Evening star. [volume], February 14, 1915, Page 5, Image 53

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
BY CHARLES M. PEPPER.
ENGLAND'S bread basket in peace
times needs refilling every
ninety days. In war times the
period has to be shortened
omewhat.
Long before the present hostilities
began the question of how long the
United Kingdom could feed herself was
discussed with animation. Sometimes
It came up in parliament. Often it was
the theme of partisan controversy. Frequently
it was the topic of profound
observation by political economists.
Statesmen with a practical mind?and
most English statesmen are of that
sort?usually considered it in connection
with the navy.
*
* *
Some of the theorists used to maintain
that even under peace conditions
two months would be the limit under
which the English people could get
along without going very hungry, but
? the weight of opinion was in favor of
ninety days. A compromise view was
that ninety days in peace and sixty
days in war would be the limit.
This did not mean that the mass of
the population would eat more in war
than in peace. It assumed that there
might be some interference with domestic
agricultural production, and
that supplies would be further depleted
by the necessity of provisioning
the army.
To fill the bread basket of 44,000.000
people when the agricultural area is
limited, it is clear that other sources
of supply than the domestic one must
be looked to. There is, moreover, the
fact that the English people want
wheat bread. Germans may thrive on
rye bread, and America may develop
robust men and women who know and
enjoy corn bread, but with the Britons
at home eating wheat bread has become
so much a habit that it may be classed
with other British institutions, such as
parliament and the limitation of the
king's prerogatives.
*
* *
In peace times all the world Is open
to the United kingdom to draw wheat
and flour from. There are the British
possessions overseas, all Europe itself,
the United States and South America.
These sources of supply are ample to
insure the average quantity of bread,
% since a world-wide failure of the wheat
rrnn npv^r hannpns
In ordinary years it takes above one
hundred million hundredweight, or
about two hundred million bushels of
imported wheat to fill the bread basket
of the United Kingdom, in addition to ,
the domestic supply. In 1913 the importations
were approximately one
hundred and six million hundredweight,
or about two hundred million bushels.
Part of this wheat came from countries
which are now allies of England
In the world war. Comparatively little
of it was from countries with which
England is at war.
Russia has been a bountiful source
wc-.v.-;, r: ; ?
r.;.: : ' ' C.
' - - - VAL
"CUPID'S M(
1
THE failure to dot an "I" or cross
a "** helps to fill ."Cupid's
^ morgue" and often places in
Jeopardy the real romance of many a
man and maid who go through life
thinking that the anonymous outpourings
of their hearts were not appreciated,
or that the intended recipient
lacked intuition. Thousands of these
votaries of St. Valentine lose out every
fourteenth day of February and wonder
why, little thinking it was only the
slip of the pen in addressing the valentine
to the chosen one that caused it
to go astray and finally reach "Cupid's
morgue," as it is called at the dead
letter office.
Or it may be the lost valentine was
sent to a "Nixie post office," which
sounds like a place for only mysterious
letters which afe sent to little brownies,
pixies and fairies by small children,
but is in reality just a flag station
on the railroad, and not a post
office at alL In this case it is left at
the nearest post office, and if the addressee
fails to claim it the valentine
. then reaches "Cupid's morgue" here, or
at some one of the other fifteen division
headauarters of the railway mail
tervlce.
* *
When It reaches the morgue, if it
years a written message, every means
Ia resorted to to find for whom it was
attended, for Uncle Sam has a lot of
lentiment, so sometimes by the postmark
and a wonderful astuteness in
unravelling the secret intentions of
people which characterizes the clerks
in the dead letter office through whose
uands it passes the fair one or gallant
i* reached. As real valentines are
sever signed?for that is their mysterious
charm?It takes a kindred reeling
and the cleverest sort of detective work
:o unravel the mystery of their destination.
In the event of failure, he
who thinks these messengers of sentiment
and love are ruthlessly destroyed
. ur sold at auction in one of the several
dead letter sales which take piace
such year is mistaken, for in the case
of valentines, with some exceptions,
what is one's loss is another's gain, and
while a trifle belated reach a happy
jestination where they are thoroughly
appreciated.
