Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 101, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 April 1910 — FATHER HELPED PRACTICE. [ARTICLE]

FATHER HELPED PRACTICE.

Any girl with ptfetty dimples knows when to smile. The mosquito lays forty eggs a day. It is said. But it never cackles. There is a strike in the leather trade. This may serious affect beefsteak prices. Women must tell their ages to the census enumerator. What a lot of secrets he will have to keep. “I will not resign under fire,” Is many a man’s excuse for bolding on to an office he doesn’t want to give up. Marriage is a problem to some people. Others live to celebrate their sixtieth anniversary of wedded happiness. A man has been arrested for stealing two slices of bacon. He will, of course, he tried under a charge of grand larceny.* Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt says woman has just as good judgment as man. Does anybody want to argue the case with Mrs. Catt? Professor Percival Lowell describes the comet’s tail as “the airiest approach to nothing set in the midst of naught.” Now who’s afraid of the comet’s tail? Mr. Morgan has purchased the world's most famous collection of watches. He has already secured the watches of many of the gentlemen who work in Wall street. . Duchess de Talleyrand, former ly Anna Gould, is forced to pay her former husband’s parents $5,600 a year. Anna seems to have made the mistake of marrying the whole family. The University of Chicago now claims the credit from Cornell of making hens lay ready-dyed eggs. Surely, the collegiate triumphs of the century are very uplifting to the race. A Mississippi ice driver found a wallet containing $2,000, hunted up the owner, was docked for the lost time And got a reward of a five-cent cigar for the restoration of the money. He now cynically believes it pays to be honest. Every now and then the news of the day contains the account of some person being burned to death while smoking in bed. The moral of such “accidents” and all like them in that disaster Is generally one of the promptest things in the world to come to one when deliberately invited. A grim argument in favor of letting well enough alone is found in a recent New York case. Not content with a verdict of murder In the second degree, the lawyer for the convicted man secured a new trial, at which the prisoner was found guilty in the first degree and sentenced to death. Farming is getting to be not merely an occupation, but a profession. An American from the South, recommended by the Department of Agriculture, has gone to Siam as agricultural adviser to the King, and other Americans are filling similar positions in Baroda, one of the most prosperous native States of India. The King of Siam will pay his adviser six thousand dollars a year, which is more than the average hired man earns.

When a fashionable wedding or a sensational trial draws a multitude of curious people in a great city, there Is no little comment on the bad manners and depraved tastes of Americans. It is worth noting—as showing a more attractive side of the picture—that the police reserves had to be called out in New York City the other day to handle a crowd of four thousand people who were trying to get into a hall built for two thousand people, in order to hear a concert. It was a fine concert, and the fact that it was free only emphasizes the general desire to enjoy an entertainment which is uplifting and inspiring. It has been generally accepted by men of science that the last dinosaur trod the earth a great many centuries ago, in fact, something like four hundred thousand years ago. From the fossilized remains a good knowledge has been obtained of the gigantic proportions and terrifying appearance of the creature, and all have agreed in a preference to study the bones, rather than a living specimen at large. From South Africa there now comes the remarkable story that there is a living dinosaur somewhere in the northern part of Rhodesia. Natives have recently told of a mighty reptile in a lake near the river Lunga, and have identified drawings of the dinosaur as resembling this creature. Thus far the proof is hardly convincing, but the story arouses a certain interest. Unfortunately, the Roosevelt expedition did not "penetrate that part of the African wilderness, but perhaps here 13 the opportunity for, some hunter or naturalist to win immortal fame. The results of the first ten years of government by commission in American cities are summarized in Everybody’s Magazine by Charles E. Russell. The plan devised at Galveston in I*oo to meet a special emergency has now spread to Include sixty cities with a population of mere than 3.000/100.

Why, ask* the writer, in effect, go on with ward* and aldermen? Why employ party ballots, with party emblems? Why call "democratic” a scheme of government which Is but representative—and representative In the narrowest and most unsatisfactory sense? Already there is a long roll of cities which are doing without these familiar devices, and doing better. The Galveston idea has spread as far as South Dekota, Idaho and Washington, but its most signal successes have been In lowa. Cedar Rapids and Des Moines are the two chief exemplars; the latter now claims that it is “the most economically and most honestly managed city of its size in the Middle West.” The commission plan banishes party politics from local affairs, along with boss and machine. It views and manages the municipality as a business enterprise and gives an administration that is- prompt, 1 efficient, systematic and economical. By means of the referendum, initiative and recall It places responsibility definitely upon the people. And it appears to be working a change of attitude toward the community life by fostering a higher degree of communal consciousness. The lowa towns are pointedly aware of improvement; they are feeling better within and are looking better without. Mr. Russell, in the momentum of his enthusiasm, calls for the extension of commission government from small cities to large ones. They, too, he contends, should be free to engage expert talent on the sole grounds of fitness, should understand just what their oficials are doing and how doing it, and should be able to dismiss them if incompetent. Doubtless, as he feels, the problems of Chicago and New York are too intricate and diffcult for the grade of ability that ward and precinct politics puts in. to office. On the other hand, the scale of the problem is an integral part of it, and the drawbacks that probably inhere in the execution of the plan on even a small scale should be given a little more time to develop.

A little girl sat at-an old square piano. Her mother moved about In the next room, preparing supper. Near the piano sat the father, carefully tidied up after his day in the machine shop. "“All the way home,” the man said to his little daughter, ‘‘l was trying to whistle that new piece of yours, Mollie, but I forgot some parts, and you must help me. So play it through, please:” > Mollie began, pleasure and Importance In her face. At the second page she stumbled and dropped from the tempo, but hurried on. “That was the place I forgot,” interrupted her father. “Please play it over, just the air.” Over and over she was lndtfcfed to play it, first with one hand, then with the other, until the passage had become familiar, and her little fingers had fairly mastered the difficulty. “Do you know,” she said, a few days later, as she played the simple melody to her teacher, “my father tljinks this part is so pretty—the prettiest part in the whole piece. He likes to hear It over and over.” “Oh,” thought the teacher, “with such parents what musicians I could make of even everyday material!” To-day this girl is studying in New York under distinguished teachers, playing accompaniments for a wellknown singer, Invited to delightful houses as an honored guest, and leading a very Interesting If an arduous life. Her teacher Insists that she was not exceptionally gifted; that the secret of her success lay very largely in the patient, intelligent oversight of her parents, and their tact in getting her to master the difficult parts of each lesson, and so the successive steps of technique.