The Galveston Daily News. (Galveston, Tex.), Vol. 45, No. 46, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 10, 1886 Page: 4 of 8
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THE GALVESTON DAILY NEWS. THURSDAY. JUNE 10,188a
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New Orleans.
Geo. Ellis, opposite postofflce, New Orleans
THURSDAY, JUNE 10, 1880.
ri BLIC OFFICIALS AND THEIR DO-
MESTIC LIFE.
The marriage of a president or governor
ig not an affair of state in this country, and
yet the domestic life of such high officials
is not so completely separated from their
public duties as it should be according to
the theory in the case. Governors and the
president occupy executive mansions, which
consitute a sort of compromise between
private and public life. The mansions are
furnished, and thus the occupants are
lodged at public expense but not boarded
at public expense. The White house
really serves, to some extent, as a public
office. Then it serves also as a place for
the entertainment of embassadors and
other persons of distinction, but in this
business age when such functionaries as
embassadors are, perhaps, more orna-
mental than useful, the entertainments are
not strictly a business feature of govern-
ment, and even without attacking the diplo-
matic system, it might be separated from
the social with advantage to republican
ideas. The embassador could call upon the
high officials of the government in
business hours at the offices of gov-
ernment without there being any ne-
cessity for the people to, pay for
maintaining and furnishing ball rooms
and supper rooms for embassadors and
their wives to visit cabinet officers and
their wives. Every governor, besides hav-
ing an executive mansion, so-called, lijis an
executive office. The office is the place
where business is doubtless usually and
most conveniently transacted. The man-
sion of a governor, like the White house,
serves the further purpose of a lodging for
the family of the executive officer, if he has
one. If, however, he be a bachelor, the
state or nation is put to the. expense,
all the same, of keeping up an ex-
pensively furnished house, which is
comparatively useless for any public
purpose. Meanwhile, there are other
public functionaries who must live at the
capital and who may happen to have fami-
lies, but no houses are provided for them.
What is the sense of the discrimination? If
a governor or a president is there not in the
spirit of a royal show but for business pur-
poses, and if his family is no partof the
officialism of the state or nation, w*y not
pay the official his salary and let him pro-
vide altogether for his family, and the en-
tertainments, which usually amount to
nothing in the case of governors, but which
have been made to follow imperialism in
the case of the presidency? Otherwise
why not build and furnish houses for
supreme judges, secretaries, attorneys-gen-
eral, comptrollers, treasurers, land com-
missioners and all the rest of the officials
who are required to be at the seat of gov-
ernment. and in counties by the same rule
furnish houses for judges, sheriffs and other
rflicials, and in cities furnish houses for the
mayor, police judge, clerk, auditor, police-
men and so forth? Governor Hill, a bach-
elor succeeding a bachelor, has asked for
an appropriation of $65,000 to refurnish the
executive mansion at Albany. It is rumored
that he is contemplating marriage. The case
stands thus that if he isn't, the $05,000 would
be mostly thrown away; and if he is, the $65,-
000 is a sort of public contribution to the
domestic expenses of the lucky couple that
is to be. Here is a point for severe civil
service reformers. Why should not the
state pay its governor and the nation pay
its president an adequate salary and let
them furnish houses for their families and
thus be fairly entitled to exemption from
undesired publicity or responsibility as to
their family affairs. The people are not po-
litically interested in maintaining any fash-
ion exhibits, and shpuld not have any claims
upon ladies who are not officeholders, yet
if the taxpayers have to spend hundreds of
thousands of dollars every year for fitting
and refitting so-called executive mansions,
the people who pay will naturally imagine
they are entitled to some specific return on
the part of the occupants of the mansions.
As the duty of the actual official is the same
in any event whether he have a family or
not, the people fall into the habit of mixing
fashionable society with political business
by looking to certain ladies as part of gov-
ernment, almost; and this, with the extra-
vagance which is so easy where money is
voted by legislatures and congress, has a
decidedly anti-democratic tendency. The
drift toward an imperial show at the na-
tional capital is checked only by a sense
of its unfitness. The outlays for embellish-
ments are out of all proportion to what pri-
vate economy would dictate, and there is no
room for question that the public is being
led into habits of thought imitative of the
subjects of royalty, by practices imitative
of the methods of royalty, and not a busi-
ness-like service and a business-like inde-
pendence. In time the blade may cut both
ways. If a fashionable mansion must be
provided at public expense, the public would
come to demand that a fashionable woman
shall in all cases be there to keep the place
open as a center of fashion and court poli-
tics of a sort.
