Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 280, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 November 1913 — Page 3

The Basement Philosopher

By KENNETT HARRIS

(Copyright 1913, by W. G. Chapman) “The agent blew in this morning to rubber,” the janitor informed his assistant. “He was disguised in a fur coat with the collar turned up and a fur cap with the peak pulled down, but I spotted him by the tip of his nose as soon as I laid eyes on him. You can’t mistake an agent’s nose. I seen him pushing it into all the entrances as he come along the street and then take it into the court, and he was getting it smutted up around the coal bins when I snook up behind him and coughed. He thought it was a tenant at first and started to run, but he come back and we hid behind the furnace while I made my report. “ ‘Well, Mr. McCarthy,’ says he, ‘l’ve no fault to find on the whole,’ he says. ’There’s been complaints made about you, of course,’ he says, 'bprt I don’t think that you’re much to blame. Just keep ’em smoothed down, that’s all. Don’t Jtry to bluff ’em. Smooth ’em down. Well, I must be going,’ he says. ‘Tell that gink in 32 that you’re expecting me around any day and that youlre quite sure I’ll fix up things satisfactorily. Tell ’em all the same.’ “So off he goes and makes his report to the estate and draws his fine, elegant salary for the work that I’m doing, and then drops in on the coal dealer and makes a little deal, which is a good deal; and I wrastle with the slate and slag that’s in the coal and stand for the kicks that the tenants make about the heat. It’s a wonder that gazabo doesn’t make me collect the rents. He sure would if he wasn’t scared I’d find out a way to hold out on him. > “Agents are ness’ry evils, I suppose. There!s all kinds, of course—book agents, insurance agents, station agents and road agents, but whether they use an order book or blank leases

“USED TO SIT TOGETHER EVENINGS, SHE DARNING SOCKS, AND ME READING THE PAPER.”

or Winchester rifles and bad language, there ain’t much to choose between ’em. 'l'hey’ve all got the same idee—to get your money away from you and play both ends against the middle, which is themselves. In a general way, if you hire an agent, he’ll hire somebody else to do what you want done and they won’t do it—unless they happen to be honest, high-minded janitors. The only good piece of work an agent turns out with his own hands is his expense account. “What’s been the curse of Ireland for generations? Agentß. If it hadn’t been for an agent and a quick finger on the trigger, my old father would have stayed in Connaught, where he wanted to stay, and not broke his heart and the heads of respectable citizens on the New York police force. I don’t say that I’d have been as well off in some respects, but I wouldn’t have had sixty-five families to humor and keep up to their right temperatures, to say nothing of the responsibility of teaching a square head like you the difference between the vacuum cleaner and the sprinkling hose. To think you’d go to work and flood a dollar-and-a-half-a-yard Wilton stair carpet with city water and then drag up the grass rootß outside by electric suction! What’s that? Well, you would have If I hadn’t stopped you in time. And don’t give me any back talk. “As for the book agents, there’s my 'Lives and Public Speeches of the Vice-Presidents of the United States,’ in sixteen volumes, half morocco, to speak for themselves. Go ask my old woman to show ’em to you and get her to tell you what she thinks of agents. It’s one of the easiest things she does and you’ll learn more English than you would at night school — more and different. And was I to blame for wanting to improve my mind and qualify myself for the highest and best paid positions? Didn’t that blasted agent as good as guarantee that them books would land me in the United States senate? And am I in the senate? Say, they wouldn’t give mo the nomination for dog pelter in this district, as long as I’ve worked ■to r the party and for all I’ve read aM remembered about the meteoric career of Charlie Fairbanks. No, Nels, my friend, them books certainly did not make my fortune. If I hadn’t claimed my exemptions, they’d have made a financial wreck of me. “There’s one good thlpg came out of that. It gave the old woman something to kick about We’d been married close on to fifteen years, and in all that time she hadn’t had no fault

