Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume], March 05, 1914, STATE EDITION, Page 12, Image 12

About Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916

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Newark (ftoetritig j&tar
JAMES SMITH. JR.
FOUNDER MARCH 1. 183 A
Published every afternoon, Sundays excepted, by the Newark Daily Advertiser
Publishing Company.
Entered as second-class matter, February 4, 190S, at the Postoflice. Newark.
Member of the Associated Press and American Newspaper Publishers
Association. „ ,
MAIN OFFICE.Branford place and Nutria street. Phone 6..00 Market.
ORANGE OFFICE... 179 Main street, Orange Phone. 4300 Orange
HARRISON OFFICE.324 Harrison avenue, Harrison. Phone 21t>,-M Harrison.
•SUMMIT OFFICE. ..10 Beechwood road. Phone 1049-W Summit.
IRVINGTON OFFICE .1027 Springfield avenue. Phone Wav. i02.
CHICAGO OFFICE.. .Mullers' Building. , . , , , .
NEW YORK OFFICE.Northwest corner Twenty-eighth street and rum A\e.
ATLANTIC CITY_The Dorland Advertising Agency .
BOSTON OFFICE_201 Devonshire street.
Mail Subscription Itutes I Postage PrepHld Within the Postal Union It
One year, $3.00: six months, $1.50; three months, 75 cents; one month,
COll t ^
Delivered by carriers in any part of Newark, the Orangee, Harriaon,
Kearny, Montclair, Bloomfield and alt neighboring towns. Subscriptions ma.
be sent to the main or branch offices.
VOLUME LXXXIIL—MO. 04.
THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH 5, 1914. j
STATE CONTROL OF THE FISHERIES.
THE FISHING grounds and waters on the New Jersey coast
ate the property of the State and the fish that come to these
shores are a great asset of the State, never realized upon except
in former years, when the fisheries were free to all citizens and
supported thousands of the population. The State has never made
any grant or lease of its property in the fisheries, but it has per
mitted a foreign trust combination to come in and get exclusive
control to exploit the State’s property, absorbing all the revenue
the State might get and shutting out the New Jersey public from
a supply except through its taxing depots, and, moreover, systemati
cally destroying vast stores of food fish to keep them from the
people.
The obvious and imperative duty of the State is to resume
possession of its property and administer it for the people. That
can be readily done for a double benefit to the people, to give the
State government a large annual income so that the people may
not be compelled to bear a State tax in addition to their local
taxes, and to reduce the market price of fish to normal figures so
that the cost of living may be reduced. A State government has
no more imperative duty than that of keeping down the cost of
living for the population, and it is more than a betrayal of that
duty when the State permits its own property and assets to be
appropriated by organized private greed and used to oppress and
impoverish the people.
Whatever Congress may do for the conservation of migratory
fish the Legislature of this State has a supreme duty to perform
for the people it represents. That is to take charge at once of the
ocean front fisheries and administer them in justice to the local
fishermen, the public and the State. When it is said that an an
nual income of upwards of half a million can be derived to pay
the State’s expenses, while at the same time the fishermen on the
coast may dispose of their fish to better advantage and retail
prices will be largely reduced, who shall object? Who oppose?
GOVERNOR FIELDER IN NEWARK.
THE RECEPTION given to Governor Fielder last night by
the representative citizens of Newark, without distinction of party,
was an exceptional tribute by the chief city of the State and showed
that spirit of loyalty to State government, by whatever political
party administered, which is one of the proudest characteristics
of New Jersey. And in no part of the State does its Governor
find a warmer welcome and greater respect than in our own cos
mopolitan city.
The practical program of economy and efficiency which Gov
ernor Fielder has at heart for the Legislature to adopt has given
great gratification to Newark citizens generally, and their senti
ment is necessarily shared by the city’s representatives at Trenton.
At the reception last night were many citizens who had known
Air. Fielder only by reputation, and they were present to make
personal acquaintance with their Governor and assure him of their
support in his administration.
TO HALT NEWARK ENTERPRISE.
THE BILL introduced in the Senate yesterday by Mr. Hen
ncssy, of Bergen county, for the creation of a State harbor com
mission gives to five commissioners from different parts of the
State the power to stop all plans for harbor development by a
municipality that do not meet the approval of the commission.