IS A NEW DEAL NECESSARY!
A new deal all around in state officers is
advocated by the Evening Call, a lively
paper published at the city of Austin. The
Call, and other papers that have indicated
similar views, want to enforce the doctrine
of rotation in office for the sake of rotation.
But there are other and more important
reasons why there should be a new deal.
The state government theoretically is con-
ducted by the heads of the several depart-
ments, each one independent in the sphere
of action assigned him by the constitution,
but practically the legislature has united
all the executive functions of these offi-
cers in one power. This is known as the
Austin board, and it is a board composed
of numerous boards to transact every char-
acter of public business. Now, these boards
ar.d officers have been engaged in building
a capitol, in tiansacting a general land
business, in issuing land scrip, in making
contracts of various kinds, and generally
transacting public business, while, doubt-
less, their several special departments
have been conducted by chief clerks. There
is much dissatisfaction with this state of
affairs. The action of the capitol board
and the land board, the action of the land
office, the doings of the sub-officials in the
land office and in the comptroller's office,the
raids upon school lands in Greer county,
permitted by the land office and the
governor, show, with other objectionable
matters, that a change is required
in the entire structure of the pre-
sent state government. Officials like the
ancient Lubbock may be honest and may be
acceptable within the sphere of duty as-
signed by the constitution, but they have
other duties and responsibilities assigned
by the statutes in which they have not given
satisfaction. No one knows or will know
what these secret boards have done or fail-
ed to do until new men come into the places
of the men now holding the state offices and
the chief clerkships in the several depart-
ments. Rotation in office as a reward for
the patient party-worker may be a good
move with which, however, the people have
very little concern. But rotation in office to
be followed by a thorough investigation
of official acts and doings is a mat-
ter of much concern to the people.
Without a change in officers no investigation
of the office is really expected. If a ma-
jority or only two members of a board are
retained there is little to be expected of
beneficial change in its administration.
This is on the presumption that much of
the business of the boards and departments
requires investigation. If no such investi-
gation is required the people have very lit-
tle interest in a change of officers. Mere
rotation for the sake of the spoils may
rotate good men out and poor material
into the offices. But so many questionable
transactions have occurred in the govern-
ment during the past few years that proba-
bly a complete revolution is more general-
ly desired than at any time since the Re-
publicans were driven from power in the
State.
MORE LAND BOAED ABSURDITY.
The state land board has by resolution
classed all the school, university and asylum
lands as agricultural until the state agents
engaged in surveying and inspecting them
shall designate to what class each section
belongs. This action shows to what straits
the extraordinary course of some of its
members has reduced the board. Having
repealed the clause in the law which pro-
vided for the sale of grazing lands in quan-
tities not exceeding seven sections to any
one person, and this repeal being contested
in the courts as illegal and unauthorized
usui pation of power, the board, apparently
fearful of the result of such litigation, at-
tempts an indirect repeal by this resolution.
Under the law which created the board the
classification of the lands into grazing and
agricultural classes is required, and this
resolution would appear to be in line with
the requirement. Probably an actual class-
ification might lawfully operate a repeal of
the seven-section clause of the law of 1883,
but is this action a real classification? The
section of the law which governs this sub-
ject prescribes the duties of the board as
follows:
The said state land board shall, under such
regulations as they may prescribe, cause the
said land to be classified into agricultural, pas-
ture and timber lands, and ascertain which
tracts have permanent water on them or bor-
dering (•!! them, and cause a tabulated state-
ment of the land in each county to be made,
etc.
The next section provides that:
Said land shall in no case be sold for less
than {2 per acre for surveys of laud with-
out water on them or bordering on them, nor
tor less than $3 for land with permanent water
on them or bordering on them, nor for less
than $5 per acreforiand having timber thereon
suitable for lumber, etc.
