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THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA., TUESDAY, JULY 15, 1913.
\
THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
ATLANTA, GA., 6 WORTH FORSYTH ST.
Entered at the Atlanta Postoffice as Mall Matter ot
the Second Class.
*
JAMES R. GRAY,
President and Editor.
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Atlanta, Ga.
A Menace to Cotton Interests.
Commercial" and civic bodied the country over,
and particularly in the South, will do well to fol
low the timely example of the Atlanta Chamber of
Commerce in registering a vigorous protest against
the proposed federal tax of fifty cents a hale on cot
ton future contracts. Such contracts when made in
connection with legitimate cotton busimss are as
justifiable as they are necessary. They not only pro
tect the dealer but they also benefit the farmer;
to place upon them such a tax as has been suggested
would he a grave injury to a legitimate and highly
Important field of the country’s common Interests.
Right-minded men are all agreed that gambling
in cotton should he outlawed But that is an en
tirely different matter from the future contract
which the merchant makes a= a safeguard against
his sales. No other commodity fluctuates in price
so widely and so continually as does cotton. A mer
chant may agree today to deliver to a mill a certain
number of bales at a certain price and then find It
impossible to do so without ruinous loss. It is es
sential to the very existence of the cotton business
that he have some opportunity to urotec: himself
against such sales; and that is the opportunity
which the future contract provides Without that
resource, no extensive cotton dullness could be
conducted.
The effect of this system is obviously toward
maintaining a fair price for cotton for, the mer
chant could not afford to offer such a price ’f he
were forced to incur all the risks of fluctuation w th-
out any means of protection. Cotton exchanges
should be duly regulated but at the same time their
legitimate uses should he recognized. The proposed
tax - would accomplish no worthy end but on the
contrary would imperil a great field of commerj.al
and agricultural interests. It has no rightful place
in the tariff bill, to which its advocate would attach
it as a “rider.” It should be promptly killed.
Truth is -what a man knows; what a woman be
lieves.
. \
)
Georgia Must Catch Up.
Of those measures which Lord Bacon describes
as “coming home to men’s business and bosoms,”
the hill now before the Legislature, providing for
the establishment of a State bureau of vital statis
tics, is a distinctly happy example. The enactment
of such a law will be directly helpful to every house
hold and every industry in Georgia. It will ighc
the way to more elective work for public health in
each community and in the State as a whole;' it will
furnish the complete and definite information that
is necessary for the resistance or conquest of disease;
and at the same time it will bring Georgia abreast
other commonwealths that are duly advertising as
well as conserving their natural healthfulness.
I The value of a system of vital statistics to public
health is so manifest as to require little insistence.
Without an authentic record of births, deaths and
the causes of deaths, it is impossible to know to any
degree of certainty the results' of our campaign
against diseases or to determine just where atad how
to proceed in combating them. The State appropriates
money for anti-tuberculosis work, but it has no
means of knowing whether the death rate from
tuberculosis is declining or increasing. That is, to
say the least, poor business.- We appropriate money
for a State department of health but its officials have
no means of ascertaining the extent- or the territory
of a particular disease; and that Is egregious’y poor
management. If the health funds of State and
county are to yield due returns, there must be a
system of vital statistics in the light of which they
can be spent far more efficiently than now.
Recognizing the importance of such facts, pro
gressive States throughout the Union have estab
lished bureaus for the registration of vital statistics,
or are preparing tj do so. 1 The South has been un
fortunately belated in this enterprise but it is cheer
ing to note that recently Virginia, North Carolina,
Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi and Arkansas have
all adopted a model vital statistics law which not
only benefits them at home but also heightens their
prestige abroad. Georgia can no longer lag in this
essential matter without suffering a sharp disadvan
tage.
One of the most important and valuable services
of the federal census bureau is the collection of vital
statistics from what it termed the registration area,
that is to say from those States in which there is a
satisfactory syste: for the registration of such sta
tistics. It is Gecrg.a’s heavy misfortune that she is
not now in the "registration area,” her only avail
able records of this kind being from the cities of
Savannah and Atlanta; and so it happens that in
those reports of the United States census which deal
with health records and conditions and which are
read as authoritative throughout the world, the
state of Georgia has virtually no place or mention.
