Newspaper Page Text
Items of Interest Gathered Here and There
To The Pole.
Commander Peary is on his way to the arctic, con
fident that this time he will reach the north pole.
Whether he succeeds or not, he is without doubt
the best-equipped arctic explorer who has thus far
appeared. He has spent more years and more
thought upon the problem than any other man. He
has reached a point nearer the pole than any other
explorer; and if he had known as much as he now
knows about the direction of the ice drift above
Greenland, he would at least have come pretty near
to reaching his goal.
This time he starts with that knowledge. He is
planning to establish his base of supplies, not on the
land but on the ice, a hundred and tw T enty-five miles
further north, and will travel northwest with his
sledges, hoping that the eastward drift of the ice
will be the same as he found it before. If this
should be the case, he ought to be able to make
good progress in the direction of the pole itself.
He has adopted an ingenious way of carrying a
house north with him for use as headquarters. It
will be built of the boxes containing his supplies'.
Each box is eight inches high and ten inches wide,
and of such length as is convenient. These boxes
will be piled up to form the walls of the house, with
the end to be opened turned to the inside. When a
package of crackers is needed, he can knock out a
panel in the wall of his house —that is, open the end
of a box —reach in and get all the crackers he needs,
and so on with bacon, pemmican, oatmeal, sugar, tea,
coffee, roast-beef hash or condensed milk. —The
Youth’s Companion.
H *
*Blood Thicker Than Water.
It was an American commodore, going to the
relief of a British vessel in a quarrel that might
have resulted in a great war between England and
a powerful nation of the continent, who said, “Blood
is thicker than water,” and the cordial greetings
that welcome our fleet at the capital of the most
loyal and the most English of all the colonies of the
British empire is but the echo, “Blood is thicker
than water.” In 1898, when we were at war with
Spain, all continental Europe, from the Baltic to the
Mediterranean, was hostile, and Germany and
France threatening. Then it was that England
gathered together a powerful fleet that caused the
continent to employ a more civil tongue. And there,
again, “blood was thicker than water,” as it was
when Dewey put the question to the German ad
miral at the siege of Manila.
It was long years after the war of 1812 before
there was any degree of amity between the two
great English-speaking peoples. There were
boundary and fishery disputes —many of them —
litigated in courts of diplomacy, resulting in agree
ments disappointing to both parties to the disputes.
Early in the forties of the last century we would
have gone to war over the Oregon boundary had we
been confident of the result. Our cry was “54:40
or fight.” We did not get 54:40, and we did not
fight.
In our war between the States the people of the
United Kingdom, divided their sympathy about
equally between the North and the South. Palmer
ston and Gladstone were for the South.; the prince
consort and Disraeli were for the North. And had
it not been for the good offices of Prince Albert
and the good sense of President Lincoln, Palmer
ston and Seward would have involved the North in
a war with England over the Trent affair.
The Geneva arbitration of the Alabama claims
averted a war, but left both peoples in ill humor
over the award, and it was a long time before good
feeling was restored. Then President Cleveland,
making a living principle of that theretofore
nebula of a state paper, the Monroe doctrine, set
both countries by the ears, and England and Amer
ica would have gone to cutting each other’s throats
but for the moderation of Prime Minister Salisbury.
Os course, there will always be jealousies. The
The Golden Age for August 20, 1908.
English complain that they have never had a fair
yacht race on this side, and we complain that we
were cheated in the Olympic games on the other
side. John C. Heenan did not get a fair deal in
the English prize ring, and Tom Allen did not get
a square deal in the American prize ring.
But “blood is thicker than water,” and the
growing friendship between the two great peoples
of common tongue, and practically common blood,
promotes the welfare of all mankind. —The Wash
ington Post.
Missionary and Hero.
Not many piore thrilling stories come from mis
sion fields than the latest experience of Dr. Wil
liam Grenfell, on the Labrador coast.
Dr. Grenfell had left Battle Harbor, Labrador, to
attend patients at a settlement ten miles dis
tant and was traveling over the ice with a pack of
dogs, when he found himself driven off the coast
by a moving ice field. Before he realized it he was
in an area covered only with broken drift ice, and
before he could stop the dogs the animals had
carried him into the water. The dogs attempted to
climb on Dr. Grenfell’s back, and he was obliged to
fight the animals before he was able to climb on to
a solid piece of drift ice. The dogs also succeeded
in saving themselves. With the wind blowing a
gale, the temperature ten below zero, and night at
hand, the doctor would have been frozen to death
but for the ingenuity he displayed. Taking off his
skin boots, he cut them in halves and placed the
pieces over his back and chest to shield those parts
of his body. As the wind and cold increased he
determined to kill three of the dogs to afford him
more warmth and to supply the other beasts with
food, fearing that, becoming hungry, they would
tear him to pieces. As it was, they attacked him
savagely, and he was bitten terribly about the hands
and legs. He wrapped himself up in the skins of the
dead dogs, but still found it so cold that he repeated
ly had to run about the ice to keep up the circula
tion of the blood. Hoping that the next day he
would be in sight of land, though the ice was fast
receding from the shore, Dr. Grenfell took the legs
of the dead dogs, and, binding them together, made
a pole, to the top of which he attached part of his
shirt to serve as a signal. The flag was seen by
fishermen at Locke’s Cove, Mare Bay, and they
rescued him.
In times past this noble man, fighting almost
singlehanded the battle of the cross, has had terrible
experiences, but this is perhaps the severest of all.
The Christian world rejoices that his life was saved,
and his great work will be continued.—-The Baptist
Commonwealth.
* *
Man With Unique Record.
Albert M. Cross, of Gloucester, is the champion
“never-did-anything” man of New England.
He has refrained from doing many of the common
things which in the ordinary course of life it is but
natural for most men to do.
He has never ridden on an electric car, steam train,
bicycle, or automobile; never been aboard ship on
the water; never been to a theater, athletic event,
or entertainment of any kind; never used tobacco
in any form or touched a drop of intoxicating
liquor; never went outside of Gloucester voluntarily;
in fact, he has failed to do so many ordinary things
that he is a seven days’ wonder to the natives of
Gloucester and an object of interest to all the small
boys of the city.
Cross broke the news of his total abstinence to
his friends last week upon the occasion of his fifty
fifth birthday. It was a proud day for Gloucester’s
exceedingly abstemious resident. It was well known
that Mr. Cross was not much of a hand at going
about taking in the sights and having a high old
time, but when he reeled off a long list of all the
things he never did they gasped in amazement.
Cross’ record would have been stronger were it
not for the fact that a horse which he was driving
once ran away, and before the scared animal could
be stopped he had gone beyond the confines of
Gloucester, and thus broken his driver’s record of
never having been outside the city.
Gloucester’s home-loving man never had that
feeling in his veins which imbued Kipling’s Cap
tains ( ourageous. Great as are the fame and
achievements of Gloucester’s mariners, Cross cared
naught for a life on the ocean wave; he never had
the least desire to become a member of the great
fleet that calls Gloucester home; never went aboard
the ships that came into the harbor, and rarely
went down to see them.
The beautiful spots around Manchester, Rock
port, and Beverly are as unknown to Cross as the
steppes of Russia. Boston in his mind is but a
name.
Cross ascribes his record of never having taken
an electric or steam car ride to his modesty. Some
how or other the sight of an electric car or steam
train gives him a feeling of aversion, and upon the
rare occasions when he might have been tempted to
jump aboard the electric cars which go by his door
his conscience would not allow him—The Boston
Post.
Story-Telling
Every afternoon, at a summer resort near New
5 ork, a woman employed by the management
gathers about her a large group of children and a
handful of older persons, and tells stories to them.
The manager knows that there comes a time between
breakfast and dinner when the children get tired
and need amusement which will rest their muscles,
and with rare perception he has provided the story
teller. The woman tells fairy-tales, animal stories,
adventure yarns, and, in fact, anything which, in
her judgment, will interest and amuse her audience.
This revival of an old profession is due to the
survival of an old and ever new interest in the
activities of those who have gone before. There
is nothing that will interest a small boy more than
liis father’s story of his own boyhood; and a little
girl will listen with open eyes as her mother tells
of the party dress she made for her doll when she
herself wore pinafores.
Adults nowadays take their story-telling from
novels, biography or history. In an earlier period,
when education was not so general as it is now, the
troubadours were the novelists and poets, who went
from court to court with their budget of tales and
songs, which they sang or recited for the delecta
tion of the lords and ladies. Both the Iliad and the
Odyssey of Homer were handed down from genera
tion to generation of story-tellers by word of mouth
before they were written out in the form which
they now wear.
Among the savage or partly civilized races today
the professional story-teller has a place that he will
continue to fill even after those who hear him have
learned to read, and can get for themselves the
mental and moral stimulus that comes from hearing
or reading the story of great deeds.
The New York experiment has been successful.
Indeed, it could not help being successful with the
right sort of a story-teller. It ought to suggest to
many young women with the gift of a pleasant
voice and a fondness for children that they may be
able to earn a pleasant vacation next summer by
using these abilities. —The Youth’s Companion.
* *
“Blind Tom,” noted a generation ago as a musi
cal prodigy, died last month in the home of the
daughter-in-law of his old master, for he was born
a slave near Columbus, Georgia. When a boy, he
amused the household by imitating the cries of
birds and the sound of the wind and rain. He
had a marvelous memory, and could play any musi
cal composition which he heard. It is said that he
could play one melody with his right hand, another
with his left, and whistle a third at the same time.
Yet with all his musical gifts, he was intellectually
a child, and lived in the care of guardians.
3
