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EDITORIAL PAGE THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN Published Every Afternoon Except Sunday By THE GEORGIAN COMPANY At 20 East Alabama St., Atlanta, Ga. Enters' as second-class matter at postoffice at Atlanta, under act of March J. 1871. Subscription Plica —Delivered by carrier, 10 cents a week. By mall. 55.00 a year, u. k Payable in advance. “r ■ Senate’s Fine Action the Model in Canal and - Navy Legislation V* * » The Question Will Come Up Again at This Session of Congress and Should Be Acted Upon Speedily and Properly. The United States senate, speaking through the majority of its members without regard to party, has illustrated a tine resolute American sentiment in more than one great national and interna tional measure of the last congress. When the house was standing in narrow and, stolid opposition to the preservation of the American navy in its high status among the nations, the senate majority of both parties stood steadfast for the two battleships and an ample American navy, until the trim mers’ compromise cut us down to one battleship in conference. When the interstate commeroe commission reported its Pan ama canal bill without recommending any privileges or exemptions for American vessels, the house amended it by exempting American coastwise vessels from toll. Then the senate majority added an amendment granting FREE TOLLS TO ALL AMERICAN SHIPS, as red-blooded and vigorous Americanism would prompt American statesmen to do. But again the house cut down American rights timidly to coastwise ships, and the compromising conference committee agreed. President Taft also started out in the canal matter with the splendid American assertion: “THE CANAL IS OURS. WE OWN IT. OUR MONEY BUILT IT. WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHARGE TOLLS FOR ITS USE.” But “the legal mind”—the timid mind—got in its work. The president began to balance legal points, to split hairs and be un certain and afraid. He considered arbitration with apprehension. He wanted to provide away for foreign countries to enter suit against us in the courts. The lawyer debilitated the executive American. He would give to all nations the right to fight the canal act in the United States courts. He emphasized by repetition that “this country has no desire to repeal any part of the Hay-Paunce fote treaty.” Whereas this country has a distinct desire to repeal any part of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty that interferes with the rights or interests of the country. This question will come up again during the present session. It is a question of simple common sense and of simple American spirit and courage. We have had a full summer to think of it, and a presidential election to clear our view of its relations. The house of representatives branch of our statesmanship has triumphed in the grave blunder of permitting England, all alone, to interfere in a canal built entirely with our money AND EN TIRELY IN TERRITORY WHICH WE OWN AS ABSOLUTELY AS WE DO THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA! Statesmen as wise and experienced as any that we have declare that this new question of territorial ownership destroys any con flict which free American tolls might make with the Hay-Paunce fote treaty. Other wise and experienced statesmen have declared that even if we had not acquired the territory the terms of the treaty no more interfere with our free control of our own canal than England's control of Suez. Between the two lines of opinion any resolute, high spirited congress of American statesmen ought to follow straight in the line of American national rights and American interests. The senate has frankly and resolutely done this all along and has commended itself to the country by doing so. The president in case of further consideration of the matter has an opportunity by aggressive and progressive courage to redeem the last months of his administration. And so has the house. San Francisco’s Needs Are National What would the world think of a government that would permit its exposition city—the beautiful metropolis of its Pa cific coast —to suffer for a lack of water for drinking and bath ing? The time is rapidly approaching when San Francisco is to be the host of all nations behind the swinging gates of the Pana ma Exposition. People from every country—and in millions from Ihe Orient -are coming to see this marvelous American city, the type and the glory of the ever growing American republic. These people will think our government a niggard in enter prise and a dullard in policy if they should find a water famine in San Francisco, perpetuated by the skillful lobbyists of cor porations and by the apathy of the department of the interior. The present conditions appeal to the common sense and the com mon humanity of the department. In the outlying districts there is not enough water even for household needs. Hundreds of women have not water to bathe their babies. No water is obtainable in the daylight hours when the downtown consumption is heavy. Householders have to set their pans and buckets under the faucets at 1 o’clock in the morn ing. Other busy housekeepers are forced to carry water four or five blocks away, as their ancestors did in the primarv days of “ ’49.” The San Francisco people ask leave to build a magnificent reservoir in the Hetch Hetchy valley, in Yosemite park. It will be a perpetual ornament to the park, and a perpetual supply of crystal water to San Francisco and other cities of the eoast.' Secretary Garfield gave San Francisco leave to build, and tne city appropriated $45,000,000 and expended $2,000,000 in preliminary work. 1 hen came Secretary Ballinger, who. for reasons of his own, which were evidently not of sound public policy, suspended the order. The matter is now again before Secretary Fisher, of the interior, with the clamorous necessities of San Francisco opposed by the lobbyists ot the Spring Valley Corporation that wishes to sell its water to tin city, and by certain irrigation interests in the Sierra foothills. I he time is all too short to finish this \ osemite reservoir and b<- in time for the World's Fair within our Western gates. The mayor ami his experts know better what they wish and what Hau Francisco imperatively meds than the interested eor potations that would exploit the city for gain The Atlanta Georgian <§ Nature an Imitative Artist i 3 But She Only Mimics Her Oivn Forms, and Usually For a Purpose Fastly L nderstood . The "Map” Butterfly of India, showing the lines ot The “Shawl” Butterfly, which is said to have suggest- “latitude” and "longitude” on the wings. ed the pattern of famous silk shawls. By GARRETT P. SERVISS. NATURE is a great imitator — but only of herself. When she has done a good thing she sometimes does it over again, with variations. Some of these self-imi tations. or repetitions of nature, are apparently purely capricious, or even accidental, while others seem to have a definite purpose, and then they lead to very Interesting scien tific theories. The illustrations that accompany this article appear to belong to the class of capricious, or accidental imitations. There is no evident rea son why the wings of one species of butterfly should bear markings recalling the lines of latitude and longitude on a chart, as happens with the "map butterfly” of India, or why the wings of another spe cies, in the same country, should closely mimic a beautiful lacework, as occurs with the “shawl butter fly.” Yet there may be a meaning behind it all which we do not com prehend. Wonderful Deceptions. It often happens that animals imitate the forms and colors of plants, and the plants frequently re turn the compliment. In the ease, of animals naturalists call this "protective mimicry,” because it ap pears to serve as a means of con cealment from too powerful ene mies. It is at least conceivable that a plant, which looks like an animal, may also find protection in the re semblance. It is not onlj’ human beings that are deceived by looks. The more the deceptions of na ture are studied, the more wonder ful they appear. There are insects A YOUNG woman writes to me that she is worn out by mental work, and she wants to inter est some people with money, who will send her away to recuperate her strength. Almost every post brings letters similar, and innumerable are the inquiries regarding the possibility of influencing Mrs. Sage, Miss Gould, Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Rocke feller to hand over money for the benefit of needy individuals and worthy causes. It does not occur to the writers of these letters that a hundred thousand other people and causes all look toward the same golden goal, and that all these millionaires are hemmed in by an army of sec retaries, who read several hundred begging letters each day and al low them to go no farther. It is said that each week Miss Gould is asked for a million dol lars in charity by different people, and that were she to respond to all the requests for aid she would in a year’s time be penniless. Meanwhile all these people are giving generously, and many of them have agents employed who distribute money in various quar ters. Miser Almost Extinct. Mrs. Sage does her charitable and educational work in the most systematic and liberal manner, and the benefit of her deeds will be felt by generations to come. She has able men and women studying the problem of poverty, its causes and its possible cure; and she is help ing educate poor women to be good homemakers, and good mothers, by having them taught hygiene, and cooking, and the care of children. All our millionaires today seem to have a sense of the responsibility of riches, and misers are becoming an extinct species. It is a great and glorious age. and never were so many people doing good, altruistic a< ts ami thinking high thoughts and seeking the best good of the nut! is now. despite all we read The Evils of Today & MONDAY. DECEMBER'9. 1912. which so exactly resemble dried sticks that you can not recognize their real nature until you feel them squirm under your fingers. But some of the largest animals also i exhibit "protective mimicry” in as tonishing ways. The beautiful ze bra is a striking example of this. The black bands that mark its tawny skin so closely resemble lines of shadow cast by brilliant sun light shining through the branches j of a thicket that a group of these animals standing motionless in an African forest may escape the no tice of their sharpest-eyed pur suers. Tiger Possesses This Power. Travelers have recorded the fact that a bbnd of zebras standing in the midst of a sandy plain, where stunted bushes are scattered about, and where the color of the soil closely resembles that of the skin of the animals, will sometimes be unrecognizable, as long as they re main motionless, the black bands on their flanks looking exactly like shadows. ‘ But the tiger, too, possesses this power of concealment, although in his case the purpose is rather to al i lay the fears of his victims than to hide himself from his enemies. The , color of his skin and