Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 163, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1915 — Page 2

The SCARLET PLAGUE

By JACK LONDON

SYNOPSIS. Ta a California Talley an old man. one •f the few eurvlvore of a world-wide plague that has destroyed civilisation, tells the story of the Scarlet Plague to Ms grandsons. CHAPTER ll—Continued. "Like Band on the beach here, like ■and on the beach, each grain of sand a man, or woman, or child. Yea, my boy, all those people lived right here tn San Francisco And at one time or another all those people came out on this very beach —more people than there are grains of sand. More — more—more. And San Francisco was a noble city. And across the bay—where we camped last year, even more people lived, clear from Point Richmond, on the level ground and on tiie hills, all the way around to Ban Leandro —one great city of seven million people. Seven teeth . . . there, that's it, seven millions ” Again the boys* eyes ranged up and down from Edwin's fingers to the teeth on the log. "The world was full of people. The census of 2010 gave eight billion for the whole world—eight crab shells, yea, eight billions. It was not like today. Mankind knew a great deal more about getting food. And the more food there was, the more people there were. In the year 1800, there were of sand, Hoo-Hoo —one hundred and seventy millions tn Europe alone. One hundred yean later —a grain of sand, Hoo-Hoo—one hundred yean later. In 1800. there were five hundred millions In Europe—five grains of sand, HooHoo, and this one tooth. This shows how easy was the getting of food, and how men Increased. And in the year 2000, there were fifteen hundred millions tn Europe. And it was the same an over the rest of the world. Bight crab shells there, yes, eight billion people wen alive on the earth when the Scarlet Death began.

"I was a young man when the Plague came —twenty-seven years old; and I lived on the other side of San Francisco bay, tn Berkeley. You remember those stone houses. Edwin, when we came down the hills from Contra Costa? That was when I lived, in those stone houses. ;, I was a professor of English literature.” Much of this was over the heads of the boys, but they strove to comprehend dimly this tale of the past. "What was them stone houses for?” Hare-Lip queried. “You remember when your dad taught you to swim?” The boy nodr ded. "Well, in the University of California —that is the name we had for the houses —we taught young men and women how to think, just as I have taught you now, by sand and pebbles and shells, to know how many people lived In those days. Then was very much to teach. The young men and women we taught were called students. We had large rooms in which we taught I talked to them, forty or fifty at a time, just as I am talking to you now. I told them about the books other men had written before their time, and even, sometimes, tn their time —”

“Was that all you did? —just talk, talk, talk?*’ Hoo-Hoo demanded. “Who hunted your meat for you. and milked the goats, and caught the fish?" “A sensible question, Hoo-Hoo, a sensible question. As I have told you. In those days food-getting was very easy. We were very wise. A few men got the food for many men. The other men did other things. As you say, I talked. I talked all the time, and for this food was given me—much food, fine food, beautiful food, food that I have not tasted In sixty years, and shall never taste again. I sometimes think the most wonderful achievement of our tremendous civilisation was food—lts inconceivable abundance, its infinite variety, its marvelous delicacy." This was beyond the boys, and they let it slip by, words and thoughts, as a mere senile wandering in the narrative.

“Our food-gutters were called freemen. This was a joke. We of the ruling classes owned all the land, all the machines, everything. These food-get-ters were our slaves. We took almost all the food they got, and left them a little so that they might eat. and work, and get ua more food —" "I’d have gone into the forest and got food for myself,” Hare-Lip announced; "and if any man tried to take it away from me I’d have killed him.” The old man laughed. "Did I not tell you that we of the ruling class owned all the land, all the forest, everything? Any food-get-ter who would not get food tor us. him we punished or compelled to starve to death. And very few did that. They preferred to get food for us. and make clothes for us, and prepare and administer to us a thousand —a mussel shell, Hoo-Hoo—a thousand satisfactions and delights. And I was Professor Smith in those days— Prof. James Howard Smith. "And I was very happy, and I had beautiful things to eat, and my hands

corvwiOHr xwt- * zvcxuiui N»wimptA sympicatw

were soft, because I did not work with them, and my body was clean all over and dressed In the softest garments —” He surveyed his mangy goatskin with disgust. "We did not wear such things in those days. Even the slaves had better garments. And we were most clean. We washed our faces and hands often every day. You boys never wash unless you fall into the water or go in swimming.”

