Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 146, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1911 — Page 3

BOLD BY TRICKERY

Cook Turns Modern Science to Good Account. Man Without a Conscience Visits Numerous Chiefs and Induces Them, by Means of Talking Machine, Into Signing Away Lands. New York.—“l was reminded by a story I saw the other day,” said a soldier of fortune, “of some of my experiences' on the Gold Coast, when I had a cook who had the same fondness for cats as the cook mentioned by another traveler. My eook was named Quace Mensch, and he had an interesting career. ’ "He was an Accra, and he had been trained by some Englishmen, who had taken him to London. There he had got into a fight of. some kind, for which he had spent a year in jail, , but he had learned to cook well, and that is something that is worth while in that part of the world. “Quace Mensch served me so faithfully one year that when I went to England I asked him what I should bring him on mF return. He said there was nothing he would like so much as a phonograph into which he :ould talk and make records of his own. I thought this was an odd prefarence, but when 1 went back to the Gold Coast I took a machine with me, and Quace Mensch was delighted. He served me faithfully for awhile, ind then he suddenly disappeared. I learned that he had taken to the !»ush. It was a long time before F heard from r him again, and then ope lay he turned up loaded down with leeds to land which was suspected of Tearing gold. “I asked him how he got the deeds. He grinned. I cannot attempt to jive his dialect, but he said the phonograph was responsible. “ ‘I talked Into the machine in the F&ntl language,’ he said. ‘I said: ‘Chief, this man is a big juju man, md a friend of mine. You must give alm your whole place If you want me to be good to you.” “‘I went to village after village, carrying the talking machine, and saw chief after chief. I would place the phonograph so they could not see ’what it was like, and then I would say to the chief that I was a juju man, and I was prepared to prove It. He would not believe me, hut when I had got him quiet I would turn on the phonograph and tell them that the great juju was speaking. Of course, they had not heard of a talking machine, and when they heard this voice coming from a little horn, they would get scared and beg me to take all they

FIND PLOVERS’ EGGS COSTLY

Two Americans Eat Appetizer In Lon- * don Restaurant and Discover Item Totals $5.50. London. —That young American dramatist, Avery Hapgood, in company with the young American theatrical star, Robert Dempster, arrived in London the other day after a pleasure trip around the continent. European customs and conditions are practically all new to them, but they are learning rapidly and having no end of fun in doing it. The other night they learned about plovers’ eggs. /That wasn’t as funny. After the theater they went to the Savoy for a drink and a bite, and joined the gay crowd at the' supper tables. Neither was hungry so they paid little attention to the items on the menu. “Plovers’ eggs to start with?” asked the waiter. Yes, they would have plovers’ eggs, ' although neither of them had ever seen one even. “He brought us a sort of a nest full of little speckled hard-boiled eggs," said Mr. Dempster. “They didn't look very appetizing, and when we tried them they didn’t taste any better than they looked. I’d a good deal rather have hen’s eggs. There was that nest of. eggs, however, and we as supposed it was the portion we had ordered we

HEN IS JACK OF ALL TRADES

Glenville, N. Y., Chicken Helps Owner to Build Coop After He Smashes Finger With Hammer. Tarrytown, N. Y. —The white leghorn hen owned by John Grohan of Glenville, which a few weeks ago followed him to the trolley car to v pay his fare with a nickel he had forgotten, has again proved her devotion to her master. , The other day Grohan enjoyed a half holiday and he started to build a small chicken coop. The hen stood by and watched him pick up the nails and drive them home. After he had picked up half a dozen the hen walked over and picked up, one with her beak and dropped it in his hand. This was simple, and Grohan was getting along well with his job when he smashed his finger. With thia handicap be couldn’t hold the nails. The hen, seeing that something was wrong, held a nail in her beak. Grohan placed the hen's head near the board and with a gentle tap started the nail, and the hen then picked up another nalL After that the hen held the nails against the boards and Grohan drove them home and the coop was soon complete.

MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON. —In the opinion of a great many persons, the most beautiful woman In the national capital is Miss Dorothy Williams. To be sure there are others on whose behalf this claim Is disputed, but there is no dispute as to Miss Williams being the possessor of great pulchritude. She is the daughter of Colonel John R. Williams, U. S.A., and Mrs. Williams, and a sister of Mrs. Joseph Leiter.

had If only I would promise to get the great juju to look after them. I always promised, and they would make haste to deed to me any piece of land I asked for.’ “That cook, of course, had no such thing as a conscience, and you can see what civilization had done for him. I have heard recently that he is now the richest man on the whole Gold Coast and he got all he has out of the phonograph I gave him.”

kept on eating until the rest of the supper came. We didn’t like them either. “When the bill came the plovers’ eggs were charged at £1 10s. It took our breath away when we found we ha<T eaten $5.50 worth of them. I never Invested so much money In eggs in a whole month before. The one and six a portion I discovered consisted of one egg. And all the while we were committing this gastronomic sacrilege we were grumbling at ourselves for our economy in eating them to save them. “I am glad plovers are not a domestic bird you meet frequently, for I shall blush every time I see one.”

