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THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
/ ATLANTA, GA., 5 NORTH FORSYTH ST.-
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mt! WEEKLY JOURNAL. Atlanta. Ga.
Remember the Tuscantd.
Mourning as they do the gallant men who
want down with the Tuscania. the American peo
ple are at the same time profoundly grateful that
the loss of life was comparatively so small, and
are stirred with an intense determination to see
that these fallen heroes shall not have died for
their country in vain.
This is the first effective blow the Huns have
struck against the United States troops en route
to France, It is remarkable, indeed, that hun
dreds of thousands of our soldiers have been
transported across the vast ocean leagues without
one serious misadventure until the attack on the
Tuscania Repeatedly the German ptrates have
tried to destroy American troop ships, stabbing
as is their wont from beneath or behind. Re
peatedly, they have succeeded in sinking unarmed
passenger vessels, and have gloried in their
slaughter of American citizens. women and chil
dren as well as men. But heretofore their blows
have fallen harmlessly against our military expedi
tions. Even the present instance, the fact that
more than ninety per cent of those aboard were
saved bears eloquent witness to the work of the
British warships by whom the transport was being
convoyed.
We cannot expect, however, to go through this
Hear without losses and disasters. We are fight
ing a ruthless and brutal foe—the most brutal that
civilisation ever faced; wherefore, we must stand
in constant fortitude and go forward with an un
flinching will to avenge the humanity which Ger
man barbarism has trampled down and to vindi
cate the cause for which our soldiers and sailors
are giving their lives.
us remember the Tuscania, as we remem
bered the Maine. •
Be a gardener.
The Way of the Huns.
One of the characteristically inhumane methods
by which the Huns replenish their man-power is
illustrated in an Austro-German proclamation is
sued a few weeks ago in Italy.
“Every citizen.” runs the edict, referring
to the Italians of the invaded territory,
"must obey our labor regulation. All
workmen and children over fifteen years of
age must work in the fields every day, Sun
day ineluded, from four o'clock tn the morn-
L ing until eight o’clock in the evening. Lazy
[ workmen will be accompanied at the work
and watched by Germans. After the harvest
they will be imprisoned for six months and
every third day be given nothing but bread
end water. Lazy women will be obliged to
work, and after harvest will receive six
months' imprisonment. Lazy children will be
punistied by beating. *nie Oommandant re
k * aerroe the right to punish lazy workmen
with twenty lashes daily."
This it is true, seems merely a minor bit of
astership as compared with the common
ran of Got in ti brutalities. It is notable, how-
TW <r l as an example of the way Prusslanism is
using enemy civilian populations for military
nrwU virtually enslaving them and forcing them
to torn their hands against their own countries.
Axrtbmti-' figures are presented by the Wall
Qtiact Journal showing that, ecreiustve of Arme
nians end Syrians, upwards of forty-three million
people have thus been put in bondage and lashed
on to labors beyond human endurance. In nu
merous instances, moreover, the men of conquered
territories are forced into the German ranks and
used tor what the Hohenzollerns call “cannon
"fodder."
These are factors to be reckoned with serious
ly tn oar war against the Huns. We are not fight
ing Germany's sixty-eight millions only; we are
not fighting the Quadruple alliance only, with its
aggregate population of some one hundred and
forty-seven millions. But we are fighting a ruth
lees Power that had added to Rs own human re
sources Between forty and fifty million people of
lands, whom It has made its slaves. Ac
cordingly, those authorities were not far wrong
who estimated Germany’s man-power as being in
the neighborhood of two hundred million, with a
possibilty of twenty-five million men for the
field. It should be remembered, moreover, that
Germany fights in utter disregard of humanity t
and ctvlMsation. Practices from which the peo
ples of the Allied countries would instinctively
recoil, seem to come quite naturally to the Huns.
The Kaiser's swinish officers and troops show no
respect for the Red Cross flag, no difference in
treatment of civilians and combatants, no rever
ence for womanhood, no pity for children, no re
gard tor those simplest laws of conscience and
heart that lift man above the brute. Being what
they are and fighting as they do. the task of
bringing them to terms is necessarily slow and
costly. It is a battle between the powers of law
and order, the powers of humanity and civilization
on tne one hand, and, on the other, a desperately
criminal and barbarous force. This battle, how
ever long and hard it may be. we must win at any
cost, for on the issue depends all that makes the
world fit to Itve in.
