About Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 25, 1916)
4 THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL ATLAJTTA. QA, 5 KO*TH FO2STTH ST. Entered at the Atlanta Pcstornce as Mall Matter of th* Second Class. JAMES B OUT President and Editor. ______ EUESCBIPTIOM PRICE. Twelve months .....••• Tsc Six months ..................••••••••4®® Three n-onths .................. The Senn-Weekly Journal is published on Tuesday •nd Friday, and is mailed by the shortest routes for early delivery. * It contains news front all over the world, brought bj specia> leased wires into our office- It has a staff of distinguished contributors, with strong d. partments of special value to the home and the farm. Agents wanted at every postoffice Liberal commis sion allowed. Outfit free. Write H- R. BRADLEY, Circulation Manager. The only traveling representatives we have are B. F. Bolton, C. C. Coyle, L H. Kimbrough, Chas H. Woodliff and L. J. Farris. We will be responsible only for money paid o the above-named traveling represett ativea x HOTI CL TO SUBSCRIBERS. The label usee tor addreMirg your shows the time your subscription expires. By tenewing at least two weeks before the date oc this label, you iusuro regular service. In ordering paper cbangeu. be sure to mention your old. as well as your new address. It oo a route please give the route number. - We cannot enter subscriptions to begin with back num bers. Remittance should be sent by postal crder or registered mail. Address all orders and notices for this department vo THE SEMI W EEKLY JOURNAL. Atlanta. Ga. — ' • “/s Germany Winning?” Americans who expect ultimate and decisive vic tory for the Allies but who are somewhat at a loss just now for reasons to buttress their faith will find substantial reassurance in Frederick Palmer's article, in the current number of Collier s, "Is Ger many Winning?” In the light of immediate conditions and on the basis of the war map as it stands today, one is con strained to answer yes. The Teutons are intrench ed on the enemy's soil, with a minor exception or two, along the entire European front. They hold Belgium and a rich region of France; they are mas ters of Poland; they have Serbia under their heel, and the coveted roadway to Constantinople in their possession. Their oversea colonies, it is true, have been snatched away and their maritime power put utterly out of commission; but in continental Eu rope. the great arena of the contest, the Central Empires are now predominant. Yet, interestingly enough, we hear no echo of peace or compromise from the Entente camp. While Berlin and Vienna repeatedly have hinted a readi ness to consider terms of settlement, Paris and London and Petrograd and Rome are talking only of increased munitions, increased armies and of the spring campaign. As far as the neutral world can judge, the Allies are just as united as they were a year ago, and even more resolute. They are go ing to fight on and on. If Germany is to win, she must stand this endurance test. She must continue her offensive against a circle of foes or fall back to - positions of defense, holding her ground against multiplied and freshly equipped armies and against the tightening pressure of tae British block ade. The important fact, as Mr. Palmer sees it, ' is that after seventeen months of tremendous exer ’ tion. Germany is further from victory than she was in the initial stages of the war. If she has not won yet, can she hope ever to win? “Consider this a war of about twenty rounds.” he illustrates. "Germany tried for a knockout in the first five. Having failed, many thought her offensive was over. But it was not. She was st|ll taking the initiative in the tenth round. This winter brings us past the tenth round, and the spring will show us the fifteenth. It will be the nineteenth round, perhaps the twentieth round itself, that will tell.” If Germany can strike as vigorously in the fif teenth round as in the fifth or the tenth; if she can match the resources which the Allies are or ganizing for the latter stages of the struggle and at the same time stand the drain upon her own blood and nerves, she can win. Otherwise she must lose. The extent of the Allies’ reserve of strength is in dicated by Mr. Palmer when he says: “England’s new munition factories have only begun to supply shells. The maximum American and Japanese output will not be reached until February or March. With spring, the Allies for’ the first time will have a real superiority in guns, material and men on the fighting line. Germany probably still has four million fighting men, and Austria three mil lion. France must have close to four million, England over three million and Russia three million, not counting her unorganized reserve. Thus the Allies will have a superiority equival ent to the new British army. If Germany is going to continue her offensive, where can she strike? Can she undertake another offensive, against Russia when in May the French cover all the front line trenches in the West with shells and undertake an offensive with five times the artillery power of Champagne and Loos? If