The Legislature should note this fact in all its far-
reaching consequent i and reflect that until the pres
ent condition is remedied by the establishment of a
I State bureau of vital statistics, our commonwealth
will continue to suffer, or at least will fail to win its
i due rank, in the public opinion of the entire country.
I The first consideration of the home-seeker, and
! among the first of the Investor, is that of health,
j The counties and cities of Georgia are earnestly en-
! gaged today in exploiting their rich natural re-
! sources with a view to attracting new settlers and
new capital from ether parts of the Union; and the
importance of sucl efforts to the State's develop
ment cannot be overgauged. But how can we ex
pect a due measure of success in this regard,
when we have no official standing in those health
records to which people everywhere turn for guid
ance in the selection of a place In which to live and
do business? Georgians believe, and rightly so, that
their State is one of the most healthful in all
America. But in order that this fact may count for
definite results, it must be brought forward not sim
ply as hearsay but as competent evidence; it must
be placed in the record by which the public verdict
is formed; and that can he done only through the
establishment of a State bureau of vital statistics.
We can point the prospective investor or home-
seeker to figures which convince him of the abun
dance and variety of Georgia’s material resources.
We can show him the State’s vast production of
cotton and its wonderful progress in fruit growing;
j we can prove the peculiar adaptability of its soil
and climate to cattle raising and its distinctive op
portunities for truck farming; we can bring forward
direct evidence of its manufacturing growth and in
every other field of practical endeavor or achieve
ment we can give a definite account. But when
we come to the supremely important matter of
health, we have no records to which we can refer
and, so, this, the greatest of our natural assets
loses its appeal.
A system of vital statistics is essential, there
fore, from an economic as well as a social and hu
man standpoint, essential to the State’s reputation
and progres as well as to the needs of its p n op'e.
An admirable bill to this end has been introduced
by Senator 0. H. Elkins, of the Fifteenth distriot.
It provides for a State registrar of vital statistics,
under the direction bf the State Board of Health,
and also for local registrars in every town, city
and militia district in the State. The Elkins hill
has the hearty indorsement of health authoriti s
and physicians. It solves a problem which can no
longer be neglected, save at the sacrifice of Georgia’s
vital interests. It is earnestly to he hoped that it
will become a law at the present session o' the
General Assembly.
Just as we had got ready to satisfy the bill col
lectors, along came a fresh financial complication
—renewed hostilities in the Balkans.
The Progress of the Tariff Bill.
The tariff bill is now on the last stage of its prog
ress toward enactment. A little more than two
months ago it reached the Senate from the House
where it had passed with an overwhelming majority.
Since then it has been under a searching review,
first by the Democratic members of the Senate fi
nance committee, then by the Democratic caucus,
and finally by the finance committee as a whole,
whence It is now favorably reported by a strictly
party vote. It is expected that the debate over the
measure will begin next Wednesday and will con
tinue for probably five weeks, In which event the
bill will be disposed of about the middle or latter
part of August
That it will become a law, there is scarcely a
shadow of doubt, for, with the exception of the two
Senators from Louisina, It has the united and Im
movable support of the Senate Democrats. Their
majority, to be sure, is very slender, but it will
suffice to shield the bill from any weakening or de
structive amendments and, at the telling moment,
to press it to victory. The fact is the tariff fight is
virtually over and won. The coming debate will
be more Interesting as a play of wits than for any
determining influence it may exert. The Democrats,
omitting the Louisianians, will vote solidly for their
party pledge and their convictions; the Standpat
Republicans will vote solidly for their old regime
while the “progressives” or insurgents will probably
follow limplngly in their wake.