Under this authority does a resolution
declaring all the school lands to be agricul-
tural lands comply with the instructions
contained in the law, and does this classifi-
cation absolutely control in the disposi-
tion of the lands? This is an important
question, for if the board has actually made
a legal classification and all the lands are
purely agricultural, not only are there no
pastoral lards and no watered lands, but
there are no timbered lands. Under the law
when the lands were classified the prices
were fixed for each class by the classi-
fication. The legislature had an idea
that something over a million acres
of pine lands fit only for pro-
ducing lumber were situated in south-
eastern and eastern Texas and that they
were worth $5 an acre. But the board in ef-
fect classes these as agricultural lands.
The price of agricultural lands is $2 an
acre. Now there has been some small de-
mand for the pine lands at $5 an acre, but
since the board notifies the country that an
actual settler may go upon these fine agri-
cultural lands in the long-leaf pine region
and pay one-thirtieth principal and 5 per
cent, interest, there is n<% reason to doubt
the rapid settlement of that section of the
State. Should the pine lands come
into request immediately under this
reduction of price from $5 to $2, it
is probable that the board will
pass another resolution classifying
all the lands as timbered and raising rates
for prairie and woodland to $5. This
would create a western disturbance and
doubtless be followed by a classification of
all western lands as agricultural and all
eastern lands as timbered. When the
board got fairly away from under the law
it fell into confusion which seems to in-
crease at every step. This last absurdity is
the most indefensible of all the board's
legislative experiments. To avoid the re-
straint upon its willful action which the
impartial judgments of the courts might af-
ford, the resolution is adopted, cutting off
the small stock-raiser from obtaining a
limited pasture and thereby removing the
chief obstacle in the way of the lordly free-
grazier and grass pirate who owns a hun-
dred times seven sections without price, and
opening up the pine lands to be denuded of
their valuable timber by pretended settlers
who will, in a year or two, abandon their
purchases, having paid less than a tenth of
the value of the timber. The next resolu-
tion of the board is looked for with interest.
But nothing can be more absurd than the
sweeping declaration made in the resolu-
tion referred to unless, as is possible, it is
left unrepealed. As long as the board ex-
ists and passes resolutions the country ex-
pects such diversion, but the tax-payers'
grin is evidently dry and painful.
The reportofHon. John Bigelow to the
New York chamber of commerce on the in-
spection of the work of canalization at
Panama, at which he assisted, is interest-
ing and concise. The capacity of certain
dredging machines now employed is really
surprising. Mr. Bigelow finds in the terrible
climate the greatest difficulty and while un-
certain as to the issue of the work ho
thiAs its completion depends upon a very
liberal supply of money and the invention
of further machinery to supplant manual
labor, but he sees no probability that the
canal will be finished by 1889.
The Chicago aldermen make it a point
not to be deadheads in any enterprise in
which they engage.
Mr. John H. Martin, of the Jackson New
Mississippian, in his Press association ad-
dress to the citizens of West Point, said:
"You have been kind to us, and opened
wide your arms, your hearts, your homes—
and above all your pantries. If we forget
ourselves and eat too much, forgive us, for
remember that at home we live on hope,
free passes and the title of ' colonel.' "
Johann Most has been set to learn black-
smithing. His literary efforts gave the cue.
The old alcalde boom is not quite so buoy-
ant as it was a few weeks ago. In fact there
is a bare possibility that it has petered out.
The alcalde should not be so coy, and given
to making denials. This is a very practical
age, and people are apt to take him at his
word.
The American Bookseller thinks that
" the magazines are killing the books and
the newspapers are killing the magazines."
The great majority of new books require
killing.
If the Hon. Barnett Gibbs is not elected to
Congress, the Democratic national com-
mittee should appoint him general lecturer
and organizer of the party. What the Hon.
Barnett doesn't know about Democracy, in
his own opinion, is hardly worth knowing,
and yet there are life-long Democrats that
frequently differ very seriously with Mr.
Gibbs. For instance, Kichard Coke and
Roger Q. Mills, and Grover Cleveland, and
Thomas F. Bayard, don't believe that pro-
hibition, local or general, is consistent
with true Democracy.
Turkey- and Persia would get a new lease
of life by accepting the protection of Rus-
sia, because being swallowed and digested,
would become bone and sinew of the great
bear.
A Democratic victory in Oregon is re-
ported this morning. The Democrats have
not made a winning in Oregon before since
1878, when John Whittaker was elected to
Congress. Oregon entered the Union as a
Democratic State and remained Demo-
cratic for a number of years, but in 1875 a
heavy immigration from Iowa and Kansas
began, and the new immigrants were most-
ly Republicans. It is not likely that there
is much significance attached to the success
of the Democrats in the state election.
There were no issues of consequence at
stake in the campaign, only the Democratic*
candidates were a little more violent in op-
position to the Chinese than their Republi-
can competitors.
If Gladstone wasn't sure of the country
he would hesitate before dissolving Parlia-
ment,
Mr. Manning briefly says that a few lines
of repealing and enabling legislation
would suffice to give this country a better
currency than exists elsewhere. So it would.
It is to be hoped that Mr. Manning will re-
cover and tell what he knows on the sub-
ject.
The last Bulletin of the American Iron
and Steel association makes an appeal for
greater restriction upon European immi-
gration. The immigration laws are declared
to need thorough revision. It is asserted
that we are to-day suffering from neglecting
to give heed to the Native American spirit
of 1844 and 1854 so far as it asserted the ne-
cessity of greater vigilance. The state of
the immigration laws is declared to be " a
part of the great labor problem. It is im-
possible to deal intelligently and thorough-
ly with the labor question without dealing
with the immigration question." Again:
" Legislation should go to the root of the
unrestricted immigration evil. * * * Our
railroad companies can be prevented from
carrying passengers to the west for a dollar
a head, and from otherwise cheapening the
blessing of American citizenship." Just
listen to that now.
The Canadian Parliament is considering
quite a number of railroad subsidies. Evi-
dently the jobbers have their grip upon that
congested confederation.
A correspondent writing from Belton,
this morning, suggests Mr. Philip E Peare-
son, of Fort Bend county, for attorney-gen-
eral. Mr. Peareson has the reputation of
being an excellent lawyer, and he has kept
the fires of Democracy burning in Sena-
gambia for years. No doubt if Mr. Peare-
son lived in a Democratic district he would
be more generally appreciated by his par-
ty, and yet he has to perform much harder
work for his party than if he lived where
Democrats were plenty and Republicans
scarce. If the Democratic State conven-
tion should happen to nominate Mr. Peare-
son for attorney-general, it would not be
very liable to criticism for making a mis-
take.
What are the mugwumps going to do?
Blaine's speech in favor of home rule is
considered to have given him a start for
the Republican nomination.
The Texarkana Daily Workman says:
" Business men boycot labor papers by de-
clining to advertise in them, anil the labor-
ing classes find other convenient places to
make their purchases." Is that boycotting?
If business men went about warning others
not to advertise in a paper on pain of hav-
ing no dealings with them, you might call
it boycotting.
It seems clear to Bradstreet's that there
will be no bankruptcy legislation this ses-
sion. The people could do without bank-
ruptcy legislation if they had a repeal of
some laws that are forcing people into
bankruptcy.
There is at Rockford,IU., a sensation over
a novel boycot which has been inaugurated.
Some days ago Mr. Leonard, president of
the Leonard Ice company, signed, with
others, an application for a liquor license
for Mrs. Henry, a respectable woman, who
has kept a restaurant for fifteen years. The
Prohibition paper published the application
and the names of the signers, and when the
members of the Woman's Ch- istian Tem-
perance union saw Leonard's name, a let-
ter from their secretary was received, in
which it was stated that as Frank J. Leon-
ard bad signed a liquor application, they
would be obliged to discontinue taking ice
from him. Mr. Leonard has replied to the
letter, in which he says he has donated
more to the Woman's Christian Temper-
ance union than all the profits on the ice
they have taken from him, and he adds:
" 1 thank the Lord I am not dependent on
any institution that makes boycotting the
basis of operations. The time may come
when you will wish to get ice from us, but
if this is your plan of work, I would sooner
throw it into the river than sell it to you."
The temperance ladies are greatly agitated
over his reply, and, it is said, all have de-
tei mined to enforce the boycot vigorously.
It can scarcely be doubted that consolida-
tion is not the proper word to express a
proposed more intimate relation toward
the Knights of Labor, which has been un-
der discussion by the Typographical union.
According to the Chicago Times there is
a boodle board of aldermen in Chicago, too.
The Times flatly asserts that $127,000 was
divided up between less than twenty alder-
men a few days ago to secure the passage
of an ordinance. Now here is a beautiful
opportunity for competition between New
York and Chicago. There are twenty-one
aldermen and ex-aldermen in New York
under indictment for bribery. Chicago,
which is a progressive city, should try and
get ahead of New York by railroading her
boodle aldermen to the penitentiary.
Twenty Chicago aldermen and twenty New
York aldermen in the penitentiaries would
be a refreshing sight and a healthy exam-
ple fc r the rest of the country.
THE STATE PRESS.
What the Newspapers Throughout Texas Are
Talking About.
The Sherman Democrat says Rev. D. R.
McAnnally, a minister, who has weathered
the frosts of eighty winters, who has
preached the gospel for sixty years, and
who has been the chief editor of the St.
Louis Christian Advocate for more than
thirty years, is in Sherman. He is still in
the possession of good health, good enun-
ciation and fine intellectual powers. He,
spoke on Sunday, at the opera-house, to a
vast and intelligent audience, in the after-
noon delivered an interesting lecture to the
Sunday-school scholars, and at night he
preached to an audience of about 600 peo-
ple, at the opera-house, taking as his theme,
Man in a Trifold Life, Practical, Spiritual
and Intellectual.
The Fort Worth Gazette, probably with a
view to its bearing on the religious ele-
ment among voters, prints the following:
Mr. Remsberg, an atheistic lecurer, who
traveled and lectured through thi 3 State
last winter, writes to the Truth-seeker that:
" One of my auditors on Sunday was ex-
Governor Marion Martin, Governor Ire-
land's lieutenant during the first term of
his administration. I gave the Apostle of
Liberty. .M the close of my lecture Gov-
ernor Maim said: 'I am glad you came.
For thirty-three years I have been standing
guard here by the good name of Thomas
Paine.' "
The Burnet Once-a-Week puts the gen-
eral verdict of the press on the Phillips
trial at Austin in this vigorous language:
This verdict is against the law and the
evidence and is a travesty on justice and
should not be allowed to stand. If juries
can be allowed to render verdicts in viola-
tion of law and evidence, then jury trials
are a fraud and a farce, and in common
justice should be abolished.
The Once-a-Week had not seen the de-
cision of the Court of Appeals in regard to
injuries to railroad property.
A southern paper having said " when the
farmers of this section begin to perceive,
as they undoubtedly will, that protection is
necessary to the building up of industries
in the South, and that these industries are
necessary to give them better and nearer
markets for their products, we shall hear
little about free trade," the Philadelphia
Record replies:
Pennsylvania farmers have found that
protection is a delusion. Our miners and
factory workingmen eat Texas beef, Minne-
sota flour and Illinois pork. The farmers
find the price of their corn and cattle and
other products regulated by the price of
products raised on cheaper land and mar-
keted by the help of cheaper freights than
they can obtain. While protection adds
vastly to the cost of necessaries the farm-
ers must buy, it adds not a cent to the value
of what they have to sell.
The Sherman Register says the North
Texas Medical association now embraces a
membership of 200, The association met
this week in Sherman.
In speaking of the death of Mrs. George
H. Pendleton in a runaway accident, and
the many suggestions as to the proper atti-
tude for a person situated as she was to as-
sume, all ot them based on the preliminary
injunction that it is necessary to keep cool,
the Register remarks:
Almost anybody, finding himself in a
which a runaway team was at-
tached, would not only not keep cool, but
carriage to
he would endeavor to got out on the ground
as soon as possible.