On the 14th of February all over the
country the mails increase about 10 per
cent, and whle this is not aa large an increase
as at Christmas and Faster, it is
very noticeable, requiring a longer time to
sort and deliver the yalentine matter. The
special delivery and parcel poet service
help to facilitate getting out the mails on
this day. and the littler 18 particularly Interesting
in the variety and uniqueness
'* of the articles it carries as souvenirs
of Us celebration.
WiUt sash year styles cbangs, and
Um old-fashioned, large, lace paper vali
of supply, except in the years when
there was a crop shortage within her
own vast borders. That was the case
in 1913, when the Cnited Kingdom only
obtained 9.000,000 bushels But in 1910
Russia supplied England with upward
of 54,000,000 bushels, and in other years
from 20,000,000 bushels up to 35,000,000
bushels.
The Russian wheat fields have not
ceased to produce because millions of
Russians are enrolled in the army
ranks. The claim has been tnade that
there has been, and will be. no deficiency
in the harvests due to failure to
plant the crop. This may be true. The
Siberian wheat tlelds may have some
surplus for shipment to <ireat Britain
across the Pacific. Some wheat also
might be gotten out by way of the
Black sea, but the Baltic, hardly would
be considered as safe for transportation.
*
* *
Russia, however, like any country
" { ..
< - *. 4 i
i tr F
I
OCEAN CARRIERS A
engaged in war, must think of her own
people first and of her allies afterward.
The tendency would be to provide
means for keeping the bulk of her
wheat crop at home while hostilities
last, even if there were ample means
of getting it afloat consigned to friendly
nations.
It is not likely that English statesmen
who have to think of feeding the
forty odd million Britons who are not
DrVIA, THE WHEAT PORT OF CHI
TTTc3 W
vv
?GST AND S
entines in the embossed envelopes of
the last century, and the fancy cards
in pasteboard boxes which used to be
sent and were such a trial in the
stamping machine, have now given
place to thousands of post cards, while
books, candy, flowers, fruit and other
articles requiring careful wrapping
come by special delivery or in the parcel
post.
There is no live stock of any description
carried by parcel post except by
accident, though there is under discussion
at th s time a plan looking toward
an extension of the service in this
direction, that the farmers and country
people generally may have the
benefit of sending their live poultry,
and perhaps game, to customers direct.
w
* *
However, on last Valentine day a
country swain not being up in parcel
post regulations and wishing to send
the admired one a suggestive, live,
homey valentine, sent her a pair of
bantam chickens by the parcel post.
The postmaster at the country post office,
not having read carefully his instructions,
or perhaps having a fellow
feeling, allowed the tiny cock and hen
to come to Washington, and they were
so cute and the cock crowed so lustily
on his arrival that the parcel post man
delivered the pair to the Intended one.
Besides these, a pair of rabbits came
through in the same way.
Since the rage for picture postcards
began, valentines largely take that
form, and as addresses are often defective.
and there is no return marks,
these are turned into "Cupid's morgue"
in the dead letter office, where they
are carefully looked over, sorted out,
put in packages and by the help of a
list furnished by municipal officers.
sent around to the various charitable
Institutions and hospitals. On reaching
this final destination they are distributed
among the inmates and patients
in the wards, of course the
children coming first.
This is a wise and cheerful disposition
of them that Uncle Sam has
thought out. as they bring sunshine to
many a little child and older person,
too. who may have been overlooked on
St Valentine's day. And though the
gift is a bit late, it is enjoyed just as
much, as was illustrated In the case of
an old sailor in one of the hospitals,
who was moved to tears of Joy at the
sight of the valentine, explaining to
the nurse that it was the first he had
received in years The last one reached
him in a foreign port, he explained,
and since then there had been silence.
Flowers and fruit are distributed In
a similar way after being kept for a
reasonable length of time in the large
ice box which was installed in October
in the new city post office for that purpose,
all perishable goods being put in
this if delivery is belated.
