Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 274, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 November 1914 — Page 2

HIS MASTERPIECE

By W. E. PRICKETT.

(Copyright by Daily Story Pub. Co.) In old Paris, in the heart of the crumbling, begrimed Quartier Latin, lived Louis Diable, artist He was tall and very slender, with narrow shoulders, sunken chest long arms and legs. His sallow face, with its complement of beady eyes and sharp offset by black mustache and goatee, marked a striking resemblance to the being whose name he Because of an extremely limited wardrobe, Diable wore upon all occasions a broadcloth suit of ancient pat- , tern which, though dilapidated, ill- ’ fitting and faded, was in keeping with the other articles of apparel he affected. Louis worked only When the craving of the inner man demanded sus- | tenance, and during, his leisure hours he frequented the cases of the Quarter or the studios of his bohemian acquaintances. The productions of his brush were weird and fantastic. Some said he copied Dore; others claimed that such productions could only be conceived hy the devil himself. “The face, the name —mon dleu; he Is the devil himself." The appellation bad clung to him through life and had rankled his brain till he dreamed devils and was haunted, during wakeful moments in the silent hours of the night, by grim specters that rose out of dark corners tn his room. Perhaps absinthe, to which he was rapidly enslaving himself, could account for the mad fantasies of his imagination ; howbeit, this torture of mind and soul Increased with the quantity of wormwood he consumed. The chaff of his associates became intolerable, so he began to seek unfrequented cases and deserted streets that he might encounter no one who knew him or his peculiar cognomen. At length Diable resolved to portray upon canvas a being so grotesque, horrible and inhuman that it would Indeed be the devil of all dev11$. It should be his masterpiece! Paris would ring with his name! His acquaintances would taunt him no more; indeed, with fame and fortune tn his grasp he would forsake the Quarter and its distasteful associations, and remove to a more pretentious domicile, there to live in ease, happiness and luxury. He. would blot the past forever from his memory. Inspired by these ambitions he set to work. Never had he toiled so assiduously. He scarcely took the requisite time for eating and sleeping. He admitted no one to his studio; was deserted by the few friends who remained loyal to him, and was therefore Isolated from the world about him with the picture which slowly crept from his brain to the canvas. The color seemed io eke from his soul through fingers and brush, every touch of which was an atom of life to the painting that was converting the coarse, white surface into a colossal monster, rising from the depths of an inferno of fire and torture. Several weeks of unceasing application brought his work near completion, and the afternoon of June 2, 188—» found Louis Diable putting the finishing touches on his great “master- . piece.” The figure that towered above him was an uncanny, composite blending of man and the supernatural, though the long, hairy limbs suggested a gorilla and the body a monstrous toad. The leering eyes possessed a snake-like fascination. The molding and treatment fit the figure were per- ■ feet, and the flesh fairly seemed to quiver in the flames that were licking Its surface. He was now working on the creature's face. He had painted out and repainted It a dozen times, for each time it strangely, resembled his own, though in which particular feature he was unable to determine. It bothered him. He paused a-moment and, stepping back a few paces, studied the face at-, tentively through half-closed eyes, tilting his head first to one side and then to the other. Was his imagination tricking him? No; the resemblance was undisputably there. But where. His countenance lighted with a revelation. It was the mouth! Like a spider pouncing upon an enmeshed victim, he seized a brush and petulantly dashed a wide daub of crimson across the offending feature. He was amused at the alteration and, with a grunt of satisfaction, drained a generous draught of absinthe —the seventh he had imbibed that day. Physical and mental excesses had reduced Diable to a wreck of his former self, and this slight relaxation forced him to a realization of his condition; so he drew up an easy chair before the picture and dropped languidly into its cushioned depths to rest a moment and smoke a cigarette before resuming his work. The tired mind and body soon succumbed to the influences of the absinthe and tobacco, and drowsiness overcame him. As the shadows darkened he sank into a deep sleep, ike half-burned cigarette dropped from his fingers to the floor and smoldered there, threatening to ignite the oily paint spattered about under the easel, but Louis slept on. Suddenly he started! The room was Ablas* with light! The Inferno wan 4