to find with me, and it was hurtht* bar a considerable. Here was I, steady, sober, hard working, soft spoken, good natured, loving and kind, neat and orderly, fond of home, sensible and liberal and fair minded, and sbe had to sit away back and keep her mouth shut when the neighbor women was holding a knockfeat on their husbands. Well, then I bought them books. “She’s a changed woman now. There’s a light in her eyes and a spring in her step that hadn’t been there for years before I signed that agent’s contract. It was sure a surprise to me, the gift of eloquence she showed. We used to sit together evenings, she darning Bocks and me reading the paper, and hardly a word between us till I went to bank up the fire for the night. Now she'll talk by the hour if I bring the conversation around to ‘Lives and Public Speeches,’ and it makes her happy. Now that she’s got sixteen volumes of evidence to prove I’m a chuckle headed Idiot and an improvident spendthrift and a selfish skate that won’t deny himself nothing while his wife’s sickenin’ for a decent hat, she’s beginning to appreciate me. She’s a whole lot more affectionate than when she couldn’t lay her finger on a flaw in me, That’s the way with women every time. "Anyway, I don’t see what in thunder you’re a-standing around here for with your hands in your pockets and your mouth open. Get busy with that brass work, you flat faced loafer, and when you’ve done that, go and fix up that radiator in 62, and then come and report to me in Mike’s Place. I’m going to do a little agency business, myßelf, b’jiminy!”

MUSIC MAKES COW GIVE MILK

American Farmer Will Impart Discovery to His European Brethren— Other Oddities Made Public. It seems there are plenty of ways of making money in this big world if we only caught one of them at the right time and the right place. For instance, a Nebraska farmer has just departed for Europe with the idea in mind of teaching the dairymen

of Europe that you can get more milk from your cow if you will only play soft, dreamy, sentimental music near her during milking time. American experts appear to be convinced of the worth of his discovery and he is planning to make all sorts of money by convincing Europeans. > Again, in Kansas there is a man who has the honor of being the only “freckle farmer.” His occupation consists in transplanting bits of skin from one part of the body to the other, and grafting fancy designs and images in the process. They are claimed to be more permanent than tattooing. The extraction of grease in queer ways has proven a lucrative means of support for several companies in English towns. In 1912 the town of Bradford, England, cleared between $200,000 and $250,000 from the selling of grease recovered from the city’s sewage. In horse tails there appears to be considerable profit, too, Judging from the shiploads of them that come in from China. Their price varies from 50 cents to $2 a pound, and the hairß, which are carefully arranged according to the length and color, are used in the making of brushes and haircloths.

Keeps Aeros Right Side Up.

_M. Moreau, a Frenchman, who through his experiments at Melun asserts that he has discovered the secret of automatic stability for aeroplanes, has just received $2,000 from an anonytnous patriot, and great excitement has been created in aviation if not in military circles by the invention. M. Moreau, before he took to aviation was a printer’s workman, and he has spent all his savings in perfecting his invention. The novelty in his design, so far as cain be judged from what has been made public, consists in a suspended cage that contains the seat of the pilot and room for passengers. It is described as a pendulum seat, and the way it is attached under thq frame at a certain point between the propeller and the horizontal rudders influences the center of gravity, which is maintained constantly at a fixed point by the movements of the pendulum Beat.

The Usual Way.

“That’s just like the deceit of woman to make her husband beat the carpet.” “How was that deceitful?” “She wanted to throw dust In his eves.” i

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER,. IND.

The manager of one of the big New York hotels, appreciating that no provision is made in such hostelries for the children of guests, has established a completely equipped kindergarten and play-room, prettily decorated and in charge of an expert

NEW YORK A CITY OF FLATS

First Modern Apartment House Built 43 Years Ago. Rutherford Stuyvesant Got the Idea From Paris and Other Realty Owners Took It Up—Bring Very High Rentals Now. New York. —It might have been centuries instead of forty-three years since the first apartment house was. erected in this city, so great has been the improvement in this popular type of dwelling. Rutherford Stuyvesant, a member of the old Stuyvesant family, was the first to introduce the apartment in this country. He had seen apartments in Paris! They were popular there with the best of people. Besides, it increased the ability of the owner to pay his tax bills and other expenses. The tax problem interested, Mr. Stuyvesant, as he owned considerable property about the city. Probably this was the reason for his interest in Paris apartment houses. After convincing himself that they would go in New, York, he erected the Rutherford, at 142 East Eighteenth street, soon after the Civil war. It was known as the French flats, and was the talk of the town. The Rutherford Stuyvesant iiouse is still standing, and according to brokers, has comparatively few vacancies. It is five stories high, 112 feet wide and ninety-two feet deep. There are four apartments of seven rooms each to a floor. It has steam heat and hot water and is absolutely soundproof. The reception that met the apartment house was so great that many builders the apartment house field. Of late years the number has increased considerably. These builders have given up the construction of all but apartment houses, which has got to be a science requiring constant attention and application. Through this specializing New York baa been forced in the last ten years into the front rank as the apartment center of the world. Many of our apartments here rival palaces in grandeur and fittings. Scores of such houses may be found on Park avenue, Fifth avenue, Madison avenue, Broadway, West End avenue, Riverside drive and crosstown streets to the east and west of Central park. A private dwelling fitted in the fashion of many of the suites in houses along these streets would rent for figures many times that which is asked for these apartments. Many families hsve learned this and are giving up coitly dwellings to live in apartmen'. houses, in which they are deprived of nothing that they had in the dwellng, yet are saving several thousand dollars a year by the change, enough 'n many cases to maintain the latest ir. motor cars. Rent» have increased, but tho great improvement that has been made in apart? *ent houses warrants the increase. In other words, the increase in re»'a has not been as great as the increise made in the construction and appointment of these houses. South of One Hundred and Sixteenth street there is not an apartment house where a suite may be had for less than sl6 a room. In many of the best apartment houses SSO a room is nothing unusual. Apartments bf two and three rooms bring comparatively more rent than the large suites, S2O a room being the lowest redtal that a small size apartment can be had for. They run as high as S6O and S7O a room. In some of the ei* pensive small suite apartments to the west of Park avenue and on the side streets along the west side, $75 a room Is often received. Up to two years ago there were kitchenettes attached to small suite apartments. This year builders have not been permitted to build kitchenettes; instead miniature kitchens have been introduced.