Newark is the only city in the State that has begun the develop
ment of its water front on definite plans. In all the other cities
development is still in a nebulous state.
There are vital reasons why Newark enterprise should not
be halted or interfered with, to cause serious delay. And if a new
State board with everything to learn and liable to influences un
friendly to municipal water-front development should be given
the authority over Newark’s plans who shall say whether they
•will ever be carried out?
A REFLECTION ON A DEAD STATESMAN.
IT IS a gross reflection upon John Hay, secretary of state, who
died in 1905, and who negotiated the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, to say
that in that instrument he deliberately gave to Great Britain the
right, to be confirmed by the United States Senate, to forbid us to
use an isthmian canal for the free passage of our domestic commerce
and even of our warships, or to have any more rights in the canal
beyond paying the cost of construction, maintenance and defense,
than Great Britain, even though the canal was on American terri
tory. It would be almost ‘an indictment for treason against the
Senate majority that confirmed the treaty to say that with this
understanding of the meaning of the treaty it was confirmed. And
is it not remarkable that until inventive and resourceful railroad
lawyers recently gave such an interpretation of the Hay-Paunce
fote treaty nobody in the United States had any suspicion of its
alleged meaning?
RETURN OF THE BASEBALL TOURISTS.
THE LANDING tomorrow of the members of the two repre
sentative American baseball teams that will have completed a tour
cf the world will be an event in the baseball world. These men have
most creditably represented the great American game as well as
American manhood in the principal cities of Asia and Europe, and
l^ft in all of them the most favorable impression of stalwart
mericanism. They have prepared the way for popularizing the
American national game in other countries, and it may be affirmed
with confidence that they have done more for the brotherhood of
man and the amity of nations than William J. Bryan and Andrew
Carnegie and all the world peace faddists combined can ever
succeed in doing.
WILL HELP THE MUNICIPALITIES.
REPEAL OF the Hillery maximum tax rate law of 1906 by
the Legislature was practically assured yesterday by the passage
by the House of the Senate repeal bill, as the Governor strongly
ecommendcd the repeal of this law. The result will be an increase
in the tax income of municipalities in Essex county. As railroad
property is assessed at a rate fixed by the average rate of all the
municipalities, the rates in the many small rural tax districts
make the average rate in the State smaller than in the large cities
with their costly improvements, with a resultant great advantage
to the railroads in their tax assessments.
__ ■ .. I
OpTnI ONsTjN D VIE WS FROM
THE EXCHANGES
__ _ ,
<Jenoa, the Superb.
From the Catholic World.
Genoa is nothing if not a city of
palaces- Whole streets of them, all
splendid, some more strikingly elegant
than their fellows, are waiting for the
visitor to pass and admire; or they
invite him to enter and leisurely ex
amine the halls where medieval no
bility dreamed of greatness and war
and the wealth of the picturesque
caravels of the blue seas. Near the
Piazza delle Pont an e Morose is the
Palace Della Kasa. a fifteenth century
structure, originally the Palazo Spl
nola. where dwelt the oldest Genoese
family. Prom the plaza extend the
Via Garibaldi and the Via Baldi; and
on these all the splendor of the palace
city may lie seen in superb fullness.
The first street, despite its modern
name, is of the sixteenth century and
the older of the two; practically all
of the palaces here were designed by
Galeazzo Alessi. The Via Baldi dates
from the seventeenth century and.
| with its fine palaces, is a monument
to Bartolommeo Bianco.
I oday as you stand near Genoa's
long piers you may see a great ship
from that Western land of Columbus
slowly steam In from the open sea.
There will be a cheer from home
come Genoese; there will be the scur
rying of many little boats about the
lordly steamer, with the flowers and
the fruits of Italy’s soil; there will
be the gay lilting of mandolins and
the songs of sweet.-voiced maidens;
and the sun will be shining, and the
water dancing, and the sky blue, so
blue, with never a cloud large as a
baby's hand upon its lovely face.
And if a friend walks down the spa
cious pier, you will greet him right
gladly, and take him away to the cool
of some palace Inn high up among
the shadows of the olive and the pom
egranate, and bid hint speak of ships
and seas and the loving days at
home. But if no one comes you will
stand near the seas and look upon
the friendly smiling of strange faces
from the wcstland, and be happy in
their joy and glad in the benediction
that will fall upon them from the
bounty of the fair Italian skies.
