The Leon reporter., December 13, 1900, Image 9

About The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930

Image provided by: State Historical Society of Iowa

                
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THE ROSE TREB. c^v
row-tree stood where the busy wheels
Of commerce -swiftly
glide
IA11 undeterred by noise and smoka,
Its blossoms opened wide.
'-Slier bloomed as sweet In that dingy
place
s/ fS5
I As In soma garden fair,. v*5
iAtod weary eyes were oft refreshed -.
'. To see them growing there. V'l
'& porter passing with heavy load
Jostled against a thorn,
And cursed the rose-tr.^e under .his breath
With thoughts of hate' and scorn.
What need Is there for a foolish flower
1
Where men must work for bread?
.• It I had my way "'I'd root you out,:'':
Tou thorny .thing!''- he said 's
Next a sharp-faced woman hurried by
And gave a pasr'.ng glance
But naught she saw In the lovely flower
lOf beauty and-romance
Save this: "If each were a silken rose,
With handsome rubber stem,
"'Twould be no trouble at all to get
A dollar each for them."
But within the office sat a man
Who smiled to see the flowers
^3That shyly peeped ^through the open door
And brightened long, dull hours,
Bt thought of the hand that long ago
Planted the tiny tree,
"Ah. her love makes light my hardest
task, l,. -f
Dear wife of mine!" said he.'? i*
One looked at the rose-tree with a scowl.
And thought of naught but pain
!To the keen-eyed Woman—ah, 'twas
strange!— &
The roses spoke of gain $
But unto the man of clearer "Bight
Their June-time grace did prove
The mightiest fact in all the world,—
The worth to life of love.
t-
ta« choose. With what sight shall we see
The blessings God gives you and me?
•—Ida Reed Smith, in Young People's
Weekly..
11 Number 23.
BY GARRARD HARRIS.
Author "The Atonement." "When Love
is Done," etc.
(Copyrighted, 1900: Daily Story Pub. Co.)
Fifteen long, dreary years had
elapsed—he had waited patiently, and
Iho day had come. Long had he antici
pated the moment, and now he, No. 23,
stood outside the prison walls, No. 23
no longer, but a free man, for he had
paid the price demanded by the law.
He had sinned and he had suffered.
He did not intend to kill the deputy
marshal, but the officers and some men
were searching his house for an illicit
Btill they said he had been making
trbisky without license. One of the
men shoved his wife roughly, and mad-'
dened beyond' endurance, he fired upon
them, and one fell with a bullet in his
temple. He was arrested, torn from
bis mountain, home, put In prison, and.
finally, sentenced to fifteen--'years* at
hard labor.
And cow, now he was .free. It was
all like some horrible nightmare, a
fevered dream dissipated by the gleam
of the morning sunlight. For awhile
after he went to the prison his wife
came to see him, and brought the cnil
dren. Then lue visits grew further
71
II
"Who Are You?"
and further apart, and finally they
,ceased altogether.
He felt so strange, did No. 23—as
though he had slept for a long, long
,timb and then had been awakened in
the glare of midday. He, took a fare
well look at the grim walls that for so
many years had been his abiding place
land then turned his face toward the
home of his young manhood.
He remembered the log cabin sit
ting high on the side of the mountain—
flaw his wife standing in the doorway
with a glad, expectant light on her
face. His saw the children playing in
the front yard among the marigolds
and sunflowers, and he could smell the
resinous intense of tho pine forest.
No, it was out a dream. That was
the home of.fifteen years ago. But she
loved and trusted him, and she would
be'there waiting for him—she had
kept track of the tardy years and
months and would be as glad as he
when his penance was done. She
would be older, of course her hair
would be streaked with gray, but she
woiild be tne same wife that comforted
himln thedreary prison. She had told
him that she would trust him, and
would wait a lifetime for him, gladly.
And the children—how they would be
grown! He wondered if they would
know him.
The rattle of the car wheels sung a
refrain, "Home, home, going home."
He could just see the tops of the moun
tains in the distance. Back in their
blue depths was the home' of his youth,
his happier days. At last the strain
stopped at a little station, and No. 23
alighted. The loungers about the vil
lage store gazed with idle curiosity at
the strange figure. There was not a
familiar face,to,greet him, but that did
not matter—he was. going home. He
took the well-remembered road and
started toward the mountains and the
log cabin nestling near the cliffs.
