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EDITORIAL PAGE 1912—-A Year of Progress and Prosperity For Atlanta r- n And There Is Every Good Reason to Believe That 1913 Will Witness Even Greater Strides. Nineteen hundred and twelve has proved the greatest year in the history of Atlanta. A careful study of the city’s progress during the last twelve months shows advancement beyond the dreams of the most enthusiastic. It shows, too. that with a few more years of equal prosperity, this city will take its place among the greatest municipalities of the world. An investigation of industries, wholesale and retail business and general con ditions prove that practically all have shared in the good fortune of 1912. This advance of prosperity has come in a year when climatic conditions have been extremely unfavorable. The continued rains of the spring and the early summer brought great hardships to the farmer. Much of his crops rotted in the ground, and his cotton was greatly impaired. Ten years ago these conditions would have meant almost total destruction of farm products. But now cultivated land is carefully drained, and despite the long downpours some of the soil that formerly would have been under water has produced fair crops. Thanks to this and other scientific advances in farming methods, the crop showing was more than could be hoped for. and Atlanta naturally benefited by the farmers’ increased efficiency. Despite the gloomy prophecies of a few years ago, Atlanta real estate has continued to soar. At no time during 1912 was there a pause. The “boom city” aspect of a few years back disappeared. Prices were fixed on solid valuation, and sales were made accordingly. One piece of Peachtree street property sold for $8,200 a foot. It was the highest price ever paid for property in the South—bus it probably was the best piece of property ever sold in the South. Other Peachtree street property brought more than 50 per cent profit during the year, but the physical valuation proved that the last prices paid were not too high. One tract that sold for $l5O an acre thirty years ago, recently brought $lB.- 000 an acre, and other cases equally as remarkable might be cited. Approximately $16,000,000 changed hands in real estate deals during the year, and several millions were spent developing suburban districts, where well-built, attractive homes are now springing up. Building permits are the recognized barometer of a city’s prosperity. At lanta’s record for 1912 is $9,986,000. This compares with $6,215,000 in 1911, an in crease of $6,771,000. This increase can not be attributed to one specific cause. A search of the rec ords shows permits for a larger number of homes, hotels, office buildings, facto ries and apartment houses than in former years. Managers of department stores report that their business has been larger by 20 per cent in 1912 than in former years and the same thing is true in other re tail lines. Atlanta’s health record—always fine, mainly on account of climate—has been eclipsed since last January 1. Hygienic education has done much to bring about these results. The death rate has fallen from 18.70 per thousand persons in 1911 to 16.25 per thousand persons in 1912, a decrease of 2.45 per thousand. Among the whites the last year’s death rate was 13.46 and among the negroes 20.82 per thousand. Attendance in the city schools in 1910-1911 was 21,418. At the present time there are 23,334 pupils, an increase of 1,916. Before the end of the term in June, 500 more will be added to the rolls. According to the city directory, just published, the population of Atlanta is 217.000. The census of 1910 gave the population as 154,839. If this ratio is held up—and it undoubtedly will be increased—there will be between 450,000 and 500,000 Atlantans in 1920. Truly this is a wonderful record when it is taken into consideration that just a few years ago there was no such city as Atlanta. All of these and figures are presented to give an idea of the progres siveness of the city and to stir the imagination as to its future magnitude. The municipal government must catch step with the citizens who are continually forging ahead. Streets must be well constructed and kept in repair: adequate sewers must he built: schools must be erected: the smoke must be eliminated: parks must be improved: substations must be secured to heighten the efficiency of the police: and factional politics must be thrust aside whenever the welfare of the citv is involved. A new administration is taking charge of municipal affairs, and there is an tvowed intention among officeholders to work jointly for the good of the citv and to bury personal prejudice. With all city officials making good their resolution to co-operate, with private enterprises and capital developing and pushing forward at the present rate, with • ■very Atlantan loyal to his city and taking a persona I interest in its good name an.! betterment, there is every reason to believe that 1913 will far surpass in inosperity and progress that wonderful year just ending. The Atlanta Georgian TUESDAY, DECEMBER 31. 