Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 259, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 November 1914 — Page 3

GIANTS and DWARFS of the INSECT WORLD

by HAROLD BASTIN

people believe that jp.ll insects are very small; and in a certain sense this is true, for the largest known insect appears diminutive when con- • trasted with the vast bulk of such a creature as a whale or an elephant. But this is hardly a fair comparison, because insects are in every way dissimilar to vertebrate animals, having developed along entirely different lines. In place of physical hugeness we find amazing delicacy of structure and adjustment; and if we liken the vertebrate to a locomotive engine, the Insect must be represented by a lady’s watch to complete the metaphor. In line, multum in parvo has been the ■watchword of insect evolution. Nevertheless, when judged in their own sphere, insects display a remarkable range of size. Take, for example, the beetles. The largest living representatives of the clan are the Goliaths of Africa and the Megasomas of tropical South America. A fair-sized male specimen of the latter measures four and a half inches from the tip of the horn to the extremity of the abdomen. The male of the Hercules beetle, also of South America, may be two inches or more longeif but wellnlgh half its length. Is made up by the great hornlike process which springs from its thorax. A good idea of these beetles’ huge proportions may be gained by placing one of them side by side with a common two-spot ladybird. Yet the lady- ’ bird is by no meahs a small beetle as beetles go. Comparisons no less striking may be made among the moths. The largest British moth is the “Death’s Head” —a truly noble Insect with a wing expanse of four and a half inches. But its proportions are sadly .dwarfed when we contrast them with the huge Owl moth —the Noctua strlx of science—which is not uncommon In many parts of South America. f _ It may measure ten inches or more •cross. Then there is the giant Atlas moth, from India, which may measure as much as a foot from tip to tip of the fore-wings. For the sake of familiarity we may place the little clothes moth of our wardrobes at the other end of the scale —though it is not .by any means the smallest of its kind. The Atlas and the Owl moths mentioned above have larger wings than any other living insects, so tar as Is known; but they are not the largest flying Insects on record, for some of the extinct dragon flies of the carboniferous period measured two feet •cross the wings. The largest British dragon fly, with a wing expanse of four inches, is a pygmy, contrasted size for size with one of its gigantic prehistoric ancestors. Among the largest existing insects must be reckoned the giant waterbugs, some of which attain a length of nearly five .Inches. In the United States these insects are known popularly as “electric light bugs,” because they have the habit at night of leaving the pools and lakes, where they get their living, and flying around arc lamps, especially when these are mounted upon high buildings. The British water scorpion is a well-known denizen of ponds and sluggish streams. It belongs to the same family as the giant bugs, besides which it may fairly be termed a dwarf. The longest of living insects are found among the phasmids, or “walking sticks.” Some attain nine inches from head to tail, while if the outstretched legs are included the measurement is much greater. Two of these strange insects are in marked contrast with a Stag beetle —the largest British beetle, by the way. Clearly these phasmids are “lohg drawn out” in a very literal sense of the phrase; but a few' of the species •re much heavier in build. This is the case with the very remarkable creature known as Eurycantha horrlda from Australia. It is not only long, but bulky, and what with its hard armor plate integument and formld-

DISLIKE FOR WHOLE NATION

Foolish Feeling Which Is Founded Generally on One's Experience Wl, th Individuals. Men talk of disliking or "hating** whole nations. They "hare no use for" French or Germans or Russians or English. It is a foolish feeling. If you have had the fortune to get acquainted with persons of different nationalities you have found them fine and delightful. Occasionally you may hays come

able array of prickles, It looks a decidedly dangerous customer.' One is relieved to learn that its tastes are exclusively vegetarian. The vast majority of the hymenoptera (the ants, bees, wasps and their relatives) are comparatively small insects, but among the solitary spider-killing wasps (Pompilldae) we find some notable exceptions. Some of these giants measure two inches or more from head to tail, and withal are exceptionally strong and vigorous insects. The largest species are found In South America, where they deal death and destruction to the spider population. Even the formidable bird-eating spider—a grim and hairy monster with fearsome fangs—is attacked and destroyed. It should be noted that these wasps do not themselves eat the spiders that they kill, but store them away In cunningly contrived nests for the benefit of their young. Our little Pompllus viaticus (unfortunately it has no popular name) behaves in precisely the same way, but naturally chooses spiders proportionate to its own size. Even in this instance, however, the spider is usually several times heavier than

