Ta a ———
llefonte, Pa.,
December 5, 1019.
HER RED CROSS SEAL.
By Martha J. Opie.
“Please give me a Red Cross Seal,”
said.
A dear little girl with curly head,
As she hurriedly laid her penny down .
And smiled away the impatient frown
Of the clerk who thought “sick folks
should pay
Their own expenses, anyway.”
She drew an envelope, soiled and torn,
From the depth of her pocket, ragged and
worn
And carefully placing the seal thereon
With a sad little smile, was quickly gone.
Out into the Christmas throng she flew:
Nobody noticed, nobody knew
The lone little creature, thin and cold,
With the pinched little face under hair of
gold.
But she darted across the crowded street,
‘Mid the roar of wheels and horses’ feet—
A clatter—a cry of anguish shrill—
And the brave little form lay crushed and
still.
Tenderly back through the open door
she
That she just had passed the child they |
bore;
And still in the hand was tightly pressed
The letter in childish scrawl addressed:
“To Mamma, in Heaven.” With
touch
They loosened the fingers’ lifeless clutch.
Not the seal alone marked the paper red |
That this message bore to the loving dead:
“Dear Mamma; I'm lonely since you are
gone;
It is bard, so hard, to be left alone.
I cough just the same as you used to do,
And that makes me think, oh, so often of
you.
They tell me that I may be made to live
By Red Cross Seals, so I'm going to give
The penny you gave me before you died
To buy one to send you this Christmas- |
tide.”
SOME FACTS ABOUT TUBERCU-
LOSIS WHICH EVERYBODY
OUGHT TO KNOW.
You probably know that “T. B,? is
short for Pulmonary Tuberculosis.
Just as we often refer to certain per- |
so doctors, |
sons by their initials,
nurses ,and even many victims of the
disease, call it T. B.,, and thus save
both time and breath.
You may not be a T. B. yourself, |
nor have had a case in your family.
But you can doubtless name a dozen
households in your own acquaintance
which have been visited by the!
scourge. If you have not had some
anxious times about yourself, or
about some member of your family,
you are one among a thousand.
And yet, although we think and
talk a great deal about T. B., most
persons have vague and mistaken
ideas about it. Even the medical pro-
fession has been learning new things
about it—and very recently, too. They
are things which everybody ought to
know.
To begin with, here are a few facts
which will probably surprise at least
some of you:
Tuberculosis is the most prevalent
disease in the world, but pulmonary
tuberculosis is only one form of it. It
may attack any tissue in the body, in-
. cluding the bones or joints, and the
brain and spinal cord.
Even T. B., or the pulmonary form,
is much more widespread than is com-
monly supposed. Many persons have
it and do not know they are sick.
It is the most curable disease in the
world. The vast majority of those
who have it recover. In nearly every
community there are persons, oldest
inhabitants, who will tell you, if you
have time to listen, that forty years
ago Doctor So-and-so told them they
had consumption and were doomed to
an early grave! The point of the an-
ecdote is that Doctor So-and-so died
long since, while the oldest inhabit-
ant is still living and triumphant.
That is what appeals to the oldest in-
habitant; but the real point is that in
all probability Doctor So-and-so was
entirely right! These “oldest inhab-
itants” did have pulmonary tuberculo-
sis, but have recovered.
T. B. is rarely acquired after child-
hood; and it is almost never inherited.
It is so frequently simulated by
other diseases that there is often
great difficulty in recognizing it. As
it is not infectious—with certain res-
ervations—our attitude toward those
who have it has been wrong. We need
not fear them.
For the same reason that they do
not infect other adults, the T. B. has
no more right, and no less, to institu-
tional treatment at public expense
than one afflicted with any other
chronic condition.
The one exception to this is that the
person who has T. B. should be re-
moved from contact with children.