On 4nd on he went Up and up he
,The distant peaks loomed up
d^aiia' iandanys^ericus in the
of the' purple haze of an Indian
ir. High In t&e «ir a hawk
Vague
In grefit.- gj^ceful circles and
eg -sh^y gr^eti^gs tjo^its .mate
th^ ^or^t on*eithe?i8|^? of th«
ujld be-heard the rustling of the
as they droppgd« softly. W their
L/
plaftefi?npbn the ground. A
b*rkad?f tffciaanearbyttee, find
TOld8t"bf flrdteserted old field a
as whistling .merrily. On the
tain side In the clearings the
and the golden\rod gleamed
the trees the gay banners of autumn
flaunted among the duller colors of the
leaves already dead. In the under
brush the crickets sung a sad requiem
for the season' just drawing to a close
—a chant for the dying summer. The
sky was blue, a deep tur.quoise, such as
only the skies In a mountainous coun
try show in November. All nature
was gorgeous in crimson and yellow
and gold, as* though dressed for the
final review of summer's glories.
Only one more mile! Every stone
and tree was now familiar to him,
every turn and brook was fraught with
some happy remembrance. His heart
began to beat wildly. Would she meet
him at the gate, and be glad to see
him? She had told him she would,
when she last came to the prison, years
before. Of course she would—and the
children, they wold, run to meet him
and kiss him as they did in the olden
days.
It was just around the turn, only a
few steps further, and he would see the
little home with its vine-clad piazza,
r.-=(l the flowers growing in the yard,
and—her standing at the gate, waiting.
For fifteen years he had longed for this
moment, and now that it had come,
—he dared not go around the bend oi
the road—his heart was torn with
doubts and fears.
He sat down to rest and collect his
thoughts. He was faint and sick, he
had eaten nothing all day and the long
walk up to mountain had almost ex
hausted him. Pulling all his energies
together, he staggered around the benit
of the road. He was afraid to raise his
eyes until he had reached the gate.
.Then he.did so.
There was no house there.
Only a heap of rubbish and ruin, and
a tangled thicket of blackberry briars
and bushes and decaying weeds. He
leaned against a fence' post and in a
dazed sort of way tried to understand.
The house was but a pile of rotting
logs, the fences were gone and his
family—God only knew where they
were. He staggered to the waste of
weeds and briars and sat down on the
block of stone that once had served as
a doorstep.
The afternoon waned and the shad
ows grew long. The sunlight came
slantingly down and gilded and glori
fied everything it touched. A rabbit
hopped timidly near and gazed at the
silent, bowed figure in tremulous won
derment. A lizard lay upon one of the
logs of the house, and basked its glit
tering sides in the mellow rays of the
sun. Longer and longer grew the
shadows, and at last the god of day
sunk down beyond the western moun
tain tops. Night slowly crept over
earth, and the moon rose in autumnal
brightness and threw its rays upon the
lonely figure sitting with bowed head
amid the gloomy ruins of a former
home. A whip-poor-will began to sing
its lonely song from a distant hill-top,
and an owl hooted querulously from a
nearby thicket
At last the man arose. There was a
little stunted marigold growing near
the doorstep. He picked one or two of
the blossoms and put them in hia
bosom, and as he bent over the stone
where he had been sitting a tear
dropped from his eyes and plashed
upon the insensate rock. He gave one
more look at the ruins, and then start
ed down the mountain. On and on he
went, never stopping, never looking
back.
The village lay in darkness below,
Through it he passed, never once turn
ing his head. When the moon was
hanging like a silver globe in the far
wan west & railroad train came rush-*
ing through the darkness like some
fiery serpent, and stopped a moment at
the. little station. A black figure got
aboard and took a seat in a dim cor
ner of the car.
At last the train arrived in the city
The figure 6lunk away through tha
gray dawn toward the prison. Thf
warden was awakened by a fainj
pounding upon the grisi door. Hq
went down and opened it A man lay
prone upon the doorstep.
"Who are you?" asked the warden.
"I am Number Twenty-three. Take
me in agaih.for I have no other home."
Old Bird's Nests*
Hundreds of thousands of nests are
built every year in trees and hedges.
