Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 February 1916 — Page 3

IN THE CLOUDS

By ESTHER BURR REYNOLDS

“The profession has all gone .to pieces!” mourned old Zekiel Brown. “Where is "genius? Where is talent? Where is the dashing bareback rider •who thrilled the thousands,'ahd that big laugh of the universe, the clown, who made merriment for the millions?” “Where, indeed?” murmured his petite and pretty daughter, lola, sorrowfully, as she stitched away at a tinseled dress which she wore as a supernumerary in a cheap theatrical company. “The day of the clown is over,” mourned old Zekiel anew. “It’s the day of ‘the entertainer,’ now! As to the child equestrienne act, I might as well have trained you for the opera. Poor child! —our glory is departed and they pay you, a star of the arena, six paltry dollars a week for standing on the stage with a dozen others in a village maiden scene!” "Do I complain of it, father, dear?” cried lola cheerily. •“That keeps the pot and times have got to change, for Merrill says so, and he is a rock of strength and dependence, you know.” “Yes, poor Merrill!” continued the old circus favorite, determined to grumble out all his manifold troubles. “Look at that boy, the best triple somersault man in America —once. Now — wjiy, the new-fangled ‘equilibrist’ has to invest two or three thousand dollars in his act outfit before he gets a vaudeville engagement. And the wedding! Here Merrill thought he had a settled position as advance agent for a show, and what does the show do? Bust! And the wedding put off till he sees his way clear to support you!" lola looked a’ little grave. Yes, there was to have been a wedding, and she was disappointed. Merrill Boyd had been a close friend of her father ahd a lover of her own 1 for several years. Humble people, and honest, they were, the sawdust griifie and the tinsel glare never having hurt them one bit, for the circus ring was a family proclivity on both sides. "There he is now!" suddenly cried lola, and sprang to her feet, all aglow with delight and suspense. The door opened, succeeding to the quick, nerv-

Shook His Fist Aloft.

ous tramp of sturdy footsteps. Hand’some, alert, kindly-eyed and manly looking, Merrill Boyd burst In Upon the bomely little room, brisk, stimulating and quite excited. “Well, old friend,” he cried to Zekiel, “I’ve made it!" “You don’t say so—another engagement?" questioned the old clown eagerly. “Not in the old line, though,” replied Merrill. • “You see, we are desperately driven, and I had to hustle for something now and ready. In the first place, my dear," beaming on lola, “we’ve got to get married, you and L” “When?" voiced the astounded lola. “Every day for a year to come, maybe." ■ “Why, Merrill!" began the old circus man, agape. “Where'?’’ gasped lola. “In a balloon,” promptly explained Merrill. “Don’t get the Jiggers, people. It’s a plain, practical proposition ” Then he told what It was. He had run across an old circus friend, whose business had been making show balloon ascensions. The man was crippled, could work no longer, but had ‘some contracts with circuses for the season. He offered to lease the balloon to Merrill for ninety days on an income-sharing basis. A ' feature of the ascensions was to be a prize to the man and woman who would go up in the balloon and be married. ' “You see," said Merrill to old Zekiel, “you are a licensed minister. Not many times will strangers go up .in the balloon, so lola and I must make the play, and you must marry us.” “Yes,” replied Zekiel, “that is a fact. Years ago I had a a sect out in Dakota, and it holds good. Am Ito really marry you two?” he inquired. “Once, for good. There is no other way, and every time the ceremony is repeated it will bind us closer together than ever!” cried Merrill expansively. “Surely you are willing, Iola.”