Why f?«THpyi»ien Drink.
From the Philadelphia Time1;.
The conversation at a recent social
function in Trenton turned to the ex
treme precautionary methods of some
people, and Governor Fielder told of
the rule laid down by a certain fellow
native along that line.
One day while in Philadelphia, the
Governor said, the fellow Jerseyman
happened to collide with a bunch <t
hygienics, and among other things
they referred to the water supply of
his home city.
“It isn’t as good as it might be,”
said the Jerseyman when questioned
as to its quality. “There is something
like 10.000,000 microbes to a drop, but
it is the best we can do at the pres
ent.”
“What do you do to safeguard your
self against water of that kind7”
queried one of the hygienics, wltn a
look of concern. “You surelv take
some precautionary measures.”
“Oh. yes.” smiled the Jerseyman.
"B’irst. we dope the water and then
we lioil it, and then we drink apple
jack. ” .
tVaNliiiiftun'ii Next Move.
From the Washington Post.
Again it is Washington's next move.
Carranza has put the burning ques
tion squarely up to the. United States.
The rebel chief's flat denial of the
right of this government to get at
the facts regarding the manner of
Benton’s death precipitates with
brutal directness a situation involv
ing a showing of hands in a matter
of policy concerning which Washing
ton has all along refused to be pinned
down—our responsibilities under the
Monroe doctrine.
Even the foreigners at Mexico City
are up in arms over the reports that
the United Slates government is to
direct the Benton investigation. BJvi
dently, the confidence of foreigners
in the declared purpose of the United
States to give thorn protection every
where in Mexico has been pretty
thoroughly shaken by recent happen
ings.
If the ground is not to slip wholly
from under our feet, leaving our
diplomacy suspended in the air. tlie
move that it is up to us to make
must be immediate and one that will
leave no scintilla of doubt as to where
we stand between the forces of tran
quility and the forces of disruption.
Hirrift Are Mere Groundling*..
From the London Chronicle.
It is even more difficult to estimate
height than distance, and when one
reads how once again the height rec
ord has been broken by some daring
aviator, one is puzzled how to realize
what the figures of his record really
mean. Well, at any rate, we have
tho birds as a standard of compari
son. Compared with Mr. Raynham's
recent 15,nfH) feet, the common birds
of England are mere groundlings, for
generally they fly at no greater height
than 300 feet. When migrating, how
ever. they mount higher, though even
then the wild goose (the loftiest of
them) seldom reaches 2,000 feet. The
highest flier In the world is the great
condor, who sometimes rises five
miles.
Ssn'iiiR lee Ity Electricity.
From the Electrical World.
A marked advance o'er the custom- '
ary methods of harvesting ice has
taken place at Worcester, Mass . !
where ice is now cut by electric
power. The usual plan has been to
form I he blocks on the surface of tho
pond and to push them to the ice
house runway along a channel, which
is sometimes of such extreme length
that the blocks freeze together be
fore reaching the hoisting chain. Th
cutting by this method is extremely
tedious and the labor cost correspond
ingly high. A l Worcester the sawing
of the standard cakes is accomplished
by a motor-driven plant, situated
within a few rods of tho Icehouse.
By this means the services of twenty
two-horse teams and forty men are
eliminated.
j NEW NEWS OF YESTERDAY II
How Ben Butler Charmed His Political Adversaries
I
"There probably never lived in
Massachusetts a man who hau greater
power of exerting personal fasetna
Llon and completely overcoming prej
udice than General Hen Butler pos
sessed," said the late Charles Levi
Woodbury, of Boston, to me shortly
after tlio publication of General But
ler's reminiscences.
Mr. Woodbury, in his younger days,
saw much of General Butler, for until
the outbreak of the civil War the
latter was prominent in Democratic
politics in Massachusetts and Mr.
Woodbury’s father, Levi Woodbury,
who had been United States senator
from New Hampshire and secretary
if the treasury In the administration
rif President Van Buren, was also of
very great influence in Democratic
circles In New England. General But
ler, as a Democrat representing Mas
sachusetts at the national Democratic
convention, which was held at
Charleston, S. C., in the spring of
IMP), supported the nomination of
Jefferson Davis for President by that
convention.
