Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 164, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 July 1916 — Page 3

The Testimonials

By GEORGE MUNSON

(Copyright. 1916, by W. G. Chapman.) The editor of the Slap-Dash Monthly ■was looking thoughtfully over a pile of typewritten letters upon his desk. He noticed a strange similarity about them. All united in praising the recent serial story by Oliver Hughes, the brilliant young writer whom he had "found.” One was from a woman in Michigan, and ran, in part, as follows: “Won’t you please give us more stories by Oliver Hughes? They are the best I have seen in years. My husband and I, who used to live so affectionately together, now quarrel every week as to which shall get the SlapDash Monthly first. I consider that Mr. Hughes’ stories are an inspiration to everybody.” Another letter was from a fellow In Ohio. “Say, bo’,” it began breezily, “you hand out them Oliver Hughes stories regular, or I’ll can your old mag. Them’s the kind of stuff we wants. Red blood and plenty of it.” A third letter, from a school teacher in Massachusetts, went thus: “Although my lot is cast in the quiet paths of life, I am susceptible to the call qf the great adventurous world, and I cannot resist the temptation to let you know what splendid stories Mr. Hughes’ are.” Another was from a prisoner in a state penitentiary. “Dear editor,” it ran, "us poor guys ■who are shut up from sun and air in a noisome dungeon don’t often get a

“I-I Don’t Know,” Said Mr. Alvis Feebly.

chance to read your magazine, but I ■write to say Oliver Hughes’ stories is an inspiration to me to lead a new life ■when I get free. Give us some more and plenty of them.” "Strange,” muttered the editor, and turned to his assistant “Did you see anything remarkable in Oliver Hughes’ story?” he asked. “I didn’t want you to take it,” said the assistant. “You agreed with me it wasn’t worth much.? „“I agreed with you,” replied the edl-' tor, “but I told you it was clear that Mr, Hughes was a young man of promise, and that it would be well to encourage him in view of getting his future work. What do you think of this hunch?” And he tossed the letters over the table to Jennings, who read them thoughtfully. “Sad, very sad,” said Jennings, "to think that our promising young man should be a faker.” “Yes. Mr. Hughes will have to be canned,” said the editor. "I’d stand for it in some people, but not in a

young man we’ve taken up and tried to help. Here’s his second story. It’s first class, but it’s going back now.” The same evening, as Miss Margery Gibson was seated in the parlor, after having dismissed her father and mother to the dining room, young Mr. Hughes called upon her with a dejected mien and a large, flat paper package, with a number of stamps on it, under his arm. "It’s come back, Margery,” he said, flinging it down on the table. “Our future is blasted.” Margery leaped for the package. ■“Not your second story, Oliver?” she ■" cried. “Not ‘lt’s Blood That Tells*?” “Yes, here it. is,” said Oliver. “And here’s Mr. Alvis’ letter.” “He wouldn’t take ‘lt’s Blood That Tells?”’ cried Margery in consternation. “Why, that was a splendid story, Oliver! The mean old thing!” She opened the letter and read: “Dear Mr. Hughes. “We have carefully considered Tt’s Blood That Tells,’ and regret that we cannot see our way to publish it. Your style of working is, unfortunately, one that does not commend itself to'us. Your truly.” “What does he mean by my style of working?” Shouted Oliver indignantly. “He told me at our last interview that I could consider my next serial as good as accepted, and this is ten, times better than the last. . And I bought you that solitaire on the strength of it, and I’m going to sue him for a hundred dollars anyway. And now we can’t get married.”

Margery put her arms about his neck. “Give me the manuscript, dear,” she said. “I’ll go and see Mr. Alvis.” "You, Margery? How can I let yot face that fiend in human form? No, I’ll go. I’ll go with a horsewhip and tell him just what I think of it all, and of him, too.” “You’d better let me try, Oliver,” an* swered Margaret gently. "You know, you aren’t such a diplomatist as I am.” It was on the following morning that the editor of the Slap-Dash Monthly received a visit from a charming young unknown lady in a pretty new suit, who insisted on an immediate interview with him. “I had to come to see you,” she said gushingly, as she sat down beside his desk. “I wanted to say that I think Mr. Oliver Hughes’ story was just splendid. When are you going to print another by him?” “I—l don’t know," said Mr. Alvis feebly, staring at the apparition beside him, while his assistant, across the table, ostentatiously knocked the ashes out of his pipe. “I am sure all his readers must rave over him,” said Miss Gibson. “It must mean a lot to your magazine to be able to print stories like that. When is his next coming out? Promise me to telephone him at once for another." “Is this Mr. —Mr. Hughes known to you?” asked the editor cautiously. “I have never set eyes on him in my life,” replied Margery. "I am not fit to associate with the great minds of the era. lam only a stenographer, but I think I have a taste for literature. 0 yes, laugh if you like, but I say Mr. Hughes is a great, great man.” “Miss —er —Gibson,” said the editor with inspiration, "would you be willing to write us a testimonial to that effect, to print with Mr. Hughes’ next story, if we should see fit?”

"Certainly,” answered Miss Gibson. “You can use this typewriter, you know,” the editor continued. Five minutes later Miss Gibson handed him the testimonial. It was certainly one that ought to have turned the paper pink, if it didn’t. “And you use another story by Mr. Hughes at once?” asked Margery. “Ye —yes,” said Mr. Alvis, studying the testimonial hard. “And you’ll telephone him?” “I will,” said Mr. Alvis, conducting her to the door. When Margery was gone, radiant, he came back and placed the testimonial before Mr. Jennings. "Same letter j without a tall,” said Jennings. “Same that the schoolmarm made, and the convict and the fellow from Ohio, who also- used the typewriter. I guess their little fingers were too short to reach it on this old style Podger machine. Men always use four fingers in typewriting, you know.” “Yes, I know,” said Alvis. “Suppose she did it all herself?” “I guess so.” "That let's him out, then. But what about the girl. It’s fierce, that swindle.” “Ah, well, wait .till you’re a married man, Jennings,” answered the editor loftily. “Besides, I guess it isn’t much worse than our writing our own testimonials in this office."

FEMALE “R. F. D.” CARRIERS

It Ms Estimated That We Now Have One Hundred and Fifty. The post office department itself is not aware of the actual number of woman carriers in the rural delivery service, but it estimates that there are about 150. This is a very trifling percentage of the total number of carriers, 43,652 In 1914; but it seems safe to say that a high percentage of the romance which the rural delivery service is ’ supposed to contain will be found along these 150 routes. Possibly, just possibly, these faithful messengers of the government are not much concerned about the romantic side of their calling, the Christian Herald remarks. To them it is doubtless a very businesslike proceeding, and they are willing to leave the flowery notions about the work to us who think of the R. F. D. service as symbolized by a placid white horse, a comfortable looking, inclosed and easy-going conveyance and a daily jaunt through leafy lanes and over purling brooks, with occasional stops at cheery farmhouses. We who are strong in imagination, however, do not trouble to visualize these leafy lanes when the trees are bare, the fences hidden by snow, the brook a winding streak of ice and the farmhouses maddening suggestions of warmth and cheer that rural mailcarriers cannot stop to share.

Facts Concerning Sound.

Tn determining the transmission, reflection and absorption of sound by various materials, F. R. Watson has placed a whistle emitting a given note in the focus of a parabolic reflector, and in an adjoining room has stationed a Rayleigh resonator 0 -to receive the sound. The materials to be tested closed the doorway between the rooms. In the tests made, pressed fiber onefourth inch thick stopped practicmljf all sound; one-fourth inch cork boaro, 80 per cent and three thicknesses of this, 92.6 per cent. The transmission of sound at .constant pitch depends on the porosity, density and elasticity of the material; porous bodies transmitting sound about as they transmit air.

Not Fasting.

Professional —Please gimme coppers, lady, to*buy bread. Little Girl—Why, gran’ma, you gave that man some money only half an hour ago. ’ Professional (taking In the situation) —Yes, my little dear, bless yer. But I’m a terrible bread eater.—ldeas.

REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

TALKS ON LOVE AND MATRIMONY

Miss Helen Keller, Blind and Dumb, Says All Women Should Marry. PICTURES HER IDEAL OF MAN Must Be Handsome, of Course, but Doesn’t Have to Be Rich or Possess a College Education — Glories in Her Family. Chicago.—Love is a topic that Miss Helen Keller avoids in interviews. Yet this sightless and dumb prodigy, who has overcome her human handicaps—almost—has some unique opinions on this absorbing theme, writes Harriet Ferrill in the Chicago Tribune. She pounded them out on her fingers and the face of her teacher, Mrs. J. A. Macy, who has been with her for twenty-nine years. An eager face, lips that are ready to laugh, and a flashing, alert mind helped along the interpretation of her love sentiments.

“I am not telling my I'ove affairs,” she spelled into the palm ,of her teacher’s hand. “They are not for publication,” although she admitted many proposals as a “star” —and possibly one heart affair. There is said to be a certain young man who is attentive at this time. Will Be a Master Man. The master of the house in ideal conditions such as are sensed by Miss Keller in a new day is not of the common species. He will be a master man, willing to permit his wife to be the disposer of the household supplies and the real “boss.” “Every household should be ruled by a bi-cameral government —a congress and a senate—such as the United States gave the Porto Ricans,” she said. “The woman should, of course, be the house of representatives of the family. In this government there will be no filibustering, I hope, nor lobbying. “Thus, the man would propose all vital measures and the woman would dispose them. She would control the disposal of supplies principally, as women did among some of the primitive tribes.”

This ideal state of matrimony, however, Miss Keller does not expect until woman is economically free. So long as man is the “money bags,” this future marriage system will be missing. A happy interest flashed in her sightless eyes when she was requested to describe her ideal man. “Of course, he will be handsome for eugenic reasons,” she said with a smile. “He doesn’t have to be rich. I am paying my own passage through the world and dm proud of it. “And the ideal man doesn’t have to be possessed of a college education. He must be one who thinks straight. Many men have obtained an education by their own efforts, for example, Mark Twain, one of my ideal men. For he was broad humanely, tender, yet strong, and full of humor. “Every marriage should have love and both man and woman should pever lose sight of the happiness of their children. The state should pay for the upkeep of each child; for there is no greater service to the state than a woman’s gift of a child —a greater service than the building of a warship. Besides, warships are no good without men. Woman furnishes the absolutely necessary supply—men. Her services are fundamental in war time or out of war. “All women should marry if they'

CHEROKEE PRINCESS

Miss Elizabeth fucker. Cherokee princess from Oklahoma, was the only Indian woman who attended the recent Progressive convention in Chicago as a delegate.

LEARNING HOW TO DIG A TRENCH

can get anyone to marry them.” Her teacher laughed her out of her seriousness. “Yes they should,” she insisted. “It’s essential for the race — and evolution in the world.” One of the glories which Miss feller delights in is the glory of family. A great-great-grandfather pf hers was one of the first colonial gtJf; emors of Virginia—one of the Spottswoods, and this is a cherished name. She is a cousin of the southern hero, Robert E. Lee, and counts the Adamses and the Everetts on her ancestral tree. Her mother, Mrs. Katherine Adams Keller, is with her, busily darning stockings and mending shirtwaists. A Mildred Keller Tyson, lives in Montgomery, Ala., her native state, and a brother, Phillips Brooks Keller, is an engineer. Miss Keller was a student and admirer of Phillips Brooks when she was nine years old and she Insisted upon giving her brother that name, her mother said.

