I DECEMBER SHOULD BE "POTATO MONTH"; EAT MORE AND ENCOURAGE GROWERS Public Safety Food Department Urges Plentiful Use of Pennsylvania-Grown Tubers in Tasty Dishes to Reduce Cost of Living. December should be termed Potato Month declares the Food Department of the Pennsylvania Committee of Public Safety. Why? Because pota toes should be used largely in substi tution now for other staples, particu larly canned vegetables. The big mealy Pennsylvania baked potato, creamed potatoes, French fried, pota toes au gratln, potato croquets, mash ed potatoes, hash-brown potatoes all appeal to the hungry man and they are but a few ways of preparing this wonderful vegetable. You can have potatoes for every meal and still have variety. Eat more potatoes—Pennsylvania potatoes, the finest on earth. En courage Pennsylvania potato growers. There are other potatoes to be sure, but they are not quite so good as Pennsylvania potatoes which naturally bring a higher price. Do you know that the present market prices of po tatoes are, on an average, below the cost of production? That is not right. Thousands of bushels of these are now being shipped to the market in prime condition to help out the cost of living. Our average consumption of pota toes Is four bushels per person year ly. Each member of your household Smelting Art Ancient One. In the old world the art of smelting ores was discovered about 1200 B. O. It has sometimes been suggested that Iron tools and weapons may have been Inade at an earlier period from mete orites. Recently a considerable amount Of evidence In behalf of this hypoth '«ds has been presented by C. F. Zim mer. He has compiled a list of the known iron-containing meteorites, nearly all accumulated within the last century, and he shows from these alone 'fcbout 250 tons of iron might be ob tained. Of this amount more than 99 !per cent Is malleable, consisting of a 'nickel-iron alloy. Flowers Owe Life to Insects. In California are several sorts of [flowers that would bear no seeds ex 'cept for the visits and activities of In sects. One of these is the yucca. A tiny moth lives In the flower and per forms a peculiar work, intricate, but which the yucca could not per petuate Itself through seeds. TAILOR OF THE TRENCHES A tailor of the trencnes on the west 'front receiving a customer whose coat 'needs mending. His shop is built of (salvaged iron, hoards and bricks and his sign Is an old sewing machine Sfound in the ruins of a house. Furlough Means Mule? The reading class was in session *and the word "furlough" occurred. tMlss Jones, the teacher, asked if any !little girl or boy knew the meaning 'of the word. One small hand was raised. "Furlough means a mule," sr»ld the child. "Oh, no, it doesn't," said the teach er. "Yes, ma'am," insisted the little igirl. "I have the book at home that 'says so." Miss Jones told the child to bring the book to school. The next morning the child came armed with a book and 6howed a picture of a soldier riding a mule, under which was the caption: "Going home on his furlough. Courtesy a Shock. In the hurry and bustle of metro politan life people don't seem to have any time to be polite and when any courtesy is shown it usually takes one's breath away. "The other day, said a New York visitor, "I was leaving one of the big buildings on lower Broad way, and a young man stepped in front of me just before I reached the swinging doors. I expected, of course, he would let the door fly back at me, and Instinctively braced myself to meet it. I was so flabbergasted with surprise when he stopped and held the door open for me to pass, that I came near forgetting to thank him. I did clean forget to ask him where he came from and how long he had been "here." should eat two-thirds of a bushel of potatoes during the month of Decem ber. If they were used in the great variety of ways they can be cooked the consumption would be a bushel per person during the month of De cember. There is no place to store the po tatoes now coming into the market save in the homes of the people. The railroads need the cars to haul other products. The logical distribution is quick handling from the car to the retailer and from the retailer to the consumer and from the basket straight to the table. On December 6 potato growers of Pennsylvania met at Public Safety Committee headquarters in Philadel phia to organize a state branch of the Potato Association of America. The object is to plan to raise more potatoes and better potatoes next year. The greatest however, that can be given will come through the consumption of potatoes during the coming weeks. It is almost unpatriotic to eat canned goods dur ing December when potatoes and other vegetables can be had in large quantities. The more potatoes we eat the more bread and meat our boys at the front will get. Fine Workmanship. There is in a museum at Salem, Mass., a cherry stone which