"Old Glory” Chickens.

Trenton, N. J. —Rev. Nelson Brown, a Windsor preacher, awoke early the other day to find that two of his chickens had changed color. One had turned red, the other blue. A naturally white rooster made the trio of national colors complete. The clergyman, wondering whether his eyesight was out of gear, asked neighbors to look at the chickens. “You’re all right,” said the friends, “but those fowl certainly ain’t.” Closer Inspection showed that paint was responsible, and the preacher complained to the police. He thinks mischievous boys did the wofk.

BETTING IN ENGLAND

Great Increase In Gambling Reported to League Which Is Fighting. Evil—Women Victims. London.—Gambling Is on the increase in England. According to reports to the British Anti-Gambling league, organized gambling Is making gigantic strides, and this despite the fact that the police have made iV very difficult for one to place bets.,in London and the other big cities of the kingdom. It is stated that whereas a century ago there were.only 20 bookmakers in Great Britain and Ireland there are now some 30,000 men getting their living wholly or partly in this way. The turnover Is estimated at about $400,000,000 on horse racing, and $150,000,000 on football and other sports. The gambling evil, too, is spreading alarmingly among women and children and is restricted to no particular class of society. .1. There have been 46 cases of women bookmakers before the courts in the last year. S. The league has protested to the government against the receipt of foreign lottery circulars and called the attention of the police to the existence of many girls* betting clubs. * -T, * y-.

MONKEY INVADES A SCHOOL

Escaped Simian Takes Possession of Room and Has Much Fun Before Captured by Student. Portland, Ore. —Escaping from his cage at the Seven Mlle house, on the Section Line road, a monkey ran amuck, made his way to the Buckley school house, located a short distance east, and took- possession of the school, ousting the teacher and frightening the pupils. - The simian hopped from bench to bench, then back to the desk of the pretty school ma’am, who had retreated to a safe place, the intruder thoroughly enjoying his freedom, much to the alarm of the children. After disporting about the room for several minutes, the monkey dropped into the drinking bucket, full of water. The cold bath, most unexpected, did not halt the animal in his search for entertainment Emerging from the bucket almost as, quickly as he had dropped into it, he took a Straight cut across the room over the heads of the pupils. Finally one of. the boys, braver than the others, caught the animal after a hard struggle, placed it in a sack and restored it to its home, but Mr. Monkey had created such a disturbance that the rest of the lessons for the day in the Buckley school house were called off.

Japan Stops Coloring Tea.

New York. —The consul general of Japan, K. Midzuma, has announced that the Japanese government had issued an edict to Japanse tea growers that hereafter the manufacture of artificially colored teas in Japan was prohibited. . This action fqllqws the ruling made by the United States treasury department that on and after May 1 teas shipped to the United States must be free from any coloring or facing matter whatsoever.

To show how deeply the gambling passion has taken hold, the directors of the league declare there are many bookmakers who stoop so low as to take bets for sixpence or a shilling from girls or boys.

German Dogs Unmuzzled.

Berlin.—After decreeing the massacre of 700 dogs whose owners could not afford to pay the new tax of $6 a year,' the police president of Berlin has issued an “emancipation proclamation,” by the terms of which Greater Berlin’s 60,000 dogs may go unmuzzled. The police authorities have come to the conclusion that the. compulsory muzzle is an antiquated institution, and have decided to follow the exexample of London, Paris, and other capitals which long ago abandoned it The unmuzzling order iz the result of a persistent campaign by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Muzzles need in future be worn only by dogs known to be dangerous or which have bitten people. If such animals prove chronic offenders the police will seize and kill them.