“Butler was afraid of nobody," Mr.
Woodbury continued, "and he was es
pecially rejoiced if he at any time
was able to tread upon the toes, so
to speak, or what he regarded as the
excessively blue-blooded Intellectual
aristocracy of Massachusetts.
"1 remember very well with what
perfect charm Butler, when governor,
captured many of those who were
present at the commencement exer
cises of Harvard in June of that year.
Senator George F. Hoar, whose duty
it was to preside at that gathering,
declined to do so, not hesitating to
express in his speech the severe criti
cism of the action of the overseers of
Harvard in inviting Governor Butler
to become the guest of the college, as
had been done with Massachusetts
governors ever since the colony be
came a State.
"Joseph H. Choate, however, agreed
to preside, and he made a wonderfully
tactful and graceful speech when al
hiding to the presence there of the
governor of Massachusetts. I hap
pened to know that Butler expected to
he treated with scant civility and in
tended to speak with all his power of
sarcasm, but he was so touched by
Choate’s graceful reference to him Hint
ho felt compelled to respond in terms
and in a manner which revealed to all
who were present what his great gift
of personal charm really was.
“A night or two later Governor Pul
ler was Invited as a guest to a dinner
which was given by a banker friend
of mine in Boston. The banker called
upon the governor to lie present at the
State House, and showed him a list of
guests who were to be present. It
included some of the leading profes
sional men of Boston, a number of
the foremost bankers and two or
three men who had gained high liter
ary reputations. Governor Butler
was told that with a single exception
—that of Jonas French, who was
chairman of tile Democratic State
Committee, every one of the guests
had voted against him in the guberna
torial campaign, and lie was asked if
he cared to draw his pencil across any
of the names.
" ‘Not one,’ he replied, 'l should be
very glad to meet these gentlemen. I
shall deem it a compliment to sit with
them at the same table.’
"Well, do you know,” continued Mr
Woodbury, "that, although some of
these guests felt like withdrawing
their acceptances after they heard
that Governor Butler had been invit
ed, yet so perfectly did he charm
these men, so highly did he entertain
them, such were the refinement and
gentleness of his speech and manner,
that they ull confessed they had dis
covered a new Ben Butler, and some
of them actually declared that if he
were again to be eundidatu for gov
ernor they would feel disposed to vote
for him.
"Thus was revealed the other side of
Ben Butler—a side of which the great
public had no knowledge.”
(Copyright. 1914, by E. J. Edwards.
All rights reserved.)
Lombroso’s Theory Shattered
——-I
Delayed but expected shattering of
the Lombroso theory that there exists
a "criminal class" of the human race
has come. Statistical information,
the gathering of which began twelve
years ago by Dr. Goring, a British
medical expert, who has made crim
inology a special study, furnishes the
hammer of demolition, says the Cin
cinnati Enquirer. Crime, contends
this investigator, does not reveal it
self in a man's outward visage. Meas
urements. made after Lombroso’s pre
scription. disclose that the English
prison inmate and lawbreaker pos
sesses only one distinct, general mark
of differentiation—he is deficient in
height, weight, stature and mental
capacity, us compared to the rest of
the community. In skull measure
ments the criminal does not differ
perceptibly from the Oxford or Cam
bridge undergraduate student, the
mean head Indexes being almost iden
tical. Low foreheads do not connote
criminality, nor, conversely, are high
foreheads tokens of intelligence with
in.
Curiously enough, criminals who
use force, such as thieves and bur
glars, are exceptionally puny, while
those who use cunning and deception,
such as forgers and swindlers, are as
tall aud as heavy us the average
man. Dr. Goring submits the ex
planation that the lust named class
is usually drawn from a better nour
ished nnd better housed portion of
the population. In reasoning upon
his statistical facts, ihe British ex
America has furnished to the world the character of Washing
ton, and, if our American institutions had done nothing else, that
alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind. -Daniel
Webster.
pert cites the valuable and even pre
ponderlng fact that height and weight
are endowments which readily enable
a man to obtain employment.
Being deficient in them his chances
for honest work are reduced. Pur
suing this acceptable conclusion. Dr.