contains one dozen silver spoons. The stone Itself is of ordinary size, but the spoons are so small that their shape and finish can only be detected by the microscope. On another cherry stone, the present whereabouts of which is not given, are said to have been carved 124 heads, so distinct that the naked J j eye could distinguish those belonging to popes and kings by their mitres and | crowns. \ "Gassing" Moles. A Western farmer is "gassing" moles by using the gases from the ex- : haust of his motor, conveying it to the 1 moles' burrows by a hose. It kills the pests. WHITE HOUSE SERVICE FLAG >< ' w . » , > > .:: ..:>y* j \ .. ' j" : \ I 111 ;i • jg • ■: : I ( ]\\% : j" : I i i Little Ellen Wilson McAdoo, daugh ter of Secretary and Mrs. McAdoo and granddaughter of President Wilson, hanging a Red Cross service flag in a window of the White House. The fiag indicates that three members of the executive's household have joined the Red Cross. Hard on tbO Guide. One of the guides in Glacier National Park, says Outing, is, or was, named Mike Shannon. He was born with the usual Irish sense of humor, but there are some tourist vagaries that are be yond the range of even his generous comprehension. Once upon a time he guided a nature loving lady of more than generous physical proportions. Mounting her horse and dismounting was a task that taxed all her powers and incidentally most of Mike's as well. At a particularly bad place in the trail a majestic pine towered from the steep slope. As they rounded the turn the lady tourist called to Mike: "Mr. Guide, help me down!" With some difficulty the feat was ac complished. She panted up to the foot of the tree. There she stood gazing upward for a moment, and then in a loud, clear voice called out: "Oh tree, I salute thee!" Then she went back to the horse. "Mr. Guide, help me up!" They accomplished the mounting with a hundred per cent Increase In effort, and moved forward. "What did you say, Mike?" another guide inquired when Mike told the story later. "Me?" said Mike. "Nothing; but I just thought I'd hate to be the feller j to guide her through the California j redwoods." —Youth's Companion. i PRETTY SOFT FOR INTERNED BOCHES Plenty of Food and Comforts in North Carolina Camps. j — SURE GERMANY IS WINNING Detained Officers and Seamen of Ger man Merchant Ships Often Have Meat Twice a Day—No Alien Has to Work Unless He Pleases, and Then He Is Pa 4d —Find Variety of Ways of I Entertaining Themselves. When night falls on the camps at Hot Springs, N. C., near Asheville, where 517 officers and 1,064 seamen of German merchant ships are detained by the United States immigrant serv ice, hooded incandescents strung on the topmost strand of formidable barbed wire fences throw their fun nels of light inside the barricade, the guard being stationed in darkened, high perched sentry boxes. Lights sim ilarly spring up in the rooms of the four-story hotel, where the captains, mates and engineers of the big liners are quartered. No sound comes from these Teutonic cantonments —they give no more sign of life than Belgian vil lages left In the wake of German armies. On the tracks barely outside the bar ricade trains begin to pass with silence shattering roars, great trains of 60 and 70 cars drawn by giant moguls with flaming furnace doors—the aristocrats of freights for whom all signal lights show clear as they speed eastward to the Chesapeake ports with cargoes of grain, horses, lumber and machinery. Those within the wire know what that rushing eastward portends. Sure Germany Is Winning. But no other message do they be lieve, or, if they do, they conceal belief. They read American newspapers, but tell the guards Germany is winning the war and that it will be over in four months. They say the Americans have never repaired tiie ship engines their now interned crews disabled because it cannot be done in this country. Offi cers of the great ship Yaterland say she has never left Hoboken docks. Differences between officers and men have sprung up and fears of forcible encounters made it necessary to estab lish separate camps. The men when they realized that they were freed from enforced obedience to their offi cers began to show increasing evidence of resentment for past strict disci pline. The officers were enraged at this inoculation with American ideas. Some of their men even showed friend liness for the Americans I But talk does not lessen the vigi lance of the flfty-two American guards working in three shifts. "They are Germans," said a hatchet-faced guard with his hand on his holster. He look ed up at the nearby forested cliffs where the French Broad river emerges with crashing waters into the broad ened camp valley. "And some day the casualty lists will show of the boys from this state killed in France. And then —" Concealments on Those Cliffs. "Then what?" he was asked. "Yes," said he, "What?" and