* *
This ice box Is as large as a hall bedroom
in a city boarding house and
How the United Kingd<
lation Able to Feed
Roumania Now Cu
the Wheat Neededtina
as an English G
Britain This Year.
in arms, as well as the million in arms,
are counting: on Russia as a reliable
contributor to the bread basket during
the next year or two.
Roumania may not technically be
classed among the allies as yet, but
her attitude is not in doubt. The United
-<>" ' '. . "iil
v..-*; ' ..' - '
T THE GREAT WHEAT PORT OF ]
Kingdom has been drawing on Roumania
to the extent of 1,000,000 to
4,000,000 bushels of wheat in good crop
years, although occasionally the imports
would be small, either because
of abundance from other sources or
because the Roumanian crop was short.
The combined Russian and British
and French fleets might be able to
keep the straits of the Dardanelles
open for wheat cargoes from the Black
^ ^ ^?
m
jB BP
LE.
HEME GO ^
iTMAYED Y.
holds a thousand pounds of ice. It Is
compactly arranged and lighted by
electricity, and so far has met all requirements.
But when the parcel delivery
service is enlarged to the proportions
it has reached in England, a
larger plant will have to be provided.
Not only do the hospitals and charitable
institutions profit by perishable
matter sent as valentines, but all
through the year sample packages or
malted milk, prepared foods of every
sort?unless the sender provides for
their return?reach the same destination.
In the early centuries valentine sending
was a luxury Indulged in by the
rich who could afford a messenger or,
at a later period, postage for delivery.
In Shakespeare's time the sender wrote
his valentines and pinned them to
trees, or he carved two intertwined
hearts on the trunk of a tree, with an
SYMBOLIC SIGN
Advertising signs are multiplying,
but the "character signs"
or "symbolic signs" show a tendency
to pass away. Some of these
have comi'jtely disappeared, and
others are not so prominent and insistent
as they were. Under the classification
of "character signs" would be
included the bush that once stood before
tap rooms, the white horses, blue
dragons, swans, owls, golden eagles
and green pheasants that stood or
swung in front of, or on top of, taverns,
the red and green lights in apothecary
shops, the red and white striped
pole in front of barber shops, the giant
? ' ? ?i ? ? ?? nf th A wa.teh
WttlUII BWinBiUB ?? >av?v ?
maker's, the giant's boot outside the
bootmaker's, the wooden Indian with
upraised tomahawk, bow and arrow,
and a bundle of cigars which stood
guard in front of tobacco shops, the
gilt horse that pranced or trotted on
the weather vane of the stable, and
the cast-iron or blackened plaster figure
of a bootblack boy which used to
be found outside shoe-shine shops before
they became shoe-shine "parlors."
Some of these "symbol signs" persist,
but though the shops themselves have
been greatly increased in number, the
"character signs" are becoming scarce.
The usual taproom or "saloon" sign
in Europe two or three hundred years
ago was a green bush. Jt was sometimes
pine, but was nearfy always one
of the evergreen varieties. On certain
festive occasions oak boughs were
used, and the custom at Chrlstmaa
was to substitute holly for the pine or
oak. In the case of some of the
olden saloons the "bush" was planted
and growing at the taproom door. It
was the bush or brush sign before
taprooms that gave cause for the saying
that "good wine needs no bush.'
That saying probably came into use
as cities grew larger, and it becoming
more difficult for alehouse and wine
hop ^oprletors to obtain green
Dm Draws on All the W(
Itself Only Ninety Day?
it Off by the War?Briti
?India, Australia and C*
Iranary?What the Bumj
sea. This would be the outlet for the
Roumanian wheat destined for Eng
Iclliu ; UUl AUUIIIctlllil, W III! a. in. & v p. u
portion of her population under arms,
and with the prospect that she will be
one of the belligerents, cannot afford
to let her leading agricultural product
J
- " ^ ,, gss5saa5? j
rOSARIO, ARGK.MI.XA.
go abroad even to friends. Steps already
have been taken to conserve the
Roumanian wheat crop for Roumania
herself.
* *
Neither Russia nor Roumania therefore
can be considered as sources of
supply for the bread basket while the
war lasts. The deficiency must be made
up elsewhere.
