Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1915 — Page 3

A FISH-CHOWDER FEUD

By JOHN BARTON OXFORD.

Prom the galley companion came the noley clanging of the supper-ben. ' Twelve men ‘hurriedly dropped the trawls they were baiting and crowded Into the narrow forecastle. Tom Denude, the thirteenth man, was rather more leisurely. His way aoross decks to the forecastle took Tom past the galley, and at the companion hatch he stopped |to sniff. “Fish-chowder again?" he grunted In complaining and soulful disgust. “Flsh-chowder all the time! Nothin’ but fish-chowder on this old tub!” 1 Even as he stood there, mumbling his complaint, Evie Bishop, the trawler’s fat cook, came puffing up the companionway with a big fiat basket filled With heavy crockery mugs on his sum. In his other hand he bora a huge and steaming coffee-pot. Tom glared savagely at the cook. Then he sniffed the odor drifting up from the galley and glared harder. "Fish-chowder!” he snorted again. “All the time it’s fish-chowder on this her© croft! What’s- the matter with yer, Evie? Can’t you make nothin’ but that eternal fish-chowder?" Now fish-chowder —his particular variety of fish-chowder —was the pride of fat Evie Bishop’s simple heart. Any one who maligned that chowder touched Evie on the quick. “The boVs seem to relish that chowder pretty much,” said Evie with cold and crushing scorn. "Well, I don’t,” snapped Tom. “I’ve ett chowder till I’m ashamed to look a decent fish in the face.” "There’s them as says they couldn’t never git enough of that chowder,” Evie declared with pride. “Well, that ain’t me,” guowled Tom. “Seems to me it’s time we had somethin' else for supper once In a while.” "What’s the matter with the chowder I make?” Evie demanded, and his tones made the question a challenge. Tom shrugged his big shoulders and threw out-his hands, palms upward, in a despairing gesture.

"What ain’t the matter with it would be a simpler way of puttin’ It,” said he. The blood surged Into Evie’s thick neck, add thence to his leathery cheeks. * “Don’t you go to malignin’ my vittles,” he said hoarsely. "That’s a good chowder. I’ve been told by any quantity of folks that my chowders was the best they ever ett It’s only Ignorammersuses like you that ever finds fault with it—-folks that ain’t never been used to nothin’, anyway—-block-headed ignorammersuses, that can’t even read,” he emphasized his most telling shot. With his nose high in the air, he swept grandly past Tom Dennie and Into the little forecastle. , Tom waited there until Evie, grinning maliciously at the way his shot had gone home, came out of the forecast! e again. In a moment Tom’s big fingers were gripping tightly the cook’s left forearm. “Say, yer wanter take that back that yer Jest said about me—about my bein’ ign’runt,” he hlßsed. "Huh! I do—do I? Yer can't even so much as read,” the cook taunted again. - "You eat them words of youiu—you eat ’em right now!” bawled Ipm, giving the arm a more ezcrucia:ing twist.

Erie still had the big coffee-pot in his hands. Now he lifted it quickly and turned a good pint of the scalding fluid onto the back of the hairy hand that was twisting his arm. With a yowl of rage Tom caught up an iron capstan bar. What he might have done with it there is no telling, hut at that moment the skipper, attracted by the came poking out of the cabin. “Here! What’s goin’ on here?" he roared. "No fightin’, now. What’s the trouble between you two? Drop that bar, Tom! Drop it, I say! And yon, cooky, stop a menacin’ of him rwlth that coffee-pot. Now you git into Iyer galley; and you, Tom, go into the fo’castle and git yer supper.” ’Til git that darned cook before Fm done,” Tom threatened to the men about the table. "Jest went and scalt me, he did." The fishing was good that trip. In fire days’ time they were running for T wharf with a full fare. They swept past the lightship Just after dark.

Tom Donnie, tumbling aboard after the last of the mooring-lines were fast, aimost collided with Brie Bishop, Just coming out of the galley. For a moment they glared at .each other. Then the cook spoke. "Tom,” he said, “we been a chewin’ away at each other and neither one gittin’ any satisfaction. Whatter yer say if me and you goes ashore and settles this man to man fashion? If I wallop you, you buy me the best dinner I cam eat up to Cotter’s, in Dock square, and if you put it over me TO buy the dinner for you. Is it a go?” "Ter bet it’s a go,” said Tom with alacrity. T wharf is no place for fcettling such difficulties, so they poked down the avenue, crawled through the gate <of a wharf below, found an Ideal littie spot, even enough and properly (lighted, and peeled off their coats. There was a moment of cautions circling; then they doßed. The nearby freight-sheds echoed to grunts and

balf-clwked oaths and thudding blows. The cook drew first blood on Tomb nose, but a moment later he spat forth two of his front teeth. Then a bolt Of lightning, or a cannon-ball, or a mule kick, or something of the soft caught him full on the jaw. When the whole solar system had ceased to sparkle before his eyes and he scrambled weakly to his feet another bolt of lightning—or was it a 14-inch shell?—caught him once more. Tom stooped and pulled the cook to his none too steady pins. “Now yer can buy me the feed. Pm hungry for a good feed,” said he. “Yer’ll get it as soon as we can git to Cotter’s,” declared Evie. Cotter’s in Dock square was wellnigh deserted when they got there. Tom was rubbing his battered nose, and looking at Evie with a new and decidedly respectful interest. A waitress brought them red-bordered napkins and laid a bill of fare before each. Tom picked him up, blinking at it solemnly. "Anything you want, yer know,* Evie Invited. The respect in Tom’s eyes grew. Also he grinned across the table at his companion—a grin that lost somewhat in effectiveness by reason of Tom’s badly spilt lip.

“Ye’re a game little man,” declared Tom, whacking the table with one mighty fist. “Yer put up a peach of a fight. I wouldn’t 'a’ believed yer had It in yer. I know a game one when I see him, Evie; and that bein’ the case, yer’ll not be flndin’ me bleedin’ yer Any. Just bring; me—” Tom paused. He wrinkled and unwrinkled his heavy brows as he scanned that bill of fare. Evie noticed he was holding it upside down. , "Bring me some of this and a cuff of coffee,” said Tom pointing a pudgy finger at random to a line on the page.

And to the unbounded credit of Evie Bishop, let It here be stated that he did not so much as change a muscle of his face when the waitress set before the open-mouthed Tom a large and steaming bowl of —fishchowder! y* (Copyright.)

GAVE AWAY HARD-LUCK PIN

Hotel Clerk Who Got It Not Afraid of Ominoue Warning That Aocompanled It.

The superstitious among his fellow clerks at the McAlpin were a little “leery” of R. O. Elbert, the room clerk, when, after enviously admiring the big scarfpin they had Just seen Col. J. Harry Behan of Washington present him, they learned that every previous owner of the pin had killed somebody,-by accident or otherwise. Colonel Behan, who drove his automobile over here, has not escaped the ill-luck engendered by the possession of the pin, which is a dark stone, on which is carved a head that might be that of a Viking or a Hindu demon. Colonel Behan did not murder a man, but six months after the pin came into his possession his automobile struck an old man in Washington with fatal results. He told Elbert that he had since given the pin to three or four other persons, and that each had returned it to him after a spell of nervous prostration. He offered the pin to Elbert, but the latter hesitated. Yesterday Elbert jokingly remarked that he would take that pin and the risks accompanying it If Colonel Behan was really in earnest. The colonel took the pin from his tie and passed it over. According to the story that goes with the pin, it was at one time the property of an Indian prince. Elbert says he Is not superstitious, but he isn’t going to walk under any ladders. —New York Times.

The Value of Good Clothes.

Eccentricity is not to be desired either in dress or manners. It is only another name for vanity. Still, there is something to be said for those of us whose circumstances often require us to wear garments not cut after the prevailing mode. Good clothes, however, made In any fashion except the "latest extreme,” have a marked effect upon tke mental condition of the wearer. Even Emerson deigned to discuss the moral effect suitable clothes had upon certain temperaments. He Bays: ‘lf a man (or woman) have not firmness and have keen sensibilities, it is perhaps a wise economy to go to a good shop and dress irreproachably. Ope can then dismiss all care from the mind, and may easily find that performance an addition of confidence, a fortification that turns the scale in social encounters.” Tou have all heafd the experience of the woman Who declared that the sense of being well dressed gave her a feeling of inward peace which religion was powerless to bestow.—Suburban Life.

Formation-of-California Coast

The geologists tell us a strange story of the California coast. Ages ago its mountain peaks, mere reefs in a great expanse of am, rose to such a height that Santa Barbara channel was a vast valley over which roamed the elephant, camel, lion, saber-toothed tiger and other animals whose fossil remains are scattered over the country and some*of which are found the islands. Then the land again sank beneath the sea and again rose, and marine fossils are found in abundance along the shores and on the mountain tops many miles from the sea. Numerous gold banters have been surprised to find the skeletons df *h*leir*fc-*n elevation of 2,000 feed and two miles inland.

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

STILL IN STONE AGE

REMARKABLE NATIVES OF THE CAROLINE IBLANDB.

One of Their Moot Striking Peculiar!* ties le Their Use of Grindstones as What Might Be Catted a Form of Currency.

When the Japanese conquered Yap, capital of the Caroline islands, they found a good many things there to surprise them, for there is no quainter spot on the face of the globe, no place where the customs are more strange and more delightfully humorous from the point of view of the western world. Some time ago Dr. William Henry Furness 111. the scientist of Philadelphia, made at£|jpit to the islands and studied the character and customs of the inhabitants —probably the first time such a thing was ever done* He brought home with him a large collection of ethnological specimens, which he presented to the University museum, which is a department of the University of Pennsylvania. The most remarkable of the specimens are what appear to be a lot of grindstones. These are coin of the realm in the Caroline islands and nothing else is used except a few clam shells for very small change. Now, in the Caroline islands nature provides the people with everything that most men work hard to get—food, shelter and clothing. The food is abundant, the shelter easy to make and the amount of clothing depends entirely upon the style and not comfort, The only thing the people need money for is to get ornaments of various sorts, and so it came about that grindstones became the currency of the realm. It nfay he noted that when the first white people reached Yap there was not in any of the Caroline islands anything resembling metal. These people were still In the stone age, and there they are for the most part today. The grindstones are not for use, for they have no need for axes or scythes. They come from the Pellew islands, many miles away, and are fetched on rafts with sails and paddles, although In modem times prosaic steamships sometimes perform the service. A chicken can be bought with a grindstone weighing 100 pounds, a pig for 600 pounds and a wife for half a ton. Some of these Btones are* 12 feet in diameter and weigh five tons. They are only rudely circular and have a hole in the center proportioned to the size.

The owner of the money does- not consider that possession is even one point in the law. Generally he does not take his stone with him. The richest family In the Islands, the one which may be called the Rockefeller outfit of Yap, is In what would be by most persons looked upon as in a sad condition. It owns by far the largest grindstone ever mined in the Pellew islands. Figures as to its size vary,-bat there is no doubt that it is enormous nor that it is owned by the multimillionaire family of Yap. The seemingly unfortunate thing is that it is at the bottom of the Pacific ocean, having fallen off the raft inf transportar tion. That, however, does not mean anything to the people of Yap. They are not ostentatious of their wealth. They own that stone and that is all there is to it. The university museum has other specimens from Yap which make one think that Alice in Wonderland was not wholly a figment of the Imagination. It may be that Lewis Carroll had been to the Caroline islands.

Delayed “Last Momenta.”

• In the battle of Friedland, on June 14, 1807, there was a young lieutenant in Napoleon’s army named Schramm. When the victorious general was riding over the battlefield that evening he came upon the eighteen-year-old officer lying on the ground, mortally wounded, and weeping bitterly. “Why do you weep?” asked Napoleon as he rode by. "Because I ‘must die before I can become a captain,” the youth complained. The words of the dying lieutenant softened the emperor's heart. "My son, I shall gladly fulfill your wish,” he ‘said. "I hereby advance you to the rank of captain.” The unexpected promotion actually saved the boy'B life; he recovered. Later on he fought most valiantly for the cause of Napoleon, and by the time of the battle of Waterloo he had already become a general. He outlived his “last moments” on the field of Friedland by more than seventy years.— Youth’s Companion.

At the Telephone.

A convenient telephone index is made to slip over the mouthpiece—or rather under it, for the mouthpiece must be unscrewed to put the index on. It is circular in form, and the little index flaps, of green leather let-, tered In gold, radiate from the center. They push in and out, behind and in front of each other, to expose the iltyle wedge-shaped sections on which Hie numbers are written. There is one division headed "Emergencies," on - which the police and fire numbers, the doctor’s number and any frequently numbers may be written.

How It Hurts.

Clerk—Tea, miss, all face powders have gone up In price On account of the war. - Justhorrid!— Judge.

FOUND THINGS HAD CHANGED

Auto Made It Impossible'for De Weft to Repeat Famous Deeds on the Veldt.

Christian De Wet was the most pioturesque, resourceful and elusive figure on the Boer side of the South African war a dozen years ago. The efforts of the British forces to "round him up” were futile for many months. He and his followers were always turning up in the most unexpected ways and places. His maneuvers, his stratagems, were deemed real additions to the "art of war” in the cavalry branch, or rather in the handling of "mounted infantry,” to be technically correct.

Hence when General De Wet went into insurrection against the Union of South Africa and on the side of England’s foes there was general expectation of a gamesome time. Whatever the effect, if any, on the final outcome of the war of his operations, it was expected that De Wet would supply the material for a lot of "stories,” as amusing to neutral readers as they were exasperating to his military opponents. But the event proved that De Wet had not reckoned with the new factor that has come into war since he ranged the veldt a dozen years ago.

He and his followers rode and raided with all his old skill and invention. The difference was that they never had a chance to rest. They had horses in plenty, they knew the country like the backs of their hands, but no matter how fast or skillfully they rode they-could never really get away from their foes. Though their horses wearied and died, behind them the motor cars of their foes, the horses of steel that fed on gasoline, kept remorselessly chugging on. The Herald has before suggested this should be termed “The Automobile War.” The running down of De Wet, the unequaled horseman of the veldt, emphasizes the merit of the suggestion—Chicago Herald.

DEADLY POISON FLY PAPERS

List of Accidents Covering Only a Few Days Should Show the Danger In Their Use. .;

Considering the safe up-10-date methods of destroying that peat, the domestic fly, it Is remarkable that people will persist in using the poison fly papers. The basic toxic principle of all these papers is arsenic, one of the deadliest and most insidious of poisons. The danger to children is great, and the danger to adults is by no means inconsiderable. The danger In general is proved by various items in our exchanges. We present herewith a partial list of accidents from poisonous fly papers which speaks for itself. The list covers only the period between July 1, 1914, to August 24, inclusive, and cover 35 cases of poisoning, five fatal and 30 non-fatal or uncertain. The list by states: Illinois, 4; Indiana, 8; lowa, 5; Kentucky, 2; Minnesota, 4; Nebraska, 2; New York, 2; North Carolina, 2; Ohio, 3; Pennsylvania, 5; total, 35.

Husband Is Poor Companion.

- The fact that one party to a marriage is a poor entertainer bod companion is no ground for a divorce, according to the holding In Brown vermis Brown, 146 Northwestern Reporter, 271. Plaintiff and defendant were married at Kalamazoo, and lived together about eleven years, when the plaintiff left the defendant and applied for a divorce on the grounds of non-support and extreme cruelty. At the time of the marriage, and all the time thereafter, the defendant was a watchman at a railroad crossing, making $36 a month, working very long hours and-'every day in the week. Plaintiff was an industrious and ambitious woman, working out without the desire or knowledge of her husband. They both contributed to the family expenses. Defendant’s' salary would not allow a very elaborate existence. Plaintiff complains that defendant after coming borne from work would not be entertaining, would never talk to her, or take her out to places of amusement, but instead, he would sit around the house, read the paper and go to bed. The supreme court of Michigan held that the plaintiff failed to show such conduct on the part of the defendant as would Justify granting a divorce. —West’s Cases.

Sea Water a Disinfectant.

Sea water electrically treated has been found to be of great value as a disinfecting means and is how used regularly in a number of English cities for cleaning swimming pools, schoolrooms, hospitals and similar places. It is very effective and quite cheap. Where the salt water is not obtainable an artificial sea water is made at a very slight addition to the cost. _ Public swimming pools are maintained in a sweet condition by the addition at the first filling of about thirty gallons of the treated water to a pool of shout eighty-five thousand gallons; and then an addition of. the treated water ,1a oade every few days.

Hair and Dress.

Surely there is some close relationship between the mode of the hair arrangement and the prevailing mode of dregs. It would be quite Impossible to imagine the hoopsklrt and slendei waist of 1860 worn with the psyche knot of a few seasons ago, or to imagine the classic folds of a Grecian tunic or the empire styles modeled on the -Grecian- mode - worn .with the.-high, powdered coiffure of Antoinette.

Japan's Ha rd Working Women

GLADLY though I would linger on the more beautiful and romantic aspects of Japan, the Japan of the Iris and cherry blossom, of violet lake and pine-clad mountains, of maple trees running In autumn like tongues of flames along the hillside, of little fishing villages crowding the romantic shores of the Inland sea, of Fuji, enowpowdered and aloof, hanging as It were in midair 'twixt earth and sky—it Is of another and less lovely Japan I must speak today. Modern industry has laid its hand already on this race, writes Violet Markham,.in the Westminster Gazette, and the pressure is not likely to grow less heavy as time goes on.

The hand-to-hand struggle with a somewhat reluctant nature In wringing from her the means of subsistence for a population of 53,000,000 people is a severe one. Japan is a mountainous country, and though certain great tracts oflrich alluvial plain exist, such districjtsare the exception. Every Inch of possible land is cultivated, and the series of terraces carried up the killsides tell their own tale, showing, as in China, how no available pocket of soil has been overlooked. Rice is the staple food of the people, and from end to end of Japan the rice fields are the salient, feature of the landscape. But behind the rice fields of Japan stands the shadow of the needs of the

Japanese people. There seems nothing grown but rice, and yet, even so, any failure of the crop means famine and starvation fpr whole districts. Japan, in a word, is hard put to it to make both ends meet, and the position to which she has arrived among the great nations of the world strains the slender resources of her people almost to the breaking point. Matters are not made more easy from the fact that monopoly and protection direct her national and commercial policy.

