SE NE A, EV A
Deworvaiic ata,
Bellefonte, Pa., January 4, 1924.
THE LAND OF MAGIC.
By Edith D. Osborne.
There's a wonderful land where I go by
myself
Without stirring out of my chair;
I just take a book from the library shelf,
Turn its pages, and presto! I'm there.
In that wonderful country of Yesterday,
‘Where “tomorrow” is always the “now,”
Where the good ship Adventure is spread-
ing her sails,
While the sea-foam breaks white at her
prow.
Where the desert sands burn in the Afri-
can sun,
Where the North
SNOW ;
Over the mountains and valleys,
strange rivers run,
‘With hardy explorers I go.
I share, too, in the magic of fairies and
gnomes;
I have followed the ways of the sea;
1 have studied the fish in their watery
homes,
And the bird and the ant and the bee.
I have followed the trail of the first pio-
neers
Over prairie and mountain range;
I have lived with their dangers and shar-
ed in their fears
In a country so new and so strange.
And then—just like magic—I'm high in
the air
In a glittering aeroplane!
Swooping in bird-flight now here and now
there—
Up, up through clouds and the rain!
shivers under the
where
O ship of adventure! your sails are spread
wide !
As they fill with the winds of the West;
Restless and swaying, you wait for the
tide
To bear you away on your quest.
With you I will sail for a year and a day,
To the world’s most unreachable nooks.
For there’s nothing to hinder the travel-
er's way
Through the wonderful Country of
Books!
—St. Nicholas.
DRIVING THE 20th CENTURY
LIMITED.
“Is it worth while being a railroad
man?” In the old days, my - early
days on the line, I'm not so sure that
it was worth while; but today it’s dif-
ferent. Today hours and compensa-
tion are compatible with the work
that a man has to do and there is a
lot of romance and pleasure in it.
Some of the men look back upon the
early days of railroading, the days of
hand brakes, crude machinery and
cruder methods as “the good old
days.” To my mind, looking back
twenty years or more they were far
from “the good old days,” all things
considered. Why I’ve seen the time
when I have spent fifty-six hours on
a freight train, working all the time.
That was before there were any reg-
ulations as to the amount of time a
railroad man should work in a single
stretch.”
The speaker was Evan R. Morris,
a gray-haired, keen-eyed, deep-chest-
ed locomotive engineer of the
York Cntral,—one of the “top notch-
ers” of that “top notch” railroad.—
the man whose hand had moved the
throttle of the Twentieth Century
Limited, the speediest and most fa-
mous train in the world. I had the
good fortune to find Mr. Morris in
the engine dispatcher’s office of Tow-
er A, where he was getting ready for
one of his regular runs. He looked as
if he might be the dean of all loco-
motive engineers, for there is that
about him that railroad training for
precision, and errorless judgment,
leaves on men who follow that call-
ing faithfully. :
I asked him whether he would tell
the boys of the country, through the
pages of Boys’ Life just what those
of them who were interested in rail-
roading as a vocation, would have to
fuce in the way of difficulties before
they could attain the reputation and
distinction he had attained.
“Pll tell them mighty briefly what
they are facing if they hope to make
progress as a railroad man,” he as-
sured me with a smile. “They are
facing WORK: spelled out in capital
letters. But if the romance of raii-
roading gets a grip on them it will be
work with plenty of pleasure and
thrills in it, plenty of life, action, ex-
citement, and if they are ambitious,
and study, and take fair advantage of
every opportunity that presents itself,
there will be plenty of money in their
occupation too. Some engineers of
good trains make as much money as
Governors of many States do. And
to the ambitious fellow the job of en-
gineer—even the engineer of the crack
train of the line—will not be the
height of his achievement. He will
go on and be road foreman, division
superintendent, and climb still higher
up the ladder until he attains the po-
sition of an officer in the company.
There are no barriers for the combi-
nation of brains, ambition and hard
work.”
“How does a boy start in railroad-
ing?” I asked this man who could be
calm and collected while driving his
train at the speed of 70 miles an hou.
“Well I can illustrate that best by
telling my own story of how I started.