the shadowy outlines of his markings enable him ! tq lie in wait close to his quarry unnoticed by the poor beasts that are about to feel the weight of his claws. Adventurers in tropical for ests sometimes almost put their feet upon a huge vari-colored ser pent before recognizing it. In many cases the resemblances are so arbitrary that no reasonable theory of a definite purpose seems F to fit them. The wings of some By ELLA WHEELER WILCOX. Copyright, 1912, by Star Publishing Co. and hear and know of graft and dishonesty and murder. In the days of George Washing ton and his successors graft and dishonesty were just as rampant as now, and there were a greater num- 1 ber of individuals engaged in it, ac cording to population, if we take - . ' v' •Os * ' ■ ■ JO L \. Jy ELLA WHEELER WILCOX. into consideration the amazing in crease of the race since that era, in America. And there were no such organizations as exist now for the distribution of healthful ideas, and no such armies of workers for the public well being. Children and animals were not then protected by law from brutal treatment or neglect. Whatever you know of the pres ent age that is evil and ignorant, and selfish, and bad, if you will in ves’igate the conditions which ex isted 100 ye yrs ago, you will find they were tenfold worse, when you take into consideration the im proved laws and the active bodies of men and women who are work ing today for human betterment Alcoholism has decreased, knowl edge of hygiene has increased, and the old epidemics ot smallpox and other plagues, which used to sweep over the land periodically, carrying oft hundre ,s ,im thousand- of hu tropical moths are adorned with appendages which look like the drooping buds of small plants. The tips of those of others have a startling likeness to the head of the I deadly cobra, uplifted to strike. The back of the "death’s head moth” bears an image that sends a | chill to the heart of the observer. Animals Look Like Plants. On the other hand, some of these mimic forms and- colors are so ex quisitely beautiful that they afford suggestions to artists. This is es pecially true of the “shawl butter fly” of India, shown in one of our illustrations, which is said to have suggested the pattern of the fa mous Indian silk shawls. Pure plays of fancy on the part of nature seem to be such bizarre creations as the lunar crescents on the wings of the Indian “moon moth” and the miniature human skulls into which the seedpods of the snapdragon are shaped. Com ing upon a group of these one may imagine himself to have invaded a cemetery of little gnomes. But even the most extraordinary imitations that nature affords serve only to prove more Clearly the unity that runs underneath all her works. That animals Should look like plants, or plants like animals, strikes us as exceedingly strange when the mimicking forms belong to highly organized creatures, but . as we go lower in the scale we find that both of the two great king doms of life begin to blend—ani mals growing on stems attached to the rocks, and plants moving about and picking up their living in the water, or drawing it from the air alone, and flourishing in green lux — urlance without roots. '• man beings, no longer molest the world, save where ignorance still prevails and the laws of health are I violated. Divorce Must Run Course. Divorce has increased, apd must run its course like any other mal ady which arises from ignorance. After two or three generations there will be a decrease of this fever, because sex hygiene is being | taught, and young men and women will not go into marriage ignorant of all it means, as they 7 have done since the beginning of civilization. This most important subject of all has been left in darkness and silence until the very last, and in j the darkness and silence it has be come corrupt and caused a pesti | lence in the land. Light and speech have now come to its rescue, but the evils it has produced can not be cured Mn one generation. Men are just beginning to know that their deeds of lust bring awful calamities upon themselves, and upon their offspring to the third and fourth generation; and that be cause the world has condoned their deeds it does not follow that they are exempt from penalties. When all our colleges have a sex hygiene course, as they will, and all youths and young women are educated In a knowledge of the law of cause and effect in these matters marriage will cease to be a prob lem. and the divorce court will go out of existence for lack of patron age. j A Magnificent Tomorrow. One hundred years ago these subjects were not discussed, and so vast evils resulted; those evils we point at today, saying the age is degenerate, but we forget that they are the dire.. results of the sins of omission of our forefathers, and that we are now organized by law and medicine and common sense to flgnt and overcome the evils. This is the wisest, the most sane, the most altruistic, and the most hopeful ea of the world. And we are on the t ve of a imig uirteeiit tuinv row THE HOME F’A.PeJ Inspector McMichael Writes on Curing the Smoke Evil in Atlanta Too Little Attention Paid to Proper and Scientific Construc tion of Furnaces to Get Best Results. Written for The Atlanta Georgian By Paul McMichael City Smoke Inspector. ARTICLE 111. Smokeless combustion does not always mean economical operation, although highly efficient operation always means smokeless combus tion. It is possible to introduce a large excess of air and maintain furnace temperatures high enough to insure complete combustion and bo obtain a