Bounties for Industries.

The establishment of factories and industries in Japan is a matter which causes the government much preoccupation. It is sought by bounties to foster and. encourage Infant industries, and in Manchuria there is much grumbling over the preferential position Japanese control of the railway achieves for Japanese goods. So far the number of operatives, male and female, in Japan is but small —793,885 —as compared with her total population of 63,000,000. But the statistics published by the Economical and financial Annual of the department of finance. 1913, afford mnch food for reflection when taken in conjunction with the actual conditions of life and labor revealed by a visit to a .Japanese mill. According to these returns there are in Japan 305,196 male operatives over fourteen years of age, and 427,676 women. Under fourteen years of age there are 12,192 males and 48,821 females employed. The dominant industries in Japan are cotton and silk, and they absorb the largest proportion of the workers, namely, 448,243 persons, male and female. In raw silk, cotton spinning, and cotton weaving we find employed 46,496 men and 293,468.w0men. In the thirty-two'Japanese cotton mills for which returns are given the average □lumber of working days per annum was 325, and the average number of wfklng hours per day was 22.44. The two great centers of industrial activity are Tokyo and Osaka. I penetrated, not . without considerable difficulty, into various cotton in Japan. Women and Children In Factories. speaking, Japanese women engage in the cotton trade work under contracts essentially servile In character- They are Indentured for a 'perted-®*'4hree'y«ajs,'«nd Dounda attached to the factory. Dur-

ing this term they seldom leave tba compound, and cannot, save under very exceptional circumstances, break their indentures. Sunday, of course, is not kept in the far East; the principle of one day’s rest in seven does not obtain there. The cotton factories work day and night on shifts of IS hours each, and there are two holidays in the month, more, one suspects, for the needs of the machinery than that of the human beings. The average daily wage of the female silk spinner is 30 sen (say 14 cents), and of the female weaver 25 sen. But from this sum nine sen Is deducted dally for food.

Compounds and factories alike vary in cleanliness and comfort. Some factories are well constructed and well ventilated and filled with machinery coming from Oldham. Others are dirty, dilapidated and ramshackle. It is the same with the compounds. When a factory has to provide accommodation for 1,000 or 2,000 women operatives we may well scrutinize the conditions, even when the.altogether simple standard of life in the far East Is taken Into account The Japanese have no beds, but sleep rolled up in quilts on the floor. In one compound I visited, I saw 24 girls asleep In a dormitory 24 by 13 feet, and this-is no uncommon state of affairs. Phthisis is a disease which is beginning to play havoc In the cotton mills, and when.

COTTON MILL IN KOBE.

as In many cases, girls employed on the day and night shifts use the same dormitories and no proper ventilation is possible, it is easy to understand the spread of this dread scourge. The Japanese women are fragile little creatures, whose appearance does not encourage the idea that they can be tossed without protection Into the fierce stream of industrial competition. These girls, drawn as they are from the farming and fishing class, often return home utterly broken la health at the efid of their indentures. Some factories cater for the health and even amusement of their operatives. In one compound I saw a thentor and also a shrine erected to the memory of those who died in the mills. Hospitals, unfortunately, are necessary adjuncts, some clean and wellmanaged, others slack and dirty. In one compound there would be a strip of garden nicely kept with flowers, in another a dank, depressing yard. Even at the best, who could wish for a young girl to spend three of- the best years of her life under such conditions? But the Japanese daughter has few rights over her own person. If her family is poor, up to the present she has resigned herself to the fate to which her parents may consign her, being practically sold by them either to factory, geisha house, or the deeper degradation of the yoshiwara. That the girls themselves are beginning to revolt against such condition# is a healthy and desirable sign of the times in Japan. The difficulty of obtaining cheap labor may lead to a reform of factory life from within. Though living-in is the rule for women, it is not invariable, and 1 saw an# factory where a large proportion of women lived out Here arose the diff ferent evil of the employment of married women, this particular factory having a nursery attached where the women left their babies. But unquestionably there, was a less coarse, hopeless look about the women who lived, 1 out and had some redeeming influences of home in thetr lives than what one noticed about the listless girls of the compounds. This circumstance, struck me Very forcible In a very dirty match factory, where all the girls lived) at home. Despite fee conditions under which they worked and fee long^, Ipqkajn^silt. or ill nourished. *