Even (lie bravest man, though not de.
prived of a sense of the best way to act urn
der the circumstances, would hardly pre-
serve his usual calm under the circum
stances, and with women and children the
overmastering desire to escape in the speed-
iest manner possible would naturally be
stronger than a deliberate weighing of the
best way of doing so. To tell ordinary peO'
pie to keep cool under such circumstances
is about equivalent to telling them to keep
cool on a hot day
Mr. John McNeel, of Brazoria county,
writes to the Austin Statesman
In your issue of May 28, of your valuable
paper, you say that Brazoria county is now
buffering the most sever? drouth known in
years, and that there is neither grass nor
water for stock. I do not know where you
got your information, but it is false in every
particular. Our crops of cotton, corn and
sugar cane were never better, and our
Erairies are covered with an abundance of
ne grass, enough to feed ten times as
many cattle as now graze on them. As for
water, how could stock suffer when the
county is dotted with hundreds of fresh-
water lakes which have never been dry;
and then, again, the rivers Brazos, Bernard,
Oyster creek, Bastrop, Chocolate, with
many smaller bayous, run through the
county. The Brazos, Bernard and Oyster
creek would alone water all the cattle in the
Congressional district.
The Milam County Democrat tells how a
party of fishermen got caught out in the
late rain:
After fishing several hours the "lone
fishermen" silently spread their cots and
laid themselves down to peaceful slumbers.
Presently it began to rain and then they
awakened to find that the long drouth was
ended and that they were far from home
without shelter. ,
They might have quoted the parody:
Blow winds, come wrack,
At least we'll squat with blanket on our back.
They gathered themselves under one
blanket and waited for the end of the storm,
Toward morning the thunder and lightning
y started for town, which
ih " '
ceased and the. ,
place they reached in time for breakfast,
after wading through water up to their
waist.
The San Antonio Times says:
Major Brackenridge has put forth another
state paper in the Texas Review. The Gal-
veston News reprints it from advance
sheets The paper treats of the issue be-
tween the Democratic and Republican par-
ties, state officials, the Supreme Court, the
public land policy, the public debt, the
state militia, economical government, for-
estry laws, the penitentiary system, re-
formatory establishments, the university
system, capital and labor adjustment, lib-
erty of the press, etc. It is the most elabo-
rate and logical utterance yet published oa
state matters, and will receive wide and
cordial indorsement.
The San Antonio Light remarks:
There be many who are of the stale
opinion as The Galveston News, viz., that
Ross and Swain are both virtually out of
the race. -
The Brenham Banner says:
The Texas Court of Appeals has rendered
a decision that there is no law in the Penal
Code of this State to inflict any punishment
for killing engines, or in other words, the
killers were guilty of no offense
cognizable under the Penal Code.
It is claimed by the court that a
comma was omitted in the article bearing
upon the case. This decision will be a sur-
prise to a great many people. It may be in
strict accordance with law, but it is con-
trary to common sense and common rea-
son. The name of the Court of Appeals
might with propriety be changed to that of
the court of technicalities. The Court of
Appeals has never stood very high in the
estimation of those who have watched its
course, and this last decision will add no-
thing to its reputation.
Burnet has been the scene of a religious
revival. The Star says:
The revival at this place is still in pro-
gress, and up to date there has been 240
conversions, with accessions—Methodists,
! 5; Baptists, 13—with quite a number wait-
ing to join other churches.
The San Antonio Express is like the an-
cient law-giver, who regretted that nothing
worse than the death penalty could be in-
vented. The Express says:
The people will have to be satisfied with
the verdict of murder in the first degree in
the case of Maxwell, as it involves the ex-
treme penalty. Otherwise there would be
dissatisfaction.
The Express also says:
" Killing engines," then, is not an offense
against the law. It is a grievous offense
against society, and the courts will be re-
lieved of embarrassment in that connection
as soon as the legislature meets. A comma
in the law, we are told, would make it all
right. The people of Texas were tripped
-up on a semicolon several years ago, and
if this thing keeps up much longer they will
begin to entertain a prejudice against punc-
tuation marks of every description.
The Big Springs Pantograph asks a little
reciprocity:
If the different candidates for governor
would spend a little money with their coun-
try editor friends they would get a heartier
support. We have our choice, and occa-
sionally say so, but we can not always
" spout" unless we see some bread and
meat in it.
The Mountain Echo says:
Candidates for the legislature should ex-
press their preferences for senator as well
as their opinions upon questions of state
policy.