The significant circumstance of the tariff bill, as
reported from the finance committee, is that it re
tains unimpaired those essential features with which
it was stamped in the House and upon which the
administration has unswervingly insisted. It re
tains the very important provisions of free wool
and of the immediate reduction with the ultimate
removal of duties on sugar. It was around these
two items that the real tariff battle was waged and
there, if anywhere, a less able leadership or a less
loyal Democracy would have failed. The fact that
wool still stands on the free list In the bill as re
ported from the committee and that no concession
has been made in the case of sugar is distinctive evi
dence of the President’s strength and also of the
unity and fitness of the Democratic Congress. Party
leaders who will stand together in such- circum
stances as these have been may be depended upon to
carry out the remainder of their program for liberal
and cofistructive legislation.
The tariff bill Is markedly different now from the
measure that originally came from the House but
they are differences of detail, not of principle or
purpose. Such amendments as have been made by
the committee and by the caucus are designed to
strengthen and perfect. That is the case in certain
administrative features of the bill and In the changes
offered in the income tax provisions. It is notewor
thy that the tarff duties are as a whole considerably
lower than those adopted by the House. Cattle and
wheat, for instance, have been taken from the dutia
ble list and placed on the free list and other articles
in common demand have been ordered free. The con
trolling purpose has been to tax luxuries most heav
ily and necesities most lightly and to make all du
ties as low as they consistently can be in keeping
with the needs of the government’s income and the
welfare of the country’s business.
It is a significant fact that as this tariff bill en
ters upon its final stage and when its enactment be
comes simply a question of weeks, we hear scarcely
an echo of the gloomy prophecies which in other
years were invariably made whenever downward
tariff revision was proposed. The old fears and pre
judices and misrepresentations have lost their spell.
The country looks forward to the new tariff as a
means of larger economic justice to the rank and
file of the people and of a larger measure of pros
perity and freedom for business enterprise.
The world do move, standpatters to the c. n—g.
The race is to be swift and the battle to the
strong, or words to that effect, but sometimes the
best ball team falls down.
Fiscal Reforms, a Paramount
Need in Georgia’s Progress.
There Is no higher duty'before the present Leg
islature than that of reshaping the State’s financial
system to fit ever expanding public needs. We dare
not continue the blind policy of making appropria
tions that cannot be paid nor can we safely neglect
those enterprises and institutions on which Georgia’s
development vitally depends. It is important to be
gin with that expenses be kept within the bounds
of revenue but if our fiscal problems are really to he
solved we must go further and provide fair and ade
quate means for increasing the revenue. .
The first logical step toward this end lies clearly
in tax equalization. Far from being a lean or. im
poverished State, Georgia is one of the richest in all
the Union. Her lands are fertile, her harvests va
ried and bounteous, her industries are thriving and
beneath what she has already accomplished lies an
almost illimitable store of natural resources await
ing development. Is it not amazing that such a
State should delay the payment of its common school
teachers until nearly a year after their services are
performed and that it should stint great public insti
tutions in the bare necessities of their existence?
It is not only amazing, it is unnecessary. If all
the property in Georgia were taxed fairly and uni
formly; there would be ample funds to deal gener
ously with public needs and dnterprises and at the
same average citizen’s tax could be reduced. But
our present system, or rather lack of system, has
been well described as one of “passing the hat.”
Every man can return his taxes for whatever figure
he pleases. Thus we find that in many counties the
State tax valuation of land Is anywhere fro#i twenty-
five to seventy-five per cent less than the census val
uation. We find also that lands whjtah are returned
in some counties fifty dollars an acre are returned
in others for only three. And we find that among
the one hundred and forty-eight counties In the
State there are only thirty-nine whose payments to
the State treasury exceed their receipts from the
State in the way of pension and school funds.
It is this glaring lack of fairness and uniformity
in tax returns that is chiefly responsible for the
State’s heavy fiscal problems. This is the underly
ing cause of the State’s present inability to pay its
teachers and to support as it should those enterprises
which make for common progress and prosperity.
This system is as unjust to the individual citizen as
it Is to the public. An equalization of taxes would
not only yield a larger revenue, It would also reduce
the burden upon the average taxpayer, for, when
all men bear their rightful portion qf the expenses of
good and progressive government, then every man’s
load will be lighter.
