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His Holiness, the Pope, is said to have remarked ia a recent interview that his days on earth would be bounded by the close of the year 1900. Mrs. Hermann Oelrichs, one of the richest women of the New York Four Hundred and the sister of Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt, jr., is to be the leader of the younger set of Gotham's wealthy society folk. She takes a prominent part in the Galveston Fair. John D. Rockefeller, jr., the young man of many millions, wtiose deeds in Wall street have won him the applause and approval of his elders, wa3 re cently, it is wnispered, cheated out of $2 by a street fakir whom ne endeav ored to instruct in the art of playing a little trick. GORE IN SEARCH OF APE-LIKE MAN. Again Scientists. Will Try to Find the 3Iissing Link, This Time in the Wilds of Distant Java. George W. Vanderbilt gives the best answer to the critics of the money class. He never has desired to be rated with the Four Hundred, but the in heritance o large wealth has forced him into a. social plane from which neither argument nor willing seclusion can release him. But he has decided to do something of consequence for the human race. To prove that the moneyed class i3 not wholly indifferent to the advance ment of science and the progress of thought, or idly intolerant regarding the great problems affecting the hu man race, the young master of Bilt more manor house has selected a bril liant Yale student, David J. Walters, to lead an expedition into far-away Java to settle, so far as human re search may do so, the most important problem that now confounds the biolo gists of the world namely: Does the actual species of ape-like men that the logic of biogeny (worked out by La marck, Darwin, Huxley and Haeckel) demonstrates to have lived at a remote period of the earth's history, still exist? Ernest Haeckel, the distinguished professor at the University of Jena, maintains that this soulless, voiceless, five-fingered, tailless creature is still extant amid the jungles and tangled forests of Northeastern Java, and he last spring announced his intention to , 'J 1 "ft V-L-v" iff, 4 VI VJ SCIENTISTS BELIEVE THAT THIS SOULLESS. VOICELESS AND TAIL LESS CREATURE IS THE ONLY LINK MISSING TO COMPLETE: THE CHAIN IN THE THEORY OF MAN'S DESCENT, AND THAT IT 13 EXTANT IS THE JUNGLES OF JAVA y- m fli? set out in quest of this only link yet missing to complete the wonderful chain in the theory of man's descent, beginning with the monera, or organ isms without organs; advancing to the amaeba, thence by seven stages to the skull-less vertebrates. THE MISSING LINK. The specimen of the Pithecanthropi, or ape-like men, that Mr. Vanderbilt hopes to find, marks the twenty-first stage of advancement from the single celled monera or protoplasmic germ. It is the one link that must be found, alive or in the fossil state, to com pletely demonstrate the new, wonderful and startling philosophy of human ex istence that eliminates a God, and to clinch what must be admitted to be the most brilliant product of the hu man b -ain the theory of development. Whether it is called Darwinism or Haeckelism is of little importance. The doctrine of evolution owes its own de velopment to several stages, but to La marck, Goethe, Huxley and Darwin in particular. It has divided the Christian church, it has made a warfare of science, and has commanded more, se rious thought by the brightest minds than any theme of the nineteenth cen tury. Into this arena, in which the death grapple between religion and advanced science will be fought out, Mr. George' !1 m i xx Alfred Vanderbilt, heir to the Vanderbilt millions, has "gone to work." Two weeks ago he entered the em ploy of the New York Central, and can now oe - .. . Nony o uie men of this tamily has been an idler. Youn? Cornelius works in the car shops and wears overalls at his daily tasks. Alfred will shortly marry Miss Elsie French. men. Tolstoi has, it is said, yielded to the entreaties of his friends on this side of the water and wi"l jour ntry. The Count is opposed to war and does not wholly approve Ruga's vigorou- rolicy in dealing Count Leo nev to this countrv. The Count is opposed to war and does not wholly approve with criminals. He works half the day books. W. Vanderbilt casts his wealth and American enthusiasm with a prompti tude that is characteristic of his grand father, the old "Commodore." The finding of the North Pole, the deter mination of the Nile basin, the genesis of the polyg'otic languages of the Sar gasso Sea, are as nothing compared to a final determination regarding the truth of the Biblical theory of crea tion. Upon the result of a successful hunt for the Pithecanthropus depends the faith of 230.000,000 Christian peopie who cling to the beliefs of their ances