You must remember that infants
and children are susceptible to the in-
fection because they have not yet de-
veloped what is called immunity,
which means a fighting antagonism
to it. Those of us who have survived
beyond the period of adolescence have
been triumphant in so many conflicts
with the germ that we are, under nor-
mal conditions, immune. It is the
children with whom we are the most
concerned, children and young people.
These are a few of the facts which
our experience with young men in the
army helped tc prove and to dissem-
inate:
At onc of the base hospitals there
was © large ward given over to the
trealinent of chronic pulmonary dis-
cases. Half of this ward was occu-
pied by T. B.’s, and the other half by
victims of other conditions of the
lungs. On the T. B. side there was a
young farmer from Ohio who had
grown steadily worse for weeks. One
day, when his vitality had reacehed its
lowest ebb, the surgeon came to him
with cheering news:
“I've decided that you haven't tu-
berculosis,” he said, “and I’ll have you
moved over with the non-T. B.’s.”
The boy’s wan face was lit by the
first ray of hope that had brightened
it in weeks. He was moved, and at
once began to improve. Hope had re-
vived, and hope had tipped the scales
in his favor. Eventually he was dis-
charged to his home, with a reasona-
ble chance of ultimate recovery.
gentle |
This incident is not related to illus-
| trat the influence of mind over mat-
| ter, which within certain limitations
| is obvious. It is told to emphasize the
| fatalistic attitude so generally prev- |
i alent toward tuberculosis. And also
| it points out the difficulty, even to
| physicians, of distinguishing tubercu-
+ losis from certain other lung condi-
| necessary that all suspected lung con-
i tions. ; .
| T.B. is an ancient enemy, but it
| was not until 1882 that the tubercle
| bacillus was discovered. Now when
| a great criminal has been caught, the
| police and the public at once try to
prove him guilty of more crimes than |
he could possibly have committed. It
| is so in the case of The People vs. Tu-
| bercle Bacillus. On some points he is
I not guilty. But he will “get his’ ’if
he is convicted on the others. Let us
| consider a few facts in his favor:
{ First, then, Tubercle Bacillus is
{ not guilty of causing all the lung con-
{ ditions with which he is charged. The
| evidence is often only circumstantial.
. And, besides, we now know that many
! similar crimes were committed by
{ Old Man Streptococcus, one of the
| pus germs. He was especially active
iin the camps, causing great destruc-
tion. :
| Many severe cases of bronchitis,
{ many pneumonias, many chronic lung
conditions, were laid at his door, after
| prolonged and numerous investiga-
i tions. His methods are so similar to
i those of Tubercle Bacillus that at
‘ times it was quite impossible to de-
| cide as to his guilt. This was because
| suspicion had so long pointed to T. B.
. as the criminal. And it is just as true
‘among civilians as it was among the
i soldiers, that many persons are called
“tuberculous who are victims of Strep-
‘ tococcus and other germs.
Second, it may be said in extenua-
j tion that Streptococcus often follows
in the footsteps of Tubercle Bacillus.
+ The victim of the latter becomes an
| easy prey to the former. Most of the
{ advanced cases of T. B. die of the rav-
| ages of Streptococcus.
Third, Tubercle Bacillus is not
| guilty, except in the rarest cases, of
{ infecting the adult from without. He
i enters the body during infancy, or
{ early in childhood; and he waits, often
: for many years, until disease, or dis-
i sipation or overwork, gives him his
i opportunity.
Fourth, granting that Tubercle Ba-
cillus is everywhere, that he is the
universal criminal, it must be conced-
ed that he is not the destructive agent
. we once ‘thought him. If he were,
; not one living soul of us would be
| alive!
If all persons who had ever had tu-
' berculosis in one form or another had
been excluded from the army, there
would have been no army; or at least
one so small as to be totally inade-
quate. Of more than three million
drafted or enlisted men, there would
have been left to fight probably not
. sixty thousand. In other words, sci-
entists believe that fully eighty per-
cent. of all adults have, or have had
tuberculosis. Some go further and
assert that every adult is tubercu-
lous.
