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EDITORIAL RAGE The Atlanta Georgian THE HOME RARER '
THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN
Published Every Afternoon Except Sunday
By THE GEORGIAN COMPANY
At 20 East Alabama Ht.. Atlanta, Ga.
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The Stage Mustache
Who Makes the “Criminals”?
Did This View of It Ever Occur to You?
(Copyright, 1913.)
Much interest just now in CRIMINALS.
Much horror aroused by depravity.
Many plans more or less appropriate for making the air
pure.
Many good men, politicians, women and bishops who spend
the summer at the seaside are willing to spend a few days wip
ing “CRIME" off the earth.
What is CRIME? Who are the CRIMINALS? Who makes
the criminals?
Do criminals viciously and voluntarily arise among us, eager
to lead hunted lives, eager to be jailed at intervals, eager to
crawl in the dark, dodge policemen, work in stripes and die in
shame? Hardly.
Will you kindly and patiently follow the lives, quickly
sketched, of a boy and a girl?
THE GIRL
Born poor, born in hard luck, her father, or mother, or both,
victims of long hours, poor fare, bad air and little leisure.
As a baby she struggles against fate and manages to live
while three or four little brothers and sjsters die and go back to
kind earth. I*./
She crawls around the halls of .a {tenement, a good deal in
the way. She is hunted here^and ohasLl there.
She is cold in winter, ill 1 summer, never well cared for.
She gets a little so-calle^’, lotion. Ill-dressed and
ashamed beside the other children,,Un Wglad to escape the edu
cation. No one at home can Uelyr Oiy No one away from
home cares about her. /
She grows up white, sickly, iViim, ,>ofeatO,sprouting in a cel
lar. At the corner of a fine streetsi|tes the carriages pass
ing with other girls in warm fm£, oy in fine, Cool summer dresses.
With a poor shawl around lier, witlj Heels run down, she
peers in at the restaurant window, tjo see (other women leading
lives very different from her*.. 4 V , :il '
Steadily she has impressed up6n her the\fact, absolutely un
deniable, that as the world is organized thede is no especial place
for her—certainly no comfort for her. /
She finds work, perhaps. Houra as long as the daylight.
Ten minutes late—half a day’s fine.
At the end of the day aching feet, aching back, system ill-
fed, not enough earned to live upon honestly—and that prospect
stretches ahead farther than her poor eyes can see.
"WHAT’S THE CHARGE, OFFICER?’’
“Disorderly conduct, your honor.”
There’s the criminal, good men, politicians, women and
bishops, that you are hunting so ardently.
THE BOY
Same story, practically.
He plays on the tenement staircase—cuffed off the staircase.
He plays ball on the street—cuffed if caught by the police
man.
He swings on the area railing, trying to exercise his stunted
muscles—cuffed again.
In burning July, with shirt and trousers on, he goes swim
ming in the park fountain—caught and cuffed and handed over to
“the society.”
A few months in a sort of semi-decent imprisonment, treated
in a fashion about equivalent to that endured by the sea turtle
turned over on its back in the market.
He escapes, to begin the same life once mare.
He tries for work.
"What do you know?”
“I don’t know anything; nobody ever taught me.”
He can not even endure the discipline of ten hours' daily
shoveling—it takes education to instill discipline, if only the edu
cation of the early pick and shovel.
He has not been taught anything. He has been turned loose
in a city full of temptation. He had no real start to begin with,
and no effort was ever made to repair his evil beginning.
“WHAT’S THE CHARGE, OFFICER?”
“Attempted burglary; pleads guilty.”
“Three years in prison, since it is his first offense.”
In prison he gets an education. They teach him how to be a
good burglar and not get caught. Patiently the State boards
him and educates him to be a first-rate criminal.
There's your first-rate criminal, Messrs. Bishops, good men,
politicians and benevolent women.
Dear bishops, noble women, good men and scheming poli
ticians, listen to this story:
In the South Sea Islands they have for contagious diseases a
horror as great as your horror of crime.
