Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 141, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1910 — Page 2

Oh, mother, that I Could do for thee The thirigs thou hast done for me; That I could pay back a thousandth part Of the love thou bearest mej "That I could give the strength I hold, Now that thou growest old; That I could strengthen thy feeble step And let not thy hand grow cold! - . t -TTJTL t

Scoemce AND Invention

An acre of 12-inch ice usually will provide a harvest of 1,000 tons. During 1909 the patent office issued 33,514 patents, while 22.328 expired. Fifty thousand tons of soot are taken from London's chimneys each year. Venezuela has nearly 5.000 miles of telegraph lines with nearly 200 offices. Each of Germany’s four new Dread noughts will require a crew of 1,000 men. Not many years ago only natural indigo was known, but already the manufacture of artificial indigo has reached a point- where it has threatened ruin to many of the cultivators of the indigo plant in India. Nevertheless. the superiority of the natural product in some respects has induced continued investigation of improved methods of cultivation and preparation. It is now predicted that a new era of prosperity for the natural indigo industry it at hand. The introduction of Java-Natal indigo is said to have reduced the expenses of cultivation, and to have increased the production onehalf. It is predicted that in the future it will cost less to produce natural indigo than the synthetic dye. Science has played a part K on both sides in this competition. Comparative immunity for a hundred years seems to have made the French forgetful of the danger to their great capital from Sudden floods in the River Seine. But the lesson taught this year will evidently have important consequences. It is suggested, among other things, that a large channel he constructed to lead off the floodwaters from a point above the city to a junction with the regular channel .below the city limits. The cost of this is reckoned at. at least, $20,900,000. But Paris lies in a great basin, and the proposed cut-off would not save some of the suburbs from inundation. Another suggested solution is to construct in the higher valleys, through which the Stine and its two principal tributaries. the Yonne and the Marne, flow, great-reservoirs, to be filled in times of flood. This water, it is argued, would be useful for irrigation purposes, as it could be distributed at will any time after the inundation had ceased. It is probable,-also that local protection will be-secured by means of higher embankments within the city. During l!>10 it is expected that strenuous efforts will be made to improve the already great efficiency of the gasengine. Although this form of engine enjoyed a triumph in 1909 through the achievements of the aeroplanes, yet it is pointed out that its old rival, the steam engine, at the same time greatly advanced in fuel economy, achieving a thermal efficiency of 19 per cent, a figure hitherto associated with gas rather than with steam engine tests. It haft recently been discovered that, owing to erroneous assumptions, the gas engine has not been credited with having approached as close to the theoretic limit of thermal efficiency at-

THE SEVEN AGES OF MOTHERHOOD.

tainable by. the prevailing four-stroke cycle as it really has approached. Thus it has been shown that a gas engine which by. the old standard of efficiency was supposed to have attained 30 points out of a possible 50, has really attained 30 out of a possible 35; This leaves so little room for improvement that experimenters are turning their attention to radical changes in the method of operation which will afford a larger margin for advance.

A HUMAN HOOPSNAKE.

William Gordon, 10 years old, of Clinton, N. J., saw a picture of a human hoopsnake on a circus poster and he stole into the hayloft when his brother Sanford and his sister Belle went tt> the Sunday school. There wasn’t much hay in the loft, and the boy, after a few preliminary stunts in the hand-springing line, buckled his heels to the back of his neck with a strap and began to roll around in imitation of a hoopsnake. On the third lap William inadvertently rolled across a corner of the hatchway and lamost went through. He bumped his ribs on the edges of the opening in the loft. That scared him and made 'him very tired. When he tried to unbuckle his legs from his neck he found he was too near exhaustion to loose the strap. He rolled up near a window opening toward the farm house and tried to shout for help, but his voice was all in and the hoarse squeak could not be heard ten yards away In a panic the bey decided on a desperate measure. He rolled himself over to the head of the stairs, and then, closing his eye"fe, let himself go bumpety-bump to the bottom. He had such momentum he rolled’ right on out through the door of the’ barn and over between the legs of Ketchup and Solferino. the team of horses the elder Gordon was hitching up. Gordon gave a shout of astonishnie?t> the human hoopsnake danger and cut the strap with his knife. Then he laid the young hopeful across his knee and fanned him with a shingle until the boy had no other pain save that.

NOVEL FRENCH CLOCKS.