no longer confined to the canvas, but was spreading arcSmd him! The monster was moving and stretching a bony arm toward him. He heard the bones crack and the niuscles creak as the arm became released from its captivity. He sprang from his chair, horror-stricken, but was seized roughly by the» claw-like hand and hurled to the floor, where he lay, dazed and helpless. He tried to cry out, but the smoke and flames which enveloped him choked the, cry in his throat. The devil leaped from the canvas and 'danced before him, while its mouth widened into a ghastly grin. The crimson which Louis had dashed across It now began to trickle down the chin to the massive chest, adding a tinge of bipod to the spectacle. Louis gazed at the monster with conflicting emotions of rage, fright and disgust, until suffocation roused him to action. Then, with almost insane fury, he jumped to his feftt and grappled with hi*-tormentor. Ke fought him with desperation, as bacx and forth in the inferno they swayed and struggled together. The characteristics, Louis had so cunningly wrought in the demon now camfl forth in terrible reality. The crushing embrace of the gorilla arms nauseated him and caused his eyeballs to start from their sockets. He made superhuman efforts to extricate himself, but found that he was power? less to do so, pitted against such herculean strength. The heat of the fire was becoming so intense that Louis felt his flesh singe and crack, but the fiend only screeched and yelled exultantly at him in his agony.

Oh, God! Why had. he Invented this monster to wreak its dastardly work upon its creator! He could endure the pain no longer—it was consuming him —then came a lucid moment. The truth flashed across his brain! The struggle with the demon had been a cruel hallucination. His room was burning and he was perishing in the fire. He had realized it too late! A yawning abyss opened beneath him. All was darkness. He suffered n<f longer. He was sinking—sinking. In the Figaro next day appeared the following news item: - “An apartment building in the Rue St M was partially burned early last evening. The fire originated in the studio of Louis Diable, an artist, who, It Is feared, lost his life In the flames. The 'firemen are diligently searching among the ruins and debris for his body. The caretaker of the building says,” etc., etc., etc.

PROPER FREEDOM OF CHILD

Writer In the Atlantic Finds Some Fault With the Modern System of Training Him. An exceedingly complex subject, this question of the freedom of the child, writes Simeon* Strunsky in the Atlantic. I am not sure that I understand it. Neither am I sure that the militant advocates of the freedom of the child understand it. At any rate, in so many arguments about the rights of the child, I find a lurking argument for the rights of the parents as against the ehild. The great, implication seems to be that the modern way for a mother to love her children is to have the teacher love them for her. The modern way to train the child is to deny him the indulgences which the child, as the victim 1 of several tens of thousands of years of foolish practice, has learned to expect from his parents. The freedom of the child seems to demand that he shall be restrained, in his desire for personal communion with_his parents which may the latter’s freedom to realize*fhemselves in their own adult interests, whereas at school the child must not be restrained in going about the serious, business of his life. There must be method Amd discipline in the matter of a child's sitting up after supper to wait for father from the office. But he must be allowed the utmost freedom in learning to read numbers up to 1,000 and Roman numerals to XX. No fetters must be imposed upon Harold’s,personality when he'is studying the date of the discovery of America, but there are rigorous limitations on the number of minutes he is to frolic with me in bed or to interrupt me at the typewriter when I am engaged in rapping out copy which the world could spare much, more, easily than Harold’s soul can spare a half-hour of communion with me.

She Didn't Understand.

A Philadelphia employer of a temperamental stenographer is a man of practical sense and real kindness, who wants the girl to succeed at her business. The other day he called her into his private office and had a fatherly talk with her. Later one of her colleagues in the same building met her in/the elevator. “Say, Gladys," she said, “what’s this about your boss having a heart-to-heart talk with you this morning?" "Heart; nothing,” responded the temperamental creature tossing her blond locks like an oriflamme of war, “what he handed to me hadn’t no more heart in it than there is in a slab of liver at a ten-cent beanery. See?” ■ > Which is ene reason why girl stenographers can bo hired at |6 a week.

Deserved His Fate.

“Why are you here?” queried the visitor to the prisoner. “I forged my own fetters," replied Jim, Jthe penmafa, and then the steel gate clanged menacingly upon his atrophied conscience.—Philadelphia Ledger. 4 •' : .

THE EVENING-REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

IN A FRENCH RED CROSS TRAIN

First photograph showing the interior of a French Red Cross train in which wounded soldiers are being hastily conveyed to the nearest hospital.

