Progressive Batavian Batavia, Genesee County, New York State November 4-1887 The Skeleton of a Woman Found in a Box on a Train. Elmira, N.Y. - A box of bones, which proved upon examination to be the skeleton of a woman, was found on a Lehigh Valley train Saturday. Conductor RAYMOND says he stopped his train just outside of the city limits of Elmira and that the box was not on board then. When next he went over his train at Waverly he found it, and he concludes from this that the ghastly freight must have been put on board at Elmira. The bones are all disjointed, and the top of the skull is sawed evenly off. The skeleton, though not much decayed, has the appearance of having laid in the earth for some time. There are no marks on the box which give any clue as to where it came from. + Horse Thieves Captured. Sharon, Pa.-After a hot pursuit of three days the thieves who made a wholesale horse raid through Hickory township and stole some valuable stock, have been overtaken at Canandaigua, N.Y., and the booty recovered. A telegram announcing the fact Saturday night gives no particulars. + Sanitary science has worked much good, but it has disseminated much nonsense. Now it is the manufactured article which is big with the germs of death; now the water; now the air; now the milk. If half that has been written of these subjects were true, there would be no further need for agitation. All the people would have been dead long ago. As a matter of fact purity is an essential in any article of popular consumption. Every body knows this, and as a rule, an effort is made to procure that which is pure. When such end can not be accomplished, sickness and perhaps death may result. But the theory that every thing known is full of germs of fatality seems incompatible with the fact that people continue to live. + Unwise Colored Voters. Words of Wisdom from the Pen of Hon. Frederick Douglass. There is a class of colored mug-wumps who have been led by unwise or corrupt motives farther away from the line of political duty than the white mugwumps. A member of the colored race who votes to place or continue in power the surviving elements of the pro-slavery and rebel Democratic party is untrue to the cause of human freedom, is an ingrate as regards the party that enfranchised his race, and if he talks in defense of his apostacy he utters nothing but chattering idiocy. Frederick DOUGLASS has recently written for publication a letter on this subject. It should be read by every colored man and by every white man, for its general truth and for the lesson that it teaches the colored and the white man alike. Mr. DOUGLASS says: "There is no question that, whatever may have been the faults and shortcomings of the Republican party, it has been, first, and last, the party of justice, liberty and progress. It is also plain that, in whatever the Democratic party has yet done in the same direction, it has derived its inspiration from the example set by the Republican party. It, in fact, has worn, when it has worn any thing tolerably decent, the old shoes and second-hand clothing of the Republican party. Of course I am glad to have the Democratic party follow the Republican, even in the ragged and worn-out garments with which it now and then covers itself. But that party is altogether too slow of foot, too heavily burdened with its ugly record and the solid South to be safely trusted to lead in the cause of liberty, enlightenment and progress. It is bad enough to have that party hanging on the skirts of the Republican party, doing its best to hinder it and dragged forward by it, but it is far more mischievous to thrust it in front where it can block the way of the Republican party." In regard to the colored men who from mere eccentricity of thought and habit, or from worse impulses, vote the Democratic ticket, he says: "It is a matter of deep surprise and regret that once in a while we find a colored man in a Northern state using his pen and tongue in denunciation of the Republican party and in laudation of the Democratic party. No honest Democrat to-day can respect either the head or the heart of the black citizen who pretends to be a Democrat and urges other black men to support the Democratic ticket." But he reaches the root of the matter in describing the present condition of colored men at the South under Democratic rule--unable to obtain justice in the courts, the victims of violence everywhere, robbed by violence and fraud of the suffrage with which they were clothed by the Nation, and helpless at the feet of their old taskmasters. This graphic and forcible passage is as follows: "If I could go upon the stump, as you have honored me by asking me to do, I would endeavor to impress upon the colored citizens of the State of New York the great and paramount importance of a Republican victory. I would endeavor to show them that such a victory would tend to the promotion of their cause. For, disguise it as we may, the welfare of the colored people North and South has not yet passed the line of danger. While the negro[sic] can be dragged from railroad cars in the South, for no fault but the color of his skin; while he can be sold into slavery on the mere pretense of crime; while he can be doomed to work in chain-gangs while others are only put in prison for offenses against the law; while he is presumed, when accused, to be guilty until he can prove his innocence; while he is subjected to the lynch law and the halter without the pretense of judge, jury, advocate or legal accusers; while he is compelled to work for nominal wages and defrauded by store orders; while he is deprived of equal means afforded to all the other classes and colors for the education of his children, and while a Republican Senate passes a bill for such equal education and a Democratic House of Representatives votes down the measure of enlightenment and statesmanship; while he may be driven from the ballot-box and his vote goes uncounted--it may be safely said that the negro[sic] has a cause, which will be favorably affected by a Republican victory in New York and the Nation; and disastrously affected by a Democratic victory." As long as the Democratic party holds under its control the solid South, this will be the condition of the colored race there. Every vote cast to sustain Democratic ascendancy in any Northern State has a direct and powerful effect in continuing Democratic domination at the South. A colored man who votes a Democratic ticket votes in favor of excluding the colored men of the South from the ballot box, in favor of denying them civil rights and the benefits of education, in favor of kuklux methods in administration, and in favor of the virtual re-establishment of slavery wherever it was abolished by the National ordinances. + submitted by Linda C. Schmidt *********************************************