FOUND IT BY CHANCE

HOW EDISON HAPPENED ON THE PHONOGRAPH SECRET. Accidental Occurrence, White He Was Experimenting on Sheepskin for the Telephone, Suggested the . Talking Machine. Accident has had so much to do with all great Inventions that it will not be surprising to hear that the phonograph was a chance discovery. Many years ago. while Edison was experimenting on diaphragms for the telephone, he had constructed a number of small sheepskin drumheads, to Compare with the metal one. To some of these sheepskin diaphragms he had attached a small needle, which was intended to project toward the magnet and assist in conveying the vibrations caused by the human voice. The sheepskin diaphragms did not fulfill Edison’s expectations, and were discarded and thrown aside as rubbish. His assistants soon discovered that by holding the sheepskin diaphragms in front of their mouths ahd emitting a guttural sound between the lips, a peculiar noise, approaching music, could be produced. in playing on a diaphragm one day, Edison playfully attempted to stop the noise by touching the projecting metal pin with his finger, and had no sooner done so than he ctarted. “Do that again," said Edison, and it was repeated, and again his finger touched the pin, to his evident delight He went about for some time, asking one after another of his assistants to hum or sing against the diaphragm, and finally he got them to talk against It, he all the time touching the pfn lightly with his finger. Finally he retired to his den, and commenced.,drawing diagrams for new machinery, which his assistants speedily made, and a few days later the first phonograph was put together. It was a crude affair, the pip making an Impression on the wax, and it talked imperfectly- but It did well enough to show Edison that he was on the right track, and be rapidly improved It. A hundred men might have felt the vibration of that pin attached to the piece of sheejskln, but it took an Edison to instantly realize that the vibration might be made to Indent a soft substance and be susceptible of reproducing the exact sounds of the human voice that caused the different vibrations.

Stone Bathtubs Used.

On the great private estates in Mexico baths are in use today wbleh were hewn ‘out of the solid rocks centuries ago by slave labor. They are located, for the most part, in the vicinity of running water, and are fed by bamboo pipes, but in many cases they have to be filled by the old-fashioned method of carrying a bucket to and from the In the cities the so-called stone baths are made of cement. The residences of all well-to-do people are provided with them, and they are a feature of the native hotels. They are usually about' ten feet long by four feet deep—baby swimming tanks, in fact. The tropical custom is to fill the baths late at night. By the following morning the water will have acquired a limpid coolness that acts like a tonic upon the body. When one remembers that near the equator it is almost as warm in the morning as it is at noon, and that water taken direct from the city mains is always tepid, the advantage of the stone or cement bath is evident. . <

Making News of Virtue.

Crime is exaggerated by critics of the newspaper more than by the newspaper itself. Criminal news actually forms a much smaller part of the normal newspaper than many faultfinders loosely assume. The Boston press gave more space to Moody and Sankey in their first great series of meetings thirty-five years ago than it ever had given to any unworthy pair, and within two years the reports of a big and protracted religious rally in Boston filled a larger number of news columns than the reports of any criminal case in the history of the city. While the unusual is the news most in demand by editors and readers, ft is not necessarily news of the unusually bad. The virtuous, if their virtue takes unusual shape or scope, can make news. Virtue itself, however, is not news, and it will be a sorry day when simple doing becomes news in any community.—Boston Globe.

Thrashing Machines.

The flail is the most ancient instrument for thrashing grain, although it is possible that the trampling of the straw under the feet of horses, oxen and men is a close second. The Romans used a machine called the “Trlbulum,” a sledge loaded with stones or iron, and drawn over the grain sheaves by horses or oxen. The first machine attempted in modern times for the work of thrashing was Invented by eno Michael Mengles, of Edinburg, about 1732. Some 30 years later Andrew Melkle built a similar machine. It was not until the latter half of the ninenteenth century, however, that the thrashing machine reached anything like its present perfection.

