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THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA., TUESDAY, MAY 27, 1913. r 4 I THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL ATLANTA, QA., 5 NORTH POBSYTH ST. Entered at the Atlanta Postoffice as Mall Matter of the Second Class. JAMES R. GRAY. President and Editor. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE Twelve months »... 75o Six months . 40c Three months The Semi-Weekly Journal is published on Tuesday and Friday, and is mailed the shortest routes for early delivery. It contains news from all over the world, brought by special leased wires into our office. It has a staff of distinguished contributors, with strong department# of special value to the home and the farm. Agents wanted i:t every postoffice. Liberal com mission allowed. Outfit free. Write R. R* BRAD- . LEY, Circulation Manager. The only traveling representatives we have ars J. A. Bryan, R. F. Bolton, C. C. Coyle, L. H. Kivn- ' brough and C. T. Yates. We will be responsible only for money paid to the above named traveling repre sentatives. NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS. The label used for addressing your paper shows the time your subscription expires. By renewing at least two ^eeks 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 route 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. It never rains but it puts crops in the grass. The old-fashioned editor who told the farmer how to succeed is still with us. A Case For the Grand Jury. Since the publication in The Journal last Friday of a dictograph conversation alleged to have taken place among certain •well known Atlantians, the civic atmosphere has been tense with inquiry and indignation, the papers have been filled with charges and countercharges, the integrity of private citizens and public officials has been made a grave issue and the community’s sentiment has crystallized into a olear-cut demand that this affair be probed through all its windings and probed deeply until the guilt or innocence of those involved is clearly established. As to the truth or falsity of any of the charges made, The Journal has expressed no opinion, and does not now. We do say, however, that these accusations strike at the honor and usefulness of public officials as well as that of Individual citizens. They cast a cloud upon the city itself and give rise to all mapner of sordid gossip under which the good people of Atlanta cannot, afford to rest. These charges must be investigated, promptly, intelligently and exhaustively. If there Is corruption In the city detective or po lice department, it should be laid bare and brought to account. If there is not, then the uprightness and worth of these officials should be duly vindicated. If private citizens have been guilty of corrupt practices or of crminal attempts to destroy the use fulness of the police authorities, such citizens, who ever they may be, should be dealt with as the offense deserves. If unjustly accused, they likewise are en titled to complete exoneration. The all important' thing, however, is that the great public of Atlanta be avenged of the monstrous wrong against its welfare which these charges imply. This is no individual affair. If the acts or the con ditions alleged be true, then the good name and the rights of this entire community have been outraged. We are told, on the one hand, that bribery of public officials has been attempted, that plots have been en gineered to thwart or overthrow public servants in the performance of their duty, that practices, con demned alike by courts and- conscience, have been perpetrated; and, on the other hand, we are told that the police and detective department has sought to foil the ends of justice and has trafficked in vice. Charges like these, we. repeat, reach vastly fur ther than the individuals against whom they are di rected. They strike into the very heart of the com-' munity’s safety and welfare; for, if such a state of affairs as is alleged does exist, either in respect to the private citizens or the officials concerned, then the fair name of Atlanta is at stake and there is sorely needed work for the courts to do. The people of this good city will stand for no such practices as are charged. They realize that to pass such offenses by or to permit them to go un punished, would compound whatever crimes have been committed. The public, therefore, demands the full truth and full justice not only In' the Phagan case Itself but also with reference to the conduct of those involved In the collateral issues that have arisen. Let the grand jury proceed as speedily as possible to a rigorous investigation of this entire affair. As a body charged with the community’s moral well-being and with the duty of bringing evil doers ' to an accounting before the law, it cannot afford to ignore the far-reaching charges and countercharges that are now public. Let the truth he established and justice com pletely done. The rains came in time to save the 'reputation of congress’ garden seed. » A New Menace to Balkan Peace. Should the fighting between the Greek and the Bulgarian troops near Saloniki continue, the future safety of the Balkans would be seriously menaced. It was due to their steadfast alliance that the little peninsula States won such sweeping and rapid vic tories over the Turks. Should they now fall out among themselves, It Is doubtful that any of them would enjoy their due share of the fruits of their common cause. A general war among the Balkan States would almost inevitably call for Intervention by the large Powers; it might call for a re-partitloning