The war bread looks as if it might have been
made Dy tbs old-time cook who used too much
soda.
THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA., FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1917?.
Costly, Bid Worth It.
Some idea ot the extent to which the United
States is at war may be gathered from the Treas
ury report showing that to date tho struggle has
cost us approximately seven billion dollars, or al
most twenty-four millions a day. Only about
three billions ot this, however, can be counted as
an outlay for our own fighting equipment and
related needs. The remainder represents loans to
our Allies, though essentially, of course, that ex
penditure is as much in our Interest as in theirs.
Henceforward we may expect the amounts spent
on our particular part in the war to grow propor
tionately larger. The money toll is increasing at
the rate of more than one hundred million dol
lars a month, with indications that by the time
we have rounded out our first year as a belliger
ent the cost will approximate ten billion dollars,
half of which will represent allotments to our
army, navy, shipbuilding activities and other war
concerns.
How readily the country has responded to the
Government’s call for support in bearing these
stupendous burdens is evidenced in the fact that
Liberty loans have paid four-fifths of the war’s
cost. It is likely that future needs will be sup
plied more largely through taxation, though it is
to be hoped that there will be no abandonment
of the wise policy of avoiding taxation so exces
sive as to cripple industry and discourage enter
prise. The American people have subscribed
free-heartedly to two great Liberty loans; they
will subscribe just as loyally to the third Liberty
loan which, it is expected, will be launched in
the near future; they are buying Thrift Stamps
at a rate which attests the earnestness of the
masses: and they will pay their v. .r taxes in the
same spirit of ungrudging patriotism. They could
not do otherwise and be Americans. They could
not do otherwise and be a sane and honorable peo
ple, for all that they have, all that they are and
all that they hope to be depends on winning this
war against brutal Prusslanism
A Year of Prussian Piracy.
Noting that it was just a year ago this month
that Germany launched her campaign of submarine
ruthlessness, the Albany Herald argues that the
essential objects of that murderous effort are as
far from attained today as at the beginning of last
February. There is no denying that the pirates
have made themselves felt and have shown Prus
sia* barbarity at its blackest. As the Herald sum
marizes it: “Hundreds of thousands of tons of
shipping have been sunk; thousands of lives have
been lost; women and children have not escaped,
nor have hospital ships on which those wounded
in battle were homeward bound been spared; life
boats In which passengers and crew from torpedoed
vessels sought safety have been shelled by subma
rine guns, and men taken from sinking ships and
placed on the decks of U-boats have been left
struggling helplessly in the water when the vessels
on which they thought they were being carried to
safety suddenly submerged.” Loving cruelties and
horrors as they do, the Hohenzollerns doubtless
draw keen satisfaction from this record. But, after
all, has it paid?
The most striking result of U-boat ruthless
ness with its defiance of law and its challenge to
civilization was the entrance of the United States
into the war. This was the outstanding event of
the year 1917; Russia’s breakdown and fiasco,
heavily unfortunate though it was to the Allies
and cheering to the Teutons, does not compare in
ultimate importance with America’s coming into
the field. Germany expected, in compensation for
having made a new and powerful enemy, to maim
and demoralize ocean shipping to such an extent
that the Entente countries would be virtually iso
lated. Her particular objective was to starve out
England; and the Kaiser promised that it should
be done within six months at the outermost, if not
in three. Twelve months find the threat a long,
long way from its goal. While the food problem
in England. Franoe and Italy is admittedly seri
ous, and would prove eventually disastrous if
American aid should fall short, the lines of com
munication between those countries and the out
side world are still freely open. A distressing
amount of Allied tonnage, ft is true, has been de
stroyed, but not enough to give the Huns a reason
able hope of breaking up their enemies' sea com
merce.
During the last stx months, indeed, the U-boats
have fallen so far short of their earlier record of
tdnkings that British shipyards have been able to
launch virtually as much tonnage as was destroyed.