First of all I had the love for rail-
roading born in me I guess. Every
time I heard a locomotive whistle I
thrilled with a desire to be at the
throttle. It was only natural then
that when the first opportunity pre-
sented itself, and I had done with my
school work and was prepared to go
out into the world and earn a living,
that I found employment on a rail-
read. I was a husky young fellow as
you may believe and my first job was
that of fireman on a freight train.
“There was hard work for you. In
those days a fireman was responsible
for the care of the engine and it was
a regular thing for me to appear at
the roundhouse at four o'clock in the
morning and get my engine ready for
a seven-forty-five run. I had to clean
it up and oil it, start my fires, see
that my tools were all on board, have
the tender and water tanks filled,
polish up copper and brass meanwhile
and then start backing down from
Mott Haven roundhouse, five miles in-
to the city to pick up our train and
start for Albany. I have shoveled a
good many thousand tons of coal over
the route between Albany and New
York, keeping engine fires hot.
“Yes, I have worked as many as fif-
ty-six hours without rest or time out
except for the few minutes I could
snatch from meals. I have been on
the road between Albany and New
York twenty hours and have picked
up between forty and fifty freight
cars on the way, and dropped off as!
many more. I have come home so!
tired that I could hardly open and
close my eyes, they ached so. Those
are the kind of runs that are heart-
breaking to a young man, and unless
he has the right sort of grit and stick-
to-it qualities he will find that the
railroad is no place for him.
“I spent ten and one-half years at
that sort of work, firing on freight |
engines before my chance came. Then
I was switched over into the passen- |
ger service, firing passenger engines. |
I got the assignment of firing the fa- |
|
mous No. 51 known to the public as
the Empire State Express. It was a
grou train in those days, as it is to-
ay.
“Five years of my railroad life was
spent in firing in the passenger serv-
ice. Then after fifteen years of hard
work I was believed to be qualified to
have charge of an engine of my own
and my promotion came again. Back
I went into the freight service, but
this time as an engineer. That is the
path of progress for a young man in
this branch of railroading. First he
is a fireman on a freight engine, and
when he knows his work he is promot- .
ed to firing on a passenger engine,
which is a harder job in a great many
ways, for the fires need more careful :
attention. His next promotion is to
engineer but he is shifted back into
the freight division again, nor is he
given a passenger engine until he is
considered a “top notch” driver.
“My first job with the railroad
brought me in $19 a month, but as I
said before those were in the old days
when a man’s efforts brought him far
less money than they do today. Fire- !
men now earn good wages, and engi-
neers can earn as much money as the
average professional man earns, all
things considered.
“The training that a railroad man
gets is one of the finest trainings in
the world. First of all he learns to
hava respect for time. Every min-
ute, yes every second, counts in a
railroad man’s day. There are two
letters, “O. T.” (on time), that mean :
everything to him. He must learn to
be on time all the time. Schedules, |
train movements, indeed the entire
railroad system is governed by those
two words, “on time.” The system |
can he wrecked, countless dollars lost |
and human lives sacrificed by a man
who has not learned perfectly the val-
ue of being “on time.” It is the big-
gest thing in a railroad man’s life and
unless a boy has a thorough respect
for the quality of punctuality he will
never do as a railroad man.”
That is the advice that Evan R.
| Morris, the man ‘who has driven the
1
|
|
i
|
New |!
Twentieth Century Limited thousands
of miles and on many a run, would
give to you fellows who read Boys’
Life and who are interested, as every
i boy is, in railroads and railroading.
But there is much more he might have
told you about himself that he did not
mention. Mr. Morris has the envia-
ble reputation of never having had a
train he has been in charge of in a
wreck of any kind; he has never cost
the company he has worked for some :
twenty odd years, a cent of money in |
the way of damages. To be sure he
has had many thrilling and hair-rais-
ing escapes—escapes where inches
counted. That is only natural when
his trains go thundering through the
night roaring down the steel rails and
eating up distance and space at ter- |
rific speed. But then engineers are
selected with the idea that they will
not get into wrecks and will not cost
the company money in the form of
damages.