A man or a woman stricken with a loathsome disease, such as
smallpox, is seized, isolated, and the individual sores of the small
pox patient are earnestly scraped with sea shells—until the pa
tient dies. It hurts the patient a good deal—without ever curing,
of course—but it relieves the feelings of the outraged good ones
who wield the sea shells.
You kind-hearted creatures, hunting “crime” in great cities,
are like the South Sea Islanders in their treatment of smallpox.
You ardently wield your reforming sea shells and you scrape
very earnestly at the sores so well developed.
No desire here to decry your earnest efforts. *
But if you ever get tired of scraping with sea shells, try vac
cination, or, better still, try to take such care of youth, to give
such chances and education to the young, as will save them from
the least profitable of all careers—CRIME.
Rich, good men, nice bishops, comfortable, benevolent ladies,
every man and woman in prison, every wretched creature liv
ing near a “red light,’’ would gladly change places with any of
yon.
Scrape away with your sea shells, but try also to give a few
more and a few better chances in youth to those whom you now
hunt as criminals in their mature years.
God cteates boj'S and girls anxious to live decently.
YOUR SOCIAL SYSTEM makes criminals and fills jails.
It Has an Awful Villainous Effect in the Play.
Corm,orants===The Winged Slaves of China
How the Followers of Confucius Have Taken Advantage of the
Ability of the Bird as a Fisherman.
By GARRETT P. SERVISS.
r | ■'[IE story of the fishing birds
X of China throws light on
natural history and human
history. These birds are cormo
rants, which, by nature, are great
fishers, for fish are their favorite
food. All went well with the cor
morants of China, and they cou-
ductrtl thejr piscatorial operations
in peace and for their own sole ad
vantage, until, to their misfortune,
the Idea occurred to the human in
habitants of the laud of Confucius,
who are not lacking in many small
tngenptfies or in a certain' broad
philosophy of life, that it would be
a good tiling to make the cormo
rants fish for them. •
From that moment the cormo
rant became a slave and joined the
great army of serfs, including
horses, mules, donkeys and other
easily subjected creatures, with
which man lias surrounded himself
for Ills pleasure and convenience
Cormorant Spurred on
by Hope He Can Keep
Catch for Himself.
The cormorant no longer fishes
for himself; he fishes for a mas
ter. who has more brains than he
and who lets him eat just enough
to keep him always in good train
ing and eager to work. The cor
morant, not having much of a
brain, is jierpefually misled, when
he goes after a fish, by the hope
that he will lie allowed to keep it
for himself, while his master, hav
ing more intelligence, takes care
that the poor enslaved bird shall
never get quite as much as his ap
petite demands. Thus the reced
ing hope of a good full dinner and
a delicious period of repose after
ward, is continually dangled before
the stupid cormorant’s eyes.
The cormorant is a large, awk-
A—
GARRETT P. SERVISS.
ward bird, with a long bill and ca
pable of diving into the water and
catching a fish before it can make
a move to esoai>e. When lie lias
captured a fish lie emerges from
the water, and. if he has no mas
ter. he flings it up into the air with
the skill of a juggler, in such a way
that it always comes down head
first and passes straight down the
bird's throat, without any entan
glement of fins. That is the only
way in which a cormorant can
safely swallow a fish.
But the cormorant slave never
gets an opportunity to fling his fish
up into the air and catch it on the
descent unless his master so wills
it. The fish is taken from him be
fore he can get his feet on anything
sufficiently solid to enable him to
perform the acrobatic feat that is
indispensable to his dining. The
fish is seized by the master, and
the foolish bird eagerly goes after
another one.
The best cormorants come from
the province of Honan. They are
so valuable that a well-trained
pair costs about $30. which is a
large sum of money in China. A
good outfit of fishing cormorants
numbers from 'At to 30 birds, and
they can earn for their master
from $1 to $1.25 a day. Such birds
get in exchange for their loss of
liberty a i-ertaln kind of eare,
which masters always bestow upon
useful slaves. If they fall sick they
get a dose of oil of sesame which
quickly puts them back into work
ing condition.
They are slaves from childhood
—like many unfortuuate human
beings. Their training begins al
most from birth, and at the age of
seven or eight months they are set
to work cqtching small fish. For
an average of ten years their
slavery continues—and then they
die. still in chains to superior in
telligence.