Furthermore, during the ten months the United
States has been in the war. our Government has
requisitioned four hundred and twenty-six vessels,
aggregating upwards of two million tons, which
were building in American ship yards, has taken
over some four hundred vessels of more than
twenty-five hundred tons each, which were already
afloat, and has placed contracts for eight hun
dred and eighty additional vessels, on many of
which work is speedfly progressing. The Shipping
Board sees a prospect of securing six million tons
of new shipping in the course of the present year.
This is one of America’s answers to the sub
marine threat, and rather a formidable answer it
is. What the new undersea offensive now expected
from the Germans will accomplish, only the event
of course can show. The Allies look for a final
and desperate effort to cut the transport lines on
which the United States depends in getting troops,
food and other basic supplies across the Atlantic.
But as far as the first year of submarine ruth
lessness is concerned, the results by no means have
balanced the cost; indeed, they have brought
Prussian ism nearer to defeat than to victory. As
for the future, we have the assurance of a vigilant
navy and an ever-increasing power of shin pro
duction.
♦
Don't Grumble; Give Thanks.
The Augusta Chronicle seasonably reminds
those persons who are disposed to grumble over
the few war requirements thus far laid upon Them
that while on this side of the Atlantic we have
wheatiess and meatless days, on the other side there
are eatless days as w’ell. An American woman re
cently returned from Paris, tells of having paid
seventy-five dollars for a ton of coal, a dollar a
pound for butter, and of meat prices being vir
tually prohibitive. “Our prices are high.” com
ments the Chronicle, **but our supplies are abun
dant compared with those of our Allies, and it
is a poor friend who is not willing to share with
his comrades in arms.” The fact is, the inconven
iences and sacrifices which the American people
have been called upon to make so far are incon
siderable beside those which our Allies have borne
for three and a half soul-trying years. Far from
conrplafning. we should thank Heaven for the
mercies and bounties vouchsafed us and for the
glorious privilege of helping our nation and its
co-defenders of freedom in thia heroic hour.
The Perils of Thriftlessness
And the Patriotism of Thrift
The American peopi«» need of thrift is strik
ingly evidenced by certain figures presented in the
current Leslie’s showing that per cent
of the men who die in this country leave no tangi
ble assets. It appears further that at fifty-five
years of age forty-six per cent of American men,
having saved little or nothing, find it needful to
work as hard and steadily as ever, while thirty
per cent are dependent on others. At sixty-five
years of age fifty-four per cent are entirely de
pendent.
The surprising thing about this record is that
it should occur in a land of unexampled oppor
tunity. In the over-crowded, tax-burdened coun
tries of the Old World, we might expect to find the
majority of men taken unprepared by “the infirm
and choleric years,” and leaving behind them no
material legacy. As a fact, however, the average
of economic security as a result of savings was
comparatively much higher in those countries, be
fore the war, than in the United States. Here
where land is abundant and cheap, where taxes in
normal times are inconsiderable as compared
with those regularly paid in many parts of
Europe, hire where freedom is universal birth
right and where the golden opportunities of the
explorer and pioneer still await those who coura
geously seek them, it seems well-nigh incredible
that eighty-two per cent of the men should die
almost penniless and, that old age should find the
majority of them wholly dependent.
A part of this lamentable record —though a
very small part—is attributable to personal mis
fortunes and to certain inequities in our economic
and social order. But by far the larger portion is
chargeable to simple thriftlessness —the character
istic American folly. It is not the money which
Americans SPEND that puts so many millions of
them into more or less respectable poverty, it is the
money they WASTE. Not money only, but goods
of all kinds and resources of every nature are
wasted in this country with prodigal unconcern;
at least, it has been so up to our present war ex
perience. We have wasted daily in our kitchens
and at our tables enough food to save many a cor
ner of famished Europe from starvation. We have
wasted the fertility of the soil by short-sighted,
laggardly methods of farming. We have wasted
immeasurable quantities of coal and oil by care’ess
methods of extracting them, and invaluable treas
ures of forests through recklessness in cutting tim
ber. Waste has become an American habit, an
American trait, reducing to a great extent the
blessings which naturally should prevail in so free
and bounteous a land.