of the territory rcently wrested from Turkey and such a division, once begun, would be made In the interest of the Powers rather than In that of the several Balkan governments. It is possible, however, that the fighting reported near Saloniki is simply a bit of hot sklrminshing between army detachments and that an amicable agreement between Bulgaria and Greece will soon be effected. Indeed, King Constantine, of- Greece, is eaUl to he endeavoring to arrange a neutral zone be tween the two armies. Wealth Producing Rains. There is nothing, after all, so important to human fortunes as those commonplace elements which make up the most threadbare subject of our conversa tion—the weather. There is more money in a week of golden sunshine than in all the treasuries of the world and a timely shower often brings more wealth than the most cunning devices of men could produce. The rains that have fallen In Georgia during the past few days are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Reports received by the State College of Agriculture from its farm demonstration agents show that only a few counties are still suffering from drouth. Not to country folk alope hut to great num bers of city dwellers who have young gardens, the rains will prove a seasonable blessing. Many varie ties of vegetables that were famishing for a good drink have been revived and the outlook for boiled dinners is a hundred times more cheering. According to the State commissioner of agricul ture the rains will prove a wonderful benefit to cot ton that has not yet come up and, fortunately, only a little more than fifty per cent of the crop is yet above ground.- While spring oats are said to be turning out rather poorly, fall oats are particularly promising. It is a noteworthy fact that food crops are being cultivated more extensively in Georgia this year than ever before and also that the diversifica tion idea is being more liberally applied. It is a cheering omen for the State’s agricultural progress and welfare that farmers are ceasing to depend solely on one big crop and turning to the development of the soil’s varied resources. We can well afford to produce less cotton, If at the same time ■we produce more foodstuffs. Florida’s Great Drainage Project. One of the interesting measures now before the Florida legislature is a drainage bill, calling for a bond issue of six million dollars with which It is purposed to reclaim the famous Everglades. News dispatches indicate that the bill is encountering stout opposition, not, however, because of any question as to the importance of feasibility of the enterprise it self, but because of a doubt In the minds of some of the legislators that the fund proposed is sufficient for the work required. They contend that before the amount of the bond issue is fixed, the special drainage commission now at work on estimates should be heard from. It is predicted that a special session of the General Assembly will be called later in the year to deal with this matter conclusively, and friends of the reclamation project, prominent among whom are Governor Trammell himself, are confident that in one form or another it will be carrleu to completion. Georgians have particular cause to he interested in such undertakings; for their State, next to Flor ida, has a larger area of swamp and overflow land than any other commonwealth on the Atlantic coast. Within the past few years drainage associations have been formed in a number of counties by farmers and business men who realize the vast amount of good that can thus be accomplished. Lands which are useless and which are also a menace to public health can be converted by proper drainage methods into productive acres that are a jlch asset not only to their Individual owners, but to the community and the State as well. The fact that Florida is considering a great bond issue to reclaim its swamp land should stimulate the legislature of Georgia to definite and liberal action in this regard. Our problems can be solved far more easily and cheaply than those of our neighbor State. It Is essential, however, that the Legislature perfect the drainage law now existing and lend its aid to the separate districts in carrying forward this impor tant work. Rural Schools and Rural Life. The problem of keeping men on the farm is largely one of providing for rural district school advantages that will compare favorably with those of the city. Secretary of Agriculture Houston well expressed this idea when he said in a recent inter view : "Take a farmer with six small children, for whom he desires to provide an education. They uHll he sent to the country school as long as some one can he found to take charge of it, but at best the education received there is meager. If he would give them an education whichn will he of benefit to them, he must send them away to some institution ■ of learning, entailing per haps greater expense than he can afford. He must either maintain his farm at the expense of the education of his children, or move to one of the large cities. So, education, among other things, is driving occupants of farms to the cities." There is no greater duty upon the Legislature of Georgia than that of providing adequate means and funds for the upbuilding of our country schools. The new education law enacted a few years ago has done much to perfect this system and under the able leadership of the State Superintendent of Education our teachers and school officials are rendering earn est and efficient service in rural districts. But there' is much yet to be done In order that the average country school In Georgia may stand comparison with