looked again at the concealments of the cliffs overlook ing the camp. The officers have the advantage of the men in the matter of quarters though the food is practically the same. The four-story hotel was leased by the government with Its equipment of private baths, steam heat and tine furniture and surroundings of tennis courts, croquet grounds and big pool of naturally hot water. The men are housed in eight one-story wooden bar racks built for their use, each barrack 20 by 163 feet in size, with double decked bunks, heated by stoves and served by a detached shower butli house 14 by 50 l'eet, in the rear of each barrack. German artisans did all the work of construction, being paid by the United States at the rate of $2O a month. No alien there has to work unless he wish es, and if he does he is paid. One day all of them quit work because they resented the publication in a local newspaper that they were slow work ers and had to be told how to do ev erything. The Germans find a variety of ways of entertaining themselves. Some play tennis, others croquet, some bowl, some go through a semimilitary drill, and each camp has its team for playing what the guards call football. The bull is like a football, but it is not kicked. It is batted with the hand. For the men, the International Y. M. C. A. has established a clubhouse equipped with tables, reading matter, games and a moving picture outfit. An American secretary is in charge. Work for Idle Hands. The officers have nearly completed a miniature German village by the riv erside. The "houses" are tiny affairs scarcely large enough to let a couple of their burly builders squeeze in, and much ingenuity and artistic design is shown in their rustic fashioning. Tree limbs, broken brick, stones, old carpet, flattened tin cans, all picked up in the hotel grounds, are the material used. The United States furnished nothing. | Commodore Ruser, chief of the Vater land, built one of these tiny houses and is very proud of the little brie stove which heats it. When wor' ng on their houses the officers seem to have shed their officialdom and appear as kindly, simple men. The common sea men are building a similar v "ige. Whether the Germans are better fed than they should be is a matter of viewpoint. A guest of a fine hotel would be dissatisfied with the food the United States furnishes and expert chefs from the big liners prepare. On the other hand, there are many people who would be pleased to get high qual ity western meat twice a day, as the Germans frequently do, with an abun dance of vegetables, coffee, rye bread, butter, tea and stewed fruit. Steak is not unknown, although stews and roasts are more common. Local sentiment is somewhat stirred j by the fact that the United States offi cials do not enforce the meatless and | wheatless days which Mr. Hoover urges on Americans. And criticism is directed because all purchases of food and selection of the daily menus are made by one of the Germans them selves. People ask what motive a Ger man would have to conserve food for his country's enemies. This agent is D. Pelnert, former purchasing agent in New York for the Hamburg-American line. Officials In charge of the camp de fend Peinert's selection on the ground that he is highly capable. They say that for months the per capita cost of raw food has been only 45 cents a day, and insist that the hogs fed on the garbage are squealing complaints of short rations. They have no orders from Washington to enforce the Hoo ver regulations, they add. IMPORTS UNAFFECTED BY U-BOAT WARFARE Figures for Ten-Month Period Show Only Slight Falling Off. How little the submarine warfare has curtailed the exports from London to the United States since America de clared war on Germany is seen In the official figures of the United States im ports from the British capital. The figures for ten months ending with Oc tober show a decrease of only $18,000,- 000, with a total of $115,390,471. Last year the figures for the similar period were $133,740,783. The principal .articles imported from London and their value were: Rubber, $31,610,629; precious stones, $15,609,- 466; tin, $8,852,856. The principal articles Imported from London for the ten months this year were: Rubber, $39,770,603; precious stones, $15,435,592; tin, $9.396,001; art, $4,464,560; hides, $2,934,372; furs, $5,- 434,870; ten, $747,058; indigo $1,197,- j ,101; wool, $929,047. There Is a slight Increase In the imports of tin as compared with last year's figures, a decrease of about $3,000,000 in art imports; the figure for hides is about half what it was, and less wool was sent here from London by approximately $500,000. Indigo also shows a decrease amounting to more than $1,000,000. Tea shows the most notable falling off, the figures being $4,- 436,508 for the 191G period and $747,- j 058 for 1917. There was no tea or Wool imported from London last