Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, July 15, 1913, Image 4

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4 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. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE Twelve months 75o Six months ' l 0 c 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 world, brought by special leased wires Into our office. It has a staff of distinguished contributors, with strong departments of special value to the home and the farm. Agents warted at every postoffice. Liberal com mission allowed. Outfit free. Write R. R- BRAD LEY. Circulation Manager. The only traveling representatives we nave are J. A. Bryan, R. F. Bolton, C. C. Coyle. L. H. Kim brough and jC. T. Yates. We will be responsible only for money paid to the above named traveling repre sentatives. . NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBER'S. ' 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 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. 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.