To devise some means for getting actual tax val
ues on the books and for equalizing taxes in general
is, therefore, a paramount duty of the Legislature;
and it is cheering to note that the members of the
present Legislature show an earnest purpose to deal
frankly and in a businesslike manner with this ur
gent task. It is to be hoped that they will continue
to work steadily and harmoniously in this direction
until Georgia is redeemed from the obsolete and in
equable system that now Impoverishes her treasury
and hamstrings her progress.
Bulgaria and the Balkans.
Bulgaria’s boast that she could return two blows
for every one given by the _.,u Serbs was
uttered in the haughty spirit that goes before a fall.
Whipped into a sadder but wiser spirit by the Allies,
whose just claims she refused to consider, she is
now appealing for mediation from the lowers and,
as the dispatches anounce, has placed hersel 1 ’ un
reservedly in the hands of ivussia. The result will
probably be an early, if not an immediate, end to
the present Balkan war on taring distinctly advan
tageous to Servia and Greece.
These two nations played a valorous part in the
campaign against the Turks and earned a liberal
share of the conquered lands to be di/ided. The
Serbs were in the thick of the fighting around
Adrinanople and but for their timely reinforcements
it is doubtful that the Bulgarians could have cap
tured that city which was the key to the entire w.ir.
The Greeks rendered invaluable service both by
land and sea and by closing the path between the
Turkish army and its supplies did much to make
victory possible. They were first, too, In the posses
sion of Saloniea. They have a broad basis for recog
nition in territorial^ allotments.
It, was unfortunate for Balkan interests in gom
eral and especially for Bulgaria that the latter
adopted so greedy and narrow a policy toward b°r
allies when the war was over. A well-knit Balkan
federation could wield large influence in the affairs
of Europe but evidently it must be a federation
built upon justice .toward all .ts members; it can
not stand upon the selfish basis Bulgaria sought to
establish. It is to he hoped that the lessons of the
preserft war will be heeded and that the Balkan
States may again he united to carry forward the
great tasks of peace as successfully as they did
those of war.
The Result of Conservation.
It appears from recent federal reports that forest
fires which were so- grave a menace a few years
ago are rapidly decreasing. Only some thirty thou
sand acres of the national reserves have been burned
over so far this season, and that is a trivial portion
of the total area of the one hundred and sixty-three
forests now under federal supervision.
This gratifying result is due largely no doubt to
'Improved and extended safeguards against forest
fires; and it Is but one evidence of our awakened
sense to the need of protecting and conserving
natural resources. We hear much less of the con
servation movement now than we did a few seasons
gone by, not because that movement is less virile
but simply because it is accomplishing its purpose
in a a constructive manner. Like most other re
forms, it bestirred a great deal of clamor and at
tracted a great deal of notice while it was breaking
a path through popular indifference and prejudiced
opposition. Once well under way, it moved quietly
but forcefully forward.
The tasks of conservation are in no wise com
plete, nor will they ever be. Indeed, they have but
fairly begun. The vital idea from which they
spring, like all ideas that count in the betterment
of the world, must be continually renewed, readjust
ed and applied to particular needs.
The principle on which thousands of acres of
forest land are saved from selflish monopolies at
one time and from, destructive fires at another must
be adapted to divers other situations. The preven
tion of fires In general by means of educating the
public In rules of caution and safety Is one of the
great fields of conservation, as is also the protection
of public health. The fact is we are just beginning
to appreciate the true meaning of this term and the
full scope of the cause behind it
NUDE OR UNDRESSED?
BY DR.; FRANK CRANE.
(Copyright, 1913, by Frank Crane.)
THE REVENUE
CUTTER SERVICE j
BY FREDERIC J. HASKIN.
Quite a little dust has been kicked up over the
question whether Paul Chabas’ picture “September
Morn,” Is obscene or not. It presents to us a young
girl standing in the water, with
no clothing except the morning
haze.
A. Comstock et al. have de
nounced the picture as indecent.
In this view the honorable Bath
House John of Chicago coincides.
