Bellefonte, Pa., September 5, 1919.
CONSOLATION.
By Sunie Mar.
They've grown to be men and women,
Those little boys and girls,—
Whose cheeks were dirty and dimpled,
Whose hair was in tangled curls;
‘Who had always a frolic for papa,
For mamma a squeeze and a kiss,
They have lost their childish affection—
Their loving caresses we miss.
They are leaving home on the morrow,
To make their way through life;
And father and mother are grieving,—
The parting cuts like a knife.
They form new friendships with pleasure,
The parting they do not mind,
For partings are always most grievous
To those who are left behind.
Soon the sorrowful days will be over;
The grieving of parents will cease,
For the angel of death will have pity,
And offer them sweet release,
With pleasure they'll start on their jour-
ney -
The parting they’ll never mind,
For the ones who go are much happier
Than friends who are left behind.
A DIGEST OF THE STATE'S AU-
TOMOBILE LAWS AND REG-
ULATIONS.
No motor vehicle to be operated on
any street or highway until same has
been properly registered with the
State Highway Department.
No motor vehicle on which the man-
ufacturer’s number has been omitted,
obliterated or defaced shall be regis-
tered without special permit from
the State Highway Commissioner.
The registration plates shall be
rigidly attached to the motor vehicles
so that they cannot swing or oscilate,
one on the front and the other on the
rear; the rear tag shall not be under-
neath any part of the body more than
twelve inches from the rear and there-
of; nor shall they be covered, obscur-
ed, bent, altered or defaced in any
manner, and the lower edge of rear
plate shall not be less than 15 inches
above the ground.
The registration plates shall be
kept clean and free from all grease,
dirt or other substance likely to im-
pair the legibility, and, between one
hour after sunset and one hour before
sunrise the rear plate shall be so illu-
minated that it can be plainly distin-
guished.
No motor vehicle shall be operated
under any other plates (tags) than
that of its own registration.
No person shall permit the use or
shall use the plates issued under a
dealer's registration on any other
motor vehicle than those owned by
such dealer and operated by such deal-
er or his employee, or for any other
purpose than demonstrating, testing
or removing same from storage or to
the place of delivery before or after
sale.
No person under the age of sixteen
years or who is mentally impaired or
who is physically incapacitated, shall
operate any motor vehicle on any
highway or street in this Common-
wealth.
No person who is owner or custo-
dian of any motor vehicle shall per-
mit any person less than sixteen years
of age, or who is not a licensed oper-
ator or paid driver or holder of learn-
er’s permit to operate any motor ve-
hicle, or permit any such person tc
operate any motor vehicle for pay or
hire who is not eighteen years of age
and a paid driver.
No person shall operate a motor
vehicle as a paid driver without first
taking out a paid driver’s license.
No person shall operate a motor
vehicle on any streets or highways
in this Commonwealth until such
person shall have been issued a
license by the State Highway Depart-
ment. That no license shall be issued
under any circumstances to a person
under sixteen years of age. That no
paid driver's license shall be issued
to any person eighteen years of age,
unless he has had at least five days’
experience as a driver of a motor ve-
hicle. Any person other than a reg-
istered owner or paid driver wishing
to operate a motor vehicle shall first
obtain an operator’s license.
Any person operating a motor ve-
hicle must stop upon signal from any
officer and exhibit his registration
certificate or driver’s license.
No person shall throw any missile
at any motor vehicle, or place any
substance upon any street or high-
way injurious or damaging to a motor
vehicle or the tires thereof; no unau-
thorized person shall sound any horn,
handle the levers, set in motion or
otherwise tamper with or deface any
motor vehicle standing upon the pub-
lic highways.
No person shall operate a motor ve-
hicle on the highways of this State
in a reckless manner or at a greater
rate of speed than is reasonable and
proper, having regard to width of
street, traffic and use of highway.
Remember that you can be driving
at a rate not exceeding twenty miles
per hour and still be driving in a
reckless manner, operating motor ve-
hicles at fast rate of speed and re-
fusing to dim your lights is operating
in a reckless manner.
The speed limit is one mile in two
minutes, except in built-up sections,
schoolhouses, churches, play grounds
or sections, marked 15-mile speed lim-
it, when the speed shall not exceed
one mile in four minutes.