Woman Saves Town

“Boss” of Soissons Greatest Heroine of War. Mme. Jeanne Watteau Macherez, In Absence of Civil Authority, Meets Germans and Convinces Them City Cannot Pay Indemnity. By WILLIAM PHILIP SIMMS. (United Press Staff Correspondent.) Paris. —In Soissons, while shells from opposing French and German batteries criss-crossed over the rooftops, whistling singularly like the air brakes of a train, I got an interview with Mme. Jeanne Watteau Macherez, the greatest heroine of the war. - Mme. Macherez is president, of the Dames Francalses, an organization something like our own Colonial Dames. It was she who, in the absence of all civil authority in Soissons, went out to meet the Germans and outdid them in an attempt to levy a tribute on the city.- When others left the stricken place on the eve of German occupation she took charge; she took over the civil business of the city; she ran the hospitals; she superintended the city’s sanitation, the city’s safety, the city’s street cleaning and everything. The circumstances of my interview with her were of the strangest. A military aviator whom we had seen flying over the city before, dodging behind patches of clouds at an altitude of some 4,000 feet to escape a rain of shells hurled by German batteries planted in rock quarries north of the city, had reported a large force of Germans marching against Soissons at a distance of not more than a mile. The French had gone to meet them; As we talked the rapid-fire guns. were, making a noise something like a threshing machine |n the distance, and an intermittent cackle of rifles could be heard less than a mile off. We stood in the street in front of the city hall. Fifty feet away, in a tiny public park which had but recently smiled with bright flowers, half a dozen men were burying the carcasses of seven horses killed an hour before by a German shell. “If, the Germans get back into the city this time,” I asked, “are you going to stay?” “I shall be all the more needed If they come back,” Mme. Macherez replied simply. “When they came the first time how did they behave?” “They wanted an Indemnity from, us, but I induced their commander to accompany me about the city to prove to him that he was asking too much. . I convinced him that we could give no more than we had." This was Mme. Macherez’s modest way of putting it. Before Seeing her T ha4-been told how by infinite tact she had resisted the demafid for tons of foodstuffs, tobacco and great quantities of wines, and had finally secured . better terms from the Germans. She had bargained like a veteran, tenaciously and at great length, and when at last the Germans were driven back they held her in profound respect. In all I talked with the woman “boss” of Soissons some fifteen minutes. They tell me that this was the longest time she had stood in one spot since the shelling of Soissons had begun. At that she was constantly giving orders and directions, stopping strangers and otherwise carrying on her duties just as though Jthe street were her office. . “And who’s going, to win?” I. asked as she started away. w “We are, of course,” she said with conviction. /‘The hearts M the wornen of Franc'fe are in the fight no less \han are the hearts of the men. Then, too, we have the English with us here

in France and the Russians on the other side of Berlin.” “And what are you getting out of all this?” I almost shouted, for a shell was making its noisy flight overhead, “Just what every true French woman is getting,” she Smiled. “A heart _full of satisfaction.”

TEA TAKES WINE’S PLACE

Champagne’s Vintages Exhausted, French Soldier Writes—Slaughter by Bombs. 4 Paris.—The Temps has received the following letter, written in pencil, from the front: “I have been running across fields from one destroyed village to another in the midst of the odor of corpses which persists, owing to the fact that the graves of those killed in battle were not dug sufficiently deep . “Yesterday we took three villages with the bayonet. “The German companies now average only 95, notwithstanding the re-en-forcements which they have received. They are dying of hunger. Twenty bombs fall on them dally. On an average four persons are killed by each bomb. Where our 75 millimeter shells are well placed they are estimated to account for 30 dead per shell. “All the wine in Champagne has been drunk and we are now reduced to tea. I sleep here and there, whereever I am, and would find It disagreeable to sleep in bed. We eat well and the food is excellent. We are all in the best of spirits.”

