Newspaper Page Text
THE ATLANTIAN
17
TAXING THE NECESSITIES.
Boston Herald.
True, coffee and tea, cocoa, and can
dy are not necessities of life. They
are luxuries. But they are distinctive
ly the luxuries of the common people.
However, the table tax is not the only
part of the tariff bill which has a
direct interest for the average man or
woman. Stockings, it will be general
ly conceded, are necessities of modern
civilization. Whittier’s barefoot boy
is not a type of young America.
American civilization has not accepted
the example of Sockless Jerry Simp
son. Stockings it must have. Under
the Dingley bill there has been an
average tax on imported hosiery of
58.88 per cent. The Payne bill in
creases this tax by from 40 to 42 per
cent on the cheaper grades, and 25
per cent on the medium grades. On
stockings costing $1 a dozen abroad,
every American family must contrib
ute seventy cents toward making up
the national deficit. A Chicago deal
er has figured it out that under the
Payne bill 50-cent stockings would
be advanced to eighty-five cents; 10-
cent stockings would sell at seventeen
and eighteen cents, and 25-cent stock
ings would sell at forty cents. Do you
wear stockings? If you do, figure
out your interest in the Payne bill.
Some one has figured it that the aver
age schoolboy wears out eighteen to
twenty-two pairs of stockings a year;
that the average girl requires fifteen
pairs, and the average woman uses
twelve pairs of every day stockings
every twelve months. The imports of
women’s hosiery, according to the
Ways and Means Committee, are 5,-
101,589 dozen' pairs, or two pairs for
each woman and girl in the country.
The average grade of imported stock
ings is of the value of eleven cents a
pair, on which grade the greatest in
crease in duty is imposed. The rela
tion of the tariff to the individual is
thus stated as a simple arithmetical
problem.
SHE HAD A VOCABULARY,
TOO.
At a London dinner recently, says
Everybody’s, the conversation turned
to the various methods of working
employed by literary geniuses. Among
the examples cited was that of a well-
known poet, who, it was said, was
wont to arouse his wife about 4 o’clock
in the morning and exclaim, "Maria,
get up; I’ve thought of a good word!”
Whereupon the poet’s obedient help
mate would crawl out of bed and make
a note of the thought-of word.
About an hour later, like as not, a
new inspiration would seize the bard,
whereupon he would again arouse his
wife, saying, "Maria, Maria, get up!
I’ve thought of a better word!”
The company in general listened to
the story with admiration, but a mer
ry-eyed American girl remarked:
“Well, if he’d been my husband I
should have replied, ‘Alpheus, get up
yourself; I’ve thought of a bad word!”
BRIGHT BITS.
“Sometimes,” said Uncle Eben, “de
man dat insists on bein’ de whole
show ain’ got much respeck foh de
feelin’s of de audience.”—Washing
ton Star.
“Are you a skilled chauffeur?” “I
should say I am. If I run over any
body I can always get away before
they get my number.”—Detroit Free
Press.
"What was that musty old explorer
talking about?” inquired the languid
lady. “Progressive Patagonia.” “And
how do you play it?”—Louisville Cour
ier-Journal.
"Do you believe in love at first
sight!” “Of course I do. What do
you suppose would happen about peo
ple’s getting married if there was any
second-sight business about it?”—
Baltimore American.
“Use the side door!” roared the
guard in the New York subway train.
“All right, young feller,” replied the
stranger from west of Hoboken. “I
kin use it all right—I’m from a ‘dry’
town.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer.
The era of universal peace had
dawned.
“How delightful!” explained the suf
fragettes. “There will be no opposi
tion now to our demands for the bal
lot!”
Instantly universal war broke loose
again—Chicago Tribune.
They were looking at the paintings
in the art gallery.
"Alfred,” said the young bride, “do
you think angels really have wings?”
“No, Elfleda,” answered the young
husband. “The sweetest angel I know
of isn’t disfigured with a pair of wings,
I am happy to say.”
In ecstatic silence they continued to
look at the paintings.—Chicago Trib
une.
“$1,000 OR YOUR LEG.”
From the New York World.
St. Louis, March 28.—“Leave $1,000
at the northwest corner of Twelfth
and Plum streets Saturday night be
tween 8 and 9 o’clock. If you fail to
do this you will lose a leg before Sun
day night.”
Such was the letter received by Ed
ward Tucker, No. 3113 North Twelfth
street. It was written in red ink; its
signature was a black hand with the
word "society” written under it.
“Ha-ha, I will foil these villians,”
said Tucker. He placed the package
at the designated place last night; |
then, still wearing his new mechanical
leg, which cost $100 and deceives the
most observant, he walked home.
Tucker returned to the corner to- !
night.
The package which contained his
old wooden leg was gone, but it was
not worth half a thousand.
“I am having a hard time teaching
my new dog to do tricks. I spent over
an hour trying to make him jump
through a hoop, and I couldn’t.”
“Well, you’ve got to know more
than the dog.”
STORAGE
If you anticipate Storing
your household goods, we
invite you to inspect our
warehouses before doing so.
They are built for the pur
pose, are neat and kept clean,
have neither rats, mice nor
insects.
We store only household
goods.
John J. Woodside Storage Company
Office 12 Auburn Ave.
THE GEORGE BELL CASE.
From the Richmond News Leader.
People who interfere in matters of
which they are ignorant, especially
such matters as require special know-
| ledge and study, almost invariably
do more harm than good. In Geor-
; gia an emotional and well-meaning,
but hysterical woman, aided by sev
eral yellow and shrieking newspapers,
succeeded in securing the release
from a lunatic asylum of one Geo. Bell,
formerly a member of the State Leg
islature. The doctors said Bell was
! crazy, but the women and the news
papers insisted that he was the vic
tim of persecution and medical blun
ders. So Bell got out. And soon after
he vindicated the doctors and worked
a grim joke on the rescue party by
going aboard a passenger train at
Macon and there cutting his own
throat. He is dead. If he had been
left in the asylum, where he belonged,
probably he would be living and pos
sibly there would be a chance for
him to recover his mind.
TELLS OF M’KINLEY’S
PRAYER.
From the Baltimore Sun.
Prompt answer to a prayer by Pres
ident McKinley for advice resulted in
the order that sent Dewey on his vic
torious invasion of Manila harbor, said
Bishop Henry White Warren of Den
ver, in reciting an anecdote when he
preached in the Metropolitan Temple
last night.
“I was one of several bishops to
whom President McKinley told of the
way he reached his decision as to what
to do with regard to the Philippines at
the outset of the Spanish War,” said
the Bishop.
" ‘I wondered what we could do with
the Philippines, where the people
were so different, speaking seventy
different languages,’ said President
McKinley, ‘and in my dilemma I threw
myself on my knees at that chair and
prayed to the God of the Nations to
tell me what to do. And I rose and ■
told Dewey to take possession.’ ”
It is a matter for pride that Florida
produced more than 17,000,000 of the
36,500,000 gallons of turpentine which
was the output for 1908 of that branch
of the naval stores industry for the
entire country, and nearly 2,000,000 of
the grand total of 4,000,000 barrels of
rosin. It is not only a cause for con
gratulation that Florida leads all the
states in the production of naval
stores, Georgia coming next, with
more than 10,000,000 gallons of tur
pentine and 1,000,000 barrels of rosin,
but there is also the comforting cir
cumstance that new methods of tur
pentining promise to double the life of
the trees that are tapped and dimin
ish the danger from fires. This will
tend to prolong Florida’s supremacy
in this line.