THE MEYERSDALE COMMERCIAL Harbor of Odessa. DESSA, the Russian seaport, captured by the Germans not long ago, has been widely known as an important center of shipping and commerce, but its interest does not lie so much in its great docked harbor, its fine churches and public bulldings, its factories or its size—it had half a million people at the beginning of the war—as in the fact that a century and a quarter ago there was none of these in exist- ence. New York, Boston, Baltimore and Philadelphia are cities almost ancient in comparison with Odessa. Odessa is a sort of Chicazo or Kansas City of Europe—a “new town,” in the lan- guage of the West. Just as there were Indian trading posts where Chicago and Kansas City had their beginnings, so there was a wretched little Turkish village on the future site of Odessa in the time of Catherine the Great of Russia. Russia saw the possibilities of a port on the Black sea and reached out and took it, with little or no pro- test, for Hdjl Bey, as the Turkish vil- lage was called, was not worth quarrel- ing about. Catherine founded Odessa by rescript in 1794 and the “booming” of the new city began. Grain Built the City. The Russian “pioneers” built their town on the plateau which forms a ter- race from 100 to 150 feet above the water front. Today a great staircase, which is one of the wonders of Odessa, leads up in broken flights from the harbor to the city proper. Located at the northwest angle of the Black sea, midway between the estuaries of the great Dnieper and Dniester rivers, Odessa was the natural commercial outlet for the vast stretches of grain- producing valleys beyond and its growth was like that of the Western trade centers in America. The Eng- lish ships found their way there to load their holds with grain, and exporting, as the years went by, grew steadily ’ in volume for a number of years. The Crimean war interrupted Eng- lish trade with Russia, but when the conflict was over the British traders returned to Odessa. It was at this pe- riod that they were forced to divide the trade with Germany, for German shippers had seized the opportunity to gain a foothold in the port. The war offers just now an edd par- allel of that war of trade waged 60 years ago. It may be of significance to recall that the ultimate result of the Anglo-German contest for Russia's Odessa trade was that the Jews gain- ed absolute control of the exporting business of the city. Bloody Revolution in 1905. In 1905 Odessa was the scene of a violent revolution. The Russian navy mutinied and trained the big guns of the warship in the harbor on the city. The disorders were quelled by the czar's military forces, but not before there was bloodshed and suffering which centered the world's attention on the city. Odessa before the war was proud of its beautiful parks and boulevards. The refuge of many French nobles in the time of the French revolution, the streets are evidence of the fact, for they bear names reminiscent of roy- alty of France. The main thorough- fare, however, is the Street of the Transfiguration, which begins at the magnificent cathedral and ends at the gate of the consecrated ground of the ‘Orthodox Greek cemetery. The popularion is largely Tartar, on which has been grafted Slav, Teuton, Norse, Finnish and Lettish stock, but at the beginning of the war it was said to be still Tartar in the main. Cat- acombs extending under the rich city and its beautiful suburbs through va- rious periods of Odessa’s career have times the underground inhabitants have numbered as many as 35,000. Scene on One of CAMPING PLACE OF NATION That Seems to Be the Manifest Des- tiny of the Sequoia National Park. Analysis shows that the very large increase in visitors to the Sequoia National park last summer amount- ing to nearly 60 per cent over the rec- ord attendance of the summer before, a fact which strongly emphasizes what has been called the “manifest destiny of the Greater Sequoia as the future summer camping place of the nation. The report of the director of the national park service says: “It was a most pleasing sight to stand in the midst of the Giant For- est during the summer and gaze upon the attractively situated and taste- fully decorated camps nestled each at the base of an enormous sequoia. It was a peaceful scene and a bheauti- ful one. There was nothing to do in the forest but rest, breathe the health- the Odessa Quays. INS NISSAN SSNS “The enormous increase in travel to the park early in the summer dis- closed the fact that it would only be a matter of a year or two before all available camping space would be taken long before the height of the season; also that the streams of the park, unless carefully stocked each year, would be fished