the German with all his strength, failed to get a knockout in the spring of 1915, can he hope for it in 1916?” In the gathering clouds of the summer of 1914 the Teutons counted on a swift, short, decisive war against France and Russia alone. The}* did not reckon then upon England’s entry, which has meant the paralysis of their sea power. They confidently expected to crush France and stagger Russia in the space of a few months, and then, enriched by huge indemnities, to press the development of their navy for a mighty struggle with England in the years ahead. The German chancellor expressed amazement that England should go to war over “a scrap of paper” that involved nothing more im portant than her pledge to little Belgium. The British navy and British resources were the one factor on which the Teuton militarists had not cal culated in their wonderfully careful plans. And that was the factor which predestined the war to be a long struggle of endurance in whicff the odds would be all against Germany, instead of a brief, sweeping campaign in which the odds would be all tn Germany's favor. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Teutons' major plans have bent and broke* on the line of Ihis Initial surprise. Their projected dash to Paris has failed. Their designs against the Channel ports have fallen. Their fierce drive toward Petrograd has been frustrated if not abandoned. Their only successful offensive, successful that is to say so far as ultimate.aims were concerned, has been in the Balkans; and no one knows better than the Ger man General Staff that the Balkans are not the decisive arena of the struggle. Speculation as to the precise outcome of the war is admittedly hazardous, but it Is uncommonly interesting that an observer of Frederick Palmer’s ability experts a conclusive victory for the Allies and expects a decisive turn of events by next au tumn. One may not be convinced by Mr. Palmer's course of reasoning, but one Is deeply impressed. People Before Property. The recent debate between Senator Smith, of Georgia, and Senator Williams, of Mississippi, over England's treatment of American trade was the most stimulating the country yet has heard on this important issue. Senator Smith took his stand on the law- of the ca»e, and his exposition was as keen and exhaustive gs the severest logician could demand. Senator Williams spoke for common sense and humanity. His plea was less learned than his distinguished opponent’s but to the rank and file of the American people, w*e believe, it w r as more convincing; certainly, more persuasive. In considering what measures we should take against England's restrictions ujjon North Sea com merce in this fiery hour of her own and all man kind's ordeal, we may be guided by either of two interests —an interest in dollars and cents or an interest in the w orld’s’freedom and democracy. We may regard cotton and beef of greater or less ac count than the human sacrifice of the Lusitania. But whether we arp moved by a sense of expediency or a sense of right, by love of money or love of man. we may be sure that the last of all ways to gain what we seek would be an embargo on the sale of munitions and food supplies to England. In advocating such a course as a means of forcing the British Government to the terms which he considers proper. Senator Smith assumes that England and her allies would yield rather than be deprived of American stores. An emphatic threat would suffice, he thinks. But suppose the bluff failed. Suppose we were constrained to act up to our threat and strike down the billions of trade which our factories and farms now draw from the countries of- the Entente. What then would become of America’s brimming prosperity? What then would happen to the South’s cotton? Unless we are pre pared to give up the great bulk of our oversea trade, to sunder ourselves from the best customers we have in times of war or peace, and to share the bleak Isolation of Germany herself, we shall do well to go very cautiously in threatening an em bargo against the Allies. We are not doing England and France a favor by selling them munitions and foodstuffs at war prices. We are simply gathering riches from their urgent needs. But should we refuse to sell them the ne cessaries for which they are willing to pay in good round sums and which their control/of the seas enables them to transport, we should commit an outrage against neutrality and, in such a war-as this, a crime against democracy. We do not know just what England and her allies would do in that event, but if they have a spark of the pride and spirit which we trust our own nation possesses, they would scorn our conduct and tighten their blockade. It is eminently proper that the United States keep the record of its rights as a neutral clear and enter due protest against every infringement on its commerce, trusting to the cool future for finan cial - redress; but it is neither expedient nor just that we risk ostracism and shame, if not war itself on a purely commercial and largely tech nical issue. Senator Williams spoke the mind and heart of the