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All agree that coal is absurdly, extortionately,cruelly high; but all do not agree as to the cause of present high prices, or as to how it may be cheapened The free traders say the high price is dependent on the present tariff, while some protectionists say it is owing to extortionate freights and high prices demanded by miners We say it is a combination of all the causes assigned While we have been and still are protectionists within what we consider the legitimate meaning of that term, we say remove the tariff on coal, at least until such time as it may become apparent that it needs some protection At present it is perfectly plain " the shoe is on the other foot" But when this is done only a small part is done We need additional and competing lines of transit trom the great beds of coal to the principal centers ot trade, and we need more labor; the want of a proper labor supply being, in our opinion, one of the chief causes of trouble This labor can be found in abundance in Asia It only waits to be properly invited It is just the kind of labor wanted for the purpose, and the coal strikers may rest assured that if it be once called into request, public opinion will sustain it against all intrigue, and threatened or attempted outrage Cheap coal we may have, and must have, and all parties implicated in the present stringency had better take heed lest they carry things just beyond the limit of the proverbially elastic American patience We say to these people so long as you protect the public we go in heart and hand to protect your industry, but not one fraction of a moment longer And we say the same to all other industries the people have been willing to aid by tariff on foreign importations We are sorry to say it, but the present high prices of coal are doing more to build up the doctrines of free trade than all the writings of its advocates, or speeches of clergymen, college professors, and demagogues, upon the much misunderstood and abused subject of protection If only the coal trade would be likely to suffer by the reaction which the present state of things will cause, we should not grieve, but we fear that the prosperity of other important industries will be also imperiled Many will be so illogical as to reason that if a tariff is not needed on coal it is not; needed on anything Now the only way to make such a conclusion tenable is to sheapen labor Let people take their choice, but remember that labor cheapened by a supply adequate to the demand will not be likely to soon recover its present power Testing; Opium Professor Schneider has proposed, in the sixth revised edition of the Pharmacopoeia Austriaca, the following method for testing the goodness of opium : Ten grammes of previously dried and powered opium are treated with a mixture of 150 grammes ol distilled water, to which 20 grammes of pure hydrochloric acid, sp gr 1'lSJ, are added; the residue, after extraction, should not exceed 45 grammes weight ; ta the acid fluid 20 grammes of common salt are added, and the precipitate thereby caused is collected, after 24 hours, on a filter, and the latter washed with a solution of common salt; to the filtrate ammonia is added, and the fluid left standing again for 24 hours; the crystals which have separated are collected, redissolved in acetic acid, and precipitated with ammonia ; the precipitate so obtained is washed, dried, and weighed; its weight should not be less than 1 gramme