the city school and thereby afford the family on the farm the advantages to which it is entitled. For one thing, the length of the country school term should be extended and its course of studies elevated. For another, more high schools that will fit boys and girls for college or for the practical needs of life should be established. More teachers should bo employed and all of them should be better paid, to the end that rural school teaching may com mand the highest talent to be found. Special Bottles Needed For Poisonous Drugs. The case of the wealthy and widely beloved Macon citizen who came to his death as the result of having taken by mistake a tablet of bichloride of mercury has aroused public thought the country over to the need of surer means or devices for iden tifying poisonous drugs. This is a matter that vi tally concerns thousands of households. It should be given the earnest attention of public officials and legislators. The suggestion has been made that bottles of some distinctive color and touch he required for all poisonous substances, so that they could be rec ognized in the dark as well as the light. A bottle of sharply pointed or roughened surface would probably be valuable In this connection. Certain it is that some definite steps toward preventing suoh tragic mistakes should be taken at the next session of the General Assembly. “France wants a loan of $100,000;000.'’ Nothing modest about France's little touch. The Chief Source of Railroad Accidents. A bulletin recently Issued by the Interstate Com merce Commission on railroad accidents during the months of July, August and September, 1912, is rich in interesting and suggestive figures. It shows, for instance, that sixty-eight per cent of the derailments occurring within that period were due to defective equipment, such as broken rails or faulty wheels. This is valuable information because it indicates more or less precisely the course that must be taken by the railroads themselves to prevent so large a number of, accidents. THe operation of trains, it would seem, is for the most part skilled and careful, Signal systems and safety devices are apparently yielding substantial results. The Commission’s re port, as published in dispatches, does_ not set forth the causes, other than defective equipment, to which accidents are accountable but It is evident from the figures given that unsound rails and wheels are the great source, of danger. It is to theinterest of the roads as well as that of the public that the most vigorous measures possible be taken to strengthen these weak points; for, It is calculated that the damage to equipment and rbad- way during the three months mentioned amounted to three million, three hundred and sixty-six thousand, four hundred and one dollars. That Is a staggering price to pay for negligence, if negligence be responsi ble, or for whatever may have been the cause of this great destruction or property. The consideration of highest importance, of course, is the tragic loss of life and the immeasurable suffer ing which these accidents entail. Two hundred and eighty-eight persons were killed’ and four thousand, five hundred and ninety-eight were Injured during July, August and September, 1912, an Increase over the corresponding period of the preceding year of eighty-seven in the killed and three hundred and fif teen in the injured. Such losses are beyond compen sation or repair; and they are a loss not only to in dividuals and families but also to the human and economic interests of the country as a whole. Despite the woeful record of the Commission for the three months reviewed, there are reassuring omens that substantial progress in preventing rail way accidents is bfeing made. The loss of property and life is still appalling, but it is appreciably less than it was a decade or two ago. Travel is un doubtedly growing securer. The public is more in sistent that Its safety be regarded and the govern ment Is more watchful of public interests. The rail roads themselves are doing more to meet their respon sibilities in this regard. While some of them are still backward or unresponsive to the people’s de mands, the great majoi-ity of progressive lines and systems are giving this matter their earnest thought and energy. I It is well, therefore, for us to remember that, though a vast deal remains to be done in assuring safe travel, much good has already been accomplish ed; that the efforts of the government In this direc tion have not been in vain and that honest endeavors on the part of the roads are not without gratifying results. The Important thing is that these efforts should continue unceasing until the perils that now beset travel are reduced to a minimum; and this Is not a hopeless or fanciful task but one that Is as practical as it is all important. A Needed Institution Which Judges Indorse. The industrial home or reformatory, established some years ago at Milledgeville by an act of the Legislature, was originally Intended to care for girls as well as hoys. Indeed, the authors and supporters of the hill In question recognized that It was just as important, if not more so, to provide a place of shelter and corrective training for way ward girls as for wayward boys. But In the very outset the demands upon the institution overswept its facilities and, so, the, necessities of circumstances have limited the Milledgeville reformatory to boys. The need of a similar institution for girls is urgent, not simply as a matter of sentiment or hu- manitarlanism but as a matter of social justice and security. It is expected that a hill providing for this need will he introduced at the