PRIDE OF GALLANT NATION

Three Boer Leaders, as Famous In Statesmanship as They Were In War. Gen. Jacobus Hendrik de la Rey, who was accidentally shot and killed by Johannesburg police, will be mourned by many a British officer now serving at the front. Knightly was a term worthily applied to Gen. de la Rey in the Boer war. A braver, gentler, more magnanimous soldier never faced an enemy. His countrymen called him the lion of the western Transvaal. Englishmen said that he was one of the. three military geniuses among the heroic burghers whose defense of their country compelled England to put 400,000 men In the field. The other great soldiers who won fame in the Boer war Iby their brilliant tactics were Louis Botha, now premier of the Union of South Africa, and Christian Rudolf de Wet, who is minister of agriculture of the Orange River colony. Louis Botha, the youngest of the three, born in 1862, commanded the Boers at the beetles of Colenso and Spion Kop, an< upon the death of Petrus Joubert F'a soldier and a gentleman and a brave and honorable opponent” in the words of Ladysmith's defender, Sir George White) succeeded to the command of the Transvaal forces. De Wet and De la Rey, the latter the older, were fighting men of the same type, and it would

upon a disagreeable one. Every nation, even your own, has such. But the chances are that your foreign acquaintance is sincere, honest, sympathetic and a good fellow. The man on the other side of the ocean wouldn’t be so different if you only knew him. The trouble is that you don't You lump a lot of disagreeable qualities together and label them by some national name and then denounce the nation. You may not like certain governmental policies abroad. You mar

w i , THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

the wasp itself. For these “dwarfs” of the insect world are by no mean* weaklings, but on the contrary, possess marvelous muscular force and what certainly is a well-nigh Inexhaustible fund of energy. Probably most Insects are stronger, and more enduring, in proportion to their size, than any of the higher animals. They are always active, and apparently quite beyond the reach of fatigue while life lasts. But ceaseless, rapid movement imposes a serious tax upon the machinery. Consequently w® find that the insect is almost always short-lived. It is said that the worker hWfe bee literally wears herself out, and dies, after a few weeks of toil for the benefit of the commonwealth in which she plays this brief part.

May Pick Cotton From Trees.

Experiments are now being made to cross the cotton plant of the southern states with the cotton tree of Panama. As our native cotton plant is an annual and has to be planted each year, while the producing life of the cotton tree is about ten years, the great saving is self-evident Replanting will only have to be don® once every ten years or more and th® boll of the hybrid is much larger than that of the plarjt. Bolls from the hybrid average 18 to the pound, while ordinary cotton bolls sometimes run as high as 80 to the pound.

be hard to say which showed the greater skill In surprising and capturing British detachments and afterward eluding pursuit. De la Rey had more solid achievements to his credit, among them Klerksdorp, where Lord Methuen, sorely wounded, fell into his hands and was released so that ho could obtain medical treatment. All three of these able soldiers aided the British in the reconstruction of South Africa. De la Rey visited India in 1903 to persuade th® Boer prisoners detained at Ahmednagar to take the oath of allegiance. He was returned unopposed to the first Transvaal parliament of th® union. Of the Boer leaders none had a more atractlve personality. ,It was a fine race of people that could produce such soldiers and statesmen, and never was there stronger proof excellence of British administration in our times than the winning of Botha, De la Rey and De Wet to the new order in South Africa. The empire has known no more loyal citizens.New York Sun.

Filling All Requirements.

"So you object to your fiance’s going to volunteer? Don’t you know that Lord Kitchener says any girl ought to be ashamed to love a man who does not wear a uniform ?** "That’s all right. My Johnny belongs to the church social band.**

properly object to illiberal or reactionary traits in the men in control. But It holds true today as it did in the time of Edmund Burke, that it is impossible to draw an Indictment against a whole people.—Kansas City Star.

A Trifle Belated.

*T see that Dilks has joined the great majority." ‘You don’t mean that he’s dead?" "Oh no. He merely postponed hawing, his Panama cleaned until about a week before time to quit wearing it."

FROM THE SWEET POTATO

Innumerable “Goodies” May Be Made by the Housewife Who Gives It • Little Thought For candied sweet potatoes cut parboiled sweet potatoes into lengthwise slices and put them in buttered pan. Cook for two minutes three-quarters of a cupful of water and two tablespoonfuls of butter. Brush the potatoes with this and bake them. Baste them with the sirup as they cook until they are well candied. Sweet potato balls that cause surprise are these: Season two cupfuls of baked sweet potatoes that have been pressed through a colander with salt and pepper and add a beaten egg and a little hot cream. Form into balls and into each press a pitted prune into which two walnut meats have been forced. This prime should not be visible. Dip the balls into crumbs and egg.. Then brown the potato balls in deep fat, drain and serve at once. Scalloped eweet potatoes are made by slicing parboiled potatoes into a battered baking dish and covering them with a well-seasoned white sauce. On top of the saucb put some melted butter and crumbs^and bake for about twenty minutes. French fried sweet potatoes are truly a delicacy. To make them, cut in thick lengthwise-sections some parboiled sweet potatoes and plunge them in a frying basket, into deep hot fat. Brown delicately, drain and season with salt.

GLEANINGS FROM COOK BOOK

Knowledge of How to Do Certain Things Will Save Housekeeper Much Trouble. Just a suggestion of how to do certain things will often be the means of saving the housekeeper a great deal of trouble. Here are a few gleanings from a famous cook book which may prove interesting to some reader. To cut cheese smoothly, fold paraffin papers over the knife blade. When making omelets allow one tablespoonful of cream or hot water for each egg. One cupful of sugar will sweeten one Quart of any mixture which is to be served cold or frozen. New sweet potatoes will not be so hard and dry if rubbed with butter before baking. When the white of an egg is beaten to a froth and added to the cream It will whip more quickly and easily. After cooking cabbage add to It, Just before serving, one small half cupful of thick sour cream. This is much better than vinegar. When currant bread has been baked, if it be wrapped in a damp cloth for a few days it will not crumble when cutting, and it will not be dry. The flavoring of shrimps is Improved if boiling water is poured over them a short time before they are served. It must be drained away immediately.

Housewifely Hints.

Now is the time to hang fresh bag* of lavender In one’s wardrobp and lay it plentifully among personal and household linen. Tiny sachets of it sewn into one's garments not only exude a delicious fragrance wherever one moves, but are an excellent preventive of infection. Lavender 1* the favorite perfume of both Queen Alexandra and Queen Mary, who get a large consignment, freshly distilled for them, from Mitcham each year and use it in great quantities. All the cushions in the queen mother’s boudoir are filled with a certain amount of new lavender every summer, sq that the room is always full of the delicate English perfume.

New Chicken Salad.

Take one cupful of cold chicken that has been chopped and shredded until very fine and one ounce of pate de foie gras.\ Add to it one ounce of cooking sherry, the beaten yolks of two egg* and a cupful of clear, chicken broth. Season to taste with salt and cayenne. Heat the mixture through and cooL Add one ounce of dissolved gelatin to a cupful of whipped cream. Beat the white* of three eggs to a froths and mix all lightly together. Put in a mold and set on ice six or seven hourt. Serve on a bed of green with mayonnaise.

Walnut Cream for Filling.

One and one-half cupfuls milk, scalded; one egg 'well beaten, scant one-half cupful sugar, dessert-spoonful each of ■alt; mix all with the egg, add to the milk and cook in double boiler until thick. When cool flavor with vanilla and add one cupful of walnut meats, ground fine. Spread .on cake. .If yon prefer use a white frosting'Qdjrop and decorate with whole nut meat*. ■—

Mustard Poultice.

This is used for a counterirritant z ln case of a pain in the chest, backache, etc. Into one gill of boiling water stir one tablespoonful of Indian meal; spread the paste thus made on a cloth and spread over It one teaspoon of dry mustard. Equal parts of mustard and flour made Into a paste and spread between two pieces of muslin make a mustard plaster.

Spiced Limes.

Bojl four quarts of limes in water until tender, drain off water, cut the limes in halves, put them in a jar and pour over them this sirup: One cup tul of vinegar, Ift cupfuls of molasses, aupful of water, two teaspoonful* of doves. 801 l a few minutes, then pour over the limes. They should be kept h Bttle while More eating them.

RISE KRUPP of the GUNMAKERS

NOW in these days when the great nations of Europe are' arrayed against Germany, the Teuton places his faith in the kaiser, the army, the navy—and Krupp. In the Krupp, works, because Krupp rifles, cannon and siege guns are the greatest in the world admittedly; while Krupp armor plate on Germany’s battleships is the most impenetrable. The house of Krupp, as a recent writer has said, is a national institution in the Fatherland, and its name is almost as revered as that of the Hohenzollern itself. Krupp guns and armor form a ring of steel about the Fatherland which it will require a miracle, believe the Germans, to pierce. The ironmasters of Essen have ruled a hundred years; and now a queen and a queen consort hold sway. The heads of the houses have been: Friedrich', founder (1787-1826); Alfred (1812-87); Friedrich Alfred (1854-1902),'and now Bertha, wife of Krupp-yon Bohlen und Halbach. And with the queen rules Dr. von Bohlen und Halbach, entitled by order of the kaiser upon bis marriage to designate himself Krupp von Bohlen, thus keeping alive the family name of the great gunmakers. For the last male of the line left only daughters, Bertha and Barbara. From a Small Beginning. “Great oaks from little acorns grow." So with the house of Krupp, which had its inception in a small forging plant near Essen that at one time did not have sufficient business to support it. The founder of the line, Friedrich, who was born at Essen, endeavored to make cast steel, the secret of which was carefully guarded in England. And in 1810 he founded a small/ forging plant near Essen for the production of cast steel after a process he had evolved. Mint dies, stamps for buttons, etc., were manufactured,' but, so small was the demand, the works could not be kept in operation. And, soon after 1820, Krupp was obliged to give up his house to occupy a small onestory laborer’s cottage near his plant The hut is etill preserved In the midst of the present gigantic, establishment Shortly before his death, however, thp first of the present day Krypps confided to his son, Alfred, the secret of making cast steel, which the latter developed successfully, Alfred, with the indomitable perseverance of the Teuton, a perseverance that captivates the imagination., continued in the face