Goring shows that heredity in crime,
so-called, follows the natural law of
production, low stature being trans
mitted to children by their parents.
The same tables of laboriously com
plied statistics indicate that the
health of the criminal appears to
have no effect upon his disposition
toward crime As for drink, accred
ited universally as the greatest agent
of criminality. Dr. Goring finds that
the labeling is unwarranted, except
in the cases of violent offenses
against the person.
His final conclusion is, when viewed
with the fine spun stuff of crimi
nologists of the hysterical school and
or.ly partly developed psychologists,
absolutely startling upon first read
ing.
"The thing which we call crimi
nality and which leads to the per
petration of many, if not most, anti
social offenses today, is not inherent
wickedness, but natural stupidity.”
in other words, the lawbreaker is
a fool. When the rewards of crimi
nal habit or life are considered the
soundness of this conclusion will
grow in strength. The work of Dr.
Goring will be welcomed by all stu
dents of these matters as the first
attempt to arrive at results in crim
inology by the statistical treatment
of facts which, in a crude form, are
without scientific value.
Still Waters
Kitty never had no use for men.
Seemed to us she’d rather read an’ sew;
None of us could ever point to when
She had ever entertained a beau.
Every time a feller came to call,
Kitty never had a word to say.
Never even showed him to the hall
When at 10 o’clock he went away.
Jim, we used to think, was jes’ as queer,
Women used to scare him to a chill;
When the girls come visitin’ us here
He jes spent the evenin’ sittin’ still.
“Women ain’t fer me,” he used to say,
“1 can’t get accustomed to their ways;
Then he’d grab his hat an’ run away.
Jes’ as though his mind was in a daze.
Jim an’ Kitty scarcely ever spoke.
Least we never saw ’em, if they did;
Never heard ’em ever pass a joke.
Much beneath still waters, though, is hid.
Both of ’em lived on the farm for years,
Never once we saw’ em arm in arm;
But you shouldn’t judge from what appears.
Leastwise if you’re livin’ on a farm.
Kitty disappeared one mornin’ bright.
All that day we looked in vain for Jim;
But they both came back again at night.
Kitty, smiling, hand in hand with him.
Seemed they both had tired of single life.
So she said, while brushing back the tears,
Parson Brown had made ’em man an’ wife,
An’ they’d been engaged for twenty years.
-^Edgar A. Guest, in Detroit Free Press.
_^__j
Noted Women Whose Birthday Is Yours
MARCH 5
Lucy Larcom, Charlotte Richardson
Copyrighted, 1918.
RY MARY MARSHALL^
Today must bo an auspicious one
for women with poetic ambitions if
one is to judge from the record left
by lamy Laircom and Charlotte Rich
ardson. both of whom were horn on
March 5.
t ii.irloUc Caroline Richardson was
’ i rn hi Hnglnnd of the poorest of
parents in 1775 and received what
scanty education she had in a char
ity school where girls wen- lifted to
do domestic service. At fifteen she
was deemed sufficiently trained to be
cast on her own resources and she
went out to work, remaining in the
domestic service for twelve years.
Then she married a shoemaker named
Richardson who had long been de
voted to her and had all gone well
she would probably never have gain
ed fame. But no sooner was she
married than the sad truth became
apparent that the shoemaker had con
sumption. He died two years after
their marriage leaving poor Charlotte
with a babe in arms who, to make
matters worse, soon became blind.
Meagre as had been Charlotte's ed
ucation she opened a school for girls,
and this would have been a good
moans of support if it. had not been
lor her 111 health. In the meantime
she had written some verses which
came to tho attention of her neigh
nors, who liad l ho good judgmont to
see real merit in them. They encour
aged her and managed to get subscrip
tions for the publication of the first
edition of these collected poems. Thus
encouraged poor Charlotte turned to
writing for her living, and both in her
poetry and her prose works proved to
have really remarkable talent. Her
hooks enjoyed considerable popu
larity at the time, but she is re
membered today chiefly for the ex
ample she- presents of achievement
under difficulty.