This is not a recent discovery.
has been known for many years. But
never before had there been an oppor- |
tunity to examine so many young and
presumably healthy male adults. One
of the surprises was the discovery of
so many who showed scars of previ- '. :
y : P i iners have not committed themselves
ous T. B. Even these men were not
all excluded, for in many the tissue
changes were too slight for rejection.
A large proportion of these men had
fought and conquered the disease, to-
tally unaware that they had ever had
it,
At least once a year the head of a
business concern “takes stock.” He
wants to know the physical condition
‘ of his plant, how much it has deter-
iorated, what repairs or replacements
are necessary. Once in a long while
a few of us visit the doctor for the
same purpose. But the vast majority
of people, unless overtaken by some
physical catastrophe, do not stop to
“take stock.”
And so it required the catastrophe |
of a war to bring the nation to stock-
taking time. For more than a centu-
ry we have been a going concern.
Never until this war began has there
been so thorough an inspection of the
machinery.
If there was any one thing upon
which we prided ourselves as Ameri-
cans, it was upon the health and vig-
or of our young men. We had no
knowledge upon which to base our
confidence, but we “knew” that they
were the most vigorous and virile in
the world. Because they were Amer-
icans, I suppose. No data were at
hand. The nation had never taken
stock of its young men—nor of its old
men, nor of its children, nor of its
women, :
The draft boards, making a prelim-
inary survey, received the first shock.
Day after day came the men chosen
by lot. They came by the thousands,
by tens of thousands.
And day after day defectives were
cast out. There came the lame and
halt, the blind (for purpose of war),
the toothless, the flat-footed, the too
fat, the too lean. There were days
when members of the draft boards
wondered if there were any young
men in the land fit to fight.
Of course the final result was the best
army that had ever been assembled in
the world. But there was another ar-
my—hundreds of thousands of men
who, because of physical disqualifica-
tions, were compelled to do prosaic
things, the menial things, the inglor-
ious things.
And there was the vast multitude
of the totally unfit. Of a little over
three million young men examined
for military service, about five hun-
dred thousand were rejected as
physically unqualified! More than
sixteen per cent. These figures are
not absolute, but they are eloquent
enough.
At first the requirements were
quite strict; but soon they had to be
relaxed. Take as an example, the
teeth. There had to be at least four
, molars, two above and two below, and
enough anchorage for dental work.
But so many toothless men presented
themselves that a change in the rule
was absolutely necessary. Thereafter,
a man was accepted who had but two
molars, if they met for business.
The world war had been in prog-
ress about two years when reports be-
'gan to reach this country “through
channels” of the great number of cas-
esof T. B. in the Allied armies.
France alone discharged more than
80,000 soldiers for this cause. Later
it transpired that about 60,000 of
these men did not have T. B. at all!
Most of them had been victims of Old
Man Strep, and a large proportion of
them could have been saved to fight.
For this reason it was extremely
ditions should be most carefully ex-
amined by not one but several compe-
tent experts. J
The applicant for life insurance is
examined by one, possibly two, or, at |
most, three physicians. But the man
who finally got into the army had"
been passed by fifteen or twenty. And
if at any stage of the examination
there had been doubt as to his condi-
tion, he would have been sent to the !
base hospital, where other experts
would have kept him under observa- |
tion as long as necessary.
Properly to visualize the birth of a
soldier from the embryonic stage of
the drafted man, let us take a single
day during the draft examinations
and a single hero from among the
crowd.
Very well then, William Leander
Jones. In that previous incarnation,
before the draft, Jones may have been .
a banker, a butcher, or a ribbon clerk. !
Now he is merely citizen Jones, re-
sembling all the others in the fact
that he is a male and of draft age.
Having entered the barracks, he is
stripped to his goosefiesh, for, like the
portal of death, nothing of this world
is carried beyond. Then he is brand-
ed with a number. Not branded with
a red-hot iron upon his quivering
flesh, but with a pencil upon flesh
which quivers rather from contact
with chill air.