What becomes of all these homes after
the birds have flitted from them at
summer's end? Most of them are lined
with sheep's wool, with feathers and
other materials that bind them to
gether. Now it happens that beetles
and moths and other insects devour
these tilings, and by thus destroying
them loosen the nests so much that
Wind and rain soon scatter the rest of
•the materials. But for this timely help
the trees woul'd -be elogged up with
amass of old nests, the leaves could
not sprout, and many trees would per
ish.
Thirty-Nine "Articles.**
On the occasion when the bishop oi
Oxford alighted from the train at
Wheatley, the station for Cuddleston
palace, an officious porter rushed up
to him and asked, "Any articles in the
van, my lord?" "Articles!" said the
bishop, grimly. "Yes thirty-nine ar-.
tides!" Oft hurried the porter and
worried the guard almost out of his
senses by the way he searched the
van and detained the train. Presently
he came back to the bishop with a
crestfallen expression of countenance
"There are only seven, my lord.'!
"Only seven? Ah! you're a dissenter
then, I should think!"
Passing of the Illcycle.
"Dp you still arrest bicycle ridefa
who wheel along your sldfewalks?"
"Arrest 'em! Gosh! We don't sea
none to arrest! It's, a dum shame!
The village used to git a mighty gooa
thing out of it, and Jim Cronk, th'
justice that it *1, the fining, was takinl
in'cold-caish i':nd over fist. But this
fall derned if didn't have to go to
movin' ashes whitewashin' to gi\
?an. honest liviu'!"—Cleveland Plain
Dealer.
Admires I Upol
eon's Gen las.
LerdRosebery is an ardent admiret
of tlielfenius of Napoleon. For a year
he -has been writing a study of thq
gr^t Napoleon while he was at St.
Helena, with his. hands behind him,
Jodklng at the stars and over the sea.
It is there that Lord Rosebeiy flndsi
the man most Interesting.
tumbling mount
PEAK NEAR MONTREAL
WORTH VISITING.
WELL
Iv
Height of the Mountain Determined -as
8,400 Feet—JBastern United States Has
Nothing to Surpass the Panorama
Viewed from Its Ton. O
fljvJ-CT
V'
1
In a speech delivered in Victoria, B,
C., Lord Dufferin once described
Oanada's most western province as a
6ea of mountains. It has been consid
gred a happy expression, and no doubt
it was, though the true sea of moun
tains is, after all, the Laurentian
range. The peaks of British Columbia
are too sharp, too soaring and too
rocky to convey a very accurate im
pression of waves,but the Laurentians
are so rounded, so regularly inter
valed, and of a tint, under summer
skies, which is such a wonderful imi
tation of old ocean's blue, that the
traveler on looking down upon them
for the first time will almost certainly
notice their resemblance to swelling
billows. The greatest obstacle to en
joying the illusion, or rather such op
portunity to grasp an adequate con
ception of the La.urentians as they
really are, is the difficulty of finding a
point of vantage. Earth's oldest range,
for such we are told by geologists is
probably the truth, possesses few con
spicuously lofty peaks, the hills be
ing singularly regular in altitude, so
that points of observation from which
a study of the range may be made are
few and far between. Montreal is,
however, fortunate in having one of
these natural observatories at no great
distance. Trembling Mountain, whose
base is two and a half miles from the
station of the same name on the La
belle branch, is the most elevated
summit of the Laurentians in this part
of the range. Quite recently its height
has been determined at 2,400 feet. As
all its companions are mere hillocks
by comparison, the view is uninter-
HMItHWI'miMVIHB'ir,
Suicide
Increases
Why do people commit suicide? It
Is easy enough to answer "Because
they are miserable." How, then, shall
we account for the fact that as the
standard of comfort advances suicide
becomes more frequent? The poorest
laborer in Europe has comforts which
were unknown to Queen Elizabeth and
King Philip of Spain, yet the rapidity
with which suicide has increased ia
shown by the following table:
1841-60 1871-80 1885-S8
325 333
Denmark .260 266 259
Switzerland 240 220
161 212
153 204
81 116
86 110
England and
110
Wales 70 70
Norway .105 70 66
Italy 37,- 48
Ireland 20 22
Some curious facts are brought out
by the table. Suicide is decreasing in
Norway and increasing in Sweden,
HIGH-PRICED RQSES.