We have reached a in the nation’s affairs,
'and for the most part in (he affairs of individuals
as well, where this perilous habit must be shaken
off and replaced by foresighted, forehanded thrift,
or we shall fail as a nation in the herculean
ahead and as individuals in the responsibilities
which press upon us. Especially is it important to
impress upon the rising generation the value and
virtue of thrift. Atlanta’s schools never rendered
a more substantial or more truly educational serv
ice than in organizing War-Savings societies among
the pupils. Had such a movement been inaugu
rated fifty or even twenty-five years ago and
pressed vigorously forward, the distressing figures
of indigence to which we have directed attention
would never have arisen. By teaching the children
of today the wisdom and patriotism of thrift, we
shall make happier men and women and more use
ful citizens for the nation of tomorrow.
For the people as a whole, there are more in
centives, as well as a greater necessity, to save
now than ever before. Loyalty and self-interest
alike demand of everyone a faithful effort to turn
a portion of one’s earnings into Thrift stamps or
Liberty bonds and to guard vigilantly against waste
in any form. Money spent for things of value is
not wasted, it is truly invested. But the coins,
little or large, that slip away without yielding real
values in return —these are the ones to be saved
and laid up against the uncertain future. No less
imperative Is the duty of conservation, which is
but another name for thrift, in every household’s
food supplies. This, indeed, is for the present the
most urgent duty resting upon the American peo
ple, for without great savings in food staples
wherewith to provision our Allies, we shall have
no prospect of shortening or winning the war. In
all things and at every turn, let Americans re
member how perilous a thing is thriftlessness and
how truly patriotic is thrift.
IF YOU ARE FORTY-FIVE.
By H. Addington Bruce.
IF you are forty-five and out of work. If you
feel that you have passed the success-winning
age. If you fear that the door of opportunity
will be dosed to you forever.
Take fresh heart.
Here is an item of news that ought to be of
very special interest to you.
In Chicago there is an organization known as
the Employers’ Association of Chicago. Twelve
months ago it opened an employment bureau. The
first annual report of this bureau was published
the other day.
From this report it appears that the bureau
last year secured positions for more than 9,000
men over the age of forty-five. The total of sal
aries paid' to these men during the year was in
excess of $2,000,000.
Os the men sent by the bureau to prospective
employers during the closing month of the year,
90 per cent were taken on at salaries ranging from
$45 to $350 a month.
If there are good opportunities for middle-aged
and elderly jobless men in Chicago, you may de
pend on it there are good opportunities for them
in other cities.
Gray hairs are not the obstacle to profitable
employment that you have Imagined them. You
still have a chance.
One thing, though, you should seriously ask
yourself. Why have you not made more of the
chances that must have come to you before you
were forty-five?
I don’t want to discourage you. but T do want
yon to take stqck of yourself so that you can surely
benefit from whatever new position .you obtain.
Has drjnk been responsible for your present
jobless state? Have you been short in earnest
ness?
Have you wasted all your leisure time in fool
ish. perhaps vicious, amusements? Have you per
chance wasted time that belonged to your former
employers?
How do you rate in point of will power, initia
tive. loyalty, politeness, everyday common sense?
Take these questions kindly, for they are meant
kindly. Above all, don’t try to excuse yourself to
yourself. Try to see your own faults as clearly as
you see the faults of others.
Something must be the matter with yoo, or you
would not be in the plight you are today. For
your own good, make an honest effort to determine
what that something is.
•’ Rooting it out, you can go to work again with
a real hope of holding as well as securing employ
ment.
Whereas if you do not root it out, you will be
worse off at fifty-five, and'far worse off at sixty
five, than you are now at forty-five.
Your future is in your own hands. Ijearn how
to shape it well.
A WOMAN’S PRAYER FOR THE MAN OVER THERE
By Dr. Frank Crane
O God, I make this prayer for HIM.
He has gone into the war. Let HIM find the
higher meanings of war, and not the lower; war’s
beauty, and not to ugliness.
Let HIM find such things as self-surrender for
the common good, self-sacrifice for an ideal, such
devotion to a cause as shall develop heroism, such
patience under hardship as shall create strength
of soul, such courage in peril as shall bring out
all that is noble and Godlike in HIM.
