Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 243, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 October 1913 — Page 3

The Basement Philosopher

By KENNETT HARRIS

( Copyright, 1913. byW. G. Chatman)

“I take notice that you’ve quit shaving yourself with the tinner’s shears. Nels, my friend,” remarked the Janitor to his Scandinavian assistant "You must have sprung yourself for a razor lately. And that four-in-hand danger signal you’re sporting is another thing that gives me food for thought, as the feller, says, not to mention the rhinestone collar button. Is it the spring season in a general Way, or is it the primrose blonde In 18 in special? Well, it ain’t no business of mine, only you’ll do well to be careful. Keep your eyes open and look about you before you make up your mind. “You see, Nels,” the Janitor went on, as he hoisted himself to a seat on the basement railing, “you see you’ve got opportunities, owing to the job that you’re holding down here, that most men ain’t got You don’t have to take the chances that you’d have to take if you was on the section or working in a livery stable. The gink who’s digging sewers or driving a dray for a living has to take risks that makes me shudder when I think of them. He goes to a dance, we'll say, or a picnic. He ain’t in no frame of mind to use sense. He’s too full of ham sandwiches, hot dogs, chowder and high spirits to have any room for reason and judgment, and while he’s In that there condition of tempry insanity he runs up against a bunch of skirts, and the next thing he knows one of ’em is cashing his pay checks at the corner grocery regular every Saturday night. Just like that! “They all look good to him. Sure thing! That’s what they’re there for. They’ve got on their longeree waists with the narrow pink ribbon showing

“YOU’VE GOT OPPORTUNITIES MOST MEN AIN’T GOT."

through from underneath and they’re wearing their blue beads and their bright smiles, and what more would a man want? Can she mop a floor or wash a shirt or cook a tater the way It ought to be cooked? Who cares? Ain’t she got on her silk stockings and low-cut shoes? That’e the way to look at it Well, you don’t have to go to no pictures, Nels. All you’ve got to do Is what Bill Mudge done. “Who was Bill Mudge? Why, Bill was a feller that worked for me here last spring a year ago; that’s who Bill was. Bill had sense, Bill had. No bugs in Bill’s bean; he’d tell you so himself. First thing Bill would do was to be sure he was right; then he’d go ahead. Sometimes he’d go just a little ahead of the toe of my boot, but anyway he’d be right 'I ain’t agoing to jump afore I look,’ he’d say; and he wouldn’t—not unless I stuck the point of an awl in a soft part of him when he wasn’t looking. But be was great on keeping his eyes open and taking time to make up bls mind. I’ve known a thirty-car train of mixed freight made up quicker than Bill took to get that mind of his ready, and with less switching. But that’s the kind of a feller he was.

"Well, pay attention now! Bill took a notion that it wasn’t good for a man to live alone and that two could live just about as cheap as one and he used to come and talk to me about it 'There’s from sixteen to eighteen girls In this here building that might do,’ he says to me. 'l've made up my mind that when I find the right one I’ll marry her, but I’m agoing to be dead sure that she is the right one. I ain’t agoing Into It blindfold. I don't buy no pig in no sack, me.’ , ‘“That sounds like sense,’ j I says. 1 don’t say that it is sense, but it sounds like it. How are ybtit agoing to find out?’ “’By using my eyes and my judgment,’ he sajrs. ‘I ain’t been applying of then! in that direction afore, but I’m going to. It’s a pipe! Ain’t lat every kitchen door all times o’ day? Well, here’s the way I’ll find out She’s got to be neat and clean herself, to begin with. I don’t want no sloppy wife. Well, it ain’t going to take me no time to find that much out. Same way with the way she keeps things. I step in to fix a winder ketch or something and I take notice whether the floor is scrubbed an* whether there’s grease on the gas range. I throw my eye on the sink and squint up at the ceiling for cobwebs. If the look of things ain’t satisfactory, I cross her off right there and don’t waste no more time. " ‘The next question is whether she’s’a bustler,’ says Bill. 'lf she's np and busy bright and early it don't

