Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 109, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 May 1915 — Page 3

SEEING LIFE with JOHN HENRY

JmTh John Henru onTurkeu Trotting ■ila I (Copyright, 1915. by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.)

SAT! did you ever get ready and go to a Turkey Trot party? Scold me—l deserve it, Paw! You wouldn’t think it, but here in New York the Pet of Fortune who makes it his life’s work to Burn Money is sometimes hard put for an excuse to Light the Match. When a Paloofa with nothing in his attic but shredded wheat falls heir to a hatful of Mazuma he quickly realizes that the money has to be ignited—but how to do it! The awning that hangs between his pompadour and his eyebrows becomes Care-furrowed from trying to figure out just how to set fire to the coin Dad left him without attracting the attention of the police. The Poor Thing soon discovers that it’s awfully hard to invent a new style in Financial Bonfires, so he falls back on the flint-and-steel method of Ignition—and Gives a Party. He knows that his bundle of green and yellow pathfinders will burn with a brighter flame if he can induce a lot of Night Riders to tarry by his hearthstone during the ceremony. And joy in abundance is his when they begin to kick the ashes around his $5,000 apartment with their slippered feet. Having beard Peaches breathe a desire to be Among Those Present at a Turkey Toddle, our friend Hep Hardy got busy with his favorite paying teller and gave one. I tried to explain to friend wife that she’d find herself in a blush-pro-ducing atmosphere where she’d hear them discussing White Slave dramas, hot from the Grand Jury room, but she merely stung me with a dimpled smile and said, “Tush; come on; let’s tease a taxi!’’ Hep lives in one of those expensive shacks where the entrance is made up to look like the room Louis the Fifteenth used to get shaved in. When you step in the front door you think you’ve suddenly arrived at a forced sale of art objects and bric-a-brac. The attendant who greets you with a grin like a comatose catfish must have been at one ( time a Captain in the Imperial German Army, for he still

Meantime the War Dance of the Manhattan Indians Went Bravely On.

wears his Uhlan unifqplh with the hand-painted sleeves and the Murillo panels inserted in the silk stockings. Some class, take it from Uncle Jasper! There is .such an air of subdued elegance and concentrated luxury .about the lay-out that you-want to rush to a telephone, call up your office and tell them there that you’re never going to work again as long as you live. The elevator doors swing open disclosing a picture post card of a Turkish seraglio—whatever that is. Then a West Indian chauffeur, all dolled like Sir Walter Raleigh on his way to see. Queen Elizabeth, gives you the high sign and shoots , Heavenward while you sink to your waist in the Persian rug on the floor of the gilded cage. Hep’s parade grounds are on the Twelfth floor. His apartment consists of eleven rooms and nine baths. Through an oversight the dining room and the butler’s pantry have no bath attached, but Hep says that defect will be remedied if he has to drop another >B,OOO a year into the Kitty. The Party was in full blast when we reached the scene of the Conflagration. A string orchestra concealed behind a lot of aristocratic rubber plants scattered enough rag-time for everybody to dip in and help themselves, so up and down through Hep’s library into the drawing-room, through the living-room, across the hall, and through the card room, around the foyer, back through the sitting room, down the hall again and back into the drawing-room the various couples pranced and galloped and wriggled and squirmed and joshed each other into the belief that this was Life. Hep met us at the door of the Fun Factory and introduced us to all the

by George V.Hobart

celebrities present, with the exception of those who were busy stepping on each other’s feet in the joyous dance. Peaches and I sat down to watch the mad revels, but as we did so a music box concealed in our little tete-a-tete sofa began to play “Snookey Ookuma,” so we arose hurriedly and decided to stand during the rest of the carnival. When we hurriedly arose to the occasion a Literary Gnat whose name is Georgie Nathun got the laugh of his life. “Pardon me!” he said, giggling, “but to a man with my keen sense of humor the episode of the concealed music box was intensely ludicrous. Now that my laughter has subsided would you mind doing it over again that I may study the situation from a psychological point of view!" What are you going to do with a fried smelt like that?

I wanted to coax him into one of the bath rooms and turn the shower on him, but Peaches begged me not to dampen his youthful ardor, so I told him what particular Ingredient of a cheese sandwich he resembled and passed him up. Georgie is fearfully erudite. With his thumb and forefinger he picks big words out of his bulging forehead and assembles them into neat little paragraphs. These he carries on a tray to a magazine where kind-hearted men pay him money and beg him not to come back until he has spent it all. Georgie was getting along very nicely until one day somebody told him he was clever —then he fell apart. Now he makes up his pieces in front of a mirror and when he thinks of something devilishly cute he and his reflection exchange loving glances. Then he pins a medal on his breast and quits work for the day. Somebody should take off Georgie’s watch and slap his wrist real hard. In the meantime the war dance of the Manhattan Indians went bravely on. It was catch-as-catch-can all over the place. They* swayed and toddled , and wobbled and bobbled, each and all of them trying hard to conceal the fact that they were human beings. They danced the Lame Duck and

