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EDITORIAL RAGE The Atlanta Georgian THE HOME RARER THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN Published by THE GEORGIAN COMPANY At 20 East Alabama St. Atlanta. Ga u , .... Entered aa eemnd-rlaae matter at aoatofflre at Atlat.ta under set of Mareh l.^171 HEARST-S MNHA V AMERICAN end THK ATUNTA OK'IIIOIA.N «UI he mailed to subscribers anywhere In the I ntlted States. often as ene month for I *0. three months for II 7B: ohan*. of address made aa orten as desired Foreign subscription rates on applies' I The Hopeless Scramble of Atlanta’s Street Numbers To Help Out His Thanksgiving Gift In The Rome Tribune Herald of recent date there appeared thi* editorial paragraph 'The homes and business houses in Atlanta should be renumbered. It is almost impossible for a stranger to find his way about in that city.” Mrs. William Lawson Peel, in a contribution to the columns of The Georgian, points out this same trouble in Atlanta, and pleads for its abatement. There is not one Atlantan of intelligence, perhaps, who will not instantly and cordially agree that both The Tribune-Herald, an outsider, and Mrs. Peel, an insider, ARE ALTOGETHER AND ENTIRELY RIGHT! The homes and business houses of Atlanta are fearfully and c wonderfully numbered! The only thing about the present numbering that suggests system is the utter lack of system apparent on all sides! It is well nigh impossible to direct a stranger in Atlanta to a home a dozen blocks away. Streets start with any old number and run along helter skelter, every person apparently choosing a number for himself, and without regard to the number his next-door neighbor may have selected! As an example, take those three beautiful resident thor- j oughfares, Juniper, Piedmont and Myrtle. Between Seventh and : Eighth on these three streets homes correspondingly located are numbered respectively 143, 290 and 731. That is to say, No 143 on Juniper would be No. 731 on Pied ment and No. 290 on Myrtle, as they now are laid out! Could anything be more palpably absurd? And the very same conditions as to numbering that prevail on those streets prevail all over Atlanta with respect to other streets! If Marietta street, say, began at Five Points, at the inter section of Peachtree, and ran east in blocks of one hundred, it would be perfectly possible to locate in one's mind No. 467 Ma netta, and to indicate it instantly and understandably to a stranger anxious to know. But the stranger in Atlanta stifrting out to locate No. 467 Marietta nowadays would find himself embarked upon a voyage the indefiniteness of which would appall him before he reached its end! If you wished to locate No. 457 Piedmont avenue, you would not know whether to guess between Fourth and Fifth or between Twelfth and Thirteenth No. 457 ought to be located between Fourth and Fifth, to be sure, as it is indicated for the 400 block. The only guess in Atlanta, however, is that wherever a home OUGHT to be located, according to its indicated number, there is where it most probably ISN T located! And the significant, compelling and embarrassing thing about that statement is that it is not in the slightest exaggerated or overemphasized! ATLANTA S STREETS OUGHT TO BE RENUMBERED— THE SOONER THE BETTER! , Already Atlanta has waited unpardonably long—so long that outsiders are gibing us and criticising us about it. And Atlantans KNOW that the gibing and criticising both are de served. The city should be divided into East. West, North and South sections, and the blocks in those sections numbered after the simple method of one hundred numbers to each block. Next spring Atlanta will entertain the Imperial Council of the Mystic Shrine of North America. That gathering will bring t to Atlanta perhaps fifty thousand of the very flower of American citizenship. It will bring the best business men of the nation here for a good time. One of the things every delegate surely ought to feel he may be able to do in Atlanta is to get about town intelligently, and WITHOUT having to inquire every hundred steps or so how much farther it is to where he is going! 1 The Georgian suggests to Council the wisdom of considering IMMEDIATELY the y.atter—the very IMPORTANT matter— of renumbering Atlanta's streets. Atlanta has been called, and justly, ” Dixie's City of Beau tiful Homes.” The beauty of those homes should not be marred by a per fectly crazy and insane system of numbering. Nor should the business houses be jumbled together, with out rhyme or reason as to indicated location. Consider the Poor Salesgirl Not One American Ship These paragraphs from a recent report of Admiral Fletcher, commanding the United States squadron at Tampico, compel thought: The steamer Logician, which has been chartered by the British admiral and manned by a crew from the British cruiser Suffolk, has all the British residents of the town on board All the Germans are aboard the steamer Cecilie. ' NO STEAMER IS AVAILABLE FOR AMERICAN REF UGEES.” Of course, the United States warships will receive refugees of our nation, but that there should not be a single merchant man flying the American flag in Tampico harbor ought to be im possible. The fact affords a striking and mortifying illustration of the decay of our merchant marine under a blighting policy which the Administration utterly refuses to correct. By DOROTHY DIX. T O YOU I'hristmas is the season of peace on earth and good will. To her it is a time of terror, a tome of ex hausted body and tortured nerves, a nightmare that she looks back upon with horror, and forward to with dread And it's you. who put off your shopping until the very last minute, who turn the sweetest and the gayest festival of the whole year into this Inquisition for her Merry Christmas! What a mockery the words are to the poor shop girl who lies on her bed on Christinas morning too fired to get up. too pnH to even turn her weary eyes to see if ^ianta Claus has visited her or not Even muscle in her poor little body is exhausted. Every nerve is worn to the quick Her very brain is numb with fatigue She's a wreck in mind and body, and feels just as bcdrabbled and slimpsy and frazzled out as the pink chiffon blouses that the crazy horde of late Christmas shoppers have been pawing over Rt her counter. Merry Christinas' There's nothing merry in it to her. It has been a battle, a struggle, au endurance contest in which she has put every ounce of her strength, every particle of her grit. All that she's thought of, all that she’s prayed fo>\ has just beeu to be able to fight on to the end. and not to lose her grip on her politeness, or get rattled by the hundreds of ques tions tired at her by a hundred different women who were pull ing and hauling at her. and trying to get her to do a dozen different things at otiee. A gay and merry Christinas! Her gav and merry Christ- mas is just to lie in bed and rest, and Havp somebody poultice her poor, blistered, swollen feet, and to try to keep her brain from automatically repeating the prices of celluloid handker chief holders and near-silver backed hair brushes. And yet this girl is as ^voting and as fond of fur. and amusement and life as your own daughter, sir or madam. She would like to enjoy her Christmas just as much as your Ethel or Mamie. She s got just the same interest in pretty things and Christmas frolics as your girls. How would you like it if your own precious girl had been so hard worked, and was so worn and weary on Christmas morning that she had no spirit left for the eiijovment of the day t Yon would think it was a hard and cruel thing, and vour heart would be hitter against those who had robbed her of her innocent joy in the day Won’t you, then, try to think a little about other people's daughters and show to them a little of he mercy and consideration that you would like to have shown to your own ? You can do this by shopping early. You can keep from making the last days before Christmas an orgy of buying that riots around the salesgirls and drives them almost mad. You know how exhausting it is to battle vour wav in the ( hnstmas crowds that almost tear your ciothes off of your back. \ ou know how uerve-wearing it is to try to find presents that will please the half dozen people you buy things You know how your feet ache when you have stood up tor an hour at a counter, trying to match a piece of ribbon or select a necktie that will cost but seventy-five cents’ and that you can fool some man into thinking cost $2.50, You know how your temper gets on a razor edge when you can t get instant attention from the clerk Kindly multiply your tribulations in Christmas shopping by a hundred thousand, and then some, and vou will get a faint idea of what the salesgirl goes through. She hasn't contended with the Christmas crowd for an hour or two. She has fought with it for a month. She hasn’t tried to answer the questions of one woman She's tried to pacifv and please a multitude She hasn’t had the outlet to her nerves of snapping back at you, as you have at her, when things went wrong Ella Wheeler Wilcox -ON— The Life Hereafter—There Is No Death: Other Lives, Other Realms Await-—One of the Greatest Teachers of This Was Emanuel Swedenborg. BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX because her job depended ou her keeping up a pleasant smile no matter how she raved inwardly. And if one day’s Christmas shopping leaves you as limp as a dish rag think what it must do to her. It's nothing but pure unadulterated selfishness that makes people put off their Christmas shopping to the last minute. You know just as well now as you are going to know