South, at least, when he said: “I don’t want to see Dixie put in the atti tude of caring just as much about property as about the lives of women and children sent to their graves in the ocean. Until the ques tion of the loss of women and children is set tled, I do not Intend to nag the President or this Administration. My people are not ready to pift cotton and human life on the same basis, especially when they have sense enough to now that if the shipment of cotton to Eng land and her allies were cut off. cotton would be worth about four cents now.” Senator Smith undoubtedly spoke for what he considered the best interest of his constituents. He made it very clear that he does not desire war and does not expect a severance of trade relations w’lth the Allies. He is to be credited with full sin cerity of purpose. It should be remembered, how ever, that to threaten an embargo on American shipments to England would be playing with fire, the consequences of which no one can foresee. . The South and Latin America. The meeting‘at ’New Orleans this week of the Foreign National Trade Council will serve to eir phasize the South's distinctive opportunities in com merce with Latin America. The convention will be attended by representatives of important manufac turing interests throughout the country and also by spokesmen for the federal Department of Com merce who will give the delegates the benefit of all the information which the Government, extensive inquiry, has obtained. In this way our exporters will learn definitely what they can do and what they must do in order to develop the op portunities awaiting them. Because of its comparative nearness* to Latin America, the South should gain a royal share of that region's trade. No other part of the United States is so advantageously situated as regards the Pan ama Canal or the Gulf and Atlantic routes. Fur thermore, the South is destined to industrial expan sion beside which the achievements of the last few decades, impressive though they are, will seem a mere beginning. With improved methods of farm ing and manufacturing and with increased capital for developing its resources, this section will have urgent need of a foreign outlet for its products. Latin America offers the most accessible and prom ising markets. The South should prepare now to play its due part'in the closer relationships which are growing up between the two Americas. In a commercial sense alone, Pan-Americanism means a vast deal to the entire United States, but It means most of all to the South. The New Orleans convention is keyed to big ideas and doubtless will be of far-reaching value to all who attend it. Editorial Echoes. Another effort will soon be made at the .Metropolitan opera house to awaken the enthus iasm of the public for the school of florid song which was once the operatic nourishment of our ancestors. Recent years have shown a constant decline of interest in this kind of music. Even a high degree of virtuosity in the delivery of the flowery phrases has failed to evoke sympathetic response from a public that has grown to regard its drama and its music as inseparable whether they be presented in the name of Wagner or Puc cini. To read on the program the announcement of “Lucia di Lammermoor” is to cause speculation as to whether or not there has arrived a talent which may once more put the mere art of song in the place now held by the dramatic utterance. — New York Sun. THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA., TUESDAY, JANUARY 25, 1916. Life as a Business Proposition By DR. FRANK CRANE. Life has been called all sorts of things. Life is a dream, a gambling game, an opportunity from which to get all the fun and the least pain possible, a probation preparatory to the next life, a vale of tears, and so on. Suppose we consider life as a business proposi tion. Look at it from a practical, profit and loss, shrewd and commonsense viewpoint. Very well. First, what can we get out of it? Only wages. There are no endowed and privileged ones, all are day laborers; for every one, when the work’s over, must leave all he has gained and go back to that nothingness from which he came, as stark naked and poor as when ne arrived. All the billionaire gets out of life is exactl? what the bricklayer gets, his board and clothes and amuse ments. What is the wage of life? Life's pay is happi ness. On life’s book happiness is credit and uphap piness debit. It’s happiness we all strive for, of one kind or another, whether beer and cakes or turtled feasts, overalls or dress suits, pinochle on a cracker box or stock gambling on the market, social distinc tion, wealth display, political success, intellectual achievement—it’s all happiness, according to taste. How is happiness to be secured, how can one be sure to get his pay? By finding out what he really wants. This is not so easy. Most people work a lot for what they think other people think they want. How can one find that out? By experiment, trying out various activities until he finds the one in which he can most enthusiastically express him self. Also by ascertaining those forms