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ly help the cane in the dry spots. The
cane crop in general continues to hold
out most encouraging prospects, and
the rapid approach of the grinding
season finds our planters generally op
timistic.-’—New Orleans Picayune.
SHALL EX PARTE EVIDENCE
NULLIFY STATE LAWS?
The conflict of authority between
the State and federal courts in three
Southern States, and particularly in
Alabama, has directed public atten
tion to the grave questions involved
with a deeper interest than they per
haps have ever possessed before.
It is not necessary to go into the
merits of the issue which has been
raised in order to make the point,
which is most striking and most
worthy of attention. The railroad
commissions of the several states are
invested with at least quasi-judicial
powers. Before handing down a de
cision they make a thorough and
painstaking investigation. They hear
evidence from the railroads and the
people, and make their utmost en
deavor to arrive at the truth. Their
final rulings are in the nature of a
judicial interpretation.
As such they are entitled to the
obedience of the railroads and the re
spect of the federal cours. It is
manifestly unfair, it is obviously un
just according to every principle of
reason and equity for a federal court
to obstruct -these orderly processes
of the commissions—these decisions
which are at least quasi-judicial—
simply on the ex parte evidence of
a corporation lawyer.
It needs no technical knowledge of
the law to see that this is true; we
need not enter ints the merits of any
individual case to <each this conclu
sion. It carries corfhction on its very
face. A sovereign state, empowered
to regulate its own affairs, adopts a
law under which the railroad commis
sion, exercising judicial functions, af
ter evidence duly heard and consid
ered from both sides, hands down a
decision in the form of an order. It
is a result arrived al after conscien
tious deliberation, in which al the
evidence is threshed out. Aside from
all mystifying technicalities, as a
plain matter of common sense, such
a decision on the part of a railroad
commission is entitled to the highest
refcpect and consideration. It has
the very ear-marks of fairness and
justice.
And what is the method of proced
ure adopted by the federal courts?
• Appealed to by the railroads on the
ground that their property is about
to be 11 confiscated’’ —an appeal so
hackneyed and unfounded that it has
become a standing joke—the federal
courts grant a hearing—to whom?
To the corporation lawyers, who
introduce their unsupported ex parte
evidence.
On this partisan bearing the famil
iar injunction is issued which para
lyzes the functions of the state gov
ernment. The rulings of its railroad
commission, sitting in a judicial ca
pacity, are ruthlessly set aside and
the laws of the state are made a very
mockery.
The routine has become so habitual
and inevitable —the order of the com
mission, the plea of confiscation and
then the injunction-—that we need
not wonder if the people occasionally
become exasperated. No wonder that
there is a growing disposition to re
gard the machinery of the federal
courts as the enemy of the people
and the stanch supporter of corpo
rate oppression.
Again stripped of its technicalities,
the situation resolves itself into this:
that the federal courts are aiding
and abetting the railroads in suits
against the state, in violation of the
federal constitution and the organic
law of every other civilized govern
ment.
These are facts, set forth, not in
passionate remonstrance, not in
grounded hostility to the judicial
branch of the federal government, but
in conformity with the teachings of
reason, equity and common sense.
'Phus presented, they are entitled to
consideration, and the people of
Georgia, in common with the people
of Alabama and North Carolina and
Virginia, feel that the facts should
receive such consideration. The ju
dicial decisions of a state, rendered
after a full hearing, should not be
nullified on the ex parte evidence of
corporation lawyers, appealing to the
federal courts on the trite subterfuge
of “confiscation,” and the settle
ment of the questions involved should
be on this basis of justice and fair
ness.
The people of Georgia have a spe
cial interest in the matter, and are
watching the outcome with keen anx
ietv. —Atlanta Journal.
PARCELS POST PLANS AGAIN.
John Wanamaker, as postmaster
general, tried to arrange for the par
cels post in America. Mr. Cortelyou,
in the same office, moved indirectly
to the same end, proposing to consoli
date the third and fourth classes of
mail matter and provide for a grad
ual increase of the weight limit with
reduction of the rates of postage.
The public desires a parcels post
system of course. The express com
panies do not desire such a system,
and up to the moment they have been
too strong for both the people and
the administrations. Postmaster-Gen
eral Meyer’s announcement of his
plans for an early extension of the
parcels mail service is to be regarded
with interest and hope.
Four pounds is the present mail
limit of weight in the United States.
Mr. Meyer suggests an increase to
eight or ten pounds. This is progress
in moderation. The limit in Great
Britain is eleven pounds, being held
down by raliway influence in Parlia
ment. France carries parcels up to
twenty-two pounds and Germany
stops at 110 pounds, packages to that
weight being transportable between
the home country, Austria and Switz
erland.
When it comes to the question of
rates liberality also balances for the
Old World. To carry a four-pound
package anywhere within its limits
the United States charges 64 cents.
Great Britain will carry a parcel to
Shanghai byway of Egypt, the Suez
Canal, India and Hongkong for 12
cents a pound. And anywhere in th?
United Kingdom parcels travel at
rates from 1 1-2 cents for I pound
to 25 cents for 11 pounds.
#ln Germany. Switzerland, France,
England, all about Europe, the tourist
may send and receive promptly by
post his laundry and small luggage;
the people may effect their minor
transfers of commodities safely and
quickly and cheaply by mail. In a
long list of world-powers the United
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
States alone, greatest and richest of
all, suffers its public to pay in an
noyances of uncertain service and ex
cessive rates for the maintenance of
private monopolies in the parcels traf-
Pages From Fly Scrap "Book,
MOHAMMED’S PORTRAIT.