out before the summer would be half gone. Antic- pating the" inevitable need of more camping grounds, the Giant Forest boad has been continued from Wol- verton to the Marble Fork river, where a splendid opportunity for the development of a fine big camp area exists. There are no sequoia trees here, but there is a fine forest of pines and firs, and the ground is cov- ered with a clean white gravel that will make camping especially satis- factory. This new camp area will be near the best fishing waters that are at all times accessible, and an effort will be made to keep these waters well stocked with trout.” housed the miserably poor, and at’ restoring air, drink the clear, cold The Enthusiast. water, and contemplate the dignity| ‘There is the man whose eye inevit- and beauty of the biggest and oldest | ably exaggerates, whose ear inevitably living things. Fishermen came and { hears what is not, whose imagination went, and the hikers and horseback | inevitably helps out his five senses. He riders took the trails and returned |js the hero worshiper, the enthusiast, from the higher altitudes of the park, | the romantic. He is the sort of fellow but the peacefulness and quietude of | who, if he were a bacteriologist, would the forest was never disturbed. | report the bacillus typhosus to be as Camping in the Giant Forest is all | large as a horse, as lovely as a gatelle that anybody has written about it and | and intelligent as Aristotle—H. L. more. It is a glorious experience. | Mencken in the New York Mail. Would Eliminate Non-Essentiah in Endeavor toWinWar From Germany By W. R. STUBBS, Former Governor of Kansas How to win the war is the one overshadowing question in America today. It is a question of whether the sword shall govern the earth or that there shall be governments of free opportunities. We must have food, and the farmers must produce it. We must have transportation. We must build more ships and more railway engines and cars. Take the men engaged in industries not essential to the war and put them into necessary war industries. Hundreds of thousands of persons are building autos for pleasure riding. These men should be put to work at the building of ships, engines and airplanes. We should make the skies over the German trenches black with our planes. We should not give the men of the German army time to slecep—keep them dodging bombs. This is no dream. We should have men, material and power. Standard Dress Idea Received With Disfavor By Women of England By F. J. HOWARD, London; England Now we have the staggering proposal that the harassed British gov- ernment should enforce a standard dress for women. The greatly daring author of the idea proposes, in short, that the dear sex, whose sartorial eccentricities make men’s hearts heavy and their pockets light, should be uniformed. 3 Imagination reels at the thought! Can you conjure up a world in which all women are dressed alike? It would be a world robbed of much of its glamor for men—a ‘drab, colorless world, in which a man would find it difficult on occasion to distinguish his aunt from his mother- in-law. . This very courageous patriot suggests that the government should issue details of three standard patterns of costumes, or “uniforms,” and allow only a limited number of colored fabrics to be manufactured. He is apparently unaware that owing to difficulties in regard to dyes there is only a limited number of colored fabrics already. A stately and beautiful lady in a large dressmaking establishment told me so, and at the same time volunteered the opinion that any serious interference with women in the matter of dress would lead to trouble com- pared with which the suffragist shindies of a few years ago would seem like harmless effervescences. What the lady said was something like that, but of course she may have been exaggerating. All the same, I am convinced that in a matter of this kind we should look before we standardize. All the women I interviewed on the subject—and I interviewed a good many—declared that women would not stand any standardizing of their dress. They were willing to help in any other way to administer to order—No! If the government dared, they said, to dictate to women what they should wear—well, something unpleasant would happen ! || Excellent Reasons Why We Must Feed Our Soldiers and Our Allies By CHARLES F. JONES Another great battle we at home have to fight is to avoid wasting the food and the supplies that our men and our allies at the front must have to win the war. : : Many men and women will gladly fight or give to win the war, but will not deny their own stomachs. Many a man thinks or claims that he thinks, that France ought to supply all her fighters and ours with