clean stack, but such a large amount of the available heat might be used in raising the tem perature of the air excess from that of the atmosphere to that of the gases passing out through the stack that economical results are impos sible. . Steam jets are often recommend ed as aids to smokeless combustion, and some decrease in the density of smoke emitted is doubtless effected by their use. This is due partly to the thorough mixing they bring about between the volatile constit uents of coal and the air passing through the furnace and the con sequent more perfect combustion, and Is due partly to the resultant dilution of the gases passing out the stack. The efficiency of steam jets is increased ff the furnace construction is so modified that the gases are protected from any cool ing surface until they have had an opportunity to burn completely. Where steam jets are improp erly installed, so that they suc ceed in decreasing the density of the smoke only because they di lute the gases passing off, the loss is the same as before their installa tion, plus the energy required to generate the steam used. The Steam Jet Fallacy. There is one fallacy concerning the use of steam jets that should be thoroughly exploded. It has sometimes been said that the steam entering the furnace is decom posed into its components, hydro gen and oxygen, and that after ward the burning of the hydrogen increases the amount of heat set free. Even though all the steam entering the furnace were decom posed into its constituents and the hydrogen thus formed were after ward completely burned, there would be no gain of heat from this source. The dissociation of steam into its component parts is an en dothermic reaction—that is, a heat absorbing action —and requires just exactly as much energy to bring it about as is given up by the exo thermic—that is, heat-giving—ac tion, which occurs when the same hydrogen is burned. If it were true, as has sometimes been asserted, that the introduction of steam over I'he Book Reviewer By PERCY SHAW. PERHAPS you’ve had a yearning To display your wealth of learning In away to win the plaudits of your carping fellow men Mark these rules with nice precision, Just to clarify your vision. And start as per instructions with a flourish of your pen. Take a novel —’tis no matter If 'tie phychlc or mere chatter — Read it backward, forward, sideways, with a microscopic view. Make your mind up what there’s in it. Think it over for a minute. Then procure a dictionary and begin a book review. Gather words obscure in meaning With an Anglo-Latin leaning. And above all else be careful to avoid all hint of plot; Make long paragraphs, and never (If you would be known as clever) Say a thing about the hero, how, or when, or where, or what. To be deftly analytic Is the mission of the critic, But to soar to real distinction you must write in such a strain That no ordinary being Has the slightest chance of seeing The tenor of your meaning or the workings of your brain. The world will then acclaim you, Bunding genius then will name you As tne wonder of all wonders in the literary brook; But be sure you never, never. Never, never. NEVER, NEVER Tyour fondly doting readers what you think about a beoi. reHi jj|A && j| Hk 51 ■ i ■f the fire increased the total amount of heat available, we would have | an inexhaustible source of energy 1 in this reaction and perpetual mo- 1 tion would cease to be a dream. One very serious fault to be | ■ found’in almost every boiler plant I I in Atlanta is the lack of consid eration that has been given to fur nace design and construction. Dur ing the past ten years vast strides have been made In our knowledge j of what constitutes an efficient j furnace, but as yet boiler manu j facturers and furnace builders have been slow to avail themselves of this information and apply It. Sel dom does one find a furnace so con structed as to protect the volatile constituents given off by soft coal from the relatively cool surface of the shell or tubes until combustion * can be completed, although It has been incontrovertibly demonstrated • that this is essential if combustion is to be complete. Poor Draft—Smoky Stacks. Even in boilers with poor draf'. the products of combustion will travel at a rate of one and one half feet per second. This means that with the usual form of con struction in less than two seconds after leaving the fuel bed the gases given off will be up against the shell or passing amongst the tubes, where they will be cooled below the temperature (1,480 de grees Fahrenheit) required forthek burning. Therefore, combustion stops before it is completed, and the evidence of this is shown by smoky stacks. It has been shown that it Is pos sible at comparatively small ex pense to build a furnace under boil ers already set in which high vola tile bituminous coal can be burned smokelessly and with high efficien cy. The dimensions and full speci fications for such a furnace will vary in different plants, and can only be determined by one familiar With all the conditions to be met in ! each instance, but the principles applied will be the same in every I case. The present smoke ordinance of Atlanta is most liberal in its pro visions, and there is no reason why each coal consumer can not com ply with it fully if a little study is devoted to the question. The application of a few of the /acts contained in our present-day knowledge of combustion will en able one not only to stop the emis sion of soft coal smoke, but also to effect the saving of many dollar that today are being needlessly ... wasted.