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THAT CORN CORNER. Last month’s corn oorner in Chicago was & very noticeable affuir, owing to its earl and peculiar collapse. By its mmagnituce it affected all the grain marketsin the country. Its influence extended to Cattle, provisions and hogs. It was used for a pretext for the temporary expansion of fal Ss in every possible direction. No one pretended that corn would be anywhere near as high just after settlement day as juet before that day. . The whole thing was artificial so far as the advance of values was concerned. . Well,on January 24, corn had opened at 75 cents in Chicago, and was proportion- ately high in other markets, ‘That morning, however, an operator who saw that he was to lose heavily if the thing went on appealed to the courts for relief against his own con- ‘tracts. Something of’ this kind had been common enough before by both outside and inside operators after a corner had run its course, and done its dumage. But euch an experiment had never before, we believe, been resorted to by a speculator to break down a corner while still pending and in full progress, Now, this particular operator had, we take it, neither better nor worse principles than the common run of Board of ‘Trade specu- lators. He wasina desperate fix. Indeed, when ought a man to be called desperate, if not when he is being beaten at his own game? Hence he could not have had a strong inclination to stand upon nice dis- tinctions in seeking a way out of his diffi- culties. He hit upon the lawyers and the courts as his recourse. He procured an in- junction restraining the brokers with whom he had open trades in January corn from calling on him for further margins, closing out his deals or having him expelled from the board as a defaulter under its rules. He alleged a conspiracy on the part of the per- sons enjoined to monopolize the corn mar- ket and force a fictitious and unnatural price for corn. Of course it may be called quite dishonorable.to plead the baby act and thus back out of one’s own contracts, Had he been on the other side of the speculative fence, this operator would have denounced such conduct by another as superlatively dishonorable. But, nonsense; the standard of honor in places where grain corners are made is very different from the common dictionary standard. We suppose there really is a certain kind of honor among thieves and a certain kind in gambling dens. They have their rules which it is dishonor- able to retreat from, and so the bodies which indulge in frequent corners have their rules, Yet it isn’t safe to judge of them by outside popular standards of honor, What sort of honor is it which rejoices in deliberately forcing a ficticious price upon _breadswuffs? Are not the miserably poor of the outside world the greatest and most innocent suf- ferers? It is scandalous to talk about any respectable standard of. honor in connection with corners. Their very underpining rests in dishonor and cruel ‘selfishness. | Men think it is right, and nothing but fair trade, to build corners and manipulate markets, but itis all wrong. Were none cornered but the operators it might be right enough. They do not merely take their own chances among themselves, but they speculate upon the wants and necessities of the most help- less of the rest of the community. reasons we.have no patience with those who stigmatize this Chicago operator’s appeal to the courts as dishonorable, If dishonor really attaches to it, the kind is such tha the overwhelming majority of the people can well afford that it should be repeated as frequently as the chances for it occur. With corn in Chicago at 75 cents per bush- el, a temporary injunction was issued to be good until the merits of the whole business could be judicially inquired into. The in- stant the news reached the Board of Trade the virtue went out of that corner anda breath would have scattered it to the winds. The eager bidders of a moment previous sud- denly changed their minds, and no one wanted to buy corn. Prices weakened. Gradually they dropped as some one would make a small bid just for a feeler. By Jan- uary 29, corn had got down to 674g ‘cents Then it seemed to become manifest to each operator that his neighbor also had lost all confidence in the corner. - Within ten min- utes of the last sale of January corn at 6714 cents, it tumbled down 8% cents, and the saleg during that tumble aggregated oy 320,000 bushels. This big decline made it more profitable for the recalcitrant operator to stick to his contracts than to his injunc- tion bill, He therefore dismissed the latter, bought in enough corn at the decline to fill his contracts and cleared, it is said, $10,000 by the trick. We think it is deplorable that the court did not insist, as a matter of public policy, that the proceedings go on and the business of the bill be fully investigated and finally de- termined. ‘There was infinitely more in principle involved in the suit than this one speculator’s profit or loss. However, now that the ice is broken, until a decision in a similar case is arrived at, grain corners can not be operated with anything like previous audacity. There will be constant distrust lest some losing dealer spoil the whole thing by simply hiring a iawyer to carry the cor- nerinto court. Corners are conspiracies, and they have no place in legitmate busi- ness. The quicker they are shorn of their strength the better for the people, THE OLD, OLD STORY. For years the people of this conntry have struggled to solve the puzzling question as to who struck Billy Patterson, but they were not long in finding out the etiicacy of Swayne’s Ointment for itching piles. his goes to show what old mother necessity will do. ‘Thousands had suftered unbearable itching, scratching and soreness from piles, but a final determination to find a cure put them on the right track, and to-day those self-same people rejoiee in a renewal of health through Swayne’s Ointment. The Ithaca Journal has the following re- garding a shower of fish. which occurred at that place last Saturday night: “The fish, some of which were shown to persons at this office, are fresh water herring, and were from three inches to five inches in length, The shower of fish seemed to fall over a rather narrow région at the northern-edge of the village. This is a phenomenon which we woul be pleased to have some scientist ex- plain, if it can be explained. 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