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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.