_J
Fancy Sams l'ald by Wealthy Persons
tor Blossoms*
The costliest of all flowers produced
of late years is the Rothesay rose, a
strange looking, flesh-colored bloom.
It is of an extraordinary color—velvety
and just like the cheek of a healthy
baby in tint. Every petal is wrinkled
like the "goffering" of a girl's dress,
and the entire bloom is very closely set
and weighs as much as six ordinary
roses of the same kind. A single flower
is worth $150. The prize of $1,000 of
fered in Holland for a black tulip has
never been claimed, but five jet-black
hyacinths have been known to grow in
the last twenty years. The cheapest
fetched'$100 and the deaerst ?450—al
most a record price for a bulb. Only
one of the five reached a second gen
eration, and now there has not been a
black hyacinth for three years. Or
chids fetch the highest of all prices
among flowers, thoueh one may buy a
tolerable orchid buttonhole for a quar
ter. The sunset orchid, a lovely flower
of deep yellow and carmine and flam
ing crimson, which cost many a life be
fore it was first brought home from the
virgin forests of the Amazon, could
not toe bought for less than $1,500 a
plant when it arrived in England. Only
three out of forty-five sunsets: were
alive on arrival. The record price paid
for an orchid lately was $2,100 for a
plant of anew species called the cano
pus, from the Interior of Brazil. It
has a most lovely bloom, each flower
eight inches across, streaked white and
purple. A blue peony seems to be as
likely a thing to encounter as a blue
horse. However, a light and washed
out-looking but distinctly blue speci
men grew in the hothouse of a Man
chester flower eulturer. It was bought
by a very wealthy amateur for ?l.ooo.
You can pay as much as $40 a blos
som for some varieties of the chrysiu.
themum, and a pea green flower of this
species, 'which is occasionally to be
bad. will fetch.double-that amount
The Betrothal Cake.
And now the very latest is the "be
trothal cake." Fashionable confec
'ioners will be kept busy receiving or
ders for this companion piece to birth
day, christening and wedding cake and
in return for her "engagement pres
jnt" the engaged girl will be sending
pieces of cake with 'hers and her
fiance's thanks and compliments. It
is easy to. see the consumption of be
trothal or wedding cake might aff3ct
the statistics of deaths from dyspepsia,
but its connection with the plagus is
not obvious. This'subtle relation erf
cause and effect has been discovered,
however1^ in New Zealand, and tb« ex
planation lies in one word—rats. The
postmaster general of that colony has
issued stringent rules agdinst tke
tranmisslon of wedding cake except in
tin boxes, as when in cardboard or
paper packets It encourages the. fr«s
ence of rats in postofflces, and rats
spread plague. of betrothals
rupted, and the eye sweeps over miles
and miles of these forest covcred
northern La-urentldes. Americans
boast, and with reason, of their White
Mountains, Adirondacks.and Cat skills
hut in all New York and New England
there is nothing to surpass the pano
rama spread as a scroll beneath the
weary feet of the pilgrim who stands
at length, blown, but happy, amid the
blueberry bushes on Trembling Moun
tain's scarred old crest. Unlike the
Innocent Abroad, an explorer of the
mountain will find no guide to point
heavenward to the lofty ptak and
splutter: "Zer wis ze haut can be?"
but the same thought in other words
will be often In his mind as he strug
gles doggedly up the steep slcpa.
Trembling Lake at the foot of the
mountain is 734 feet above sea level,
thus the ascent means climbing 1,600
feet. Unfortunately the path that
must be followed is not a direct one—
on the contrary, it resembles Brer
Rabbit's doublings when he endeavor
ed to escape the too assiduous atten
tions of Brer Fox. Windfalls have to
be dortged, and rock falls avoidsd, all
of such deviations consuming time,
and making the climb a much longer
one than wouid be the case If a few
hundred dollars were spent in opening
up one of the most attractive peaks
in the province. Trembling Mountain
station, ninety-one miles from Mon
treal, is the gateway to the park. A
drive of two and a half miles over an
unusually good country road, leads to
the lake, just where the latter spills
Its surplus waters into the Discharge,
by a leap of some forty feet. This
Discharge eventually helps to swell
the Devil's river. It contains a great
store of pike, and some very heavy
red trout, but the smaller fry are ab
sent, owing to the esteem in which
they are held by the said pike. Hap
pily these fresh water sharks have
never found their way into the lake,
or Into any of its feeders were they
to do so, its grand trout fishing would
be In serious danger.—Montreal Her
ald and Star.
