Democratic watchman. (Bellefonte, Pa.) 1855-1940, March 04, 1927, Image 2

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    Buff
_—
Bellefonte, Pa., March 4th, 1927.
EE SEE,
RICH IN CONTENT.
The earth is fair and beautiful,
And there's enough of light
To chase the shadows all away
And leave our faces bright;
We'll count our blessings every day
And rich in sweet content
We'll scatter sunshine everywhere
Till all our wealth is spent.
No use to grovel in the depths—
No use to grieve and sigh,
Qur times are in our Father's hands
And He still rules on high!
Although some joys that others know
To us have been denied—
Hope has not failed. Its generous fund
A rich content supplied.
No use to corner sunshine up
When there's enough for all—
We'll share the blessings of ocntent
Wherever shadows fall;
Qur songs shall bear to troubled heart
A message from our own,
A true philosophy of hope
And blessings we have known.
The earth is fair and beautiful,
With joy enough to spare,
Then if we cultivate content
We're sure to get our share;
And when adversity shal! come
And clouds shall threaten rain,
Still be content—the storm will pass—
The sun will shine again
Exchange,
Peasant Life in France.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
By Rev. L. M. Colfelt D. D.
We have often paused at the market
places in French cities to note the
strange modes of the peasant popula-
tion. A brawny, muscular hoarse-
voiced race it is and a worthy off-
spring of those poissardes, who, in the
Revolution, helped to storm Ver-
sailles and for mere pastime as they
passed thither, tore. a horse into a
hundred fragments, devouring him
raw as a sweet morsel. Their faces
are coarse and lack intelligence. In
their broad, well-knit frames, however,
are revealed strong capacities for toil
and endurance. They are, in generzl,
comfortably clothed in velveteen or
blue coats, and invariably about the
neck of each is bound a parti colored
handkerchief. He is as brightly at-
tired in his economical dress as any
nobleman and as content apparently
with himself. As an illustration of
peasantry, they are models for the
world. Fashion affects them not. On
them the political tornados,” upturn-
ing so much of France, have left but
slight impression. They talk in the
same patois, move in the same narrow
scenes of action and enjoyment as
did their grandparents, content to ac-
cumulate a little gold and hide it
away. They come to the city in the
same awkward two-wheeled vehicles
and they bargain with their custom-
ers in the same grimaces and shrugs
which have characterized the French
for ages.
Attracted by the appearance of
these country folk, we decided to seek
them in their actual, everyday life and
take a ramble afoot through the farm
lands of Normandy, the richest and
most fertile agricultural region in
France. Accordingly, after railoading
some 15 miles from the city of Havre,
we alighted and went upon a ten mile
tramp in the pure country. We enter-
ed upon a smiling valley, sprinkled
with villages and characterized by re-
markable fertility. It offered that
graceful blending of pastoral life with
arable land, farming with gardening,
which is always so agreeable to the
eye. The only stilted and ungraceful
element in this rural scene, as indeed
of all France, was forest trees which
line the roads and which are not suf-
fered to grow as they will but are
denuded of their limbs for utility sake
but surely not for beauty. And yet
the irees, so bare of branches, per-
mitted more vivid view of the beauti-
ful green, beneath and beyond. The
French will not allow even their trees
to be melancholy but compel Nature
to assume a bright, jaunty air.
Through the valley there flowed a
stream, turned off from its bed and
put to work in turning the wheels of
industry. Almost every bank or hill-
side had its flowing rivulet, the waters
of which from their percolation
through the chalk formation, were
singularly transparent. Villages and
flouring mills on the banks of the
stream, at frequent intervals, rustic
bridges thrown across the bed leading
to delightful little Summer houses,
and cattle lowing on the brink contin-
ually serve to make up a rural picture
very cool and comfortable even on a
hot August day.
