Newspaper Page Text
I V D. C.
.AC
movements of the president
Uis AD VISERS.
potstmeM'S, decisions, and other matters
i?K ' from the national capital.
or in tebest
Th<> state department has been informed
vellow fever has made its appear
U ante It Colon, Aspinwall.
Tt is reported that ex Representative
Wcho ls, of North Carolina, will be ap
nted chief of the mail division of the
1 department vice Major Kretze,
reigned. treasury
Sir Julian Pauncefote, British minin
ister to the United States, visited the
- Thursday,
state department and bade
adieu to the officials for a season. He
sails from New Aork for England, and
-will return to Washington in October.
Xu his annual report to the chief of en
„; nee rs upon river and barbor improve
ments at and near Norfolk, Va., Lieuten
ant Febiger asks for the following appro
priations for continuing the> works next
year • Norfolk harbor, $100,000 (ap
;proaches to the harbor and United
States navy yard are recommended for
re-survev before the work is begun);
Nanseinond River, Va., 120,000; A})
pommattox River, Va., $30,080; Curr ”,
tuck sound, Coanjok Bay and Nori r?
River bar, N. C., $20,COO.
Colonel John M. Wilson, commis
eioner of public buildings and grounds,
dn^ers^recommends^tha^an^office^uild- erected for the of the president,
in" be use
just west of the white house and where
the green-house and conservatory now
stand. The latter, he says, might he
built on the ground just east of the white
house and between it and the treasury
building. It is believed that the time
has come when the chief magistrate of
the country should no longer be obliged
to have his private residence and his of*
fice under the same roof.
BOUGHT BY CHINESE.
VALUABLE PROPERTY IN CALIFORNIA GOB
BLED BY A SYNDICATE.
Advices from Lower California state
that a Chinese syndicate have bought
a half interest iu the Masac concession,
and miners will soon be put to work
there, receiving wages from $2 to $3 per
day. The Chinamen are already talking
of importing Chinese laborers direct from
China to Ensenada, by the projected
oceanic line to be put on by the Claus
Spreckles sugar refinery. The syndicate
have also bargained used for extensive tracts
of land to be for market gardens
and for valuable fishing privileges along
the coast of the peninsula. All this will
necessitate an investment of no less than
$1,000,000 of Chinese capital. This will
include the amount paid for the real Del
Castillo mining property, garden lands
near Ensenada, the colony property, sale
and sheil fisheries, and more valuable
pearl fisheries at the southern end of the
peninsula.
SUFFOCATED BY GAS.
FttR MEN KILLED IN ATTEMPTING T O EE
COYER A WATCH.
culiar their'lives circumstances. i!7 Lffic^NebY under p£
A watch was
dropped in a cess pool and the men were
endeavoring hole to recover it. They dug 11
at the side of the pool. This hole
was filled with water by raiu. One man
stood on a ladder above the water and
niade an opening into the cesspool; foul
air and gas rushed out and overcame
him and he fell into the water. A friend
Went to ££iv6 {j](| –nd whs likewise over -
come. Others came to help, and one by
oue seven men fell into the water, which,
by this time, was full of muck and slime
h'oui the vault. Three were rescued,
some by men who afterwards perished in
attempting to save others. The dead
are : James Crawford, Albert Kunklcr,
J; mn_C'loa rv and Frank Maloney.
flood in china.
more than six thousand lives lost
AND Many houses swept AAVAY.
Die steamer City of New York arrived
at San Francisco, Tuesday evening from
Bong Kong and Yokohoma. The Japan
Gazette of the 29th ult. contains the fol
lowing; Hong Intelligence has been received
at Kong from Kiaying Chan, per
ectuie in the northeast of Kwangtang,
ffia. early on the morning of the 2 d of
June, Chan Ping and Ping Yuen districts
*ere flooded by the bursting of a water
pout °r tornado, described by the Chi
Slx feet of water. Many houses were
wholly swept away, while others were
lost * 1,1 * Upwards of 6,000 lives were
A Wall -Equipped -n Copperhead Snake.
^who make n study of venomous
s aft)’!'they their fangs
renew soon
» “great «»>; length fLuTto th7m fol
of time after dentistry has
Performed. "
d< rl ''° <>om l de t® sets of fangs, the un
v
^ a, ted the ones “en°ex‘
h‘ t0 'ineffective reptile would have still been
lv showed .i sufficient work, and it certain
.’’Stytob , disposition to be
bor. '-[Pittsburgh'Disiiatch. ° Uc, b l1 '
SCHLEY C0OTT7 ffETTS.
CONSCIENCE MONEY *
How People Make Amends for
Cheating Uncle Sam.
Sums from Four Thousand Dol
lars to Ten Cents Returned.
Not long ago a remittance of $20 was
received at the Treasury from Cleveland
a» a contribution to the “conscience
fund.” The other day, says a Washing
ton correspondent of the Cleveland
Leader, I had a talk with the chief
clerk of the division of public moneys
in the Treasury Department about it.
The money so received is not kept in
separate fund, but is turned into the
Treasury the same as money that comes
m from other sources of revenue. The
amount received each year appears in
the annual rcports 1 . It varies a good
: Ueal - 0ne y ear ll m; W he $500 and the
next $5000. It is usually made up of
small sums, though not infrequently
! ' single remittances into the hun
run up
| , dreds and now aud then into the thou-
1 sands.
It will be understood that these
amounts will be sent by persons who
W ’ P ur P osely or otherwise, defrauded
the Government, and are induced by the
smitings of conscience to rcstitu
tion . Ia 49 case3 Qut of
is sent in such a way as not to afford
the slightest possible clue to the iden
tity of the sender, The fact that Uncle
Sam has the money seems to be a suf
hcient sedative to the perturbed con
science, without that “open confession”
which is said to be “good for the soul.”
Sometimes brief explanatory notes ere
sent, stating for what the money is due
the Government, but a signature of any
kind is extremely rare. Some merely
say, “This money belongs to the United
states, „ or words , of similar . purport,
In many cases there is not a scratch of
pen 0 r pencil, the money being simply
enclosed , . envelope, , perhaps , folded . ,, ,
an
a sheet of blank jiaper. All such are
presumed to be cases of “conscience,”
an( j are so treated. It is, of course,
impossible . to give receipts for the
any
money. Now and then one will write,
“Piease acknowledge receipt in the
news P a P ers ,, This is the reason why
-
care « usually taken to have the receipt
of “conscience money” mentioned in
the Associated Press despatches. The
6enders ar ® hh el y to be watching for
such items, and when they see that the
money is in the Treasury they no
doubt feel that they are in better
shape for the final reckoning in the here
after.
“The only cases,” said the clerk,
“ whicb have aDybody ’ 3 name c0Mected
with them are those similar to one we
had a year or two ago. A Catholic priest
in Boston wrote that one of his immh
ioners, on his deathbed, confessed to
him that he had wronged the Govern
ment out of $50. He could not die in
peace without making restitution, but
tlmt liis . be wrtliliGld. . Tlie
priest endorsed the amount, with inter
es t f or n j ne y J ears a t 8 per cent., ’ $S6 in
,
a *
The priest, of course, signed his own
name, and we acknowledged by letter
the receipt of the money. We have had
a number of instances of that kind, in
which conscience seemed to ho quick
ened by serious illness or the confes
sionul.
“The most common reasons given for
remitting, when the senders make any
explanation at all, are that the money
is due for internal revenue taxes or cus
toms duties evaded, , or for petty frauds , ,
to avoid the payment of postage. I
remember one case of a wealthy lady
who . ’ aftcr s P endlD ,. S some tmic .. abroad , , ’
returned to this country, bringing with
her a valuable article of wearing ap
I «** * for her personal
use and not strictly dutiable, but her
conscience troubled her about it. She
-went back to England, and while there
told one of our consuls, requesting him
to ascertain what would be the amount
of duty> Hodidso.anisheprompt
ly remitted it to us. She scut with it a
n i c0 little note explaining the matter.