Of Wondrrfnl Mechanism, They Tell Many Thlhs« Besides the Time. The clock of Lyons cathedral is a wonderful piece of mechanism and t.be legend describing it is as follows, an exchange says: The clock crows, the bell sounds the hours, the little bells, the “Sancte Spirttus,” the angel opens the gate to salute the Virgin Mary.

———— ——- i Oh, mother, that I could give to thee, Now that thou canst not see— That I could give back the sight, my dear, That thou hast given me! Oh, mother, that I could give to thee Mow that thou leavest me— Oh. mother, that I could give to thee ine life thou hast given me! —John ’B. Gruelle in the Detroit Times.

The two heads of'the lions move the eyes and tongue. The astrolabe shows the hours in its degree and the movement of the moon. Moreover, the perpetual shows all the days of the year, the feast days and the bissextile. The hour at which the chimes are complete are 5 and 6 o’clock in the morning, midday and 1 and 2 o’clock in the afternoon. The chimes at the other hours are restricted so as not to interfere with the cathedral services. Complicated' indeed is the clock of Beauvais cathedral. It is said to be composed of 92,000 separate pieces on the fifty-two dial plates, the hour, the day, the week and the month; the rising and setting of the sun, phases of the moon, the tides, the time in the principal capitals of the world, together with a series of terrestrial and astronomical evolutions. .The framework is of carved oak, eight meters by five meters, or 26 by 16% feet. When the clock strikes all the “edifice” seems in movement. The designer wished to depict the “Last Judgment.” This wonderful work recalls the work of Strasburg and is of modern construction. It is the work of a Beauvasian, M. Verite, who was in the engineering department of th Nord Railway. He died in 1887.

At the recent electrical show in Chicago electricity won a very pretty race with hand labor to see who could wash the most clothes in a given time. ~ Five pretty girls, operating new types of electric washing machines and motor-driven wringers, raced with six ladies of pronounced color who did their work by the world-old hand method, using the old fashioned wash tubs, wash boards and hand wringers. The girls started the electric motors to work on the clothes and spent the most of their time laughing and chatting with the visitors while the machines ran themselves. The coloi ed women worked as hard as ever they could, for if they washed half as many clothes as the girls and electricity did they were to get one hundred dollars. The suds flew fast and furious about the coloi-ed girls but when time was called they had not washed a third as many clothes as their contemporaries did, so they lost the prize, but were handsomely rewarded for their honest work, demonstrating the vast difference betw’een ancient and modern laundry ihethods.

First Policeman—What did the suffragette say when you were arresting her? Second Policeman—Said something about "presenting her compliments and regretting that she had made a previous engagement.”—Harper’s Bazar.

“What are unwritten laws, pa?” Lour mothers, my son; she always speaks them.”—New York Press. _ The flora of Switzerland is peculiarly adapted to bee culture, and it is estimated that 100.000.000 pounds of honey are made in that country each year. The man who deserves success and goes after it .usually gets it

Electricity Wins Washing Race.

Force of Habit.

And They Are Obeyed.

ATTRACTIVE UGLY MEN

Many Whose Faces Frightened Little Children Were Noted Lady Killers. * JOHN WILKES CAPTURED ALL. Married the Prettiest Heiress of His Time-—Pair Labeled “Beauty and the Beast.’’ Many of the plainest men of whom we have any record have not only won pretty and well-dowered brides, but • have been able to pick and choose among the fairest, to the - confusion of” their more weli-favoped rivals. Was there ever a plainer wooer, we wonder, than John Wiikes, the famous champion of popular liberties and one of the most dissolute men of his day ? asks Tit-Bits. So ugly was Wilkes" that the very children ran away shrieking at sight of him in the streets, and yet such was the spell he cast over women that ‘ ladies of beauty and fashion vied with each other for his notice, while „men of handsome exterior and all yourtly graces looked enviously on.” “Give me a quarter of an hour’s start,” he used to boast, “and I will win any lady's hand against the handsomest inan in England.” And he pould have done it, too. There, were few beauties, however fair or highly placed, whose hands could not have been his for the asking, and in the very early ’2os he won for his wife one of the loveliest heiresses of the time —a lady who refused more than

HALLEY’S COMET IN THE EUROPEAN SKY.

Vemxtf The The Comet hew Veuxts*, "NS 1 S’e&n. Wt — from. Ix

one coronet—to be his bride. “ ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ they call us,” Wilkes once said to a friend, “and really 1 cannot find fault with the description.” ' Brougham, the great lord chancellor, was a man of almost repellant ugliness, without a solitary compensating grace of speech or manner. When anyone asked, “Where is Brougham?” the irfrariable answer was, “Where «.ae ladies are thickest.” And, sure enough, there he was; and the more he repelled his fair persecutors, the more they clustered round him. Another famous “lady killer" was Jean Paul Marat, one of the leading and most infamous figures in the French revolution. “Beyond any question,” w’rote a contemporary, “M. Marat is the ugliest man in the whole of France—and not merely ugly, but positively repulsive in person, habits and manners.” Even while hiding in the sewers of Paris, he was devotedly nursed by one of the loveliest of his admirers, -whom he “married one fine day in the presence of the sun.” If possible, a still mbre repulsive man was Potemkin, the ex-private soL dier who enslaved the fancy of Catherine the Great, and by her favor was made virtually Czar of Russia. Dreadful and repulsive” was the description of him by one who knew him. “He has an unwieldy figure and knockknees, is swarthy of skin, coarse in feature and has lost one eye. He often passes whole days in his room half dressed, uncombed, unwashed, biting his nails and scratching his untidy head.” But perhaps the most remarkable of all these cases of woman’s infatuation for ugly men was that of W. Hamilton, a Scotsman of a century and a half ago. Hamilton was not only preternaturally ugly, but he Was thrribly deformed. “His legs," we are told, “were drawn up to nis ears, his arms

were twisted backward and almost every member was out of joint.” In spite of these terrible physical drawbacks Hamilton easily outstripped all the gallants in his district in the favor of the ladies. “He might have married any of! them for the asking—indeed, it is said several of them actually asked him,” says a chronicler. But he remained proof against all their wiles until after his eightieth birthday, and then he married a girl of 20, himself being carried to the altar on men’s shoulders.

JOHN ALDEN WAY IN CHINA.

Chinese Student Lovers Like Having a middleman Propose for Them. Dr. Isaac T. Headland, a resident of Pekin forjnany years, where he enjoyed the friendship of the late dowager r - a~~new lightthe new women of China. Taking up the relations between the sexes and especially the Chinese method of getting a wife, the Travel Magazine says, he repeats a conversation with a young Chinaman who had recently become engaged to a Chinese maiden with whom he had never spoken. “We students -have a very great advantage over' the old Chinese method of finding a wife and getting engaged,” said my celestial friend. “What do you mean?” I Inquired. “Well, you see. by the old Chinese method a man can never see his wife until she is brought to his home, unless he can bribe the middleman to allow him to stand on the street corner and see her pass by in a cart.” “And what advantage do you have?” “We see the .girls in Church,” he answered. ‘They also can see us. We have sisters in the girls’ school; they have brothers in the college, and when we go home during vacation we can learn all about each other.” “This is an advantage.” “In my judgment,” he continued,

“we have a better method than even you foreigners have.” “How is that?” “Well, you see.” he continued, “after we have selected the lady we want, we can have a middleman go and ask her for us, while you have to go and ask the lady yourself.” “But,” I objected, “we can get so much better acquainted by our method.” “Yes, that’s true,” he admitted, “but doesn't it make you awfully angry if you ask a girl to marry you and she refuses?” It was necessary to admit that there were advantages in the middleman method which had never occurred to me, and, while I was not ready to acknowledge that his new-found method was better than mine, I could still see that the force which brought it about was bringing woman out of her seclusion and placing her on a level with her brother and her future husband.

A Compliment for the Senator.

When the young teacher of a small Western New York charity kindergarten asked a new boy his name, she was rather taken aback to have him answer. “It’s Chauncey Depew, ma’am.” A few days later, having heard that Chauhcey was ill, she went to inquire for him,. - The—door—was ope ned by a neatlooking Irish woman, who, on being asked, “Is this Mrs. Depew?” replied: “No, ma’am, that’s not my napde.” “But,” said the nonplussed teacher. “Chauncey told me his name was Chauncey Depew.” “Sure, it is,” promptly answered the proud mother. “I named him for the sinator’meself. My' name is Mrs. l&igh, an’ his is Chaulreey D.—Chauncey D. Pugh.” If we were , a girl, we would insist on being named Roberta.