So perhaps, after all, that is the!
reason why Mr. Morris was given such |
a high rating among locomotive engi- |
neers, and the responsibility of such
valuable property and so many hu- |
man lives as are represented in every
run that the Century makes.
Speed? Nothing short of an air-
plane has developed the speed that
some of Mr. Morris’ trains have at-
tained. Here is just one of his record |
runs. Several years ago, a four-car
special was made up in Troy to carry
the President to New York to make
connections with a train going south
on another line. Time and distance
were at war again. It meant that the
148 miles between Troy and New
York had to be covered in less time
than it had ever been covered before.
It had to be a record run. Evan R. |
Morris was called to the throttle of |
the locomotive, the dispatcher started |
clearing the line as best it could be
cleared and Mr. Morris was given his
orders.
“We went so fast,” said Mr. Mor-
ris, “that I couldn’t see the stations |
go past. Indeed I couldn’t see any-
thing but the track ahead. Frighten-
ed! Of course not. I'd be a fine man
at the throttle if I were frightened or
even nervous. I had just one purpose
in life then. It was to make speed
and get the President to New York
safely and on time.
Mr. Morris did it. He made the 148
miles in two hours and twenty min-
utes, 148 miles in 142 minutes and
that is speed when it is considered
that the run had to be made through
cities like Troy, Hudson, Poughkeep-
sie, Peekskill, Tarrytown, Yonkers
and New York city itself, where speed
was impossible. There is no question
but that during certain stretches of
the run that special was making a
mile in twenty-eight to thirty seconds.
The President made his train, and
made it safely.
fA meses.
Plant 551,000 Trees.
Five hundred and fifty-one thous-
and trees were planted in the State
forests during 1923, officials of the
Department of Forests and Waters
announced recently. The total cost of
planting amounted to $5,207 or an av-
erage of $12.12 an acre, Robert Y.
Stuart, chief forester said, pointing
out that the planting “converted about
500 acres of idle mountain land into
productive forest land.”
nm ——— A ———
—Get your job work done here.
, the storm comes.
FLIRT MEETS HIS WATERLOO
Demure Young Lady Passenger Knew
the Best Way to Rout
“Gay Blade.”
Awaiting her train, she sat demure-
ly, reading a magazine in the waiting
room at the Union station. Across
from her sat a “gay blade.” His every
action denoted a desire to flirt, The
demure one apparently saw him not,
remarks the Kansas City Times.
Nothing daunted, he walked over in
front of the young woman and asked,
“Didn't I see you get on the train at
Sedalia?”
“What did you say?’ replied the
young woman, cupping her hand be-
hind her ear. !
“Didn't you get on the train at Se-
dalia?”’ came back the query in a
slightly louder tone.
“I beg your pardon; I can’t quite
hear what you are saying.”
By this time the flirt was rather
flabbergasted. In a voice heard several
seats away, his face a violent red, he
shouted. “Did you get on the train
at Sedalia?”
“Not that I remember,”
swered. ;
The not so gay “blade,” the cynosure
of a grinning crowd, made a quick get-
away.
A few minutes later a redcap ap-
proached.
“Your train is here,” he announced,
in a mild tone.
“Thank you,” she replied.
Her hand was not at her ear, either.
she an-
“NEVER-STOP” TRAIN SYSTEM
Continuous Passsnger Service
Demonstrated on an Experi-
mental Track in England.
A demonstration was recently given
at Kursaal Gardens, Southend, Lon- |
don, of the “never-stop” system of
continuous passenger service on a full-
size railway, 300 yards in length, con-
taining a 1 in 20 gradient. The line
consists of two parallel tracks about
six feet apart from center to center
and the cars travel continuously round
the circuit. The coaches, which hold
2 passengers, are propelled by a re-
volving spiral, laid between the tracks
and carried on spokes projecting from
a massive steel tube. Krom the un-
derframe of the coach depends an arm
carrying two vertical rollers that en-
gage with the spiral. At the stations
the pitch of the spiral is very fine and
between stations the pitch is very
coarse. The result is that the coaches
pass through the stations at a speed
sufficiently slow to enable passengers
to enter or alight from the car in the
same way as they now board or leave
an escalator. As the car leaves the
station it can be rapidly accelerated up
to a high speed and then smoothly
but swiftly decelerated as the next
station Is approached. “The cars pass
through the station slowly and econ-
tinuously, but on leaving they spread
out and travel at a great speed until
the station is again reached. The
claim that under the system there is
“no waiting” was justified, as during
the demonstration the station was
never without one ¢r more cars pass-
ing through it.
