Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 106, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1910 — FREAK LEGISLATORS ACTIVE. [ARTICLE]

FREAK LEGISLATORS ACTIVE.

The high coat of living seems to He getting used to it. The most popular book in the home of the workingman is his bank book. Does housekeeping come under the head of arts and crafts, or is it Just work? The aute Is said to promote appendicitis, bnt this will not deter those who can scrape up the price. A Boston doctor gives it as his opinion that women can never become really artistic. Another trouble hunter. Don't condemn John D. until you have heard what his plan for abolishing poverty la It worked In his own Toung Mr. Knox is quoted as saying: “I shall go to work, if necessary, to support my wife." Isn’t he .a noble young hero? A man in Detroit gave the censustaker his occupation as "the wood business.” He provides family trees for eewly-rich automobile manufacturers. • Queen Wilhelmlna, It is said, borrows spoons and napkins from the neighbors. Naturally she Is regarded by her people as a wonderful woman. An Ohio woman declares that piano playing makes the hens lay. But even the piano has its limitations in the poultry yard. It cannot be used as an incubator. It is said the average man eats 1,000 pounds of food a year. Nobody has figured what the average boy eats, lvi 1 it must be considerably more than 1,000 pounds. "Now they propose to hatch chickens by eleotricity.” We are slowly approaching the time when man will have nothlhg to do but touch a button here and there. Down in Connecticut recently a woman died because a fortune had been left to her. People who are waiting for rich uncles to pass away will agree that her action was wholly unjustifiable. t There is in Kansas City a man who wants 120,000 damages because the gossip of his neighbors caused his wife to leave him. Some of the neighbors complain that there are men who are totally devoid of appreciation. The Boston Globe has found that a 15-cent plate of beans contains as much nutritive value as $1.87 Ms worth of porterhouse steak. We earnestly hope the report is an unbiased one. If It came from any other place than Bostgn we should not doubt. A dispatch from New Orleans says the demand for babies In that city is much greater than the supply. One carload of Infants recently arrived from New Yori, but the babies were adopted so quickly and there Were so many calls for more that another carload will be forwarded. Save your babies. New Orleans may want them. Korea is making some progress in civilization. Twenty-five years ago it had no trade with the United States. The secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions recently traveled in that country in a railroad car made in Delaware, drawn by a locomotive made in Philadelphia, oyer railß made In Pittsburg, fastened to ties made of Oregon lumber, with spikes forged in New York. After 4 his Journey he had for his dinner Chicago beef, Pittsburg pickles and Minnesota flour. Along with many other discoveries of greater or less Importance, scientific men have proved the law that the rapidity of the heart beat is in inverse ratio to an animal's size. Thus In man it is about seventy-two to the minute, whereas in the elephant it is only thirty, and in the horse forty. The dog’s pulse, on the other hand, counts about ninety beats to the minute, and the rabbit’s over one hundred and fifty. Most remarkable of all, the heart pulsations of a little mouse have recently been counted and recorded by an ingenious machine, and found to number nearly seven hundred every minute. In his annual report the Adjutant General of the Army bewails desertions as the greatest peril to the army. Nearly 5,000 American soldiers deserted last year. In Europe desertions are rare. Ha attributes the wholesale desertions to a defect of public opinion, which practically consents to them and affects to see nothing more in them than the breach of a civil contract for service. Citizens look upon the deserter with complacency and manage to aid him to escape punishment “in the comparatively rare event of his falling into the hands of the military authorities.’’ The quotation probably comes nearer giving the key to the situation than do the complaints against the public. Desertions will multiply in proportion to the immunity obtainable through the fitting of the military authorities to exert themselves. Burglary would flourish also if the citizenry did not tax Itself soundly for the machinery to make " burglary a hazardous business. When •be military Authorities realhc^gthat

they have something to do in the matter and do it, they will have less to complain of regarding the public. Accomplished cooks, men who know that they practice not the least of the arts, have long been accustomed to name their most savory inventions for eminent persons In other walks of life. They mean to pay a delicate compliment, to offer a generous tribute from genius to genius. But such compliments are not always welcome. A young opera singer, who Is so much admired In Boston that the hotel chefs have begun to name thetr soups and souffles in her honor, thinks so. She has consulted lawyers', applied for an Injunction, and had herself effaced from the bills of fare. The proceeding has enlivened the courtß and animated the news columns of the daily papers because of Its novelty. Famous persons, when they have not been flattered by such attentions, have usually suffered them stoically. In some cases, too, the cook has actually given the celebrity a wider Immortality than he could have won by himself. Many a man has ( ordered a filet Chateaubriand who'never heard of "Atala" or “The Genius of Christianity." Long and distinguished as was Count Nesselrode’s career, his pudding is known where his diplomacy is forgotten. The Father of his Country himself has to stand sponsor for a pic by no means worthy of his solid and substantial virtues. And a prima donna more famous than the Boston singer lends the honey of her'name to the delicious “peche Melba," and Is not ashamed of it. Men have even permitted cigars to be named for them without Inquiring too closely into their quality. Mr. Blaine, although he never used tobacco, did not talk of Injunctions when such an honor was thrust upon him, however little he may have liked It. The picture of the poet Bryant was long familiar on tho lids of certaip flat boxes of red cedar, but he was dead when the honor was thrust upon him, and could not protest. A public career has its penalties as well as Its prizes.

Price* of Necessities Have x 0 Kffect on LavvmaklnK Plants. The soaring cost of the necessities o? life has had no effect, thus far, in limiting the output of our lawmaking plants, ColMer’s remarks. They are grinding out new rules and limitations, clever or stupid, predatory or comic, to the full capacity of the mills. The production of statutory jokes has been even larger than usual this season. A delegate to the Maryland Legislature from FrostSurg (suggestive name!) has Introduced a bill to make It unlawful for a woman to wear a hat more than ten inches in diameter Von the streets or in other public places,” or In “any theater or concert hall In the state when a performance Is In progress.* The penalty for violation of the'rure Is to be three months’ Imprisonment of a fine of SIOO. He got what he deserved when a lady Journalist, working for one evening chronicle of crime, replied by Interviewing herself on what is likely to happen when women legislators are In office a few years from now and can "come ba,ck.'’ The authority quotes herself as saying that they will prohibit any man under 60 from wearing a frock coat, and arrest and try for felony any maJe who appears on the streets in a silk hat., The wearing of a "green kelley,’ 'or of a "moss-colored plush head "covering,” will be deemed a capital offense, and "the wearing of red by blonde men with ashen complexions be forbidden by statute.” Even before this rebuke had been spread another lawmaker was rushing Into print with a law to limit the length of hatpins. Dr. Felix Adler has been contending that lawyers have far too large a representation in our system of government as compared with that given to men of other trades and professions. Another class that has too much representation Is the self-advertisers. With a working knowledge of what constitutes a are making comic statutes as fast as allowed by the speed limit for dictation to a stenographer.