The Denison News says:
The friends of Hon. Hyde Jennings, of
Fort Worth, insist on his becoming a can-
didate for associate justice of the Supreme
Court.
That is what makes so many candidates,
their friends will insist.
The adage, an ounce of preventive is
worth a pound of cure, is often, and very
properly, applied to moral as well as physi-
cal ills. It is easier to prevent people from
becoming drunkards and criminals than to
refewm them after they have become such.
The friends of education use this argument
for all it is worth; but many of the means
for securing good citizens are overlooked;
among them—and probably above all—the
influence of good homes and the early for-
mation of sober and industrious habits.
Mr. John P. Altgeld, of Chicago, in his
book, Our Penal Machinery, says:
Five-sevenths of our state prisoners never
had a good home; over half had no home at
all. One-half of them were always without
homes; four-fifths of them had no home
after 18 years; half of them never went to
school a day; one-fifth of them went to
school less than two years; four-fifths of
them frequented saloons. The saloon was
permitted by the State to usurp the place of
the home.
It is thus that governments and communi-
ties allow the criminal classes to be re-
cruited and then punish those who have be-
come criminals almost from necessity.
When people are taught that it is safer and
easier to earn a support and live honestly
than to spend their lives in dissipation,
crime and penitentiaries, there will be
fewer criminals. Book-learning can not be
too much commended when it does not in-
terfere with the equally important educa-
tion that teaches one to earn his own sup-
port and that of family and contribute to
the general welfare; but an illiterate man
who can do this is a more useful citizen
than a pedant, who neither will nor can.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERALSHIP.
A Warm Boom for Philip O. Peareson, of Fort
To The News. Bend CoUDly'
Belton, June 7,1886.—It is strange that
the bar of the State does not take more in-
terest in bringing out first-class men for at-
torney-general of Texas. The bar of Texas
will compare favorably with the bar of any-
State in the Union, and the attorney-general
should be representative of ihe beBt ability
and learning of the legal profession. Yet,
strange as it may seem, there is hardly a
lawyer of first class ability men-
tioned for the attorney - general-
ship. County-attorney Clint, of Dallas,
is a very worthy young man, but it will bo
no reflection on him to say that he is very
far from being a representative Texas law-
yer. Mr. Walter Acker, of Lampasas, is
also a very respectable gentleman, but ho
has not the standing at the bar of the State
that an attorney-general should have. Let
me make a suggestion. Philip E. Peareson,
of Fort Bend county, is not only a lawyer
of eminent attainments, but a Democrat to
whom the party owes much. His stand-
ing at the bar is second to no law-
yer's in Texas. He has the respect
and confidence of not only the bar, but the
bench. He has fought for Democracy in a
black Republican district for years, and is
entitled to recognition by the party. I am
not sure that Mr. Peareson would become &.
candidate for attorney-general, but I have
no doubt that, if nominated for the office by
the Democratic convention, he would con-
sider it his duty to accept. The bar and the
people should be interested in having a.
first-class lawyer attorney-general of the
State. Mr. Peareson is both a first-class
lawyer and a first-class man. j. t. j.
MADISON VILLE.
Projected Newspaper—Politics and Politicians—
Weather and Crops.
To The News.
Madisonville, June 4.—Mr.W. S. Teague
has just arrived at this place for the pur-
pose of taking charge of and reviving the
Madisonville Journal, the first issue of
which will appear on the 9th instant. Mr.
T. is a modest and retiring gentleman, and
the people of Madison county will patron-
ize the Journal liberally. I am pleased to
know that we are again to have a newspa-
per published in our town. It will furnish
a medium through which the many as-
pirants for office can imform the dear peo-
ple that they possess a degree of patriotism
sufficient to prompt them to make a dis-
play of their devotion to the good of our
common country.
No announcement of candidates has yet
been made to fill the different county of-
fices, but the most desponding do not
tntertain any fears of having to resort to
conscription. The people generally con-
cede the fact that the Hon. A. W. Terrell
will be sent to the United States Senate.