tors. Mr. Vanderbilt is a believer. He im bibed a devout reverence for the Chris tian faith from his devoted mother, and, however great his respect for science, he never has wavered in his acceptance of the Adamic theory of creation. . Mr. George W. Vanderbilt wants the truth. He Is like the editor of a news paper in quest of facts. He has adopted the practical and natural method of dol ing what Prof. Haeckel wants done. He has sent out a party himself. Mr. David J. Walters is now on his way to Japan, where a special steamer will be hired and properly equipped for this expedition to the island of Java. It is hoped to render the projected voyage of Prof. Haeckel unnecessary. Mr. Vanderbilt expects to find the Pithe canthropus at once if he be where Dr. Haeckel believes him. If the ape-like man is not in Java, Mr. Vanderbilt's agent will search the forests and the swampy savannas until he is convinced of that fact. The Pith ecanthropus must be found or dismiss ed from the field of contemporaneous existence. Although it is possible to discourse with a great deal of chimpanzinity re garding the subject of apes and man like apes, Mr. Vanderbilt's agent will readily distinguish the Pithecanthropus from all other members of the simian race. He cannot be deceived, because he is looking for the ape-like man; not the man-like ape! The difference is radical, as a little thought will make clear. Man began to be a foreshadowed possibility when the primarv form of , ape appeared. Our semi-ape ancestors, if Darwin and Haeckel be right, pos sessed only a faint resemblance to the still living short-footed apes. The ter tiary period probably produced them. They "originated" perhaps out of mar supials, or pouched animals (of which the kangeroo remains). "The certain proof that genuine apes are the direct descendants of semi-apes is found in their comparative anatomy," declares Haeckel. with the peasants in the field and devotes THE GREAT DEAL Of A GREAT MAN. Honr M. C. I'. Tordn, the "Ca! c Kin !u,'tK 15,000 la.ua 0. tvt.Oj aud fiuVea a city. Matthew C. D. Borden, the head of the largest cotton manufacturing busi ness in the world, has again proved himself the friend of labor. By purchasing 500,000 pieces of cotton goods at 2 7-S cents he has foiled a con spiracy to reduce wages, averted a strike and saved an entire community from undeserved disaster. This Is not the first time that "the Calico King" has appeared as the champion of the toilers against his fellow-manufacturers. In lSil he cleared out a glutted mar ket and saved 50,000 mill hands from idleness and famine by buying 850,000 pieces of cotton goods. In February, 1S97, he repeated the op eration. This time he took the entire stock held by the Fall River mills 750,000 pieces and paid $1,000,000 for it. The effect on the market was an active demand at advanced price's. What ap pealed most to Mr. Borden was the ef fect on labor 3,500.000 spindles working full time instead of half time. In November, 1&99, Mr. Borden again startled New England by compelling his fellow-manufacturers to advance wages 10 per cent. He had tried his usual remedy of buying a. large block of goods, but his rivals had balked him ' by delaying the completion of the deal. Determined that the army of wage- . earners should suffer no longer, and that all talk of a strike should cease, he voluntarily granted the advance of 10 per cent, to the 4,000 hands employed in his own enterprises the Fall River Iron Works and Cotton Mills, and the , American Print Company's works. ' Only a month passed before the other manufacturers of cotton goods, much to their disgust, were compelled to fol low suit. Fall River alone gained S25.000 a week in wages by Mr. Borden's action, and throughout New England not less than 100,000 operatives were made prosperous and happy. And now, in 190, "the Calico King" has won another victory for labor. Again the cotton goods market was in a perilous condition. Again the mill owners were threatening to cut w-ages, and the hands were preparing to strike. New England seemed on the eve of an industrial cataclysm. Mr. Borden's purchase - of 500.000 milium Kus a s vigorous ro!:cy m dealing the other to the writing of his pieces cf cotton goods at a total price of $720,000 relieves the mills of over produced goods and stimulates the mo ribund market into activity. As each piece will run from forty-six to fifty yards, he has become the owner of 25,000,000 yards of cotton enough to carpet a footpath from New York to San Francisco five times over. But this is not such a vast quantity to the man whose own mills in a single year pro duce enough calico to make a bandage round :he middle of the earth, with 5,000 miles to spare. The story of Mr. Borden's life makes interesting reading. He comes origi nally of French stock, and can trace his ancestry