Enforcement Of The Bicycle

nance and not a license upoa bicycles is what is needed in this city. Tiie wheelmen .of this eity are not íalling over each other to approve a license upon their wheels for the benefit of the collector. Fkom the extremely poor business he is doing we infer that the advance agent of prosperity must be paying his bilis with fifty cent dollars. If the counuil wishes to make the ordinance relative to the renumbering of houses effective it will lop off the penal features of that measure. If there is one thing that soothes the Democracy more than another it is the severe belly-ache that the Dingley tarift' produces in the Detroit Free Press. Pingree is burnishing up some of the armament used during his late unpleasantness with the Detroit street car company for use upon recalcitrant legislators. Gov. Pingree should secure the services of the Tennesee air ship to float his pet legislation. In that case he might be atle to put thestate se'nate out on a ñy. If the governor can make the legis lature believe that the railroads of Michigan can stand as much of the burdens of taxation as the railroads of Indiana stand, the people will not seriously object. It is just possible that the bouquets that the ladies have f rom time to time piled up on the Lansing desk of our Andrew Jackson have been intended for use in coloring and otherwise distinguishing that oleomargerine bill. Tjiat bilí of interpleader in the Collin's sewer matter seems to enjoy a large capacity for rest. It has been resting securely in the files of the clerk's office for some months and the solution of the sewer muddie is about as close as it was when the bill was iiled. Me. Bayard F. Ames, who won the oratorical contest for Michigan last Friday night, is a Denver boy, and it is needless to add, is an enthusiastic silverite. In the year 1900 Mr. Ames will be found in the ranks of the anarchist orators who will again be supporting Wra. J. Bryan. The Democrat does not believe the appointment of an additional pólice offlcer to be either necessary or desirable. This city has been handled in times much more troubulous than these by a city marshal and one patrolman. The state of city flnances does not warrant increasing the expense of the pólice department at this time. The Schuyler Olds who is at present engaged as local pilot of the railroad lobby at Lansing is the same Sky Olds who aspired to one of Michigan's seats in the "United States Senate not long since. Julius Ceasar Burrows is a purely ornamental statesman but he has never worked openly as a paid lobbyist. The governor announces his purpose to keep the legislature in the sweat box this summer until it passes his railroad bilis. This being the case the lemonade, etc, privileges of the capítol will constitute a species of patronage second only to those awarded by his satanic majesty in regions said to be hotter even than the state capítol during a Pingree simoon. A Few well chosen vices sometimes serve to make ones virtues appear greater by contrast. Those who are to uniformly good incur the danger of being unjustly adjudged nonentities. The esteemed Evening Times is running dangerously close to this line. JSince Gov. Pingree has vetoed the anti cirgarette bilí The Democrat would suggest that it smoke one or do some other awfully horrid thing to stiffen up its vertebrae. The United States senate did a good job when it downed the proposed arbitration treaty with England. The treaty put a power in the hands of the president not contemplated by the constitution. There is no danger but what any matter that is a proper subject of arbitration can be amicably settled when it arises, treaty or no treaty, and is not in the interest of peace .and harmony that the hands of our people bo tied by such a treaty. THE index number representing the average price of staple commodities continúes to decline. It is lower now than it has been before this century. Tlie only conclusión to be drawn from this statement is that the money in which those staples are measured is becorning more valuable. We have been selling 830,000,000 worth of -goods annually to Canada The new tarifï, it is said, will allow us to purchase only 85,009,000 worth of Canadian products. Jf the architects of the Dingley bill have iigured out how the Canadian people are going to pay thirty millions with five they have not vet taken the public into their confidence. l'erhaps they have overlooked the economie truth that all international trade is but an exchange of commodities. The new tariff bill announces in its title that it is a protective measure. All former tariff laws have been, ostensibly, measures for raising revenue. Early in this century the supreme court decided that such laws were constitutional on the ground that they were intended to raise revenue for the government. What that tribunal will say of a law that professes in its title to be a protective measure remains to be seen. Without the early notions of constitutional right have become perverted by long usage, the court will say that the use of the taxing power to foster any man's business is unconstitutional. The Aun Arbor Cycle club can do much toward establishing a better feeling towards bicycles if it will enforce among its members ordinary courtesy toward the drivers of vehicles, when travelling upon country roads Many complaints reach The Democrat of the lack oí civility on the part of young men who are scorching through the country. Bicycles are not " the whole thing" nor anywhere near it on the road, and much of the hostility exhibited against bicycles by farmers is due to a failure to appreciate that fact. So long as the farmer prefers mud to the insolence and presumption of too many of those who ride wheels, the matter of road improvement will move slowly. And now the much abused cigarette has a champion in the person of the wortliy governor of Michigan. Afíer all, the people 'ivho do not use the cigarette see more evil in thém than those who do use them, and are in a position to judge intelligently of their effect. The only difference between the cigarette and other forms of tobáceo is that the former is the milder. The contirmed smoker never relishes a cigarette for the simple reason that the strength is wanting. The Remocrat does not cali attention to these facts for the purpose of encouraging the use of cigarettes or any other form of tobacco, but to show how very well meaning persons may sometimes be woefully mistaken. Alderman B'bown will introduce a resolution at the next meeting of the council, amending the plumbing rules, so as to do away with the $2 tappage fee which is now exacted of those who connect with the sevvers. This will be a step in the right direction. The alderman believes that the city should offer indueements for people to connect with the sewers rather than place a fine npon them for performing an act that is in itself adesirable thingfor thewholecommunity. The original intention of the tappage fee was that it should go into a fund for the maintainance of the sewer sysiem. But, by an unwarranted construction of the language of the rule establishing the fee, it has been treated as a license in the clerk's office, and one-fourth of the money paid into the city in tappage fees has been eaten up in the collection of the same. The dispatches announce that gold has begun to leave the country again. These same dispatches also announce that the treasury officials are not worried about its departure. And why should they be worried? We can get along very well without it. We did business from '62 to '79 without it, and the country didn't go to smash either. On the contrary, it was in a, much more prosperous condition that it has been since Cleveland loaded up the treasury vaults with gold by mortgaging the country. Of course there was danger when gold started out on a little business trip across the ocean during Cleveland's term- danger that the president couldn't find excuse for selling hisWall street friends what bonds they wanted, and to make the scare elïective, the silver scarecrow was periodically paraded before the country, liut now that the silver skeleton is buried for four years, it will be necessary for our statesmen to revise their text. While they are making that revisión they may as well be honest, and teil the people that gold leaves us because foreign capital invested in this country exacts some hundreds of millions in dividends and interest each year, and as American legislation has placed almost every oíher production of this country at a disadvantage, gold is selected as the most proíitable material vvith which to discharge these obligations.