IT IS MOST FREQUENT
BETWEEN THE ACES
O 5 5 A N 6 5
though the two countries are side by
side and inhabited by people of the
same blood. In Saxony and Prussia,
which are extremely -prosperous, sui
cide is common. In Italy and Ireland,
which are very poor, it is rare. Suicide
is more prevalent in town than in
country. The age at which suicide la
most frequent Is between 55 and 65,
Soldiers are of all men most subject to
suicide-—their life Is so melancholy
and monotonous in barracks in time
of peace. The number is 210 per 1,000,
000 in England, in Germany 550 and in
Austria 1,209. In the latter case this
means a man a year in every battalion,
Religion is the most powerful antidote
to the suicidal tendency. Italy and Ire
land are intensely religious. In tha
case of Ireland it is thought also that
the habit of emigration prevents sui
cide. When .a man ig..at. his last gasp
of despair he does not kill himself he
goes to America. Suicide, rare among
Jews, is almost unknown among Mo
hometans, who attribute everything to
the will of God and will not even in
sure their houses.
suggests weddings, and that In turn
means a present When hunting for a
wedding gift, remember that a cake
saw—that is a thin flat knife, with
one edge cut into saw teeth—is the
best knife to use to cut a loaf or cake.
For a bride's loaf a silver one Is often
used, and is an appreciated wedding
present, and one to be handed down
in the family. It is, moreover, so un
usual a gift that it is not likely to be
duplicated many times, even to
bride with most numerous
tli9
gift3.
The Small Boy's Buttons.
Some mothers are forever complain
ing that their boys come home daily
with torn button holes, or buttons
burst off their trousers. The reason is
not far to seek. The little man is prob
ably obliged to wear an underwalst of
the strongest muslin, with a double
band of the same stitched around the
•belt, and buttons sewed on as fast as
thread can sew them, and then but
toning on little trousers, which must
be short in the seat to fit perfectly!
There isn't a man living who would
submit to being so dressed, and it is
cruel to torture a 4oy in that way.
Try this instead: Get a pair of the
most pliable suspenders that are made
for boys, then sew buttons on the
waist band, and turn them 'in so they
may. be out of sight for best wear when
tfie deplorable underwaist must ba
donned. For everyday wear sew them
on exactly as they are on men's trous
ers. Put a iblouse waist over the sus
penders, and your little one can play
comfortably, besides having the sat
isfaction of wearing suspenders.
PortngKl's Treatment of Convicts.
Portugal deals gently with her con
victs. Some she transports to the east
and west coasts of Africa others are
sent to Goa, In India, says a London
newspaper. Portuguese convicts are
not. even compelled to work, and, pro
vided they keep within the limits of
the town or settlement to which they
are assigned, enjoy the fullest liberty.
So little is their social status affected
by the fact that they are transported
criminals that tihe governor general at
Mozambique thinks nothing of playing
•billiards in the principal hotel with a
convicted iforger, or of inviting a no
torious prisoner to dinner.
Whistler's Excellent Advice*
"Jimmy" Whistler, the self-exiled
American artist and author of "The
Gentle Art of Making Enemies," has a
number of student3 under instruction
in Paris. One of them, a young wom
an, asked him not long ago if he
thought she might paint nature as ahi
saiw It "Certainly, my dear madam,"
said Whistler. "There is no reason
•why you should not paint nature as
you see it so long as you do not see
nature as you 'paint*' Which would
seem to indicate that-. "Jimmy", ia still
Pfacticlng th» gentle art
KEEP BOYS ON FARM.
PROPAGANDA STARTED BY A
CHICAGO MAN.
William H. Thompson Believes That the
Environment! of the Old Homestead
Are Best for the Youths of Oar
land.
A new propaganda to keep boys on
the farm has been started by William
H. Thompson of Chicago, president of
the National Live Stock exchange. Mr.
Thompson knows what farm and town
life are. He was reared in the country
and has won success in the city, and
he believes the average farmer's son
would be better off if he stayed on the
farm. He admits that many country
boys win fame and fortune in the
cities, but he argues that for every suc
cessful one there is a horde that bare
ly make both ends meet But Mr.