back to Bourdonny. an ancient village in Normandy. The first member of his family to land on Brit ish soil entered England with William the Conqueror and having served His Majesty faithfully was rewarded with vast estates in the County of Kent af ter the overthrow of King Harold. From that time until the middle of the seventeenth century the original Bor dens lived in England steadily increas ing in wealth and number of family. In 1665, however, Richard Borden, who then was the lord of the estate, came to America and settled in Rhode Island. With his emigration to thi3 country the family fortune was confis cated by the English and he was left to share the privations of the early colo nists. Finally he married and the union was blessed with a son, Matthew, the first child of English parents to be born in Rhode Island. From this point the family descent is authentically re corded up to the present time. In spite of his illustrious ancestry and the fortune that smiled upon his forefathers, the present Mr. Borden was born in 1S42 amidst humble sur roundings, endowed only with the love of devoted mother and father and good health. When he was quite a boy his father removed to Fall River and thero became a leader in all that contributed to the success of the thriving village. Later t;:e elder Mr. Borden went to the war and came out, decorated with the regalia of a colonel. Young Matthew was sent to Phillips Academy at Andover, Mass., to be fit ted for a course of higher education, and when his term was completed there he went to Yale, graduating with hon ors in the class of 1S64. As soon a3 he had graduated he was offered a position in the stock depart ment of a New York dry goods store, which he accepted and held for three years, until he became a partner in one of the leading commission houses of the metropolis. He continued a mem ber of this firm until 1879, when it failed. c Mrs. McKinley and Mrs. 'Bryan are at present the subject of exeat Inter est to their fellow-women; one of thera will be the next lady of the Wiiita House; both are well fitted for its trying duties. Mrs. Carence Mackay, considered by many to be the protticst womnn in the United States, is one of the earnest workers lor the great Galveston Fair, in which all New York is interested. It ie to be conducU-d by the world of high society women, and New Yorkers will pay well for the privilege of buying trifles from their fair hands. ALASKA'S WEALTH NOT HALF TOLD. Wcnderlul Climate Prevails in the South, With. Great Possibilities lor the Sportsman and lanner. Reindeer have made themselves thor oughly at nome in Alaska that mar vellous country whose richness in ani mal life and agricultural possibilities is not yet half suspected by the majority of Americans. The pilgrim fathers of the family w-ere imported from Lapland in the early stages of the Klondike craze to be worked and eaten by the starving miners. They luckily escaped being eaten, and were later reinforced by 700 reindeer doe imported by the Govern ment from Siberia. From the mixed herd of 1.000 head, or a little more, they have multiplied to 3,000, and under Uncle Sam's protec tion they promise to play an important part in the future of Alaska and add greatly to its wealth. The twenty-five Laplanders who came over with the first consignment are on their way home with about $700 each, saved out of their earnings as reindeer drivers and mail carriers. But Alaska needed no importations to add to its fascinations. Gold? Of course everybody knows about that, but everybody doesn't know that gold j&P5; hi W H ) f XV it s , M I Determined to prove to the wor'.d that men of wealth are not Indifferent to the progress of science, Mr. Vanderbilt has equipped a party of explorers with the necessaries required to search for the missing link in th theor of man's descent. -'"U v-."'"1- is one of the least Interesting thjncs about the country that Uncle Sam km shrewd enough to buy from Russia. Take strawberries. Alaska has nmr Big Stone a strawberry bed seven miles long and two miles wide. Fourteen square miles of strawberries! And thpy are beauties. Nothing finer Is urown In this country outside a hothous". Unci Sam can produce no nearer appro' h to the English straw berry, w hoss haunting fragrance is equalled by ru) other fruit. Raspberries and blackberries, too, reach a high pitch of cultivation In Alaska, which is popularly supposed to grow nothing more nourishing than glaciers. Oats FPilW by mules as they feed grow wild higher than a man's head, and would yield, it Is estimated, 209 bushels to the acre. Alaskan tomatoes are described as big as a man's hat. All manner of fruit and vegetables be longing to temperate climes thrive amazingjy and under proper cultivation there Is'no reason why Alaska should not become Uncle Sam's kitchen gar den.