Thus we walk on, amid shade and
singing birds and streams, leaping
and laughing to their own music, un-
til we emerge on the broad plains of
Normandy, much like the Illinois
prairies, great far-stretching downs
covered with generous harvests and
far-stretching carpets of clover, odor-
ous thyme and wild flowers that
could not be trodden on without de-
light to more senses than one. Among
the chief features of Norman scenery
we would remark above all, the or-
chards and gardens. France is par
excellence the land of fruits and vege-
tables and flowers and we saw, in ten
miles of our tramp, more of these than
in all our travels combined. True, the
only fruits natural and indigenous to
France are the fig, apple, pear and
plum. But patience and industry have
naturalized hundreds besides. The
cherry tree brought by Lucullus from
Asia, as well as the vine first plant-
ed in France by the Rornans, now sur-
passes in her soil th world besides.
The Greek colonists on the coast of
the Mediteranean transported thither
the olive and the raspberry bush.
From the discovery of the new world,
France obtained the acriviola of Peru,
the lycopersicon of Mexico, and the
potato of Virginia. The humble pads-
ley was brought from Sardinia, the
cardoon from Barbary, the orange and °
Jesg branches.
lemon came from China, the apricot
from Armenia and the peach from
Persia. The gardens and orchards are
adorned now with the productions of
Asia, the white mulberries, the wal-
nuts and melons which, for the depth
of the edible part and mellow muski-
ness are incomparable. Lastly the
kidney bean, the white endive and let-
tuce have passed from the burning
climate of India to this temperate land
of Western Europe and in her gardens
have reached their finest perfection.
The gardeners of France, without
their equals anywhere, have by their
art, preserved the lily of Palestine,
the sunflower of Peru, the dahlia of
Mexico, the ballsomine of India, the
reseda of Egypt, angelica of Lap-
land, the tuberose of Ceylon, the tulip
of Turkey and the inodorous rauculas,
the only monument of St. Lewis’ pious
expedition into Syria. All these fruits
and flowers and vegetables and many
besides in wondrous profusion, did we
behold along the highway of Nor-
mandy. Never before did we dream
that this Mother Earth could be turned
into such a paradise or be rendered
so fruitful by the hand of man. On
all sides, pear trees loaded with fruit,
flattened themselves against walls like
heavy vines economizing space. From
bowers of vines, great round melons
shone, covered with glass hemi-
spheres. In beds of various colors,
vegetables grew as if no weed ever
presumed to disturb their peace of
mind while from inconceivable spots
and corners started beds of flowers or
strange fruit-bearing trees.
The homes of the peasants, neat
and tasteful, not so much in them-
selves architecturally but in the gar-
denesque touches added to them by
their occupants, were grouped to-
gether rather than scattered over the
land as with us. In the Oriental civ-
ilization whose history the Bible re-
lates, they farmed from the city.
Babylon was to some degree a walled
farm. France, in this respect, betrays
her Eastern origin as well as her
dread of isolation and loneliness. The
French method of farming from the
village instead of the lonely farm
house is the more human plan. In
America, insanity is pre-eminently
common among the agricultural
classes. In homes separated by wide
distances from any other human habi-
tation the farmer and his wife are
deprived too much of the social ele-
ment. It savors of the solitary con-
finement principle in prison manage-
ment which has not notoriously prov-
ed to end in the same results. The
farmer is at his work in the fields the
day long. When man and wife do
come together, it is in fatigue of body
and under conditions of familiarity
which prevent any sense of mental or
social excitation in each other’s pres-
ence. The laborious days are lonely
to both. And the night! Ah! Can
anything be more solemnly silent than
an isolated farm house in the even-
ing time, when the cows, relieved of
their milk lie down to chew the cud
of silence and the chickens have gone
to their roost and the birds set mute
with folded wings amidst the motion-
Scarce a sound! Noth-
ing but the hoot of the owl or the
mournful note of the whip-poor-will
in the distant forest. What wonder
that many are driven by such a lone-
some, gloomy life to brooding, to
melancholy, to insanity. The French
peasant is wiser in his generation.
He lives not alone but with others.
He leads two lives, one of labor, the
other of society. His partner in life
does the same. They keep their wits
burnishd by association with their
fellow creatures and in their loneli-
est and most dispirited moods, can
fly to the shelter of a human face and
a neighbor’s presence.
