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4 THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA.. FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 1913. THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL ATLANTA, GA., 5 NORTH FORSYTH ST. Entered at the Atlanta Postoffice as Mail Matter of the Second Class. JAMES -R. GRAY, President and Editor. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE Twelve months -t- 75c Six mopths Three months .... - 25c The Semi-Weekly Journal is published on Tuesday and Friday, and is mailed by the shortest routes for early delivery. It contains news from all over the wprld, brought by special leased wires into our office. It has a stafr of distinguished contributors, with strong departments of special value to the home and the farm. Agents war ted at every postoffice. Liberal com mission allowed. Outfit free. Write R. R* BRAD LEY. Circulation Manager. The only traveling, representatives we have are J. A. Bryan, R. F. Bolton. C. C. Coyle. L. H. Kim brough and C. T. Yates. W’e will be responsible only for money paid to the above named traveling repre sentatives. NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS. The label used for addressing your paper 6hows the time your subscription expires. By renewing at least two weeks before the date on this label, you insure regular service. In ordering paper changed, be sure to mention your old, as well as your new address. If on a rout© please give the route number. We cannot enter subscriptions to begin with back numbers. Remittances should be sent by postal order or registered mail. * Address all orders and notices for this de partment to THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, Atlanta, Ga. President Wilson’s Way. •7 am very glad, indeed, to have this oppor tunity to address the tioo Houses directly and verify for myself the impression that the Presi dent of the United State-s is a person, not a mere department of the Government, hailing Congress from an isolated island of jealous power, sending messages, not speaking naturally and ivith his own voice, that he is a human being, trying to co-operate with other human beings in a common service.” This brief preface to Mr. Wilson’s first commun ication to the nev Congress interprets more clearly than any amount of comment over could his earnest and thoroughly sensible purpose in speaking in per son, rather than by lifeless proxy, to the national lawmakers. He was impelled to depart from a cen tury-old custom not by any fancy tor breaking prece dents but by a serious desire to be of direct and vital use in the great task now confronting the party in control of t_,c Government. Heretofore presi dential messages have been read in a purely perfunc tory manner to empty seats. Mr. Wilson’s message was a real leader’s human appeal to his fellow ser vants of the people. The fact that he has broken one precedent is not of such importance as that he has established a new and a constructive one. The country welcomes this frank and independent stroke from its chief executive. The message itself is a remarkably succinct and forceful statement of Democracy’s’duty in the matter of tariff revision. Protect Georgia’s Oyster Beds. The plea by Game Commissioner Mercer for ade quate laws to protect and develop the State’s oyBter beds should receive the Legislature’s earnest consid eration. Extending from the St. Mary’s to the Sa vannah river, a distance of some t*o hundred miles, these reefs are naturally among the richest of their kind on the entire Atlantic coast. But subjected, as they now are, to continual and unscrupulous raids their destruction is a matter of a only a few years, , unless remedial measures are taken. The Commissioner suggests that, for one thing, it be made a misdemeanor to use a dredge in gather- i ing oysters. This machine, as he says, rips through ■ the banks and destroys the very possibility of future development. He also favors a law that would pro- ; hibit the taking of oysters for canning purposes until the reefs can be replenished and he would provide a ' license and small fee system for oystermen and their . boats in order that the State might have some prac tical means of supervision. When it is reflected that Rhode Island, whose s oyster beds are far less fertile and abundant than Georgia’s, realizes nearly three million dollars an nually from its oyster output, it bocmes evident ' that this State is neglecting one of its truly valuable : resources. Indeed, Commissioner Mercer estimates ; that with a few timely laws, thoroughly enforced, i Georgia could derive not less than five million dollars a year from its oyster beds. The game law which was enacted a few seasons ago, and which has already produced gratifying re sults should be supplmented with legislation that will conserve this important hut rapidly declining field ‘ of our natural treasure. The piratical inroads now being made on the oyster beds should be checked as vigorously as the pot hunter has been; and by so doing the Legislature will render far-reaching service. Will Huerta Stand? The spirit of insurgency seems almost as strong in Mexico today as it was before the exile