"Neither do you, Granser,” Hoo-Hoo retorted. “I know, I know. I am a filthy old man. But times have changed. Nobody washes these days, and there are no conveniences. It is sixty years since I have seen a piece of soap. You do not know what soap is, and I shall not tell you, for I am telling the story of the Scarlet Death. You know what sickness is. We called It a disease. Very many of the diseases came from what we called germs. Remember that word —germs. A germ is a very small thing. It is like a woodtick, such as you find on the dogs in the spring of the year when they run In the forest. Only the germ is very ■mall. It is so small that you cannot see it—” Hoo-Hoo began to laugh. "You’re a queer un, Granser, talking about things you can’t see. If you can’t see ’em, how do you know they are? That’s what I want to know. How do you know anything you can’t see?" "A good question, a very good question, Hoo-Hoo. But we did see—some of them. We had what we called microscopes and ultramicroscopes, and we put them to our eyes and looked through them, so that we saw things larger than they really were, and many things we could not see without the microscopes at all. Our best rltra-

"That’s What I Want to Know. How Do You Know Anything You Can’t See?”

♦ microscopes could make a germ look forty thousand times larger. A mussel shell is a thousand times larger. A mussel shell is a thousand fingers like Edwin’s. Take forty mussel shells, and by many times larger was the germ when we looked at it through a microscope. And after that, we had other ways, by using what we called moving pictures, of making the forty-thousand-times germ many, many thousand times larger still. And thus we saw all these things which our eyes of themselves could not see. Take a grain of sand. Break it into ten pieces. Break one of those pieces Into ten, and one of those into ten, and one of those Into ten, and one of those into ten, and do it all day, and maybe, by sunset, you will have a piece as small as one of the germu” The boys were openly incredulous. Hare-Up sniffed and sneered and HooHoo snickered, until Edwin nudged them to be silent. “The woodtick sucks the blood of the dog, but the germ, being so very email goes right into the blood of the body, and there it has many children. In those days there would be as many as a billion —a crab shell, please—as many as that crab shell In one man’s body. We called germs micro-organ-isms. When a few million, or a nillion, of them were in a man, tn an the blood of a man, he was sick. These germs were a disease. There were many different kinds of them—more different kinds than there are grains of sand on this beach. We knew only a few of the kinds. The micro-organic world was an invisible world, a world we could not see, and we knew very little about it Yet, we did know