R *» '«n of contrition, and expressed
the hope that Uncle Sam would forgive
bcr But she hadn’t tho courage to
8is “ hK name 10 “•
“A single enclosure of $4,000 is the
W * e,t aI " 0Unt 1 rCmCmto bC “”
received from one person. It was e.
little singular that for this largo sum
lhere was absolutely, nothing to show
whence it came except the postmark on
the envelope. Even that may have
been mis,eadin s » –a ** ** p°«hm*
that the repentant sinner sent it away
from home to be mailed. He was evi
dent, y very careful to conceal his iden
tity, as the money was in four $1, COO
bills. Upon the paper wrapped around
the money was written: ‘Please place
»his to the credit of Conscience,’ and
that was all. A draft, you know, would
have furnished a clue that might easily
have been followed up, if we had chosen
to pursue the matter. I do not remem
ber ever receiving ‘ conscience money ’
in any other form than currency. They
are all too smart to send drafts or money
orders.
“I remember one remittance as small
as ten cents, and that was a funny case,
too. The money was enclosed in quite
along letter, unsigned, in which the
writer said that when a boy he received
a letter from a friend, the threc-cent
postage stamp on which had escaped
cancellation. More in a spirit of mis
chief than anything else, he detached
the stamp and used it on his answer to
the letter, thus making it do doublo
duty, and cheating the Government out
of three cents. He wrote that although
it seemed like a trifling matter it had
always troubled him—on the principle,
I suppose, that ‘it is a sin to steal a pin,
even though it may be greater to steal s
’tater.’ It had been nearly twenty y ears
since the offence was committed, and
the writer said he presumed the interest
would increase the debt to seven or
eight cents. He enclosed ten so as t0
be sure there would be enough.”
Gold Extraction Today.
Gold mining is in many minds still
associated with a flannel-shirted, long
booted, gambling class of doubtful
manners, who, with pick, shovel and
pan, found fortune in the hill streams of
the far west or of the land of the kin
garoo. But this race of miners is rap
idly becoming as extinct as the redskin
of California or the black boy of Aus
tralia. As the superficial deposits
which attracted the pioneers were ex
hausted, the aid of machinery and sci
ence became essential, and a new order
of things began introducing the capital
ist, the chemist and the engineer.
Moreover, in their haste to get rich,
and, with their rough-and-ready appli
ances, the early diggers only worked
the richest ground and passed over tons
—acres—of stuff that, with modern
methods, would pay handsomely. To
convey an idea of the perfection which
has been attained in some of the pro
cesses of today one illustration will suf
fice. During a quarter’s (three months)
working last year of the alluvial depos
its of Daylesford, Victoria, some 33,560
tons of gravel were treated aud gave an
average yield of 18^ grains troy of gold
from each ton of gravel. That is to
say, of all this enormous mass of mate
rial dug up, passed through the appar
atus and redeposited, only one eigh
teenth hundred and fourteenth jiart was
of value, the other 1813 x>arts being use
less. In other words, suppose an acre
of land 15 feet deep to be turned over,
broken up to the most minute propor
tions and bodily removed, in order that
it might be made to yield up a hidden
treasure in the form of fine dust, the
whole of which could be easily held in
a small coal scuttle. An 1 this was ac
complished presumably at a cost which
left a reasonable margin of profit.
These results are altogether unparal
lelled in any other kind of metal min
i ing. As a rule, the metat or its ore
forms tho bulk of the mass treated.
Thus, iron often constitutes 75 per
cent, of the mineral, lead 85 to 87 per
cent., copper 78 to 98 x>er cent., and
silver 85 to 99 per cent., while the gold
in the case quoted only amounted to
.000118, or a little over one-ten thou
sandth part of 1 per cent. — The Gentle
man's Magazine.
An Exhibition Marvel.
