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Show Sir Thomas Shaughncssy, president of the Canadian Can-adian Pacific railway, declares that Canada cannot produce steel rails. But it can make a good article of Scotch whisky. f 'Subscriber' calls at the oftiee of this paper he will be given the information he seeks. A review re-view of the matter included in his query is not of vrencral interest at this time. . f- The last letter of the Bishop of Laval convinces us that the charge that he is a Freemason is utterly utter-ly unfounded. He is too big a fool to be admitted into the craft. But how did ho ever get to be a bishop of a sec in France? asks the Western Watch- !msn. f 1 In one of the assaults on the forts surrounding Port Arthur the Japanese blazed away with cannon can-non mounted on the backs of mules. No Missouri mule would stand for such troatmcnt; at least so ays the darkey from Pike county, one who has more knowledge of mule sense than any Jap light- !ing under Oku. 1 "There is not a barrel of pure Scotch whisky in the United States.'' Such is the dread statement made by Dr. W. II. Wiley, chief of the bureau of j chemistry of the department of agriculture, who has charge of the chemical laboratory at Xew York, where the government examines imported good to detect impurities and adulterations. Dr. Wiley is wrong. There are two barrels of Scotch whisky in Salt Lake, perhaps more, made from gxod Utah barley and something to give it a Highland taste. . 4 . Says Father Phelan in the Western Watchman: ' Some time ago Bishop Scanlan of Salt Lake City published that he would resume work on the new cathedral and push it to completion if the Catholics Cath-olics of the diocese would raise .$75,000 for the pur-i pur-i pose. This sum was subscribed in a few mouths, and now the sound of the hammer is heard once more on the walls of the great half-million-dollar structure. The mere building will cost $350,000, snd when finished it is hoped that the debt will not exceed $75,000. This is a very creditable showing for the Catholics of Utah, not very numerous and net many rich." : Notwithstanding the protects of the Christian, Endvorrrs of Connecticut and the "three 'million ihey represent," a bottle of wine will be spilled, instead of a bottle of water, at the launching of I ihe battleship Connecticut. Darling, assisting secretary sec-retary of the navy, gets back at ihe petitioners in a way that is humoror. and sarcastic, reminding them that a an example the cause of temperance would be better served if more of the world's product pro-duct of wines were spilled overboard to wash the hulls of battleships. Wine ihus expended e.-ui neither imperil the soul nor contribute to the cup of human sorrow. Rathr than exploit efforts over 1 rifling affairs like this, why doesn't the Christian Endeavor society look around for something more deserving of endeavor i Surely not all of them are Miss Nancys. 4- ; Placing defenseless old men, women and children chil-dren to the front to accomplish some strategic j move or prevent attack through such appeal to hu man compassion, is a trick laid away in the Anglo-Saxon Anglo-Saxon deck. The Turk is not guilty of such base means, and the nations now at war take their medicine medi-cine in a stand-up fight. That Russian officer is a liar who said, a brigade of Japanese were compelled com-pelled to make a hope'ess charge through threats " of fire in the rear. In the war upon' the Boers, the English placed the wives and children of the bur-" ghcrs upon the roofs of railroad cars, thus antic?1'' rating and at the same time preventing assault up- ? 'i on the train loaded with soldiers and army supplies. sup-plies. Not so despicable as this, but at tho same time a most cruel act of war, was that which placed the emancipated blacks to the front in the battles around Nashville toward the close of our civil war. Hated by Confederates and despised by Federals, the negroes were given rifles and commanded com-manded to go ahead and keep going To the poor darkey that meant "die dog or eat the hatchet'; so when night closed over the battlefield there were found more dead negroes than wounded ones. What a store of irony there is in Fate! Was it an antic of Fate that, years afterwards, placed the descendants descen-dants of these negroes into the army that liberated Cuba and gave them an opportunity to sneer at thc( courage of the white man? It must have been. Witness the Twenty-fourth (colored) infantry leap- ing over the prostrate poltroons of the Seventy-first Seventy-first New York to got a chance at the Spaniards at San Juan hill. In accounts of the fighting at Liao Yang, given through a" St. Petersburg source, a Russian officer describes three desperate charges made by a Japanese Jap-anese brigade to turn the right wing of the enemy. The first was repulsed; the second in like manner. When the line was reformed for the third attempt, the Russian officer says a battery -was placed behind be-hind the brigade in such position as to open fire upon the assaulters if they attempted another retreat. re-treat. This was tantamount to saying that the third charge was made under compulsion. A lie on the facq of it, and one wonders at the meanness mean-ness of any Russian who could utter it. This war shows up more instances of reckless courage, less value placed upon human life, than any war in ancient or modern history. In fact, wounded Japanese Jap-anese officers committed suicide rather than be taken tak-en alive as prisoners. No less brave are thoir opponents, op-ponents, though not proceeding to such lengths of pagan sentimentality as those Japs who, when their transport was attacked and riddled by shell, rather than surrender went down with the ship to the bottom of the Yellow sea, shouting defiance. We hear of Russian prisoners in Japan, but there are few,. if any, Japanese prisoners in Manchuria. So far as fighting goes, between Russian and Jap honors are even. |