Newspaper Page Text
VOL. XVI. NO. 21
MODERN SCIENCE
as First
AID TO CUPID
HAT would you think
of coaching your
heart's tender and
! sentimental overflow
I In the dots and
dashes of the Morse
code? You can’t brush
the parental parlor
rug with your knees
by wireless; you can’t
plead with your eyes, when words
fail, with a calloused operator in
Cupid’s role—yet the thing has been
done and successfully done. Only a
few days ago a young man accom
plished the impossible and brought
his Heloise back from a transatlantic
trip by wireless. We hear of mar
riages by telephone, proposals by pho
nograph, elopements by special trains,
and aeroplane romances —now what, in
the name of things old-fashioned, has
become of the lad who used to call
for a year, recite on his knees from
the poets, and ask father’s permission
and blessing?
The most recent and flagrant viola
tion of the staid old formulas was this
wireless wooing of young Lawren' -
Critchell of Chicago, but it is simply
an omen of what one may expect in
the future. This is the story.
Miss Leslie Miller of Chicago went
to San Francisco some months ago
with her mother and there met a
young man who eventually proved an
enterprising Lochinvar. Lawrence
Critchell saw Miss Miller in and about
town for nearly a week. During this
brief period he unconsciously—or to
be more psychologically exact —sub-
consciously became enamored of the
young lady. For some reason this did
not dawn upon him until she who had
inspired the unwonted tremors had
gone. Mrs. George Miller and her
daughter were bound for Chicago and
New York en route for Paris. When
Miss Miller disappeared from his sight
Critchell for the first time realized
that something was lacking in his
life.
Wireless the Last Resource.
He boarded the next train east and
held up the special at a half dozen
stations to send burning telegrams
after the mother and daughter. All
his haste was of no avail, for when
he reached New York Miss Miller had
already sailed for Europe. There was
nothing left but wireless. It was too
late to pursue her with a tug or any
thing of that sort, so the wireless had
to serve. His flust message was re
warded with an answer. Yes —she
liked him, but she was noncommittal.
A few more heated messages scorched
the ether and the proposal was ac
cepted, also by wireless. She prom
ised to return by the next boat and
she kept her word.
Sho arrived in New York the first
week of the new year and, of course,
as the best sellers have it, they were
Ineffably happy in their reunion. They
were married at the Chicago home in
Prairie avenue with all dispatch and
proceeded on their honeymoon accord
ing to the accepted conventions.
This, of course, is typically Amer
ican, for no one could conceive of
such a thing happening abroad, and it
is of necessity characteristic of this
age.
Opportunity for Thrilling Romance.
Aeroplanes are still in the hands of
demonstrators and experimentalists,
but certainly the day is not far dis
tant when the outraged parent of an
eloping daughter will rumble down
Jmiutim lulktuL
upon the escaping couple in his eighty
horsepower car only to see them rise
before him and soar aloft as on a
magic carpet. What a thrilling Jules
Verne romance could be written right
now with the latest scientific devices
as the nucleus to the plot.
Take this as a pattern romance.
Father objects to Reginald’s presence
about the house. He is forbidden to
call and Gwendolyn pines alone.
Reginald Is for a time frantic, then
despondent, and then an inspiration
is born of his despondency. Gwen
dolyn owns a phonograph. Acting on
the inspiration Reginald invests in an
outfit and breathes passion into the
tin horn after this fashion:
“Darling Gwendolyn, ’o you recog
nize this voice? I know it is strange
in your ears, for sorrow has clouded
my soul and the tones that were once
merry, which vibrated with the joy
that I felt in life" —and so forth for
three-fourths of the record; then the
following in hurried, dramatic whis
pers: “Gwennie, dear, be at your win
dow Wednesday night at 9:30 and
we’ll put one over on the old man.
Slide out into my six cylinder and
we’ll beat it to my aero shed, where
the boys will have the biplane ready
for us. Mind you, Gwennie, no
trunks.” This is not exactly amorous
diction, but under the pressure of
emotional excitement the best lover
will lapse into the vernacular.
Gwendolyn, the Unsuspecting One.
Gwendolyn in the privacy of her
rooms to which she has retired to
pine receives the record with the next
consignment from the dealer and after
playing a few ragtfmers and reproduc
tions of Caruso and Melba she slips
Reginald’s record on the machine and
faints at the first words, just recov
ering in time to hear the elopement
plans. They elope. Father pursues In
his aeroplane. They capture a par
son and embark with him on a sub
marine and come to the surface just
in time to see father's specially char
tered turbine liner bearing down up
on them. The news of the wedding is
transmitted by wireless telephone and
forgiveness is forthcoming by the
same medium, whereupon they all re
turn by transatlantic dirigible which
happens to be passing.
Even this scheme of affairs—on
which, by the way, no rights are pre
empted—fails to include a proposal
by telepathy and a marriage over the
wireless telephone. There have actu
ally been proposals by phonograph
with strange complications. There is
one instance on record where the ob
streperous parents received the
canned message first, ran it off on the
phonograph, and intercepted all the
plans. There have been marriages
over the telephone where the run
away couple were besieged tn such a
fashion that they could not reach a
parson or magistrate to tie the bow
line knot so they just called one on
the phone and had him read the serv
ice over the wire, they making the
responses and transferring the ring
in the most approved fashion.
The marital bureau was a novelty in
its day, a radical departure from the
conventions of wooing, proposing,
eloping and wedding, but the telephone
wedding, the wireless proposal and
the aeroplane flight in no wise con
flict with the sacred formulas of mat
ing: they simply use new Instruments
to facilitate the most ancient and
time honored ceremonies.