next session of the Legislature. A proposal to this effect has been indorsed by superior court judges In various parts of the State and by practically everyone who has come in contact with the problems which a girl’s reformatory and training school are needed to solve. Judge John T. Pendleton, of Fulton county, de clares in this connection: “I think a reformatory for girls is very much needed in Georgia. The chil dren’s court has on several occasions had to 1 send girls to Cincinnati for the lack of a reformatory in Georgia.” This conviction is shared by scores of other judges whose opinion should carry great weight with the Legislature. Georgia should solve her own problems of this character and not depend upon the charity of dis tant sections. Think of It! “Think of driving past ninety-nine farms that do not raise colts before coming to one farm that does.” In this homely and striking manner, the Macon" News states Georgia’s urgent need of producing more live stock of its own. We are*told that our farmers now spend something like twelve million dollars a year for mules purchased in distant sections and proportionately large sums are spent for beef and cattle. This Is a short-sighted policy which hinders the State’s agricultural progress; and it is the more to be regretted in view of the fact that It is alto gether unnecessary. A small fraction of the money now sent to foreign quarters, if invested in the rais ing of colts at home, would suffice the needs of Georgia farms and at the same time lay the founda tion of a new and ever-increasing source of wealth. The Louisville Courier-Journal aptly remarks in this connection: "No State can produce everything it needs, but some of the Southern States fail egregiously in producing the things they need most. Scarely a State in the South produces enough corn for its own use. Most of the Southern States are short in hog production. This means that mil lions of dollars are paid out every year for corn and meat which might just as well be kept at home if the farmers could be induced to put forth the proper efforts. Too many of the farms are virtually one-crop farms. There are cheering signs that Georgia farmers are turning more and more numerously to the pro duction of food crops. Cotton is losing Its old-time tyranny over the soil. - More corn and peas and other such products are being raised. But there Is still a grievous need of raising more live stock. THE OLDER SISTER BY UR. TRANK CRANE. (Copyright, 1913, by Frank Crane.) She was one of those born-motherly souls. There are some women (for them our warmest thanks go up to heaven) who come into this selfish world equipped with the mothering instinct. She was the Oldest Sister. The mother, a weak, lovable, and entirely incompetent being, died after she had brought six^girls into life. The Older Sister moved naturally up into the moth er’s place. She looked after the younger sisters, mended their stockings, kept their frocks neat and their bedrooms in order, their hair combed, and their nails cleaned. She watched the home expenditures, checked up the grocery man, and saw to it that the cook prepared something fit to eat. She also attended to father, had his suits pressed, his laundry well done, and his slippers ready. There are two classes of human beings. ^Dne as sumes responsibility. The other avoids it. She as sumed it. The others unanimously let her. She sent the children to school. SJhe got most of their lessons for them. She was the High Wall and the Shepherd Dog and the Rear Guard of that family. She saw them all married. Then she herself was married. She was beautiful, with a demure kind of beauty. Her husband adored her. ne took her away and loaded her with attentions. He surrounded her with servants. Luxuries were at her hand. She pined away. She was not happy. Some women are by nature wives and some are by nature mothers. She ought to have had children, but had none. One day her husband was brought hem© a cripple. He had been in a railway accident. He would never THE INCOME TAX VI.—Taxation at the Source. BY FREDERIC J. HA SKIN. The principal objection to the income tax in the United States is the one stated in 1894 by William L. Wilson before Benton McMillin stole a march on him and forced his amendment to th e Wilson bill through the ! house—that it Is a tax upon conscience. As will be told in | a subsequent article, the house leaders were not in favor of an ! income tax, and William L. Wil- , son declared that he favored a corporation tax because the gov- , ernment had means to assess corporations properly, but that I he thought it would be diffi cult to collect income' t^axes ' from Individuals. He declared ’ that he believed in the equity of such a tax, 'but not in its practicability. What Mr. Wilson sought was j ’ .beans of imposing a tax that , would make taxation at its source a possibility. • Such a method of collecting the bulk of their income taxes has been found to be success ful by a number of governments. In some of the countries which have national Income tax laws as much as four-fifths of the total possible revenues’ from these laws are gathered into the public trees- ) ury before the incomes .upon which they are a tax i reach the bank accounts of their owners. • be well again. They said he should be taken to the hospital. There she stood firm, insisting that she would care for him herself. So she nursed him. And began to pick up. To be coddled did not agree wlti. her; coddling some one she loved gave her health and happiness. After her husband died she began taking care of her sisters’ children. Her sisters handed them over to her as a matter