of the elder Diaz or the fall of Francisco Madero. The gov ernors of six or more States are in open defiance of the Huerta regime while rebel bands are driving their old trade of pillage and terrorism in the southern country. Such news as leaks to the outer world is a satiric commentary on the sanguine reports issued from the capital. An informal conference of the so-called “Consti tutionalist” representatives was held yesterday at El Paso, Texas, preliminary, it is said, to a general council that will soon be called at some point within . Mexico itself. The onstitutionalists contend that I Huerta should withdraw as provisional president in favor of Lascurian who was minister of foreign rela tions in the cabinet of the late President Madero. Such a procedure, they hold, would place the govern ment on a legal basis and would command the re spect and suport of all factions. Huerta, they de scribe, as being simply a military usurper. Whether there-.is any merit in this claim will be of small consequence, if the insurgents can muster a sufficient force of fighters. Huerta has succeeded in putting down several minor outbreaks, but it is doubtful that he would he able to cope with a move ment that would be reasonably well organized and well financed. The number of troops at his com mand does not exceed at the utmost fourteen thou sand men; and it is doubtful that all these would prove loyal in a crucial moment. The New Tariff Bill. The new tariff bill is essentially a proposition to carry out in good faith the pledges of the Demo cratic party and the wishes of the American people as expressed in the last Presidential and Congres sional elections. It is in every sense a plan of re vision downward, yet it is duly mindful of the busi ness interests that are largely interwoven with the existing tariff system. Its purpose is not revolution hut orderly readjustment. Its framers have wisely recognized that a system which has been long decades in developing cannot be suddenly torn asun der; and, so, they have approached their task with prudent regard for all the affairs concerned. They are none the less insistent, however, that the tariff shall be genuinely reformed, that it shall be revised “steadily and unhesitatingly downward," that the Democratic party shall live squarely up to its promise and give the people substantial relief from economic wrongs they so long have suffered. . Such a program holds no threat or menace to any sound and legitimate business. Interests that have heretofore depended upon Government patronage must look to their own worthiness and efficiency, if they would thrive, but, in the Ion;; run, even they will be stronger and more truly prosperous as a result; for, the wel fare of any industry is conserved far better through the natural laws of competition and trade than through hot-house protection from the federal gov ernment. The guiding purpose in the new bill is to relieve the necessaries of life from a tariff tax, in so far as is possible, and instead, to center the tax on luxuries. This is the kind of legislation needed and demanded by the rank and file of the people, the kind that will prove just and wholesome. Items of food and clothing that enter into the daily life of all house holds should be freed from every unnecessary ele ment of cost. If they are to bear any tariff whatso ever, it should be only the minimum that is essen tial to the raising of revenue for the Government's needs; certainly they should not be taxed to swell the profits of special interests. If such a thing were possible, it would be better to dispense with every tariff wall. But so long as the expenses of the national government must he borne largely by duties collected at the ports, abso lutely free trade is not to be thought of for this country. Tariff o£ some kind, there must be; for revenue must he raised; hut this revenue, as the pending bill provides, should be raised by placing the tax most heavily on luxuries and most lightly on the necessities of life. A thoroughgoing reduction in the present tariff schedules gives rise to the problem of making up the resultant decrease in federal revenues. To meet this condition, an income tax is proposed, whereby an annual tax of one per cent will he levied on incomes above four thousand dollars, the tax per centage to increase gradually in proportion to the amount of the income. This levy, it is estimated, will bring a revenue of something like one hundred million dollars a year and sufficiently offset the tariff reductions. Here again the controlling purpose of the new bill is to equalize tax burdens. The taxing of rela tively large incomes is analogous to the taxing of lux uries rather than necessities under the tariff. An article which only the wealthy few can afford should rightly bear more tariff than one which is in con stant demand by all the people; and likewise the man who has gained a firm foothold in life should bear a larger portion of his Government’s expenses than he who is •still in the, struggle for uaily bread. Any measure that proposes a thoroughgoing re vision of the tariff will naturally give rise to differ ences of opinion. The present controversy over the wool and