The Sioux County Journal

TOPICS OF THE TIMES.

A Choice selection of interesting items. Current and Criticisms Based Upon the Happenings of the Day Historical and News Notes.

It appears that Holmes murdered his victims and made no bones about it.

Lawyers have been known to tell the truth. They will do anything to win a case.

A German chemist has discovered how to make artificial musk cheaply. Don't let that man get away.

If Fitzsimmons is debarred from the prize ring because of his Syracuse experience he ought to be able to find a new sphere of usefulness in Congress.

A dispatch from Deckertown, N. J., says that a pilot snake at that place killed a $200 cow, a $100 dog and a $10 pig the other day. How the 50-cent liar escaped is not explained.

Whether or not the Cuban rebels are making any progress, the fact that Gen. Campos has ordered 1,300 pounds of quinine for his soldiers is evidence that Spain's haughty power has begun to tremble.

Japan is quietly adopting many American inventions for its own use without the formality of purchasing them, and in time will learn how to make shoddy goods and adulterate all its food products. Japan is a promising country.

The Houston Post says: "The best way to get rid of grass in the streets is to have them paved with asphalt or stone." True: the St. Louis plan of trusting to cows and goats to keep the business streets clear of grass is never entirely successful.

A Frenchman proposes a tax on corsets. He maintains that the corset is a luxury and its use a harmful deference to an antiquated dictum of fashion. As in France alone about 9,000,000 corsets are worn out annually, even a very light tax would appreciably benefit the never waning exchequer. The Frenchman's idea is on par with the Italian's, who last year proposed to levy a tax on beards.

There is a growing conviction in England that rudeness is a distinctive characteristic of what are known as well-bred crowds. The London World points out that the scenes in the ante-rooms at the Queen's reception would disgrace a mass meeting of bricklayers, and calls attention to the fact that at the opera and concerts the audience is always disturbed by well-dressed and inconsiderate people in the boxes. Woman no longer brings with her into public places a silent demand for courtesy. She repudiates it as a concession to weakness.

If Mayor Holland, of Dallas, Tex., is a fair specimen of Texas Mayors they must be a set of blooming idiots. Mayor Holland wants the Corbett-Fitzsimmons fight to come off there because "It will attract the leading men of the world and will give these men of capital who attend such an insight into the advantages of Texas as they never could under other circumstances obtain." It would hardly seem necessary to inform this Texas ignoramus that the gamblers, toughs, thugs and brutes who will attend the fight are not the leading men of the world and that the investments they will make will be confined strictly to the price of admission and to whatever whisky they may consume. If this is the kind of visitors and investing the Mayor of Dallas wants it is a pity that Chicago alone could not accommodate him with several thousand.

After England's vacillating policy in respect to "the unspeakable Turk" and the Armenian question, Mr. Gladstone's direct, vigorous words on the subject are refreshing. With all the force and vigor which he ever displayed when in his prime the ex-premier in his speech at Chester denounced the Turkish Government for "its horrible, infernal work" with the Armenians and called upon her majesty's government to take such action as will forever prevent a repetition of the outrages. The entire nation, he thinks, is ready, irrespective of party, to support the government in whatever steps of this kind it may take. He would have England refuse to accept any more of the Turk's promises. The way to accept the sultan's promise of reform is to make it impossible for him to break the promise. The rest of Christian civilization echoes Mr. Gladstone's words. England, with her numerous international complications, has been strangely timid to take harsh measures with Turkey. It is time for another line of action and it is eminently fitting that the inspiring force in this movement should come from Gladstone. If England sets the initiative it is hardly conceivable that the rest of Christian Europe should fail to lend her its support.