 1897
the city with a total population of
800,000 was furnishing gas to 170,-
000 different consumers. From
$1.14 per 1,000 feet, charged con
sumers in 1869, the corporation
has been able to make reductions
year by years, until for several
recent years the price has been
fixed at 50 cents. No one will
claim that a private company
would have made these reductions
while continuing to supply a
satisfactory quality of gas, espe
cially as the price of gas-making
coal has greatly increased in Eng
land.
Yet the department has been
able to construct new works —it
dow owns four immense establish
ments—pays its interest charges
and running expenses, writes off
large sums every year for depre
ciation of works, pipes and meters,
accumulates a sinking fund easily
capable of paying off capital in
debtedness as it matures. The to
tal indebtedness was at the high
est point in 1875 when it reached
$5,300,000. The net debt is now
reduced to about $2,400,000. In
the rather gloomy winter climate
of Glasgow, which necessitates a
large use of artificial light, cheap
gas is an inestimatable blessing
and the more than doubling of the
per capita u&e under city mauage
urent means a vast increase in
comfort and happiness. No other
°ity in the world can at all com
pare with Glasgow in the univer
sality of the use of gas in the homes
of the working classes.
Recently an experiment has
been made by the Gas Department
lu supplying gas cooking stoves,
b ally 70 per cent of the people of
Glasgow live in houses of one or
two rooms, using the same fire tor
cooking and heating. This busi
ness has. gone on briskly the city
having a large sum invested in
stoves. Last year the department
bad 12,000 gas stoves of its own
hired out, besides having sold
many thousands.
Meanwhile the municipal au
thorities of Glasgow determined to
monopolize the business of distrib
uting electric light and power from
Central establishments. They ob
tained permission from Parliament
1D C Q 9O to undertake electric light
lhg. They bought out an existing
WINDER, JACKSON COUNTY, QEORQIA, THURSDAY, APRIL 27, 1899.
private company, and ip 1893
opened a large municipal plant in
the heart of the city for supplying
arc aud incandescent lights to
private consumers as well b to
streets and public buildings. This
enterprise has since had a great
development.
But of all Glasgow’s municipal
experiences none is so interesting
to other cities as that which relates
to street railways. It is an expe
rience which’ may well make
American cities blush. Street
railways are an American inven
tion, and the first in Great Britain
were constructed by American
companies.
Municipal operation of the
street railways of Glasgow was en
tered upon in 1894. A perfect
working plant was then created,
the city being unable to come to
an agreement with the pre-exist
ing private company as to the
purchase of its plant. Car-build
ing and repair shops, and oth
er adjuncts to a complete and eco
nomical organization were estab
lished. Much disappointment was
expressed because it was not found
expedient to mark the municipali
zation of the service by the intro
duction of improved mechanical
motive power in place of horses,
but it was safest to begin
with horse traction. It was decid
ed to divide the lines into half
mile stages, and to charge a half
penny for each stage. Glasgow is
exceedingly compact, aud the bulk
of the patronage of the street rail
ways comes from passengers rid
ing less than a mile. Later it was
found advisable to fix certain long
penny runs, especially for work
ingmen.
The drivers and conductors of
the private company had been kept
at their posts for long hours, often
not less than fourteen —twelve
being the minimum The munic
ipal management makes a ten hour
day, and has fixed a satisfactory
schedule of wages. Provision was
made for the electric lighting of
the cars and in every detail it was
determined to give Glasgow, under
municipal operation, the best sur
face transit system in Great Brit
ain—and so it has become
Further, Glasgow owns and con
trols a great central fruit and pro
duce market, in which practically
all the commission and wholesale
business is carried on, and above
which is a very large public hall,
let by the authorities for concerts
and various gatherings. It aso
carries on a cattle market, the pub
lic slaughter houses and the yards
and abattoirs at the docks for for
eign cattle.
In a central locality the author
ities Have a tract of twenty acres,
occupied with a great roofed live
stock market, having accommoda
tions for many thousands of ani
mals. The ‘’dead meat” market
was established in 1876, when
American dressed beef began to
arrive in large quantities The con
trol of slaughter houses and of
meat, fish aud produce marts by
the municipal authorities is deem
ed a point of great advantage also
for the public health.
