., 0»
WEEKLY .- nou'wnmu - GAZETTE.
THE POSTAL CON G BESS.-
Held Once in Five Years by the
Universal Union.
_—
Next Meeting to Take Place in the United,
States Capital in 1897 — Work
and Objects of the Asso-
elation.
The Universal Postal union holds a
congress once in five years to determine
What changes are needed in regulations
governing the handling of international
mail. The sixth is to be held in Wash-
ington in 189;. The director of the
executive committee of the Universal
Postal union, says the Philadelphia
Times, comes to the United States on
invitation of the postmaster general,
to make arrangements for the meeting
at Washington. The delegates will be
entertained in New York as well as in
“lashington, for in New York they will
have the best possible opportunity for
examining the American system of
handling the foreign mails, which is
the most perfect system in the world.
It is possible that they will be taken
west to see the operations of the postal
systems in the other cities—in St. Louis,
where the trolley car service origi-
nated, in Chicago and Cincinnati.
There are thirty-eight countries in
the postal union, and the mail from
more than 200,000 local post offices is
handled in the international system.
The United States alone receives
$2,650,000 for foreign postage each year
and pays out less than that sum for the
service. The international mail is car-
ried at a profit, while the domestic mail
is carried at a loss of $0,000,000 a year.
The fact that there is a profit in hand-
ling international mail is the text of a
good many postal reformers in Eng—
land. We collect $250,000 a year from
recipients of letters from foreign points
on which postage has not been prepaid.
This is equal to one-tenth of the sum
received for prepaid letters. Of the
v
_ sum received on letters bound outward
rs"
the United States gets only a share.
Often there is actually a loss to
this country in forwarding a letter to a
'i'e'mote point. Every country through
which the letter passes collects toll
from us on these letters. On the letters
received not fully prepaid we collect
double postage, and the entire amount
belongs to us. We have no reason,
then, to complain of the number of let-
ters which come to us unpaid; yet the
deuble postage is a penalty intended to
be a constant reminder to the people of
the necessity of prepaying postage. In
spite of the penalty, one-tenth of the
forcign mail received in the United
States is not fully prepaid. Probably
this is because the man who sent the
letter‘is not subject to the. penalty.
is; The chief question to be considered
at the congress of 1;:7’ is the proposi-
tion to make the intermediate nations
handling a letter transport it for noth-
ing. This proposition is made in the
interest of simplifying the accounts of
the postal service. Under the conven-
tion now in force the nation by which
a letter is forwarded pays to each inter-
mediate nation 2 francs per kilo for all
mail in- transit. This increases mate-
rially the cost of forwarding letters to
distant points. For instance, a letter
to Turkey will go from New York to
London, then to Belgium or Holland, to
Germany, to Austria, to Hungary and
then to Turkey. A kilo is two and one-
fifth pounds or thirty-five and one-
fifth ounces. Although the postal
union carries a half-ounce for 5 cents,
the average of letter~weight is less
than that maximum. The estimates of
the postahunion are made on a basis of
three letters to the ounce. Therefore,
2 francs, or 38.6 cents will carry 106 let-
ters through one intermediate country.
On 106 letters to Turkey the United
States post ofiice department would pay
38.6 cents to each ‘of the intermediate
countries -five in all. his would
amount to more than 13/4 cents on each
letter—a considerable tax, and one
which would put “penny postage” on
{Jreign mails quite out of the question.
'._'his tax. of course, is supposed to be
l:v:.lanced by other governments on let-
ters set through the United States to
Canada, to Mexico and New Zealand. '
There will be 150 delegates to the
082231 congress, and it has been said
they will be handsomely entertained
(Faring their visit to America two years
hence. The form of their entertain-
ment is now under consideration by
the post oillce department. -
Long Trip with a ‘Vheelbarrow.