Simpering Cinnamon Bear; the Lingering Drag and the Jack Rabbit Jump; the Boston Antelope, and the Philadelphia Scramble. Every once in a while they’d stop,-take a long breath and then off again into the Buzzard Bend and Walrus Wiggle. Each individual tried to act as a special agent for the Zoo? “How do you like it?’’ I asked Peaches. , “It’s awful,” she gasped. "Look at that girl over-there. Why does she try to act like a penknife?” “Come out of the hardware store,” I answered. "She’s doing the Armadillo Bendback!” Just then Hep came up and asked Peaches if she wouldn’t glide out and dodge the furniture with him, whereupon the Queen of my Bungalow shuddered from hairpins io shoe buckles, murmured, “I don’t know how,” and hid her head in my shoulder. ’Til fix that,” squeaked Hep, and two minutes later we were confronted by a thick-set individual who talked in chunks. His name was Manuel Hochenstein and he had a map on him like a crosssection of the McAdoo tunnel. .* “Why don’t you get out and hit the hurdles with the hoppers?” he inquired. “My wife wasn’t brought up in a circus,” I went back at him; “and I’m a shine acrobat.” “Aw, say, it’s a cinch, this bunk Turkey Trotting.” Mr. Hochenstein informed us. “Why, in ten minutes I can learn anybody that isn’t a war, veteran with two wooden legs. I got a Studio where I learn everybody—ten dollars a lesson. Why, I’ve learned some of the swellest Society dames in this burg. You know I used to be a bookmaker, but there’s more money in this game. Xt*s a ten to one shot and

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

T bring the bacon every time the flag drops. It’s a pipe—l can learn any. body. I learned Hep Hardy, didn’t I?—and his feet are like a couple at nervous ferry-boats. “All the Turkey Trot needs is two arms, two leg and a sunny disposition. “Here’s my card—anything you like I’ll learn you—the tango, the dip, the trot, the glide, the lope, the squat, the squirm, the slide, the spiral, the fore and aft, and the side-wheel. Say! if your wife will come out on the fireescape where it’s quiet I’ll learn her the Texas Spider in eight minutes by a stop-watch—get me?” “I get you," I said, “but I don’t need you." Then we permitted Manuel to fade abruptly out of our lives while Peaches gurgled, "Why should any sane person want to learn those awful dances!" “True for you, little bright-lamps,” I chortled; “but they toll me there’s a wiggly bit of a germ that gets in the blood and then your* temperature rises and you break out in a Bunny Hug." “Nonsense!” she sniffed and left me flat just as Hep bustled up again

There Was Peaches With Hep Hardy Hoofing it Down the Room.

to inquire if we were having a good time. “Great!” I ananniased; “but, say. Hep! you’ve been getting some new statuary, haven’t you? What’s that over in the corner there, with the bright lights around it — A Venus de Milo with the arms restored?" “Let go!” Hep snickered. “That’s Clarlbel Swift of the Frivolity The* ater." “Oh!" I "what’s the matter—did the dressmaker disappoint her?’* “Why, no,” Hep assured me; “she's wearing the latest in French creations —the cobweb gown." “Well, why not get the poor girl a screen; she’ll catch cold," I suggested just as Lord Rumbo of Merry England hawhawed his way over to us, whereupon Hep whispered something to me about being kind to the nobility and moseyed away. "Ripping, isn’t it?" said His Lordship. “Which one ?” I queried; “that makes seven I’ve counted in half an hour." "What are you referring to, I mean to say?" monocled the son of a Belted Earl. “The skirts,” I answered; "they’ve been ripping ever since the music started. Some of these ginks do the Turkey trot like a hungry man going up an apple tree for a midday meal.” “Quite so,” picadillied the last of his race; “but I was referring to the affair —the party! Ripping! I didn’t think I was going to like America, I mean to say, but these Turkey Trot parties have quite won me over—quite. I attend them constantly. I was broken-hearted when they closed the cabarets at one o’clock. Disgusting, really! What is life without the turkey trot —nothing! What is. one’s existence without the tango—nothing, I mean to say. Take away my Bunny Hug and what have I left—nothing! Separate me from my Boston Dip and life becomes a drear expanse. What’s the use of going to restaurants any more? One can’t eat one’s soup without turkey trot music. I’ve tried it—and it splashes." You know when the bug bites as deep as that it does no good to yell for peroxide. “I say, old chap,” His Lordship rattled along, "where's your charming wife? I should like awfully to do the New Orleans Drag with her —what?" “She doesn’t dance,” I said. “One foot is a Presbyterian; the other a Methodist —nothing doing.” "I think she does splendidly,” the truant from the House of Lords came back at me. "Ah, thejre she is now with my friend, Hardy; doing the Cincinnati Cling, aren’t they?*’ I looked and, suffering rag-time! his blue-blooded Nibs was right? There was Peaches with Hep Hardy hoofing it down the room and making the occasion a jubilee of joy. Gasping, I fell back on the trick sofa and le£ “Snooky Ookums” play to the bitter end. “Bind up his wounds, Doctor; with proper nursing we may pull him through.”

His Outlook.

“Life seems all upside down!” moaned the baby, when they reversed him because he had swallowed a button.. t “At any rate, you’re well heeled,” responded the parents, each of whom held one. ' -

Little Pitchers.

"Grandma, are you with the circus?’’ “Of course not, child. What makes you ask such a thing?” “I heard pa say that when you came to visit us, we’d have an elephant on our hands.”

ZEPPELIN ANGRY WITH CAPTAINS, BUT IS CONFIDENT OF SUCCESS

Commanders of Dirigibles Must Press Their Expeditions This Summer No Matter What Wind and Weather They Encounter, Is Count’s Order—Monster New Air Dreadnaughts, Protected by Aeroplanes, Will Take Offensive Soon.

By STEVEN BURNETT.

international News Service Correspondent. Berlin.—Count Ferdinand Zeppelin, with Von Hindenburg, the idol of the German people, assembled the commanders of his giant dirigibles a few days ago and spoke a few plain words. The Fatherland depended upon them, he said, and they must press their expeditions this summer no matter what wind and weather they encountered. Such lectures of commanders in chief to their subordinates are not infrequent, as all close students of military history know. British and French critics, however, hasten to picture the count as a disappointed old man, disgruntled over the failure of his plans, and seeking to put the blame on the maladroitness or overcaution of his air captains. . Nothing could be farther from the truth. The count is as confident in his great idea as ever. The German people are behind him equally with the kaiser. Germany now has at least thirty Zeppelins in commission, most of which cast the best air dreadnaughts of even last summer in the shade. From these the count expects an offensive of the most, effective sort. It has been argued that the Zeppelins so far have done nothing of military value, have only killed civilians and a few soldiers. This overlooks the destruction of factories where the French were working night and day on munitions of war, which took place on the last Paris raid. But those close to the councils of the general staff inform me the Zeppelin activities up to the present are largely experimental. Soon the dirigibles will take up their task in earnest. Protected by flotillas of swift aeroplanes as the battleships of the sea are surrounded always by destroyers and other lesser craft the products of the Friedrichshaven factory will attack fortifications, large bodies of troops bn the march, supply depots, railroad points and staff headquarters; besides co-operating in what Germany longs for most of all, an onslaught on the British grand fleet’s line of battle.

Bigger Than a Battleship. On a recent trip to Friedrichshaven, the best known of the Zeppelin factories because so close to the Swiss border that the little neutral nation can watch the birth of the dirigibles, I found about two thousand workmen engaged, and the force increasing daily. I watched a trial trip of the latest addition to Germany’s aerial fleet. Although not allowed to Inspect operations closely, I learned that this Zeppelin had been assembled-in 12 days. From a distance of five miles the giant beat of its powerful engines could be heard. It climbed to a great height and descended quickly. It hovered, under perfect control, over the waters of beautiful Bake Constance. It steered to perfection, executing socalled “figure eights” and other evolutions.

Its speed was what astonished me most. I secured no figures concerning this, but when the monster, dwarfing the largest warship, started in a direction away from me, it disappeared frbm view entirely in a few minutes. Then it reappeared and seemed to grow like a cyclone, so rapidly did it approach. It should be mentioned here that while approaching end-on the new Zeppelin is nearly invisible. This is due largely to an ingenious color arrangement. When presenting its side, however, the Zeppelin makes a good target for artillery. Here is a weak point in the Zeppelin. With hostile

FIXING A HOWITZER

Austrians repairing a damaged howitzer in the Carpathians.

aeroplanes it does not have to reckon —these will be left to the attendant monoplanes or biplanes. British airmen have attacked the Frledrichshaven works several times, dropping bombs which did slight damage. When they come again they will find it difficult to assail the factory, for enormous defensive works of concrete have been erected. Count Zeppelin has just written his reminiscences, which are now appearing in the magazine Der Greif here. He was a military attache attached to the northern army in the American Civil war, and narrates many amusing and enlightening incidents of that great struggle. First Ascension in America. It is not generally known that Zeppelin’s first balloon ascension took place in the United States at this time. He conceived the central idea of his dirigible in 1863 and has been working on it 53 years, expending almost all his personal fortune of about three million dollars, besides much money contributed by wealthy friends.