CONQUEST OF THE GRAND CANYON

THERE Is a gigantic plan proposed to convert the Grand canyon of Arizona into a huge lake behind’ a. dam 700 feet high. Over this dam will flow a constant stream of water at the rate of 30,000 or more cubic feet a second, sufficient to turn all the machinery In the United States, if not In the world. In addition to this, the water thus stored will provide constant and neverfalling Irrigation for 6,000,000 acres of land which Is otherwise hopelessly waste. The plans are already on paper, and there is plenty of money behind the enterprise. All that is lacking is government consent to ruin in part the grandest work of nature in the world, the Grand canyon, and place at the bottom of the great abyss a lake 7 mites wide and 35 miles long. The canyon proper is 9 miles wide, 13 mites long and a mile deep, so all of Its scenic beauty will by no means be destroyed. In fact, one standing upon ' the rim and looking at the watpr below, without previous knowledge, will be unable to tpll that man has in any way tampered with, nature’s great display. Three states, California, Nevada and Arizona are vitally interested in the project, and in these states there has already developed a sentiment which will tend to exclude the private construction of the dam and plant, and vest it entirely in the hands of the government. At the point in Arizona near the intersection of the Arizona, California and Nevada state lines, there is a point in the canyon which is only 150 feet wide. Here a wing dam can be constructed at comparatively’ low cost, which may be built as high as one pleases without fear of securing too much water pressure behind it. Once constructed, the water will back within the canyon for 35 miles. M6st of this will be cared for by the smaller canyons leading off from the big canyon, which are not Included In the measurement of Its 13 miles of actual length. These small canyons are also walled by solid rock, and therefore there is no danger whatever from an overflow from any source. In order to flood surrounding land the water would have to rise to the height of one mile, less 700 feet, |nd cover an area nine miles wide within the canyon. The dam will, therefore, be absolutely safe, for the retaining wall at the end of the reservoir, owing to the structure of the walls of the canyon at that point, will bear practically no weight of the water whatever. The effect of the construction of this dam cannot well be grasped by persons unfamiliar with what has been done by way of development In the southwest during the last decade. The southwest, in the first place. Is preparing for a vast increase of population from Europe once the Panama canal Is finished, but It Is recognized that without Industries only a pertain amount of Increase will be accommodated. Arizona has shown a census Increase of more than 60 per cent, since 1900. Since the census was taken boards of trade In the territory report heavier inquiries about the territory. r World’s Greatest Chasm. The Grand canyon of the Colorado Is the most stupendous chasm in the world. Standing In the presence of these precipitous rocks which tower to heights of 5,000 feet, piercing the clouds above; the abyss yawning at his feet, the spectator Is overpowered by the immensity of the spectacle confronting him. There is probably no other spot on earth where man Is more impressed with bls own insignificance or more overwhelmed with the majesty of nature. It is the grandest of all the world's gorges. It Inspires one with its sublimity; it appalls him with Its heights. Its depths, its awful solitude. The hand of the infinite has chiseled these rocks into most fantastic forms, their towering turrets and Imposing minarets standing out boldly tn baa relief against the deep blue of a soutb-

ern sky. And over al) is the illusion of distance. ' One cannot conceive the vastness of It all and is met by a series of surprises, as it is borne in upon him that yonder gorge, or rock, .or peak, or cape lies miles in the ' distance. At the bottom of the gorge the river,' turbulent and picturesque, madly rushes on amid Its rock environment, lashing Itself into foam. About the mighty peaks soars the eagle, and struggling vegetation contends against fate for a foothold among the rocks. But the beasts of the forest and the flowers of the field rarely Intrude upon these lonely solitudes. It Is conceded that the Grand canyon cannot be adequately painted in words, yet some comparisons may give an idea of its immensity. Its total length from the confluence of the Green river to Its outlet in the Gulf of California is more than 700 mites. With its numerous laterals, some of’ wMph are shown in the accompanying'lllustrations, its length is more than 1,000 mites. The great scenic, section commonly meant by the words, the Grand canyon of Arizona, with a-depth of more than a mile from the rim of the river. Is 217 miles long. It has been estimated that if all the earth and rock that has been and will be excavated for the building .of the Panama canal, from the first inception of that great enterprise by the French company to Its ultimate completion to sea level by the American government could be dumped into this great rift in the Arizona plateau, it would still require twenty thousand times as much more to fill it; and the surface area of the built up territory would be more than 16,005 square miles, or equal to the whole of Switzerland, or to Massachusetts, Delaware, Conectlcut and Rhode Island, combined. If it were possible to take the whole chain of the Allegheny mountains, turn them upside down and dump them into the Grand canyon, there would still be a tremendous canyon left. If the tallest peak east of the Rockies could be planted at the level of the Colorado river, its summit would still be far below the feet of the observer standing on the rim. The greatest of the pyramids of Egypt is 485 feet high, the Washington monument Is 555 feet tall, and the hat og the statue of William Pen that surmounts the City hall at Philadelphia is 557 feet above the level of the street. If one placed the Pyramid of Cheops upon the floor of the canyon, planted the Philadelphia City hall upon its apex, and then, poised the Washington monument upon that their aggregate height would reach only a quarter of the way to the top. It is 44 years since Maj. Powell, long the distinguished head of the United States Geological survey, signaled to his fellow countrymen that be had made the run of 1,000 miles of American canyons. The scientific world stood agape, for the feat was believed to be all btu impossible. Up to Powell’s time man thought of the canyon as something altogether forbidding and unapproachable—so little was it known, so much Was It dreaded—and : even now, when men have descended to the river by man-made trails and the telephoto tens has searched out the. unreachable places, though tourists have confronted, it with a battery of cameras, thought geologists' have borne their testimony and artists have sketched and painted, and travelers have exhausted vocabularies to give expression to their wonder—still we have caught but a glimpse of this manifold mystery; |pr the particular view that enthralls us la but one of ten. thousand vtew»Thomas Moran, whose masterful painting of the canyon adorns the capital at Waahlngtoj. who, above all other painters, has succeeded In depicting Its illusive atmosphere, once said: "I can understand how a man can attempt to paffit the canyon, but how can a man be foolish enough to attempt to describe itl”