What Plays All The Mischief

The grocers have raised the price of their tea, On account of the Inter-State law ; And doctors, they say, have doubled their fee, And the air of heaven verj' soon won't be free, On account of the Inter-State law; How convenient it is, when you raise on your price, To bamboozle your patrons with such a device ! The tailor puts up the price of your coat, On account of the Inter-State law ; And the Interest is r&ised two per cent on your note, And the heeler has ra!sed the price of his yote, On account of the Inier State law ; But what is this law that our income all melts ? We don't know what it is. Nor does any one else. -Financial Record. The rallroads have all raised the rate of their freight, On account of the Inter-State law ; 80 It costs more to carry the usual weigbt, And the grocery Staples are higher at date, On account of the Inter-State law ; How transparant for raüroads to raise on the price, And try to bamboozle with such a device ! Small shippers have always been left in the rear, So we needed the Inter-State law ; But the railroads say to the favorites, " Here, We'll fix the thing up in the tariff, don't fear, In spite of the Inter-State law." But the people are earnestly crying out " Stop ! GiTe us fair play for all or you'U Eear something drop.' -American Gbocer. The damage to crops by the drouth this year is placed by R. G. Dun & Co's Weekly Trade Review, at $300,000,000. This great loss must cause, not only a stringenoy with many and the necessity of practicing economy, but real suffering in many localities. The Review says: Short crops in 1881 proved the turning poiat of business for seven years, and the drouth this year, though resulting in less iDJury to crops, comes at a time when real estáte values at the west have been unusually inflated. Heavy rains have broken the long drouth during the past week, but only after an official bureau report had shown how serious was the injury sustained, and the relief carne too late to do good in ex tensive districts of the north-west. The bureau reports losses whioh cannot be repaired to a considerable part of the hay erop, and to oats, tobáceo, potatoes and fruit, little injury to cotton and wheat, and a decline of 17 per cent. in the condition of corn. The work of destruction continued 10 days after the bureau reports were made, before rain carne, and the aggregate loss of ths f irmers must exieed $300,000,000. This difference is inevitable in purchases of manufactured and imported goods by the north-west. If pnces had not been inflated by real estáte booms and if new indebtedness of enormous volume had not been created, the loss of even the tenth of an area of the value of farm products would make little difference. But mild speculation in lands and town lots, the expenditure of many hundred millions in new building?, and the permanent investment of large Buras in new railroads and manufacturmg work?, render a partial loss of the crops more important The political situation ia Earope is a matter of great interest to all the world. Great and stirrinofevents may soon be expected from that part of the globe. President George Washburn, D. D., of Robert college, Constanticople, who has just returned to bis home after a few weeks' visit to America, gives a clear statement of the conditian of the country whose history mu3t soon reach a page as exciting and eventful as any in her existence : " As to the general condition of Europe, all the Frenchmen and all the Gerrnans whom I have met predict a war next year, although, curiously enough, the Germans are sure that it will be commenced by France and the Frenchmen that it will be declared by Germany. France is doing her beet to secure a Russian alliance at the expense of Bulgaria, and Germany has already secured the alliance of Austria and Italy in case she is attacked. If England is drawn into the war it will be on the same side, but she will try to keep out of it. The question of Holland is a serious one, but it is not likely to come up until other questions have been settled. There are some who think that the financial difficulty of theEuropean powers will prevent the outbreak of war ; but there is another side to this question. Europe is now sn armed camp, and financial ruin is staring governmentsandpeople in the face. Nothing but war or a genera! disarmament can put an end to this state of thing?, and as there is no hope of the latter in the present state of the world war cannot be long postponed. Already the wealth of Europe is being transferred to America (not so much to our spiritual as to our material advantage), a re.-ult due chiefly to the enormous expenditures of the European States for armaments. It will end in universal bankruptcy even if there is i o actual war. So this golden age of material progresa is likely to end as miserably as the last century in epite of its discoveries, its inventions, its constitutions, and its praise of liberty, equaüty and fraternity."