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pealing the prohibitory law. I find that of the fortyone, 4 favored repeal, 9 were non-committal, and 28 were of the opinion that the law should stay. Let me quote several specially significant passages from these letters.

Judge Traverse, Bloomfield: "My experience is that, wherever saloons are closed, crime is diminished." Judge Harvey, Leon: "It has reduced crime at least one-half, and the criminal expenses in like ratio." Judge Lewis, Sioux City: "The law is as well enforced as any other, and has decreased criminal expenses at least two-thirds."

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Judge Deemer, Red Oak: In many of the counties the jail is getting to be almost an unnecessary building, and in the last three counties I visited there was not an occupant."

Judge Carson, Council Bluffs: "When in the senate I favored local option, but I am now satisfied the statute should stand."

intendent Sabin's report to the last Iowa legislature begins thus: "It is gratifying to be able to report a most satisfactory and prosperous condition of education throughout the State. The past two years have been years of increased interest, activity, and growth. . . . The number of school-houses has been increased by about 500, and their aggregate value by more than $550,000. The number of teachers is increased by about 500, while our school population is 10,000 greater than the same as reported two years ago."

Another index of Iowa's increasing prosperity is the showing made by our savings-banks. The reports made to our Auditor of State show that the "total assets and liabilities" of Iowa's savings-banks were, in 1883, $8,419,739.83; in 1885, $9,618,866.97; in 1887, $12,666,347.72. Auditor Lyons informs me that on June 30, 1888, the total assets, etc., of the savings-banks had increased to $14,625,024.84. These figures show that since the adoption of prohibition the resources of these increased over six million dollars, or over 73 per cent. Johnson Brigham.

Judge Thornell, Sidney: "I should regard its repeal depositories of the poor man's surplus earnings have as a calamity."

Judge Bank, Keokuk: "This was the first and only term in my recollection that there was no criminal business transacted in court."

Judge Wilson, Creston: "I was not in favor of the law, thinking that high license would work better. I have carefully watched its workings and am convinced that I was wrong."

Judge Wakefield, Sioux City: "As the saloons were driven out, other business came in to occupy the vacant places."

A Tenor Farm.

WE are a conservative people in New England and there is plenty of idle money among us awaiting safe investment. Flaming prospectuses of riotously rich Western farm lands attract only after insistent iteration; even then, I fancy, they draw comparatively few of the hoarded dollars which have escaped the depres

Judge Wilkinson, Winterset: “Crime and criminal sion in “C. B. and Q.” and “Atchison and Topeka.” expenses have been lessened."

Judge Johnson, Oskaloosa : "The effect of the prohibitory law has been to reduce very materially crime and criminal expenses in this district."

Judge Kavanaugh, Des Moines: "It has decreased crime over 50 per cent. and added largely to individual happiness."

Judge Granger, Waukon (now of the Supreme Bench): "The closing of the front door of the saloon, whereby it is destroyed as a place of social resort, has canceled nine-tenths of the drunkenness. Our grand juries have comparatively nothing to do. . . . Our criminal expenses since the closing of the saloons have been comparatively nominal.”

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But roving correspondents for journals in the large cities about us inform their readers that prohibition is killing, or has killed, Iowa. Let us see for ourselves. The census of 1880 gave our State a population of 1,624,615. The State census of 1885 put the population at 1,753,980- an increase of 129,365. The fact that there has been a decided increase in population since the last census (in 1885) is shown by comparison of the vote of 1884 with that of 1888. The total vote of Iowa in 1884 was 377,153, while that of 1888 was 404,130; an increase of 26,977-an estimated increase of 134,885 in four years.