month. ocxxxxxx)oooooooooax)Oooooo LIFE LINES USEFUL IN ROUGH WEATHER, OOOOCOOOOOCXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX)! i' . : When seas are rough and wave after wave breaks over their ship the sail ors on Uncle Sam's destroyers find these life lines mighty handy in get- ; ting about on the sea-swept decks. De stroyers' decks are low and the boats cut through the waters with great speed, so that often the entire ship is awash. Though the sea was not es pecially rough when this photo was made, the life lines were rigged up and the Jackie was clothed in readi- ! ness for rough weather. Pickirg Apples on Shares. Picking apples on shares is the way one Kansas university fraternity is fighting tht h«gh cost of living and at the same time storing up a winter sup ply of fruit. One farmer bargained with the Acacia Chapter to pick his apples. The fraternity men picked 200 bushels one morning on shares, storing twenty bushels in their fraternity house as payment. This same chapter last year needed quilts, so they held a quilting bee and made thirty quilts. WHAI UNCLE SAM PAYS SOLDIERS Subject That Most People Know Very Little About. WHOLE SYSTEM IS CHANGED Private Gets $33 a Month as Long as He Is in the United States and 20 Per Cent Additional When He Goes Abroad—Allowance Made for Wife and Children—Dependent Parents Provided For. Washington.—Ask the iflrst ten peo ple you meet what Uncle Sam pays his soldiers. It will be safe to bet they won't know. Half of them may have some hazy Idea about a "dollar a day," and you will find lots of people who think Uncle Sam still pays the old scale of $l3 a month, but few outside the army know the ins and outs of the wage scale, even for private soldiers. The whole pay system of the United States army has been revolutionized since the war started. A private in Uncle Sam's armies, regular, National Guard or National army, receives in cash, as long as he is in the United States, $33 a month, in addition to food, clothing and med ical attendance. When he is sent to Europe he gets 20 per cent extra, whether In training or In the trenches, which brings the minimum cash pay up to $39.60 a month, or $1.30 a day. The revolutionary part of the pay system, however, about which most people are ignorant, is the scale of al lowances made by the government to the soldiers' dependents. We are thus breaking away from the old theory of paying soldiers a flat wage for fighting to the new theory that the nation is re sponsible for the welfare not only of the man In service, but for the depend ents whom he left behind him. Under this new scheme, if "there's a wee wifie waiting" she receives each month direct from Uncle Sam $l5 a month, which is virtually an addition to the fighting man's wage, and brings his total compensation up to $4B a month while he is in the United States and to $54.60 abroad. If there is one child with the wife, the allowance is $25 a month; two children, $32.50, and so on up to the point where, with a wife and six chil dren, Uncle Sam pays $5O a month in cash to the family. Allowance for Parents Made. It may not be enough to support them, even with what the enlisted man can send home out of his wages, but it is at least a recognition of Uncle Sam's responsibility and a bulwark against dependence on charity. Allowances are also provided for de pendent parents, $lO a month for each, and for brothers, sisters and grandchil dren, $5 a month for each, with the proviso that in any case the govern ment will not pay to the dependents of any man more than $5O a month. No mawkish prudery entered into the drafting of these provisions; by acknowledging his illegitimate child a soldier may secure for it the full gov ernmental allowance, the only provi sion being that if it is born after De cember 31, 1917, it must be born in the United States. So In the case of a wife there need be no legal marriage if there is proof that they have lived to gether as man and wife for two years prior to enlistment. Uncle Sam also sees to it that his soldiers do not throw all the burden of caring for dependents on his broad shoulders by making it compulsory for each man who has left a wife or child behind to pay over to them through the treasury at least $l5 a month and as much more as will equal the allow ance which Uncle Sam makes up to half a man's pay. Thus for the man In service abroad who has left a wife and child behind the man will have to assign to them at least $19.80 a month, to which the government will add $25, making a total of $44.80 which they are to receive. The old pension system Is wiped out by the new and far more equitable sys tem of compensation for death and disability. This compensation differs from that provided in any other law. It takes the family as the unit that is serving the nation, not the individual man. Depends on Size of Family. It bases the compensation