The Wilson bilí, after nearly five mont...

The Wilson bilí, after nearly five months of buffetings, boycotts, holdups and attempted strangulations, has at last emerged from the senate greatly disfigured but still in the ring. It now goes to the conference committee and it is probable that by the middle of the month or soon thereafter it will be the law of the land. It is not what the country wanted, what it was promised or what it had a right to expect, but when it comes from conference it will probably be the best measure of tariff reform that can be secured from the present congress. As unsatisfactory as it is to the great body of tariff reformers, it is a great improvement over the odious McKinley act. The changes made in it during its last hours in the senate indicate that it may still be materially improved in conference, provided the house stands firm'ly, for lts own measure ïnstead of the emasculated senate bill. It is to be hoped that the house will do this and that the country will yet receive from the hands of congress a goodly degree of relief from tariff robbery. It wants all it can, get and tfiat right speedily. Official reports show that there are as many persons oí' the immigrant classJeaving the United States at present as are entering. This condition is brought' about, it is supposed, b.y the industrial depression here and the fact that living is so much cheaper in foreign countries than it is here, and the further fact that most of those returning are of a class who never intended to make this country their permanent home. While there is therefore no increase in population resulting from immigration just now, the effect upon the country must depend largely upon the class of immigrants going out of the country and the others coming in to take their places. If those coming in are of the same class as those going out, the exchange is not advantageous, for these raw recruits will take the place of those who have become more or less Amencanized by their stay here, and the process of assimilation will have to be repeated with these newcomers. It is questionable therefore whether there is in present conditions a satisfactory solution of the immigration problem or not. The news of the death of ex-Gov. Winans comes to the people of Michigan in the nature of a personal bereavement. Mr. Winans spent most of his life in private station, but during the few years of his public career his acquaintance with the people was widely extended, and all who thus came to know him held him in the same kindly regard as did his neighbors and life long friends. In public life he was the same affable and approachable gentleman that he was in private. He carried with him into public station the same rugged ideas of honesty and honor which pervaded his relations with his fellows in private business. He was, therefore, open and incorruptible in the carrying out of every public trust. No confi'dence entrusted to him by the people was ever betrayed. Being one of them, he understood their aspirations and wishes and was deeply sensible of the responsibilities of public office. He was a most kindly man, possessed of excellent judgment, and was a wise counsellor. That he also possessed the'courage of his convictions, would do what his judgment told him was just, regardless of consequences, was shown by many of his public acts. He was probably as near an approach to the ideal American citizen as is often found. His death is a great loss to the state. Lansing, on the 4th of July need ed no hose-pipe delivery of spread eagle oratory, no procession of hor ribles, "the whole to wind up wit! a grand display of fire works in th evening." The populist state con vention was in session there tha day. It was all the 4th of July tha Lansing had room for. L. V. Moul ton,writhing with an unutterable in ner consciousness; A. S. Partridge, with asmanykinds of meat in him a a turtle; Ben. Colvin, the deathless agitator of the Saginaws, - immorta because eternal and eternally a kicker; Grece, of Detroit, the wag of whose jaw proves the possi bility of perpetual motion, - -these with others put up as hot a 4th o: July celebration as Lansing has seen for many a year. The Detroiter went loaded with Pingree fire-works and touched them off. The convention immediately fried the fat out of Grece, and sent him to his seat a mere scrap. It was no Pingree convention, and the nicely put up job failed. After various populists had been honored with the offer of the gubernatorial nomination and declined, the lot feil upon A. W. Nichols, of Greenville, and he was numbered atnong the apostles who are willing to suffer in pocket book and time in behalf of principie and the glory of defeat. It was a.íurid convention, in oratory and action. The Ciceros let themselves loose. Ladies bought places on the state committee for sums donated to the cause, and various resolutions went into the platform in the same manner, till a member objected to the sale of any more planks. After all it was a real, splendid day's work, very entertaining to the participators, and perfectly harmless to everybody. The resolutions favor an income tax, free silver, postal savings banks, government ownership of railroads, female suffrage, etc. The public library of Adrián is situated in the city hall, in the basement of which is the lockup. But in spite of locks and bars the fierce crimex lectularius has forced the bonds that enslaved him and appears in the library above, to the consternation of the librarian. The Lenawee bed-bug is what Senator Simon Cameron would have anathematized as "one of them d iterary fellers. " After working in his garden "like a nigger" nights, mornings, and Sundays - between services - weepng over the onion beds and fighting iotato bugs, for the benefit of night hieves, the blood of the Pinckney Dispatch man is up and he exclaims, as he shies a stone at a neighbor's ïen and cracks a wing: "Unless the depredations on small fruit and garden truck ceases in this village someone, or ones, will either have a fine, or doctor's bill to pay." The editor of the Dearborn Advance was held up at the Wayne toll ;ate Sunday night and robbed of our cents. editor has no business going round tempting fate and ïighway robbers with such sums. - Northville Record. No, indeed, ie should have had the fore-sense o know better, and doubtless the obbers tolled him so.