Every motor vehicle using electric
lights of more than four candle-
power not equipped with a perma-
nent deflecting or diffusing device
shall be provided or equipped with
some practical and efficient means
whereby the front lights of the vehi-
cle may be dimmed or lessened at the
will of the operator to such an ex-
tent that such electric light or the re-
flection thereof will not interfere
kith the sight of or temporarily
blind the vision of driver of approach-
ing vehicle.
It shall be the duty of all drivers
and operators of motor vehicles us-
ing electric lights to dim the forward
lights so as not to interfere with the
driver of the approaching vehicle. So
femember to dim your lights when
approaching a motor vehicle coming
in the opposite direction.
Every motor vehicle, whether stand-
ing or in motion is to display one rear
te
red light from an hour after sunset
to one hour before sunrise.
No lights of more than 32 candle-
power shall be used on any motor
vehicle, and all lights in excess cf
four candle power shall be so arrang-
ed that dazzling rays of light shall
not at a point 75 feet or more ahead
of lights rise more than 42 inches
above level surface on which vehicle
stands.
All additional
lights, including spotlights, shall fully
comply with these restrictions, and
time extend to the left of the centre
of the highway.
Every operator of any motor ve-
hicle shall sound his horn or other
device, giving reasonable warning of
his approach whenever necessary, to
insure the safety of other users of the
highway. Remember to sound your
horn at all curves and other danger-
ous places.
All operators of motor vehicles
when having injured any person shall
stop at once and render all assistance
possible.
No motor vehicle of any description
shall use or operate on any highway
unless the engine be muffled so that
the explosions thereof shall not con-
stitute a nuisance.
Remember to keep on the right side
hicles approach the intersection of
two highways at the same time, the
vehicle approaching from the right
shall have the right of way.
That all vehicles, including wagons,
etc., shall from one hour after sunset
to one hour before sunrise, except
agricultural machinery and such as
are propelled by hand or loaded with |
hay, display at least one light which | : : :
shall be clearly visible for a distance | wet that ordinary farm machinery.
of 200 feet from both the rear and
front of such vehicle. This light
must be displayed on all vehicles ex- |
cept as stated, whether standing or
in motion.
Try not to delay traffic by killing
your engine.
Don’t over-inflate your tires.
SHORTER DAY ON FARM.
The federal employment service at
Washington reports a shortage of ag-
ricultural and common labor in
southern and western States. It also
reports a surplus of men of profes-
sional and technical training and a!
surplus of clerks.
This condition is not in the least
surprising when one checks up on
what industry has been through in
the last few years. It has undergone
the biggest shake-up in the nation’s
history.
Munition plants offering dazzling
wages took the laborer from the ditch
and the plowman from the field. Men
who had been used to hard work
found out there was an easier way
and that the easier way was more
profitable to them personally.
Such was the case especially with
the farm hand. It took war to teach
him that instead of working long
hours at small pay he could work
short hours at bigger pay, so when
war closed he quit the munition plant
to hunt up some other factory job.
Negroes were taken from the South
in droves and they tasted of the new
life that makes the old undesirable.
Training for war service took many
men out of their original lines of ef-
fort into something entirely new. The
government trained them in special-
ties, and when war closed they want-
ed to apply this service specialty to
practical civilian life.
The draft took thousands of coun-
try boys to the city for the first
time. Many of them will not want
to go back to the country to live.
What promises to deepen the farm
labor problem more than anything
else is the tendency to shorten the
working day. Before the war farm
labor pay was lower than any other
kind, considering the hours and stren-
uousness of service. The farm la-
borer today who works from four in
the morning until six or eight at
night hears of the “forty-four-hour
week” and naturally his own situa-
tion often makes him decide to change
—especially as farm labor still gets
much less than that received by the
skilled and often the unskilled work-
er in the city.
Farmers cannot compete on the old
basis with the city employer. With
the tendency to shorten the working
day also is a tendency to indulge in
more recreation. Farm hands no long-
er are isolated, so they don’t keep up
with the times. An automobile chugs
by every now and then to remind
them that a large part of the world
is almost constantly pleasure-bent.
William Huggins was angry, and
he certainly appeared to have some
justification for wrath.
“Liza,” he expostulated, “don’t I
always tell you I won't have the kids
bringin’ in the coals from the shed
in my best ‘at? It ain’t nice, Liza.”