the Sugar schedules is only what was ex pected. The new bill purposes to admit a number of the necessities of life duty free, among them being meats, flour, leather, lumber and agricultural imple ments, as well as wool. In the case of sugar, it is planned to cut the duty twenty-five per cent at once with the provision that at the end of three years there shall be no duty at all. However vigorous may he the protests i particular groups of manufacturers, the Democratic party can not afford to give precedence to any special interest where the rights and welfare of the whole people are concerned. It was recreance to this all important principle that wrecked the Republican party. If Democracy is true to itself and to the country it has been called to serve, it must press steadily forward to a fulfillment of its tariff pledge. The great issue of this hour is that which has arisen at all times and under all governments when the rights of the many have clashed with the priv ileges of the ,few. The government of the United States has been entrusted to Democratic control in order that the welfare of a hundred million people might no longer be sacrificed to the undue advantage of special groups. That is the high principle embo died in the new tariff bill, the principle of taxing luxuries, not necessities, of taxing wealth, not pov erty, of making the fariff a means of raising legiti mate revenue, not an instrument of patronage and favoritism for special interests. This bill has had the sincere and very sober consideration not only of leaders in Congress but also of the President himself. It is earnestly to be hoped that its underlying pur poses will be carried into effect. Ambassador’s Salaries: So much has been said of late concerning the rela tively low salaries which the United States pays even the highest ofllcials in the diplomatic service that such a hill as that introduced in the House yesterday by Representative Henry, of Texas, was to be ex pected. This measure would provide appropriations for the lease of residences for our ambassadors and min isters .and would authorize the Secretary of State to look into the advisability of eventually purchasing such quarters. Such a plan, it is contended, would relieve our representatives abroad of one of the great items of their expense and would make their present salaries more nearly commensurate with, the needs of their post. Whether this particular bill presents the best solution of the problem is a matter for discussion. Certain it is, however, that something should be done to remedy the conditions that now exist. President Wilson recently expressed regret over the fact that the country has to ask such heavy sac rifices of those who are invited to serve it abroad— “a service which every year becomes more exacting and more important. The sacrifice of time, of means and of opportunity at home is very serious for any but men of large means and leisure and the diplo matic service is unnecessarily hampered.” This is a matter that demands the serious con sideration of Congress. The salaries paid our repre sentatives to foreign nations should at least be suf ficient to maintain the dignity and usefulness of these posts. Popular Election of United States Senators. United States senators will henceforth be chosen directly by the people instead of being named, as heretofore, by State legislatures. This important change in the country’s electoral system became vir tually effective yesterday when Connecticut ratified a Constitutional amendment to that effect, thus mak ing up the thirty-six favorable votes, or three-fourths majority required. It is an interesting and significant circumstance that this amendment has been adopted within less than a year from the time it was actually submitted to the various States for legislative consideration. In June, 1911, the Senate agreed to the principle at issue but it was not until May, 1912, that the verbal details of the resolution were finally determined so that it might be distributed among the States. For more than sixty years there have been proposals that the voters of each State be permitted to choose their representatives in th! national Senate directly at the polls and within recent decades this demand has become nation-wide and insistent. Naturally, there fore, when popular sentiment was given a free pain to exert itself upon the Legislatures through local pressure, the proposed change was speedily wrought into effect. With the underlying purpose of this measure, the people of the South have always warmly sym pathized. Indeed, most of the Southern States long ago put this principle into practice through the ma chinery of the Democratic primary. In Georgia, for instance, the Legislature has in effect simply certi fied the choice of senators expressed by the voters themselves in a senatorial primary. We opposed in the present amendment an extraneous feature which gave the' federal government power to’ supervise reg ulations as to the time and manner of holding sen atorial elections. That provision had no rightful place in the amendment itself; for, it presented a possible, if not a probable, menace to the sovereign rights of the States. That, however, is