The interest taken in either Ross or Swain
is waning, and there are none in our midst
who believe that either of them will re-
ceive the nomination for governor, and the
people of this portion of the State
aie growing more and more enthu-
siastic, and now believe that the
Hon. W. D. Wood, of San Marcos,
will receive the nomination. Judge Wood
is an honest and retiring gentleman, and
will never thrust himself upon his party,
but the people in the middle and eastern
portions of our State intend to present his
name for the consideration of the nomi-
nating convention. I know whereof I
speak when I say that the Hon. Hannibal
H. Boone is gaining strength daily in this
county. Hon. M. Y. Randolph still lives in
the hearts of the people of his senatorial
district, and no amount of juggling can
prevent him from receiving the nomina-
tion. Judge Norman G. Kittrell is largely
the choice of the people of this county for
judge of this judicial district.
The name of the Hon. W. C. Gibbs, of this
county, is being freely mentioned as the
proper man to represent Leon and Madison
counties in the legislature.
The crops of both corn and cotton are
very promising at this time, but unless we
f hall be visited by a good rain in the near
future the corn crop will prove a signal
failure; the early corn has began to wiit al-
ready. There are indications of rain visi-
ble now, but it is feared they will pass
away. A severe drouth the present year
would fall with crushing weight upon our
people, all of whom are more or less in
debt. _ Voxpopoli.
MAXWELL'S APPEAL OUTLINED.
The Points on which His Attorneys Will Ask
a New Trial.
Monday's Globe-Dcmocrat.
Now that Maxwell has been convicted, the
discussion as to the admission of the con-
fession obtained by Detective McCullough
continues. There are many lawyers who
believe that the admission of the evidenoe
would be overruled by the Supreme Court
as against public policy. The other side of
the case is that the Supreme Court will have
to consider the testimony in the light of the
circumstances surrounding Brooks. He
had denied his identity, denied knowing
Preller, and everything else. It was moral-
ly certain that Preller was killed by chloro-
form. The chemical analysis proved that
chloroform was found in his lungs, biit not
that he had died of chloroform. The de-
fense had never been made known, and it
became necessary in the interest of justice
to take a desperate measure. The State
alleged Preller's death from the use
of chloroform, but the defense
could have pleaded the accidental
killing with great torce by having medical
experts testify that a man could not be
chloroformed against his will. The whole
drift of the defense, when once the case was
opened, showed that the attorneys changed
its basis. At one time it appeared to rest
upon identification, then upon the accident-
al killing without robbery. When McCul-
lough was examined the defense was
changed and Brooks's admission that he
stole the money and scarrified Preller's
breast, corroborated the story of the de-
tective. The morphine syringe settled all
chance of getting Brooks off on expert tes-
timony, and the only hope was to abuse the
methods of getting the confession. The
confession may not have been discussed in
the jury room, but there is not a particle of
doubt in the minds of any who at tended the
trial that the morphine "syringe in McCul-
lough's testimony forced Brooks to the ad-
mission that he stole the money and to the
other damnable admission. The detective
methods convicted a criminal to whose case
ordinary methods did not apply.
When a Globe-Democrat reporter called
on Maxwell in his cell in the ]ail yesterday
afternoon he found that peculiar individual
sti etched on a bed. reading a book. When
asked how he liked the transfer from the
cell on the ground floor to one in murderers'
row, Maxwell replied: "Hike the change
very much, as here there are no cock-
roaches, but when I was on the ground
floor they used to swamp me—those bugs
did."
" Does the verdict still weigh heavily upon
you? " the reporter asked.
" Weigh heavily upon me! Does this look
like it?" extending his untrembling arm.
"No, sir! Tlie only way in which the ver-
dict affected me wss to cause a postpone-
ment of the arrangements I had made, be-
ing certain of an acquittal."
"What were these arrangements?"
" Well, when 1 was given my liberty I
was going either to lecture or to euter a.
dime museum in order to earn enough
money in the first place to repay to Preller's
heirs in England the money I had taken,
from him, and then to make enough to taka
me back to Hyde, where I was going to en-
gage in the practice of law with my brother.
All this will be off for some little while.
When I get u v new trial I am sure I shall
be acquitted."
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The Galveston Daily News. (Galveston, Tex.), Vol. 45, No. 46, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 10, 1886, newspaper, June 10, 1886; Galveston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth462553/m1/4/?rotate=90: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Abilene Library Consortium.