The city has market property
valued at $1,200,000, not including
the dock, cattle yards and abat
tiors, from all of which it draws a
good revenue.
The groatness of Glasgow is due
more than anything else to its mu
nicipal energy. Last, though cer
tainly uot least, as a proof of that
energy, the Clyde Navigating
Trust should be mentioned. The
deepening of the River Clyde, th*
management of the harbor, the
service of ferries and harbor
steamers are all municipal enter
prises.
Home, Sweet Home.
There is no patriotism that is
not love of home and country—and
no man can trulyl ove a country in
which he has no home. A man
with no permanent foothold, is on
ly an inhabitant of the world, a
wanderer looking for a place to set
tle—ready to go to South America,
if it offers him a home, or equally
ready to go to Africa, having no in
terest but to take care of himself,
caring naught for boundaries of
states, ami protecting himself on
ly to keep out of jail. All govern
ments are foreign imtitutious to
him, all homes only places
where he cau see how other men
live.
But the yearning for home is in
every civilized man’s heart and
brain. He wants a place to rest
his head where there is no rent to
pay. He will go to the great Brit
ish Northwest as a hunter aud trap
per, lacing all dangers and privat
ions that he may lay up enough to
buy a home in some delightful spot
which his imagination pictures as
paradise.
The roughest sailor that ever
weathered the blast has sweet
dreams of the time when he shall
own a bttl9 home in sight apd
hearing of the surf that beats up
on tne shore, The soldier thinks
of home as he goes into battle and
prays that he may be spared—to re
turn home.
All guideboards point home for
somebody. Every good effort in
the world is to win a home, or make
one better. Association does not
make a home. Let the unfortute
young man wander back to thejspot
w'here he was born—the place that
was once home, bis feeling is one
of sadness, not of joy. He cannot
bear to think of his habpy, thought
less childhood days, the father and
mother dead, and brothers and sis
ters scattered. Let him go to the
home of his more successfull broth
er—the brother’6 very happiness
is reproach to him. and impels him
onward —toward home Laughter
of childhood mocks him, The dis
play of wealth enrages or dis
courages him. Tossed here and
there, if success does not meet him
soon, he may come to think that
the whole world is against him, aud
become ail outlaw. As long as the
hope of home sustains him he will
remain upright —but the prop
removed, he cares for noth
ing.
There can be no good represen
tative government without homes
and families. Every fireside is a
beacon of liberty and freedom.
When the millennium dawns no
man, woman or child will
be wandering without a home.
The object of legislation should
be to enable all men to own homes.
Eyery outcast is either against
society,’ or indifferent to it*
Homes for the homeless is the
highest object of patriotism—Ex
change.
The Cow pea.
Correspondence of the Progressive
Farmer.
Eor many years the cow pea has
been used by our best farmers in
the South to renovate the soil, of
course the story to them is old.
but there are so many new farmers
coming on each year, and so many
who have to have “line upon line
and precept upon precept,” that it
seems necessary to tell often of the
benefits to be derived from the cow
pea.
Out Northern farmers are wak
ing up to the advantage to be gain
ed by planting this valuable crop
though the seed have to be import
ed from the South each year. The
pea crop is valuable to the farmers
in three ways.
1 It is one of the best of feeds
either cut as hay, or allowed to
mature and the seeds ns a d for feed.
It is very rich in nitrogen a>'d in
fact is rich in all the nutrients.
Cut just at the proper time and
nicely cured it makes almost a per
fect food.
1 have seen mules doing hard
plowing kept in splndid condition
fed on nothing but pea vine
hay,
The peas ground lip into meal
make a most excellent food for
milch cows when feed in connect
ion with other food not so concen
trated.
To be convinced that it is one
of cur best feeds, one needs but to
try it.
2 The mechanical effect of a
pea cr ip on the soil is very valuable.
No crop loosens up the soil and
makes it soporous and light as the
pea crop sowed broadcast. There
is a dense mat of roots that fill
the soil and wtie i they rot they
leave the soil a perfect network of
little channels or canals.