The British colonial possessions require
special consideration.
India is a pretty steady factor In the
British break basket year in and year
out. Famines are now infrequent, and
there is ordinarily a large surplus
which India's teeming population does
not need or is too poor to buy. The
Punjab, or the five-river region. \vh?ch
is the great wheat field of India, also
shows increased productiveness from
year to year due to bringing larger
areas under cultivation through Irrigation.
Karachi, on the Arabian sea,
rmints nn a stAarlv wheat traffic.
In phenomenally good crop yeara
India is able to supply the United
Kingdom with 50,000,000 bushels of
wheat, although that is not the average.
Forty million bushels would come
nearer the mark. In 1912 there were
about 48,000,000 bushels, and in 1913
41,000,000 bushels.
So far, the allied fleet has been able
to keep the Suez canal and the Mediterranean
free for their own traffic
with India. Should Germany and Turkey
succeed in closing the canal for
a long period this would mean that the
United Kingdom would receive little
benefit from the wheat fields of India,
but this does not now seem as likely
to happen.
Australia is a somewhat variable
means of filling the mother country's
bread basket. Usually, however, she can
be depended on for upward of 20,0uu,000
bushels. In some years the quantity
goes up to 25,000,000 bushels. That
is the most, however, that could be expected
while the war lasts.
iLL
ALEMT1NES
initial added to give a bit of a clue.
Perhaps the oldest specimen of a valentine
in existence 1s addressed to one
Friar Thomas, who seemed to have Indulged
somewhat in sentiments of a
lighter sort than his cloth might warrant.
It is written in delightful Chaucerian
English, and runs:
Tbow it be alle other yryn,
Godys hlescyne have he and myn.
My none gentyl Volontyn,
Good Thomas the frere.
"Cupid's morgue" in the city post office
is not the greweome place of
blasted hopes and affections that one
might imagine it to be, but is in reality
the most Interesting and cheerful
department in the mail service; the
greatest amount of trouble is taken in
discriminating where the different matter
shall be sent, and no books or
printed valentines are distributed without
first being carefully looked over.
? ARE PASSING
bushes, the custom of having such a
sign began to decline.
The red-and-white striped barber pole
dates back to the time when the barber
was also a surgeon and the principal
part of surgery was bleeding or "bloodletting,"
recourse to which was had for
many of the ills that the flesh is heir
to. The red-striped band around and
around the pole symbolized a bloody
bandage. In those times the striped
pole stood on a concave or basin-like
base, which represented the basin into
which the patients' blood flowed.
The barber's pole continued as the
sign of his trade after he had ceased to
be the village surgeon, though even
now he sometimes lets the blood of his
customers. A good many barbers,
either because they resented the asso
iianons ana memories or me rea-anuwhite
spirally striped pole, or because
they sought a new fashion in barbers'
signs, began to use poles or little columns
striped with other than the customary
colors, and hence sometimes one
sees these poles striped white and
blue, or blue and gilt, or black and gilt.
When apothecary shops deajt only in
herbs and drugs and "phisiks" in the
years before they became department
shops and general stores, bottles and
1 jars in the window were their only
sign. Next, to emphasize themselves,
apothecaries set up in their window
1 bottles of brilliant-colored chemicals
or dyes, and this is the genesis of the
| red and green globes in drugstore win'
dows, though, as one can now find bar1
ber shops without barber poles, he can
. find drugstores without the traditional
( drugstore globes or colored fluid.
| It is not often that one finds a big
boot in front of a bootmaker's shop or
a shoestore, and the cigar store does
business without partnership with a
wooden Indian. Horses live comfortably
in some stables and munch oats
and hay while no gilt horse caracoles
) on the weather vane or prances above
i the entrance.
d Bas
>rld for Wheat to Feed F
> in Peace Periods?Sup
sh Colonies Are Able tc
mada as the Chief Grai
3er Crop in the United
Canada sometimes has been called the
imperial granary of England. The imperialists
in the Dominion and those
at home, have harped on the wheat crop
as a reason for maintaining the ties of
political union.