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

something. There was the bacillus aathracis; there was ‘ the mlcrococue; there was the bacterium termo. and the bacterium lactis—that’s what turns the goat milk sour even to this day, Hare-Lip; and there were schlzomycetes without end. And there were many others. . . ■” "But the Scarlet Death, Granser," Edwin at last suggested. "Yes. yes, Edwin; I had forgotten. Sometimes the memory of the past is very strong upon me, and I forget that I am a dirty old man, clad in goatskin, wandering with my savage grandsons who are goatherds in the primeval wilderness. 'The fleeting systems lapse like foam,’ and so lapsed our glorious, colossal civilization. I am Granser, a tired old man. I belong to the tribe of Santa Rosans. I married Into that tribe. My sons and daughters married into the Chauffeurs, the Sacramentos, and the PaloAltos. You, Hare-Lip, are of the Chauffeurs. You, Edwin, arc of the Sacramentos. And you, Hoo-Hoo, are of the Palo-Altos. Your tribe takes its name from a town that was near the seat of another great institution of learning. It was called Stanford university. Yes, I remember now. It is perfectly clear. I was telling you of the Scarlet Death. Where was I in my story?’’ "You was telling about germs, the things you can’t see, but which make men sick,” Edwin - prompted. "Yes, that’s where I was. A man did not notice at first when onlf a few of these germs got into his body. But each germ broke in half and became two germs, and they kept doing this very rapidly so that In a short time there were many millions of them in the body. Then the man was sick. He had a disease, and the disease was named after the kind of a germ that was In him. It might be measles, it might be influenza, it might be yellow fever; it might be any of thousands and thousands of kinds of disease. "Now, this is the strante thing about these germs. There were always new ones coming to live in men’s bodies. Long and long and long ago, when there were only a few men in the world, there were few diseases. But as men increased and lived closely together In great cities and civilizations, new diseases arose, new kinds of germs enterci their bodies. Thus were countless millions and billions of human beings killed. And the more thickly men packed together, the more terrible were the new diseases that came to be. Long before my time, in the middle ages, there was the black plague that swept across Europe. It swept across Europe many times. There was tuberculosis, that entered Into men wherever they were thickly packed. A hundred years before my time there was the bubonic plague. And in Africa was the sleeping sickness. The bacteriologists fought all these sicknesses and destroyed them, just as you boys fight the wolves away from your goats, or squash the mosquitoes that light on you. The bacteriologists —’’ “But, Granser, what Is a what-you-call-lt?" Edwin Interrupted. "You, Edwin, are a goatherd. Your task is to watch the goats. You know a great deal about goats. A bacteriologist watches germs. That’s his task, and he knows a great dbal about them. So as I was saying, the bacteriologists fought with the germs and destroyed them —sometimes. There was leprosy, a horrible disease. A hundred years before I was born, the bacteriologists discovered the germ of leprosy. They knew all about it They made pictures of it I have seen those pictures. But they never found a way to kill It But in 1984, there was the pantoblast plague, a disease that broke out in a country called Brazil and that killed millions of people. But the bacteriologists found it out, and found the way to kill it so that the pantoblast plague went no farther. They made what they called a serum, which they put into a man’s body and which killed the pantoblast germs without killing the man. And in 1910, there was pellagra, and also the hookworm. These were easily killed by the bacteriologists. But in 1947 there arose a new disease that ».ad never been seen before. It got into the bodies of babies of only ten months old or less, and it made them unable to move their hands and feet, or to eat, cr anything; and the bacteriologists were eleven years in discovering how to kill that particular germ and save the babies. “In spite of all these diseases, and of all the new ones that continued to arise, there were more and more men in the world. This was because it was easy to get food. The easier it was to get food the more men there were; the more men there were, the more thickly were they packed together on the earth; and the more thickly they were packed, the more new kinds of germs became diseases. There were warnings. Soldervetzsky, as early as 1929, told the bacteriologists that they had no guaranty against some new disease, a thousand times more deadly than any they knew, arising and killing by the hundreds of millions and even by the billion.** It was at this point that Hare-Lip rose to his feet, an expression of huge contempt on his face. “Granser," he announced, “you make me sick with your gabble. Why don’t you tell about the Red Death? If you ain’t going to, say so, an’ we’ll ■tart back for camp." The old man looked at him and silently began to cry. The weak tears of age rolled down his cheeks, and all the feebleness of his eighty-seven years showed In his grief-striekep countenance. (TO BE

CONCEALS THE PHONE

MANY LIKE SCREEN THROWN AROUND INSTRUMENT. Can Be Purchased Ready-Made If Preferred, Though Its Construction Is Simple if Directions Given Are Followed. A telephone screen is the latest device for concealing this instrument from view in the home. The screen is so simple in construction that it need not be purchased ready-made unless one has plenty of money or does not know how to use needle and thread, writes Helen Howe In the Washington Post. The foundation or framework is of heavy wire, in threefold effect, although the screed does not really fold. The wires are shaped merely to suggest folding; and this, of course, makes the screen stand firmly. The filling may be anything to suit the fancy. One of the prettiest fillings shown is of thin India or China silk, shirred upon the wires top and bottom. The decoration is a strip of gold lace backed with a color contrasting with that of the screen. This is caught around the lower edge, the border of the lace pointing upward. A similar but narrower band trims the top, the edge of the lace pointing downward. A soft olive-green silk for the screen and old pink under the lace make a very pleasing color combination. Any odd bits of pretty fabric, however, may be utilized, because it is not necessary that all the panels be alike. The center one could be of embroidery or tapestry, and those at the sides of a plain color, shirred or laid in plain, this depending upon the kind of material employed. It goes without saying that sheer goods must be gathered. Cretonne for the entire screen is not to be despised. It should be finished top and bottom —in fact, all around, if one prefers—with a furniture gimp not more than one inch wide. If the room is furnished in cretonne, the same can be used with good effect for the screen.

