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to have regular meetings this winter to consider different farming methods and carry on research work?—Des- Lacs Observer. BACK TO THE FARM. Governor Hughes of New York, thinks young men ought to give more consideration to farming as a voca tion. He says one “has a pretty good chance on the farm, and a great er degree of independence than ho may reasonably hope to have in a eity.” Unleks much of the late tes timony on the subject is false, more consideration to farming as a voca tion is being given, for it has become a common observation that the num ber of those who are drawn from the farms by the allurements of the city is diminishing steadily. But whether that is now the fact or not, it is like ly to be so before long. The causes of it are rapidly being evolved. For one thing, the testimony of disap pointed thousands serves to dispel the illusion which a few years ago threat ened almost to depopulate the farms. The country boy is coming to see that the opportunities which the city of fers are not so easily won as he had imagined, and that the chance fa vors failure rather than success. The magnetic power of the city has be come somewhat weakened. Condi tions in the country, on the other hand, have changed in away to make them less repellent. .As the country is settled there is less of that isola tion which has driven many to the cities. The telephone, the trolley line, the rural mail delivery and the thick er planting of schools have improved social conditions. But 'perhaps a greater cause than all of these for checking the hegira to the city is that science has taught ways of making farming both more profitable and more interesting. Farming is no longer merely an occupation. It is a busi ness, and promises also to become somewhat a profession. Farming need not be merely a hard round of man ual labor; it offers wide room for the exercise of intellect. It has been ex alted by science, made more profit able, more interesting and more dig nifying. The city offers the country boy less than it used to, and the farm offers him more.—Dallas News. AH of which is true, but not ex actly the whole truth. It is a fact that farming is getting to be a pro fession, and something of a science. Conditions are betting better and ,will continue to get better, because the farmer is learning not only to make two blades of grass grow where only one formerly grew, scientific agri culture, if your please, but he is also learning that he is the man who should price his products. He is learn ing that if he is to be a professional business man he must do as all other professional men do, set a price and stand by it. It is true that a few’ years ago, under the reign of low prices, the farms began to be depop ulated, and there was a mad rush to the city, which in most cases meant degradation and poverty. Now, un der a reign of rising prices, the farms are again becoming homes in deed and in truth, and our young men are now thinking of remaining on the farm and making farming a profes sion. What a mighty change! And all this has come about during the last few’ years. Tne Farmers’ Union has d tv, more toward making this happy condition than any other agency. It has shown to the v’orld the correct system of marketing. The farmers now refuse, absolutely refuse, to sell their products at the old ruinous prices of a few years ago. All the gambling hells on earth could not induce them to do so. They have learned not to dump their product on the market when the market is not ready to re ceive it. They have learned that we must make the supply equal to the demand at all times, and no more. Formerly (he law of supply and de mand did not obtain, because Hie sup ply was dumped on the mark at and, of course, greatly exceeded the de mand. Witness the fight we are now engaged in for 15-cent cotton. The cotton is not being sold; it is being put into the Farmers’ Union ware houses and held for 15 cents, lhe fact is the price of the cotton of the Farmers’ Union is 15 cents a pound. We are paying no attention to the price of the other fellow. We are going to go straight ahead on this road, and we are going to make farming profitable, and make it • really a profession by making just and equitable prices on all farm prod ucts We are building a new system of marketing to take the place of the old, which has lost to the farmers of this nation untold millions of dollars and made a few million drones rich at our expense.—Co-operator. THE POOR ARE GF WING RICHER. The railroads of the United States are owned by about 450,000 share holders. The last accurate count was made three years ago by the In terstate Commerce Commission, when the number was 327,000. Since that time the growth in capital stock has been very heavy, so that a correspond ingly large increase in the number of shareholders has likely occurred. The Pennsylvania has many more than double as many owners as any other railroad in America, having fully one-tenth of the total number. Its last dividend cheeks in May went to 45,500 different persons or institu tions. Ten years ago there were 22,- 000 Pennsylvania shareholders, but in this decade the volume of outstanding capital stock has also a little more than doubled, the amount being $314,- 000,000, against $151,000,000. Thus 23,000 persons have come into pos session of (his one company’s recently issued at $163,000,000 of new stock. If the number of share owners in other railroads of the country has risen in the same ratio, which is prob able, one conclusion is inevitable, and it is this: The wealth of the nation is not going into fewer hands, but is being thoroughly well distributed. Not only are the rich growing richer, but the poor are also getting richer. Security owners are growing in num ber more rapidly than the population * of the American republic, which is a most wholesome sign of the times.— Philadelphia Press. Rockefeller must have come to the conclusion (hat the fine of $29,240,- 000 will have to be paid, for he has raised the price of refined oil 30 cents a barrel. There will follow, of course, a corresponding rise of the retail pnce. It will rot take Rocke feller long to make the people pay that fine.