*
The extent of the Canadian northwest
as a wheat producing region is
yet untested. The Dominion government
has insured their fullest development
by the aid it has given to the
construction of transcontinental railway
systems to the Pacific, but the ultimate
possibilities of the Canadian
northwest have little bearing on the
present problem of filling England's
bread basket for the next two or three
years.
Canada is able to supply the mother
country with above 50,000,000 bushels
of wheat for its needs during the trying
times that seem likely to come. The
import figures oi the United Kingdom
show that in 1912 above 40,000,000
bushels were imported from Canada,
and in 1913 approximately 41,000,000
bushels.
The Panama canal is now open to
the vessels loading with wheat at Vancouver,
and this outlet for the wheat
crop of the northwest has some advantage
In shortening the time of transportation.
It also avoids what was a
somewhat remote prospect of British
vessels with wheat cargoes being overhauled
by German cruisers in the South
Pacific or the South Atlantic. Formerly
the wheat that went out from Vancouver
had to find its way around Cape
Horn.
The bread basket also gets a direct
contribution from Canada in the form
of (lour. This goes out mostly from the
Atlantic ports of the Dominion. Imports
of Canadian flour in 1913 had
risen to above 4.000,000 hundredweight.
This meant, of course, that several million
bushels 'of the Canadian wheat
crop were utilized for England.
Taking the imports of wheat Into the
United Kingdom for the flve-year
period beginning in 1909, it appears
that the British overseas possessions
on an average could be relied on to
fill about one-half the imported contents
of the bread basket.
* *
In 1909, when the Imports were approximately
185,000,000 bushels, the
British possessions supplied less than
79,000,000 bushels, as against 106,000,
uuu Dusneis supplied by otner countries.
In the following year, when the
imports were close to 200,000,000
bushels, the proportion of the colonies
was considerably larger, but it was
several million short of being equal
to that of other countries.
In 1911, when the imports were a
fraction greater than in 1909, those
from the British possessions exceeded
other countries by about 500,000
bushels.
The year 1912 was the banner year
for the British possessions. The United
Kingdom was very hungry that year,
and imported something like 208,000,000
bushels. The British possessions provided
112,000,000 bushels of this
amount.
In 1913, when the Britons at home
were still crying for more bread, the
colonies fell back to 96,000,000 bushels,
while other countries provided 104,000,000.
A close statistical analysis of the United
Kingdom wheat and flour imports in
detail, although the details are omitted,
shows in a general way that during a fiveyear
period the United Kingdom was able
to drdw on her own possessions for just
a little more than one-half of what she
needed to fill the imported contents of her
bread basket.
This demonstration in itself is enough
to disprove the wild expectations of the
political coalition which for years sought
to maintain that England could arrive at
the point where she could get all the
itsxxsxxsxxxsssxxxxxxxxxxxs
] THE Fffi;
rYS and tinsel, tiny colored pictures
and decorative bits of this
and that, in use for entertainment
of various ninds, very often are
"made in Germany," according to their
labels. There is one such industry,
however, which will not suffer in the
least this year on account of the war
in that country, and that is the making
of valentines, England and America
manufacturing and using the entire
output. Only English-speaking peoples
celebrate Valentine day, and the
first valentine offered for sale in the
United States was patterned after one
that was sent from the British Isles to
a girl in Massachusetts in 1849.
This girl was Miss Esther A. Howland,
daughter of a stationer in Worcester,
and she piled up a fortune from
the business started in 1850. She was
a graduate of Mount Holyoke Seminary.
had traveled auite a little and
had some friends in England. One of
these mailed her a very elaborate valentine.
Howland decided at once to
import the novelties, but before he had
given an order his daughter had quietly,
and without disclosing any such intention,
procured the materials and designed
a valentine. Her father was
much pleased over this effort, and one
of her brothers, a traveling salesman
for the firm, on his next trip through
the country took the sample and one
or two others which encouragement
soon called forth. It was thought he
might secure orders to the amount of
$100, but he came back with orders for
$5,000 worth of these valentines.
Both firm and family were astounded,
but the young woman who had started
the thing determined to see it through.