Danger in Electric Storms.
Professor McArdle of Harvard uni
versity recently made public a list of
suggestions for action during severe
electrical storms. One point that he
emphasized was that, contrary to the
belief of some people, thunderstorms
really are dangerous. He advises peo-
ple to get under cover but not to stand
under a tree during a storm. The hu-
man body is a better conductor than
the tree and hence would attract the
lightning.
His advice consists largely of a
series of “don'ts.” Don’t stand in an
open doorway or at a window near a
chimney. Lightning follows air ecur-
rents to a great extent. Disconnect
your radio aerial and ground it before
Farmers should not
tie cows and horses to a wire fence
nor to a tree. He okserves that it is
unwise to stand in an open doorway
and watch the lightning play.—Los
Angeles Times,
Solar System of Atom.
An interesting account of the mod
ern theory of the atom is given in a
. recent work by Prof. J. A. Fleming.
Briefly, it is a solar system in minia-
ture. “The nucleus,” says Professor
Fleming, “corresponds to the central
sun and the negative electrons to the
planets circulating round ir. If we
desired to make a model, say of a
helium atom, we might place a sphere,
say the size of a football, at a certain
position to represent the positively
charged nucleus.
“Then at distances of about one ant
a quarter miles we should have to lo-
cate two golf balls to represent the
two negative electrons and to assume
that these were revolving round the
football. The actual size of the atoms
is so small that a million placed in a
row, like marbles in contact, would
occupy length less than the thickness
of the thinnest sheet of tissue paper.”
—Popular Mechanics Magazine,
Guilty Linotype Again.
A Canadian paper, describing the
active life of a farmer during the
growing season, remarks:
“He hurries away to the barn or
fields, returning at noon for half an
hour in which to eat his lumc taoin
taoin rmird! mfw hrdlidliwun.”
This, says Punch, would seem to be
one of the new patent foods. Or eise,
as the final word suggests, a Welsh
dish—perhaps a Welsh rabbit.—
Youth's Companion.
Lowe.
| 1000 to 64 inches in 1921;
RAISE BAR AGAINST WOMEN
Laws in Many of the States Still Deny
Them Equal Rights With
Men.
A survey of laws has established the
fact that every discrimination com-
plained of by women in 1848, except in
the franchise, still exists in some parts
of the country today, and that many of
them are practically universal, writes
Carold Rehfish in The New Republic.
Except in the eight community prop-
erty states, the services of the wife in
the home are the property of the hus-
band; in all but twelve states, pros-
titution is the act of the woman only
and not of the man; practically every-
where women are paid less than men
for the same work in both public and
private employment.
In Georgia and Maryland, a father
may will the children entirely away
from the custody of the mother, and in
Alabama he has the right to will away
the child from the mother after it has
reached the age of fourteen. In a
number of states the father has a
greater right than the mother to the
control and guardianship of children,
and to determine their education, their
religious environment, ete.
In Vermont and Georgia a married
woman's earnings belong legally to her
husband, and not to herself and may
be seized by her husband's creditors to
meet his debts. In Florida a husband
is entitled to manage and control the
wife’s property. In Kentucky and
Texas the husband can obtain a di-
vorce more easily than can the wife.
Examples of similar discriminations
against women might be multiplied.
WOMEN GROWING ROBUST
University Statistics Show Marked
Physical Improvement in the
Sex in America.
Let pessimists stew in their own bit-
ter juice; the American woman is
steadily growing taller, healthier, and
more robust, more fit to take her own
part and to mother a strong race.