KINDERGARTEN FOR HOTEL CHILDREN

Park avenue has usurped the honor of being the leading apartment street of the city. It is only a few yfears since builders of apartments gave any attention to the east side of the city. All their operations were along Broadway! Riverside drive and West End avenue. It is only a few years since the first apartment house was erected in Park avenue, yet most of the blocks on either side of the avenue from Fifty'second to Eighty-third street, are HneH now with tall apartments, which are said to be the best in the city. Though Park avenue is considered the leading apartment house avenue in the city, rentals there are not exorbitant—in fact, apartments in new buildings may be got to fit almost any purse. Six rooms and two baths can be had for $1,700 a year. Suites can be had even for less rent than this. From $1,700 rents range gradually to SIO,OOO, which is about the highest rental paid on the avenue. This rent is obtained in the seventeen story apartment at Seventyninth street. Prices in this house are from $9,000 to SIO,OOO. About two blocks away, at the corner of Fifth avenue and Eighty-first street, as high as $5,000 a year may be paid for apartments. This probably is the highest-priced apartment house in the world. * West End avenue has been the scene of most of the apartment house building on the west side since last season. Half a dozen fine houses have been erected there.

SOUNDED JUST LIKE SNEEZE

A Story From San Francisco About a Former Corporal of Impossible Name. San Francisco.—Corp. Mieczyslaw Smialkowski, quartermaster corps. Fort Greble, R. 1., war department orders have it, has just been discharged from the army by purchase, which reminds us that Corp. Mieczyslaw Smialkowski formerly served in the quartermaster corps at the Presidio of San Francisco under Mas. K. J. Hampton. One day Major Hampton had a bad cold and sneezed frequently, and that day Corporal Mieczyslaw went into Major Hampton’s office about ten times add asked that officer if he hadn’t called him when he hadn’t A man with a bad cold isn’t apt to be in the best of humors, and the eleventh time the corporal appeared without being called the major was mad clear through. “Doggone it; corporal," he snapped, "I’ve got a holy terror of a cold, and if you persist in coming in hefe every time I sneeze because you think I’m trying to pronounce your fool name. I’ll have you up before a summary court, if it’s the last act I do before I sneeze myself to death.”

LEAVES $500 TO CHINAMAN

Miss Edith Rebecca Lord Also Willed $150,000 to Blind Who Have Never Begged. New York. —Miss Edith Rebecca, Lord, daughter of John Taylor Lord, who died at Cannes. France, on July 7, 1909, left an estate valued at $379,481. One-half of her estate was left to heirs of John T. Lord. One of Miss Lord’s bequests waß SSOO to You Kee, "a faithful Chlnanjan, of California.” She willed $150,000 to the Gordon Fund for the Blind, London, for pensions to blind persons who have never begged alms.

Has Discarded Suitor Arrested.

Garfield, N. J. —Following Miss Anna Solla'e refusal to wed him, Vincent Nenchia natlecj a cross draped in crepe on the door of the Solla home here. The girl declared it was the sign of a vendetta threatening death. Nenchia was arrested.