now a mooted question. The important fact is that the people have at last been granted their right to choose directly their representatives in the Senate as well as in the lower House of Congress; and thus the federal Senate becomes a truly democratic body. The Antiquity of Man Once ever so often in the hurly-burly, the living grow tired of the pressure of imminent things. The demand for up-to-dateness palls. Neither the latest war news nor the last peace movement serves to thrill or calm. The new party slogan falls on unheedful ears. The Balkan crisis, the yellow peril floods, earth quakes, sextets and serums, suffragettes and sugar du ties, alike essay to fill the void in vain. It is then, by the dictates of a mysterious Providence, that long- whiskered and bald-pated scientists are led to emerge from the recesses of the Smithsonian or the Peabody museum or other likely tombs of erudition with the on e thing needful—a dissertation on the antiquity of man. What a delightful subject it is, and how we do revel in ages and aeons, as the learned familiar leads us back and back, through the dust of buried cities to wattled huts, to the Garden of Eden—a very modern settlement, my dear—to cave dwellings, then to pe riods—pliocene, miocene, oligocene, eocene, until we stand square in the primeval ooze and squirt it up be tween our toes! And then we work up again—with the help of the kindly professor, of course—and have a nice talk about the gradual development of art and culture, of science and civilization and laws, until— presto! we. reach once more the present world, with all its bill—tariff, Buffalo, dollar and monthly. Assuredly It was a very long time ago when the trouble first began. Some fifty thousand million years, more or less. Let it go at that. Think of the time it must have taken to learn how to put yeast in bread to make it rise, to extract the juice-that-gladdens from the heart of the humble, corn, to invent gunpowder and face powder! It would be appalling, if it were not so fascinating. But the professor has rolled up his manuscript, and now beams adieu through his glasses. Tes, pro fessor, we’ll meet again. Thanks, awfully, for the en tertainment. The beginning was far away, very far away. So far, in fact, as the civil service applicant said when asked the distance of the moon from the earth, that it need not interfere with the proper per formance of present duty. It’s time to get back on the job.—Washington Post. Editorials In Brief If hens could pray, we supose they would start off with “Now I lay me.”—Columbus State. No day is long enough to waste any of it nursing a grouch. We can’t help wondering how those cubist futur ist artists would deal with a pair of bowlegs.— Philadelphia Inquirer. THE PASSENGER PIGEON By Frederic J. Haskin The recent sickness of the passenger pigeon in the Cincinnati zoological gardens—the last survivor of h mighty host—has served to call the attention of nat- uralistd again to one of the most remarkable of all the sto. ries of nature’s library—the ex tinction of one of the most re markable birds that ever inhab ited the earth. Millions of peo ple are still living whose eyes have witnessed the flight of the myriad hosts of passenger pigeons, and yet only one of all the vast numbers of those pig eons is known to survive—and that one occupies a place of honor in the Cincinnati zoo. When he dies it is probable that his body will be presented to the nation, to be preserved in alcohol at the national mu-* seum. * *• * In these days it is hard for the younger people to believe the story of the passenger pigeon, so incredible were their numbers, so remarkable were their flights, aud so strange were their nestings. And the story of tlie brutality that marked the work of the pot hungers who followed them as a tiger stalks his prey, relent lessly pursuing them, using the telegraph to keep in touch with their flights and their nestings, is a story of revolting cruelty and butchery. * * * The world is indebted to John James Audubon, tlie great naturalist, for what is perhaps the best account of the passenger pigeon ever written. And his truth fulness and scientific accuracy make it a story to be accepted at its face value. He relates that in the autumn of 1913 he left his house at Henderson, on the banks of the Ohio, to go to Louisville. In passing over the Barrens a few miles from Hardensburgh he observed pigeons flying from the northeast to the southwest, in greater numbers than he had ever seen before. After they had been passing for about an hour he dismounted, seated himself on an eminence, and made a dot with a pencil for every flock that passed. In a short time he found that he was putting down dots at the rate of 163 in twenty-one minutes. He resumed his journey and still the pigeons came; the light of day was darkened as if by a solar eclipse. Like a torrent,» and with the roar of distant thundr, they gathered in a solid mass, darting forward with the wings of the wind in undulating and’angular lines, descending and sweeping close to the earth, then mounting perpendicularly so as to resemble a vast col umn, and when high in the air once more, wheeling and twisting within