Mohammed was of middle height,
rather thin, but broad of shoulders,
wide of chest, strong of bone and
muscle. His head was massive,
strongly developed. Dark hair —
slightly curled —flowed in a dense
mass down almost to his shoulders.
Even in advance age, it was sprink
led by only about tweniy gray hairs—
produced by the agonies of his “Rev
elations.” His face was oval-shaped,
slightly tawny of color. Fine, long,
arched eyebrows were divided by a
vein which throbbed visibly in mo
ments of passion. Great, black, rest
less eyes shone out from under long
heavy eyelashes. His nose was large,
slightly aquiline. His teeth, upon
which he bestowed great care, were
well set, dazling white. A full beard
framed his manly face His skin was
clear and soft, his complexion “red
and white,’’ his hands were as “silk
and satin” —even as those of a wo
man. His step was quick and. elas
tic, yet firm, and as that of one “who
steps from a high to a low place.’*
In turning his face he would also
turn his full body. His whole gait
and presence were dignified and im
posing. His countenance was mild
and pensive. His laugh was rarely
more than a smile “Oh. my little
son!” reads one tradition, “hadst
thou seen him thou wouldst have said
thou hadst seen a sun rising.” “I,”
says another witness, “saw him in a
moonlight night, and sometimes I
looked at his beauty and sometimes
looked at the moon, and his dress was
striped with red, and he was brighter
and more beautiful to me than the
moon.”
In his habits he was extremely
simple, though he bestowed great care
on his person. His eating and drink
ing away all “superfluities.” The
tained, even when he had reached the
fullness of power, their almost primi
tive nature. He made a point of giv
ing away all “superfluities.” The
• only luxuries he indulged in were, be
sides arms, which he highly prized,
certain yellow boots, a present from
the Negus of Asbyssinia.
His constitution was extremely deli
cate. He was nervously afraid of
bodily pain, and would sob and roar
• under it. Eminently impractical in
all common things of life, he was
gifted with mighty powers of imagi
nation, elevation of mind, delicacy
and refinement of feeling. “He is
more modest than a virgin behind
her curtain,” it was said of him.
He was most indulgent to his infe
riors, and would never allow his
awkward little page to he scolded,
whatever he did. “Ten years,” said
Anas, his servant, “was I about the
prophet, and he never said as much
as ‘Uff’ to me.” He was very af
fectionate toward his family. One of
his boys died on his breast in the
smokv house of the nurse, a black
smith’s wife. He was very fond of*
children. He would stop them in the
streets, and pat their little cheeks.
He never struck any one in his life.
The worst expression he ever piade
use of in conversation was, “What
fie.
Success—and greater breadth—to
the fresh reformatory ideas of Post
master-General Meyer. Editorial
from New York World.
has come to him? May his forehead
be darkened with mud!” When asked
to curse some one he replied, * l l have
not been sent to curse, but to be a
mercy to mankind.” “He visited
the sick, followed any bier he met, ac
cepted the invitation of a slave to
dinner, mended his own clothes,
milked his goats, and waited upon
himself,” relates summarily another
tradition. He never first withdrew
his hand out of another man’s palm,
and turned not before the other had
turned. His hand, we read elsewhere
—and traditions like these give a
good index of what the Arabs ex
pected their prophet to be —was the
most generous, his breast the most
courageous, his tongue the most truth
ful; he was the most faithful protec
tor of those he protected, the sweet
est and most agreeable ir. conversa
tion; those who saw him were sud
denly filled with reverence, those who
came n'ear him loved him, they who
described him would say, “I have
never seen his like either before or
after.” He was of great taciturnity,
and when he spoke he spoke with
emphasis and deliberation, and no
one could ever forget what lie said.
He was, however, very nervous and
restless withal, often low-spirited,
downcast as to heart and eyes. Yet
he would at times suddenly break
through those broodings, become gay,
talkative, jocular, chiefly among his
own. He would then delight in telling
amusing little stories, fairy tales, and
the like. He would romp with the
children and play with their toys—
as, after his first wife’s death, he
was wont to play with the dolls his
new baby-wife had brought into his
house.
TIME.
“Time is the most indefinable yet
paradoxical of things; the past is
gone, the future is not come, and the
present becomes the past, even while
we attempt to define it, and like the
flash of lightning, at once exists and
expires.
Time is the measurer of all things,
but it itself immeasurable and the
grand discloser of all things, but is
itself undisclosed. Like space, it is
incomprehensible, because it has no
limits, and it would be still more so
if it had.
It is more obscure in its source
than the Nile, and in its termination
than the Niger, and advances like the
slowest tide, but retreats like the
swiftest torrent.
It gives wings of lightning to
pleasure, but feet of lead to pain, and
lends expectation a curb, but enjoy
ment a spur. It robs beauty of her
charms, to bestow them on her pic
ture, and builds a monument to merit,
but denies it a house; it is the tran
sient and deceitful flatterer of false
hood, but the tried and final friend
of truth. Wisdom walks before it,
opportunity with it, and repentance
behind it. He that has made it his
friend, will have little to tear from
his enemies, but he that has made it
his enemy, will have little to hope
from his friends.” •
PAGE SEVEN