Seventeen years ago, in 1878, Lyman
Potter, of New York state, performed
the prodigious task of pushing a com-
mon "paddy” wheelbarrow across the
continent. He started’from his home
on Dane street, Albany, N. Y., on the
morning of April 10, 1878, and arrived
in San Francisco on the afternoon of
October 5 of the same year, being al-
most exactly one hundred and seventy-
eight days (five hours and three min-
uter: over), in performing the wearisome
fee-’22. Potter was a shoemaker, and the
trip was the result of a wager made by
some friends‘who believed that such a
trip would occupy at least two hun-
dred days. The wager was one thou-
sand dollars, but Potter made between
t1 rec :zud five times that sum advertis-
ing for different parties along the
route. The wheelbarrow was made
specially for the use to which it was
put and weighed but seventy-five
pounds. The distance traveled by Pot—
ter was exactly four thousand eighty-
five and three-quarter miles.
An Extraordinary Freak.’
A citizen of Tampa, Fla., is the owner
of a wonderful curiosity in the shape of
a pair of deer’s horns in which one of
the prongs ends in a‘ startling malfor-
mation. Four inches from the place
where it branches from the main horn
this prong suddenly enlarges into a.
bulbous growth nearly as large as a
man’s fist, and it is in this excrescence
that the wonder lies. The bulb is in
the form of a hound’s .head, plainly
showing ears, mouth, eyes, etc. It was
“taken in thedown,” and were it other-
i'wise it is impossible that it could be a.
work of art, owing to the enlargement
necessary for the freak.
l*
SCOTS AND EDUCATION.
More College Men in Scotland Than in
_ Q England.
This desire for education is, indeed,
the best feature in the intellectual tem-
perament of the Scottish people. The
well-known ambition of the Scottish
mother to have her son “wag his pow
in pu’pit” is now somewhat weakened
by the opening up of other paths of in-
tellectual achievement,but there is still,
says Westminster Review, a widely dif-
fused desire for intellectual in prefer-
ence to commercial pursuits. It is an
indication of the craving which exists
for knowledge in general that for every
young man who goes to college in Eng-
land seven go to colleges in Scotland.
In 1885 Scotland, with a population of
3,725,000, had 6,500 students attending
her four universities, while England,
with 26,000,000 of population, had 6,000
attending her four teaching universi-
ties. This, ‘it may be supposed, has
some connection with the large per-
centage of Scotch lawyers, doctors, cler-
gymen and s'choolmasters to be .met
with throughout the English-speaking
world. The success of “the Scot
abroad” is perhaps not entirely or even
mainly due to his theology, but it was
at any rate the Scottish kirk that found»
ed and fostered the Scottish educa-
tional system, and as to theology itself.
if it has tended to confirm in him that
quality of “high seriousness” Which
Matthew Arnold considered so impor-
tant a feature in the best type of char-
acter, then the Scotchman’s theology
and its associations have borne a not
inconsiderable part in making him
what he is.
LINCOLN’S WIDE SYMPATHY.
Treated All People Alike in a. Courteous
0.: Manner.
4* “Horace Greeley once said: “I doubt
whether man, woman or child, white or
black, bound or free, virtuous or vi-
cious, ever accosted or reached forthfia
hand to Abraham Lincoln and detect-
ed in his countenance or manner any
repugnance or shrinking from the prof-
fered contact, any assumption of supe-
riority, or betrayal of disdain.’
“Frederick Douglas, the orator and
pat-riot, is credited with saying: ‘Mr.
Lincoln is the only white man with
whom I have ever talked, or in whose
presence I have ever been, who did not
consciously or unconsciously betray to
me that he recognized my color.’
“George Bancroft, the historian, al-
luding to this characteristic, which was
never so conspicuously manifested as
during the darker days of the war,
beautifully illustrates it in these mem-
orable words: ‘As a child, in a dark
night, on a rugged way, catching hold
of the hand of its father for guidance
and support, Lincoln clung fast to the
hand of the people and moved calmly
through the gloom.’ ”
SMART COYOTE TRICK. 2'“
Sheep Cleverly Herded to the Brink of a
Precipice.