Lucy Larcom, the American poet,
who was horn eighty-eight years ago
today, worked against quite as se
vere odds us did poor Charlotte. At
ten years of age she was working as
a cotton operative in the mills of
Ixiwcll, Massachusetts, going home at
night to work in the miserable fac
tory hoarding house run by her wid
owed mother. Somehow she mnn
nged to write contributions for a
Lowell newspaper, and these attract
ed the attention of the poet Whittier,
who encouraged her to greater
achievements. At the age of twenty
she managed to go to school to make
up for lost time, and later became
one of the most prominent juvenile
writers and editors of the country.
NOTES OF SCIENCE
New Unger rings hnve a hinge fas
tening, insuring a elose fit, not h.1
c■ ■ m iinssibie ivhrii a ring luxs to be
slipped over knuckles.
he ■ r. t . nn since 1X85, Spain
in January had a fall of snpw suf
He entiy heavy to whiten the land
scape throughout the country.
A buttermilk fountain on the line
of a bottled water affair that a New
York man has invented is equipped
with an agitator for stirring the con
tents and a non-clogging faucet.
A detachable, spring-controlled
handle lias been invented to facilitate
carrying howling balls and also to
assist in bowling with them.
An artificial horn, having its elas
ticity, strength and Insulating quali
ties, is being made in Germany from
hides, chemically treated.
So good an insulator is dry snow '
that the bare wire of the telephone
line to an Italian observatory on
Mount Rosa often is buried In it with
out interfering with the service.
Russia expects to produce 24.000,000
long tons of bituminous and 6,300,000
long tons of anthricito this year.
White Pine Growing Is Profitable
The growing of white pine, says the
department of agriculture in a bulle
tin recently Issued on the subject. Is
a profitable undertaking at 6 per cent,
compound Interest. To bring in these
returns the trees may be cut when
not more than from thirty-five to
seventy years old.
The original white pine forests are
approaching exhaustion, according to
the department, and with the growing
scarcity of large-sized, high-grade
white pine lumber, lower grades now
find a ready market. Besides this,
the tree grown rapidly, has a heavy
yield, and is easy to manage.
Second-growth white pine, fifty
years old, on good soil, may yield as
much as 411.000 feet of lumber per acre.
On medium soil, stands of the same
age 36,000 board feet, and even on
poor soil, 24,000 feet. White pine box
board lumber, one of the chief
products of such stands, sells for
from *12 to $18 a thousand board feet.
Material for making matches, another
product, sells for from $17 to $18 a
thousand. Even larger material, suit
able for sashes and blinds, some of
which may be cut from a fifty-year
old stand, brings from $30 to *35 a
thousand feet. Second-growth white
pine, the kind that Is found on thou
sands of abandoned fields and pas
tures in New England, and that
which has sprung up after lumbering
in many places where the original
white pine forests stood has a value
today, says the department, that
makes it well worth the attention of
the owner.
Too often, caution the forest ofn
Evening Stars
Daily Puzzle
Gxx! How u- )
I £V£K x-J
1qlikb( /
^^9 /
NVhut given name?
AiibHer to Yesterday’* Pussle:
Station.
cers, the farmer or other land-owner
sells second-growth white pine stump
age for less than it is worth because
he does not know how much lumber
the stand is actually capable of yield
ing, or else is ignorant of the price
the lumber and other products will
bring. Too often, also, the foresters
say, the owner of second-growth fails
to realize that perhaps by holding his
pine trees for a few years longer or
by thinning it properly at the right
time he can obtain a great deal more
and better timber, and, consequently,
a much larger relative return in
money, than if he allows it to be cut
clear when the first opportunity
offers.
The best second-growth white pine,
forty-five'years old, will yield about
42,000 board feet per acre, but the
same stand fifty-five years old will
yield 65,000 feet, an increase of 13,000
feet per acre in 10 years. And this is
not all, for along with the increase
in quantity comes an increase in
quality. Not only more but better
timber is to be had. Counting in
this factor of quality, the lumber
from an acre of best white pine fifty -
live years old is worth about $1,000,
against a value of $"50 when the stand
is forty-five years old.
Life Insurance in Force December 31, 1913, Two
Billion, Four Hundred Million Dollars.
These are inspiring and stimu
lating figures and tell a story
of wonderful progress in con
structive work by
The Prudential
FORREST F. DRYDEN, PlWftiSaat
I UPLIFT TALKS t
BT ORISON SWETT MARDBN
Author of "Pushing to the Front, Bto.