take me long to get hep. IT the shades is down at her bedroom winder at half-past seven, count me out right on that proposition. If she's singing at her work she’s got a cheerful disposition: If I see the cat scooting every time she picks up a broom, vlx on that Not any! Then I’ve got *• o find out how she stacks up on thu eats. How? Easy! I notice the garbage can when I go to empty itj If ’ here’s a mess of scorched cakes and raaybe the half of a roast and a lot rc stale bread and a peck or so of oattneal like there is in some, it don’t take no Sherlock Holmes to Agger out that she’ll .waste about as much as her in iband can make and send him to th < hospital with stummick trouble, b o sir, the less garbage there is, the letter her chances’ll bp,’ says Bill. ’Not when you’ve got the opportunity j that you've got around a flat bulldin, -.* '* ‘Well,’ says I, that sure »»unds like sense.* And it is sense. 'ihat’e why I’m giving you the tip, Nek You take a little less notice of HL la or Helga or whatever her name is ind a little more of what she sets o it for you to empty. You’ve got ih« same opportunities that Bill had. "What kind of a woman db* Bill get? Why, I forgot to tell you about that. One day he come to m* looking pleased and told me that he’d found the right one. A fine, good-look-ing girl she was. Cook and general in 11, where the Greenwalls are now. Always had on a clean drets and apron, Bill said; kitchen as neat as a pip, up at six sharp, sang like a blessed lark and no waste. ‘Me for her,’ says Bill. ‘lt’s just as easy to pick a good one as a poor one,* he says. " 'Go to her,’ says L And he did, the very next day. The only trouble was, though, that she didn’t fancy Bill, and in fact she throwed a dipper of hot water over him and told the iceman and the iceman wiped up the alley with him and Bill got so mad that just to spite 'em he manled a girl that was just leaving her ph ice at 13 that he hadn’t ipvestlgated. Now he says the best thing a feller can

do is to keep his eyes shut. /Then he’s married, anyway. “So there it is, Nels,” concluded the janitor, as he got down from the railing. “It’s all very well fcr a man to be careful about taking his pick, but he’s got to be in shape to stand inspection himself.”

NEVER BOUND BY TRADITION

True Follower of Art May Not Be Dio* tated To, and Wise Men Recognize the Fact. There are various approaches to life; the way, of religion, of actioti, of commerce, of art No one of these can dictate the path of ths other. Not only can religion not undertake to show the artist which way to turn, or art to tell commerce of the main chance, but the artist in one kind cannot dictate to the artist in another. Buonarroti could not add to the wistful grace of a Raphael Madonna, nor could the Urblnlte teach Angelo aught of the damonlc strength or terribilito; Angelo’s marbles could not have fitted into the smiling landscapes or open sky spaces of Peruglno. They belonged as they were set against rough, bare rocks, like the Carrara quarries. A great man when he sees an art that surpasses comprehension, because •t is wide of tradition, puts his Anger to his lips and keeps silence. The empty-headed are the glib dictators of ready judgments. Very many years ago when Dr. William James saw for the first time a collection of futurist paintings in Paris he said: “I have never seen anything like this before! It is strange and inimical to me. But these are serious men. They would not waste their time. They must mean something, though I can’t under stand.” His utterance was that of the wise man. ’ w But the artist with a new thing to say or a new and faithful mode >f saying it must be of an independence unthinkable! He must be able to live alone gaily; to live on a crust and water; .to take only such rewards as are thrust at hlpi, for he cannot afford to seek. He must be celibate and drag no others into his dilemma. And he must work for the joy of the working.—Harper’s Weekly.

Sentiment.

Sneak Thief—lf yer so hard <V, w*y doncher pawn yer watch chain? Second Story Man—l don’t like ter —it belonged ter me fambly! Sneak Thief—Fambly! G'wis! Second Story Man —Straight I'm given yer—swiped it frutn me gran’ pop!—Puck.

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

DINING FOR 4 CENTS

How to Live io London on Practically Nothing. Getting a Six Course Meal—Fish Without Price in Billingsgate and Bones for the Stockpot at Smithfield. London.—"l never go without one good meal a day at least,” said the weary old man with the drooping features. “I’m shabby, 1 know. I want a shave. But I’m not hungry. Never am. And why should I be, when there Is plenty of food for all —food in heaps all over the place, only waiting to be picked up?

“Mind you,” he went on, “you have to walk about a bit to get it. And you must have the use of a room, however humble. You must have, besides, a saucepan and a frying pan. Last of all, you ought to have at least twopence if you want to do the thing in style. “Now, if a man hasn’t sufficient gumption ind enterprise to get hold of twopence somehow he has no right to live at all, so far as I can see. Can’t he hold a horse for five minutes? Can’t he carry a bag? Can’t he do a bit of grinding—singing in the street?