Watching the laborers at their
work we perceived that the most an-
tiquated instruments were still in
vogue among them. The ploughing
was done by two extra large horses
attached to the half front of a wagon
and the beam was laid up in the
most ridiculous manner on the cen-
ter of the axle. Why the ploughman
did not dispense with the half wa-
gon and utilize the shorter draught
we could not tell. Doubtless he had
no other reason for his elongated
method than the fact that he was con-
tent to follow in the furrows of his
fathers. Further on we watched the
woman of the farm change the pick-
ets of the cows in the clover, beauti-
ful, docile creatures, who circling from
the pegs, cropped the herbage as
neatly as 2 scythe and mowed the
field without trampling the pasture.
In this as in the matter of having no
fences, the French farmer shows an
economy and a wisdom beyond the
American and indicates the cause of
the wonderful prosperity which en-
ables them to build canals and sub-
scribe so heavily to the foreign flota-
tions and their own national debt.
On every side the farmers were
cutting and gathering the harvest.
Not a reaper was to be seen, only men
wielding cradles followed for the most
part by a single woman binding. A
solitary Norman horse, (the Norman
horses are famous,) sufficed to haul
the grain in a high two-wheeled cart
with a bed much similar to that of a
bark wagon in the United States.
Everything was on the petite principle
as indeed are the farms averaging not
more than 10 acres and yet the yield
is not petite, being 60 bushels per
acre for wheat and the variety and
amount of the products of these little
farms would amaze an American
farmer, used to the skimming process
of agriculture. We examined the
grains of oats and wheat and found
the kernels wonderfully plump and
fully one-third larger than our own.
Whatever the result of the year may
have been to other countries, France
appeared to be blessed with an abun-
dant harvest and the prospect of full
granaries.
“My lord rides through his palace gate
My lady sweeps along in state
The sage thinks long cn many a thing |
The maiden muses on marrying
The minstrel harpeth merrily
The sailor ploughs the foaming sea. i
The hunter kills the good red deer
The soldier wars withouten fear.
But fall what’er befall
The farmer he must feed them all”
Sn————p A —————— 1
| 1ars on treatment at s
—Subscribe for the Watchman,
Farmers to Get Electric Light and)
Power.
Harrisburg,—Farmers in Pennsyl-
vania now nave the best opportunity
ever made available to them for se-
curing electric light and power, ac-
cording to leading officials of farm
oragnizations and of the Pennsyl-
vania Electric Association, who base
their statement on Order 28 issued
by the Public Service Commission.
This Order specifies that electric
companies shall extend their city rates
to farmers and other consumers get:
ting service from rural extension
lines. It povides a plan whereby farm-
ers and the electric companies can co-
operate in constructing the electric
lines to the advantage and benefit of
both parties. It makes it possible for
farmers to get their electric current
through one meter for both light and
power.
The procedure for the farmer who
wants electric service is to confer
with or write to the electric company
which supplies electricity in or near-
est to his community, and make a
request for service extension. The
company will then send a man to can-
vass the entire situation and to make
a proposition to the farmer covering
the revenue which the farmer must
guarantee to the company before the
extension can be made. The Order
requires that the electric company
must pay the cost of the extension
with the understanding that the con-
sumers will pay a monthly minimum
charge which will be a fixed percent-
age of the cost of the line extensiot.
The consumers, however, have the op-
portunity to reduce the original cost
and the amount of the monthly pay-
ments which they must guarantee by
contributing labor or material or botii.
The larger the number of consumers
on an extension the lower this mini-
mum can be made, thus giving an in-
centive to get the whole community
lined up.
This new Order applies to all areas
in the State not yet being served. It
is the result of months of effort on
the part of committees of the State
Council of Agricultural Extension
and of the Pennsylvania Electric As-
sociation which represents the elec-
tric companies of the State. The ef-
fective application of the Order will
be facilitated by the continuance of
a committee representing both inter-
ests whose job it is to see that farm-
ers get electric service in accordance
with the order.
Authorities on electrification report
that in order to build line extension
to connect 80 per cent. of the farms in
the arable area in Pennsylavnia the
electric companies will have to spend
approximately eighty million dollars
and construct many hundreds of miles
of pole lines. They, therefore, call at-
tention to the fact that this electric
service cannot be extended to a ma-
jority of the farms all at once, but
rather extension of lines will start at
the source of power and continually
branch out into the more sparsely
settled area in the State.