ART MARVELS FROM THE SEA

Ancient and Valuable Relics Removed From Sunken Ship Off Tunisian Coast. Paris.—News has been received of an archaeological find of the greatest interest. At Madhia, on the Tunisian coast, five or six years ago some Greek sponge fishers noticed a strange, mass of wreckage lying at a depth of 130 feet to the north of Madhia lighthouse. Amid a jumble of timbers lay splendid marble columns, bronze statuettes, a superb life-sized boy’s figure and other treasures, which they succeeded in bringing to the surfacb. It has now been ascertained that the sunken ship was a vessel of about 400 tons, 100 feet long and 25 feet broad. She was laden with an extraordinary, heterogeneous cargo, not only blocks of marble, but bases and capitals for columns, effigies, statues, furniture, tiles, leaden piping, lamps, amphorae, etc. Am6ng the fragments were found figures of a demigod and a maiden and faun which correspond almost exactly with those upon what is known as the Borghese vase dug up in Rome and now in the Louvre. The bottom of the hold contains about sixty columns of bluish white marble thirteen feet high, which were probably one of the causes of the wreck of an evidently too heavily freighted ship. All the inscriptions deciphered relate to Attica and personages of the middle fourth century B. C., and it might have been thpught that the vessel dated from that period but for the Boethus statue and a lamp of a pattern only introduced into Attica at the end of the second century B. C. Some writing on lead ingots also is in the Latin of that epoch and experts have concluded so far that the vessel was loaded in Attica for Rome and' probably the cargo was the spoil after the taking of Athens by Sulla in 86 B. C.

STUDIES TO HELP HUSBAND

Mrs. Friely Taylor First Co-Ed to Enter Engineering School of Northwestern University. Chicago.—Mrs. Friely Taylor Is the first co-ed to enter the engineering school of Northwestern university at Evanston. She plans to gain a theoretical knowledge of engineering, so she may help her husband, who Is

Mrs. Friely Taylor.

working as a practical engineer, bat who never had the advantage of a college course. Twice a week Mrs l*aylor goes out with the class In.surveying and does her share of “finding corners." “stake driving,” and /'tight

The QNLOOKEP

HENRY' HOWLAND

%miss (Ms

l left my cares behind me yesterday, And learned to greet with kindness those who doubt me; What right have I to lag upon my way. Or bitterly spread .gloominess about me? The little troubles that I thought I had As soon as I inspected them departed: What right have I to halt those who are glad - And try to teach them to be heavyhearted? My tasks, once hard, have ceased to terrify. I find that joy may even lurk in duty; Where others praise the scene what right have I To sadly try to blihd them to Its beauty? I Why feed the little fears that bring dlsmay, Why sadly rise each morning to renew them? I left cares behind me yesterday, Because there was no fealn j n clinging to them.

MATTERS OF OPINION.

One of the most unsatisfactory things aboht the artistic temperament is that it so seldom is accompanied by anything that even remotely resembles art. The man who is his own worst enemy ;s likely to make the loudest complaints about the danger of trusting one’s friends. Solomon in all his glory was nowhere beside the boy in uniform who comes home on his first vacation from the military academy. When a woman calls a man a bear it is not necessarily a sign that she expects him to hug her.

At a Disadvantage.

“Did you enjoy your afternoon at the Finchleys?” "No, to be candid, I did not. Mrs. Kafiippe talked about her dog and Mrs. Shapeleigh gushed about her parrot and Mrs. Muchmore told us about the smart things her Angora cat does, while Mrs. Wayburn was enthusiastic ahout a pet monkey that her husband brought her from South America. I had nothing but my baby to talk about, so, of course, they were 1 not interested.”

What It Was For.

“This is a fine city hall you have planned,” said the chairman of the commssion, “but there’s one thing that my fellow members of the board and X have been unable to understand. Your plans show a little booth or anterroom just outside the main entrance. What is that for?” "That?” replied the architect, "Oh, that’s a place in which the officials may check their consciences when they go into office.”

A Better, Brighter World.

"The world Is growing better," he confidently said; .“The outlook's growing brighter, the way > Is clear ahead. The foolish only grumble, the weak sit In despair; The strong are up and doing and winning everywhere. "The world is growing brighter and falrar day by day; The burdens that were heavy are being put away; The world is growing better," he bravely said, and ceased; He’d married off his daughter-and got his pay Increased.

Couldn't Stand the Nuisance.

“He complains that he was unable to get along with his wife’s relatives.” “What was the matter? Did they al| want to live his expense?” “No. His father-in-law wanted him to, earn the salary 4he was getting from the old gentleman.”

He Should Be Suppressed.

Nothing so exasperates a Woman as a man who insists on remaining bashful after she has offered him Inducements for making advances.

Hard to Do.

It seems to be Impossible for any Had to dp much that is worth while and make a loud noise at It. * .’ . .