their continued lines, which then re sembled the coils of a gigantic serpent. • * * For fifty-five miles Audubon traveled on to Louis ville, with the serried columns of pigeons still float ing over his head, and for three days the flight con tinued. Each flock did exactly as the one ahead had done; if the one ahead darted down when passing over a brook, or dodging a hawk, the flock behind did the same. Audubon attempted to estimate the number of pigeons in that great flight. He assumed that the column averaged a mile in width, which was far be low the average in point of fact. Then he assumea that the birds flew at the rate of sixty miles an hour, also a conservative assumption. Upon this basis tL© pigeons passing in three hours would form a streak 180 square miles in area; and, counting two pigeons to the square yard, there would be nearly a billion and a quarter pigeons in such a flight. How many there must have been in the three days’ flight he did not undertake to say. Audubon’s observations wore that each pigeon eats fully half a pint of food a day. The pigeons in a three-hour flight would thus need nearly 9,000,000 bushels of food a day. • • * Audubon made several pilgrimages to a famous roosting place on the banks of the Green river in Ken tucky. He rode through the forest for upward of forty miles, and by crossing and recrossing it reacned the conclusion that the roost was of an average breadth of three miles. His first view of it was about two weeks after the pigeons had established it as a roost ing place. He arrived about two hours before sun set. Few pigeons were to be seen, but there were great numbers of people, who, with horses and wag ons, children and dogs, guns and ammunition, had established camps on the borders of the forest. Two farmers had driven more than 300 hogs over 100 miles to fatten them on pigeons that were to be slaughtered. Here and there were people engaged in plucking and salting the catch of th© day before. Many trees two feet in diameter had been broken eff by the sheer weight of the multitudes of roosting birds. Every where great branches of forest monarchs were broken off, and th e aspect of the thousands of acres of wood land was such as one might expect to be the result of a fierce tornado. • • • Some of the people who were camping there had great pots of sulphur. Others had poles, and others guns. It was after sundown that the cry went up that the returning hordes were approaching. The noise they made reminded Audubon of a hard gale at sea passing through the rigging of a close-reefed ves sel. As they passed over his head he felt a current of air that astonished him. Thousands of birds were knocked down by the pole men, but tens of thousands and even millions continued to pour In. They alighted everywhere, one above another, until masses as large as hogsheads were formed on the branches all around. VOTING BY MAIL EY DB. FRANK CRANE. (Copyright, 1913, by Frank Crane.) Somebody has said that habit is the fly-wheel of so ciety. There is a certain jnertia in all bodies politic which keeps them going on in the same direction. It not only takes arguments, facts, proofs and induce ments to change the laws of a people; it takes time. It is difficult for a million people or so to stop and turn around, even if they all want to. I know a man who invented a process of mixing steel wool with rubber. He thought the whole world would adopt it because it was a good thing to prevent skidding and slipping. He was surprised to find the whole world organized against it, for the simple rea son that business had been so far carried on without it. The power of what has been not only keeps the work going, however, but it lays a paralyzing hand upon progress. Only by constant effort can we coun teract it. Charles Francis Adams has written an article in which he proposes that we should vote by mail. The very statement of th! proposition commends itself to every open mind. His plan would swfcep away most of the election abuses. It would make voting a rational and deliber ate affair instead of being, as it now is, confused and hurrjed. M*e have already the machinery for it in the post- offices scattered everywhere throughout the nation. There are three essentials to the right kind of vot ing. It should be intelligent, compulsory, and strictly private. Voting at a booth on election day is none of these three. Voting through the postoffice, after care fully studying over the matter at home, would be all qf these three: . Here is an opportunity for some statesman, who would like to do something to distinguish himself be side marking time, to take up a real live issue. There is one weakness in Mr. Adams’ plan which may prove fatal; It is in ,the interest of all the peo ple, and not one class. Most measures are carried by the energetic efforts of a class. Woman suffrage, the tariff, prohibition, and the minimum wage easily form a compact army of adherents. What’s everybody’s business, however, seems to be nobody’s business. We find it difficult to better our public schools, clean our streets, or build our street car lines unless we can get some man or company to take hold of the proposal and make some money