«Just listen to reason, if you please,
Bill,” said his wife, coldly. “You have
spoilt the shape of that hat with your
funny head, and, as you're working
coal all day at the wharf, what can a
little extra coal dust in your hat mat-
ter?”
“You don’t see the point, Liza,”
said William, with dignity. “I only
wear that ’at in the hevenin’s, an’ if
while I'm bout I take it horft my head
it leaves a black band round my fore-
head. Wot’s the consequence? Why,
I gits accused of washin’ my face
with my ’at on. And it ain’t nice,
Liza.”
———————————————————
—— Prohibition has brought a pro-
nounced increase in the consumption
of coffee in America, but thus far
there is no appreciable increase in the
drinking of tea. That is strange. It
was expected tea shops would crop
out everywhere. As a matter of fact
there seem to be fewer now than last
year.
In nothing has there been a more
remarkable change in the last thirty
or forty years than the tea trade. Tea
is indigenous to China and Japan and
has been cultivated for thousands of
years. It was not introduced into In-
dia until 1865, but today the exports
of Northern India alone are 350,000,-
000 pounds a year, while those of all
China last year were only 54,000,000.
Thirty years ago the exports of
Chna were 242,000,000 pounds annu-
ally and those of Inda 150,000,000.
——For high class Job Work come
to the “Watchman” Office..
or supplemental ;
U. S. RICE OUTPUT DOUBLE
: SINCE WAR.
The American taste for rice seems
to have been sharpened by the war.
' The rice production in the United
' States has virtually doubled during
| the war period and in addition to this
the importation has doubled. The
United States is by far the largest
rice producer of the Occidental world.
| This comparatively new industry has
| ner in which modern machinery can
“be utilized in planting, cultivation
and harvesting, instead of the crude
| methods by which it is produced in
the Orient.
| The world has awakened to the fact
| that the United States has rice to
spare, and the quantity of that arti-
cle passing out of our ports to foreign
countries and our non-contiguous ter-
| ritories in the fiscal year 1918 was
| 330,000,000 pounds as against 163,-
000,000 pounds in the year before the
. war, while, of course, the quantity of
| outside world has greatly stimulated
consumption at home. The rice crop
of the United States was 23,649,000
! bushels in 1914 and, according to the
latest estimates of the Department of
ed, the quantity imported has virtu-
ally doubled.
Rice production in the United
States languished after the Civil war,
for it was not then realized that it
could be grown and harvested by ma-
chinery and methods applied to the
production of wheat and other grains.
Rice can only flourish on wet land, so
cannot be used upon it. But a few
years ago it was discovered that cer-
| tain lands in Texas, Arkansas, Louis-
iana and elsewhere were so constitut-
| ed with relation to soil, climate and
pared with the usual agricultural ma-
| chinery, the rice also planted by ma-
| chinery, the lands then flooded from |
| nearby streams or artesian wells, and
| the water drained off as the rice ap-
proaches maturity, and ordinary reap-
| Ing and threshing machines used in
! harvesting the crop.
| This revolutionized rice-growing in
| the United States, and was in fact a
method been practiced. The produc-
ing area was expanded from the Caro-
Valley, Arkansas and Texas, and re-
cently certain areas in California, and
the annual production has increased
from 50,000,000 to 100,000,000 pounds
in former years to more than 1,000,
000,000 pounds a year at this time,
making the United States by far the
largest rice producer of the Occiden-
tal world.
Of course, our biggest rice crop of
over 1,000,000,000 pounds per annum,
while the largest in the Occidental
world, is a trifle when compared with
that of some of the Oriental countries,
! where rice is the chief article of food
[gr a very dense population. Siam,
for example, produced more than 5,- |
| 000.000,000 pounds of rice a year,
against our 1,000,000,000 pounds; the
Dutch East Indias, 7.000,000,000
pounds; Japan, 17,000,000,000. and In-
dia 70,000,000,000 pounds, while -Chi-
na, which has no official fiugres of her
crop, may equal or possibly exceed
India in production, bringing the
world’s total crop to approximately
200,000,000,000 pounds a year.