food. Heretofore, they say, armies lived off the country in which they fought. What may be true of the past is not true of today’s war. How much food could we raise or would we raise, if a victorious German army was twenty miles away, pressing hard upon us to come here where we are today? And if the French sent an army over to help us hold back the enemy, how could we feed them, if we could not feed ourselves? What use would the French army be unless they brought their supplies with them ? Remember that the French are fighting with their back to the ocean. Thus the supplies that they get must come from over the ocean. Then there are others who will say, if we have to feed the fighters in France, why not feed them on corn and the foods that are plentiful, and let us at home have the flour and the sugar. Pork is the heat giver, sugar the stimulant, and both are necessary to the life and health of the soldier. Deaths From Rattlesnake Bites Are Very Rare in United States By ALFRED WESTFALL Colorado Agricultural College, Fort Collins Of the poisonous snakes inhabiting the United States, the rattle- snake is perhaps the deadliest and undoubtedly the best known. There are a number of varieties of this reptile. Although rattlesnakes are found in all sections of the country, the majority of them are in the arid and semiarid regions of the Southwest. The most common kind in Colorado is the prairie rattlesnake. Practically all people enjoying the outdoors are more or less afraid of getting bitten by a rattlesnake. And yet considering the number of from snake bite is extremely rare. There is no comparison between losses in this country and those in India, where official figures report 22,000 deaths annually. This difference is no doubt largely due to the fact that | here a large portion of the population does not evince a general inclina- | tion to go bare-legged through stretches of serpent-infested territory. | Adults bitten by the smaller varieties of snakes have frequently recovered without medical assistance. In recent years the majority of recorded fatalities from rattlesnake bite have resulted from careless handling of ! captive specmens, the final knockout blow to the Boehe, but restricted fashions and dressing | these reptiles, the number of casualties is very small. In fact, death. (Special Information Service, United States Department of Agriculture.) RHUBARB—MAKE THE MOST OF IT Rhubarb Fresh From the Garden. Ready for Use in Any One of Half a Dozen Attractive Ways. RHUBARB 1S ONE OF BEST PLANTS Advance Guard of Many Good Things in Way of Fresh Fruits and Vegetables. ~ YOUNG LEAVES ARE TENDER Expert of Department of Agriculture Relates Her Experience in Making Delicious Dishes—Some Recipes Are Given, I always hail with delight the first tender stalks of rhubarb that grow in my garden. They are the advance guard of so many good things in the way of fresh fruits and vegetables that the spring and summer bring to us. Even the back yard or city garden can have its clump of rhubarb. ‘I find it one of the most useful plants in my garden. By cutting out the bloom stalk before it matures and pulling the stalks often I have good rhubarb all summer. If neglected too long the leaf stalks become woody, but the young leaves in the center of the crown will be tender and usable all summer. The leaf area should not be reduced too much by harvesting, as it will weaken the root and reduce the harvest the following year. Even when fruits come I do not forget the rhubarb, and in pre- serving time it repays me for my care by saving me money. Making Preserves. Strawberries and raspberries are usually expensive to buy by the crate for preserving, but I make preserves, using from one-third to one-half by weight of rhubarb. Both raspberries and strawberries have a decided flavor, 80 that the rhubarb is not noticeable. I allow the rhubarb to cook down until fairly concentrated before adding the berries. The result is a delicious jam or preserve, From time to time I cut the rhu- barb and, if it is not wanted for im- mediate use, put up a few cans for winter. I have kept some very suc- cessfully by cutting into half-inch pieces, packing in jars and filling to overflowing with cold water, then seal- ing the jars as usual. Later in the summer I make a few jars of rhubarb conserve, cooking the rhubarb with sugar until concentrated, then adding nuts and raisins. When rhubarb made its appearance this spring I resolved to find a way to use it without using more than my share of sugar. I have found that by using corn sirup I can make rhubarb sauce successfully. Rhubarb Sauce. Wash the rhubarb and cut in half- inch pieces. Put three cupfuls of the cut rhubarb in a saucepan with two tablespoonfuls of water and cook for five minutes. Add one and one-half cupfuls of corn sirup and cook to- gether until the rhubarb is tender. If you desire a sweeter sauce, a tablespoonful or so of sugar will help. One of my favorite desserts is rhu- barb tapioca. Rhubarb Tapioca. Soak a half cupful of pearl tapioca in two cupfuls of water until soft. Put in double boiler and cook until clear, adding more water if necessary. Add a half teaspoonful of salt and stir in two cupfuls of rhubarb sauce. When cool add a teaspoonful of vanilla. Chill and serve with cream. Another favorite of mine is rbuabarb scallop. I save all left-over muffins or biscuits made from the wheat substi- tutes and grind them into crumbs. These I use as a basis for scalloped dishes. Rhubarb Scallop. Wash tender rhubarb stalks and cut into pieces about an inch long. For each cupful of crumbs use a cupful and a half of the cut rhubarb. If the crumbs are very dry, moisten slightly with water. Butter a baking dish and put a layer of crumbs sprinkled with c¢hmnamon or nutmeg, then a layer of rhubarb and three or four tablespoon- fuls of corn sirup. Dot with butter. Repeat until dish is full, covering the top with buttered crumbs. Bake for 20 minutes and brown on top. This may be served hot with or without sauce. RHUBARB—HOW TO USE IT One of the food specialists em- ployed by the United States de- partment of agriculture is an en- thusiast on rhubarb. Not only does she demonstrate it in the departmental kitchens and else- where, not only does she com- mend its good qualities to wom- en everywhere, but she grows it in her own garden and pre- pares it in her own kitchen for use by her own family. Read her statement of some of the excellent uses she finds for it. 000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000 Breadless Meals Save Wh=at. How are you saving wheat? One way is to serve breadless meals now and then. Have you ever tried them? Breadless meals need planning ahead. You can’t take just any menu and take the bread out and expect the family to like it. Bread has several functions in the meal, and fully de- serves the high opinion which we have of it. It is one of our best foods for fuel, furnishing carbohydrate in the form of starch and also body-building protein and mineral substances. But if the meal contains enough other food to furnish the starch and the protein needed why not save the bread? Try planning your meals so” that these wheat-saving dishes take the place of the bread. Potatoes, sweet potatoes or dasheens—mashed, baked, boiled or riced—rice, oven-fried corn- meal mush, hominy grits, large hom- iny, baked beans, lima beans, split peas—all are good served as vege- tables, with meat and gravy. It is not necessary to serve more than one of these starchy foods at a meal, but serving two of them, for instance. well-browned, crusty croquettes or fried mush (and these can be cooked in the oven instead of in the fat ket- tle) in addition to potatoes or sweet potatoes, makes the meal more tasty for many of us and is dn easy way of securing variety. Aside from the question of economy and convenience the important thing in such a case is not the number of cereal foods served. but the character of the meal as a whole, which must be truly varied and not made up almost entirely of any single type of food. We must have other kinds of food in our diet in abundance as well as starchy foods. Therefore, in planning your bread- less meals make sure that you serve an abundance of fresh vegetables, such as green cabbage, kale, turnip tops, onions, onion tops, dandelions and other greens, asparagus, green peas, tomatoes, spinach, carrots and 80 on, choosing those which are in sea- son and abundant in your garden or your market. With a varied meal planned in the usual way, except that the servings of the starchy foods and the vegetables are larger than usual to make up for the bread, you can have a breakfast, dinner or supper which may be pleasing to the taste and which will meet the body needs. There are other food combinations and dishes which you can take advan- tage of in planning the meals with bread. For instance, you may prefer to replace part of your usual allow- ance of bread with a wheat-saving dessert. These desserts furnish much the same food materials as bread, but in a different form: Rice pudding, hominy pudding, Indian pudding, tapi- oca cream or fruit tapioca, cornstarch pudding, baked bananas (use bananas which are underripe, because they are richer in starch than the ripe ones), or gingerbread made from the wheat substitutes, thairan $2.50. for sp ABSO duces Si trated— $1.25 pe W.F.Y W. N < | 14 more I g come upon 60 Mm anno;
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers