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EDITORIAL RAGE The Atlanta Georgian h« e paper THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN Published by THK GEORGIAN COMPANY At M Kant Al»h»m» St Atlanta, Ga. Fnterort af AAoonrt - cla*a matter at poatofflr# at Atlanta, under act of Marcfcl, 1*71 HITRM 'S sI’M ’AT AMERICAN and THE ATIAM A GEORGIAN will he mai •* 1 to n ihe 'rlbem anywhere In the 1’nlted 8tatee. <’anada an t Mexico, one month for $60, three month* for 1178: chan** of addreae made aa often aa desired Forefim subscription ratea on application. To Help Out His Thanksgiving Gift The Hopeless Scramble of Atlanta’s Street Numbers In The Rome Tribune-Herald of recent date there appeared this 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 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 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 rietta, and to indicate it instantly and understandably to a stranger anxious to know. But the stranger in Atlanta starting out to locate No. 467 Marietta nowadays would find himself embarked upon a voyage the indeflnitenesa 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 I 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 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! The Georgian suggests to Council the wisdom of considering IMMEDIATELY the matter—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 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 tire Administration utterly refuses to correct. I i — By DOROTHY DIX. T O YOU Christmas is the season of peace on earth and good will. To her it is a time of terror, a time 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 1 What a mockery the words are to the poor shop girl who lies on her bed on Christmas morning too tired to get up, too tired to even turn her weary eyes to see if Santa Claua has visited her or not. Every 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 bedrabbled and slimpsy and frazzled out as the pink chiffon blouses that the crazy horde of lata Christmas shoppers have been pawing over at her counter. Merry Christmas! There’s nothing merry in it to her. It has been a battle, a struggle, an 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 for, has just been to be able to ftgnt on to the end, and not to lose her grip on her politeness, or get rattled by the hundreds of ques tions fired 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 once. A gay and merry Christmas 1 Her gay and merry Christ mas is just to lie in bed and rest, and have somebody poultice Her poor, blistered, swollen feet., and to try to kbep her brain from automatically repeating the prices of celluloid handker chief holders and near-silver backed hair brushes. And yet this girl is ns young and as fond of fun 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 ( hristrnas 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 enjovment of the day t You would think it was a hard and cruel thing, and your heart would be bitter against those who had robbed her of her innocent joy in the day. Won’t you. then, try to think a little shout 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 t 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. .1, Xv 0U kn0W how exhaustlr >g it ia to battle your wav in the ( hriatmas crowds that almost tear your clothes off of your hack \ ou know how nerve-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 hut seventy-five cents, and that you can fool some man into thinking cost $2.50. * ou 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 bv a hundred thousand, and then some, and you 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 pacify and please a multitude. She hasn t had the outlet to her nerves of snapping back at you, as you have at har, when things went wrong. Ella Wheeler Wilcox -ON- The Life Hereafter—There Is No Death: Other Lives, Other Reaims Await—One of the Greatest Tea chers of This Was Emanuel Swedenborg. BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX CegfftSllt, ms. In »Ui CWV BEYOND. I T seemeth such a little way to me Across to that strange coun try, the Beyond; And yet not strange, ter It hae grown to be The home of those of whom I am so fond; They make It seem familiar, and most dear, Aa Journeying friends bring dis tant countries near. So close It lies that when my sight Is clear X seem to see tne gleaming of that strand; I know I feel those who have gone from here Come near enough to even touch my hand. I often think but for our veiled eyes We would find Heaven right round about us lies. I cannot make K seem a day to dread When from this dear earth I shall Journey out To that still dearer country of the dead And Join the loat <me» eo long dreamed about. I lore this world, yet I Shall love to go And meet the friends who wait for me, I know. I never stand above the bier and see The seal of death set on some wel 1 loved 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 seem fair. And eo to roe there is no sting to death, And so the grave has loet Ua 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. because her job depended on 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 this 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 carry 1 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 wean r 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. STARS AND STRIFES “Darwin responsible for the tango.” declares a preacher. Doubt if it’s a simian dissipation. • * * • Miss Lind-af-HHffebv ways kiss- Ing: Is perfectly harmless Why try to rob it of its principal charm? From their talk, we are often convinced that some children have nefflet ted to bring: up their parents properly. • * • Mona Lisa's smile will broaden into a laugh if she gets more Florentine receptions. it's a poverty-stricken Christ mas than can be estimated in dollars. • • * There is nothing so discourag ing to the young husband as a rich father-in-law who does not 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. • * * There are occasions when it Is better to wear thick-soled shoes when you toe the mark. A MAN who say* 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 s 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- spectB dwarfed or deformed. There is the robust athlete, whose prowess lies In the phys ical 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 complete, he can pass on to other work, in other Mansions, in other Realms. My correspondent may be a strong man physically and men tally, but he is dwarfed and stunted spiritually; and because he is so, he thinks there is no spiritual truth in the universe; as the man bom blind might think there was no light of sun or moon or star. Fortunately there are hundreds of brilliant mlnd3 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 ail things, and uw# i* uq life beyond this life, and no reals, 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 tious people of earth to devote hi* mature years to telling the world the marvellous facts be had learned about Realms within Realms and Life beyond Life. When he was dying at the ad- ranced age of eighty-three, he was offered all the solaces of orthodox religion If he would say that hs had not heard these voices or seen these visions. "But I 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 thoee day a. 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 which reads thus! He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, he la a fool; shun him. He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, hs Is simple; teach him. He who knows, and knows not that he knows, he is asleep; wake him. He who knows, and knows that he knows, he Is wine; follow | him. Swedenborg wae the latter. H« was the perfect triangle. Great In all way a There are thousands ol other human beings living, and i thousands who have lived, strong 1 of Intellect, dear of mind, who ! have given to the world their tes timony of absolute knowledge o( i the existence of Invisible world* about us. and invisible helpers near us. Just as travelers on our earth report different condition* and different scenes In Northern and Southern and Arctic and Equatorial locations. So the va 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 hts own mental and spiritual development. The architect, on earth, who 1* 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 ths style of houses ha has sean; while the artist has not even noticed t house, but Is filled with facts con cerning the landscape, the streams, the trees, the verdure. Precisely so with the man whe has the open eya In spiritual realms. I know a quiet, Indus trious business man, respected by his fellows, loved by his associates, who seeks neither glory nor riches, and who is ever ready to serve hi* friends or his enemies with good deeds. This man has the open eya and he Is privileged In being obis to see the invisible realms and ths Invisible helpers who move about among us. Naturally possessed o' the clear seeing eye, he has da- 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 «f existence, this life at Its brightest and best would be insupportable to a finely organised and loving sOuL The BUdden 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 If as only one room in onr Father's mansion, and that we are to enter other rooms, dressed In other bodies, after we hav« passed from this. Other realms, other lives await us. Earth Is but one of many spheres through which we pass. We shall meet and recognlt* those who were our spiritual klr. In these other realms. Vital, deep, beautiful affeo- tlon can never die. Only ephemeral loves die with death. Ambition for worldly honors, en Joyment of wholly physical plea? ures and all that Is based on selfishness and avarice eventu ally die with the body. They continue for a time after death, because they have fettered ths spirit and prevented It from pro gressing at once. They make tb* spirit e&rthbound for a eoason. but after a time the spirit gains It* knowledge of higher ideals of hap piness and goes on to the various heavens, and from those higher heavens It is allowed to oome at times to earth to sustain and up lift and help those who remain There is no death. Thare are M dead.