Few people realize that the world’s
production of rice is nearly as great
as the world production of wheat,
pound for pound. We often hear it
said that rice is the chief cereal food
of the world, and this is probably
true, but we do not realize how near
the rice production comes to equaling
that of wheat when compared by actu-
al quantity. The best estimates that
can be made of the rice production of
the world indicates that the grand to-
tal in favorable years is nearly or
perhaps quite 200,000,000,000 pounds,
while the number of pounds of wheat
grown even in the high record years of
1913 and 1915 was but about 240.-
000,000,000 pounds each year.
Life of a Milk Bottle.
The average milk bottle makes only
seventeen trips before it is broken or
lost. For every consumer who has a
quart of milk delivered at the door
each day the dealer in the course of a
year has to supply twenty new bot-
tles. This is the report made by dai-
ry experts of the Department of Ag-
riculture, who have just completed an
investigation of the waste of millions
of milk bottles annually.
~The investigation, conducted in
eiglity-six cities, shows that the aver-
age milk dealer buys 17,699 new bot-
tles a month, which are largely,
‘though not entirely, replacement
stock. ; :
In sixteen of the cities investigated
more than 8,000,000 sound milk bot-
tles are collected annually from the
city dumps, the specialists report. In
some cities the business carried on by
junk dealers is one of the most ser-
ious sources of milk-bottle losses,
they say. Not only do they sell the
bottles to the dealers in the city, but
often ship them to other towns. Most
States have no laws restricting such
traffic.
Only thirty-three cities had milk-
bottle exchanges or places where milk
bottles from all sources are sorted out
and returned to the owner, provided
he is a member of the exchange.
Nineteen States have regulations
governing the use of milk bottles, the
report concludes, and seventy-two
cities reported the use by dealers of
other dealers’ bottles.—Buffalo Ex-
press.
Pennsyivania Protects Birds.
Pennsylvania now leads all other
States in laws for bird protection, ac-
cording to The Guide to Nature. It is
now a crime to sell feathers of any
wild bird whatsoever. This includes
all stuffed and mounted specimens,
except that of museums and other ed-
ucational institutions, together with
such private individuals as can show
apparent benefits to science, may se-
cure special dispensation from the
president of the Board of Game Com-
missioners. The State had previously
been “a hotbed for the wholesale mil-
linery interests that had been driven
out of New York State by the Audu-
bon law.”
grown out of a system peculiar to this
the rays of any such light shall at no | country of producing rice in a man-
wheat which we have spared to the |
i
| Agriculture, will be 42,487,000 bush- |
of the road. When two motor ve- 12% "1919" while, as already indicat-
| water supply that they could be pre- |
{ new development in the world produc-
tion, for in no other country has this
linas and Georgia to the Mississippi
of more than one-half the population |
FISH FOR GULLS AND PETRELS
Those Birds, as Well as the Albatross,
Are Frequently Taken With
Rod and Line.
rrr
a fact that birds are caught with rod
and line in many parts of the world.
The pastime is declared to be almost
as fascinating as fishing. Gulls in
Newfoundland are caught in this way
in large quantities. In New England
fishing for gulls and petrels is an im-
. portant industry.
i
{The method of bird fishing is prac-
| tically the same as that of ordinary
| fishing. Two men go out in a dory
| end throw pieces of cod liver on the
| water. When large quantitiez of birds
| have been attracted to the spot more
| cod liver is thrown out on a hook.
| This the birds greedily swallow and
thus fall easy victims.
Albatross are fished for in the same
| way off the Cape of Good Hope. A
i plece of pork is attached to a long line
i and thrown overboard. The bird will
| eye it for a long time, gradually and
| cautiously making toward it. Sudden-
i 1y he will seize it and hold it in his
bheak. When he discovers that he is
caught he will sit on the water and
vigorously flap his wings. However.
he will be drawn into the boat and
made a captive.
Alhatross fishing is good sport, since
the bird requires careful handling. So
lonz as he pulls arainst the line it
is easy enough. he moment. how-
ever, he swims forward the hook will
drop from his beak wvnless it is skiil-
fuily manipulated, and the bird will
find himself free.
'SIADE BY FRENCH SCULPTOR
Interesting to Recail That Houdon
Crossed the Ocean to Model
Bust of Washington.