Copyright, 1913.
WHAT WE GET OUT OF BOOKS
How many of us know people, who,
a week after reading a book, could
recall scarcely an item of its con
tents. They read with listless minds,
like sponges, which let the clear
water through and retain all the dirt.
A great many people scarcely exer
cise their minds at all in reading.
They let the words Alter through the
brain, leaving almost nothing behind.
They might be called "impression”
readers. The impression, the exhil
aration, the excitement, is all they
want. They do not try to remember
or to do any vigorous thinking while
they are reading. They read just for
the pleasure it gives them. It is men
tal dissipation.
Such lazy readers not only get no
permanent benefit from their reading,
but they also demoralize their minds
by constant passivity, so that they
become almost totally unfit for any
strong mental action. Instead of
strengthening their minds, they
weaken them.
Passive reading is more harmful in
its effects than desultory reading. It
wall not strengthen the brain any
more than sitting in a gymnasium
will develop the body. The mind re
mains inactive, in a sort of indolent
revery, wandering here and there,
without focusing anywhere. -Such
reading takes the spring and snap
out of the mental faculties, weakens
the intellect, and makes the brain
torpid and incapable of grappling
with great princin’es and difficult
problems.
The superficial reading or even
things will injure the mind's effi
ciency for doing good work. The
habit of skimming over newspapers,
glancing through books, catching a
heading here and a sentence there,
destroys the focusing power of the
mind. No good reading can be ac
complished without concentrated
thought. The mind, in a receptive
and responsible mood, must be fo
cused with power, and every con
flicting influence must be cut off. rt
must be ready to grasp a principle,
to hold a new thought, to reflect, to
analyze, to compare.
When you read, read as Macaulay
did, as Carlyle did, us Lincoln did—
as did every great man who lias
profited by his reading—with your
whole soul absorbed in what you
read, with such intense concentration
that you will be oblivious of every
thing else outside of your book.
In order to get the most out o* nt»
reading, the reader must be a thinker.
The mere acquisition of facts is not
the acquisition of power. To fill the
mind with knowledge that cannot be
made available is like filling out
houses with furniture and bric-a-bras
until we have no room to move abour
Many people have an idea that i_
they keep reading everlastingly, jf >
they have a book in their hands dur
ing every leisure moment, they will,
of necessity, become full-rounded and
well-educated. This is a mistake.
They might just as well expect to be
come athletes by eating at every op
portunity. It is even more necessary
to think than to read. Thinking, con
templating what we have read, is
what digestion and assimilation are
to the food.
I know a young man who has form
ed such a habit of reading that he is
hardly ever without a book, a maga
zine, or a paper. He is always read
ing, at home, on the cars, at the rail
way stations, and he has acquired a
vast amount of knowledge. He has a
perfect passion for knowledge, and
yet his mind seems to have been
weakened by this perpetual brain
stuffing.
To read constantly for the sake of (
something to think of is to stultify
one's self. Bacon said, “ Reading
maketh a full man.” But there are
different sorts of fullness, and that
or the idle glutton is not to be com- -
mended. Bet the dissipated reader
ponder the wise words of Milton:
Who reads
Incessantly, and to his reading Dringa
not
A spirit and judgment equal or su
perior,
Uncertain and -unsettled still re
mains—
Deep versed in hooks, and shallow in
himself.
What you get out. of a book is not
necessarily what the author puts into
it, but what you bring to It. If the
heart, does not lead the head, if the
thirst for knowledge, the hunger for
a broader and deeper culture, are not
the motives for reading, you will not
get the most out of n hook. But if
your thirsty soul drinks in (ho writ
er’s thought as the parched soil ab
sorbs rain, then your latent possi
bilities and the potency ot your be
ing, like delayed germs and seeds In
the soil, will spring forth into new
I life.
RED TAPE IN ALASKA j
Suppose that you own a cannery in
southeast Alaska, and have built an
expensive wharf. One day you walk
out on it and find that the timbers
which support it are rotting in the
water and the wharf has a list to
starboard. Unless you prop it up
quickly one of those winds thnt rush
down from the mountaintops in win
ter at the rate of 76 miles an hour
may topple it over, writes Allen
Forbes, in I.eplic’s. Do you send men
out into the woods and cut timbers to
support it? You do not—not if you are
wise. Every tree within reach is
probably included in a forest reserve
and Is as precious in the eyes of
Washington as if it were some rare
species yielding costly ointment of
spikenard.