of course. She mothered them all, planned, worked and dreamed for them. Her whole life was spent In an unending sacrifice for others, perhaps she "deserved no credit” for this, because she liked to do it. Once, when she was fifteen, her father brought home six large, red apples. She gave each of her sis ters one, laying her own on the kitchen shelf. They devoured theirs, then the two smallest came and stood about looking at the apple on the shelf. She cut It In two and gave each one-half. They ate joyfully. Their explanation of this was that sister DID NOT LIKE APPLES! Perhaps the Oldest Sister was deficient in some way, and possibly there was truth In the remarks of some neighbors, that she lacked spirit, that she never amounted to much, and that she would have done bet ter to have asserted her rights. Perhaps. But, please, Lord, don't stop making such as she! Captain Barnacle’s Log. BY JOHN H. WISKAR "I've been on the water wagon ever since my Tim Maloney’s thirst cost us both a kingdom,” declared Captain Barnacle, reminiscently. "Tim was first mate for me on the old whaler Belvedere, and when we got back, after a three years’ cruise in the Arctic Tim and me had about $3,000 between us. ” ’Captain,’ says he, ‘let’s quit the sea and be come millionaires,’ he says. I sure am agreeable If h e can show me how, “ ■We’ll buy an auto and take It down to Dahomey, where they haven’t anything like that and then we’ll soon be appointed rulers of the land.’ “Well, sir, this sounds pretty good to me, so we purchases a big car and has it shipped to Africa. We started Inland from Tunis and kept going on through the desert for the farther end of Dahomey, where they are still wild and uncivilized. Tim was a good companion, but he was given to drinking. He was always thirsty. We had a good supply of drinkables along and also had a large tank of gasoline. “We kept' journeying for a month and finally reached the valley of the El-Tabre river, where the natives are rich and are ruled by a beautiful queen, who was almost white. Here It was that we stopped. The people had never heard of an auto, much less seen one, and they thought we were supernatural be ings. They immediately fell down and started to worship the auto, and when I honked the horn they knew we were some kind of spirits direct from the sky." "The highest officials came out to escort us to the town, and we were immediately taken before the queen. I started to make love to her at once, and she also took a fancy to me. The first thing I did was to take her out for an auto ride. Say, she was crazy over it. Talk about' the lure of joy riding! That queen wanted to ride all the time. She also showered presents on both me and Tim. She made me Bort of a prime minister, and pretty soon our engagement was announced by the court chamberlain. Everything was fine. I saw years of peace as king of this wealthy people, with an occasional trip to Europe or America for a little change from the cares of being a king, Tim was also happy, although he seemed to be about half drunk all the time. I kept wondering how he had managed to make his booz e last so long. Strange, but this race of people didn’t know what liquor was, and I knew Tim couldn't have found any in the city. But I didn’t- care what he did as long as no one was In jured except himself. “Well, the wedding day was set for one week off, and I was just about as contented as a mortal man can be, when the queen sent me word she wanted a long moonlight ride that night. This Just suited me also. We Etarted out and drove over beautiful roads, and everywhere we went the people cheered us. Fi nally we wanted to be more alone, so we drove well up in the mountains. When we finally started homeward I thought the auto was acting funny, and suddenly It stopped. I Investigated. To my horror I discovered that the gasoline tank was empty. And there was no more gasoline wltliin at least 2,000 miles. The queen raged and ordered me to start the car. I tried to ex plain, but she wouldn’t listen. We had to hike about ten miles before we could get a wagon. The next day Tim and I were banished from the kingdom. “How did It happen? Why, that animal Tim had kept drunk on my gasoline, and he had emptied a fifty-gallon tank. The*’s all. But that’s how his thirst lost me a. crown.” Of course' one has to look to England for the best example of a successful policy of taxation at the source. There the government does* not depend upon personal returns made up by the taxpayers, but re quires payment to be made and an accounting rendered to the government by the corporations and other en terprises -jnon such Incomes as are taxable. It is generally agreed that where there Is a fixed rate, j without graduation or differentiation, the stoppage , at the source system is by far the best method. Even in the case of a distinction or differentiation between earned and unearned income there is nd serious diffi culty, but how to harmonize stoppage at the source . . with graduation ls^ a most intricate problem. For instance, if a man’s income is made up of many items —of salary, of Interest on bonds, of dividends on 1 stocks, of rents from houses, and profits from a farm —how Is the government, under a graduated Income tax, to tell how much to deduct as tax on each Item, until It knows his whole Income? This Is one of the many puzzles of harmonizing th. two propositions that England is experiencing today. How to stop the | tax at its source, and at the same time not to take too much or too little has proved a difficult problem. • • • The idea of stopping the Income tax at Its point of origin Is more than a century old, and