“I’ll tell you how to get a five course dinner for nothing at all. I’ll tell you how to get a six course dinner —with a glass of bitter beer thrown in—for twopence.” He considered a while. The dinner would consist of hors d’oeuvres, soup, fish, joint, cheese and dessert.

“Let us begin with the six course dinner. Let us see how we can procure our hors d’oeuvres for nothing, first of all. “We rise early. We don our very ragged rags, in case of emergencies. Then we hie us to Billingsgate. There the salesmen are sorting out their goods. Frequently they come upon a red herring, or a bloater or a sprat that has got broken or crushed in transit. They dare not restore those damaged goods to the box they have opened as a sample. The buyers are not too nice. They would plunge 'their hands in among the fish, discover the damaged one, and use their discovery to beat down the salesman’s prices. So he throws it away. And I pick it up and put it in my bag. Dried fish, fllleted-and cut into strips, makes an excellent dish. You get no better at a swagger West end hotel. “There is other damaged fish, of course, which is flung aside, and gathered in by you in just the same way. Thus we have, you see, obtained courses one and three. “To procure the material for soup we go to Covent Garden market. There we shall find, amid heaps of cabbage leaves and other waste greenstuff, abundance of vegetables—small cabbage, potatoes, onions, carrots, turnips—whatever happens to be in season, the spillings from overfull baskets. We shall find, also, the fruit for our dessert, and if you are fond of beautiful things, you may even pick up flowers to adorn your table with. “So, you see, we now have courses one, two, three and six. From Covent Garden we wend our way to Smithfield; There we shall And any amount of bones to put in our stockpot under the stalls, in pails, everywhere. We shall find odds and ends of meat, too, for our fourth course. We shall find

A VANDERBILT SOCIAL WAR

Alfred G. and His Second Wife Give an Elaborate Dinner' to Newport Society. Newport.—Following closely upon the elaborate masquerade dinner of Mrs. Elsie French Vanderbilt, all Newport fs talking of the novel entertainment given by Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Gwyne Vanderbilt at their Oakland Farm home, and those who were fortunate enough to attend both affairs are of the opinion that the one arranged by the newest Mrs. Vanderbilt fqr outshone that of her predecessor both in novelty and attractiveness. The dinner was really a return to the gatherings for which Newport was famous several years ago, but which of late years have been succeeded by the larger and more coldly social entertainments. One of the features of

Mrs. Alfred G. Vanderbilt.

the dinner was the wonderful red and white electrical display. During the dinner the guests were regaled with plantation songs by minstrels brought from New York, and hundreds of Mr. Vanderbilt's farmer neighbor! gathered to hear this singing. , iust after midnight the guests were

FIRST STREET CARS IN CENTRAL AMERICA

Picture showing street cars in the narrow street* of Panama. The ays* tern was recently opened to the public. Many of the streets In the city of Panama are. so narrow that they are completely blocked when the street car passes throueh. The system is owned by American capitalists.

glbteuo viitu WHICH LiAtcneli ailU flavor our soup. So we have now obtained—for nothing at all —a dinner of five courses. We get six courses for twopence, with a glass of beer; too. “You will observe that the only course missing from the six course banquet is the fifth—the cheese. The publican supplies this. I go into the saloon and order my glass of bitter. “You possess so many vegetables that you don't need bread. But if you prefer to* take bread you have only to keep your eyes open to get enough to stock the baker's shop. The waste of bread in London is prodigious. You will find great chunks of it in almost every street

“Fuel J I will not Insult your intelligence by telling you where to find paper, and bits of wood lie about everywhere. For coal you go to the arches near King's, Cross. There you can get a hundredweight,” he concluded, “if you are strong enough to carry it.”