Let this war be. to HIM, an adventure fine and
wonderful, an education wherein HE shall learn
life’s deepest lessons, an apprenticeship for ulti
mate manliness, a training- that shall provide HIM
a perfect body, a spiritual opportunity that shall
enable HIS soul to come to its due stature.
Keep HIM from war’s debasements; from ex
cess that loosens life; from cruelty and brutality
that harden life; from lust and drunkenness that
rot life; from dishonor, cowardice, and all things
that make life coarse and common.
If HE shall have good fortune, favor and ad
vancement, give HIM modesty and the greatness of
spirit that shall leave HIM unspoiled.
If it be deemed by destiny that HE shall be
wounded, or taken prisoner, or be in anywise un-
WEIGH YOUR BABY —By Frederic J. Haskin
WASHINGTON, D. C.» Feb. 4.—Returns from
the physical examination of drafted men
show that 2 9 per cent were physically un
fit, and the children’s bureau has been able to
show that a large percentage of this physical un
fitness was directly due to diseases of childhood;
bad hearing, defective eyesight, even flat feet have
been declared by the child experts to be traceable
to the nursery. Then, too, 300,000 babies die
annually in this country, although health authori
ties agree that one-half of these deaths are pre
ventable. Here is a national waste that strikes at
the root of our man power.
Beginning April 6, a nation-wide campaign to
improve the health of American babies will be
started by the children’s bureau and the woman s
committee of the Council of National Defense. Un
der the direction of Dr. Jessica Peixotto, of the
University of California, who is on leave of absence
from the university for the purpose of taking
charge of this work, the women of every state will
be organized into child welfare committees dedi
cated to the conservation of infants.
The wholesale weighing of babies will be the
first step in this campaign, and in this the co
operation of parents is requested. A survey must
be made of our infant resources such as was re
cently undertaken by the department of agricul
ture in regard to food. For, like food, our infant
resources may also be rated in pounds. Weight,
In other words, is a definite index to a child’s
health.
If an infant a year old, for example, is far be
low the normal weight of his age, he is usually
badly in need of the services of a doctor. The chil
dren’s bureau is now preparing a baby card show
ing the normal weight of each age, which will be
distributed to parents all over the country. On and
after April 6 physicians will co-operats with the
government by weighing babies and children under
five years old free of charge; infant welfare sta
tions, maternity clinics, day nurseries will do the
same, and grocers, apothecaries and other mer
chants owning large scales will also be asked to
oblige parents.
Parents who find that their children are under
weight should immediately procure medical advice.
Parents who fail to do this when they can afford it
are guilty of criminal negligence in the opinion of
the children’s bureau and the woman’s committee.
For those who are poor, assistance will be provided.
That is the chief purpose of the campaign.
The greatest need in combating infant mortality
is an adequate supply of doctors and nurses, but
inasmuch as doctors and nurses are usually hard
working bread-winners and not ladies and gentle
men of leisure, they must receive salaries. Hence,
funds must be raised. Every community which has
any pride in reducing its infant mortality should
be able to raise the necessary money to hire doctors
.and nurses. In many small communities all that
will be needed is one visiting nurse with a salary
of $1,500: others will require many visiting nurses
working under the direction of able physicians.
The expense of such service will be borne in vari
ous ways—by state legislatures, by improvement
clubs, by chambers of commerce and by private sub
scriptions. In the state of Illinois, the Elizabeth B.
McCormick memorial fund for child welfare work
will be used to raise the standard of health of Illi
nois children.
In time of war, however, when the demands on
state and individuals are already very great, the
expense of such a children’s campaign must be kept
at the very lowest margin. Hence, the woman's
committee will have to rely to a great extent on
volunteer workers. A meeting of public health
doctors and nurses has just been called to consult
with the woman’s committee and the children’s
bureau on the question of raising a volunteer
corps of nurses’ assistants who will be known as
“H. H. V.’B,” or Home Health Volunteers. These
volunteers will not be nurses, and never will be
nurses, unless they take a regular nurses’ training
GLAMIS CASTLE.