And so, clad in cutis ansorinae,
which is Latin for skin of the goose,
he starts along the mystic maze of
medical meandering. Krom station to
station he goes, chest to back with the
man in front, back to chest with the
one behind. He is being coldly ap-
praised: Head, Eyes, Ears, Teeth,
Throat, Limbs, Lungs, Heart, to Feet.
One by one the defectives drop out,
and still the storm moves on, steadi-
ly, hour by hour.
But Jones does not consume an
hour in the process. If they are hav-
ing a good day, without hitches, in
half an hour he is through. He has
been stripped, branded, physically ex-
amined as he has never been physic- |
ally examined before, finger-printed,
vaccinated twice, measured for and
fitted with army shoes, and uniform- :
ed. He has also received his army
tag and a number. :
If Jones had shown the shadow of a |
suspicion of physical disqualification, |
he would have been held for observa- |
tion. But in one particular he imi- |
tates Pippa, he passes. Within thirty |
minutes he has been bereft of every- |
thing but his birthmarks, and goes '
through the exit of the barracks, not
Citizen William Leander Jones, but |
Private Jones, Number 1,400,863, or
something else.
Now Jones’s mother had, from in-
fancy, considered him rather frail.
1t | He had always been carefully guard-
| ed from exposure or hardship. If in
his present confusion he has a single
| clear thought, it probably takes the
form of self-congratulation. He has
| “passed.” He is sound.
But with regard to T. B., the exam-
First, that he never
Second, that he is
ion two points:
: had the disease.
| now absolutely free from it. What
| they have said is that he has no scars,
| no structural changes in his lungs to
| disqualify him. And also that he is
not suffering from active or manifest
| tuberculosis.
Manifest tuberculosis is the T. B.
with which we are familiar. The
| germs which have been “lying low,”
i perhaps for years, have become act-
Ive and are playing havoc. . Activa-
| tion comes from within, not from
| without. We have the germs, the
: seeds, in our bodies always. Improp-
er or insufficient food, dissipation,
worry, overwork, wasting or acute
diseases—these prepare the soil, and
the seeds germinate.
The draft boards and the special
examining boards in the camps re-
jected, on account of T. B., a total of
a little over 95,000 men. Only about
5,000 men have been returned from
Europe for this cause, an insignificant
number considering the size of our ar-
my. This brings the total up to 100,-
000. And this was manifest tubercu-
losis, mind you,
due to changes in the lungs resulting
from previous attacks of the disease.
Unquestionably the greatest bene-
fit derived from these examinations
has been to the men themselves. A
large proportion of them learned for
the first time their condition. And
with this knowledge, upon their re-
turn to their homes they were ena-
bled to take proper care of ‘them-
selves. For you must remember that
T. B. is a curable disease. And, be-
sides, the knowledge which many of
them gained in military hospitals has
no doubt been disseminated in their
various communities.
It may sound like a paradox, but,
either
If the patient re-
not cured in the sanitorium,
military or civil.
disease arrested; but a cure is not ar-
rived at within several years. An in-
stitution for the treatment of tuber-
culosis is largely a school where peo-
ple go to learn, not the theory of a
cure, but the practical application of
it, how to live right.
of tuberuclosis is one of the simplest
things in the world, and yet one of
the most difficult.
There are really only four essen-
tials. They are rest, fresh air, prop-
er food, and contentment of mind.
Not the least important is the last of
these. It does not seem complicated,
does it? And yet each one of these
essentials is so complex that they
cannot be learned by precept alone.
. People so often think they are rest-
ing, for instance, when they sit down
in a chair for a little while each day.
If anything occurs to break their rest, !
they shorten the rest period, hoping
to make it up at some future time.