on the 23d or 24th of December that you’ve got to get some gift for Aunt Sara, and Cousin Sallie, or a present for your wife. Then why not go tiys very day and buy it, instead of waiting to the last minute before the shops close to do it, and thus adding another burden to the weary, patient little shoulders of the shop girl that are already breaking under the load they must carryl Look at the picture that the artist has drawn for this article. Note the weary droop of the figure, the tired lines in the young face of the poor little shop girl, and particularly observe that all of her forlornness is made up of late shopping. Let this picture make you think of what your carelessness and lack of thought may cause you to do. Surely the brightness of your own Christmas day will be dimmed if you realize that somewhere there is a little shop girl as weary and forlorn as the one pictured here who might have had a happy Christmas if you had only done your slipping early. Have a heart Do your part toward making this a Merry Christmas for the salesgirls by buying early and getting out of the stores. ■' 1 ■ fi STARS AMI) STRIFES * Copyright. 1»18. by Stay Con>p»*y BEYOND. I T seemeth such a tittle way to me Across to that strange coun try, the Beyond; And yet not strange, for it has grown to be The home of those of whom I am so fond: They make it seem familiar, and most dear. As journeying friends bring dis tant countries near. So close it ties that when m.v sight is clear I seem to see tne gleaming of that strand; I know I feet those who have gone from here Come near enough to even touch my hand 1 often think but for our veiled eyes. We would find Heaven right round about us lies. 1 cannot make it seem a day to dread When from this dear earth I shall journey out To that still dearer country of the deaa And join the lost one-? so tong dreamed about. I love this world, yet I shall love to go And meet the friends who wait for me, I know I never stand above the bter and see The seal of death set on some well lpved face But that I think—One more to welcome me When I shall cross the interven ing space Between this 'land and that one Over There; One more to make the strange Beyond aehm fair. And so to me there is no sting to death. And so tlie grave has lost its victory. it is but crossing, with suspended breath And white, set face, a little strip of sea. To find the loved ones on the other shore. More beautiful, more precious than before. "Darwin responsible for the tango." declares a preacher. Doubt If it’s a simian dissipation. • • * M.ss Lind-af-Hagebv says kiss- ng s perfectlv harm!' - Why try rob it of us prino.pal charm 7 From their talk. \\ e are often It’s a poverty-stricken Christ convinced that s, me children mas than can be estimated in have neglected to bring up their dollars. parents properly. • • • * • • There is nothing so discourag Mona Lisa's smile will broaden ing to the young husband a »to a laugh if >he gets more rich father-’n-lavN who does not i'lorentine receptions. give up easily. One might as well try to sweep back the waves of the ocean as to silence the whine of a profes sional martyr. mm* There are occasions when it is helter to wear thick-soled shoes when you toe the mark. MAN who says he is a great student and that has stud ied all the religions, urges me to be “sensible’’ and discon tinue writing or talking about “God” or "Heaven" or "Future Life.” He says all these things are su perstitions, which people of in tellect must abandon, or resign all claim to intellectuality. This man is, of course, an ego tist of the rankest order. He is so blinded by his self-conceit that he cannot see Truth. He is like an individual who sits holding his own photograph close to his eyes and says, “There is no universe, no sun or skies; there is only this card on which I see my face.” The perfectly balanced human being forms a complete triangle. Physically strong, mentally strong, spiritually strong; the three na tures are in perfect harmony. We find few such beings, and consequently the world is filled with those who are in some re spects dwarfed or deformed. There is the robust athlete, whose prowess lies in the phyB- tcal realm. He had not developed his brain or his spirit. There is the hysterical spiritual being, who thinks only of the world beyond and neglects his mind and his body. There is the intellectual giant, vho has a stunted body and no spirituality, or who has two sides of the triangle developed, body and mind, and only a blank space where the spiritual line should be. No one of these individuals is living the life God wants man to live. Each one must be sent back to earth in many incarnations un til he learns to make the perfect triangle of himself, and then, be ing complets, he can pass on to other work, tn other Mansions, in other Realms. My