of pleasure that are frauds and bring on misery. The conclusive argument against drunkenness, licentiousness, and the like, is that they are swindles, gold bricks; they promise joy and pay suffering. How should one get his pay? Every day at the end of the task. Unless every day brings its satisfaction you are cheating yourself. How can one tell what sort of things pay and what sort do not pay? By the collective experi ence of mankind, and by accepting the guidance of reliable teachers. What does the cumulative experience of man kind show? *That only those acts which are fun damentally just, fair, honest, and kind are those that invariably pay. What’s the good of morality? Morals rest not upon authority, but are the massed wisdom of the world. The person who is not moral is a tool, which is worse than being a sinner. He is a lamb, a sucker, a greenhorn, fully as much as a country-jake who thinks he can beat the Wall Street experts. Immorality means docking the happiness pay envelope every day. Os what practical value are the higher senti ments? If you are helpful, unselfish, courteous, patient, reverent, loyal, just and Benevolent, you get a large bonus dally in your happiness pay. Are not crafty, selfish, unclean, cruel and con scienceless people happy? Get right well acquaint ed with them and see. They are the bunco steer ers, the confidence men, the criminal cheats of life. Their books are false. Their happiness profits are worthless paper. Why work? If it’s happiness that is our wage, why not eat, drink, and be merry; why not loaf and play? Because human beings are so consti tuted that they secure the maximum of satisfactory self-expression only by doing some part of the world’s work. Why study to improve the mind, or to develop one’s spiritual capacities? Why not go in for all the fun we can get each day? Because by increas ing our mental and spiritual powers we get the more permanent, the higher and rarer forms of happiness, we get gold and not copper. What we call goodness more than pays every day, it leaves something over, a deposit in the hap piness bank, which becomes a reserve fund from which we draw dividends. The good are the hap piness capitalists. The bad are the happiness spendthrifts. Why not approach this matter of goo 4 and bad, conscience or self-indulgence, as a business propo sition. (Copyright, 1916, by Frank Crane.) The South's Winter Wheat. “As compared with last year, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi all show increased areas sown to v’heat. In South Carolina the area is the same as last year. These States as a whole show an aggregate increase over last vear of one hundred and forty-one thou sand acres, or nearly three per cent; while the States outside the South show a net de crease of four million, nine hundred and seven thousand acres, or more than thirteen per cent.” In this summary of the Government’s report on the acreage of winter wheat, President Harri son, of the Southern Railway, finds encouragement for the business as well as the farming interests of the South. The figures show, as he says, “a con tinuing tendency to diversified agriculture;” and that means a great deal to the section’s independ ence and prosperity. Conditions in the autumn of 1914 and the spring of the following year were such as virtually to compel Southern farmers to plant foodstuffs. The depression of the cotton market gave dire warning of how dangerous it would be to produce another big crop of cotton. In the autumn of 1915, however, the market had improved to such an ex tent that there were apprehensions that the whole some lessons of the past would be forgottAi. But the fact that the South has increased instead of diminishing its wheat acreage is a cheering sign to the contrary. It is to be hoped that the ten dency thus revealed will continue and will be ex tended to many other food crops. 1 he New Air Baids. The latest German air raid on England is not able for the circumstance that the attack was made by an .aeroplane instead of a Zeppelin. Is this the forerunner of a’newly designed campaign of “frightfulness'’ against the British capital? For three months or more London has been free from Zeppelin incursions of any consequence. The city’s defensive air fleet, it seemed, was proving ef fectual. Germany insisted, however, that the end was not yet. Thus the Hamburg Fremdenblatt de clared: We may assure the hundreds of thousands of Germans whose only consolation in their present depressing lives is the hope of punish ing England that destructive engines of an en tirely new and immensely powerful type have been evolved for the use of our airships, and that as soon as the meteorological and other conditions permit these will do their work in London. The destruction of the old cities of Sodom and Gomorrah will, we hope, be re peated in these latter days, and the outraged German people will have their righteous thirst for vengeance on the stronghold of lies, trea son and foul assassination quenched to satiety. The superiority of its air craft here hinted at is supposed to consist in the guns it carries. It remains