TURTLES AS TOMMIES’ PETS

British Soldiers on the Tigris Amuse Themselves With Captured Tortoises. « London. —During lulls in the fighting on the Tigris British soldiers pff duty found it very hard to amuse themselves, according to Edmund Candler, the British press representative in Mesopotamia. At one time vtfTten the British force intrenched near El Hannah, because the Turkish position was too strong to be taken by a direct frontal attack, the soldiers found themselves on a narrow strip of ground with the Tigris on one side and a salt marsh on the other. The soldiers enjoyed bathing in the salt marshes, and a favorite sport was catching tortoises. A Tommy Atkins would tie a string around the leg of his pet and put him up on the parapet of the trenches to graze while he fought the enemy. The pet of one of the soldiers, a Scotsman, found too little food on the parapet, and died. The body of the victim was gravely buried by the soldiers with an identification disk about its neck.

BOY ALONE SAW SEA FIGHT

No One Else in Fleet Witnessed Whole Dogger Bank Naval Battle.

London. —In a recent visit by English newspaper correspondents to the grand fleet the most interesting point elicited was the extraordinary suddenness of modern sea fighting. There were instances of a fight beginning before the ventilators were closed down and the strangest of all, a story of the battle of the Dogger bank, where a boy was sent out to clean something on one of the turrets and he was forgotten in the hurry and the turret closed. The boy lay flat on the top through the fight, and he is one of the few persons, officers and men, in the whole affair who actually saw the battle, and the only one who could give his whole attention to the sight, as he had nothing else to do. That boy will have a great story to tell when he Is an old man.

“TELEPHONE” CURES THIRST

French Soldier Makes a Confession and Penalty Is Lessened by Half. Paris. —A court-martial at the front. The presiding officer, speaking with a distinctly kindly intonation, to the accused : “Now, now, admit that you telephoned.” “No, my cplonel, I did not telephone.” “If you confess, you will only have half the penalty.” “Well, then, yes, my colonel, I did telephone.” All the court laughed and a nominal sentence was pronounced. The civilian should not imagine that the use of a telephone is a crime in the French army. To “telephone,” in army slang, is to bore a little hole in a full barrel of wine, to fit a rubber tube thereto and apply the mouth to the other end.

TRACES “SAFETY FIRST” MOVE

Arthur Hunter Says It Followed Workingmen's Compensation Legislation. Montclair, N. J. —Arthur Hunter, president of the Actuarial Society of America, told the Montclair Heights Community club that the “safety first” movement was a sequel to the adoption of workingmen’s compensation laws. He said there used to be a saying that in the erection of large buildings] it took “one life for every story.” He pointed out that under the compensation act the Woolworth building lu New York was erected without a fatality. Unemployment Insurance, Mr. Hunter held, should be distributed to men justly out of work, but only enough should be paid to "keep the wolf from the door” in order to prevent people from dodging employment.

TREES OLDER THAN PYRAMIDS

Age of Some of the Giants in California Estimated at More Than 8,000 Years.

San Francisco. —One of the wonders of the ancient world, and probably the greatest of them, is the pyramids of Egypt. And yet some of the giant sequoias of California that are now thrifty trees had bark on them a foot thick when Cheops began building the great pyramid that bears his name. Beneath the shadow of the pyramids Napoleon said to his troops: “Forty centuries look down upon you.” There are trees in the grove estimated by scientists, among them John Muir, the eminent naturalist, to be eight thousand and even ten thousand years old. The oldest living things in the world are these giant trees.

WON’T LEAVE FOSTER MOTHER

Quail Refuses to Part With Hen, by Which She Was Raised. Alton, Kan.—Last summer one of W. D. Lemley’s old hens stole her nest out on the creek. Evidently she chose a quail’s nest, for when her brood came off there was a young quail In the lot The old biddy mothered the stranger with a mother’s care, and though it often vexed and astonished its mates by flying away like the wind, all went well with the happy family. To this day the quail prefers to tftay among the chickens, roosts in the barn in bad -weather, and is as tame as the ordinary pigeon.