TRENCH MAKERS PAUSE FOR LUNCHEON

Germans in Poland pause in their work of digging trenches for their midday meal.

Here is Count Zeppelin’s account of meeting President Lincoln: “Through the good offices of the Prussian ambassador I was able to obtain an audience with President Lincoln. I solemnly donned my frock coat and high hat, but found no special pomp attaching to the ceremony. “At the White House I was taken into the room where the president worked. From behind the writing table a very tall, lean form arose, with a large head, long, unkempt hair and beard, and strikingly projecting cheekbones, but shrewd, kindly eyes. During my short talk with the president his private secretary, Reed, sat on the writing table, swinging his feet rhythmically to and fro —they stuck far out of his trouser legs and were incased in a pair of shoes resembling moccasins. “President Lincoln expressed himself as much pleased at my coming and my plans, and wished me success in the studies which I proposed to make.” There was apparently no iron discipline in the federal army, such as the count had been accustomed to in Prussia. Telling of his arrival at the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac, be says: “Headquarters was a gigantic cluster of tents, standing in long rows in the midst of a clearing. To find my way about in the midst of this chaos of tents —concerning which I shall have more to say later —struck me as far from easy. I felt by no means at home there, especially as my servant was not to arrive until the next day with my baggage, my horse, and a second mount furnished to me by the government I had a letter of introduction to the commander of the army, General Hooker, which I was to deliver to him in person, but, as he had gone to Washington over Sunday, I could not present my credentials, and found the greatest difficulty in getting shelter and food, especially as my English in those days was very meager. Eventually a Swede, Captain Rosencranz, who spoke good German, took me into his tent." Meets General Hooker. He later presented himself to General Hooker with a pass. “He received me very kindly and assigned a tent for my special use. From that time on he showed his friendliness toward me by asking me to take a whisky with him every time he saw me. He was, in fact, far more a genial toper than an army commander to be taken seriously, yet he ranked

with the best-trained military men who had gone through West Point “Soon I was well known about headquarters. This became especially apparent in the number of drinks offered to me, it being the general custom ftfr men to invite acquaintances into their tents to partake of one. I must confess I rarely got past a tent safely. “Among the more important officers whom I met was General Butterfield, chief of the general staff. When he was postmaster general he had organized the first post delivery system for San Francisco, and the talent for organization which he had then displayed had caused him to be looked upon as the best man for the important military position which he held when I met him. “In planning operations he attached special significance to knowledge of the probable weather conditions and for this reason he became especially fond of an excellent aneroid barometer of mine which I had obtained from London and paid good money for. “General Butterfield saw this instrument in’ my tent, borrowed it from me, and then found it impossible to separate himself from ft. Longer and longer he would keep it each time he borrowed it, until at last he failed to return It at alt When I was about to leave the army I requested him to return it again and again, and became finally so pressing that I compelled him to go into his tent to fetch it out. j “After wafting outside a long time, I followed him into the tent. It was empty. With my barometer in his hand he had crawled under the canvas and disappeared.”

PATIENT FASTED 56 DAYS

And Buttermilk “Did Taste Good at the End”—Lost Nearly One Hundred Pounds. Warsaw, Ind.—After establishing a record for continuous fasting, Jim Robinson asked for a glass of buttermilk and as he slowly swallowed it admitted that it tasted good. This was the first nourishment taken by Robinson, who Is an inmate of the county infirmary, for eight weeks. His long fast was due to lack of appetite and the fact that the taste and smell of food nauseated him. Physicians here declare his case has no parallel in medical history. Fiftyfive days was held to be the limit of man's endurance, yet Robinson passed that mark by more than a day and is still alive. During that period he lost nearly one hundred pounds. Except for being weakened, his general physical' condition was not affected.

IRONING BOARD ROUTS THIEF

Intruder .Makes Hasty Exit When Laundress Uses the Weapon. Greenwich, Conn. —With an ironing board as her weapon. Miss Louise Lehman, a laundress in the home of George L. Storm, fought a burglar and forced him to climb out of a window and drop 30 feet to the ground. Miss Lehman heard a noise in Mrs. Storm’s room, and, looking through the keyhole, ‘saw a man inspecting diamond rings and other articles of jewelry* in a bureau drawer. “What are you doing there?" said Miss Lehman, entering the room. “Leave this house at once.’ 7 After the laundress had struck him several times in the face with the board he left.

His Height Saved Him.

Wabash, Ind—Biondell Berry, former county surveyor and one of the county’s tallest men, owes his life to his height Mr. Berry recently went down i-to a ditch that was being dug in the rear of his home at Laketon. and hardly had he reached the bottom than the sides caved in, bhrying Mr. Berry with the exception of his heid. His calls for help were heard by his wife, who summoned neighbors and ha was dug out