of mountainous difficulties his endeavors to improve the manufacture of steel. Then came the Krupp opportunity—the great exhibition at London in 185 L The obscure Rhenish steelmaker from Essen-electrified the military universe with a six-pwhder of flawless cast steel. Since then the German army and navy have bought 29,000 Krupp guns. And 30,000 Krupp guns have been sold in the last half century to 52 nations throughout the world —23 in Europe, 18 in America, six in Asia, five in Africa. But the Krupps have never manufactured munitions of war for France. Alfred Krupp’s breech-loading rifle and cannon, adopted by the Prussian army in 1861, proved their superiority in the Franco-Prussian war. From then oL the factory became world famoua for its manufacture of heavy ordnance and armor plate. < Under the next Krupp, the output of the gun factory was increased and diversified by the incorporation of other enterprises. And now the Krupp von Bohlens not only have the immense plant at Essen, which comprises an area of 1,200 acres, 235 of them under one roof, as if ‘‘Sheffield and Pittsburgh had miraculously beeen transplanted and relied into one throbbing area,” but many other plants as well. At Essbn, and at the three neighboring 15-miie-long gun ranges of Meppen, 39,000 men are employed. At Krupp’s collieries in RhinelandWestphalia and Silesia, 10,000 miners dig coal for Krupp branch works at

DWELLINGSS of KRUPP WORKMEN

Annen and Gruson, where armor plats is made, and for Krupp blast furnaces at Rheinhausen, Duisburg, Neuwiei -and Engers, which, between them, keep another 15,000 pairs of hands busy. At Kiel 6,100 shipwrights build battleships, torpedo boats and submarines in Krupp's 55-acre Germania dockyard. In Germany and far away Spairi 5,000 miners are disemboweling ore from Krupp iron mines which, in the case of that mined in Spain, is shipped in Krupp steamers that unload their burden at Krupp docks at Rotterdam, there to be transshipped down the Rhine. For all those employes the Krupp pay roll totals >25,000,000 a year. Bertha Krupp Sole Owner. . When the last of the Krupp men died he gave the Krupp works to Bertha, his oldest daughter, now twenty-eight. She married, after a love affair at Rome, a young Prussian diplomat attached to the legation there, Dr. Kropp von Bohlen und Halbach. He is now managing director of the vast system of which she is sole owner. He n® longer is merely Bertha Krupp’s husband, however. He no longer is simply the man who married the greatest fortune in Germany. He has become the master of Essen in reality. The 75,000 members of the Krupp staff, and the community of 300,000 souls dependent upon KrUfcp employment, today look upon Krupp von Bohlen with the same spirit of reverential loyalty that inspired throe generations of workmen to regard the Krupps as their liege lords. In “The Men About the Kaiser,” Frederick William Wile paints about the couple a happy picture. The vast bulk of their time, he writes, la devoted to their home, their three children and their work people. The social work of the Krupps at their foundries and factories, among their work people, dates back to 186 V At that time, finding there were not in Essen sufficient houses for their employes, the Krupps began building dwellings. Now some four hundred houses are provided, many being given rent free to widows of former employes. A co-operative society divides profits according to the amounts purchased. A boarding house for bachelors now accommodates 1,000. Bathhouses are provided and employes receive free medical attention. Accident, life and sickness insurance soci-

eties among the menare given >60,000 a year by the firm for their support. There is a trust fund of onequarter million dollars for the benefit of the needy who are not qualified to receive pensions. There is also a fund for a building association. And technical and manual training school* are provided. "Altogether,” sums up Mr. Wile, "the Krupp von Bohlen* are inspiring reminders that the age of luxury and splurge is still adorned by folk to whom great riches can never be a curse.” And it is in the hands of the Krupp von Bohlens that the fate of Germany may rest.

After Waterloo.

One hundred years ago many of the principal European sovereigns and their chief advisers were turning their steps toward Vienna, where they were soon to meet for the purpose of readjusting the map of Europe, or in other words, of settling everything back as nearly as possible In the shape in which it was before the Napoleonic wars. The congress of Vienna, aa - the gathering is known in history, was notable for its distinguished personnel. Among those gathered at the court-of Emperor Francis of Austria, were the Czar of Russia and the kings of Prussia, Bavaria, Denmark and Wurtemburffi together with such eminent statesmen and soldiers as Prince Talleyrand, Prince Mettqrnteh, V»count Castlereagh and . the Duke < Wellington. |||