ACCUSED OF BEING A SPY

Edward Cordts was taken from a ship flying the American flag by Canadians, stripped, searched and thrown into jail as a German spy. Oordts, who is an American seaman, was given no trial and was ill fed and roughly treated until a United States consul took a hand and put a stop to the high-handed proceedings. j

HE CAME TO SAVE

All Should Remember That Christ’s Mission Was Not to Destroy. The face of Jesus of Nazareth must have been a striking face. People never mistook any of the disciples for Christ, and I do not think that anyone who had ever seen his face forgot IL Surely, -people who looked into his countenance while he did some miracle, never forgot it. And people who had been the objects of his miraculous touch never forgot his look of love and pity and power. Simon, who walked by Jesus’ side within the cordon of Roman soldiery, and bore his cross for him on the way to Calvary, never forgot the look of his face. Caiaphas, the high priest, who had plotted against Christ, and at last succeeded in having him brought In one night for trial, never forgot it. Pilate, who had sent many to the cross without compunction, but never one like Jesus, and who in his cowardly way tried to set him free, never forgot it The centurion who sat immovable on his horse and looked up at Jesus through the hours of the crucifixion, never forgot IL

A man cannot keep out of his countenance the dominant spirit of his life. The sin of life is stamped upon the face; the purity of the heart is stamped upon the face. The finer the nature, the more easily it is read in the countenance. Perhaps that is the reason why woman’s faces reveal the inner spirit more readily than men’s faces.

If the face is the dial of the soul, then what of the face of Christ? The inner spirit of Jesus must have made his face beautiful. It was a face that drew people with the wonder of it. It was a face that defied description, for no authentic record describes it, and, one feels that no artist’s brush has done it justice. As his was tljp purest soul, so his was the perfect face. . Rebuffs Frequently Met. On his journey south Jesus passed through Samaria, and at a certain Samaritan village he was denied hospitality, “because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem.” The true follower of Christ often meets with the same rebuff. The world extends few courtesies to the man who turns his back on its follies, and sets his face steadfastly toward the city of God. There is no need to suppose that James and John were themselves the messengers who met with this repulse. The two sons of Zebedee were more probably with their Lord at the time when others brought back the news that the village refused to receive him. Upon this provocation all their suppressed and smoldering indignation against the heretics through whose territory they were journeying, breaks forth. At this instance of contempt shown to their Lord, and to themselves, for there is no doubt that personal feeling mingled with their indignation, the sons of thunder forgot their Gospel teaching and would apply Old Testament methods: “Shall we call down fire from heaven to destroy them, as did Ellas?”

Jesus rebuked them. It is well for us to recall the love and generosity of Jesus toward those who were alien or hostile to him, for the spirit of retribution, gnd even of hatred, is so apt to creep th among us Christians. Hostility between his nation and the Samaritans was both ancient and bitter. Among the later proverbs of the Jew* was one which said, "To eat the bread of a Samaritan is as eating swine’s flesh.” The Jews despised those who worshiped at the rival temple on Mount Gerizim. The hostility endures to this day. Yet all Christ’s conduct toward the Samaritans was marked by special kindness. He chose a Samaritan to typify the spirit of Christian charity, and made the name of the “Good Samaritan” a title of honor forever. Jesus Always Loving. Consistency and truth often compelled Jesus to say things which unavoidably gave offense. And let us note that he never pared down the truth, nor minimized it, nor adjusted it in such a way that it might be more palatable. Truth and right met falsehood and wrong wherever Jesus happened to be. Between them there is eternal war. This conflict Jesus never tried to avoid, but In it one never hears in his voice the threatening note of wrath, but always the persuading note of love. Jesus had come, not to destroy men’s Ilves, but to save them. He might have said to James and John as he said to Philip on another occasion: “Have I been so long time with yon and have ye not known me?” Though they loved him and were zealous for his honor, they still lacked his spirit. The final prayer of St Peter for the people of the churches was that they might “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” The grace of God in the heart of man soon betrays its presence. It is the imparting to the soul of the mind of Christ which desires to save life, not to destroy It More knowledge of Jesus is more knowledge of God.

First Duty la Charity.

Christ still walks the earth In the shape of Charity; religion, after all, is best preached by putting its maxims tote practice; the poor are always with us, and the first duty of the Christian is to bind their wounds and soothe their sorrows.—H. Rider Haggard.