She had her father send for embossed
paper from London and then he went
to New York and purchased small colored
prints from the one manufacturer
of lithographs then in Ameriea. Friends
of Miss Howland came to her assistance,
and they set about together, each
one taking one particular detail as her
part in filling the order, considered
stupendous at that time. The next
year Miss Howland cast about here and
there, studied her new field of work
very carefully, and her brother set out
this time with a large variety of samples.
Most of these were expensive.
Something had to be done to lessen the
cost of a part of them, so in another
year a firm in Germany furnished the
ornaments, which are now made by the
million in the Un ed States.
Quite naturallj the Howlands being
the only manufacturers of valentines
on this side of the Atlantic, their output
became famous, and Miss Howland,
recognized as the head of the industry,
was soon supplying the annual demand
for $100,000 worth of these bits
of sentimental rhymes and fancy paper
and ribbon. Many offers were said to
have been made for the control of the
industry, but until death intervened
all offers were refused. The oldest
valentine in this country is said to
belong to a private collector In Cleve4
Ret in
ler People?The Popuiplies
From Russia and
> Provide Only Half of
n Distributers?ArgenStates
Means to Great
wheat she needed from her own colonies.
It is not necessary, however, to discuss
the political question.
Should the British possessions during
the war period be able to supply England
with about as much wheat and flour as
they have provided during the peace times
of the preceding five years they will be
doing very well.
England will still need to draw on the
rest of the world for the other half of the
uicavi uaanei, CLlia IU UU HUB Wlia m?5
knowledge that Russia and Roumania
cannot be depended on. It Is fortunate for
the population of the United Kingdom
that in this food emergency there are still
plentiful sources of supply open to them.
These sources are the Argentine Republic
and the United States.
*
* *
Argentina always has been a granary
for England. She has been able to vie
with most of the British colonies in
helping to fill the bread basket.
Bahia Blanca, the great wheat port, 400
miles south of Buenos Aires, sometimes
is called the Liverpool of Argentina, on
account of the wheat traffic. Rosario, the
ocean port on the Parana river, takes care
of the wheat fields of northern Argentina.
Buenos Aires Itself provides for the export
of a large part of the production of
the central section of the country.
Argentina is subject to crop vicissitudes
like those of all wheat-growing
regions, but usually she can be counted
on to supply England with 35,000,000
bushels and upward. In 1913, when
there was a serious crop shortage, the
imports were only about 27,000,000
bushels, but the previous year they
had been 10,000,000 more.
Conservative estimates are that the
Argentine crop just harvested will be
about 200,000,000 bushels. In ordinary
circumstances, England would take for
her own consumption possibly 40.000,000
to 45,000,000 bushels of this crop, in
the present emergency circumstances
she will take all she can get, which
will be 50,000,000 bushels and upward,
and if she can find ships for the cargo.
Chile in some years sends England
wheat from the port of Valdivia.
The wheat fields of the United States
are, after all, the main reliance for
lining nugiLtna s arena DnnKur in i>ie
present war time. The British import
statistics are safer guides In this roat
- : ; ?*i BhStifi
WHEAT
ST VALENTIN:
3^5^5C%3CK3QS??^5M9S9S9??SS3(500m30C9
land, Ohio, and its counterpart, addressed
in the same handwriting, lies
in the British Museum. Each is no less
than twelve inches square and, evidently
for convenience, folded three
limes. ine seai or eacn is a. acan
splattered with red ink. One authority
saya the first valentine, as they are
now known, was made in 1800 in England,
those of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries being in the form of
practical presents.
In Great Britain to this day in certain
hamlets there exists on Valentine day
a quaint custom among the children.
Very early in the morning they may
be seen in twos and threes gathering
at the yearly assembling place, from
which they go forth and troop from
house to house singing a little soiig
that concerns the meaning of the day.
Everybody has ready either a few pennies,
some candy or a toy to toss from
the windows. In Norfolk any child who
before sunrise is on the street and
will say "Good morning, valentine," is
free to ask the person greeted for a
penny. #
* *
Charles Duke of Orleans, who languished
for twenty-five years in the
Tower of London after being taken captive
following the battle of Agincourt,
was the creator of the first written
valentine, and there are sixty of these
to be seen among the royal papers in
the British Museum.