Glamis Castle ij an ancient stronghold on the
heather-covered mills of Sidlaw in Forfarshire,
Scotland. The castle keep is built of roughly
quarried blocks of red sandstone, mellowed by
time and weather to a soft gray pink. The tall
ivy-grown turrets tower above the rest of the cas
tle, keeping watch over the rolling Strathmore
valley. In the thick walls narrow irregular win
dows look across the valley to the Graqip-an Hills.
The chief entrance is a low doorway with a great
oaken door studded with huge nails. Over the en
trance niche, is a bust of Patrick, one of the first
earls of Strathmore and Kinghorne. Mail-clad
and grim-visaged he stares flown on the visitor to
the castle, like a specter. To the right and left of
the doorway steep flights of steps lead down to
the dungeons and servants’ hall.
Glamis was the scene of the murder of Dun
can by his host and kinsman, Macbeth. The
ghosts of the murderer and his interesting wife
as well as their victim are said to haunt the an
cient scene of the crime. In fact Glamis is the
favorite haunt of any number of restless spirits.
Mysterious doors open and shut; veiled damsels
wail and wring their hands from the turret tops;
armoured knights stalk through the caAtle halls
and beckon. The Lady Glamis. burnt as a witch
in James the Fifth’s time, glides through the dimly
lit passages, her little son clasped in her arms.
Bnt the favo*rit& mastery of the castle is the an
cestral secret handed down from father to son.
Only the earl and his eldest son hold the key to the
mystery. Perhaps it is the secret of the hidden
chamber, where three knights of Glamis play an
eternal game of chance that will last until Dooms
day as a punishment for their lack of piety.
* « *
THE HERMIT’S SHRINE.
Sightseeing in Bnrma is apt to be one pagoda
after another, and at that the tourist misses most
of them. One that he usually does not see unless
he is especially energetic or has an insatiable
taste for pagodas, is the Kyaik-hto-yo pagoda, one
of the most holy spots in Burma in th'fe eyes of the
Buddhist Burmese.
The Burmese say that the builder of this pagoda
was a hermit, a theory which seems probable
enough, for it is built on the top of a steep hill* in
a location which could appeal only to one ot sol
itary Inclination. Even the crest of the hill must
have been too close to the world for the holy man,
for he located his shrine on a huge boulder, which
may have been steady enough in his day, but
TRAVELETTE—By Niksah
fortunate, may HE show that noble spirit which
redeems disaster.
And if HE fall, if HIS life be among those
lives that are to pay the penalty of the world s
misgovernment, may HE die as a hero, leaving to
me the memory of HIS sacrifice as an undying in
spiration.
O God, let HIM ever feel that m’ lovfrg
thoughts hover about him night and day, as guard
ian angels.
Make HIM a help and not a hindrance to HIS
comrades.
Make HIM the pride and not the shame of HIS
country.
And keep HIM the hope of my heart, the nest
of my dreams, the chosen one of my love, my
treasure of treasures, that I give to my God and
my country.
Let me be in every way worthy of HIM.
And bring us, in Thy divine mercy, some sweet
day to a blessed reunion, where all these severed,
bleeding heart-strings shall be healed and knitted
up.
Thou, who are all compassion, hear this cry Os
a woman’s soul for one she loves more than her
own life.
(Copyright, 1918, by Frank Crane.)
course. They will be patriotic women who are
willing to devote their leisure to saving the lives
of American babies.
In many American cities child welfare work ts
already going forward with encouraging success.
There are state and municipal departments of
hygiene, infant welfare centers, maternity clinics,
day nurseries and milk stations. The state of
Kansas has a confidential register of prospective
mothers which is used as a basis for the protection
of mothers and infants. It is the boast of Kansas
women that no baby dies in their state for lack of
medical attention.
The majority of states now provide medical
service for the schools; others district nurses, and
a few others have mothers’ pensions, which permit
mothers to stay at home and care for their young
children instead of leaving them to the care ot
others while they go out to work. Everywhere,
public opinion is gradually becoming aroused to
conditions that kill so many babies every year, and.
cause an even greater number to grow up in reform
schools, institutions for the feeble-minded and
schools for the backward.
Tn a large eastern city recently a committee ot
child welfare workers decided to try an experiment.