Artists and other emancipated
souls are equally emphatic in
their declaration that whoever
objects to seeing the girl in the
altogether is a prude and all sorts
of other undesirable things.
It may set both parties right
to get the matter clearly in mind.
All quarrels arise from a failure
to agree first on definitions. It
is a case oi Die two knights'fighting over the color of*
a shield red on one side and blue on the other.
And in the particular subject at issue it all depends
upon whether the young female is Nude or Undressed.
A Nude person is one who goes unclothed from
preference and only wears garments for warmth’s
sake. An Undressed person is one who always wears
clothes, loves them and expresses herself or himself
by them, and who is surprised garmentless.
The Venus de Milo in the Louvre is nude. Lady
Godiva as she rode the streets of Coventry was all
undressed. The Greeks were nude; Americans in a
Turkish bath are naked.
Modern civilized conventional hun^an beings can
never be nude, because clothes are a part of their re
ligion. What they call morality has nothing unusual
ly to do with any ethical force or virtue of self-ex
pression, but is merely conformity to custom. Such
people can never be nude; when they take off their
clothC3 they are naked—and naughty.
It is not so bad as it used to be. In a preceding
generation nothing had legs but pianos and tables; la
dies had limbs; and the whole region from the collar
to the waistlines was known as the stomach, for the
simple old English term belly was for some inscrutable
reason believed to e indelicate.
There is even a legend of a young preacher who
announced to his flock that he was about to discourse
upon “Jonah, who, as you all know, spent three days
in the whale’s—um—hm—that is to say, three days in
the^whale’s—hm—society.”
The painting by Chabas is not of something naked,
the girl is not undressed. She never had any clothes
on in her life. She is not thinking clothes. She has
stepped dryad-like out of the woods where she lives
with other bodied-fancies, with thought-beings that
never wore anything but beauty.
She is nude. And she is as pure as the deity-fin
gers that made bodies, and purer than the human fin
gers that fix and button up clothes.
She never wore anything, never will wear anything.
If she put anything on she would be indecent.
So it’s all as you take It. Most of us never “'come
to ourselves” except by undressing. As soon as we
are born the layette is ready, all our lives we wear
uniforms, whan we lie ,Mn our coffins we are still
dressed up, and when we get to heaven and fly around
with the angels we shall all have on beautiful white
nightgowns.
So let us be thankful that there remains one realm
where the nude human form, the most beautiful thing
God ever made, can still walk in innocence and free •
from all the stifling psuedo-moralities clothes imply—
the realm of art.
When Mile. Ada Villany was fined ‘wo hundred
francs for dancing nude upon the stage at Paris,, her
defense was that when /She removed her clothing it
was to express her soul. She was mistaken. The body
does not express the soul unless it has always been un
clothed. It is not the absence of clothing that is in
decent; it is the removal of clothing.
COURTESY
(Chicago Tribune.)
“Courtesy,” as issued by the Atlanta, Birmingham
and Atlantic Railroad company, in a pamphlet .for its
employes, contains the practical philosophy of that vir
tue.
It would bring to the comprehension of every em
ploye of a public service corporation that in entering
service he exchanged one of the rights of mankind for
the rights of authority. He surrendered the right to
meet impatience with patience. He gave up the privi
lege of answering irritability with irritability.
* He substituted a disciplined calmness for the natural
instinct of man to talk back or hit back. He maay, in
the ordinary moments of his work, be dealing with peo
ple who are in the extraordinary moments of their life.
His nerves ought to be steadied by routine; theirs may
be upset by accident.
His attitude towards the public ought to be and
must be one of superiority in its real sense.
Says “Courtesy”;
The man whose business it is to meet the public,
who resists impatience with patience and temper with
calmness, is gaining the respect and sympathy of every
witness to the situation, and the offender will regret
his act in his first reasoning moment.
In this country, where all are created free and
equal, it is the first instinct to harshly resent any
word of temper or impatience. It is considered a de
nial of one man’s equality with another.
All men are equal as they meet as the patrons of
the railroads, the theater, the hotel, or any public or
semi-public institution.