to England belongs the credit of originating It. At first there was a general practice of giving In Incomes In a lump! sum; a mart simply reported that he had an income of so many pounds sterling, and he was taxed accord ingly. Then it came to pass that men so persistently estimated their incomes far below their actual amount, and In order to get a better line on what the incomes of taxpayers really were, Incomes were divided up into I schedules. It was no longer "How much Is your in- come?” but rather "How much do you get from your bank stock, how much from your company dividends,! how much from your rent?” In other words, It be- camo a matter of an Itemized account of Income rather than a statement of the total. • • t The advantage of the system of stopping the tax at Its source never was more clearly Illustrated than I when England first adopted It In 1803. Before that j time the tax rate had been 10 per cent. The law that| provided for collecting the major portion of the tax at its source also contained a provision cutting the rate in half and making it 6 per cent. And yet the lower rate, with stoppage at the source as a substi tute for the lump sum tax, produced practically the same amount of revenue as the higher rate without it. Practically every student of the English Income tax laws agrees that one of the principal factors In Its success has been the principle of stopping the tax at its source. England has ’clung tenaciously to that Idea from the beginning, and has coupled with It the practice of requiring Incomes to be Itemized by sched ules In such a way that their salient features, at least, may be checked up. Every English tax author ity, as was shown by the investigation of 1906, feels that it would be an evil day for England should It decide to give \JP these two principles of assessment and collection. ? In Germany the situation is a different one. There j inquisitorial methods are taken as matter of course,*' and the people seem to care but little if the revenue I authorities do pry into their private affairs. They permit such inquiry into their affairs as never would | he tolerated by British subjects or American citizens, and so there is not the great necessity for avoiding ! inquisitorial Investigations that there is in .England and the United States. If a German subject reports i his income at $3,000 and the tax authorities , think it is too low they may ask him what he pays for his j telephone, whether he las one in his private apart- \ ments, whether he takes a box'at the theater, what he / does with his Income, what he did with the money he i got from selling some furniture last year, and a hun- i dred and one other questions, any one of which, if | asked of the average American, would tempt him to reply: “It Isn’t any of your business." But Germany is about the only country where j stoppage at the source has , not proved to be a prime i essential to the success of the tax. Everywhere other \ systems have been tried and pronounced a failure, and l when stoppage at the source was written into the law i this failure generally has been followed by success, j Of course, It is natural that If A pays B a part of B’s income, he is rot going to perjure himself to save the amount of that, payment from "becoming known to the ! revenue authorities. Therefore, is ra'her certain to tell just how much income B does get through him. That is why stoppage ct. the source succeeds where, the old system of simply lettlhg B report his income fails. Pointed Paragraphs The old-fashioned embezzler who fled to Canada these days would sojourn in one of Uncle Sam’s In stitutions. What a River Can Do Look out, or the dictograph’ll get you. * * * Dispatches fail to indicate how Savannah regards the Webb bill. • * • The powers that be too frequently sit down on evil as gingerly as if it were an inverted tack. Notwithstanding that railroads now skirt both banks, from source to mouth, the Ohio still floats annual commerce of 10,000,000 tons, and 90 per cent of the commerce that goes down the Mississippi to New Orleans comes out of the Ohio. This results from the large shipments of coal from Pennsylvania and West Virginia, which ^.r© made in barges towed by powerful sternwheel steamboats of which the Sprague is the largest. The banner trip of this steamer, made from Louisville to New Orleans, was 67,500 tons. It is not unusual for steamers to bring into the Cincinnati market upon a freshet 250,000 tons of coal and finished steel products within a week. To move this quantity by rail would require 5,896 cars of forty-five tons each, made up into 146 trains of thirty cars each, drawn by as many locomotives. No rail road, however well equipped, could perform this serv ice Inside of sixty days without excluding its regular traffic, to say nothing of its inability to assemble such a quantity of traffic at either end of its terminal. This illustrates the illimitable capacity of river transpor tation.—Alfred Bettinger in National Waterways. Listeners don’t expect to hear any good of them- i selves; It’s the bad of others they are after. ... * A woman can love her enemies if they will only give her a chance to say horrid things about them. * * * In Europe war takes such a running start that it continues even after peace is declared. ... , Some poets affect carelessness in their wardrobe for the same reason that tramps travel in freight , cars. • • • Our favorite almanac Is authority for the predlc- tion that hot weather may be confidently expected j from now on. • I • Oyster Bay has lapsed In the obscurity of a town which wasn't conspicuously explained In tha last \ census.