You lirst make formal application i
to a subofflcial of the Forest Service,
who is probably somewhere down the
coast, if he is not off on a hunt for
moose or mountain sheep. If the for
est man’s digestion happens to be
good, there is a possibility that the
application may not only be acted
upon favorably, but the desired per
mission may even arrive before the
wharf collapses.
Rut suppose there is an unbroken
silence and you become eo desperate
that you go ahead and cut down the
necessary trees? Answer: "Fine or
Imprisonment, or both," unless you
can square yourself in some way with
the majesty of the Forest Service. (If
any man thinks that this is exagger
ation, let him inquire along the south
eastern coast, particularly of the men
who own wharves.)
| ODDITIES IN TODAY’S NEWS j
Civil War Hero Prepares for Funeral
l>oy, Although In Coot] Health.
PHILADELPHIA, March 5.—Gen
eral John P. Taylor, a Civil War vet
eran and member of the Gettysburg
Battlefield Commission, although ap
parently in good health, is making
advanced preparations for his funeral.
He has placed an order for a solid
bronze coffin to bo cast from old
cannon, and a vault has been sunken
in the private Taylor burying grounds
on his estate near ReedsviUe, Pa.
The general plans to have this cov
ered by a big granite block, to be
surmounted by a bronze statue of
himself. The firm which secured the
contract for the coffin has been In
structed to ship It to a Lewistown
undertaker to be held until needed for
the execution of tho contract he holds
for the burial of the veteran.
General Taylor, despite his etghty
stx years, is still robust and enjoys
a horseback ride almost dally.
Senate Floor Generate* Electricity and
Shock* Startled Senator*.
WASHINGTON, March 5.—Almost
any day spectators in the Senate gal
leries behold senators give a little
start as a page rushes up to them
with a card of some caller. The
shock Is not of fear, but of electricity.
The new carpet on the Senate floor
generates a high voltage of electricity
as the pages scamper along on their
missions.
Kfationinaster Showered With Emigrant
Kisers When 938,000 Is Recovered.
NEW YORK. March B.-Ex
pressions of gratitude in the form of
kisses were showered upon William
H. Egan, station-master of the Penn
sylvania railroad station here last
night by the 27 men and women
members of an emigrant band be
cause he had been instrumental in
restoring to them a flour sack which
contained $38,000 in gold and bills.
The. party, en route from Montana
to Poland, dined in the station and
then started for the pier to board
the steamship Olympic. In her haste,
the wife of the leader of the hand,
to whom her fellow travelers had
entrusted their money, left the bag
in a waiting room, where it was
found by an attendant and turned
over to Egan. Its contents had hard
ly been counted when the emigrants
rushed back in great excitement
clamoring for their money.
When they learned that every dol
lar of the 138,000 was intact they
made a rush for Egan. He did not
take kindly to kissing at first, it is
said, but yielded as a matter of
courtesy.
Return* Stolen Contribution of $5 After
Withholding it Forty Year*.
WASHINGTON, Pa., March 6.—
Tho Rev. Charles W. Miller, a re
tired Methodist Episcopal clergyman
of Washington, has received an
anonymous letter from Ligonler, in
which the writer stated that forty
years ago while Mr. Miller wa>
preaching In Ligonler a member of
the congregation handed the writer
$5 to be applied to the pastor's salary
Instead of giving the money to the
pastor the recipient, an officer of the
congregation, put the $5 in his pocket.
The theft had preyed on his mine
and he decided to make restitution.
The interest amounted to $12, the
man enclosing $17 in his letter.
Cut* Wages 10 Per Cent, and Then Di
vides $80,000 with Flmploye*.
YONKERS, March 5.—Although the
Alexander Smith & Sons Carpet Com
pany cut the wages of its 7,000 em
ployes 10 per cent, on February 7 it
paid semi-annual bonuses to old em
ployes.
The company has just divided ap
proximately $80,000 among 3,500 em
ployes, including men and women.
The distribution came as a surpriso,
for the cut in wages had been taken
to presage an omission of the bonus
award.