Bits of brocade or silk that contrast or harmonize make a beautiful screen. Should the scraps of these goods on hand be insufficient for a screen they

Telephone Screen.

can be used in constructing a very dainty sewing basket. To make such a basket: Cut a foundation of cardboard in a long egg-shape, about eight and a half inches in length and four or five Inches across its widest part. A strip of cardboard an inch or so in width is glued all around, and the basket covered inside and outside with the silk. Another short strip of cardboard is covered and set in the basket, dividing it into two compartments of equal size. One of these compartments is filled in completely with a pincushion, the other forms a receptacle for a couple of spools of thread and a thimble. The edge of the basket is finished with rosebud trimming, or inch wide lace can be laid all around, the edge of the lace placed upward. The handle of the basket is a strip of covered cardboard fitted with a loop, which holds a pair of small scissors.

MARKED CHANGE IN STYLES

Embroidered Hats Are by No Means of the Same Design as Those of Last Year. The embroidered hat, which resembled nothing more nor less than a table centerpiece (and sometimes really was) made into a bit of millinery, is, to all appearances, “nil” this seaspn. A different type of embroidered hat is to be worn —that of georgette crepe or some similar semitransparent material (occasionally opaque materials are used), embroidered in white or colors, principally the latter, tn large, bold stitches of coarse silk. The embroidered hat of this season is not so “fluffy” as in former years, but is drawn over a bhekram or stiffened net frame into trim smoothness, so that it is exactly the shape of the frame and entirely without ruffles. The material is sometimes embroidered before being applied to the frame and at other times embroidered after being drawn over the buckram or stiffened net, the threads being taken right through to the wrong side of the frame. Some of the smartest models are embroidered in conventional designs at equal distances apart, and as symmetrically arranged as the designs upon wallpaper. If there is no time to really embroider the “embroidered” hat, voiles of georgette crepes by the yard having wonderful machine embroidery upon them can be substituted very effectively. The “centerpiece” hat is considered quite correct for kiddies, however, though even in these juvenile instances the stitches are not so painstaking as in former years. The

TAFFETA GOWN

A Charming Afternoon Gown of Black Taffeta Bordered With Linen, Designed by Michel of Paris.

This basket Is a useful as well as a decorative addition to the guest room, and costs practically nothing more than the labor involved.

INTERIORS DONE IN BLACK

Now the Fashionable Color, and Makes Possible Some of the Most Striking Effects. Behold black now as the fashionable color of the interior decorator. The liking for it arose in Vienna, where interior decorating is an art much thought of. There some of the new houses, or rooms which had been redecorated, showed wall papers with black backgrounds, on which huge, bright flowers are printed. Carpets, too, are of black. The idea of this method of decorating is, apparently, to make the room strictly a background for the furniture and persons in it The brightly flowered paper, of course, detracts from this effect, but the sort of paper more often used does not have the bright flowers. It shows a black ground, with a gray or misty white figure. In a room thus grounded pictures framed in black are hung. The effect is startling. The pictures stand out in reality from their somber surroundings. White enameled furniture is looked on with favor for use in black rooms. Surely such a setting would give the persons in it a chance to shine forth in all the glory of color lent them by skin and eyes, hair and clothes. On the other hand, wouldn’t a room so furnished cast a depressing spell on the woman who found herself shut within its four walls for many hours in a day? There is an outgrowth of this craze for black which is interesting, especially to those who live in apartments, or other crowded quarters, where the kitchen as well as other rooms of the house, come under occasional inspection of guests. This is the black enameled jar or box for cakes, bread and grocery supplies of various sorts. It is painted brilliantly with big red roses, and makes an interesting note of color. Six boxes or jars of this sort ranged in orderly array on shelves give a distinctive note to the most uninteresting pantry or kitchen.

French idea of effect rather than "finishing” and detail seems to have penetrated American fashions for a permanent stay.

RETURN TO THE PRACTICAL

Modern Fashions Are Drawing Away From the Type of the Extreme and Unusual. Many periods of history and many countries are contributing their quota to modern fashions. Although we all know that “there is nothing new under the sun,” none the less this maxim seems particularly applicable to fashions and dress. After all we cannot wonder at our resourceful artists “searching past records for good copy,” especially at a time like thd present. It Is a curious and interesting fact that we see in the most recent phases of La Mode quite a distinctive femininity, such, indeed, as we had not seen for many a long day.-. This tends to prove how everything goes by the law of contrasts; as man returns to primitive hand-to-hand fighting, so do women return to the primitive in dress and decoration. In mute opposition woman suddenly returns to flounces and ab surd attractive trills and furbelows. In spite of this tendency we must not imagine that women do not still retain a taste for practical clothes as well as a modicum of common sensd. Those who admire the practical in dress have turned with avidity to the stripes and checks which are offered in such great profusion this season.