It is estimated that at least ten
years will be required to bring to gomn-
pletion an electrification program of
such large proportions, and it will be
necessary to practice patience on the
part of prospective electric users who
are so unfortunately situated geo-
graphically as to be remote from the
source.
The Order become: effective April
1 and requires that all electric com-
panies in the State must file rates
with the Public Service Commission
on or before March 1.
Copies of Order 28 can be secured
by writing to the Public Service Com-
mission at Harrisburg.
BC
Matter to Tell Deer's
Age.
Not an Easy
It is impossible, says the United
States biological survey, to tell the
age of the deer tribe by the number
of points on the antlers. There is a
popular notion that every time a deer
sheds its horns—which is once a year
—the horn grows out with an extia
peint. In a general way this is true.
But the growth of the antlers is de-
pendent on a number of circumstances,
notably the general physical condition
of the animal and its virility. As a
rule the horns begin as single points
and increase in size and number of
points up to whatever may be the
maximum, but the increase in size in
several years may not be strictly pro-
gressive. As the animal becomes old
there is a tendency for the horns to
be smaller with fewer points. A point
is an individual tine or snag of the
antlers. A deer with one point on
each side is called a two-point deer;
one with two points on each side, a
four-point deer, and so on. The rein-
deer differs from all other deer in that
the females of this species also have
horns.
BR
Airplane Salvage.
One of the busiest and more im-
portant departments of the army air
service at McCook field, at Dayton,
Ohio, is the salvage department.
When an airplane becomes unsafe for
flying or is damaged in an accident to
an extent that makes it unsafe, it goes
to the salvage department. Every
part, every piece of material that
holds the slightest promise of future
service is taken from the ship, inspect-
ed and either used again or sold. The
discarded ship is stripped of every-
thing that is valuable and only a husk
remains. Those mechanical and other
parts that are believed to be of fur-
ther service undergo the same inspec-
tion as new parts, and if they pass,
are put back in stock. The miscel-
laneous metal scraps are sold as junk.
| Stings of 300 Bees Cure Rheumatic
Cripple.
Leicester, England—Almost crip-
: pled for many years by rheumatism,
ack Holt, of Leicester, has been cur-
ed by being stung w 300 bees.
After spending thousands of dol-
8, Holt decid-
ed to try the old-fashion “cure” of
| being stung on the hands by three-
hundred bees. The bees were held
against his skin in tweezers,
——
Treasures Placed on
Altar of Friendship
A Washington man who spent some
months in a rooming house in New
York brought home a small yarn to =
woman who tabbed them down:
“In the house where I put up I was
in a room that had just been vacated
by an old Englishman, who had lived
in it for years. His income was so
small that after settling for his rent
and laundry he had 20 cents a day for
food.
“Nobody guessed it, because he was
so dignified and proper proud. One
day he brought home another old gen-
tleman and they shared the 20 cents
between them until the adopted one
was taken ill. Illness calls for doctors,
so the old Englishman brought to the
room a man who came in a car, and
when he went away carried some
books for which he had paid $4,00¢
“When the excited landlady wanted
to know why, for goodness sake, he
hadn’t sold the books before, the old
gentleman told her that he would have
suffered any personal privation rather
than part with his handed-down treas-
ures, but with a sick friend it war
different. :
“And when you figure it out that his
friend was just a poor old fellow he
had picked off a park bench because
he had no better home, you can un-
derstand how proud I was te inherit
his room.”—Washington Star.
Rites Severe Strain
on Physical Strength
When Hindu pilgrims visit a sacred
place they go around the spot by r
continuous series of prostrations.
They carry a stone in their hands
and when they drop on the ground
they stretch their arms out as fur as
possible and leave the stone on the
ground so as to measure their length,
Then they arise, walk the six or
seven feet to the stone, and pick it up.
Again they prostrate themselves,
leave the stone, arise, and so on until
they have returned to the starting
point.
. Many of the circuits are more than
three miles in length, and it requires
an entire dav to make the whole trip.