When the fashion for sentimental
rhyme for valentines got its substantial
start?in the year 1797?there were
many people who wanted to send out
fervid messages, but could not make a
rnyme iu oa?c *??*.?, gv an cntviprising
rhymester got out a couple of
hooks, one the "Gentlemen's Valentine
Writer" and the other the "Ladies' Polite
Writer." Among these, and numbered
now in the Cleveland collection
mentioned, is a laughable string of
lines devoted to the use of a grocer:
"Your breath Is allspice. I declare.
And you're so neat and handy.
That you're as sweet, I think, my fair.
As plums or sugar cundj, i
"Be favorable, I implore.
These verses kindly weigh.
And if you will my heart restore,
I'll treat you to some tea."
To which the grocer's love responded;
"Your letter I have weighed,
Am truly afraid
Many pounds you're deficient in weight,
And so, Mr. Grocer,
I'd have you know, sir,
I care not a fig for your treat.'*
"It is strange that a day so distinctly
marked in character as Valentine day
should have so vague an origin," says
a writer on festivals and feast days.
One theory that many like to entertain,
he continues, is that Valentine
day originated during the Claud ian
period in Home. Claudius was a famously
cruel emperor, and as veij^
geance upon the citizens for not enthusiastically
responding to every
declaration of war that he made lie
forbade marriagee, which, be said, ,
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A STREET IN LAHORE, THE CElfTEl
ter than American export figures, although
it is necessary to reduce the
English hundredweights to bushels.
In the five-year period from 1909 to
1913 the imports of American wheat
into the United Kingdom ranged from
20,000,000 bushels upward. In 1912 they
were nearly 38,000,000 bushels, and in
the following year they exceeded 67,000.000
bushels.
Flour imports from the United States
during this period have also been Important.
They have not fallen below
5,000,000 hundredweight, and in most
years have been nearer to 7,000,000 hundredweight.
^ '"- ?* ' - , " 1
ELEVATORS ' AT FORT WILLIAM* C
E MADE IN A
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seemed to keep the people at home with
domestic responsibilities. In a Grecian
temple near the emperor's palace there
was a very popular high priest whose
name was Valentine. He frowned upon
the unnatural decree forbidding marriage,
and defied it one day by uniting
a couple.
The news spread to everybody but the
king, and soon scores of people had
been married. After a time, of aourse,
Claudius heard of this, and he had Valentine,
while in the very act of" performing
a ceremony, dragged off to
prison and put into a dungeon. There
he died, and eaob year on the anniversary
of his death the people of Rome
met to celebrate in honor of the occasion,
many young lovers being mar- ,
died on this day.
Perhaps the reason this theory is en- ,
tsrtained is that it so fits the observ- ,
ances of the day and any sentiment
connected therewith. The origin, most j
likely, getting away from sentimentalMEANING
OF W
EN the discussion of the causes and the !
progress of the war great emphasis '
has been laid on the word "Junker." '
Men opposing the German view of things
have placed upon the junker or the Junker ,
class the blame for mucn 01 mo mioci-y
due to the war. In some ways the word
is used as though it were an opprobrious
epithet. .
The significance which the word has to
nearly everybody in any way familiar
with it is that it represents the landhold-"
ing class, the great landlord class or the '
landed aristocracy of Germany., and Austria.