to be seen whether the new type will be any more effective, in a military sense, than the Zeppelins. TRAIN YOUR WEATHER EYE. ll—Your Friend the West Wind. RY FBEDEBIC J. HASKIN I’ - ’ YOU are going camping or motoring, watt for a good west wind. It you are about to embark upon a momentous undertaking, pick out a day when the wind is blowing freshly from the west, for that wind is one of your best friends. It brings clear weather and cool air laden with ozone. It lifts your spirits, stimulates your energy, fills you with "pep.” a • • The impotrance of the west wind is due to the fact that it is a messenger of that form of weather activ ity known to scientists as the anti-cyclone. This anti cyclone is a great pyramid of cold air which spreads out across the country like a pancake on a hot griddle, bringing coolness, clearness and dryness wherever It goes. It is responsible for the clear cold spells in winter and for the best of our summer weather. • • • In this country the anti-cyclones almost • invariably form either in the northwestern states or in Canada. Hence the reputation of Medicine Hat, Alberta, as the place where the cold weather originates. • • • Starting, then, in Montana or Canada, the anti cyclone moves across the country eastward or south eastward, spreading cold, dry air in every direction, bringing the wealth of ozone from the upper atmos phere down to the air we breathe, and drying up clouds and mists. The west wind, therefore, is a sure sign that the anti-cyclone is coming. » • • • Whenever the wi.id shifts noticeably from any other quarter to the 'west, you may be almost sure that you are going to have from two to seven days of fine, clear weather. If the wind slowly shifts from tae west to the northwest, ycu may know that the anti cyclone is passing north of you; for the cold air cir culating about its center in the same manner as the hands of a clock, will turn the wind in that direction. In that case you may look for a spell of cold or cool and clear weather which will last until the anti-cyclone has passed, as indicated by another shift of the wind. • • e In the same way if the wind gradually shifts more and more south of west, you may know that the anti cyclone is passing south of you, where it will not have so much effect, and you cannot be so sure of clear weather. • • • So the anti-cyclone is your real friend in the mat ter of weather, and the west wind is its most reliable precursor; but there are a good many other reliable indications as to whether it will be clear tomorrow. Clouds are one of these. Although ahti-cyclone weath er should be clear, it is not generally altogether cloud less. The characteristic clear weather clouds of sum mer are the little billowy masses of cumulus that look like the beaten white of an egg, though they may be a bit smudgy on the under side. These are harmless little clouds and do not promise rain. They indicate that moist air has risen until it reached a stratum cold enough to condense it, whereupon it descends to a warm level and is dissipated again before it gathers enough force to form a storm or even a shower. • • • In winter, fewer clouds form during anti-cyclone weather, and they are the flattened wisps called stratus. • • • Occasionally during the summer the cumulus clouds will cause a light shower, which is a precursor of more fair weather. In winter the same phenomeon takes the form of a flurry of snow. This flurry is never the beginning of a starm, but is the sure forerunner of clear, cold weather. Both the shower and the flurry are due to the fact that the approaching cold air of the anti-cyclone reaches the upper levels first, con densing and precipitating the vapor. Believe in Children. BY H. ADDINGTON BRUCE. Ir is unfortunately true that a good many parents treat their children as though they were of an inferior order in the scale of humanity. They neglect them; they repress them —sometimes they mercilessly punish them as one might punish a malignant monster. At the opposite extreme are parents who re gard their cnildren like fragile playthings. They converse with them in “baby talk;” they are for ever fussing about them; they discourage them from thinking and acting for thepselves. This likewise is eloquently indicative of parent al distrust of children. And, dke the policy of neg lect, repression, and cruelty, It is sure to be pro ductive of harmful results. What parents ought always to do is to believe in their children—believe in their moral good-will and their mental power. Children are not "innately depraved.” They are unnloral, not immoral. When they do wrong It usually is because their parents nave failed to teach them sound principles of morality and to train them in self-control. Too often, alas! the parents have by their own conduct unconsciously given them lessons In wrong doing. Pascal’s words should be graven on the memory of every parent: “Every child at the outset of his life is a little, impulsive being, pushed indifferently toward good or evil, according to the influences which surround him.” Children, moreover, can be given definitely formal