on the size of the family from time to time. While a totally disabled bachelor will get only $3O a month, the man with a wife and four children will get $75. Twenty dollars is added if a nurse Is required; $lO a month as long as he may live, whether he is married or not. If he dies from injuries or disease received in the line of duty, the widow, children and widowed mother receive sums ranging from $2O to $75 a month, according to size of family. No dis tinction is made between a private and the highest officer. In addition, every man may take out insurance up to $lO,OOO at the ac tual cost of furnishing such insurance in peace times —the entire nation through the treasury bears the war risk. This insurance is wisely safe guarded to protect it from creditors, shyster lawyers and loan sharks. The city of Lyon has opened a pro fessional training school for the high er technical and scientific develop ment of French women. FLYER MAKES DARING ESCAPE FROM GERMANY ******** A* **************** 'jßi Lieut. Patrick O'Brien, an American member of the British flying corps, who was brought down In a one-sided battle by the Germans, and who had been taken Into Germany on his way to a prison camp, jumped from a train which was going 30 miles an hour, and by many heroic and clever moves man aged to get Into Holland, and then back to England. O'Brien was reported missing last August 17, and his reappearance was a great surprise to his friends. On the morning of August 17 enemy gun ners forced him to land, but fortunate ly he got back to his own lines. Later In the day he was again flying over the enemy lines and he, with five other machines, was engaged by 20 German airplanes. O'Brien alone engaged four of them. He accounted for one of the machines before he was shot In the lip. He fell with his damaged plane 8.000 feet. He cannot explain why he was not kilied. When he regained consciousness O'Brien was in a German war hospital. Later, when he was being taken Into Germany, he jumped from the moving train, and by walking at night, swim ming rivers and subsisting only on food that he >j:ould get from the fields, he managed to reach Holland. He was x a fugitive for 72 days. He had a narrow escape when he was in sight of his goal. To circumvent charged wires O'Brien built a bridge with nearby wood and threw it across the wires. It broke under his weight, and O'Brien says that he can still feel the shock. He dug a tunnel with his hands under the wires and he was free. A brief telegram was received by his mother, Mrs. Margaret O'Brien, saying that he had escaped from the Germans, and that he soon would be home. O'Brien will try to change to the American aviation corps. The photo shows him standing In front of his machine. AUTO AFTER JACK RABBIT Wheel Came Off, There Was a Wreck and No Joke. A curiosity to time a jack rabbit with a tested speedometer resulted in the wrecking of an automobile near Topeka, Kan., one night recently. W. F. Ilaafe, an automobile agent at Natoma, was on his way to Kansas City, and as the road was good, was keeping up about all the law permits In the way of speed, when a jack rabbit chose the same route. Tlnafe thought it would be a joke to make the rabbit take a siding, and ran his speedometer up to within 80 per cent of Its adver tised ability. But having chosen east as his general direction and that par ticular road as his route, the rabbit continued to plod along at a little bet ter than r>o miles an hour. The rabbit did not turn out, but a portion of the pursuing car did. After he had crawled out of a ditch and twisted himself into shape, Ilaafe caught a car into Topeka, where he waited until daylight to hunt a wheel, which had left the general wreckage and taken refuge in a corn field. FISH SWALLOWED RING It Had a Diamond in It and Had Been Lost That truth is stranger than fiction was demonstrated at Hoopeston, 111., the other day when Ray Tllton, a young farmy, received a letter from Peoria saying a diamond ring, valued at $250, had been found In the stom ach of a fish which had been caught In the Illinois river. In July Tilton was at Peoria, and while rowing on the river the ring dropped off his finger. He never ex pected to see it again, and was much surprised to receive the letter. The writer said he caught the fish and, while dressing it, saw something bright fall out of the stomach. 13 ft also said he would be glad to send tL j ring to Hoopeston if Tilton would send the reward offered In a Peoria news paper. The owner sent a check for $5O to the Peoria man. Throat Operation to Unfit Men for War Authorities in Seattle believe they have unearthed a plot of German ori gin in the arrest of Doctor Gordon and a Russian woman. The fiair are charged with plotting to perform throat operations to make men u#fit for service under the conscription law.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers