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Items of Interest Gathered Here and There
rr( lhe White Man's ‘Burden.”
After forty-five years of service marked by un
wavering- fidelity, Sir Robert Hart, the inspector
general of the imperial Chinese maritime customs,
has sailed for Europe on a year’s leave of absence.
If at the end of the year he does not return to
China, his successor will be appointed. In any
case, owing to a reconstruction of the customs
service, Sir Robert Hart’s official career is regarded
as virtually ended.
The work he has done is remarkable. Under him,
for the first time, a Chinese government depart
ment became not only efficient but absolutely free
from corruption. During his term of office the
imports rose from twenty million pounds to sixty
seven million pounds.
The career of Sir Robert Hart is only one item
in the great debt which the East owes to the West,
and especially to England. One could not estimate
in dollars and cents the value of the work in Egypt
of Lord Cromer, or of Sir Andrew Clarke and Sir
Frank Swittenham in the Straits Settlements and
the Malay Peninsula, or the long line of governors
general of India, from Clive and Warren Hastings
down to Lord Curzon.
Almost always their work lias been carried on
against native opposition and intrigue, in the face
of active enmity or surrounded by cold hostility;
and if is always thankless. When Sir Robert Hart
sailed from Peking, the largest international gather
ing ever seen there was assembled to bid him fare
well; but among the crowd there was hardly a
representative of the nation which he had served
so long.
Something of this great work and this fine spirit
of service marks the career of Mr. Taft, the real
creator of government in the Philippines, and that
work has been hampered not only by the native
opposition, which was to be expected, but by dis
trust and aspersion at home.
Clearing the ground for the establishment of
civilized government is work that involves suffer
ing, frequently if not always works some injus
tices, and is sometimes accompanied by cruelty;
but the Anglo-Saxon race may well be proud of its
constructive work throughout the world. Wher
ever it has gone, democracy, too, has marched'; and
a greater degree of freedom for the common people
has resulted. —The Youth’s Companion.
m, at
Our Tlag.
Boys generally know that June 1 4th is flag day
throughout the United States. Few are aware that
the custom of observing this day originated in Penn
sylvania, and that it was through the efforts of the
Sons of the Revolution that it came to be generally
observed.
It is curious to note that the youngest nation has
the oldest flag. Our flag is older than the present
flag of Great Britain, is nine years older than the
flag of Spain, and antedates the present flags of
Portugal, Italy, China, and Japan. Even the flag
of Germany was changed as late as 1870. Before
the Declaration of Independence various flags were
carried by the colonists, the most conspicuous of
these being the Pine Tree Flag, which showed a
green pine tree on a white field and bore the motto,
“An Appeal To Heaven.” Another colonial flag
was the rattlesnake flag with the words, “Don’t
Tread On Me.” The origin of this flag has been
attributed to a humorous suggestion made by a
writer in Franklin’s paper, The Pennsylvania
Gazette, that in return for the wrongs which the
colonists had endured a cargo of rattlesnakes be
sent to the mother country for distribution in
places of pleasure. Another flag of the time, in
which Pennsylvania was interested, was one made
of crimson silk embroidered by the Moravian Sis
ters of Bethlehem, who gave it to Count' Pulaski,
at that time a visitor with Lafayette, whose head
quarters were in Bethlehem.
The history of our present flag from its inception
The Golden Age for June 18, 1908.
has been a source of much argument and diversity
of opinion. The stars and stripes are said to have
originated from the shield or coat of arms of Wash
ington. The Washingtons were a Northampton
shire family, and in the early part of the seven
teenth century various members of the family lived
in the village of Little Brighton, six miles from
Northampton. There are tombstones in the parish
church bearing the names of Lawrence and Rob
ert Washington who died in 1616. On the tombs
is the shield of the family and the blazon shows
the stars, and stripes. The great grandfather of
our first president came to this country in 1657
and it is said on good authority that the American
flag obtained its design from the red and white
stripes and stars on the shield of Washington and
the eagle “issuant” from his crest.
Another theory is that the blue quarter was taken
from the blue banner of the Scotch Covenanters,
and was therefore significant of the solemn league
and covenant of the united colonies against oppres
sion, while the stripes were a blending of tlie red
colors used in the army with the white used in the
navy. Still another theory is that after Washing
ton was appointed Commander in Chief of the army
a committee was chosen to create a colonial flag
that would be national in its character. They
decided on one with thirteen bars, alternate red and
white, the King’s colors with the white cross of St.
Andrew and the red cross of St. George. This
was unfurled by Washington under the Charter
Oak. In spite of this, however, the variety of flags
used on land and sea was embarrassing; so in May,
1776, Washington, Col. George Ross, and Hon.
Robert Morris called on Mrs. Betsy Ross, a widow
who lived in Arch street, Philadelphia, in a house
which is today unchanged save for a window in
the front, where Washington unfolded before her
a rough sketch which he had brought with him.
She suggested a few modifications, and Washington
redrew it, so as to show a flag with thirteen stripes,
and a blue field dotted with thirteen stars. It was
Mrs. Ross’s suggestion that the stars be five-point
ed. When the flag was finished Congress approved
of it and Mr. Ross was ordered to use all the bunt
ing in Philadelphia to make flags for the use of
Congress. Soon thereafter Betsy Ross was busy
with an order from the treasury for flags for the
fleets.
On land or sea our flag thrills the heart of an
American with pride, Tt recalls Trenton, Princeton,
Gettysburg. Washington carried it on his perilous
trip across the Delaware. We see if carried
across the sea by John Paul Jones, who claimed
to have elicited the first salute to it from a foreign
ship abroad. We see it waving over The American —
the first naval vessel of the United States. We
see Commodore Perry fighting under it on Lake
Erie. We see it borne up the Thames by the ship
Bedford of Nantucket in 1783, and into Chinese and
Japanese waters in 1799. Then rises before one
the pathetic incident of the first flag under fire at
Fort Schuyler. It was with Farragut at New
Orleans, with Dewey in Manila Bay, and with
Sampson and Schley at Santiago.
Every official flag is made in strict accordance to
rule as to size and material. The army flag is of
silk and is five feet six inches long by four feet
four inches wide. The field is two feet six inches
long by two feet four inches wide. The staff is nine
feet long and the distance between the first row of
stars and the edge of the flag is two and 19-32
inches. At the top of the staff is a spearhead and
pendant from the spear are tassels swinging from
two golden cords. A heavy fringe adorns the edges.
The army flags hoisted at camps or forts are made
of bunting. They are in three sizes, the storm and
receiving flag being eight feet in length by four
feet two inches in width, the post flag twenty feet
in length by ten feet in width, and the garrison flag
thirty-six feet in length by twenty feet in width.
The union is one-third the length of the flag and
extends to the lower edge of the fourth stripe from
the top.
The president of the United States has his own
flag. On the blue field is an eagle bearing on its
breast a shield with the stars and stripes, and
underneath, the national motto, “E pluribus unum.”
I he pennant oi the United States is long and narrow
with only thirteen stars and two stripes. Aecom
paying our flag is the Red Cross flag, which is
carried by that society the world over. Out of
compliment to the Swiss Republic where the society
first originated it is the Swiss flag reversed. The
white flag of truce is always a symbol of amity
when carried by soldiers on horse or afoot between
armies. Curiously enough, though used by all na
tions of the earth, no regular flag of truce is to be
found in the (lag lockers of nations, and even in our
recent war such flags were made of sheets and table
cloths. Emblematic of purity it is said to have
originated in the tenth century when the church
stipulated an agreement of cessation of hostilities
on Sundays. Starting in the south of France the
system has been adopted by other countries through
out Christendom. Penalties incurred if the truce
emblem be wrongfully used are severe and death
as a spy is the usual result. Honor and respect are
expressed by “dipping” the flag. A flag at half
mast indicates mourning for death. At no time of
peace must one flag lie hoisted above another, and
each flag must fly from its own staff.
All the flags used by the 1 nited States are made
at the Brooklyn navy yard. Here the stars and
stripes have been measured, tested and mounted
for over thirty years. All kinds of flags are made,
for every commissioned craft must be supplied with
flags of all nations. One department is used for
measuring. In this room the brass designs on the
floor mark the dimensions of the parts. The testing
of color, measuring of stripes, and cutting of stars
is done by one man. A sailor mounts each flag
on the ropes, sewing the iron rings into place, and
that the flags be strong, for they float in all kinds
of weather, chemicals are used to test the color and
the resistance of the material before any flags are
exposed to rain and bullets. Machine work is
largely used of late—the cloth for the white stars
being folded twenty times or more, a brass star
laid on, the pattern marked out, and the whole lot
nit as one time. A certain number of stitches are
always used for each inch, and so exact are the
rules that the banner has no right or wrong side, —
The American Boy,
•t at
Outdoors With Buskin.
Ruskin was a good walker, but no athlete. He
and Mr. Allen were out one day upon the mountain
side. They had passed a group of men engaged in
rough work with pickaxes, “How I wish,” said
Ruskin, “I could do what those men are doing! I
was never allowed to do any work which would
have strengthened my back. I wasn’t allowed to
ride, for fear of being thrown off; nor to boat, for
fear of being drowned; nor to box, because it was
vulgar; I was allowed to fence, because it was
genteel.” “Raskin’s great work,” Mr. Allen says,
“was to teach people to see. He had an eye for
everything—clouds and stones, hills and flowers, all
interested him in the same intense way. And what
he saw and felt he communicated in inimitable
and inevitable eloquence to others. I seem to hear
him now breaking forth into a rhapsody of delight
as we came unexpectedly, on a walk up the Brezon,
upon a sloping bank of the star gentian. ‘ When I
first reach the Alps,’ he said to me once, ‘1 always
pray.’ ” —The Strand Magazine.
Tolstoi’s reason for trying to stop the proposed
celebration of his eightieth birthday is naively
beautiful; it might give pain to members of the
Orthodox Church, the Russian-Greek Church, that
excommunicated him. The commandment to love
our enemies should be ingrained in our thoughts, yet
a simple application of it, a magnanimous toleration
for the feelings of those who disagree with us, is
so rare as to seem eccentric.
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