out of It. Voting by mail would also he a blow to party poli tics, and we can probably depend upon all bosses and parties to “view with alarm” the scheme. It would be a distinct step toward organized democracy, toward making the Individual American citizen conscious of ills responsibility. As such it is devoutly to be wished, though our prayer be mixed with much fearsome un belief. The proposition is entirely too sensible. WATCH YOUR STEP! “You Can’t Buy Every Man,” Saya the Conductor. “I got a buddy that’s a detective. He’s in one of th’ hotels. They call him th’ ’house man,’ but he’s a sure enough detective. He’s got a star an’ If he’d ar rest you, it’d be th’ same as If a cop would. He’s on his job night times. Him an’ me’s got th’ same room. Only he sleeps in it after I’ve gone to work. That fellow's smarter’n a steel trap. Lizzie don't like him. She got peeved at him one night when we was all eatin’ together an’ Danny said (Danny Lynch, that’s his name) every man had his price. He said he knowed it, ’cause he’d bought lots of ’em. I didn’t get mad at him, like Lizzie did. He didn’t mean it th’ way she took it. You see, he’s just like a fellow workin' all th’ time in th’ stock yards. He couldn’t smell a bou quet if you soaked it In hair oil. You know a good bird dog runs around with his hose to th’ ground ail th’ time, lookin’ for bird tracks. That’s Danny. If a bird dog’d run into a bunch o' singln’ canaries, an’ flush ’em, an’ you wouldn’t shoot their yellow heads off, that dog’d quit you for a coward. Lizzie says toi him, ‘Dan, you got a evil mind. I’d hate to think you had your price, an' I know Jerry ain’t got his. Have you, Jerry?’ An’ I says, ‘No, no, I ain’t. Not since I knowed you. You got me bought an’ paid for. I’d swim th’ river for you.’ Danny laughed so hard he choked on a bean in his soup, an’ he says, 'There, I told you every man had his price.’ An’ Lizzie says right out loud so's everybody heard It, ’That ain’t what price means. Price means that somebody can get you if they offer more. An’ nobody can get Jerry away from me.’ Lizzie's right. She ain’t got no price. She’s got a copper rivet cinch. “Stand back, an’ let ’em off! “Don't stand on th’ platform! “Watch your step!” Here and there perches gave way under the weight with a crash, kltling hundreds of birds as they fell. Everything was uproar and confusion. The people could not hear themselves talking to one another, and even the reports of shot guns and blunderbusses could not be heard above the great noise. Audubon sent a man out from the forest to see how far the noise could be heard, and it was plainly audible three miles distant. By midnight the stream of arrivals began to fall off, but before the break of day the advance guard began to move out again. While no one dared go In the woods while the pige'ons were In the trees, they were able to kill and cripple enough of them to keep all the people bu3ily employed next day, with enough left over to give the 300 hogs, the wolves, the foxes, the lynxes, the cougars, bears, raccoops, pos. sums, pole cats, eagles and hawks a more than satis, factory breakfast, apd at the\ same time to save enough back for the yultures that came to supplant the animals and the birds of prey. THE COUNTRY HOME CONDUCTED BY MRS. M. H. FELTON A STREAK OF SUPERSTITION. HERE are two things that the most of people have in spite cf them selves, namely, they love to go fast when they are on a railroad train, and are plagued also with some sly streak of superstition. I confess I don’t like to begin an important job of work on Friday, but I don’t know any harm I ever got by Fridays. But the majority of people call Friday an un lucky day. If you press for a reason, maybe somebody will tell you that Fri day is hangman’s day. It is a case of giving a dog a bad name and then to abusing him for it. Why Fridays have been made hangman’s days as a rule, I do not understand, unless the majority of the judges of the county have a su perstitious streak in them, and continue to give Friday a “black eye’’ because other oldtime judges sentenced crimi nals to the gallows on Friday. Some folks would pass sleepless time, if they chanced to sit at table and counted thirteen persons around the cir cle. It is astonishing how often thir teen has been called an .unlucky num ber. The most of us have been thirteen years old and lived to say it, after we passed twelve and went along to four teen. Some people get nervous if a looking glass or mirror chances to fall and be broken. But we should remember that glass is a fragile substance, and unless the mirror is fastened securely to the wall of a piece of furniture it is more than apt to be broken from extensive handling. My black mammy was strong in the belief that somebody was coming if slie dropped her discloth, and I find I am very apt when in a hurry to drop my discloth, and yet I connect the drop with a certain amount of visitors on any given day. If the palm of your left hand itches you are comforted that you will get a present, but I have watched the itching palm rather closely and I cannot say that it made anybody generous in my particular case. Also if the bottom of your right foot itches you