"Can you ask?” questioned lola softly, her great faith In her lover shining in her beautiful eyes. So ft all came about that the trio entered a new and apparently promising field of business activity. And so they were married, and for a month married over and over again, and were making good headway when the circus people went bankrupt. It was hard to find another permanent engagement. There was a month of idleness, and the profits were eaten up by expenses. Finally Merrill decided to make a circuit of the county fairs. There were long jumps, however. The balloon constantly requited repairs and new equipment, and the prospects were not alluring. They had about decided to give up the balloon experiment, when, one afternoon at a bustling Illinois county seat where a fair was going on, something quite tremendous happened. No genuine engaged couple appearing to go aloft and be wedded, Merrill and lola were in a little tent ready to make up as bashful groom and blushing bride, when one side of the canvas was pressed in and then lifted, and* a quick voice spoke: hide here. lam sure your fa-, ther is on our track.” “Oh, Gerald, what shall we ever do —oh, dear!” A handsome young man had pushed into the tent a bewitching little beauty, and they stood daunted and fearful before the astounded Merrill and lola. Their story came out —they loved one another, but cruel papa was opposed, and they had eloped. He was on their trail. He might arrive to trace them at any moment. lola regarded the clear-eyed young man and the fluttering bird of a girl with moistened eyes. Love and sympathy spoke in her rapid suggestion. “Would you be afraid to go up in the balloon and be married among the clouds?” she submitted. “So long as we land again on terra firma man and wife. float us to Mars' if you like!” cried the ardent young man. So in a hurry the eloping young lady was arrayed in the tinsel wedding finery and veil that well concealed her face. As to the young man, Merrill smilingly pasted a false mustache on his lips. Then Merrill went out and advised old Zekiel as to the plot. Then the couple were hurried to the balloon and orders given to cut loose. Just then a furious, red-faced old man dashed up in an automobile. Just then, too, the false hirsute appfndange on the lip of his. would-be son-in-law fell off and the old man shook his fist aloft with a yell of baffled despair. When old Zekiel returned with the balloon —eppty —three hours later, he beamed all over. “Well, people,” he said to Merrill and lola, “that happy young fellow, who is a junior Croesus, gave me a wedding fee —look!” “A check for five thousand dollars!” cried the astounded Merrill. “Oh, rapture!” chirped lola. They sent the balloon back to its owner, bought a growing little business, and comfort and joy was the inevitable outcome. And often a lovely woman and her happy-faced husband came to visit them —at times, also, a contented old man paterfamilias entirely reconciled to that mad, exciting wedding in the clouds.. (Copyright, 1916, by W. G. Chapman.)

MOVEMENT FOR PURE EGGS

Proposal Made That Peregrinations of Hens Be Investigated and Results Noted. There is a general sort of feeling that one fresh egg is as good as another, says the Kansas City Star. Who is it that is ready to ask whether her weekly supply of eggs is fertilized or not? Most of us are particular to tUte point of pettiness on the subject of pure bread, we will only buy our rolls, done up in waxed paper, we will not look at anything but grade A milk. In accordance with our ideas restaurants even do up loaf sugar in sealed billets, and so cn through the list without a lapse until we come to eggs. As a matter of fact, egg shells are not germ proof by any means. From the moment we realize how i>. happens that an egg can grow “stale” we must admit that contamination is possible. A whole group of disquieting revelations follows upon this admission, not the least of which is the discovery that the garden or farmyard hen is at present allowed to saunter whither she llsteth regardless of hygiene. Then we trustfully gather her product and feed it to our babies and invalids, forgetting- that unless hens are healthful, unless their food is pure and clean, they cannot lay pure eggs. When poultrymen realize this, and all scientific poultrymen do realize it, the chicken nuisance will be a thing of the past, and people who want to sell eggs Will no more want their fowls to run free than the modern dairyman allows his kine to nibble by the roadside.

For Intending Builders.

To avoid disappointment in the workmanship of the interior trim the homebuilder should familiarize himself with the terms “good" work, “extra good" work, “super-extra" or “cablnet” work. 7 In bouses of moderate cost it is not customary unless so specified to use cabinet finish in putting the interior trim In place. In “cabinet" work every joint ,1s doweled and glued like furniture, and if this work is desired ft must be called far in the specie cations. - ;

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

WOMEN FIGHTERS IN AUSTRIAN RANKS

These two Austrian women have served in the army of their country since the outbreak of the war ahd have been in many battles. One of them was a schoolteacher and the other a student in the University of Vienna.

WAR SORROWS DRIVING WOMEN TO USE OPIUM

Many London Society Folk Reported Addicted to Pipe and Other Drug Habits. TRAFFIC IS HARD TO CHECK Ring, Whose Operations Are WorldWide, Unchecked by Law—Use Moving-Picture Film Tins to Smuggle Into the United States. London. —A craze of opium smoking and the extensive use of other drugs, including cocaine, heroin and ether, has recently been taken up by London women of means and many in society and actresses as well. Eagerness to alleviate the terrible depression caused by the war has led many cultured women to seek the consolation of drugs, and this desire has been cultivated and exploited by a ring composed largely of Americans, who maintain opium dens on a luxurious scale in the West end. Thb activities of the ring are not confined to England. It is a serious business organization, world-wide in its ramifications. Managed by half a dozen principals it maintains established agencies throughout the East, particularly in China and India, and also all over the United States, with headquarters in New York. It is largely imported into New York by means of personal smuggling. One of the favorite methods of smuggling is to conceal the opium in tins containing moving picture films, which are not likely to be opened or to be even under suspicion. The films are shipped to certain firms who also conduct film trading agencies, but the drug scheme, as may be imagined, is the hugely profitable side of the venture. These oplumed films have been shipped in large quantities to New York and up to the present have escaped detection. Traffic Hard to Check. Another means employed is to have the opium cooked in pellets ready for use. Thousands of these pellets can be and are carried in the dresses or clothing of passengers to New York and shfely delivered to the headquarters of the -ring there. The men composing the ring have extensive acquaintance, and it is not exaggeration to say that during the last few months scarcely a steamship has left this side for without one or more carriers of opium aboard. Stranded Americans have frequently been employed, as the difference in price between opium here and in America enables the ring to give the carriers not only a first-class passage, but also a good sum of money besides. From what has been learned the ring has had great luck with its carriers,” who have all got through safely with the "goods.” The authorities, who are aware of the existence of the "ring,” have the greatest difficulties in coping with thee situation, because opium smoking and drug taking are not prohibited under the English law. Opium and similar drugs are not supposed to be sold in England save through a physician's certificate and the seller must keep a record of the sale and the name and address of the purchaser, but these difficulties have been surmounted by means of “tame” druggißts and “reliable” wholesalers. On the question of export, from which the ring at present receives the greatest profit, the only means of prosecution is under the merchandise act, and then only if a false manifest is .found to have been used. ba the cast of opium shipped in.

