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THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN
Published Every Afternoon Except Sunday
By THE GEORGIAN COMPANT
At 20 East Alabama St., Atlanta, Ga.
Entered as second-class matter at postoffice at Atlanta, under act of March 8, 1875
Subscription Price—Delivered by carrier, 10 cents a week. By mall, J6.OC a year J
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Council Catching Step With i
Progress
B 88 B
It Recently Has Given Concrete Evidence of a Real Inclination
To Go Forward Toward Better and Bigger Things for Atlanta.
________________
The city council is showing unmistakable and gratifying symp- ;
toms of genuine progressiveness.
It recently has given concrete evidence of a real inclination '
to catch step with those who would go forward intelligently and j;
steadily toward better, bigger and braver things for Atlanta.
It seemingly has awakened to the fact that only the best is !'
good enough for the (late City of the South—and that the best in- H
evitably and invariably is, in the long run, the cheapest, anyway!
Council struck a popular chord when it voted to purchase the ;
land adjacent to a part of the city reservoir, in order that the city’s
water supply might be protected against contamination. This was a !
sanitary precaution that Atlanta was entitled to —it was a move in
exactly the right direction. The health of the city is of paramount
importance always. !
Council struck another popular chord when it resolved to re- ,
organize thoroughly the street construction department. Atlanta is !
able and willing to pay for the best of streets —streets constructed !
to last a maximum of time. Property owners do not carp and cavil <
at the price they must pay, in sharing in the cost, of good streets to '
the city. But they have a right to complain when botch work is put <
upon them, and inefficiency directs the street construction.
Mayor-elect Woodward and those who have been his political
opponents are showing a most commendable disposition to bury the ;
hatchet —to let bygones be bygones—iu approaching the civic task
set before them for the next two years.
The situation thus set up is full of promise to Atlanta—it in
duces optimism and healthy expectancy.
Wherefore, as New Year’s day comes on apace. The Georgian's
inclination is to extend to the council and the mayor-elect the com
pliments of the holiday season, and to wish for them an expansion,
jointly and severally, of the spirit of progressiveness recently shown
in them—and to assure them of The Georgian’s cordial co-opera
tion in all they undertake for Atlanta’s best and highest municipal
development.
Mr. Taft as Teacher of Law
Nobody will begrudge Mr. Taft the dignified and cloistered
peace which the Kent professorship at New Haven will afford him.
But some will question whether he might not do more good and less
harm in some other calling than that of a teacher of law.
Mr. Taft has been teaching law from the white house for nearly
four years—with very doubtful benefit and success. His legal con
ceptions have been laid, like a cold, wet blanket, upon the body of
the nation. The supreme court has been made over in the image
of his “judicial temperament.’’ The problems of commercial free
dom and self-government have been made darker and more difficult
by Mr. Taft’s legal literalism and blindness to the facts of life.
Why should such exploits as these be taken as proof that Mr.
Taft is fit to shape the minds of young men in the study of jurispru
dence t
Why Eggs Are Dear
By G. P S
DID you know that when a •
chick, that 1b to become a
hen, pecks open the shell
and steps out to salute the kins of
day with its wise little eye, It brings
with It into the world, in embryo
form, even’ egg that it will ever
lay?
That is a smalt fact, for whose
truth biologists vouch, which pos
sesses a great importance.
You may have supposed that by
good feeding and careful treatment
a hen could be Induced to lay a
arger number of eggs in the
course of her life than she would
have laid if she had been left to
her own gallivaceous. or hen-like,
preferences and fancies. But if so,
you were mistaken. Every hen
has a fixed capital in eggs handed
out to her at the beginning of her
life. She cun not add to the num
ber. and when she has laid them
all her usefulness in the world is
ended, and she will not long sur
vive.
The bearing of this on the prob
lem of tlie egg supply is plain. You
can hurry up the production by
special feeding, forcing and select
ing processes, but you can not in
crease the total number of eggs ca
pable of being laid by any one hen.
And. more than that, you will per
ceptibly shorten her life by every
additional dozen eggs ihat you
tompe: her to lay.
I have read somewhen the fol
lowing statistical -tatement about
the number of eggs that hens are
capable of laying; the common hen
' an lay i y-ar from 120 to 150;
h< bighorn cun lay from 150 to
IH"; the Brahma something ovei
But tbut is almost their »n
--rire capital, and at the end of the
'••ar their poo ■< , are pr-ictieallv
exhausted
+ In a state of nature they would
not think of squandering their re
sources in that way. The Jungle
fowl, from which domestic hens are
descended lays on the average ten
| eggs In a year and lives about fif
teen years. The domestic hen. in
the hands of her merciless master,
is forced to lay her whole 150 eggs
in a single year, and if she contin
ues to produce sparingly during a
second year it is only’ at the ex
pense of the small surplus or re
serve fund of germ plasm that na
ture gave her to provide against
the accidents of existence.
The people of the United States
consume in one year sixteen thou
sand. million eggs! To attain that
enormous annual supply the life of
the hen, which nature set at fifteen
years when she was a care-free in
habitant of the Indian Jungles, has
been cut down to a year or two.
She lias been turned into an egg
producing machine, driving at the
highest attainable sneed. Not only’
Is she robbed of her eggs, but she
is also robbed of her right to be a
mother. She must not hatch out
her young and show them, with
motherly pride, how to pick up a
living, for that would be a waste of
time from her master's point of
view. He will do the hatching with
a kerosftte lamp and will furnish
patent food for her unnursed babes,
while she goes back to lay another
dozen eggs and surrender another
year of her life.
Tills is the epic of the lien. It is
a very poor epic as I have present
ed it; but, for any person whose
sympathies are broad enough to
include other tragedies and other
comedies than those of more hu
man life, it possesses an appeal that
•an not well be neglected. It will
award thought. We are egg-born
animals ourselves. •
The Atlanta Georgian
Bringing Home the Yule Log
- By UAL COFFMAN.
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Arizona’s Wonderful Agate Trees
By GARRETT P. SERVISS.
< MONG the greatest natural
AA wonders of our country are
the petrified forests—forests
turned to stone—of Arizona. Six
separate forests of this description,
all lying- in the state of Arizona,
have recently been surveyed and
mapped by the geological survey,
and a large area containing these
marvels of transformation and pres
ervation has been set aside by ex
ecutive order as a national park, in
order to save the petrified trees
from the grasp of commercial
greed, which can see nothing in
such things except the opportunity
to put money in somebody's pocket.
The map of this wonderful region
has just been Issued at Washington
When the first reports of the ex
istence of great tree trunks turned
to veritable jewels began to come
from explorers of the far West dur
ing the latter half of the nineteenth
century, many readers refused to
believe them. They sounded too
much like fairy tales. Even so
great an authority as Professor
Marsh could hardly find credence
for hie story when he told of st e
ing a gigantic tree trunk, twelve
feet in diameter, that had been
turned to stone in the hot silica
charged waters of a California
spring
But now we know that thousands,
and perhaps millions, of trees that
drew their last sap through their
pores hundreds of thousands of
years ago have been preserved by
petrification so perfectly that the
most delicate tissues and cells of
the wood and bark retain their
form, although their vegetable sub
stance has been replaced by min
eral gems.
Like Another Aladdin.
In the petrified forests of Arizona
the mineral that has replaced the
wood Is a many-colored agate,
which is very hard and susceptible
of a high polish. In a bright light
it gleams with red. yellow, blue,
purple, and a hundred modified
tints, so that the first discoverer,
on stumbling upon these transfig
ured trees, must have cried out in
nstonlslurent and delight, believing
that riches without limit t -re
within his reach.
WEDNESDAY. DECEMBER 25, 1912.
•• If ever there u;>- tn explorer who -•
felt like Aladdin ir tin eave of
gems, it must have been he who,
for tile first time, ent. red the seem
ingly enchanted ground of the pet
rified forests. _llow could he be
lieve the bvidem e of his eyes
when he saw tin ghound encum-
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GARRETT P. SERVISS.
bored with broken trunks of trees
which dashed in the hot sunshine
of that arid region with the pris
matic reflections of vusi heap- of
Jewels.
I'nless he was deeply learned in
the secrets of chemistry, it must
have seemed to him that he - was
looking upon a work of magic, for
his common sense, based upon his
ordinary experience of things in
this world, would tell him that no
natural*. power could turn a tree
Into a hugt piece of bijouterie. And
when, looking closer, he saw the
delicate rings of the wood drawn
in contrasted colors, and some
times gemmed with mimie dia
monds, turquoises and pearls, as
minute and bright as the circlets
of Jewels on a fairy’s finger, he
must have felt that he had stum
bled into n playground of demigods.