An incident in illustration of a smart
trick said to be frequently played by
coyotes in securing food from among
the herds of sheep on western ranches
is related by a rancher of Grant county,
Oregon. He had a herd of about 1,-
900 sheep, and recently missed a large
number. In searching for them a
herdcr found three sheep‘ lying on the
brink of a precipice, their throats
marked with the teeth of a coyote. He
made his way to the bottom, a canyon,
300 feet below, and there found the
bodies of 110 sheep, or rather parts of
their bodies, for the coyotes had been
feeding on the carcasses for a week or
more. From other incidents of like
character it was concluded that several
coyotes had got among the herd when
the sheep were driven off their bedding
during a storm, and had herded them
to the brink of the precipice, much as a
lot of sheep dogs would drive sheep.
When the edge was reached the coyotes
pressed the herd so hard in the rear
that the 110 at the front either jumped
or were pushed over the precipice.
“PA FELT LONELY."
Queer Freak of 3 Drunken Brute in
Cleveland.
A Cleveland family was in court the
other day. A daughter was one of the
witnesses, and she ”had this cheerful
tale to tell of her father: “Pa was sit-
ting in his saloon, feeling lonely. He
went tolthe barn, and putting a halter
on his horse brought him into the
house, saying he wanted the animal
to eat supper with him. Pa made me
set a plate for the horse. Then he took
hold of the horse's front legs and lifted
them up on the table. We all satdown to
supper and the horse began to eat. Pa»
picked up a mug of beer and began to
laugh and threw both hands in the air.
The mug hit the 1‘ orse on the nose. The
beast pulled his i'cet down, dragging
the tablecloth and upsetting the table.
The horse backed up and sat squarely
on a redhot stove. This burned its
tail so the animal kicked the stove over
and ran out of the door. I screamed
and pa threw a lamp at me. The house
came near catching fire, and a police-
man came in. Pa has been arrested
108 times.”
Not the Replies Intended.
_ The following extracts are from ex-
amination papers recently handed in
at a public school in Connecticut: 1.
From what animals do we get milk?
From the camel and the milkman. 2.
The hen is covered with feathers. With
What is the cat covered? The cat is
covered with fleas. 3. Name an animal
that has four legs and a long tail. A
mosquito. 4. Name two kinds of nuts.
Peanuts and forget-me-nuts.
Z 4 Cruel Examiners.
"" A reporter for the Cincinnati Trib-
une lately overheard a dialogue be-
tween two suburban gentlemen.
“How did your daughter pass her ex-
amination for a position as teacher ?”
asked the first man.
“Pass!” was the answer. “She didn’t
pass at all. Maybe you won’t believe it,
but they asked that poor girl about
things that happened before she was
born.”
’lc—
Andante.
UN SOUSVENJ R. -
Romance Sans Paroles.
dolce.
a tempo. mf l?
Copyright, 1894, by New York Musical Echo Co.
Un Sotzi'enir. 2.
. G. LU DOVIC.
6'
Op. 76. 7
A
NATURAL GAS GOING OUT.
Coal Again the Fuel in the Large
Pittsburgh Foundries.
The Supply of Gas Has Also Failed In
Other States—Since 1888 the De-
mand for 0031 Has Been - .
Increasing. . 3
,
, .
The first rolling mill that used nat-
ural gas exclusively was the Etna. iron
works, in Allegheny county, a. few
miles above Pittsburgh, and this es-
tablishment has been one of the last to
abandon this fuel in the Pittsburgh dis-
trict. After twenty years of dependence
upon natural gas, says the Philadel-
phia Record, the proprietors of this
plant have removed the pipes and are
now returning to the use of coal, long
‘ after most of the other mills had sur-
rendered to the cheap bituminous fuel
which had always been the cheap foun-
dation of Pittsburgh’s great industrial
prosperity. The diminishing supply
and the consequent increase in cost
have necessitated the abandonment of
natural gas by most of the large manu-
facturing establishments in the Pitts-
burgh district, and its use is being
more and more restricted to domestic
purposes. Pittsburgh has again be-
come the smoky city of fifteen years
ago, alleviated in some measure by the
use of fuel oil and manufactured gas,
which have assumed importance with
the decline of natural gas in the last
four or five years. Natural gas was
not a factor of very great importance
in the Pittsburgh district until early in
the ’80s and the point of greatest con-
sumption was reached in 1888, after
which the decline began. It has never
been feasible to ascertain with accu-
racy the quantity of natural gas con-
sumed each year, but Joseph D. Weeks,
of Pittsburgh, has prepared for the
United States geological survey van es‘
timate of the value of the coal dis-
displaced by natural gas, which has
been accepted as the most practical
measure of the consumption of gas. In
the period of its largest use the natural
gas consumed in Pennsylvania, ‘meas-
ured on this basis, was valued as fol‘
lows: 1885, 84,500,000; 1886, 89,000,000;
1887, $14,749,500; 1888, 819,282,375; 1889,
$11,593,989; 1890, $9,551,025; 1891, 87,-
834,016; 1892, $7,376,281; 1893, 86,486,000.