A friend of mine, who has already
done Paris, and the exhibition, has
come back from the French capital in a
most excited state, not about the Eiffel
tower, nor the gallery of machinery in
motion, nor the illuminations, but with
reference to a marvellous horticultural
rarity in the shape of a gigantic plant
from Brazil known to botanists as the
Billbergia maxima, which is just now
flowering in Europe for the first time in
its history. There arc three blooms on
it, aud the length of the longest (for
the flowers hang suspended, as it were,
from their stalkV) is very nearly two
feet. In each flower the colois red,
white and blue arc mingled in a way
which suggests the Fiench tri-color and
in the most effective manner, too.
SEA CAPTAINS.
The Men Who Control the
Large Ocean Steamers.
The Hard Work and Require
ments of Their Office.
The commander of one the big vessels
can 7 in g hundreds and hundreds of
lives and big fortunes in merchandise
and incalculable values represented in
the bags of mail, is a great man. 7 He
is absolute ruler of a small town for
from six da y s to two wcek9 » according
to the len S th of the v °y a g e - Tli e pres
ovation of the ship, which may be worth
S 1 ’ 000 ’ 000 or more > the safety of the
P asscn 8 ers aud of the freight and mail,
depend solely upon him. He must gov
ern the crew more wisely, shrewdly and
sternly than a General must control his
aruiy; he must be prepared to withstand
the attacks of the force3 of air and
ocean with a3 much skill aud alertness
as tke feader of an army must show
against a surrounding enemy, His re
sponsibility never ends, not even when
he * s as I ee P* Sometimes the dangers
which beset him forbid any attempt at
sleep, and hour after hour the Captain must
stand ux>on his high bridge, exposed to
all manner of storms. Olten has a corn
bander come into port from a perilous
journey, during which for two days and
rights he has not left his bridge, except
four or five times, aud then only for five
minutes at a time. Yet for all this re
sponsibility the Captain doesn’t get large
pay. What salaiies the different lines
give these men, to whom they intrust
so much that is precious—human life,
valuable cargoes and costly vessels—are
almost insignificant. Seldom may you
find a commander who receives more
than $5,000; often it is less than that, and
frequently it is as low as $2,000 a year,
A certain captain, talking ihe other day
about what he earned, related that he
made two trips which netted him at the
rate of $10,000 a year. He said it
proudly as if it were a great thing, but
Re added a moment later: “But that
was only for two trips, and on each trip
1 had surrendered my stateroom at large
rates.” This captain, after all, did not
put so high a value on the money given
him as be did on the honor he had in
being commander of a great steamer,
That position is the highest place in the
calling to which a seafaring man can
get. And it takes industry, study, and
years of successful service to become a
captain.
Despile their relatively small salaries
thcre is probably not a commander of
an ocean liner who has not been around
the world as a common sai.or, a mate,
ar, d finally a master of a ship). In fact,
it would be difficult to get the command
of a transatlantic ship without having
been previously the Captain of some
sort of a large sailing vessel, some of
the companies have a rule requiring that
a candidate for a captaincy shall have
served as a Captain somewhere, and it
is only a little while ago that a sailor on
one of the biggest boats between here
and Liverpool, who had climbed up
^ rom the bottom to the high rank of
first officer—the second in authority—
left the company with which he had
made his- progress solely that he might
take a place as Captain on a smaller and
less important vessel, He did this he
cause he wants some day to be a Cap
tain with tho first company. If he suc
ceeds in his new berth—and his old
employers will watch his course and he
will see that they learn of all his success
—it is likely that iu a few years he will
be called back and have a command
given him. It is very little a matter of
personal pull, this appointment of Cap
tains. The man who knows his busi
ness gets there, No matter how
gruff or unpopular, no matter what
are any of his personal xieculiari
ties, if he understands his busi
ness and gets smoothly over the sea he
is pretty sure of promotion. Of course,
as between two men equally capable iu
seamanship, the one who has friends
and friend-winning qualities is pre
ferred. The company has a large eye
to business in this matter, and it knows
that a rich passenger often learns to like
a captain and will sail on whatever ship
he rules.