Each mile usually requires one
thousand prostrations, and when a
devotee has dropped three thousand
times he is so nearly dead that he
rolls over in the dirt to the side of
the road and rests there until the next
day. :
Vapoleon Rude to Women
deeing that the emperor was in:
ctined to be talkative (1815, after the
return from Elba), I told him that in
general women did not like him be-
cause he did not bother to be agree-
able to them, although they influenced
the minds of men far more than he i
perhaps realized.
Napoleon laughed and sald: “Dc
,ou think the empire ought to fall into
the hands of the women? When I
compliment them on their appearance
or tell them they are not becomingly
gowned, what more can I say? I have
other things to think about. They
have changed beyond recognition since
I have been away. Now they all talk
politics, whereas before they talked
about clothes.”—From the Memoirs of
Queen Hortense, in Revue des Deux
Mondes, Paris (Translated for the
Kansas City Star).
Tame Monkeys Outcasts
After monkeys have lived with hu-
man beings for a time they are looked
upon as outcasts by their wilid rel-
atives.
cape and return to the forest, as they
sometimes do, and try to rejoin its
tribe, it is attacked by the others and
driven away or put to death.
In several occasions I have seer
wild monkeys chasing pets, and once
I witnessed an execution. It was a
terrible thing, for the monkeys are
savage fighters and utterly relentless
when excited and angry. I have
known them to wait patiently day aft-
er day near a village for an opportu-
nity to kill a captive relative.
Hatred, jealousy and suspicion are
48 highly developed in the monkey
family as in the human race.—Della
J. Akley in the Saturday Evening
Post.
He Is a Fighter
fhe American badger’s habitat va.
rles from pine forests or dry tropical
lowlands to the northern plains, wher-
ever there is to be found an abun-
dance of mice, gophers, ground squir-
rels, prairie dogs or other small mam-
mals. It is a powerful digging ma-
chine and can capture any of them
at will, says Nature Magazine. Al-
though a member of the weasel fam-
ily, the badger is not nearly so agile
as its relatives, so must make up by
strength and courage what it lacks in
quickness. It is short-legged and
squatty, so slow-footed that a man
may overtake it, but when brought te
bay it fights viciously.
Feared to Tell Mother
Mrs. W. E. K. as ¢ child lived in
a small western town during a ter-
rible epidemic of smallpox. She was
sitting on the curb im front of her
home, with the little boy mext door,
when along came the “pest wagon”
and stopped. Two men in long rub-
ber coats and hats jumped out. “I
wonder who they are after?’ she asked
the boy. “They have come for me,”
he said. She writes: “My young legs
carried me away from that place and
I hid under an old culvert for hours.
It was many weeks before my mother
found out what alled her child—ev-
ery time the doorbell rang." —Capper's
Weekly.
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: back bent,
Life’s End Sometimes
Welcomed as Friend
1 went in where he sat groaning
beside his fire on a warm spring day,
and I said, “What makes you do that
grandfather.”
“Do what?”
“Groan like that.”
“Groan?”’ he said. “When did I
groan?”
“Just now. For that matter, you
do it dozens of times a day.”
“No!” he said, and he seemed sur-
prised. “Do I? I think you must be
mistaken.” Then he looked dreamily
at his fire for a moment, seeming to
forget both me and my question. “Ob
ho, ho, ho, ha, hum!” he said.
“There! You did it just then,
grandfather. Didn’t you know it?”
“I believe 1 did groan then,” he said.
“Perhaps you're right. Yes, 1 suppose
you must be,”
“Don’t you feel well?”
“Well? Yes, I'm not iIL”
“Then why do you groan so often?”
“It must be,” he answered thought-
fully, “it must be because I'm not
dead.” ‘
That startled me, “Good gracious!”
I cried. *“You don’t want to die, dr
you?”
I might as well have been shocked
by a starving man’s wanting food.
My grandfather was a gentle man-
nered soul; but I think he may have
been tempted to call me an idiot.
“Don’t I. though?’ he said testily.
“What do you imagine 1 want to stay
like this for? Eyes almost useless,
teeth gone, hearing bad. legs bad,
fingers too warped and
shaky to serve me—and all of me
; useless to any one, to myself most of
all. ‘Don’t want to die!” What on
earth do you mean?’—From “The
Golden Age” by Booth Tarkington.