In Ohio the supply of natural gas has
failed even more rapidly than in Penn.
sylvania. The largest consumption in
Ohio was in 1889, when it amounted in
value to $5,215,000, but in 1893 it had
fallen to $1,510,000. The suddenness of
the failure of the supply has caused
much inconvenience and loss to manu-
facturing establishments, which in
many instances were deprived of fuel
almost without warning. While the
supply of natural gas in Pennsylvania
and Ohio has been diminishing a new
productive region has come into promi—
nence in Indiana, and interest in nat-
ural gas is now centered in that state.
In 1886 the value of the gas consumed
in Indiana was estimated at only $300,-
000; in 1888 it was figured at $1,320,000,
and in 1893 the value was placed at 85,-
718,000. The opening of this new field
has stimulated the developmentof iron
and steel and glass enterprises in In-
diana in a marked degree. Notwith-
standing the abundance of the present
supply in Indiana there is no assurance
of its continuance for a longer period
' than in other states, and a return to
fuels more stable, if less convenient, is
merely a question of time. In fact, it
is claimed by geologists and gas experts
that the point of greatest supply has
been reached. While it lasts there is
no fuel that possesses so many advan~
tages as natural gas. The uncertainty ,
of its duration is its only disadvantage.
A GREAT TIMEPIECE.
A Watch That Has Run Since 1754 and
Is Still a Good Timepiece.
Judge Frederick W. Moore, of the
superior court, is the possessor of an
heirloom in the shape of a watch that
no amount of money would buy, says
the St. Louis Republic. And, besides
its value as an heirloom, it has a his:
toric interest.
The timepiece is of the open-face
bull’s-eye pattern. As with all~ old-
style watches of the pattern men-
tioned, the outer case must be removed
before it can be wound. The outer
case of this watch is of hammered
gold, and all the work on it was done
by hand. While this is apparent from
the workmanship, it is further proved
by the date on the inside, which is
1754. There is an inscription on the
inside as follows: “Daniel De St. Leu,
Servant to Her Majesty. London.” Her
majesty then was the queen of George
11,, the then reigning king of England.
The authentic history of this valu—
able timepiece is this: In the years pre-
ceding 1754 William Augustus, duke of
Cumberland, the second son of George
IL, was the commander of the British
armies. In the Scottish campaigns and
in the campaigns against the Prussians
and the Russians, and when he was at
the head of the British, Hanoverian
and Danish forces of fifty thousand
: men, Dr. Frederick William Schwartze,
a Hanoverian. was on his staff as sur-
geon. At the close of the campaign
against the Prussians and the Russians
the duke had three watches made like
the one Judge Moore has, and of which
it is one. The watches were presen’ted
to three ofiicers of the duke’s staff {by
him as a mark of his esteem. One‘
went to Dr. seliwartze, as a Hano-
verian. one to a British officer and one
to a Danish officer. The presentations
were made in 1'755. After the doctor’s
services had ended in 1757, and the
; duke had returned to London, it was
expected he would succeed to the
throne, but the birth of a son to his
elder brother cut him out. a
~
' Black Lake in llIexlco.
In the midst of the volcanoes of Mex-
ico is the “Lake of Ink,” which covers
about an acre of ground. The body of _
water, or ink, or whatever it is, is so
covered with ashes from the adjacent
volcanoes as to appear a part of the sur-
rounding ground, which is all of the
same dull gray tint. Where this liquid
comes from, what its chemical proper-
' ties may be or what the supply is, are
.
matters of conjecture.
' /
Norwalk Chronicler