The management of these winged
and beaked slaves is very simple.
Their master ties a long cord to
one of the legs, puts a rattan collar
around their necks, just tight
enough to prevent them from swal
lowing a fish if their hunger should
make them unruly, and attaches a
bamboo float to the cord so that
they can not escape by diving. He
also carries a bamboo pole, ten feet
long, with which to beat them, and
frighten them by slapping the wa
ter when they do not perform their
task obediently.
Reward for Bird Is Fish
His Master Cannot
Market.
Sometimes he places himself
near the shore in shallow water,
and sometimes governs his fleet of
slaves from a curious boat, made
by putting a board across two par
allel floats, each about three or
four feet long. The fishing is done
in lakes, quiet streams and ponds.
After a good catch has been
made the master picks out the lit
tle, unmarketable fish and assem
bles his flock about him, gives the
fish a dexterous turn in the air
which causes them to descend head
first into the gaping throats. But
he keeps all the large, fine fish for
himself.
The Japanese also employ cor
morants for fishing.
It is said in Holy Writ that man
was given dominion over all the
animals of the earth. He has not
failed to exercise his privilege, but
if the animals were capable of re
belling he would have to work
harder himself.
Lesson of An Old Legend
Time—The Human Race Since Its Begin
ning Has Waged Hopeless War Against
This Relentless Foe.
(Intelligent reader*, young and old, will be interested in this old
legend prepared for modern reading by Mr. John Edward Geary, of Sy
racuse, N. Y. The most interesting thing, perhaps, is the wrestling
match between Thor and the old woman, who turns out to be MOTHER
TIME. Every one of us wrestles with TIME, only to be defeated In tho
end. As you read this article THINK your way through it.)
By JOHN EDWARD GEARY
T HOR was the son of Odin,
father of the divinities of
the Scandinavian mythology.
Thor was the god dear to the
Norse heart; he was the god of
beneficent Summer heat; the thun
der was his wrath; the gathering
of the black clouds was the draw
ing down of his angry brows; the
flash of fire coming out of heaven
beforq the thunder was his all-
rending hammer blow. He drives
his huge chariot over the moun
tain tops; that is the thunder;
angry "he blows his red beard”—
this is the rustling storm blast
before the storm begins.
Thor is the god of peaceable in
dustry; he is the peasants' friend;
he is the true friend and com
panion of Thalfl, manual labor. He
scorns no work, no matter ha^v
lowly; himself engages in all kinds
of manual work.
The forces of nature in Scandi
navian mythology were pictured
as intelligent personalities; the
good ones, such as the sun, sum
mer heat, as gods, and the dark
and evil ones, such as frost, sea
tempest, as demons. The forces
of evil were called Jotuns.
The gods lived on high in a
place called Asgard, the garden of
the divine ones. The Jotuns lived
in a dark, distant land of chaos,
called Utgard, out garden, Jotun-
heim, the home of the Jotuns.
In this cold north country a great
many of the evil forces were cred
ited to frost and cold. The Jotun
Hymer's cattle were icebergs; his
beard was the hoar frost; the
fierce glance of his eye would rend
rocks.
It was most natural that eternal
enmity and strife should exist be
tween Thor, the god of summer
heat, and the Jotuns, demons of
frost and cold. Many were the
visits of Thor to Jotunheim, and
many were his struggles with the
Jotuns.
Thor possessed a sword of ex
treme keenness. Once on one of
his journeys he met a giant Jotun,
who laughed at what he consid
ered the assumed power of Thor.
Thor, Angered, Seized
His Sword and Slashed
at the Giant.
Thor, angered, seized his sword
in both hands and cut the giant
through the middle. Such was the
keenness of the blade the giant
did not know that he was injured,
the blade leading j a red line of
blood where it had cut. The giant
started to laugh at Thor and there
upon fell in two. Thor must have
been the first “Jack the Giant
Killer,” a destroyer of demons and
their powers.
Thor's chief tool and favorite
weapon was his mighty hammer.
This was made a present to him
by his father, Odin, who decreed
that he should be a producer, a
builder.