ARMY HAS ITS POST OFFICE

Flood of Mail Passed by Censor Now Being Received by Soldiers at Front. • London. —Thousands of letters and cards postmarked “Army Base Post Office” and bearing a circular mark in red, which means approved by censor, -are now being received daily. The promptness of the delivery is in striking contrast to the slow moving of commercial mail and a tribute to the completeness and efficiency of the British army equipment. Every command in the- battle line has its field post office tent containing collapsible sorting racks, folding table, letter box, mail bags and other necessary paraphernalia, with an attachment of the army post office corps in charge. The army post office corps is made up of the London post office employees enrolled in,the territorials or militia. In the Egyptian campaign of 1882 the corps first saw service, consisting then of 100 men and two officers. During the South African war the force was increased to 648 officers and men, of whom, several were killed In action, while 50 died of disease. Its record week at the time was the distributing of 313,416 letters and 19,019 parcels and the dispatching of 108,150 letters and packets.

MAKE THE BUTCHER HUMANE

Old Horses Are to Be Converted into Food by More_Merciful Methods. London. —The shipping of worn-out horses to the slaughter houses in Holland and Belgium, which created a scandal, has been stopped, perhaps permanently, by the war. To prevent its revival, a commercial company has been formed with the approval and assistance of the Royal society for the Prevention ot Cruelty to Animals for the purpose of converting Worthless horses into salable products. But unlike in the slaughter houses of the continent, whose revolting methods shocked all England and caused parliament to pass a law regulating the traffic, the animals, will have humane treatment until they receive- a painless death. * *

NO COUNT OF DEAD

Germany Ready to Sacrifice Best for Fatherland. * r ' Teuton Writes That Victories Over Allies Have Stimulated Business — Capital of Empire Resumes Almost Normal Life. Chicago.—Claims of victories over the allies have greatly stimulated business In Germany, according to a hotter received by Jacob A. Rosenfield, from his cousin, E. C. Frank, who is In Constance, Germany. “Business is picking up,’"'says Mr. Frank. “We do about half the usual amount and manage to keep • afloat. We still eat three meals a day. There are some branches of industry, -especially those catering to foreign trade, that do suffer, but the government takes care of the unemployed and of the women and children whose pro* viders are in the field. The erftps help us wonderfully. “Germany is the only country involved In the war which is getting along without a moratoriums We pay as .much as we can, and eo do bur customers. Today it is considered in the business world a patriotic duty to fulfill a financial obligation. “One wonderful thing I have noticed—the perfect disappearance of different classes. I speak of those left behind who were kept apart all their lives through political opinion, religion, fortune or other things. Today you find neither poor nor rich, neither employer or employed, neither Jew nor Gentile x. they are all united, welded together, to do what they can to save their vaterland. “And now about our dead. The best and the noblest ones have already fallen; even In our little town scores of them In the prime of life. If you pick up newspapers all over the lanfi your eye sees announcements" Jlke this: “‘On the 15th of this month fell on the field of honor my only son,

(Name.) (Signed.) “No more, no less. “Condolences are out of order, and there is no desperate mourning. The nation is ready to sacrifice the best they have to defend their home against a barbarian enemy. Germany today does not count its dead.” A correspondent of the Chicago Dally News, writing frffin Berlin says: “Life in Berlin is growing more nearly normal every day. It is beginning to be realized by. those who were confident of a quick and Crushing defeat of the allies that the fighting must progress by inches against a hard-necked foe. This has long been realized by the army, but people far from the front and as not faced by the frightful cost of war had to see the city filled with the pitiably wounded and had to wait for weeks without inspiring news before realizing the bitterness of the conflict. “Though the enthusiasm may be less noisy, there is no lack of confidence in the ■ final victory. General von Hindenburg remains the hero of the hour and it frequently is said that the conqueror of the Russians will be made a prince .after the .war. “The 'socialist newspaper,- Vorwaerts, recently published the striking statementthat after taking a census of socialist trade unions at the front it was found that up to September 7 the number was 590,000,"

HOW TWO FOUGHT A DOZEN

Stirring Incident In Which Irish Dragoon Guards Tackle Superior Force. London. —How two men, one of them, wbunded, fought a dozen uhlans is described by a trooper of the Royal Irish dragoon guards. - “There was a man of outs,” he states, “who carried a chum to a farmhouse under fire, and when the retreat came got left behind. The German patrol called and found them. There were only the two, one wounded, against a dozen uhlans. Behind a barrier of furniture they kept the Germans at bay, wounding or killing half of them. “The Germans made off, and brought a machine gun to the house and threatened to destroy it. The two soldiers were not unmindful of the kindness shown them by the owners of the farm, and, rather than bring loss on them or the village, they made a rush out, with some mad ideas of taking the gun. Just over the threshold of the door they fell dead. “People may call them pigheaded for not surrendering, but that sort of wrong-headedness is worth a lot as inspiration to others.”