But they seldom do, and the rest per-
iod must be rigidly adhered to, even
if it extends for weeks and months
rather than hours.
is fever,
ous.
the rest should be continu-
Another criterion by which to
. assimilated.
or else disabilities :
in the final analysis, tuberuclosis is |
mains long enough he may have his |
The treatment '
As long as there |
judge the amount of rest needed is
fatigue. In health a man becomes fa-
tigued after undue or long-continued
exercise. A normal amount of rest
restores him to vigor. But in a wast-
ing disease like tuberuclosis, a much
greater ammount of rest is needed,
even after the slightest exertion. To
some invalids, walking about the
room, or sitting in the chair, or talk-
ing to friends, is over-exertion. Noth-
ing should be done to create fatigue
| that may not easily be overcome by a
reasonable amount of rest.
Nowadays, everyone knows about
fresh air; but to many people it
means a window raised an inch or two
in cold weather. Or it means plenty
of fresh air in the daytime, but a
stuffy bedroom at night.
Fresh air, in the proper sense, sig-
nifies a house or a workshop wide
open! It means living in the open
just about twenty-four hours every
day. You do not have to run after
fresh air. All you have to do is to sit
still and let it come to you. Many a
misguided patient has run himself in-
to an early grave seeking that which
was all about him!
There is not room in this article to
‘ discuss the question of food in detail.
Proper food means nourishing, not
necessarily expensive food. It means
food properly cooked, thoroughly
chewed. The processes of digestion
begin in the mouth, but most of us
take food as we store cur cecal cellar
for the winter.
One of the greatest fallacies with
regard to food and the tuberculosis
patient is a belief that he must be
stuifed all the time. No amount of
food should be eaten greater than that
which can be easily taken care of and
You would better put it
in your pocket than in your stomach,
if it cannot be digested.
Contententment of mind is more
easily advised than acquired. It must
be achieved by almost superhuman
exercise or patience, and especially by
the pursuit of light, useful occupa-
tions, as soon as they are allowed.
Where the tuberculous are concerned,
the problem is largely mental, al-
though the end to be achieved is phys-
ical. Mental unrest is as injurious in
these cases as physical overaction.
Of all curable diseases, pulmonary
tuberculosis is the most tedious, the
most discouraging. Even the slight-
est degree of activity requires six
months to arrest, and graver condi-
tions proportionately longer. Rest,
then, is absolutely essential to a cure.
While the disease is active, the pa-
tient must be inactive. And no half-
way business about it either. Abso-
lute rest. Now, given a man recent-
ly arrived from camp or trench, con-
trast the enforced idleness of a hos-
pital with the bustle and excitement
from which he has recently been re-
moved. Give him the prospect of six
months, a year, perhaps longer, of
this quiet life. He wants to get home.
Tell him he must stay, whether he
wishes to or not, and what happens to
him? He blows up. Wouldn’t you?
What is the answer? Give him
something to occupy his ‘mind—to
keep it from turning around and bit-
ing him as a tarantula is supposed
under provocation to sting itself to
death. And Occupational Therapy
came into being. Not occupation that
will in itself cure, but that will sup-
ply the healthy mind so essential to a
healthy body. i
It is said that a change of treat-
ment of any kind will help the con-
sumptive for a time. Take away one
medicine and substitute another, even
if it is Worcester sauce. The substi-
tution must be accompanied by strong
recommendation, however. And if
hope helps, so does contentment. The
man must have something to do,
Semelhing else than himself to think
about.
This is just as true ¢. the civilian
as of the soldier. It applies with equal
+ force to the home, to public or private
sanatoria and to the military hospit-
als. How many consumptives at
home, do you suppose, who, because
their minds are turned inward and not
outward, become discouraged and fly
from one patent medicine to another,
or from one physician to another, in
the hope that the doctor or the medi-
cine may do something for them
which they should be doing for them-
selves? Patent medicines beguile.
Each new treatment fans the feeble
spark of hope into a temporary flame,
which soon dies out, leaving again the
ashes of despair.