IRWINTON, WILKINSON COUNTY.GA., FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17.1911.
Now, for instance, if a young naan a
century or so hence finds it impossi
ble to reach his beloved in the hour of
his inspiration he is really commit
ting no sin against convention by
transmitting his immortal question
through the medium of the impalpable
ether. A proposal by telepathy, if it
be properly directed and not permit
ted to wander astray and settle upon
the wrong recipient, should be quite
as proper and should be as impartial
ly considered as a kneeling petition
on the aforesaid parental rug.
What a boon this same telepathy
will be to the separated lovers! The
young woman sits in the parental
homestead under a severe matronly
eye. Suddenly a message begins to
rattle upon the keys of her trained
and receptive mind. "Hello, Mabel
this is John. I have a scheme for our
elopement, etc., etc.” “All right, John,
dear,” says Mabel, as she picks the
lint off her father's coat and hands
him his hat, "I think we can shut poor
old dad’s eye this time,” and the elope
ment is executed or interrupted, ac
cording to the feasibility of John’s
scheme.
A more commonplace and yet a
most modern and effective medium for
romance has been discovered by the
apple packing girls of the fruit grow
ing west. The young woman whc
slips red apples into a crate wearies
of the society in which she has been
placed. So she secretly ties tags to
the stems of several handsome apples,
giving her name, address and inti
mating that she would be delighted to
hear from the recipient if the re
cipient should happen to be a male.
Now these buxom maids of the
healthy and hearty west often make
good wives and the lonely bachelor
who eventually purchases the apples
is delighted with the prospect of com
ing in touch with a pretty girl, differ
ent from the staid and conventional
maidens of his acquaintance. He
writes a breezy letter and receives a
cheery response and a picture. He
packs a shirt and two collars into his
grip and starts west. They meet,
blush, giggle and talk through a meal.
A week or so later they start east
together—the happy culmination of an
apple romance. Os course, they do
not all end this way.
Missives Go Wrong.
Unhappily many of these little mis
sives fall into the hands of the un
available. But romances have come
from them and such affairs are not
confined to apples, but apples are the
latest and the girls behind the apples
need little recommendation, if all ac
counts of the apple country are to be
credited.
This is terribly plebeian, compared
with the future wedding of a girl In
Chicago with an impatient lover in
Hongkong by wireless telephone and
such things as submarine elopements.
In this age of special trains and scores
of gilded swains who can afford to
ride in them, a man can pick up his
beloved in one town, a justice of the
peace in the next, and be married en
route before the pursuers have run
their automobile out of the shed. A
troubled mother may endeavor to rush
her daughter away from London to
evade the attentions of a suitor who
does not fit into the family ideals of a
husband, but by taking a fast train
to Dover or Plymouth and running
out on a lighter, the energetic Lochin
var can get aboard and persuade one
of the numerous pastors always to be
founds on a trans Atlantic liner to per
form the ceremony while the watchful
matron is congratulating herself on
her cleverness.
Results Discouraging to Others.
Everyone remembers that Lina Cav
alieri was captured by cable, but this
must not be dwelt upon, for the re
sults of the Chanler wooing might be
discouraging to those who contem
plate a similar campaign upon the
heart of a maiden far removed.
Lawrence Critchell's success in his
pursuit of Miss Leslie Miller is a more
wholesome example and in view of
this episode it would seem that there
are really no obstacles to true love
any more. Every gain in speed of
transmission and transportation is a
gain of Cupid. Every obstacle over
come by science makes a breach for
the clever and wily little invader.
Now think what would happen if there
had been no wireless. Mr. Critchell
would have had to wait for the next
boat and continued his pursuit to
Paris. There he would, doubtless,
have found that the Millers had gone
to Italy. By the time their stopping
place had been discovered in Italy
they would have returned to America
and whatever the optimistic may have
to say about absence and the fond
ness of the heart, love in these days
of hurry and impatience is not as
everlasting as it was in pastoral Ar
cadia.
Perhaps the wireless was wholly
responsible for the success of a real
romance —perhaps there would have
been one anyway, but at least it saved
time —enormously. And then it dem
onstrated beyond refutation that love
fs a god wide awake to advantages,
not so highly perched among tlx?
mists of Olympus that he cannot de
scend to use the man made devices,
without which the gods manage to get
along somehow in their own relations,
if tradition Is worth anything.
Back From New
York--our Buyer
We are pleased to state our buyer has return
ed from New York and other Eastern markets.
He states that this has been his most success
ful trip made in his six years’ experience. The
market on all lines was found to be at a low ebb.
Prices Were as Low as They
Were When Cotton Was
Eight Cents Per Pound.
The reason of this is not known; all seem to
think we will soon have big advances in all lines;
but we are protected; have bought the largest
stock ever brought to Milledgeville. Our prices
will be low—lower than you could reasonably ex
pect. We have the goods, not in New York, Phil
adelphia or Boston —but right here in Milledge
ville in our
Two Big Stores
We fflto wish to announce to the ladies of good old Wilkinson coun
ty, our addition of a “LADIES’ REST ROOM,” with toilet and lavatories.
This room we have long needed, and we are pleased to invite you to feel
at home here. We expect in a few days to tell you some very interesting
store news, YOUR FRIENDS,
W. S. MYRICK & CO.
“The Store Where Shopping is Easy”
$4.00 a Year.