Yet there is nothing mysterious
about the matter. To a certain
e.\t> nt it is- possible io imitate tile
petrifaction of ~,i n H labora
tory. Only nature does it on a
■ grander scale,, and with a mastery
of details which we can not attain.
In the ease of the Arizona forests
the trees were submerged, possibly
a million years, or more ago, in a
soil which was subsequently pene
trated by hot waters .containing
silica in solution. Silica is a min
eral which is familiar to all in the
form of flint. Hot water can hold
largo quantities of it in solution.
As the water comes to the surface
and cools the silica is deposited in
a kind of rock.
How Nature Worked.
\\ lien the siliceous water came
into contact witli the buried tree
trunks it began to deposit its silica
in the place of the decaying wood.
I'or every particle of the latter that
was removed a particle of silica
was substituted. So perfectly was
this work done that the stone sub
stitute followed every minutest
curve of the giain of the disappear
ing wood. Each wooden cell was
' thus replaced by a cell of solid
silica, and every line of grain or of
growth in the tree trunk was faith
fully imitated and reproduced by
the mineral deposit.
But in one respect tile imitation
wr..- made more beautiful than the
original, owing to the presence
of coloring matters the petrified
trunks were dyed witli the hues
of the rainbow, not scattered at
random, hut arranged in a most
wonderful manner, in accord with
the graining of the wood. Not
merely is this a process of Infiltra
tion by which the cavities left by
the decaying wood ar filled up
with mineral matter, but a substi
tution also takes place in the plant
cells, and, curiously enough, the
precise nature and color of the sub
stituted mineral vary with the part
of the cell which it replaces, the
cell walls always differing In color
and composition from the interior
portions. Hence, the magnificently
beautiful effects that are produced
by the petrifaction.\
It must be a subject of congratu
lation for ail Americans that these
masterpieces of nature in one of
her rarest moods are to be pre
served for the enjoyment of all the*
people, and kept out of the hands
of companies and syndicates which
would only too willingly grab them
for profit. Business is not the last
word >f human progress.
THE HOME PAPER
DOROTHY DIN
Writes on I '
Estates fe
1
Why Parents Should
Not Turn Over Prop- f.t. Y z
ertv to Children—
By So Doing 1 hey
Tempt Sons and
Daughters to Become
Un grates ul.
By DOROTHY DIN.
r r'rlE other day the newspapers
j told of a suit brought by an
old woman against her son
to recover from him the property
she had given him in consideration
of his agreement to provide tor her
as long as she lived. The woman"
had been comfortably off, but no
sooner had she deeded her home
and her bank stock to her son than
he began to neglect and mistreat
her, and was finally about to send
her to the poor house when she ap
pealed to the law to give her back
the money out of which she had
been virtually- defrauded by his un
kept promises to cheer and comfort
her old age.
Not many sons, let us hope, are
so avaricious and heartless as this
one, but the case, unusual aS it Is,
sounds a note of warning that all
parents would be wise to heed,
while humanity is constituted as it
is. money will,always be a eharm to
conjure with and as long as any
one possesses it he, or she. is abso
lutely certain of consideration from
those about iter, or him, whether
these others be the melnials of a
hotel or one's own children.
Don't Trust Gratitude.
Therefore, there can be no folly
greater than that of parents who
turn over their entire estates to
their children, on the assumption
that their children's appreciation
and thankfulness and sense of filial
duty will prompt them to do every
thing possible for the '‘happiness
and well-being of their old father
or mother
Gratitude has been defined as a
lively sense of favors to come, and
this is Just us true in one's own
family as it i, elsewhere. So if,
_ when you are old, you want to bo
sure of an ever welcome place at
your son's or daughter’s fireside, if
you want your opinion listened to
with respect, and to be treated with
tender • consideration, keep your
purse strings In your own hands.
Between Grandma and Grandpa
who are dependent, and Grandma
and Grandpa who are the source of
a constant stream of presents and
benefactions, there is all the differ
ence between a happy and a miser
able old age.