In the hospital in Canada there was,
a year ago, a Scotch-Canadian soldier
who had been invalided home because
of tuberculosis. For ‘more than six
months he had been growing steadily
worse, until he considered himself,
and was considered by others, a hope-
lessly progressive case. One day he
. told his doctor that he had given up.
But he said he had one great longing,
one desire that he would like to have
granted before the end. He wanted
to go fishing! The doctor knew that
he was taking a desperate chance, but
being himself reasonably sure that the
- soldier was not going to live long, he |
had him carried to a little nearby
| mountain stream, where he could sit
on the bank and rast his line. At
once improvement began and, strange
' to say, continued to convalescence.
This is an extreme case. It is not
intended to suggest that every T. B.
sanatorium should be located near a
trout stream, but as an illustration of
i the salutary effect of occupational
| therapy. ’
| In that same Canadian hospital for
. tuberculosis soldiers, until occupation-
' al therapy was inaugurated, men were
! mutinous, deserted, went A. W. O. L.
{ —“Absent Without Official Leave.”
After they were given something in-
| teresting to do, infractions of disci-
| pline were reduced almost to the van-
| ishing point. And, what is more, the
!
|
|
i
percentage of cures rose. And the
average stay per man in the hospital
perceptibly.diminished!
A military hospital for tuberculo-
| sis is no more like the old civilian san-
{ itorium than a busy town resembles a
| country graveyard. It is a place of
many and varied activities. Even in
i the infirmary ward where men are re-
{ quired to rest, blue-uniformed aids
{ move quietly about, teaching those
i whose condition permits the use of
[ their hands some manual occupation.
Not necessarily useful occupation, but
{ anything to direct the eyes of the
! mind outward. Something to give the
spur to lazy, creeping Time. It is
rather a shock to one who first visits
an infirmary ward to see men lying
in bed doing raffia work, or making
cord belts, or knitting. Women have
heretofore had a monopoly of such oc-
cupations. The men themselves, at
first, are rather ashamed, these men
who have been fighting overseas or
who intended to fight. But let one’
man in a ward begin, one strong-
minded enough to ignore the gibes of
his fellows! And soon the whole
ward will look like a girls’ dormitory.
Does it help? . Ask the fellow who
has tried it. He will tell you that the:
lagging hours which stretched into
weary days, and the days into endless
months, gather to themselves fresh
speed.
As long as the disease i; in the act-
ive stage, the occupations are of the
lightest character. As fever subsides
and strength returns, the patient pro-
ceeds to increased activities. Hom
very short, halting walks, to more
arduous exercise; from knitting and
basketry, to more muscular tasks;
until finally the whole gamut is run
to automobile repairing and to car-
pentry or farming. Whatever a man
desires to do and is able to perform is
permitted. Not only allowed, but he
is instructed by men skilled in each
occupation or trade.
There are educators, also teachers
of commercial and intellectual branch-
es of learning, telegraphers, electri-
cians, engineers; teachers of languag-
, foreign and domestte. The alien
born are instructed in eclementary
English, the illiterate are taught to
rzad and write.
03
With regard to the treatment of tu-
; berculosis, the most revolutionary les- |
son of the war has been occupationai
therapy. So much emphasis hitherto
had been laid upon the rest cure—
rest of the body-—that mental unrest
was totally ignored. Strange that we
could have been so blind! A disease
that requires months, often years, to
cure, that consumes not only bodily
vigor but vigor of mind and strength
of will! A disease full of discourage-
ments that eat the very heart of the
moral fiber and cause the mind te
fret and worry at the expense of the
body!
For years we have treated our
criminals with more consideration.
Solitary confinement is no longer a
favorite method of torture. During a
part of each day prisoners now have
a place in the sun, literally and figur-
atively. And all the years those af-
flicted with tuberculosis have had to
sit idly—waiting, waiting, for the
healing balm that so ‘often never
came. Mort of these unfortunates
have been killed by mental disquie-
tude rather than by neglect. If we have
learned this one lesson, and none oth-
cr, then the war, with all its horrors,
and sacrifices, may have heen worth
while.—By Stanley M. Rinehart, M.