This class in nearly all?perhaps inj1
all?the countries of the world is in nor-*'
mal times a conservative and aristocratic
class, satisfied with the existing economic
and social order and quite well convinced 1
on the subject of its superiority to other 1
classes. Take the history of all countries .
and the German landholding aristocracy
would seem not to be exceptional in its
pride and in its opposition to new ideas
and conceptions of democracy. j
Oswald Garrison Villard, writing re- (
cently in the Scribner magazine on ,
"Militarism and Democracy in Ger- j
many," and treating especially of the j
charge that caste rules the army in ,
Germany, said: "The army is a narrow i
caste with professional ideals of j
a medieval character scrupulously s
maintained in the face of modern prog- i
ress by the ruling clique. Prom its <
highest officers, its general staff, its i
crown prince, as well as its kaiser, j
the army takes its tone as a bulwark f
of the privileged classes, to whom j
anything that smacks of democracy ]
is anathema. It is the chief pillar of j
the great landlords, the junker, and j
the aristocrats, as It is.of the throne, t
When the reichstag passed a vote of l
censure on the government because j
of the Zabern affair, an almost unheard- {
of thing, the government simply ig- j
norer the vote. Doubtless the imperii j
chancellor and Geh. von Falkenhayn, e
the censured ministers, smile today if e
they think of this Incident and reflect t
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Time
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I OF THE UTDIAJf WHEAT REGION.
The extent to which England is absorbing
the bumper crop of 1914 Is a
matter of current news. It shows to
what country the United Kingdom must
rpnllv look in filline- her bread haaket.
The British colonies are important.
Argentina is very important, but the
United States is the most important of
all. The deficiency caused by Russia
and Roumania almost certainly will be
made up by this country. It is known
how feverishly England is absorbing
the American wheat crop, and this
feverishne8s is certain to continue as
long as the United States has any surplus
wheat to ship.
r
^ '
AN ADA.
MERICA I !
XKSXKSXSXKXltt^^
ity, is that the day was originally a
feast day celebrated in Rome in honor
of Pan and Juno, and the Christians,
to gain converts, made the concession
of allowing this festival, but changed
its name, which their converts did not
object to, for various causes.
In literature, Valentine day has been
touched upon for several hundred years.
As far back as February 14, 1667, the
famous Pepys made entry in his more
famous diary that he had been able to
escape buying his wife a valentine by
buying her a ring she had long wanted,
and he would have had to get anyway.
Charles Lamb wrote a sort of invocation
to "Bishop Valentine," and Sammy
Weller of the Dickens family of characters
forges Mr. Pickwick's name to
a lovelorn housemaid, hoping for a valentine
"in the flesh." St. Valentine
died in 270 A.D., and his tomb is in St.
Praxed's Church in Rome, more famous,
perhaps, as the tomb of Browning's
"Paracelsus."
OKD "JUNKER"
ho- completely the war hu placed
the relchstag, the social democrats sad
ill tbe rest of the civilians In their
power."
George Bernard Shaw, In his "Common
Sense About the War/* which
brought down the wrath of the British
people and brought forth replies by
Arnold Bennett, Rudyard Kipling, H. G.
Wells, G. K. Chesterton, A. Conan
Doyle, U. Rider Haggard, Jerpme K.
Jerome, John Galsworthy, Christabel
Pankhurst and a host of others, treats
9t the junker. He wrote:
"What is a junker? Is it a German
officer of twenty-three, with offensive
manners and a habit of cutting down
Innocent civilians with his saber?
Sometimes, but not at all exclusively
that or anything like that. Let us resort
to the dictionary."
After finding the dictionary definition
of junker, Shaw continued:
"Thus we see that the junker is by
no means peculiar to Prussia. We may
:laim to produce the article in a perfection
that may well make Germany
lespair of ever surpassing us in that
ine. Sir Edward Grey is a junker
'rom his topmost hair to the tips of
lis toes, and Sir Edward is a charming
man, incapable of cutting down even
in opposition front bencher, or of tellng
a German he intends to have him
shot. Lord Cromer is a junker. Mr.
Winston Churchill is an odd and not
lisagreeable compound of junker and
fankee; his frank anti-German puglacity
is enormously more popular
han the moral babble (Milton's
>hrase) of his sanctimonious coleagues.
He is a bumptious and jolly
unker, just as Lord Curson is an up>ish
junker. I need not string out
he list In these islands the junker is
iterally all over the shop. The
oreign office is a junker club. Our
foverning classes are overwhelmingly
unker; all who are not junkers are
iff-raff, whose only claim to their position
is the possession of ability of
ome sort?mostly ability to make
nonsy."