Thompson goes beyond existing condi
tions. He believes farmers can do much
better than heretofore, and he looks
to education as the means of improv
ing their condition and making the
farm more attractive for the boys.
In discussing the problem Mr.
Thompson says:
"The cry for the past 50 years ha3
been 'To the city.' That was bene
ficial for a time, and a sign of prog
ress, but we ought now to raise the
cry 'To the country.* The country is
deserted by the boys, and the city can
not provide remunerative labor for all
who come. For the social peace of our
WILLIAM H. THOMPSON,
country the tide must change and flow
back again. For the betterment of our
commercial interests some of our
young men should turn their attention
to the farm and the raising of prod
uce. Among the large number of suc
cussful farmers you will find a small
percentage whose sons have chosen the
farm life. Their early school days on
the farm were spent in reading of men
and events that had nothing to do with
country life. Soldiers, statesmen, law
yers, ministers, bankeis, and even pol
iticians figure upon every page of their
district school readers. Scarcely was
mention made of any man who had led
a successful life on the farm.
"The farmer's children are as a rule
the natural farmers of the country.
What they become in after life is de
termined by their early education. At
the district school the farmer's son
lays the foundation for his future, and
his ideas are largely influenced by
reading books treating on men and
objects which seem to him to be of
an outside world. Why not change
this? Let his books speak of some of
our great men who have been farmers
and there are thousands of them. Let
him study the things he comes in con
tact- with every day. Let him be
taught he can improve his condition
by adopting improved methods of pro
duction. This will make him more in
terested In farm life and more con
tented. It will fire his ambition to ex
cel In his father's calling. It will make
him a better man, a better farmer
and a better citizen. It will keep
many boys in the country and relieve
the cities of their congestion. There
will be more ground cultivated and
better results. The strains of live
,stock will be improved and the farmer
'will get more money. In every way
isuch a change will be a benefit to the
farmer- boys and to the country at
jlarge."
Mr. Thompson presented his propo
sition in an address before the Na
tional Live Stock exchange, and he is
Eapers
rging agricultural and live stock
to carry on a crusade along the
jlines he has mapped out.
A UNION PRINTER 52 YEARS.
Thomas J. Mattingly, an employe ot
the government printing office at
Washington, D. C.. has been a union
printer 52 years. He was born in Vir
ginia in 1827 and began his trade at
the age of 10 and learned to be a press
man as well as compositor. He joined
Columbia Typographical Society
Id
184S on attaining his majority, and had
THOMAS J. MATTINGLY.
since carried a union card. Mr. Mat
tingly has been a proofreader in thi
government printing office for the past
23 years, and he read proof on the en
tire publication of the Rebellion Rec
ords, the printing of which covered a
period of about 15 years, and attained
a knowledge of that stupendous com
pilation possessed by no other employe
of the government office. He enjoys
good health,' and good-humoredly co:
slders himself still one of "the boys.
Up to date it is estimated that 1,01
deer have been killed in the Main)
woods the present season, the hunte
betas mostly from other states.
METHODS
OF BURIAL
A writer in the Quarterly Review
makes a powerful attack on "the eth
ics of cremation." He regards it as
an improper corrective to the mis
chievous practice of interment in
vaults and coffins. He says: "Little
or no difficulty appears to have at
tended the ready and efficient disposal
of the dead till towards the close of
Charles the Second's reign. Not only
was the strong coffin—the fons et origp
mali—till then unknown, but the
plainer sort of men were content to
•be carried to their graves in the open
•chests or coffers which were kept in
every parish church for the occasion
and only employed to convey the body
from the ho-use of death to that other
"house which hath been appointed for
all living," after which the chests were
returned to their ^customed place,
which was usually a niche in the
church wall. Arrived at the grave the
body, enveloped at one time in coarse
linen kept together by bone pins, and
afterwards in woollen, was removed
from its temporary case and buried."