Historical reminiscences. awakened
by present relations between [‘rance
and the United States. recalls that
tn the early days of the American re-
public French artists made the first!
fcan men and events. America had
portrait painters, as witness the sur-
viving portraits of Washington, but
no “statuaries,” as sculptors were
then called, of equal merit. The med-
als commemorating the American
Revolution were struck chiefly in
France, and Houdon crossed the ocean
‘ to model the bust of Washington nec-
essary for bis statue of the American
general and president. It was a grave
question whether the sculptor should
clothe the general in modern costume
{or dress him, after the art fashion
of the time, in the classic garb of a
Roman, and, as the story comes down,
tt took the combined opinions of Wash-
ington, Jefferson and Franklin to se-
cure a statue of the Father of his
: Jountry in his own proper garments.
; Stanley's Subterfuge.
| Possessing an ample purse of hes
| own, also a Puritan conscience, Stan-
ey’s mother discourages the accept-
{ gtice by him of gratuities from adult
| friends. How he evaded the spirit if
not the letter of the law is told by
William H. Dimock.
“Sure, I knew the kid’s ma doesn’t
| lke folks to sip money to him, but I
9lso know—thanks to a good memory
—the sweet sense of peace and prose
nerity a nickel yields to a boy,” he
Says.
“I almost stepped on the youngster
while steering for a 10 a. m. break-
fast and shot him to the little place
on the corner - for the latest peace
eongress headlines.
hand looked awfully empty; also it
had not been withdrawn. So I slipped
a coin into it. '
“Stanley's mother later reminded
him he had been admonished never,
never to ask for maney for any little
service rendered.
«gut I dide’'t, mother, answered
‘T just held «ut my hand. » Brockton
Enterprise
Bird Builds Several Nests.
Some birds get very nervous and He-
come much excited it you approach
their nests and among them is the
American , Forestry association of
Washington, which is conducting the
national bird-house building contest
for school children. Another thing
about this bird is that, it frequently
builds several nests. Whether this is
because it changed its mind after
deliberate purpose of deceiving any
intruders who might come .along is
pot known. The bird is very beau-
tifully colored, the top of its head and
ders being a yellow green, the back
olive green, the throat and breast jet
black and the under parts white with
some ye. ow in them at times.
Early Progress of Industry.
Prior to 1895 the progress made in
the ' development of the automebile
can be summed up as follows: In gen-
eral style the body was a park
phaeton; a ponderous complicated
contrivance, which would crush the
pavements as it passed over them. The
gasoline was stored in a large tank
in front. The motor and controlling
apparatus were placed beneath the
bed of the vehicle. Excessive weight
and complicated machinery helped in
a great measure to make it an utter
failure. One weak spot after another
developed. 'The axles became heated,
then the gears got out of order. The
noise of the explosion of the gagoline
was suggestive of a railroad locomo-
tive.—Chevrolet Bulletin.
Curious though it may seem, fit Is!
sculptural representations of Amer- |
When he returned
with tlie paper I noticed his little
that valiant little George Washington.
black-throated green warbler, says the '
building the first one and decided to
select a better location or with the |
the region nearly down to the shoul- |
“WITH CONVOY OF DOLPHINS
Sailors on Tropic Seas Appreciate In-
cident Which Varies the Monotony
of the Voyage.
Whoever has sailed a tropic sea will
sppreciate Mr. William Beebe’s de-
fcription in the American Museum
Journal of a school of playful dolphins
‘hat appeared suddenly from the
depths and adopted for their playfel-
ow the ship upon which he was sail-
ng.
It was a lazy, tropical morning.
writes Mr. Beebe, and the engines
seemed to throb in a half-somnolent
manner. I folded up in a desk chair
4nd idly watched the beautiful profile .
pf the island astern.
Suddenly the sea became alive with
virile beings—curving steel-gray bodies
that shot forth like torpedoes from
some mighty battery. I thrilled in
bvery fiber, and the sloth of the tropics
fell from me as by a galvanic shock.
The dolphins had come! Usually they
pppear in their haunts between Do-
minica and Martinque, but here they
were in dozens, leaping for breath with
the regularity of machinery. Now and
‘then, in a spirit of play, one of them
vaulted high in the air, ten feet above
the surface, twisted and fell broad-
side with a slap that could be heard
half a mile away. A school came close
alongside. slackened speed to that of
the vessel, and now and then dived be-
neath and appeared off the opposite
quarter. Another trick was for one
or two to station‘themselves just ahead
of the bow and to remain there mo-
tionless, urged on hy the pressure of
the water from behind. It was unex-
pected and splendid to have this bat-
talion of magnificent cetaceans, burst-
ing with vital energy and fullness of
life, injected without warning into the
calm quiet of this tropic sea.