Catherine Lorillard Wolfe, for exam
ple, who used to travel a great deal,
always took a certain ship because it
was commanded by a cajitain she had
learned to like and in whom she had
confidence. So it is with many other
rich people who cross frequently.
A captain does not get all the cduca-
tioa which makes him capable of assum
ing command of an Umbria, a City of
Paris, a La Champagne, merely from
the rough outdoor experience of the
deck. There must be much study of
books. He must know something of the
art of shipbuilding, of engineering; he
must know a good deal of the science of
meteorology; he must be a master of the
moods of old ocean, the currents and
lanes as discovery has set them forth; he
must have the mathematics of naviga
tion completely under control, and he
must have a general knowledge of the
politics and laws of the high seas. In
line, the sea Captain has got to be an
educated man as well as a brave sailor.
The examination which i3 given by the
English Government under the auspices
of their Boards of Trade is rigid, and it
is not every applicant who can pass it
and get the certificate showing that he
is worthy of being made a Captain.
Cassowary Fishing.
The habits of the cormorant and of
our native fish hawk are generally
known. Their methods of taking fish
are very much like those of birds of
prey. But the cassowary fishes accord
ing to a method of its own. Mr. Pow
ell witnessed its operations on a river in
the island of New Britain. He says:
I saw a cassowary come down to the
water's edge and stand for some min
utes apparently watching the water
careful.y. It then stepped into the river
where it was about three feet deep, and,
partially squatting down, spread its
wings out, submerging them, the feath
ers being spread and ruffled.
The bird remained perfectly motion
less and kept its eyes closed as if in
sleep. It remained in this position for
fully a quarter of an hour, when, sud
denly closing its wings and straighten
ing its feathers, it stepped out on the
bank. Here it shook itself several
times, whereupon a quantity of small
fishes fell out of its wings, and from
amidst its feather, which the bird im
mediately picked uji and swallowed.
The fishes had evidently mistaken the
feathers for a kind of weed that grows
in the water along the banks of the riv
ers in this island, and which very much
resembles the feathers of the cassowary.
The smaller fishes hide in these weeds
to avoid the larger one that prey on
them.
Fate of the Fur Trade.
The statistics of tho fur trade prove
the rapid exhaustion of the North Amer
ican and North European hunting
grounds. Siberia, too, has ceased to
furnish bonanzas of peltry, and tho
time is near when the price of many
now fashionable furs will rise to extrav
agant figures, though the same expedi
ent which substituted silk hats for
beaver hats may, before long, find an.
available substitute for sealskin and er
mine. Iu the meanwhile, though, tho
advance of prices may suggest the plan
of domesticating certain varieties of
Northern fur animals, Success would
mean wealth in that sort of zoological
enterprise. The skins of the “fisher”
or mountain brook mink are worth from
$10 to $15 apiece; those of the Oregon
sea-otter from $25 to $40, and a genu
ine black fox skin in fair condition
would be cheap at $80, the value of tho
best specimens being considerably more
than $100. In the bazars of the East
Siberian frontier towns tho average
price of a sable-skin is 30 rubles (about
$22), but in St. Petersburg “boas” of
black sable have been sold for as much
as 1000 rubles. — Cincinnati Enquirer.
Rejuvenating Discarded Hats.
There is an enormous profit in the re
tail hat business, and the dealers look
with much disfavor upon the thrifty
hat-makers who set up in the remodel
ing and cleaning business. A bat with
a good fur body costs $4 in the store.
If it is of fine make it is almost inde
structible, but after a season’s wear it is
thrown aside ani hats accumulate about
a household like empty bottles, Some
day the old hat man comes along and
gives 50 cents for a dozen out of stylo
cadys. They can be cleaned, modeled
into the latest shape, and sold for new
hats of a second grade at a cost of
about 25 cents each. Business meu are
beginning to find out that the hat clean
er can make old hats new again, and the
result is a saving on his part, and a glut
of business upon the part of a few men
in the city who have gone into the re
novating and remodelling business.— St.
Louis Star.
Look out for the lightning-red man.
If he strikes you he may d; mage you
more than a stroke of lightning.