instruction in morality at a much earlier age than many parents suppose. Also, for that matter, their formal education in general can be begun long, before they reach school age. , In point of fact, it should be begun while they still are in the nursery. Every parent, I repeat, ought to believe in the mental power his child. And he ought to begin to develop that power during early childhood, by deliberately encouraging the child to think for him self, and training him to think correctly. To de lay is a wrong and injustice to the child. More and more scientists and educators are coming into agreement on this point. To quote one able investigator. Dr. T. A. Williams, of Wash ington: “An impression prevails that growing organs should not be subjected to work. This is a great error, for organs which do not work cannot grow well. , , . "Even the bones become tough, hard, and large in proportion to the stresses to which they are sub jected by frequent and vigorous pulls where the muscles are attached. What is true of structure is true of functional power. From ballet dancers to violin virtuosi ar tists must be trained from early youth. • • • “Since intellectual ability is also a <esult of orderly functioning of mental processes seated In the brain, it should be manifest that these, too. should reach excellence best when they are trained by a capable hand during the formative period of early youth.” There is a hint here for all parents. To mis trust a child's mental power, to fail to develop that mental power by exercise during his first years, may mean a lifelong stunting of the child’s mind. And to disbelieve in his moral good-will, to be obsessed by the notion of innate depravity and to treat the child accordingly, is as sure away as you could find for spoiling his character. Your child, every child, needs discipline. No child needs, and no child should receive, repres sion and brutalizing coercion. (Copyright. 1910, by H. A. Bruce.) Travelette BY MKSAH. FORT YUMA. Fort Yuma is known throughout the army, and its reputation is nothing to boast about. Officers’ wives say it is "simply awful.” What the enlisted men call it would never do to print, even in quotation marks. Fort Yuma is hot. That is the whole case against Fort Yuma. Some people claim it is the hottest place on earth. Others say that parts of the Sahara are hotter. Once upon a time a man with a passion for investi gation set out to compare Fort Yuma and the Sahara. He came to the fort, but he never went to Africa. He In general, if the weather is to continue fair, clouds should grow fewer rather than more numerous. They should break up into smaller pieces rather than com bine, and the higher they ride the better the chances for a clear day tomorrow. Also, look for brilliant blue sky behind them. A bright blue sky, with man,' white clouds, promises better than a milkj* sky with only a few. • • • There is one other Indication in the sky that }ou can pretty confidently rely upon. That Is its color at sunset and sunrise. Unless you are a milkman or hate the habit of staying out very late, you probably sel dom see the run rise, but there is nothing to prevent you from observing the sunset. Now, If that sunset i s red and all other signs are favorable, you may be pretty sure of a clear day to follow. But if the sun rises in a red sky, It is an almost equally certain precursor of storm. • • • The reason for this Is that the sky looks rea Wn«i there is a good deal of moisture in suspension which has not been condensed, hovering in the form of in visible droplets instead of falling as rain or dew. These droplets In the atmosphere act on the sunlight like glass prisms, breaking it up into the primary col ors, with red predominating. Hence the red sky. • • • It would seem that a red sunset should indicate a coming storm, since the redness is due to the presence of moisture in the air. But this Is not the case, be cause the cool of the evening—sunset time—is the moment most favorable for the condensation of atmos pheric moisture. If there were any large quantity of water in the air, it would gather at sunset into a gray mist, or even fall as rain. A red sunset shows that there is just enough moisture In the air to break up the sun-rays, and no more. • • • On the other hand, a red sunrise is a precursor of storm. In an ordinary cool night, all the atmospheric moisture should leave the air as dew or frost, and leave a dry air In the morning. If the air is still wet enough to turn the sun-rays red, it shows that a layer of moist air above the earth has held down the day’s heat. This heat keeps the frost and from form ing, and high moist stratum will probably come down as a rain or snow-storm. • • • These are the most reliable indications of the ama teur weather prophet, and they are very easily mas tered. If the sunset is deep golden red, a fresh, buoy ant wind is blowing out of the we§t, and little scat tered clouds are riding high and far apart, you may be almost sure of a clear day tomorrow. • • • It is true, you cannot hope to guess right every time, for even the United States weather bureau only