They selected a group of the thinnest, most
anaemic-looking children from a certain school
and, with the permission of their parents, put them
on a diet of simple nourishing food. Within a
month these children presented a changed appear
ance. They had gained In weight, energy, mental
capacity and initiative. They were healthy.
One of the most important features of this new
child welfare drive will be to educate parents, for,
in spite of all the literature that has appeared on
food during the past year, it seems that there are
still many parents who don’t know what to feed
their children. Johnny, aged two and a half, must
not be allowed to subsist on bananas; Antonio, with
a digestive tract of only eight months* development,
should not be fed spaghetti and onions, and Mary,
aged eleven weeks, with an alarming case of croup,
should not be dosed with patent medicines —things
like these which so many mothers know, and so
many other mothers don’t know.
Ignorance and carelessness in this regard are
often to be found in the most unexpected places.
Thus it often happens that the poor immigrant
woman is found scrimping and sacrificing to give
her children the best food and care, while wealthy*
and presumably well-educated women are found
grumbling about the high prices, and cutting down
their children’s supply of food. The other day a
child welfare expert, after listening to a rich woman
mourn the high price of beets and the fact that her
children had to have them, finally became impa
tient. “Why don’t you take one of the pearls off
your necklace and buy some beets?” she asked.
Curiously enough, most child welfare workers
will tell you that their hardest work does not al
ways lie in the foreign colonies of the large cities.
Here the women will accept any new suggestions
as a part of the Americanization process. They
want to be Americans, and so they care for their
babies the way the Americans tell them to. The
woman who presents the great difficulties is usually
the American woman of the type that works hard,
reads little and believes that the ways of her grand
mother are good enough for her. She is always
slow to adopt new suggestions.
Even this woman will not be able to escape the
information disseminated on the care of children
during the next year if the plans of the woman s
committee of the Council of National Defense are
carried out. It is now a matter of national pride.
Great Britain, last year, by consistent efforts, nearly
cut its infant mortality rate in two, while New
Zealand already has an Infant mortality rate only
half as large in proportion as that of the United
States. We no longer have any excuse for lagging
behind. If we can conserve food, we can conserve
babies.
which now seems ready at any time to slip off
into the valley several thousand feet below.
Assured by the Burmese guide that the rock
has rested at this critical angle for many centu
ries, the visitor, already breathless from the reck
less ascent of a Burmese hill, climbs a swaying
bamboo ladder to view better the old pagoda.
The great rock with its shrine forming a tiny
pointed cap seems even more unsteady from here,
but the guide feels no uneasiness. He is confident
that somewhere below the pagoda is a lock of
Buddha’s hair, and this alone stays the boulder
from its fall.
In the early* spring prigrims from an
Burma journey to this forsaken spot to place flow
ers on the rock and offer their prayers and gifts.
Jewels and other-offerings are tossed with an in
vocation to Buddha into the chasm below the
rock. As they leave, they place lighted candles
outside the shrine and as they cross the plain in
the evening they can still see tiny points of flame
marking the sacred spot for other pilgrims who
may follow them.
QUIPS AND QUIDDITIES
An American walked into a barber shop on
the other side of the “herring pond” for a shave.
He began forthwith to criticize British business
methods and to declare that they were behind the
times. .
“Why, in America.” be declared, “we ell spe
cialize. You should stick to one thing and master
it completely*.’*
The barber, who meanwhile had been lathering
his customer’s face, nodded assent, but said noth
ing. He then left the American and sat down to
enjoy his newspaper.
“Why don’t you shave me?” inquired the
American.
“Oh, we only lather here,” coolly replied ♦>«
barber. “You must go next door to be shaved.”
• • •
Balfour Browne. K. €., tells a story of Justin
Martin, a bluff lawyer, who was noted for his
“bulls.” One of these is still remembered as prob
ably the best example ever uttered by a judge in
his official capacity. He was sentencing a man
who Sad been convicted of sheep stealing, and ’
after treating the unfortunate prisoner to a
lengthy lecture on the enormity of his offense he •
wound up as follows: .
“My man. if you bad been tried for this eighty
years ago you would have been hung tomorrow
morning.”