D., in American Magazine.
Action.
Hog cholera can be controlled and
the time to do it is before it gets
started, says Dr. I. D. Wilson, of the
Animal Husbandry department at The
Pennsylvania State College. While it
has been definitely ‘proved that the
single treatment will make a hog im-
mune for three to six weeks ,nothing
will save the animal after it gets the
disease. It’s a dead hog and should be
buried deep, its bedding burned, the
buildings disinfected and the runway:
plowed up and sowed to some spring”
crop so that hogs will not be allowed
on that ground again for a year or
more. The virus will live in ‘soil or
buildings for a long time. Animals
turned on infected places are almost
sure to catch the disease. When
outbreak of cholera is reported in the
oy
wail
‘ community, the only safe thing to do
is to have the hogs vaccinated before
signs of the disease arc seen in one’s
own herd. The cost is small, the dan-
ger is slight, and a valuable herd of
pigs may thus be saved. A competent
veterinarian can do the work satisfac-
torily. The county agent, the State
Department of Agriculture or the De-
partment of Animal Husbandry of the
Pennsylvania State College will fur-
nish complete information about the
control of this disease.
Since hog cholera has broken out
in several places in Pennsylvania this
fall it is not wise for farmers to take
any chances with it, This disease
thrives during the winter months. Its
spread through Pennsylvania may be
prevented by prompt and concerted
action. Delay and indifference may
mean thousands of dollars loss to far-
mers and give the disease such a foot-
hold in the State that no hogs can bo
raised without the double treatment,
as is the case in many central west-
ern States. Also hogs shipped from
Pennsylvania to other States would
then have to be quarantined, which
would affect the breeding industry.
Too Much Ground Is Wasted on
Hedges, According to an English
Agricultural Authority.
It is generally reckoned that each
mile of hedge, with its accompanying
ditch, is equal to an acre of land. A=
a matter of fact it is equal to a great
deal more, for the calculation does not
take into account the considerable belt
of ground on each side of the hedge
which is so matted with roots as to
be valueless from the farmer's point
of view.
In a lecture delivered lately at Tor-
quay, Mr. Wale, principal of the Seal
Hayne Agricultural college, enlarged
upon this subject and mentioned that
in Devonshire particularly far too
much land was occupied by hedges.
As an example he quoted the ten
parishes immediately around Exeter.
These cover in all 37,000 acres, and
nearly half of all this land is cut up
into fields of less than five acres.
There are actually more than eight
hundred fields which do not exceed an
acre apfece. As a natural consequence
a very large proportion of this rich
soil is totally unproductive, the actual
area lost being no less than eighteen
acres in each hundred.
The lecturer strongly advised that
the redundant hedges should be
grubbed out and the size of the fields
increased to .an average of at least
ten acres.—London Daily Mail.
-
THOUGHT HUBBY NEEDED IT
Young Wife Not at All Displeased at
Rebuke Administered to Con-
jugal Partner by Bishop.
A colonial bishop, speaking at a
meeting held for the purpose of rals-
ing funds for the building of a church,
sought to put his audience in good
humor by making complimentary ref-
erences to the progress that had been
made in their district, dwelling par.
ticularly on the advancement in the
quantity and quality of the various
local products. The clergyman who
had been appointed to the incumbency,
a4 very young man, rose at the conclu-
sion of the speech and solemnly called
his lordship’s attention to the fact that
he had omitted to mention eggs, which
were a considerable source of revenue.