Beautiful Bird, but
Has Bad Reputation
Mexico has contributed a number
Jf striking species of birds to the
lower Rio Grande valley of Texas, but
none more handsome, more mischiev-
ous or more provocative of interest
than the large green, yellow, blue and
black member of the crow-jay family,
says Nature Magazine. He is nearly
a foot in length, his upper parts are a
lovely blue-green; the crown of the
head and hind-neck, a deep, rich blue.
The forehead is almost white and the
chin, throat, chest and eye region.
black. The shoulders, rump and upper
tail are yellowish green, the four
middle tall feathers being a darker,
brighter green. while the outer ones
are yellow.
“le is an inveterate robber of the
aests of wild birds as well as thos?
of domestic fowls,
Blackened Character
The city of Pueblo, Colo., Is, on ac-
! count of its smelting and refining
|
And should one of them es-
works, one of the smokiest cities in
the world. One winter a traveler
stepped from a train at Denver, and
walking up to a policeman, asked him
the way to a certain hotel. The offi-
cer cast a scornful eye on the man,
who was covered with soot and grime,
so that he looked like a chimney
sweep, and laconically inquired of the
stranger if he were a coal miner.
“No,” said the dirty one, “I am not
a coal miner nor a charcoal burner,
Neither am I in the coal business.
More than that, I am not a negro
minstrel.”
“What are you?” asked the police
nan, :
“Lean down,” sald the man, *“and 1
will whisper to you. IT am a million:
aire in sore distress. I have been
through a snowstorm in Pueblo.”
Land of Lottery
wottery tickets are sold in Madrid
Just the same as newspapers are sold
on the streets in the United States.
One Is never out of range of the lot-
tery ticket seller, Everybody indulges
in this dissipation, and there is ample
opportunity for there is a state lottery
distribution every two weeks. There
are official agencies, but these seem
to be patronized only by those who
buy the tickets to sell again. Ordi-
parily purchases are made of the per-
sons along the street who call their
wares just as the huckster and news-
boys do, and as the day for the draw-
‘ng approaches they grow more and
more excited, each one claiming that
he is about to sell the lucky ticket.
Hunchbacks are the best salesmen,
for there is a superstition that these
persons bring or give luck.—Chicago
Journal.
Harbors Lacking in Chile
Chile is a land without harbors.
Steamers stop in the open sea and
poats come alongside. The water is
2lled with sea lions, and the rowers
often have to push them away with
their oars.
Antofagasta Is a busy town, built
apon rock and sand. In order to make
a public garden the people had to im-
port earth from other countries, but
the small flowering park is a tribute to
the people’s tenacity.
The chief medns of transportation
still is the cart to which are hitched
horses or oxen.
Vantage Points
A certain motorist, very indignant,
indeed, drew np beside a young man
on a country road. “See here!” he
shouted to the young fellow, “why
do you have these humps every here
and there on this road?”
“Why,” said the young fellow, with
a simulated air of surprise, “didn’t you
notice? They were put there so as
to give a fellow’s car a start to jump
the puddles!”
nt wt,
Mardi Gras Enters Its Second Cen-
tury.
New Orleans, La.—The famous
Mardi Gras carnival at New Orleans,
which this year enters its second cen-
tury, is one of the world’s greatest
festivals. It was first celebrated in
1827, and since then it has grown in
magnitude, beatuy and gayety. Mardi
Gras this year is March 1.
. The Mardi Gras carnival at first was
just a procession of maskers. In 1837
a tableau was given for the first time.
In 1839 there was a pageant, which
had as its dominant figure an im-
mense rooster six feet high, whose
stentorian cries and flapping wings
caused boisterous merriment among
the witnessing throngs.
Eighteen years later, in 1857, the
oldest of New Orleans’ interesting
family Krewes, the mystic Krewe of
Comus, came into being. Its parade
is the last of the Mardi Gras pageants.
The Rex Society, whose king and
queen are the rulers of the carnival,
was organized in 1872. The Rex par-
ade is one of the big events of Mardi
Gras day. The Krewe of Momus was
also formed in 1872. Its parade and
ball on the last Thursday before Lent
mark the opening of the grand cli-
max of the Mardi Gras season. The
Krewe of Proteus, founded in 1882,
had its parade on the Monday night
before Mardi Gras. These are the
major organizations, but minor or-
ganizations by the hundred contribute
their share to the city’s gayety.