But—
When it becomes the business of one man to meet
these same men in an official capacity, then that man
becomes superior over the many by reason of his au
thority—it becomes his business, his trade, to meet the
public, individually and collectively, and handle them
efficiently, with the least possible friction and the
most dispatch—with the least resistance to his author
ity.
This requires that he look above the weaknesses of
individuals in the crowd and meet discourtesy with
courtesy, unreasonableness with reason, impatience
with patience.
The philosophy of this “courtesy” is within the
comprehension of every public service employe, and its
good natured acceptance, as an evidence of superiority,
would improve every such service.
One Regular Job
There was a man in our town—
A lazy sort of chap.
He got a job one summer day
And thought he’d found a snap.
He lingered and he loitered,
He loafed and chattered—then
He found he had to go about
To hunt a job again.
There was a man in our town—
He found a place once more;
He took his stand with other men
A-clerking tyi a store.
He shirked and dodged and soldiered
All in the boss’ ken,
And so he shortly went his way
To hunt a job again.
There was a man in our town—
You’ll find him there today;
No matter where the town may be,
He’s settled down to stay.
This chap when you’ve discovered
You’ve found one fellow then
Whose steady job is just to go
To hunt a job again!
If there be trouble to seaward, your American looks
to 'the revenue cutter service for first aid. Founded
in the very infancy of the republic as a marine —■•.u-
stabulary to suppress smuggling)
the service has UKpanded in th4
scope of its duties and activities
until its very title is a misnomer
that often minimizes the publiS
recognition the service so richl3
deserves. Older than the navy]
enjoying none of the adventitious
aid of military glamour, the rev*
enue cutter service keeps on it^
way, unsung but not unhonored,
doing its own work and morq
true to its ancient motto “sem
per paratus”—always ready.
• • •
A ship in distress at sea—th4
revenue cutter service to the res'
cue; in one year no less than 260 vessels in distress
were succored by revenue cutters. More than 2,000
persons aboard these ships were assisted, nearly 300
were actually taken aboard the cutters to be cared for,
and 106 were saved from actual drowning—taken out
of the water. That in itself is not a bad year’s work.
Translated into dollars it means that for every doUaf
expended on the revenue cutter service in that year
$4.36 was saved in property rescued from the perils of
the seas—not taking into account the lives saved
and suffering eased or the vast amount of other work!
done.
...
A revenue cutter patrols the northern seas in sum J
mer to keep watch of icebergs and to prevent perhaps
another Titanic disaster. Every winter cutters ard
assigned to patrol all the Atlantic coast to warn ship
ping of ice and derelicts and to assist vessels in trou
ble in those stormy months. One cutter makes a par
ticular' business of destroying derelicts ^nd other 1
menaces to navigation, and all the cutters do this kind
of work when necessary. How many disasters travel
been prevented no one can tell, but in one year forty-
five derelicts were destroyed and nearly $200,000 worth
of property was recovered from them and restored to
the owners.
rtevenue cutters not only guard the fishing and
scaling grounds of Alaska, keeping off foreign poach
ers and enforcing treaty rights, but to the people in
remote parts of Alaska they represent all there is of
government. They bring the mall, they furnish sup J
plies in emergencies, they afford protection from ene
mies, and keep open communication with the outside!
world. Once a year a revenue cutter departs from
Sitka with a fully equipped court on board—a judge,
a clerk, a government attorney and other lawyers. Itj
cruises in the Alaskan inlets and among the islands
and the floating court administers justice. Mixed ju
ries of* settlers and the cutter crew assist the judge, 1
and In this way the immunities, protections and re
sponsibilities of the constitution and the laws are made
available to even the most remote Alaskan island.
* * *
Last year when the volcano Mount Katmai deluged
Kodiak island with a smothering rain of ashes it was
the revenue cutter Manning, Captain K. W. Perry, 1
commanding, that saved the inhabitants from death
and destruction by transporting them to safety and
furnishing them food and supplies. Braving the most
awful and terrifying of dangers, the men of this and
other vessels of the service rescued all the people,
probably saving more than 400 souls. .
