The Message

President Cleveland's message this time is long enough. lts most marked feature is the soletan warning which he gives that the country is in danger frotn the growth of extreinely large fortunes on the one hand and of extreme poverty on the other. He says: "Ourcities are the abiding places of wealth and luxury ; our maDufactories yield fortunes never dreamed of by the fathers of the republic; our business men are madly striving in the race for riches, and immense aggregations of capital outrun the imagination in the magnitude of their undertakings." That in itself is not bad ; but the other picture is not so pleasant : " We find the wealth and luxury of ourcities miugled with poverty and wretchedness. A crowded and constantly increasing urban population suggests the impoveriehment of rural sections, and discontent with agricultural pursuits. The wulf between the employers and the employed is constantly widening, and classes are rapidly forming, one comprieing the very rich and powerful, while in another are found the toiling poor." It is doubtful if the distinction is any more clearly marked to-day between the ricli class and the poor than in Revolutionary times. It is simply on a vaster scale, that is all ; and it is not now so easy for an employé to become an employer, because industry is on a gigantic scale. Garfield, Cleveland, and Harrison became presidente, although they were comparatively poor men, and an Alger's wealth, lavishly used, could not win that glittering prize. We are not disposed to underrate the danger of deep poverty by the side of vast wealth ; but will free trade remedy the evil? That is the question. Of course it will not. England shows in a more striking manner than the United States, the very evils which President Cleveland points out ; yet she has free trade that would suitthe Democrat party. Goto! Mr. President. Youcan'tbring about free trade in that way. Henry James, in an article on London in the last Century, gays: "I have no idea of what the future evolution of the strangely mingled monster may be; whether the poor will improve away the rich, or the rich will expropriate the poor, or they will continue to dweil together on their present imperfect terms of intercourse." London probably exhibits the most hideous poverty to be seen in the world, and is well termed a " monster." But are our own American cities more tender of human life? Recently an official sanitary inspection of New York tenements has been made. There are at least 32,390 tenement houses in that city, and they give shelter to 1,079,728 persons, 142,519 of whom are under five years of at;e. Comparatively there is hardly any such thing as real home life in New York city, for according to the last census there are, on the average, 2.43 families to each dwelling. Mary Andersom, in New York city, is a great sensation after her two years' sojourn abroad. It is amusing to read what is written of licrby would-be critics. One is in raptures about her Herïnione, declaring that she appeals more to the einotional sensibilities than to the eye. Another is equally certain that her pbysical beauty is the only feature of her Buccess ; that she is eimply a declaimer. He nays: "Where tru e dramatic power is called for, Miss Anderson does not fill the bill. Her love is unanimated and she is weak in depicting the broadness of her mental anguish." Another writer says : "The expression which her countenance assumes ie one of untold agony." What is dramatic criticism worth, anyway ? Meanwhile New York city bows down to Mary, and pays big money to hear her. At the meeting of the National editorial association, Nov. 22, W. H. Brearley, of the Detroit Evening Journal, had a paper on the "Libel laws of different States compared." In summing up he says : " It is a safe presumption to 6ay that the press of the land desire a modification of existing lawa, not for the purpose of relieving the publisher of reeponsibilty for the utterances of his paper, but for protection from the expense of defending trivial cases that are ' worked up ' by shysters, and that are possible only through conspiracy and barratry." The Pinckney Dispatch thinks that themortgage tax law and the marriage licence law will both be repealed by the next lejjislature. The people might consent to the repeal of the former, but woe to the legislature that repeals the latter. How could people find out the ages of newly married people if the marriage licence law were repealed? The enterprising Detroit Sunday IS ews offers a reward of 500 for the apprehension of the murderer of officer Albert Thayer of the Detroit pólice forcé, who was Bhot and kille') on the night of Nov. 26, wüile in the discharge of his duty. Whï is Cleveland like a tree? Because he leaves in the spring. - New York Conundrum.