FARMER SUPREME IN CHINA
Tiller of the Soil Lives Circumscribed
Life, and Is Satisfied With a
Bare Existence.
In recognition of the importance of
Chinese agriculture the emperor him-
self, in the days of the empire, fol-
lowed the wise custom of turning a
furrow of ground once a year in the
sacred precincts of the Temple of
Heaven at Peking. It is the farmer
still who is the truest representative
of Chinese society and the farmer's
baby who carries on the tradition in
its soundest aspects. His life as he
grows up may be narrowly circum
scribed by the mud walls of his hum-
ble thatched home, which he shares
indiscriminately with the pigs and live
stock ; the rise and fall of dynasties or
republics trouble him not at all. If
the year passes with no devastating
floods, wrecking the results of many
months’ labor, food will be sufficient;
no more can be asked. Now and
then strolling actors come through the
village and set up their grass-mat the-
aters; a story-teller makes his ap
pearance at the temple festival, re-
counting the strangely living deeds of
miraculous beings in centuries long
since harvested; itinerant traders,
their wares on their backs, pass down
the deep-sunken road, bringing the
gossip of the outer world. If life is
lived according to the irreducible de-
nominator it is not wholly barren.
There is the vast accumulated thought
of the past, the immeasurable worid
of the countless dead, toward ‘which
the present reaches out like a ring
ever widening toward eternity.—Asia
Magazine.
y Slightly Bewildering.
“Dad, what is a roost?” asked Char-
lie. “A roost, my son, is a pole upon
" which chickens sit at night,” replied
his father. “And what's a perch, dad?”
“A perch is what chickens perch on.”
“Then I suppose, dad, a chickengcould
roost on a perch?’ came the fi er
inquiry. “Of coufse!” was the smiling
reply. “And they could perch on a
roost?’ “Why, y-yes!” answered dad.
“But if chickens perched on a roost
| that would make the roost a perch,
wouldn't it? But if just after some
| chickens had perched on a roost and
' made it a perch some more chickens
came along and roosted on the perch
would be a perch and the perch would
be a roost, and some of the chickens
| would be perchers and the others i
would be roosters, and—well, there!”
— ———————————————————
Stevenson and Lang.
Robert Louis Stevenson was ‘‘or-
dered South,” and, as we know, he left
"it on record that he never. had been
, quite happy anywhere except at
| Hyeres. But that accomplished man
| of letters, Andrew Lang, was of an-
| other mind. He went to_the Riviera,
! and was bored by it. He particularly
detested being introduced to strangers
| and having afternoon tea in hotels, so
' when the time came for his departure
| to his last holiday he chose Ban-
| chory, on Deeside. “After all,” slg
| he, “there is nothing better than Sco
| land.” So he diéd in fhe land he loved.
Servant Problem an Old One.
Parson Cole, who lived in the middle
of the 18th century, judging from one
| of his manuscripts, was quite familiar
{ with the servant difficulty, which ap-
| parently was just as acute as in these
| later days. The reverend gentleman's
entry is as follows:
“Paid Mary her wages, and (would
not let her stay, as she refused to
stop with me till Michaelmas. I don't
know where to provide myself of one
| in her room, but ‘Wilkes and Liberty’
| have brought things to that pass that
| ere long we shall get no one to serve
us.”
and made it a roost, then the roost
PEIRCE,
BELOVED OF TOBACCO USERS
In Meerschaum, Smokers Acknowledge
That One Good Thing Has Come
Out of Turkey.
Eski Scheir, in Asiatic Turkey, has
one unique claim upon public in-
terest, and if one is a smoker that
claim is a compelling one. It is the
home of meerschaum. Meerschaum
in abundance is found only on the plain
of Eski Scheir, and this city produces
all the marketable meerschaum in the
world.