1912. I x -I. - : = Bis K 1 . The Mother -in-Law as Trouble-Maker By DOROTHY DIX HAVE you noticed that the mother-in-law joke is dead? That the cartoonist and the humorist have ceased to exhaust their wit in depicting a fat and fussy old lady, descending like a prestilence on an unwillipg house bob’? You have noticed it? And you suppose that the ancient jest had perished of old age, didn't you? Not at all. It is because we have suddenly recognized that the moth er-in-law is not a thing to make merry- over. She is the greatest menace there is to domestic peace and happiness. She is no longer a comic figure. She is tragedy in carnate. A few days ago a distinguished and conservative jurist who tries so many divorce cases that he is called a divorce judge, declared that over 75 per cent of the men and women whose matrimonial difficul ties he was called on to settle would have gotten on well enough to gether if it had not been tor their in-laws. Sometimes it was the man’s mother who made the trouble; sometimes it x was the woman's mother, but everywhere it was the mother-in-law who was the first aid to divorce. This is an appalling state of af fairs, and it is time that women faced the fact that the divorce evil is not going to be cured by preach er#, nor sociologists, nor laws, nor lawyers, but it is in the hands of mothers, and they must settle it. if it is ever settled. A Divorce Coupon. Os course, any young couple who get married aaid who go to live with either mother-in-law could save money and worry- by buying a marriage license with a divorce coupon attached to it, for unless the whole family of them are pin feathered angels—which most peo ple aren't—they are foreordained to bickering and jealousies, and every known species of the fifty-seven varieties of domestic misery. Nobody knows why, but no house wa?*ever yet built that was big enough for a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law to live in togeth er in peace, and a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law would be forever treading on each other's toes, although they had all the room of the Waldorf to move about in. When a woman .- children marry she should make a cast iron resolve never, under any circumstances, to Ready For the New Page By UAL COFFMAN. •* live under the same roof with them. • not to visit them too often, never to interfere in their family affairs, and to refrain from giving advice, even though she has to bite her tongue off to keep from doing it. The responsibility of mothers for their children’s divorces may end with their keeping their fingers out of their married sons’ and daugh-* tens’ pies, but it doesn't begin there. It commences in the cradle, and I can think of nothing on earth that is so piteous as that every mother in the land could provide some woman with a good husband, or some man with a good wife, and she doesn’t do it. She could save the broken hearts, the misery, the tears, the w recked-homes, the little children that are made motherless, or fatherless, and homeless, and she doesn't do it. Surely if there is one thing that is past even the mercy of God to forglve_.it is this. What Her Mother Can Do. There is no mother who pillows a little baby- girl’s head on her breast that can not raise that girl up to be a true, good, sensible woman. She can teach her to control her temper, to be reasonable and practical, and to have some sense of responsibil ity. and some idea of her duty to others. She can teach het; how to make a home, and make of herself the kind of a wife that is.a bless ing instead of a curse to the man I who gets her. WeOwntheQanal Editor The Georgian: I want to commend your position on tlie Panama canal, ami especial ly to congratulate you on the edi torial in Thursday afternoon’s pa per. and hope that you will con tinue the good work. It is evident a few people who ate interested in English shipping have subsidized some of our pa pers and are trying to create a sentiment that will benefit them financially- "Uncle Sam" bought this land and is completing this great work for the prime benefit of his people, and it would be a reflection on the intelligence of our congress and an outrage on its citizens to grant the request of Great Britain or permit the question to be submitted to The Hague. . I hope that you will continue to keep this question before the peo ple. L. A. BEDWINE. Atlanta Ga. "f* I here is not a mother with a lit : tie son standing at her knee who can not teach that boy to be chival rous and tender to women. She can teach him to show every wom an reverence and respect. Sin- can teach him how to treat a wife, how to be generous to iter, and unselfish, and tender and affectionate; how to be the kind of a husband that will make a woman bless her stars ev ery day she lives that she was lucky enough to get him. It is the mothers who turn out the w ives and the brutal, neglectful husbands. They furnish the raw material out of which matrimonial misery is made, and they- are re sponsible for the ensuing divorc,-. Nor does the mother's aid to di vorce end with having supplied for one poor. unfortunate man, or woman, a wife or husband that nothing but a martyr could stand. Mother throws fresh fuel on the fire in the shape of backing up her . son or daughter in their domestic quarrels. When Mary comes Tunning home to mother with her tale of woe about some little matter in which she and John have disagreed, mother begins- pitying her for poor, persecuted angel instead of saying to her, "Go home and forget it. I am ashamed of you for being such a little coward as to come whining back the first time any thing goes wrong. What did you think marriage 7 was—a picnic? Well, it isn’t. It’s a profession, a calling, inhere you shut your teeth and do your duty and make the best of tilings.’’ Mothers Hold Solution. Ninety-nine times out of a hun dred mothers could stop a divorce in the very beginning if they would only hold their sons and daughters up to performing the obligations they have taken upon themselves. But they don't. They side with their own. they sympathize with their own s injury and magnify the other’s fault until they widen the breach between husband and wife past all bridging, and are thus ac cessory to the crime of breaking up n home. These are hard words, hu, they’ a<• true ones It B the mothers w ho hold the solution of the divorce question in their hands. There would be no more unhappy mar riages and nobody would want .1 divorce, if only mothers did their duty and were a little busier before their children’s ma liage. and 1, . rip I • !I>l S. V 1- r1 o 1 THE HOME PAPER Garrett P. Serviss Writes on Sound It is a .Marvellous Calculator of Distance, if You Onlv Knew How to Use It. By Ils Waves One Can Tell How Far Away a Thunder Storm Is. By GARRETT P. SERVISS YOU can' make your head an arsenal of power if you will simply remember certain facts that have the quality f bringing out other facts. Take sound, for instance. It is a mar vellous measurer of distance, if only you know how to use it. Sound consists of waves, or v’- biations, which travel through the air. at ordinary temperatures, witli a speed of 1,140 feet per second. At lower temperatures the speed is slightly decreased, ami at higher temperatures increased, but the flg u es given are sufficiently exact for common purposes. Knowing them you can, for instance, tell in a mo ment how far away from you .1 thunder storm is raging. You have only to count the number of sec onds that elapse between the flash of the lightning and the sound "f the thunder, and multiply th:" number by 1,140, which will give you the distance of the cloud from which the discharge took place The light travels more than 900.- 000 times as fast as the sound, so that the latter has hardlj- got started before the former reaches your eye. Since there are 5.25 U feet in a mile, it is evident that the sound of thunder, or any othe” sound transmitted through the ai takes about four and two-thii « seconds to go a mile. Travels on Heels of Light. The lightning bolt travels on th" heels of the light, so that it. too. s ■ far outstrips the sound that if b -truck you, you would neve her the thunder. Even we. howeve . are able t■> send death-dealing bolts faster than the sound that accompanies their discharge. A swift rifle btf let goes twice as fast as the crack of the exploding cartridge. Another useful fact to know Is that sound travels faster in water than in air, in the proportion of ai least four feet to one. In some ex periments sound has been trans mitted through the water of a river at the rate of more than a mile per second, but its average velocity in waler is about 4,700 feet per secone. The sound of a bell warning a slii to keep away from a dangerous* shoal would require about 23 sec onds to go five miles through t i air. while the same sound could be transmitted through the wate about live and a half seconds There a e imaginable circumstanc< - in which the eighteen seconds thus saved might suffice to prevent a shipwreck. Still mor. remarkable is the de ference between the speed of sound in air and in solid bodies. Tn P heavier metals, such as lead <• gold, sound travels at m arly tlr same velocity as in water, but in more elastic metals, like iron ar. : steel, its speed suddenly increas - to more than three miles per sec ond, which is six or seven times ■ rapid as the flight of a bullet. In wood sound travels about as fast as in iron, provided that t! ■ direction in which its waves mm is the same as that in which tlw fibers of the. wood run. but if the •sound is transmitted across the gram of the wood its speed is re duced to from a half to a quarter of what it is in the other direction, the amount of change varying for different species of wood. Waves of Sound Differ. You can hear the sound "f scratching on a wooden fence at an astonishing distance, if your ear happens to be close to the wood, or if your head touches the fence. And so quickly is the sound conduct.-o that, although its point of origin may be a quarter of a mile away, .vet, if you are unaware of the manner in which it has been brought, to your ear, you may be ■ ompleteiy deceived, thinking that it must have originated but a fe rods off. One might easily make a kind of telegraph of a wooden fence, conveying messages by taps upon It. This suggestion is dedi cated to writers of ingenious sto ries of adventure. How long are the waves of sound in the air? They differ according to the pitch. The average male voice, in ordi nary conversation, produces wav varying in length from eight to twelve feet, while those of a wom an's voice are only from two to four feet long Waves sixty •r seventy feet in length, vibrating at the late of sixteen times per sec ond, produce a very grave sound which is scarcely perceptible by th human ear. while waves only half an inch in length, vibrating be tween twenty and thirty thousand times per second, produce a sound so shrill that it. too, passes beyond the range o' our hearing, although it may seem as hoarse as the roat of thunder to the hearing apparatus of insects. All sounds, whetl’ r grave or sin-ill. navel forward •' the same rate.