Iowa years ago won, and has never since lost, the honor of having less illiteracy in proportion to population than any other State in the Union. But note the educational progress she has made during these six years of prohibition. In 1883 there were 11,789 schoolhouses in Iowa; in 1884, 11,975; in 1885, 12,285; in 1886, 12,444. The value of these school-houses was, in 1883, $10,473,147; in 1886, $11,360,472. State Super

I have a plan for using these dollars on a Western farm. It is this. Let a company of capitalists buy the most fertile five hundred acres in Dakota, Kansas, or Southern California, anywhere thereabouts where land is good and the climate equable. Let them erect thereupon a set of dwellings and school-buildings, obeying in the process every sanitary law; also gymnasium, theater, and concert-hall. They should thoroughly fence their property with barbed wire. Now to people it. Let agents be sent throughout the United States in search of tenor voices, behind which are robust bodies and good average minds. Contract with the parents or guardians of these voices and bodies for their time and keep for a term of years, say six. After selecting competent agriculturists to run the farm, and a teacher of physical science,- for the farm and the gymnasium are to furnish the before-mentioned voices and bodies with healthy, normal, and discreet exercise,— get a good corps of teachers of the voice, who know their business (alas! alas! our scheme may fail at this point), another to teach music, and set them to the task of developing these voices and bodies into manly and beautiful singers. It can be done. It will pay a large dividend. Why? Because in this country there is a great cry for tenors. Twenty oratorio societies, ten societies giving highclass instrumental concerts, and scores of vocal clubs would keep the product of this tenor farm continually employed eight months out of every twelve, at from two hundred dollars to four hundred dollars per individual per engagement.

There is not one great American tenor singer. There is only one in England who is kindred to us on account of the language he speaks. Our concert audiences yearn to hear a good tenor. Look at a file of Boston Sym

phony or New York Philharmonic programmes for the season of 1887-88; how many tenors are numbered thereon? One in Boston, where twenty-four concerts were given; none in New York. And the Boston singer was a German! Why is this? Because the right kind of tenors do not exist. Scores of puny, pretty, and weak voices arise to the parlor and church-quartet state of the vocal art, but for some reason go no further. The great need of the country to-day is tenors. Our tenor farm would easily pay twenty per cent.

Irish Estates.

G. H. Wilson.

IN the valuable and interesting article "The Temperance Question in India," published in the July

number of THE CENTURY MAGAZINE, on page 445 there is drawn a comparison between the tenants of "Out Stills "in India and an agent over an Irish estate which is calculated to convey a wrong impression of the management of properties in Ireland. The author says:

He [viz., the highest bidder] has farmed the job, just as a man farms the rents of a landlord holding an Irish estate, and it is his interest to get all the money out of it he can.

Such an arrangement is certainly not the custom in Ireland; and even had it been, it would now be impossible to carry it out, since the tenants have the right to have their rents judicially fixed.

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When Polly Goes By.

BRIC-À-BRAC.

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IS but poorly I'm lodged in a little side-street,
Which is seldom disturbed by the hurry of feet,
For the flood-tide of life long ago ebbed away
From its homely old houses, rain-beaten and gray;
And I sit with my pipe in the window and sigh
At the buffets of fortune-till Polly goes by.

There's a flaunting of ribbons, a flurry of lace,
And a rose in the bonnet above a bright face,
A glance from two eyes so deliciously blue
The midsummer seas scarcely rival their hue;
And once in a while, if the wind 's blowing high,
The sound of soft laughter as Polly goes by.

Then up jumps my heart and begins to beat fast. "She's coming! "it whispers. "She 's here! She has passed!

While I throw up the sash and lean breathlessly down To catch the last glimpse of her vanishing gown, Excited, delighted, yet wondering why

My senses desert me if Polly goes by.

Ah! she must be a witch, and the magical spell
She has woven about me has done its work well,
For the morning grows brighter, and gayer the air
That my landlady sings as she sweeps down the stair,
And my poor lonely garret, up close to the sky,
Seems something like heaven when Polly goes by!

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BY THE SEA.

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OLD SALT. "I jes want ter give ye a pointer, young man. With that ther net sot as it is and them durned scoop nets you 're a-handlin' you'll never catch a fish around yere in a thousand years."

Reflections.

THE mischief of opinions formed under irritation is that men feel obliged to maintain them even after the irritation is gone.

VOTES should not be counted, but weighed.

THE small writer gives his readers what they wish, the great writer what they want.

To be content with littleness is already a stride towards greatness.

MEN are equally misunderstood, from their speech as well as from their silence; but with this difference : their silence does not represent them; their speech misrepresents them.

J. A. Macon.

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