Meerschaum, as its name implies, is
supposed to be petrified seafoam, and
has been discovered floating on the
Black sea. Apart from the Eski Scheir
mines it occurs in Greece, Samoa,
Spain, Moravia, Utah, Pennsylvania,
and, in conjunction with serpentine,
in Norway and South Carolina.
The ancients are said to have used
it as a decorative stone in buildings,
and this seems to have been confirmed
by the recent excavations in Corfu. It
is soft and whitish, and becomes mal-
leable like clay when soaked in water.
Meerschaum used to be considered a
mere curiosity by the Turks, who had
no other use for it than as a substi-
tute for fuller’s soap. The story runs
that the Turkish ambassador at the
Austrian court, in the eighteenth cen-
tury, was a native of Eski Scheir.
Wanting to help his city at a time of
great poverty, he took a sample of this
queer stuff to Vienna, thinking that
the “Franks,” as all foreigners were
then called, might have some use for
it. The Germans were quick to see
its utility for pipe bowls, but declared
it was good for nothing else.
More than a century has confirmed
this judgment, for who has yet discov-
ered any other use for meerschaum?
For pipe making it is an ideal. raw
material. Here is a stone which is
easily molded when wet, and when
dry becomes hard and resists fire.
WORDS HAVE MANY MEANINGS
Imagination Cuts Big Figure When
Terms of More or Less Pictur-
esqueness Are Employed.
An amusing and plausible analysis
has been made of the way many peo-
ple in the United States use and un-
derstand the words “ranch,” “planta-
tion” and “farm.” In the imagina-
tion of easterners, says the analyst
in effect, a plantation or a ranch sug-
gests wide acres and a gentleman on
horseback riding about to oversee their-
cultivation by picturesque hirelings,
whereas a farm suggests a compara-
tively small field of growing vegeta-
bles personally conducted to harvest
by a plain man in overalls. Yet many.
a ranch or plantation is no bigger
than a small farm, and many a large
farm is as big as a corresponding
plantation or ranch; and the word
“gentleman” fits as many farmers as
ranchers or planters. The farm, how-
ever, says this observer, may easily
get into society by being spoken of
in the plural; and all the farmer needs
to do to attain this distinction is to
build a fence across his land and then
call it the Something-or-other Farms.
—Christian Science Monitor.
No More Dark Continent.
One may no longer believe in the
existence of a strange white people
in Africa. Rider Haggard’s splendid
race is probably only the Bahima,
originally discovered by Speke in
southwestern Uganda. At least Sir
Harry Johnston claims to have discov-
ered in them the clue to many of the
mysterious white-race legends found
in the dark continent. He was en-
gaged in nothing more thrilling than
a tour of inspection of Ankole when
he came across them. They are of a
very light complexion, and are the
aristocrats of this region. Sir Harry
holds that they are obviously descend-
ants from a Gala, Semali or other
Hamitic stock, and adds that some of
them are more like Egyptians than
is the case with Galase¢and Somalis.
Romance disappears before the tread
of the explorer. The dark continent
is dark no more.
Sir Redvers Buller’s Ghost Story.
Some time after the Franco-German
war of 1870, writes Lady Buller in an
English paper, Sir Redvers (then Cap-
tain) Buller left England to visit the
battlefields, and ondarriving at the
town of —— gave directions that his
letters should not be forwarded, and
started on his tour of inspection.
After he had been away some days, he
awoke suddenly one night, thinking
he saw Lord Wolseley (then Sir Gar-
net),’ and that he heard him say: 1
wonder where that fellow Buller'is. I
can’t think why he has not answered
my letter.” This so impressed him
that he returned at once to the town
of ——, where he found a letter await-
ing him from Lord Wolseley, saying
that he must return to London imme-
diately, as an expedition against the
Ashantees was imminent.
Famous Sapphires.
Fine sapphires are more valuable
than diamonds of equal weight and
quality, only rubies being more pre-
cious. But ruby crystals (in the rough)
are rarely more than half an inch long,
whereas those of sapphire occasionally
reach three inches. Most prized are
the “velvet blue” sapphire and those
of “cornflower” tint.
One of the most famous gems of
this variety is the “wooden spoon. %ap-
phire,” which gets its name from the
circumstance that it was picked up by
Ceylonese dealers in wooden spoons,
according to.an exchange. A while
ago it was in the Hope collection. It
is violet by day but red by artificial
light.
wv