Plans for this year’s pageant were
begun almost as soon as the sounds of
last year’s revelry had faded. Within
thirty days after the close of the 1926
Mardi Gras, artists were at work de-
singing floats and costumes for the
pageantry of 1927.
The Mardi Gras season this year
was formally opened Jan. 6th by the
Twelfth Night Revelers. From then
on the revels wax in number and in
gayety day by day. Lavish, sumptu-
ous balls follow each other closer and
closer, until the social life of New
Orleans becomes one continuous whirl.
The climax begins with the parade
and ball of Momus, which took place
this year on February 24. Today came
the ball of the Mystic Club. Monday
afternoon, February 28, Rex enters
his realm in state, attended by sol-
diers, sailors and the lords and dukes
of his household, and is given the keys
of the city. That night the magnifi-
cient parade and ball of Proteus take
place.
The next day is Mardi Gras (Fat
Tuesday in English). From the first
flush of dawn the carnival spirit rules
the city, and people throng the streets,
dancing, singing, laughing.
Early in the afternoon comes the
glittering parade of Rex, followed at
night by the Rex ball, which is open
to all, and by the parade and ball of
| Comus. The revelry continues until
midnight, when the bell in the old
‘ cathedral tolls the knell of the carni-
i val, and the solemnity of Lent de-
i ecends upon the city.
' Bobbed Hair Seems Doomed, Belief of
University Girls.
Boston.—This year may see‘ the
I swing back to long hair. Indications
in that directions are seen through-
out New England colleges where once
bebbed hair girls are turning to the
braid and the hairpin. Reports from
Simmins, Radcliffe, Wellesley and
Smith, strengholds of feminine inde-
pendence, show that the bob is on the
wane and that the “sophisticated coif-
fure” may supplant it.
Numerous reasons are given for the
change but the most prominent one is
that “we ave sick of seeing ears, ears,
and bristly necks.” Many complain
of too many trips to the barber shop;
others “don’t want to look like every
girl we meet;” some say that long hair
“has more individuality, while one in-
tends to let her hair grow because the
. “boy friend” likes it so.
t The consensus among these college
| girls seems to be that they consider
| bobbed hair not as good as they first
, thought. Many were of the opinion
i that the day of mannish fashions for
women had passed, and having had
| their fling of freedom, are willing to
‘revert to former standards.
Various modes of fixing the hair in
the “in between” period are now bpe-
ing employed. This period has pro-
duced almost a new sort of coiffure in
jitself. The “awkward” stage has re-
i vealed the real ingenuity of the col-
lege girl to meet the change in hair
styles, and in this case she has
come through successfully.
Though many admit that the very
thought of letting the hair grow pre-
sents a trying problem, they are will-
ing to pass through the ordeal to re-
gain their crowning glory. -
To Amend Marriage Laws.
The legislative fever for the corrce-
tion of State marriage laws appears to
have infected Maryland, and it is
about time. A dispatch from Annap-
olis reports that Henry L. Conway,
representing the Fifth Legislative dis-
trict, has introduced in the House a
bill providing that no marriage license
shall be issued until 48 hours have
elapsed from the time of making ap-
plication. If this bill becomes a law—
and this, of course, is by no means as-
sured—it will mean the complete elim-
ination of that Gretna Green which
has become a nuisance. Philadelphia,
for several years past, has been sup-
plying most of the foolish young cou-
ples whose fees have built up such a
profitable buisness for certain Mary-
land marrying parsons. Philadelphia,
therefore, has a much keener interest
in this than in any other legislative
measure recently introduced in the
Maryland Legislature.
Old German Bible Dates Back to 1580.
What is believed to be the oldest
Bible in the State of Pennsylvania
was located in Lancaster and is the
property of Jacob Shank, 513 South
Lime street. The Bible is printed in
German and is dated 1580.
The Bible is a very large book and
printed in large German type. The
date of the book is still plainly print-
ed on the outside of the cover. —The
Lititz Record.
&