Show ofle BET IS increasing whenever a crime of unusual turpi tude Is committed and particularly whenever a number of such forbid ding events occur in quick succession we hear much about the epidemic of crime accompanied by lugubrious comment to the effect that wickedness Is increasing that it Is outrunning the growth of population that the country Is rapidly degenerating it has become the settled conviction of minds chronically indisposed to look upon the sunny side of things that the criminal Is increasing at a more alarming rate than at any time in the country s history yet no prof is at hand to support this pessi view are awaiting trust worthy and comprehensive statistics on th s interesting subject samuel J barrows commissioner tor the united states on the internal dional prison commission declared in a paper published in 1903 that for want of any comparative statistics in the united states it is extremely dit to say whether criminals are in creasing with reference to the inasmuch as so rn ich depends upon the activity of the police mr barrows observes that as social rela alons multiply the standard of pro briety and good conduct and of social protection is constantly raised and when new laws are rigidly enforced we may expect an increase for the time being in the number of offenders until society has adjusted itself to the new requirements it may be noted that the system of news gathering has been brought to a high pitch of efficiency in our day every crime of importance occurring almost anywhere in the country Is am mediately reported we hear very much more about crime than our tor bears did the diligence of the re porters and the news agencies creates the impression that the world Is growing worse the law abiding millions attract little attention philadelphia ledger A CHANCE FOR PUBLICITY it were possible to compel the national committees to keep an accor ate record of and publish a true ac count ot their expenditures for cam laign purposes a work of the utmost importance would be accomplished england has virtually eliminated the bribery of voters in her parliament ary elections by requiring that each candidate s campaign expenses shall be recorded and made public if the campaign fund accounts were made public instead of being kept secret there would be no need to try the fat from corporations or men all the money actually feces sary for an honestly conducted cam laign would be willingly contributed by public spirited citizens of either party only through publicity full and complete will campaign funds cease to be corruption funds palla delphia ledger FARMERS EAST AND WEST an iowa farmer who was bred in new england after making a visit to the old farm remarks that he ob serves an absence of the old time arldt and application that once exist id among the farmers of new eng aad he says they work days a year in iowa and that the new eng land farmer would have more money if he would labor on his farm at least one third of each twenty tour hours for at least nine months in the months attend to the work of turning year and during the other three the forests into fields he admits that new england farmer can make more dollars from an acre of corn than they can in the west but that the western farmer makes it up by having more acres under cultivation boston globe CULTIVATE A HOBBY since the home woman Is the in dispensable woman it Is a pity she so often allows heiselt herselt to fall in her full development and reward says an ed in harper s bazar she is apt to be so unselfish and so conscientious that bhe lets the tour walls ot home narrow about her and the simplest remedy Is to have at least one out side interest int prest the woman who takes up one hobby one charity one line of work beyond her household cares and follows it steadily will find that it brings freshness and power with it it becomes both outlook and inflow to her and the woman with a hobby grows old so slowly that she often never grows old at all but keeps to the last that freshness of interest which Is the mark of youth HUMANE EDUCATION the world Is only 1 alt civilized while the majority of people look ditl indifference on the overworked and overla dei horses the horse whose footsteps are beginning to totter with age yet baill dragging heavy burdens the horse hose hopeless eyes and prominent bones tell that he la al huner the cat crying for food in the home where there Is plenty and t arned off with a few miserable scraps that oaly acute hunger could force an animal to eat the starved deserted cat tre kitten dropped in the streets the faithful dog deprived of liberty ind miserably cared for the butterfly fl with the cruel pin 11 at fa tens it to the wall the halt crushed toad by the wayside the bird lamenting for his stolen nest the dead bird murdered for sake of weak and aln women all these sad gats may be seen every day the law does not reach them tor k only cases of extreme cruelty tint be punished and who can 1 to estimate the immense amoul feibing that constantly gow in n theda our coir footed friends JAPAN S EMPEROR very few people have ever cnown the emperor of japan closely lie must be undergoing something ot an evolution for theoretically he Is designed as a national figurehead rather than as a natural ruler the present crisis must have brought him out as never before the english sometimes date their pedigrees back to the conqueror with a certain pride but emperor of japan Is the present representative of the oldest royal dynas t extant lie Is the emperor of his dynasty which dates back in an unbroken line 2 years he Is the direct descendant of the dl vine conqueror who according to japanese mythology descended from heaven on the white bird of the clouds up to the opening of the present war the japanese always carried the oriental notion that their emperor should maintain a certain seclusion appropriate to his position the fact that he was hardly known personally to his own people made him however more free to go among them nito which he Is said to have done extensively in the emperor a reign the bands ol 01 feudalism that bound japan to the middle ages have been broken he granted a constitution voluntarily literature science and industry were encouraged it was only the remark able advancement in the reign of mut that made it possible for orl japan to be equal to the task of a possible successful war with russia war Is costly but it often lends the most powerful stimulus to advance ment japan has made more rass within a few years than ot oriental nations have accomplished in centuries boston globe SPORT AS A peacemaker international sporting events are ol 01 immense value in promoting good feel ing between neighboring peoples men are like boys in that respect good playmates seldom become very bitter enemies orientals break bread together and are thereby debarred from lifting their bands against each other occidentals break records in friend ly competition with a like effect the lipton races for the america a cup have been great promoters of the anglo american entente they do not of course decide the question tor statesmen but they incline the corn mon people who are the rules of both nations toward a friendly policy the between tho french and tir aman chauffeurs have also beerling rul ru l an undoubted effect in 5 those two peoples 9 together R king sport Is a peaceful prince friendly sporting clubs can do quite as much for the world s peace as so many peace societies with their eol dmn resolutions and their lurid alons of war peoples who visit each other as competing athletes and who entertain each other so generously that the visiting club never has quite a fair chance for the trophy can with the utmost difficulty be induced to go gunning for each other in deadly earn est the sportsman s cup Is the modern substitute for the pipe of peace montreal herald RUSSIA SHOULD RECALL HIS TORY few it any incidents in her history have reflected more credit upon russia than her declaration of neutral rights in 1780 which led to the formation of the first armed neutrality it Is true that that declaration vas formerly perhaps first made by fred erick the great of prussia and that from him it was carried to russia and suggested to the russian empress by france but russia has always had the popular credit of it and it would seem ungracious to try to rob her of it rather Is it profitable to recall that in that famous declaration russia limited tho list of contraband articles to the items of arms and ammunition and sulphur nay more the imme diate provocation of that act of rus sla s was spain s seizure of two rus vessels ladon with foodstuffs it would be a strange turn about for russia now to repudiate the principles of her famous declaration of neutral rights and herself to approve and corn mit the very acta against which it was a protest and a prohibition in 1870 she organized an armed neutral ity to uphold the principle that food was not contraband of war can it be that in 1904 he will set herself against all the world by declaring it Is contraband of ara in a century and a quarter has the world in her relapsed so far toward bar new borte tribune THE BEST BRAIN WINS the japanese aro well and wait steadily with wonderful self control until their preparations for the grand attack are quito complete ills in brain that they beat the whose soldiers dio in heaps with all their old heroism and who suffer less in morale from defeat than more mi bile or better commanded troops they are there to die for the czar and they do their duty with a splendid which rivals that of the japanese london spectator GOOD SAILORS FROM THE WEST the recruiting service of the navy Is getting plenty of desirable young men of american birth just now especially from the west and it Is a singular fact that a western lad makes a good sailor though he may never have seen salt water before he joined his ship or arrived at the train ing station but the quality Is in the blood of the race and a few generations passed on the prairies does not eliminate it new york press |