These allow water to soak in the
soil freely aud serve to dram the
soil by causing the water to sink
down and pass out through
the subsoil, which of course
is the ideal condition for many rea
sons.
It net only aids in drainage, but
in the working the soil the next
season. Every one knows who has
worked a crop after peas that the
soil is in the best possible condit
ion.
3 The chsmical effection the soil
for the succeeding crops is unsur
passed.
Whether to cut the crop, or turn
it under is a question that will
have to be decided by each indi
vidual farmer; and he will of course
be governed by the richness of the
soil, what crop he wishes to follew
the peas, and by the value of hay in
his section, and amount of stock on
hand.
To illustrate: If the farmer has
110 stock and could get but little
for the hay if cut aud sold, then
it would pay to turn the crop un
der, but if ne has stock thst could
furnish a home market for his hay,
then it would pay and pay will to
cut and feed them. If the land is
very thin and quite a distance
from the barn, it might pay then
to leave the peas on the land.
My advic®, however, is to cut
and feed if possible, as we then get
a double benefit.
If sowed for hay, they should be
put in broadcast, if for seed then
the best results are obtained from
sowing thick in drills about three
feet apart and cultivating. Sow
two bushels per acre in broadcast
and one peck if in drills. As to
the value of the pea crop from a
chemical standpoint, or as food for
the succeeding crop, it cannot be
sur passed. That it is one of the
best nitrogen gatherers can be
proven by looking on the roots of
a good healthy viue. Hundreds
of tubercles will be seen and upon
examination by a microscope these
will be found to be the habitation
of myriads of colonies of bacteria
that possess the peculiar faculty fo
taking up free nitrogen aud storing
111 up as plant food. This of
course is readily available for the
next crop, matters not what that
next crop may be.
The rest of the plant is very rich
in the three elements usually con
tained in a fertilizer—nitrogen,
phosphorus, and potash.
It is so rich in nitrogen that no
good loamy soil, that element is
usually left out of the fertilizer
that is applied to that soil next
year, especially as it costs more per
pound than the other two com
bined.
So where a pea crop has been
turned under, or even where a good
pea stubble has been turned under,
it will be economy to simply use a
phosphorus and potash fertilizer.
This formula I would suggest
about two parts of phosphorus to
two parts of potash: Say 400
pounds of acid phosphate and 200
pounds kainit per acre.
Th ; s mixture used on our ordi
nary crops after a good pea crop
will be found very beneficial. Put
in plenty of phosphorous aud pot
ash and the previous pea crop will
do the rest.
My favorite varieties are the
Black or Stock pea, Unknown, Clay,
Speckle or Whippoorwill.
Try a crop one time and you will
continue to grow the best of food
and finest of land renovators,
B, Irby.
Money.
Money moves the world, and
pays for a lot of bad whisky, It
can pervert the truth and knock
reason off the perch in the fourth
round. ‘‘Money makes the mare
go,” and she is going so dadgastod
cheap now that canned horse meat
is a close second to “embalmed
beef,” and will likely out ail bo
logna sausage iu which you can
hear the dog b rk, or that comes
from Chicago. For money man
will work, worry, sweat, bleed and
lie. It is the loadstone of activity,
the north star of energy, the acme
of man’s highest ambition. Most
people want a part of it and a few
want it all. Money getting is a
virtue and a crime. With it is
blended prayers, prevarications
and pledges; tears, tyranny and
tribulation ; lies, lamentations aud
loathing; poverty, peevishness and
parasites, misers, misery and
meanness; blood, bliss and blud
geons ; hell, heaven and happiness;
sedition, salvation aud suicide,
brain, brawn and boodle; death,
debt and despair. Money is some
people’s Gud which they worship
with a devotion and sacrifice that
puts the fanaticism of the Hindoo
iu the shade. Yet, when we are
called upon to shuffle off this
mortal coil it is but dross and
rises up like Bauquo’s ghost to
accuse us of lost opportunities—
opportunities wherein we might
have added to the world’s store of
usefulness and happiness.—W. S.
Morgan.—Buzz Saw,
NO. 16.