Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 January 1910 — Wit of the Youngsters [ARTICLE]

Wit of the Youngsters

The way of the transgressor to hard, but It Isn't lonesome. PootbaU Is to he reformed again, hut will It stay reformed? \t ... ■== Wise Is the man who buys a return ticket when he wanden from his own fireside. ; Reports from Africa tell of a lion with broken teeth. He tried to bits Roosevelt. . And the Grim Reaper oontlnuee to pile up bis score of awful touchdowns at football. Mme. has gone to a sanitarium to get her nerves repaired. We said nerves, not nerve. The late John S. Kennedy must have been fortunate as well as shrewd. The muckrakers never found him. How we would have welcomed “skycycle’’ fifteen years ago. We needed rhymes for “bicycle” so much. Professor Shaler Mathews’ general Criticism of the modern minister to that he ’'inserts religion surreptitiously Into his sermons.” Emperor William’s wife has made him promise he will never make an aaosnt in a flying machine. That kind of wife Is worth having. The luckiest woman lives in 8t Louis. She thought she was marrying a count, but since the ceremony has discovered that be Is a cook. A Texas man was thrown into Jail for calling a policeman an encyclopedia. There are same things that Texas policemen simply will not stand. A Knoxville, Tenn., paper has an nrtlcle on "The Pleasure of Work,” There is an editor who does not need any of the Rockefeller hookworm millln. The Standard Oil gets a chunk of unpleasant legal lore Just In time to aav# R from being distanced by the sugar trust In the great unpopularity contest. A man In St. Louis who gave a-wom-an his seat In a street car fell out of the car window. Perhaps she thanked him politely for the seat, and the sudden shock made him lose his balance. The California Judge, who sentenced • reckless antolst to ten years In prison for running over and killing a man, la to be commended. If anything will make these thoughtless ehaps more careful It Is treatment of this kind. Lake county. Illinois, after paying out a bounty of one thousand dollars a year on dead crows, has found the chief result to be an astonishing increese in the numbers and voracity •f the cut-worms, and has decided to stop encouraging the slaughter. It is doubtful whether, if the truth were known, there is any bird whatever which does not do the farmer moro good than harm.

Usually when one government sever* diplomatic relations with another It Indicates that trouhie L* brewing, but tho case of Panama Is an exception. It has called home all Its for«lgn envoys, except the one at Washington, and frankly admits that they an a luxury which it cannot afford. The desire of the little republic to be economical will be respected, and as practically all nations have nixed Its independence, its status wil\ not" be affected by Its action. It is a bad pre-eminence which distinguishes the United States in the matter of homicide. In no other highly civilized country is murder so frequent ; Italy alone shows a higher proportion of crimes of violence to the total population. Ten thousand persons every year are murdered in the United States. Germany, with twothirds the population of this country, has about five hundred homicides annually. The United Kingdom has about the same number. For these theta, criminologists have various explanations to ofTer, which would require much spece even to eummarlxe. It seems clear, however, that one great cause Is the failure adequately to punish crime. To resort once more to comparisons, about four-fifths of the murders committed In Germany are followed by convictions American statistics are not full and trustworthy, hat the convictions are put by some as low as one and s half per cent of the crimes. They are almost certainly less than five per cent Part of this astonishing difference Is due to tha greater efficiency of the foreign police; part to the sentimentallty which leads American Juries to acquit confessed murderers on all sorts of plsas; part to the readiness of judges to set convictions aside on legal technicalities. Public sentiment, too. Is unaccountably lax. Murder Is not regarded with the horror which it ought to arouse. It is excused on various irrelevant and Insufficient grounds. The murderer is often treated more like a hero than a felon. Me cell to fragrant wtth the floepere which siHy women offer him. peek, private revenge flourishes. The

-■ 'Mv 1 ' ' 1111 uncertainty of pualphment according to law la one of the causes of smother national scandal, the lynching party. Americans sadly need the tohlc Of a prompter, more unflinching administration of the criminal law, and the birth of a saner and more wholesome attitude toward the worst of crimes. The queetlon, frequently agitated, concerning .the wisdom of capital punishment is lees urgent than the question whether murder shall be punished at all. ' , James J. Hill li moved by the present conditions In this country to remark that "history shows that the high coat of living to the beginning of every national decline,” and to advise economy on the part of the nation and of Individuals. We know of no subject that Interests the people more than that of high prices, whether they are studying thß lessons of history or ■ot- Senator Aldrich and his monetary commission, debates over the Constitution, politics and problems to which excited statesmen are giving much attention may he overlooked la the home, but the demands of grocers and butchers are discussed dally by housewives. They , argue with one another that such times were never known. Veterans whose experience goes back to tho civil war assert that, all things considered, existing conditions are the worst yet. They express their opinions frankly to tha grocers and butchers, who take refuge In the only course that Is open to them. Like politicians under fire, they pass the charges along and tell of the exactions of the wholesalers. They mourn with their customers, and are free to admit that such things should not be. But they want to know what they can do. There are the prices stacked up against them, and does any reasonable woman believe that they should sell at a loss? All this testimony to the facts is on the side of Mr. Hill, but we Imagine that the purchasing agents of the family would have little sympathy with his hints concerning economy. Tho high prices, they might say, resulted In a forced economy. They were compelled to economize in order to live. They bought less and still could not save. They were not alarmed by visions of the national decline, but had Berlous objections to a decline in the standard of living. Mr. Hill, who, we are Informed, Is a student of htotory, should desert his books and call a convention of these experts. They will supply him with a mass of market quotations that will be an Invaluable treasury of Information; but he had better not mention extravagance in the call. That is adding Insult to Injury,, and they have no. liking for the word, anyway.

It had been raining all day, and finally little Lola asked: "Mamma, when God gets all the Juice squeezed out of b cloud what does he do with It?” Small Elmer was playing witli his mother's opera glasses. Happening to look at her through the big end, he exclaimed: “Oh, mamma, you are so far away you look like a distant relative!” It was little Eva’s first day at school, and upon heT return home she was asked how she liked her teacher. “Oh, I like her, all right,” replied Eva, "hut I don’t think she knofis so very much. She don’t do anything but ask questions.” Tommy, aged 6, had asked his mother for a second piece of pie at dinner. “When I was your size,” said his father, reprovingly, “my mother allowed me to have only one piece of pie.” “Say, papa,” rejoined the little fellow, “aren’t you glad you board with us now?"