On the spur of the moment the bishop
accided to administer a rebuke. “It
is highly gratifying to learn,” he said,
after apologizing for the omission,
“that the poultry of the neighborhood
have such a competent young rooster
to crow for them!” When the meet-
ing was over the bishop, who was very
tender-hearted, thinking he might have
hurt the young clergyman’s feelings,
and those of his wife as well, tendered
an apology to the latter, who, to his
* surprise, quickly dispelled his fears.
“Please do not trouble,” the lady said.
“I was pleased with the answer you
gave to my husband. It will do him
a great deal of good!”
rt —————iies
HOME NEST ONLY NURSERY
When the Young Birds Leave It They
Rarely Return, According to
John Burroughs.
mrote—.
It is always interesting to me to see
the young birds leave their nest. It is
generally an irrevocable step; they
very rarely go back—young swallows
do, however, perhaps more frequently
than other birds.
The nest is in no sense a home, but
a nursery for a brief period. Most
of our birds who bring off a second
brood build a second nest, though a
robin will occasionally reline and oth-
erwise patch up an old nest. Nest:
ing birds leave the nest one by one,
sometimes at intervals of an hour or
two; at others, of a day or more.
The current notion that the parent
birds teach the young to fly—that of
set purpose they give them lessons in
flying—is entirely erroneous. The
‘young fly automatically when the time
comes, as truly as the witchhazel nut
. explodes, and the pod of the jewel weed
rs ‘i. hen th d ripe. Th
Hog Cholera Control Needs Quick goes OIL Wien thy Saels ate Fibs: Tuo
parent birds call to their young, and
. I have thought that in some cases
' they withhold the food longer than
usual, to stimulate the young to make
the great adventure. But in the case
of a pair of bluebirds which came ’
‘under my observation, the young were
fed up to the moment of flight.—John
Burroughs, in Harper's Magazine.
Lure of the Stage.
“Will I ever be an actress?’ is a
query theater managers often receive
from young women. Mothers with
prodigies appeal for an appearance
of their sons, “who can recite all of
Shakespeare.” Now comes a letter
from an apparently versatile young
Kansas woman to Lawrence Lehman,
manager of the Orpheum theater:
“Am writing you today asking if
you are in need of an actress. Would
love to join one of the troops that
come to your show house. Have
traveled with many cheap troops, so
would rather get into a better class.
I can play the piano and do a lot of
comic tricks. The last troop I left at
Joplin, Mo., and now am staying with
my married sister here until I hear
from you. I hope you can help me
out with one thing or the other. If
possible, I would like to stick in your
theater all the time for I'm tired of
traveling. Of course, if you can get
me into some good troep I'd like very
well to travel. -I have some pictures °
of myself taken In many. different
ways, so if you’d like I'll send some.
Now will close, hoping to hear from
you and hope you can get me some-
thing to do. Excuse writing.”—Kan- .
sas City Star. :
Scientific Research.
The supervisor of schools was visit-
ing and had stopped in one of the
rooms to explain the wonders of the
solar system. Every little face glowed
with the radiance of understanding,
every little mind was absorbed with
interest as the supervisor demon-
strated with familiar objects the move-
ments of the earth and moon about the
sun.
The supervisor shook mental hands
with himself as he experienced that
satisfaction coming only toc orators
who are swaying their audiences. With
a sense of his success he turned to
the class and said:
“Now, does any little boy or gir!
wish to ask a question?”
“Yes, ma'am, I mean sir,” said Tom-
mie. “What made ya so baldheaded?”
Improved Hotel Service.
In some New York hotels there are
two devices to diminish the business
of bellboys. Icewater circulates in
every room. Then there is a device
called the “servidor”—a small ward-
robe which is built into the bedroom
doors. The guest may open it ¥rom
the inside and put his shoes and
clothes into it. They will be noiseless-
ly extracted by an attendant from the
outside and returned shined and
pressed. If a guest orders a bottle of
seltzer, or any other small object, it
will be left by a hotel employee in the
servidor. A signal on the doors shows
instantly when anything is put into the
servidor. Through it a newspaper Is
delivered silently every morning.