ON FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

Battle for Liberty of Thought?' Is Fought in Book by John Milton That is Never Read. Ji New York.—Milton’s “Areopagitlca” was given to the world 269 years ago. August 28, 1644. Not one in a thousand of the readers of this newspaper or of any other newspaper* has read the "Areopagltica” or even seen it —any more than he has seen the force of gravity or the electrical energy that is working such miracles in this age of ours. But. like the invisible powers of nature, the book of the great Latin secretary of the old protector has been serving the purpose for which it was written. The parliament of 1643, under the dominance of the champions of tyranny, had passed an ordinance against the liberty of printing, and with a sublime fearlessness Milton challenged them to battle. His challenge was this same “Areopagitlca,” which madethem sit up and think, and wfai ch convlnced them that there was at least one man in England who loved intellectual liberty and understood perfectly well how to defend it. In sentences that are like the blasts

taken to the trophy room where dancing held sway. The honor guests of the occasion were Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell Henry of England and among the guests were Lord Campden of the British embassy, Mr. and Mrs. Herman Oelrichs and Mr. and Mrs. Reginald Vanderbilt

30,000 THIEVES IN ODESSA

Chief of Police Declares It to Be the “Most Dishonest Town on Earth.” St. Petersburg.—" Odessa is the most dishonest town on earth” is the assertion of its police chief in accounting for the rarity of arrests and the frequency of burglaries. There are, he says, no fewer than 30,000 thieves in the city, 16 per cent of the population, and the women thieves far outnumber the men. The harvest time for the transgressors la in the summer, when all who can afford to leave Odessa in fear of the cholera. Then a round of burglaries starts with which the authorities are utterly unable to cope. One day recently there were no fewer than 364 cases against thievery and the like down for hearing in the local courts. The arrests number about a score a day. Sentences for theft are light, as it would be to expensive otherwise. It is now proposed to transport the worst of the prisoners.

GOLF BALL BURST; EYE IS OUT

Son of Assistant United States Attorney Hawken at Washington, D. C., Is Victim. Washington.—An explosive golf ball may cost the sight of Stafford Hawken, the twelve-year-old son of Assistant State’s Attorney Hawken. The boy is in the hospital, where the physicians declare the sight of his right eye is destroyed, but they hope to save the other eye. Acid in the core of the golf ball exploded while the lad was engaged in seeking to discover the ball's composition. . V .

of a trumpet Milton protested against the infamous attempt to throttle the freedom of the press. He would have no oppression of the printers, no gag put upon their desire to spread abroad among men the thoughts of the mind. Foreseeing the future and exulting in its happy deliverance from every form of mental tyranny—the era in which every one should be perfectly free to think, and perfectly free, also, to put his thoughts into print—Milton did what he could to help the good time along. Likening truth unto the eagle, which in its royal might scatters the "timorous birds that love the twilight,” he excoriated the unrighteous attempt at shackling the press and predicted the time when a free and enlightened press would be the salvation and glory of humanity. All England was forced to listen to his glorious plea for free printing, and fpr two and one-half centuries the echoes of his noble appeal have sounded and resounded in British ears and In the ears of all men. Wherever floats the British flag today, there, under its protecting folds, is to be found the mental hospitality—the large freedom of thought and expression—which dates back to Milton’s great plea that was given to the world on that 28th of August, 1644.

Spoils Woman’s Fad.

Newport.—A woman bather started the fad here of wearing a garter with a tiny bell attached. Other women soon took up the fad and the beach now fairly tinkles. The fad was voted a great success until a man walked into the dining room of one of the hotels with a pink garter around each of his trousers’ leg, to which was attached a cowbell. . The fad blew up right there.

Romantic Start Ends With Wedding.

Binghamton, N. Y.—As a result of her prank two years ago when she dropped a slip with her name and address on it into a mail box, Miss Mildred Norton, clerk in the Nineveh post office, near here, was married to Ivey Callow of Peflsacola, Fla. Callow, also a post office clerk, found the note, a correspondence followed and then came the wedding.

OSTERHAUS SEEKS BIRD FARM

Rear Admiral Comes Home From Germany and Saye He Will Raise Canaries. New York. —Rear Admiral Hugo Osterhaus, U. S. N., retired, who was in command of the great fleet of warships making up the north Atlantic squadron at the time of his retirement on his sixty-first birthday last June, proposes to start a canary bird farm. He is back from Germany, where he has been visiting his ninety-one-year-old father, Brlg.-Gen. Peter J. Osterhaus, U. 8. A., retired, who has a bird farm in Germany. “I feel lost without something to do," said Admiral Ostertaus, "and I have invented a job for myself. I

Rear Admiral Hugo Osterhaus.

have brought over twelve canary birds and am going to start a bird farm like my father's. I shall raise doves on my farm, too, and call them ‘doves of peace.'”