CALLS BELGIAN DOGS HEROES

They Do Good Work in Drawing Quick Finer* Into Action, Bays Soldier. Paris.—A Belgian soldier, speaking of the operations at the front makes especial mention of the useful work being done by the Belgian , doys. He says they not only are used in searching for the wounded, but that they play an Important role in dragging carts on which are mounted quick-firers. ‘ i He assured the correspondent that the greatest din of the cannon never seemed to affect these animals in th* slightest degree.

HOME TOWN HELPS

ADVICE OF EXPERT NEEDED Other Cities Would Do Well to Romember This Counsel Given • to New York. . This city-planning department, while made up of men who have made a study of city planning, should be advised by outside experts, whose salary should be a small percentage of the money saved by their advice. Such a commission or board should have the same power as the bureau of highways or bureau of building, gas and water supply. It should be a permanent organization so that the work once started should not terminate with the termination of the general municipal administration in force. ) It would be the duty of the cityplanning department to co-operate with other departments in order to obtain the best results. At present city planning in New York is being carried-on to a certain extent by a more or less informal committee of the board of estimate and apportionment, which, while including high city officials, contains no expert in city planning, and its. members are largely, if not wholly and necessarily, occupied with other affairs of the city’s administration. Under such circumstances it is impossible for justice to be done the city in the highly Important work of city planning, which affects the future of the city for numberless generations to come. Surely this is a condition which should be remedied. —New York Sun. <■ /

START THE GARDEN SUBURB

Residents Should Haye a Proprietary Interest In That Ideal of Dwelling A new city cannot every day be willed into existence. A “garden suburb” has been found easy where a garden city has been too difficult. It is essential to the success of the plan that the people who are to live there should have a proprietary-inter-est in it A company is formed. A 5 per cent dividend is looked . .spy. Homes may be rented. Profits in excess of 5 per cent arp returned in shares to a tenant in proportion to the rent paid until his. share capital equals the value of the house he occupies, which thus- becomes htaown. After that, if profits from other rents and other enterprises and from the development of the “suburb” still accumulate, the tenant receives his share In cash. The garden city is not an experiment It is a fact The garden suburb is not an experiment. It is full work. The old world' has shown us what we can do.'

It Isn't Your Town—lt’s You.

If you want to live In the kind of a town Like the kind of a town you like, You needn’t slip your clothes in a grip And starLgp a ' on S, Ion Y hike. You’ll only find what you left behind, For there’s nothing that’s really new. It's a knock at yourself when you knock your town. It Isn’t your town—it’s you! Real towns are not made by men afraid Lest somebody else gets ahead. When everyone works and nobody shirks You can raise a town from’ the dead. And if while you make your personal stake Your neighbor can make one too, Your town will be what you want to sea. It isn’t your town—lt’s YOU. —Wilmington.

Lack of Color.

Too many home places suffer from a tack of tone or color. Many plants with llght-oolored flowers, vast stretches of cement or gravel walks, faded and undecided shade In the house paint, all tend to a wishy-washy effect. that Is sadly In need of brightening. Such conditions call for, not a mere toudh of color, but a dominance of some strong-growing plant of effectiveness. Scarlet geraniums or Ragged Robin roses in masses or hedges win bring the desired effect and produce a really wonderful transformation in what was formerly a very uninteresting prosjiect. j

Manicure Shops Spread Disease.

Many serious cases of infection of the hands have been traced to the manicure shops. The operators as a rule have no idea ofXhe Importance of sanitation and sterilisation. Felons and other diseases of the hands are conveyed to patrons of these shops by using utensils which have not been sterilized. of skill in handling the instruments is another way of spreading infection. After treating the hands of each visitor the operator -should disinfect all the- Instruments she used, also she should sterilise her own hands. If these precautions are observed disease will not be spread.

Taking No Chances.

Prospective Father-In-Law—You’ve got some cnut to ask me for an advance payment of the dowry. I think you are a fortune hunter. The Count—Oh, no, monsieur, I am only what you a American call se "Safety First” crank.—Judge.