Doctor Mosher of Stanford university,
in a note reprinted from the California
State Journal of Medicine, shows that
the average height of Stanford women
has risen from 62.4 inches in 1892 to
64 inches in 1921, That of Vassar
women has risen from 63.2 inches in
that of
Smith college women from 62.8 inches
in 1892 to 64.2 in 1921.
Doctor Mosher gives some very in-
teresting correlations between the in-
crease in height and the increasing
width of waist, the diminishing length
and width of skirt, and physiological
normality. The cause of the improve-
ment, almost certainly, is the increased
freedom of physical movement de-
manded by athletics and relucantly
licensed by fashions in women’s
clothes.
No man, it is written, may add a
cubit to his stature by taking thought.
The average woman has proved that
she can add at least inches to her
stature by taking exercise—New Re-
public.
Mexican Agricultural Pests.
Explorations in Mexico for the pur-
pose of securing information regarding
the existing federal horticultural board
quarantines restricting the entry of
products from Mexico on account of
pests which they might carry to this
country were conducted during the
spring by the United States Depart-
ment of Agriculture. The explorations
were conducted chiefly in relation to
fruit and vegetable pests, particularly
the fruit flies, the pink bollworm, and
the cotton-boll weevil and the related
Thurberia weevil. The object was to
determine the present status in Mexico
of these pests as a basis for possible
emendment to American quarantines.
For Richmond Hill Monument.
The Greenwich Village Historica.
society of New York will erect a me-
morial tablet to mark the site of the
famous Richmond Hill mansion, erect-
ed in Greenwich village in 1760. Dur-
ing its long career the Richmond Hill
mansion once served as Washington's
headquarters. Its approximate site Is
that now bounded by Maecdougal,
Spring, Varick and Charlton streets,
occupied now by the Butterick com-
pany.
Riding Eiffel Tower Steps.
Riding from the first platform of the
fiffel tower, in Paris, to the ground
on a bicycle was the daring achieve-
ment of a young Frenchman. In the
first leap the bicycle cevered 40 steps.
The remaining 316 steps were covered
at the rate of from 15 to 20 in each
jump. In less than one and one-half
minutes he had covered the entire dis-
tance of 90 yards and was only slight-
ly scratched on one leg as he rounded
a post at the bottom.
Going Too Far.
‘What are you growling about?”
“Aw, the memoirs of a fellow who
(ries hard to link himself with the
great and the near great. He even in-
serts an anecdote about Julius Cae-
sar.”
“No harm in that. Anybody is en
titled to relate an anecdote about
Julius Caesar.”
“Yeah, but he tries to convey the
impression that he knew Julius Cae-
sar.”
Restoring Laysan's Vegetation,
Scientists of the United States Agri
cultural department are introducing
plants on Laysan island of the Ha:
waiian game preserve in an effort to
restore vegetative conditiong complete
+ s wii 4
iy uestroyed by rabbits,
IS
o those specially whose pat-
ronage has made possible
the continued growth and ser-
vice of this store, as well as to
all others, we extend heartiest,
greetings for a most Happy and
Prosperous New Year.
Yeager’s Shoe Store
THE SHOE STORE FOR THE POOR MAN
Bush Arcade Building 58-27 BELLEFONTE, PA.
‘Come to the “Watchman” office for High
Lyon & Co.
Lyon & Co.
Pre-Inventory Sale
AAA WG.
During our Inventory we are
determined to
close out All Winter Merchandise
Winter Coats
All Winter Coats—Ladies, Misses and Childrens—no
must be sold at cost and less.
Furs
10 Neck-Pieces in Black, Brown and Grey—worth
$18.00 to $35.00—now must be sold at $15.00.
Childrens Fur Sets as low as $2.50. :
Bath Robes
Ladies and Misses Bath Robes that sold at $2.50 and
$3.50, now $1.75 and $2.50.
Sweaters
All Sweaters for Ladies, Misses, Boys and Children—
at great reductions.
Spring Dress Goods
First showing of Spring Dress Goods.
We extend a cordial invitation
to examine our qualities and our prices.
Lyon & Co. « Lyon & Co.
Close Job work.
A TA AI SASSI NIIP PPI ITNT IIIT NIA LPAI S IIL IG ISG TIPPS ISAS INOS