Thor heard that there was a
tournament, games and feats of
strength and skill to be held in
Jotunheim, and he concluded to at
tend and take part. He did not
know the way, only the general
direction. He had for companions
Thalfl and Loke.
Loke was the Innate power that
dwelt in fire or flame. How sim
ple! How primitive! This is
some of the history of the working
of the human mind in its infancy
that has been handed down to us.
The wonder that exists in fire or
flame we hide behind a chemical
name. They pictured it as an in
telligent will, capable of self-direc
tion from within, the same was
credited to all the personalities,
both gods and demons of primiitve
peoples; the mythology of the
Greeks, of the Hindus, and others,
as well as the Scandinavian.
We know that natural forces act
according to a law; given the same
conditions they always act the
same; that they are not capable of
direction from within. Still there
is wonder there.
Thor and his party went down
through a valley and came upon a
giant asleep under some trees.
Thor, thinking he might be a Jotun,
stepped close and cried into the
giant's ear; “Can you please tell
me the tray to Jotunheim?” The
giant did not hear and slept on.
Thor said to himself, ‘‘I’ll wake
you,” and gave him a tap on the
head with his hammer. The giant
brushed his head with his hand
and murmured, “I think a leaf
must have fallen.”
This angered Thor, and seizing
his great hammer with both hands
he brought it down with ail Ms
might on the giant's head. The
lightning flashed and the thunder
roared through the valley.
The giant again brushed his
head with his hand, saying: “There
must be sparrows in this tree; I
think one has fallen.” Thor, now
ashamed, went on his way and
finally arrived at the gate of
Utgard, “a gate so high that yon
had to strain your neck bending
back to see the top of it.”
Thor and his companions were
admitted. He told of his ambition
to engage in the contests. He was
told that he might enter the con
tests, but to qualify he must first
drink a drinking horn dry that was
handed to him.
Thor Drank Long, But
He Scarcely Lowered
the Horn Any.
Thor drank long and hard three
times; he scarcely lowered the
horn any. He was laughed ak
“You are a weak child; can you
lift that cat you see there?”
Try as he might he could not lift
the cat. * “Why,” they said to him,
‘none of our men would oontest
with you, hut there is an old
woman here who might wrestle
you.” Thor, ashamed, seized the
old woman, but try as he might he
could not throw her.
He was thoroughly ashamed of
his performance, and made ready
to depart. He was accompanied
to the gate of the city by an at
tendant, they politely sending the
Chief Jotun as escort.
Feeling compassion for Thor, he
said: “You are beaten; yet feel
not so much ashamed, for there
was deception in it. You were de
ceived by appearances. The giant
you saw sleeping in the valley on
your way was the earth Jotun
Skrymer. You did not succeed in
waking him, but look at what you
did.”
Thor looked and saw a great
rent torn in the mountain through
which a mighty river was flowing
where no water flowed before.
‘‘That drinking horn was the
ocean," said the Jotun. “Who could
drink the ocean dry? But you did
lower the waters along the shore.
“The old woman you thought
you were wrestling with was
Time.
"Who can contend with Time?
Gods and men, she pre”ails over
all. That cat you tried to lift was
the great MIDGARD SNAKE,
which, tail in mouth, holds up the
entire world. Had you succeeded
in tearing that up the world would
have rushed to destruction.”
Thor looked at his attendant.
He discovered it was the Jotun
Skrymer, who thereupon vanished.
Only the Mocking Voice
of the Giant Came to
His Ears.
Utgard, with its sky-high gates,
when Thor seized his hammer to
smite them, had gone to air. Only
the voice of the giant was heard
mocking, “Better come no more to
Jotunheim.”
The great geologists of the last
century struck the rocks with their
hammers and a great river of
knowledge flowed in upon mankind.
They changed time—creation
was said to be the beginning of
time—from being a kitchen clock
of six thousand years Into mil
lions of years.
To those who had implicit faith
in the story of creation, as then
interpreted from their Bibles, to
those for a time, it lowered faith
and hope and brought much misery
to many.
It has come to be the belief of
many that “he walks with God,” as
Thalfl did of old, who does useful
work, and the best gospel is tho
gospel of service, ^Help ye one
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