are likely to go on a long journey. If your ear burns somebody is surely talking about you, according to the rule of superstition. It is bad luck to move a cat, and ac cordingly there are a lot of wailing lone some cats in the land who deserve some attention because of their fidelity. Let a rabbit cross the road and bad luck is waiting for you, also if you spill salt, you are en traine for disaster. Witchcraft was punished with cruel death in Puritan New England, and yet nobody could place the witch, except* by ignorant superstition. You must have money in your pocket when you nrst glimpse the new moon, or you will be unlucky. A candid old darky woman whispered once to me: “Carry your bunch of keys in your pocket, Miss Becky, and shake it at the new moon, and it won’t know but it’s money.’’ And she thought she was doing me a prime favor. It is amazing how general is the superstition about the dark of the moon. I know lots of people who consult the “light” and the “dark” of the moon as to corn planting and potato planting, and they believe In it as much as they do in the Bible and the catechism. The weather can be all that is desired for hog killing, but unless the “moon is right” you couldn’t make a majority of farmers kill their meat until the alma nac said the moon was in the right quar ter of its course, never understanding that the moon is always shining but the earth casts a shade on the disk, accord ing to its place in the heavens. And it actually does no good to argue about these superstitions. WHEN PNEUMONIA IS SURELY FATAL. When a person has a well-developed case of pneumonia, recovery will almost certainly depend on the staying power of the patient’s system. To make it plainer, if the patient is a sober person and has not abused his constitution by ugly habits, by which I mean licentious as well as drinking and dope habits, the chances are good for recovery, with proper care and* medical attention. Pneu monia can affect not only the lungs and the mucous membrane of the mouth, nose and throat, but it will invade the intestinal tract and cause rapid destruc tion of the entire vital forces of the body. When this dread disease enters and attacks the citadel of life, it means there must be resistance based on clean habits and well-protected blood circula tion or the chances are that death will occur inevitably. I was thinking tonight of the long ago—when I was-in Washington City— and was shocked by the death of one of the most gifted men in public life—a Georgian also—and a gentleman of cul ture and wealth and high standing. Nobody understood he was a secret drinker, because he seemed to be in the very prime of manhood’s strength and vitality. He was a guest at a fine din ner, wit& the finest intellects of the period, and indulged in wine, until he neglected, perhaps forgot, to put on his overcoat, after midnight, when return ing to his lodging place. But for the fact that a belated physi cian saw him on the street car, in even ing dress, at that late hour, nobody would have understood the cause of his sudden illness. A dreadful cold set up and by the time it was noised abroad that he was ill, he was in a dying condi tion. The doctor said, “his system was fatally weakened by the habitual use of intoxicants, and by drinking secret ly.” Furthermore, the doctor said, “when pneumonia attacks one who has kept his blood inflamed by intoxicants, he has not one chance in a hundred for recovery.” Any personal habit which weakens the physical* system on the in side, such as follows whisky or dope drugs, or imoral practices, risks death whenever there is a sudden cold and in flamed lungs. And the demise comes through heart failure in the majority of cases. The heart cannot do its usual work and the blood machine breaks down when the pump gives out. If I was not already an advocate for abstinance from liquor, the danger that goes with pneumonia would make me one; and if I was a young man I would try to bulwark my constitution by living a clean life foi* safety’s sake, if for no other reason. Very old, very weak or very young persons may die with pneumonia be cause they cannot rid themselves of bronchial secretions, but the strong man or woman, who is attacked with the dreadful disease has a living chance. It is when the citadel of life has been weakened by drugs or liquor or immoral habits, that the awful disease I am writing about, gets its inning, and from what I have seen in the course of a long life, I feel sure there is nothing more fatal to a drunkard than a spell of pneumonia, because his citadel of life is in a toppling condition, before the enemy gets ready to begin its attack. And why should an immortal being de base its forces, when common regard for safety indicates abstinance on all the lines mentioned? Man made in the image of the Al mighty is given a living sense of the importance of preserving the body, which incases the vital spark, and keeps the human soul in every day ac tion. To give way to John Barley Corn is simply worse than the brute creation attends to its own safety. Do not forget that intoxicants, dope drugs, and bestial habits, make men even a little lower than the brutes: And open the door to death!