—The Investigator. WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. HOKE AND TOM. Tom Watson is complaining be cause the governor refuses to call the legislature together in extra session for the purpose of having the various “demands” of the Macon platform enacted into law, just as if he did not know that platforms are made “to get in on,” and not to stand on, after getting in. From the parental interest Tom is manifesting in this alleged democratic platform, he must bear the same re lation to it that he claims towards the rural mail system with the not able exception that he did not do his work at Macon simply byway of “amendment,” but put up the whole job himself, without aid, or suggestion from any source. Tom’s favorite method of working out results is by “amendment.” At the very beginning of Hoke’s candi dacy for the nomination for governor, he humored Tom by permttting him to “amend” his platform, by adding the disfranchisement scheme, despite the record he had previously made against it. After Hoke had forced his legisla ture to formulate this into a consti tutional “amendment,” he bad a right to presume that Tom would feel fully compensated for services rendered in that emergency, and that he would thereafter be allowed to run the machine according to his own fancy, free from further dictation. This hope would have been realized, but for Hoke’s fatal mistake in writ ing a leter to Tom in which he frank ly acknowledged that he owed his nomination to him. Now, Tom is a good collector, as well as a statesman, and wants all that is due him, and, with this writ ten admission of indebtedness in his hands, he feels that he is in a position to enforce payment. Under other conditions, he would, probably, have been content with the “slice” that had been fed to him, but now, glut ton like, he wants the whole hog, and is going to have it, or raise a mighty rumpus. FEROCIOUS ATTACK ON / BRITISH LORDS. (Continued From Page Two.) service in marrying Elizabeth Vil liers, the cast-off mistress of James I. “The first Marquis of Conyngham obtained bis promotion to a marquis ate in the Irish! peerage and to the peerage of the United Kingdom as the price of his wife’s dishonor as the mistress of George IV. ‘The King,’ says a writer in George IV.’s time, ‘is in our favor, and what is more to the purpose the Marchioness of Conyngham is so, too.’ “The elevation to the peerage of the eldest of William IV.’s illegiti mate sons by Mrs. Jordan as Earl of Munster was one of the first acts of’ that monarch on his accession to ths throne. The list, indeed, of such peerage creations could be largely ex tended. ’ ’ After citing these instances Mr. Labouchere says: “It would be in teresting to have an answer to the question, ‘What moral claim have the descendants of these men by reason of their birth to be “revisers” of the legislation of the people?’ ” Mr. Labouchere passes from the peerages created by the debauchery of kings to the class which derives its existence from the establishment of court favorites highly obnoxious to the people. In this class the Duke dom of Portland and the Earldom of Albemarle are cited. Both these ti tles were created by William 111., and they were to reward two Dutch compatriots, William Bentinck and Arnold Von Keppel, whom he lav ishly endowed with some of the fair est domains of the Crown lands. The Purchase of Peerages. Open corruption and purchase of peerages in the past are referred to by Mr. Labouchere in these terms: “At the present time, when the al legation is openly made without fear of contradiction that peerages are bought and sold, it may well be re membered that the founder of one of the dukedoms whose descendant sits by the merits of his ancestor in the House of Lords was the man who brought coarse metallic Parliamen tary corruption to a fine art. Os Sir Thomas Osborne, created successive ly Earl of Danby, Marquis of Car marthen and Duke of Leeds, Macaulay writes: ‘He was corrupt himself and a corrupter of others.’ Under the regime of this father of Parliamen tary corruption it at length became as notorious, to quote again Macau lay’s words, that there was a mar ket for votes at the Treasury as that there was a market for cattle at Smithfield. Dishonest Lawyers Honored. “Os not very different type are the peerages of that epoch conferred on lawyers, who generally inclined to the side which, after careful calcula tion, they thought would promote their own career, and were as a rule the venal upholders of arbitrary pow ers. The history of Thurlow and Wedderburn—the Moloch and Belial of their profession, as Mr. Leecky has called them—will immediately be re called in this connection. The found ers of such peerages have obtained an evil notoriety, not merely for po litical opportunism, but for personal dishonor. “The first Earl of Macclesfield, Lord Chancellor of England in the Cabinet of Walpole, was impeached for corruptly selling Masterships in Chancery, was found guilty, and sen tenced to pay a sum of 30,000 pounds. “The first Lord Melville, a Scotch lawyer named Dundas, Pitt’s bosom friend, was compelled to resign all his appointments, his name was struck off the list of Privy Councillors, and, after a defence at the Bar of the House of Commons, which Wilber force declared was an aggravation us his guilt, was impeached by order of the House of Commons for malversa tion and embezzlement of public funds. In neither case did such un toward incidents affect the right of the peer’s descendents to sit in the Leg islature by virtue of the merits of the founder of the family.” In summing up the whole peerage. ATr. Labouchere declares that outside of personal honor, “we owe the Eng lish peerage to three sources: The spoliation us the Church, the open and flagrant sale of its honors by the elder Stuarts, and the borough-mon gering of our own times. These are the main sources of the existing peer age cf England, and in my opinio* disgraceful ones. PAGE SEVEN