film tins the authorities point out that it would be extremely dangerous for them to open every tin, thereby running the risk of spoiling invaluable films on the mere chance that they contained opium. They say they would require almost absolute proof before they would take such a step. Recently, however, the police in the Txmdon docks have nipped several attempts to ship opium out of the country fraudulently in barrels containing cheeses or grease. Several Chinese have been prosecuted and fined, but the fines were immaterial and the Chinese only minor factors in the game. London Authorities Alarmed. But the society craze for drug taking is spreading so rapidly, particularly among the better-class women, that a new dangerous social factor has arisen with which the authorities are seriously concerned. Means of grappling with it are now being discussed, .but the suppression of the vice will require the passage of new laws giving the police greater powers than they now possess. A few years ago the drug-taking habit, and particularly opium smoking, was comparatively rare in England, save among the Chinese along the docks in the East end and a small number of American crooks who frequented dens in the same neighborhood. By a system of exchange of intelligence the American dope fiends knew just where to go when they arrived in London and wanted their “hop.” Like homing pigeons they made directly for Limehouse causeway, near the docks. It is a narrow, horrible, darksome street, where lights are few and shadows many. It is not a nice- place to visit alone. The houses are of the two-story kind, broken here and there by dingy shop fronts. On the left is the haven of the Americans. It is run by a Chinese whose name is known to every American opium fiend from New York to San Francisco. For years it has been the mecca of pipe fiends visiting London. The interior is as dingy as the exterior. Several rooms are lined with rude bunks and the dim light of the oil lamps shows filthy paper and a faded cheap chromo or two. The Chinese who runs the place 4s of uncertain age. He might be sixty, seventy or one hundred. With softfelted slippers he pads about from room to room giving to each customer his proper degree of attention. He never forgets a patron and in some mysterious manner keeps in touch with all their movements and happenings. How he does it no one has been able to fathom because he has never been known to leave the narrow precincts of his own narrow street. Perhaps it is because his world comes to him. Yet, like some Chinese Morlarity, he seems to be the center of a web whose fibers never loosen. Haven for Expatriated Crook*. “Where is Morris M.?” he was asked one night. "Oh, he-South Africa, Joburg this week, next'week Cape Town.” “What’s become of S.?” mentioning the name of a man who had been cutting a suspicious dash around the West end hotels. “You no hear? He went back New. York. Pinched, forgery; doing threeyear stretch. He gave me bad check —forty-two dollars.” Another venture, and the information was promptly forthcoming that the man was dead, and so, question after question about Various American dope fiends, from crooks to actors and actresses; this man never was at a loss to tell whether they were living or dead, well or ill, poor or prosperous. In the present state of affairs this queer character looms large in securing opium for the ring. But the clientele in the older days was small. Now it is large. It began to grow when the Rosenthal murder caused many New York gunmen and other criminals to emigrate to London. These undesirables brought with them thelj usual theories about gaining a livelihood. Save that they found that gun play was dangerous in London, and that knifing was much safer, the majority of them found London aim

pier than New York. The women upon whom they preyed were not as cunning as 'their American sisters and were apt pupils in the art of robbery under the influence of drugs, so the expatriated crook simply gave himself up to a life of ease, with very little necessity to resort to violence except in an occasional fight with those of his kind. The drug habit spread rapidly among the women. From opium smoking they quickly passed to cocaine snuffing and ether drinking, until now it is a rarity in that class to find anybody not addicted to some drug. But with the war came a new development of the traffic. China, India and Egypt, where the authorities had been suppressing the opium and hashish habit, offered an illimitable field of operations. The film-tin idea was hit upon and the ring got to work in short order. Women Taught to Smoite Opium. The 'restriction of night clubs in London, where for two /ears women of the better class had been following the craze of ragtime, raised a demand for some other sort of palliative for the depression of war, so the “ring" came into play again. Houses in Soho and fiats in inconspicuous parts of the West, end were taken and fitted up in luxurious style, and the same methods of touting which were so successful when the “chemin de fer" craze was in vogue in London were again employed. Parties were made up to see an opium joint. The mere suggestion of the Orient was enough to appeal to women suffering from abnormal depression after the excitement of gambling and night clubs. They went to see. The furnishings of the place with their attractive divans and suave attendants were attractions in themselves. The operation of transforming the pasty opium to a puffy chocolate and then rolling it into a littlepellet ready for smoking was in itself a process of interest.. “Just try one whiff.** After murmurings and objections and the usual rigmarole about it being harmful answered by the stock phrase, “Why, I have been smoking it for years and it has never hurt ine,’’ the victim usually tried. After the first plunge the rest was easy. Any fit of depression was seized as an excuse to try the pine.

MRS. CAMERON KAY

Mrs. Cameron Kay recently became die bride of Cameron Kay, brother of Mrs. Thomas F. Gore, wlge of the senator from Oklahoma. Before her marriage she was Miss Laura Iverson of Brooklyn.

FINDS HER LOST DAUGHTER

Etta Bollonerno of Chicago Prefers Working as Domestic to Her Home. Merton, Wis.—-Etta Bollonerno, the fourteen-year-old girl for whom a country-wide search has been made since her disappearance from her home in Chicago a year ago, has been found here working as a domestic. The identity of the girl was discovered by Sheriff John Sleep of Waukesha county and communicated to her mother, Mrs. Anna Bollonerno, at Chicago. The girl would give no reason for leaving home. She said she went directly to Milwaukee from Chicago and there procured the position in the home of former Sheriff Peter Snyder here, where she was employed. Mrs. Bollonerno came here and took her daughter to Chicago. x The mother irf' a widow and reputed to be wealthy.

MARRIED BY FAKE PREACHER

Pennsylvania Couple Have Knot Tied Again After Discovering the Fraud. Reading, Pa.—Sylvester Rose, an electrical engineer, and wife, formerly Elsie *Helen Arnold, a Reading girl were remarried here by a civil cere mony. When tbe Hcense was issued Rose explained that he and Miss Ar» nold were married four years ago m Cleveland, 0., their present home, by a man supposed to be a minister. - ~ A fdw days ago the supposed clergyman. was convicted of fraudulently posing as such and performing illsgal marriages. They then came oast fvi a second wedding.

Home Town Helps

TREES COMPLETE THE HOME Importance of Proper Shrubbery la Becoming More and More Recognized. The primary object of settling the state was to make homes, not to make fortunes or increase the taxable wealth of the county or state. One can have a shelter or abode without trees, but no home which will appeal to the wife, and to which the children will look back .with fond remembrances in after years is truly a home without the sense of beauty, repose and protection afforded by trees and shrubbery. The trees and shrubbery should bo located on the grounds to give certain effects or make a part of a living pictifre. The fruit orchard can be plant* ed at regular Intervals, in order to be conveniently cultivated and to use fully the ground occupied, but the trees in the yard should not be spaced like orchard trees; they should be grouped, ih order to make vistas, screen unsightly outbuildings, afford shade where needed, add touches of color to the picture, provide a pleasing “sky line,” and to lend variety and interest to the home surroundings. Trees and shrubbery are the setting of the jewel; the quality of the jewel is not dependent upon its size, but upon the spirit, the purity, the harmony which dwells within. Yet nojewel is shown to best advantage without a suitable setting, and: no home is fully a home without its setting of trees and shrubs.

SIGNS WOULD AID CAR RIDERS

Cleveland street car officials are considering a plan to put signs on the public square showing the corners at which various car lines pass The plan is to put sign posts at each comer of the square, hanging from them neat signs giving the list of car lines which pass that comer. — Cleveland Press.

SEE VALUE OF PLAYGROUNDS

No Community Is Now Considered Complete Without Properly LaidOut Breathing Places. O ■ It is a fact which ought to beof intense interest to the people of this city that during one week the attendance of children at the public playgrounds of Charleston reached the unprecedented figure of 10,575. It is estimated that about 2,509 different childi>en visited and made use of the playgrounds during this period. That ought to give the people of the community a clearer idea than they have heretofore possessed of the immense value of the playground system and of the effectiveness of the system as it is being applied in Charleston. Probably a majority of the Charleston readers of this newspaper have not been aware all this time of the importance which the few playgrounds now available have assumed as a factor in the life of the children of Charleston. That these grounds have been made use of in one weekby something like 2,500 different children and that these children have resorted to the playgrounds so constantly and so regularly that the total attendance during the week has been over 10,500 are facts which furnish convincing proof of the value at these places of outdoor recreation.—Charleston News and Courier.