• • •
But the service is still, as it was when it was cre
ated by a law signed by George Washington on Au
gust 4, 1790, a marine constabulary. Last year It
boarded and examined the papers of no less than 24,- 1
918 Vessels approaching our shores. More than a thou
sand were seized and reported for violation of law,
and nearly a quarter of a million dollars in fines and|
penalties were collected from these. • j
./ • « *
Not the least appeal Is neglected. The cutter
Apache has gone to the rescue of many a tin bugeye
in the Chesapeake, and the Algonquin has hastened
out to sea in response to a wireless appeal from ah
ocean liner. There are twenty-five cruising cutter*
i. the service. They are of many types, ranging from 1
the Thetis and the Bear, converted arctic whalers,!
built for the ice, to the derelict destroyer Seneca and
the brand-new. and modern Miami and Unalga. It was
the Thetis that carried Captain Schley and his party!
to the Arctic region to rescue General Greeley, and
though burdened with full years of heavy work she Is
still In commission in Alaskan waters.
Last suihmer Captain Louis J. Van Schaick, of the
army, w&s returned to the United States from the
Philippines. Two ur three hundred miles east of Hon
olulu he and his wife were sitting onthe deck of the
army transport enjoying a bottle of ginger ale. When 1
It was finished the captain decided to make some vise
of the bottle. He wrote on the back,of an old envel
ope his name, the date, the ship’s position and the
statement that a dollar reward would be paid to the
person returning the slip of paper. He placed it‘ini
the bottle and threw it overboard. One day In A|?ril
there came to hi^ Washington address a letter from
the revenue cutter Thetis. It enclosed the bit oil t<$rn
envelope. The bottle had been picked up on one qfi
the Lysiansky Islahds in the north Pacific. The Is
land Is uninhabited, but the Thetis goes there occa
sionally to see that all is well. The officer was much
distressed because the water "had blotted out the date
on the torn paper. He wished to know just when the
bottle was dropped overboard theft he might report it
to the hydrographic office as ab it of information use
ful in charting the currents of the north Pacific. No
little thing that can be of aid or value to navigation
is overlooked. The Thetis In that year had taken the
floating court Ao utmost Alaska, It had warned off
Japanese seal poachers, i^had protected the customs In
Hawaiian waters, It had patrolled the Lysianskys, and
It had made trip of explortion to the almost unknown
Laysan islands for the department of agriculture.
• * *
The service is under*the treasury department and is
headed by a captain commandant, now faptain Ells
worth Price Bertholf. He is assisted by 159 line offi
cers. 81 engineer officers, headed by Captain C. A. Mc-j
Allister, and two constructors. The captain command
ant ranks, by law, with a colonel In the army a senior
captain and the engineer-in-chief ranks with a lieuten-j
and colonel, captain with major, first lieutenant with
captain, second lieutenant with first lieutenant, and
third lieutenant with second lieutenant in the army.'
The warrant officers, petty officers and men of the.
crew number 1,576. Officers are graduated Into the
service from the school of instruction at New London. 1
Conn., where there are now fewer than a score of
cadets.
By no means are the varied duties of the service |
completely outlined in this article. The service assists
in the enforcement of the quarantine laws, and a cut-
ter that today is responding to a wireless appeal for
succor from a sinking ship may be tomorrow speedlngl
on her way to help fight bubonic plague in Porto Rico. 1
* * *
Nor is the service wholly of the salt seas. Revenue
cutters ply the great lakes that lie between ourselves!
ancU Canada and there keep motor boats from running
without lights, while also protecting the,- customs.
Revenue cutters sail up the Mississippi and in times
of great floods co-operate with the army and the local
authorities in flood relief work.
Pointed Paragraphs
Not all "women are as bad as they paint them
selves.
• • * *
Late hours and a spicy breath are sure to tell >0111
a man. , . 'I
- - 4
f
An old man who suffers from dyspepsia has but|
little sympathy for a young woman who merely has
a broken heart.