Resolution of the body by the agency
of the earth to which we commit it,
is affirmed by the writer to be the nat
ural and innocuous method. "Earth
is the most potent disinfectant
known." The common impression
that graveyards pollute the air is
emphatically contradicted. "Nothing
worse than carbonic acid (carbon diox
ide) and water are ever given off from
the surface of burial grounds, and
these only in quantities so small as
to be even less than are naturally
present in the superincumbent atmos
phere and, further, that even this lit
tle Is at once taken up by vegetation
and returned to the air, not as a source
of peril to the. health, but as a neces
sary increment of atmospheric re
newal." The two hundred disused
burial grounds In London now used as
recreation grounds and health resorts
are cited as proof. "The air of the
Fvrture of
Expositions
In the following article the New
York Evening-Post suggests that great
expositions have run their course:
Though international exhibitions date
bnly from 1851, the earlier half of the
century led up to them with a series of
•national expositions, which were held
in nearly every country of Europe, as
well as the United States. They be
an in France and were born of the
freedom from the old restrictions upon
commerce and industry, and of the ef
fort of improvement that marked the
beginning of a new life. They were
essentially different from the medieval
fair, like that still held annually at
Nijni-Novgorod, for example, in that
they do not exist for the sale of goo]
brought in built by traders trom re
mote lands, but for the encouragement
of invention and enterprise by the dis
play and comparison of results, aid by
competition for the prizes offered.
They were not places of exchange, but
industrial exhibitions. Thejr marked
the end of the system of trade guilds
and carefully guarded secrets, and il
lustrate the openness to Ideas, the
search for new methods, and the in
troduction of improvements, both in
agriculture and in processes of manu
facture, which mark the dawn of the
nineteenth century. At the same time
they were conceived in a spirit of na
tional pride and glorification, which
was intensely hostile to outside pow
ers. At the first French exhibition of
1798 a gold medal was offered the man
who should dtal the heaviest blow to
English trade, and in 1849 the minister
of foreign affairs ascribed to the ene
mies of French industry a proposal to
admit foreign exhibitors. The Crys
tal Palace exhibition of 1851 in Lon-
THE SOAP BUBBLE.
Geometric Research Has Proved That It
Is a Perfect Sphere*
A perfect sphere presents the least
amount of surface in proportion to its
bulk. Apart from geometric proof the
best illustration of this fact is to be
found in the common soap bubble. The
envelop is perfectly elastic and' homo
geneous, and when detached from the
pipe it takes the form of a perfect
sphere, because in that shape the least
amount of film contains the greatest
amount of air, or In other words, it
presents the least amount of surface
in proportion to Its bulk. The early
experiment to prove the incompressi
toility of water was founded on a
•knowledge of this fact, the knowledge
having been obtained by geometric re
search. A golden gloibe was filled with
wat/r and subjected to pressure, the
experimenters knowing "that if it
tould be altered in shape the -water
liust be compressed." A similar prob
lem has been propounded. "How
should a shepherd arrange 100 hur
dles so as to contain the greatest num
ber of sheep?" and the answer is, "In
a circle," and what is true of a circle
is true also of a sphere.—Cincinnati
Enquirer.
Tenaolona of Life. ,.
Two instances showing how tenac
ious of life lobsters and cod are are
related in a bulletin of the United
States Fish Commission. In the fall
of 1889 about twenty lobsters were left
in a car in the "basin" at a fish com
mission wharf. Near the end of March,
1900, when the car was opened, all
seemed to be in a perfectly healthy
condition. On the conclusion of the
fishing for brood cod in the fall of
1899 fourteen cod weighing from four
to six pounds, taken with hand-lines
off Nomans Land or Nantucket,* were
Inadvertently left In the well of the
Grampus and not discovered until
April, 1900. These fish were placed in
the well jjot later than November 18,
possinly some days before. During
this time they had not been fed and
bad only such food as came through
thg holes In the well. When released
la Gloucester harbor on April 16 thsy
BOTH
FUR.NACE
AND COFFIN
don was the triumph of material civil
ization over national prejudices. It
marked the fact that Europe was des
tined to be, if it had not already be
come an industrial unit. The networl
of railways, which in the next few:
years were to spread over the conti
nent, helped to bring this about, and
by the increased facilities for transpor-.
tation and travel which they offered,
contributed another element to the
success of the international exhibition.
But above all the Crystal Palace stood'
for the beginning of the age of ma
chinery. It was tits point of depart-'
for the evolution,,.
jr^pr.