SHEAR NONSENSE

“Jake said he was going to break up the suffragette meeting the othei night. Were his plans carried out?” “No, Jake was.” Wigwag-—I never knew such a fellow as Bjones! He is always looking for trouble. Henpecked—Then why doesn’t he get married? Boston Courier. Willie —Ma, can't I go out bn the street for a little while? Tommy Jones says there’s a comet to be seen. Mother—Well, yes; but don't you go too near. ' “H wasn’t much trouble to wind up poor old Sleezem’s affairs when- he died.” “No?” “All the property he left behind was a silver -watch.” —Birmingham Age-HCrald. “My new hat is a poem,” she said enthusiastically, “f have just received the bill for it,” replied he. “I don’t understand these stories of so many poets djing in poverty.”—Washington Star. “Why do you make that patient wait three hours every day in your anteroom?” . “He needs rest,” explained the doctor, “and that is the only way I can compel him to take it.”—Cour-ier-Journal. 1 English is a funny language, after all, isn’t it?” “Why so?” “I heard a man talking of a political candidate the other day say: ‘lf he. only takes this stand when he runs he’ll have a walk-over.’ ” Fancier—This dog, madam, would be cheap at SIOO. Lady—l would take him; but I’m afraid my husband might object. Fancier—Madam, you can get another husband much easier than a deg like that. Squire Durnitt (of Lonelyville) Our town's got--the four biggest-liars in the State. Uncle Welby Gosh (of Drearyhurst)—l guess that's right. You’re three of ’em. Who's the fourth? ■ —Chicago Tribune. Chief of Detectives—Now give us a description of your missing cashier. How tall was Ire? Business Man—l don’t know how tall he was. What worries me is that he was $25,000 short.—Philadelphia Record. “Have you been married, Bridget?” “Twictet, mum.” “And have you any children?” “Yis, mum—l’ve three. One be th’ third wife av me second husband, an’ two be the second wife av me first.”—Cleveland Leader. “My dear brother,” said the clerical looking man, “are you doing anything to keep your brother from falling?” “Why, yes,” was the reply. “I’m interested in a concern that manufactures lamp-posts!” Boston Courier. Mrs. Starvem—How do you like the chicken soup, Mr. Newbord? Mr. Newbord—Oh—er—is this chicken soup? Mrs. Starvem—Certainly, how do you like it? Mr. Newbord—Weller—it’s certainly very tender.—Catholic Standard and Times. Author—Have courage, my boy, I tried for ten years to sell my manuscript and finally 'Literary Aspirant —You succeeded? Author—No. I was the means of raising the local postoffice from the third to the second class.—Chicago Daily News. “I believe we ought to have a change in our constitution, providing that only citizens who could read and write good English should be permitted to vote.” “What’s your object? Do you want to shut out the college graduates?”—Chicago Record-Herald. “Before we were married,” sighs the fond wife, “you used to call me up by long-distance telephone just to hear my voice.” “Well,” retorts the rebellious husband, "nowadays you won’t let me get far enough from you to use the long-distance."—Chicago Post. "I endeavor not to make any distinction as to my servants,” says the new mistress. “My rule is to treat each of them as one of the family.” “Yes, mum,” replies the new girl, “but if it’s all the same to you I’d rather be treated with respect.”—Chicago Post. "So you think the bluffers are faking about their extended European tour?” "I should say so. They said there were so many Americans in Venice that many had to walk in the middle of the street?” “Well?” "Why, rue streets of Venice are canals."— Springfield Union. The Man—Did you notice that woman «e just passed? The ’Woman—The one with blond puffs and a fur hat and a military cape, who was dreadfully made up, and had awfully soiled gloves on? The Man —Yes, that one. The Woman —No. I didn't notice her. Why?-—Cleveland Leader. Mrs. Crimsonbeak —It is sajd that the five great original forests of the United States covered eight hundred and fifty million acres and contained fifty two billion feet of lumber. Mr. Crimsonbeak—ln those days, you sec* there was some place for a man to go when Lis wife cleaned house.—Yonkers Statesman. “I understand, Miss Araminta,” said the professor, “that you are inclined toward literature/’ “Yes,” said the blushing spinster, “I wrote for the Bugle Magazine last month.” “Indeed!May I ask what?” asked the professor. “I addressed all the envelopes for the rejected manuscripts,” said Araminta, proudly. Harper’s Weekly. *