correspondent may be a strong man physically and men tally, but he is dwarfed and stunted spiritually; and beoause he is so, he thinks there is no spiritual truth in the universe; as the man born blind might think there was no light of sun or moon or star. Fortunately there are hundreds of brilliant minds ready to give their testimony to the contradic tion of this man's statements that earth and human life are accidents, and that chance rules all things, and that there is no life beyond this life, and no realm beyond earth. One of the greatest men who ever lived on earth, a great scien tist, a great humanitarian, a great scholar, was Swedenborg. And this man gave up position and power and place among the ambi tion's people of earth to devote his mature years to telling the world the marvellous facts he had learned about Realms within Realms and Life beyond Life. When he was dying at the ad vanced age of eighty-three, he was offered all the solaces of orthodox religion if he would say teat he had not heard these voices or reen these visions. "But 1 did see and did hear,” he replied. And those were almost his last words. Swedenborg's opinions on poli tics or science left no marked im pression on the world; very few people even know that he was renowned in those days. But Swedenborg's great religious philosophy is the comfort and the strength of thousands of intel lectual and useful human beings There is an old Hindoo phrase winch leads thus: He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, he is a fool; shun him. He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, he is simple; teach him. He who knows, and knows not that be knows, be is asleep ;• wake him He who knows, and knows that he knows, he is wise; follow him. Swedenborg was the latter He was the perfect triangle. Great in all ways. There are thousands of other human beings living, and ■thousands who have lived, strong of intellect, clear of mind, who have given to the world their tes tiiuony of absolute knowledge of the existence of invisible world i about us. and invisible helpers near us, just as travelers on our earth report different conditions and different scenes iu Northern and Southern and Arctic and Equatorial locations. So the ia- rious SEERS observe various con ditions in the spiritual worlds. There is just as much variety in these realms as in our own, and each Seer sees according to his own powers of sight and accord ing to his own mental and spiritual development. The architect, on earth, who !a absorbed wholly in buildings, takes a walk with an artist who cares only for nature, and one re turns unable to tell anything about the plants, trees, flowers or scen ery, but everything about the style of houses he has seen; while the artist has not even noticed a house, but is filled with facts con cerning the landscape, the streams, the trees, the verdure. Precisely so with the man who has the open eye in spiritual realms. I know a quiet, indus trious business mam, respected by his fellows, loved by his associates, who seeks neither glory nor riches, and who is ever ready to serve his friends or his enemies with good deeds. This man has the open eye and he is privileged in being able to see tne invisible realms and the invisible helpers who move about among us. Naturally possessed of the clear seeing eye, he has de veloped the power of the “initiate" by high thinking, and living, and preparation. There are a few such on earth, and to meet and talk with them is to gain a great spiritual uplift. Without a faith in other states of existence, this life at its brightest and best would be insupportable to a finely organized and loving soul. The sudden calamities which be fall, dear ones, the sorrows and tradegies which come into every life, would make this brief earth stay a ghastly jest were it not that we know it as only one room in our Father’s mansion, and that we are to enter other rooms, dressed in other bodies, after we have passed from this. Other realms, other lives await us. Earth is but one of many spheres through which we pass. We shall meet and recognize those who were our spiritual kin in these other realms. Vital, deep, beautiful affee tion can never die. Only ephemeral loves die with death. Ambition for worldly honors, en joyment of wholly physical pleas ures and ail that is based on selfishness and avarice eventu ally die with the body. They continue for a time after death, because they have fettered the spirit and prevented it from pro gressing at once. They make the spirit earthbound for a season, but after a time the spirit gains its knowledge of higher ideals of hap piness and goes on to the various heavens, and from those higher heavens it is allowed to come at times to earth to sustain and up lift and help those who remain Thpre is no death. There are no dead.