Sometimes the pressure brought
to bear upon a parent, especially
upon an old mother, to induce her
to turn over her property to her
children, on the vague proviso that
they will take care of her, is well
nigh irresistible, but under no con
ditions in tin- world should she
yield. ,
For one thing, the very fact that
tlie children are selfish enough to
want to place their parents in a de
pendent position, and that they- are
so eager and covetous, and their
fingers itch so for the money that
they can not wait until their par
ents die to pos ess themselves of it,
shows on its very face that they
Don’t Write It “Xmas”
Editor The Georgian:
AMONG all the Christmas
“don’ts” advanced, no one is
more worthy' of attention
than. “Don’t write it Xmas!”
There is no speh word as “Xmas. ’
It is a meaningless jumble of mere
letters, and .signifies nothing what
ever to an intelligent person. Ra
ther is it an affront to Intelligence,
and a shock to appreciative minds.
Christmas is Jesus Christ's birth
day. Christ Is a word that means
"anointed.” Jesus Christ is the
“anointed” Jesus—the consecrated
One. "X" does not mean "anoint
ed"—and “Xmas" can not be a
word that signifies His birthday.
In some sort of a far-fetched
fashion, to be sure, “Xmas” has
been held to mean “Cross mass”—
tlie “cross’’ signifying Christ. But
Christmas has nothing whatever to
•• are not to be trusted. As oon as
they get possession of what they
want they will begin to begrudge
paying the price of tlieir bargain,
and to show tlie old father or moth
er that he, or she, is considered
burden.
Want Parents Independent.
Any son, or daughter, who lias the
right sort of love for his, or her.
parents will want the old people to
have the happiness of being inde
pendent, and tlie freedom that hav
ing money of one’s own gives. Tiiw.
no matter how good and dutiful
one's own son or daughter may be.
there is always tlie in-law problem
to consider, and it is utterly beyoix
the power of any woman to guar
antee that lief husband will treu:
her parents witli proper considera
tion, or of any man to prevent :i ■
wife from making the lives f Im
father and mother utterly misera
ble if he takes them to live In Ills
own house, and ills wife happen
to be of a mean ahd eati’sh dispo
sition.
Hence it is tiie pious of senii<
imbecility for parents io beggai
themselves during their lifetime for
tlieir children, but. on the other
hand, it is monumental .■mhishiif.s.-
and folly that make parents hold
on to every cent they have with
sucli a miserly grip tlr.it nutiiing
but death can loosen it.
There are plenty of rieii nrnn .1
are hoarding money In banks . :i
their children struggle with ab.
lute want, and aie deprived ■
every comfort and luxury i.i 'i
Such a father makes a fat i •.
take, because he alienates in
dran from him. They in v a right
to resent his sellishnes. town
them, and lie has no call ■ > ■'
grievance that they look for •>
liis (tenth \vitli pleasure ir - ■
grief.
Should Run Own Estate.
Tlie great Chicago philauti.m
Dr. Parsons, declared tli
man should be his own eacuto
and administer his estate
is still alive. This is a wis way ■
looking at the subject. When
man grows old he should so
that he has secured a sufficient in
come to himself to provide <"i.
fortably for his own and his wit'
old age. and then if lie would be
happy, he should divide his
ty among hH children in s
way as will help them best,
time when they need it must.
Surely there can be no happh -s
more perfect and complete than
that of the old man who sees abou
him his family comfortable liar
prosperous, and feels that lif
and his efforts have helped .
the pathway for them, and .
children and his children's < h >
rise up and call him bless - .
•' do with the “cross,” save
very general application oft! s -
vior’s deatli years after Hi
brought Into tlie world.
Christmas brings Jesus to dr ;
as a little babe—an innocent li' l '-
far removed from thoughts of His
tragic taking away 33 years after
, ward. Why, then, "Cross mas”
Why the suggestion of the
on Calvary in the celebration
His corning into this world'.’
The cross may attach specii' l 1
to Easter and Good Friday, bu:
to Christmas.
Don't write it "Xmas."
tlie Savior’s natal day of >o
sweetness —it is ail but bin
inous, indeed!
Christmas is the festival <■
Anointed Jesus—-the Christ,
vior—and His birthday ’s
. erated to it. J. B
Atlanta, Ga