CONDEMNED
open cemetery is absolutely Inodor
ous." Sir Seymour Haden reports
from experiments carried on for 12
years in the burial of animals that
bodies buried four feet deep require,
more than four years for their com
plete dissolution three feet deep, three
years two feet deep, two years ona
foot, one year while bodies not buried,
but simply covered with a foot of earth.'
disappeared, all save their bones, in
less than a year but in all cases with
out injuring the purity of earth
op
air. The Prussian government ha3
also made a notable contribution to
our knowledge on this important part
of the subject In 1872-73 a secret
commission was issued by it to ascer
tain the condition of the dead in tha
battlefields of the Vosges. Two years,
or thereabouts, having elapsed sinco
those battles were fought, it was fear-,
ed, as many dead bodies were known,
to have been only superficially buried,
that epidemic disease might result
What the commissioners found, how
ever, entirely dissipated any such,
fears. In cases in which as many as
eight hundred bodies, in the hurry in
cident to rapid military movements,
had been thrust into one shallow exca
vation, these bodies, it was found, had
already disappeared, their bones and
accouterments alone being left. Bui
to this disappearance there was a re
markable exception the bodies of of
ficers, having been buried in mackin
toshes (the action of which resembled
that of coffins) had not so disappear
ed." Against the testimony of Sir
Henry Thompson, the writer quotes
the authority of Koch and Klein to
show that the bacilli of anthrax being
aerobic, or dependent on air, are,when
'buried four and a haif feet, Incapable
of reproduction. The rest of the pa
per is occupied with the argument that
cremation, by making, exhumation im
possi'ble.prevents the detection of mur
ders.
'Jo
4 &
A NEW YORK PAPER
THINKS THEY HAVE
RUN THEIR COURSE
jp,- iuos^^rons^cuou3.
characteristic pi the half century just
finished. The- vevr. ..tloii is now ac
complished what is to follow it? Is
the rate of progress of the past to con
tinue? And, if so, can it furnish the
material for future expositions? The
question hinges on the individual ex
hibitor. Rivalry among the different'^
concerns to make an effective showing
is so great that the preparing of an
exhibit usually involves a heavy out
lay. Many well known houses have al
ready decided that exhibiting does not'*
pay. They cannot now, to any such
extent as former!/, show some improv
ed method or new product, or find cus-,
tomers otherwise beyond their reach.
Novelty must be obtained mainly in
the form of display and it is hard
to see how, generally speaking, the
necessary outlay can yield any propor
tionate return. Under these circum
stances it seems as though the ma
terial for making great expositions
like those of the post were bound to
run short
were found to be lively and strong,
although somewhat emaciated, and it
was noticed that their backs and sides
were much .darker than normal, while
the belly was unusually light colored.
Paris to Berlin by 'Phone.
The telephone line between Pari9
and Berlin, which has been but re
cently Inaugurated, was completed in
June last. The French and German
officials, however, would not give tho
line over to the public until it had been,
thoroughly tested. A conversation be
tween Berlin and the French tow as
cost five marks, except in the case a*.
Bordeaux, Orleans and St Etienne,
which G% marks is charged. Both th?
lines between Paris and Berlin an 1
Paris and Frankfort are double, an 1
are constructed with bronze wire flv
millimeters thick. It was original!
the intention of both governments that
the telephone should be ready at thj
opening of the exhibition. The Ger
man part of the wire was brought to
the French frontier in March. Tha
French portion, ho^eyer, was not
ready until June.
Airing Sleeping Rooms.
Too little attention Is given to th
proper airing of sleeping rooms a::
to the ventilating qualities of bed co,
ers. Comfortables that are almoi
air-tight should never he used, and
the best these cotton stuffed covers a .'
a menace to health. Properly, not
ing should be used about a bed whici
cannot be washed. Bedclothcs should,
be spread upon chairs, singly, In tha
light and air for at least two hours
every morning, and a draught 6hould,
meanwhile be allowed to sweep
through the room. Pillows should re
ceive a good kneading, and be left di
rectly before the open window In tha
sun and air.
-t?" &
pink Pearls of the Bahamas. .,
One of the most Important IndustrlSi
of the Bahama islands lis the gath#©lf3!
ing of pink pearls, it is the oi4f A| j'
place in the world where, these pearls
These pearls, when perfg
high prices. It to sald,^
£10 to 414M.
Ins fr
•sS
I
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