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Show ''Graft in high places and the country going to the dogs.!" Cheer up! Just think of the fine weather we're having. : , . According to Insurance Commissioner Host of ! Wisconsin, the life insurance companies last year . v withheld $14,000,000 that should have gone to policy holders. That is a sum almost equal to the amount this government paid to Russia for Alaska, and to Spain for the Philippines. . John D. Rockefeller, addressing his Sunday school class in Cleveland, said: "I feel like a sponge, because I have absorbed so many blessings during my stay in this city." Quite right A sponge swells enormously when dipped in kerosene, providing it is the right kind of sponge. . President IMcCall say3 that three-fourths of the bills on insurance legislation in. the state legislatures legisla-tures are of a blackmailing nature. If that is so, who is more responsible for this disgraceful con- dition than the corporations that have maintained V u legislative slush fund under charge of an experi enced lobby for the purpose of feeding these legislative legis-lative sharks V asks the Pueblo Chieftain. . Pueblo is to start a frog factory, in spite of the Frcn'ch protective tariff on frogs. The source of ! Ruppjy will neither be the Arkansas river nor that part of Calaveras county in California where Mark ; Twain and Judge Goodwin caught and sold them to the '.tenderfoot" as juvenile alligators. Nothing in the Pueblo frog plant to furnish material for a Mory or a spring poem. Nothing, indeed, but a piece of steel and a man trying to fashion it for use on a railroad track. It's a railroad frog, and it might even develop into a 'trust."' ' . Seott, the crazy miner, who made a spectacular trip across the continent in a special train a few months ago, came to Los Angeles a day or two . since from his mine with a lot more rich ore, the total value of which was somewhere in the neigh- j lorhood of $100,000. After disposing of the same j v he asked the Santa Fe for a special to New York that should be run at the rate of a mile a minute j and make a race with J3.-H. Uarriman clear across I America. The Santa Fe people considered the of- j , for and decided to turn the chump down, even though he offered $10,000 for the trip. , King Peter of Servia, not content with the j odium which still rests upon him as a party to, if I not the actual instigator of, the shocking murder I , of King Alexander and Queen Draga, by means of i which he acquired his blood-stained crown, has now become involved in a plot for the murder of his father-in-law, Prince Nicholas of Montenegro. Not content with endeavoring to stir up trouble in the letter's dominions, he has on numerous occasions ! in the presence of witnesses advocated the "re- moval" of the ruler of the Black mountain in the same fashion as King Alexander, and the matter is being freely discussed in the press throughout the Balkans and in Austria, and even also in the Ser-i Ser-i vi an newspapers. .i ' . 5 ; . . i i With the death of Eugene Veuillot, Catholic I France loses a notable defender of her interests. I Since 1SS3, when his brother Louis died, he has I directed the policy of, and written numberless edi- I torials in, the "Univers." Throughout his long ? j journalistic career he has been a faithful champion If of the Catholic cause, and, indeed, of every cause I which tended to the welfare of men. Of his devo- l tion 1o the Holy See it is needless to speak; Rome I t vas:his polestar and by the wishes of the Pope he I i set his course. Whether it was Leo XIII or Pius X, ' he did not fail to accept their ruling, -and was inde- !. j fatigable in carrying mil the policy 4he,v adopted. iHis l'ih makes a void iii the 4 ranks of French Catholic -journalists, and his sharp Taud often personal per-sonal articles' ' in the "Univers'' will be deeply missed. The expressions of sympathy are innumer- able, even in the columns of the hostile press, and everywhere his long and'stubborn fight for Catholic principles is spoken of with admiration and respect. . -t ' Questions concerning the marriage of a Catholic Catho-lic to another not of that faith are frequently propounded pro-pounded by Protestants to ascertain the law of the Church in such matters. Last week the editor of The Monitor gave answer to a lady who wrote: "I have been taught that according to the rules of the Catholic Church a Jew and a Catholic could not be married by a priest. Yet such a marriage was" solemnized in San Francisco a short time. ago. As I have heard a great deal of talk about this, would you kindly enlighten me on the subject C The editor edi-tor replied: "A Jew and a Catholic cannot be lawfully, law-fully, married by a Catholic priest without a dispensation, dis-pensation, which dispensation the Church may give. It is the Church that forbids such marriage, and, of course, the same authority- for good reason may dispense." . . . : Hitherto the thing that niadc Milwaukee famous was its beer, and Peoria based its fame on the large whisky distilleries strung along the Illinois river. Other things have recently conspired to bring these towns before the public eye in addition to the brewing of hops and the distillation of grain. It is the brewing of graft. Peoria bobs .up with a paragon named Dougherty not a Patrick, but a Newton C. Dougherty superintendent of schools and president of the Peoria National bank. He was indicted for forgery and embezzlement. The amount of his peculations from the bank and. from the school fund reaches half a million dollars. The Patrick Doughertys of Peoria arc likely working on the levek for $2 a day, paying their grocery bills every Saturday night, and attending mass on Sunday with the children. , - ' The Rock River (111.) Methodist conference to all appearances embraces Chicago in its territory perhaps we should say diocese. Whenever its members mem-bers get together they make sport for the Chicago daily papers. The other day friends stepped between be-tween the presiding officer and a minister to prevent pre-vent an open encounter. It seems to be their purpose pur-pose not to promote evangelism so much as it is to sow discord; to kick up their heels and dabble in worldly affairs which the enlightened. layman exercises exer-cises only with prudent conservatism. By their act declaring for the "open shop'' and against trades unions they have alienated the sympathy and support sup-port of every workingman worth having in their churches. They make it plain that Methodism is for the hard taskmaster and not for the carpenter whom Jesus honored by working at the bench himself him-self beside Joseph. It is a good thing for the Methodist church that most of its ministers and laymen arc not governed in sentiment and discipline disci-pline by the Rock River jingos; that the spirit of John Wesley still walks and the manhood of William Wil-liam McKinley is not forgotten. But, after all, what kind of Church is it that sets up one sort of ethics to.be observed at "Rock River" only to be condemned by rational adherents of the sect elsewhere? |