Lot’s Question

By REV. PARLEY E. ZARTMANN. D.D.

Spcret®ry of ExtcsMon DcpGrtmtßt Moody RiMe institute, Oncaoo

TEXT-Is it not a little one’-tienesM. 19:20.

Sodom to dwelling in peace and quietj in the tents with Abraham. He i*i an Illustration of the swift descent <4l the soul into the vortex of sin. Hefj got into Sodom, which was not evil,' necessarily, but then Sodom got intoj him, and that is evil always. W«t| know from the record that it was aU wicked town, full of sin apd abomw nation, so wicked that even the plead-! Ing of righteous Abraham, the of God, could not spve it; though Loti was saved, yet so as by fire.

Lot’s question was asked as he wa»j being led out of the city by the mes-j senger from God. It was a crisis day-U The men plead with Lot to bring his) family out with him; to bls sons-in-j law he seemed as one that mocked,) so useless was his testimony. The) angels constrained Lot to flee witbj his wife and two daughters. “But hel lingered; and the men laid hold upon his hand, And upon the hand of htafi wife, and upon the hand of his two, daughters, Jehovah being merciful, unto him;.and they brought hinsj forth, and set him without the city* . . Escape to the mountains, lest. • thou be consumed." But Lot does not want to go all the way in and as he comes to Zoar he says, “Be-?-hold now, this city is near to flee unto.Is it not a little one? Oh let me escape thither.” . f

How often have we asked Lot’squestion about our Life, when GodLhas given some clear command. Something is under sentence, ww know it. but we think it unimportant Is it not a little one? For examples lack of love, irritability, worldlinessu a sharp tongue, falsehood, uncleanness, grieving the Holy Spirit, lacs of forgiveness or apology, unconcern about our own souls. You excuse these; you palliate them; you laugh at them; you have them yourself, and. encourage those who do them. Your say, “Is it not a little one?" And 1 many of your fellow-men are as unconcerned and indifferent as you am.“ But God—let me pause to think of* him —calls these things sin. He says* these things are fit for destructions and this' warning to you has been timely, amble and urgent.' You make, light of sin, but God’s just outweighs your selfish opinion prompted by carnal desires. No sin is smalt. In his sight, and he knows the fuW measure and meaning of it. Thin* little one may be the seed of a vastand vicious brood. Beware of anysin. Fear it, hate it, flee from it, Say "No" to sin. Burn the witches, which seek your destruction. More — it is an awful thing to have any known, sin and be determined to keep fL>

You ask about your pet Bln, as Lott* did about Zoar. Yes, God did sparer the city, but he does not spare star. He knows what it is and what it means, toward God and toward men. He knows what it does —robs of peace, shuts the soul out from God, makes cowards and'makes tools forSatan, brings helplessness, hopelessness and death. He knows what pin costs—Christ and Calvary, for Christ was manifested to take away Bin; Is he doing it In you? Can you face these facts and then stand up andl say, “Is it not a little one?” You maymake a mock of sin now, but what will you say in that day when the Judge will be on the throne?

And we know how little influence; power and happiness people have who cling to their sins and who refuse to obey the command of God to escape to the mountain. Thie weakness of testimony appears in the home. In the church, and in the community. The world has no use for a sinful member of the church. It finds fault, it cries shame, and it stays away from the church, from Christ and from heaven. Are you responsible for afiy such? Do you meet complaint, criticism or censure with "Is it not a. little one?” God pity you! T|iese things ought not so to be. They need not be eo. "Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus.” Grace enough for all, and free. Grace for salvation, for keeping, for perfection in the presence of Jesus at the last. “By grace are ye saved.” Do you not see how great and grievous a thing sin is? Do you not want to come into right relation* with God? I declare emanclpatina from that sin, by Je»us Christ, who la able to the uttermost Don’t stay in slavery, but come out into th* large place provided by Jesus Christ.

Though Loti lived in the dawn of human history and in a far-away , land, he is a modern character and seems like a citi-> zen of our own, community, so? frequently do ww' meet men of sim -‘ liar character aodconduct. He es-> teemed silver ot, more value than-, a soul, and that; variety and ex-i citement of life ini