foretells correctly about 85 per cent of the time. Neither can you hope to foretell as far.ahead as the weather bureau, with its exact barometers and with its reports from three hundred different parts of the world. But the weather bureau cannot prophesy for every little town and hamlet in the United States, except in a very general sort of way. Furthermore, if you are fond of outdoor life in any form, there are sure to be times when no weather report is available. By studying sky and cloud and wind, you can fore tell at least ten or twelve hours in advance what the weather is going to do. Even a half day forecast may be of great value to anyone, and furthermore, studying the weather may be a source of great personal ‘satisfaction, for it is well to become acquainted with the sky. It is a thing of ever-changing beauty, as well as an Index of the weather. said that the Sahara might be hotter, but Fort Yuma was quite hot enough for him. Such a temperature excuses a great many things. You should remember this fact when you sit stewing on one of the wide adobe verandas and the garrison tells you tales about the heat. They will tell you about the dog. that started out to cross the parade ground at noon and had to lie down in the middle and hold his paws in the air to cool. Also, there is the sad fate of a rash cook who was stricken with sunstroke t\hen he tried to fry eggs by breaking them in the sun. If for no other reason. Fort Yuma will live in history as the birthplace of the immortal story about the sergeant who went to the infernal regions for well-merited punishment and tele graphed back for his blankets. Fort Yuma stands on a low bluff above the Colorado river, just where that erratic stream turns westward, and, leaving Arizona, runs between Mexico and Cali fornia. From the gray bluff you can. look into both states as well as the southern republic, but, with all due respect to our great southwestern commonwealths and the Mexican government, not one of-the three ter ritorial divisions is much to look at. All about is gray plain, fringed with stern gray hills. The only welcome patch of living green is the thicket of cottonwoog and mesquite in the gorge of the Colorado. Yet there is a certain forbidding beauty in the scene; the barren land quivering under a fierce sun has a lure and a charm of its own. The Searchlight • « AN ENGLISH SNOW PLOW. The labor shortage caused by the war has stimu lated British inventiveness. The latest and most timely device is a new snow plow. The need for such a ma chine was sharply felt when the first winter storms tied up rural traffic. The new plow takes the place of scores of men. It is horse-drawn, and adjustable to almost any condi tions. For road work it has an easily adjustable breadth f six to nine feet. By a simple change it can be adjusted for use on winding footpaths. |t will fol low the horse any place he can go. A change of blade fits it for scraping out gutters. The machine runs on cogged wheels, and gets its flexibility by meqns of side wings on the scraper, which can be raised or lowered. It clears five miles of road at an average cost of sls, and five miles of foot path for only $5. Several of the municipalities which adopted it say that it saved its cost in a single day. In the past England has always had an abundance of unskilled labor to shovel her snow, as well as the workers at outdoor trades which were temporarily tied up by the storm. The present scarcity of men accounts for the development of the plow. There would seem to be no reason why it is not adapted for use on our American country roads. Quips and Quiddities. » , "Dubkins is a great comfort to me.’’ “I don’t see how you can say “that. He’s the most tiresome chump I have ever met.” “That’s just it. Although I don’t amount to much, it's true, every time I look at Dubkins I feel that I could amount to less.” • • • The drill sergeant was real mustard and the recruits were having a bad time. The weather had been very wet and the parade ground was still slippery. In doing a movement smart ly, as an example to his men, the sergeant slipped and fell full sprawl, and, naturally, the "rookies” could hardly repress their mirth. Getting up with all the dignity he could muster, the sergeant’s eye fell on Murphy's grinning face. "Well, you grinning ’yena,” he roared, "what’s ’urting you7 Do you see hanything funny” "No, sur,” gurgled Murphy, tactfully, “but, shure, Oi wuz just thinkin’ what a laugh we cud have had if it had been any wan ilse save yersilf, sergeant!” *• * . Two friends had settled down to their coffee, cigar ettes, and game of cards in a tea shop, when a third—a discordant third —joined them. He wa s unwelcome, ob viously so. but that did not prevent him “chipping in” every moment with advice to the players. They en dured him in silence till at last the glint of a shilling beside the board caught his eye. "Helloa!” he said, "I didn’t expect to find you chaps playing for filth}' lucre.” "Indeed!” said one of the players. “But it isn’t filthy lucre w© object to, it's the filthy looxeron.” Then the game proceeded in silence.