■When spring calls, how can -ma figure on politics?

THE HAND AND THE RING

By VANE TREMAINE.

Jack Bronson gave up his seat and clung to a strap while he tried to read the morning paper. All around him were other men and women pressing closely as the train bored swiftly through the underground passage. At Thirty-fourth street, when the car was unmercifully packed, Jack felt a tug at the pocket of his loose stormcoat. His hand slipped down swiftly and closed on another hand, a soft, satiny little hand, that struggled in his for a moment and then freed itself, leaving something metallic in his grasp. Another man, tall like himself, pressed closely. He was bending down talking to a girl standing by him whose face Jack could not see. Jack smiled grimly. The train was slowing down at his station and he wormed his way out to the street, his unseen booty clasped in his hand. He did not once look at it until he had reached his office and opened his desk. Then, with an odd sense of curiosity, he opened his clenched hand and looked at the ring which he had slipped from the intruding hand in his - pocket. It was well worth looking at, too — a woman’s ring, a .magnificent emerald, surrounded by brilliants. “Good heavens!” gasped Jack, staring at the valuable jewel. “What have I done?”

Cool reflection told him that possibly he had been made a receptacle for stolen goods by a thief. He locked the ring in his safe and proceeded with the business of the day. Every morning he kept a close watch of the dally papers to see if the loss was advertised. But he found no hint of it Occasionally there came the recollection of that satiny little hand which had struggled with his in the crush if the car where all Were wedged tightly like sheep in a pen. And the touch of that strange hand thrilled him persistently. Jack Bronson was in love. If any one person was responsible for this fact it might be his sister, Fanny, who had invited him down to spend the week-end, and there introduced him to Alice Selden. Miss Selden was a wonderful girl, Jack had discovered almost immediately. She was the only girl he had ever met whom he could really picture as his wife.

They got on together remarkably well, too. They enjoyed the same sports, the same books, the same pictures —practically the same everything. “You never wear any rings,” he said as they sat together on the beach. Alice looked down at her little tanned fingers and shook her dainty head. y “I used to wear—one,” she said rather pensively. “It was a darling ring, and to punish myself for losing it I have vowed not to wear another until I find it” “Not any ring at all?” quavered Jack, who had been dreaming of placing an engagement ring on her pretty hand. "No,” she said firmly. “I want to free you from your rash vow. I want to make it possible for you to Indulge in at least one ring,” he said earnestly. Alice blushed again, for there was no mistaking his meaning. "What sort of ring was it?” “A cluster ring, an emerald surrounded by diamonds. Father gave It to me on my last birthday. I lost it, in the subway. It was rather an odd affair —if you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about it any more.” Then she proceeded to change the subject. “I want to speak to you,” whispered Jack as they met next morning in the breakfast room. “Join me on the beach in half an hour. May I expect you?” She nodded assent and he passed on. When they met he told her of his love for her, and his utter inability to live without her. When she, in turn, confessed that hjs swift wooing had won her heart., he would have slipped a blazing solitaire on her finger, but she drew her hand away hastily. “My vow, you know,” she reminded him. “Close your eyes,” he almost sharply commanded. When he saw she had obeyed him he took the emerald ring from his pocket and slipped it on the little finger of her right hand. At its touch Alice uttered a cry. “It’s mine, Jack—my ring,” she laughed. “Now I can tell you. I was with my brother Arthur. The car was crowded and we were standing. I felt faint and put my hand, as I thought, into Arthur's pocket to get my little handbag. I had slipped it in there for safe-keeping. The pocket was empty and I was just going to speak to Arthur about it when your hand gripped mine. I managed tb get my hand away, but my ring remained in your pocket. - “Of course, I did not dare make a hiss because you could face me and accuse me of having my hand in your pocket, and so I let it go. It seems too good to be true.” “Most perfect happiness is!” he said, holding her close to his heart. (Copyright, 1915. by U* McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) ~r : y *