Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 January 1918 — Page 2

TEACHING ENLISTED MEN FINE POINTS OF NATIONAL GAME AT MARE ISLAND

The photograph shows “Duffy” Lewis, greatest 1 of world’s series heroes of the Boston Red Sox, in his uniform as a yeoman in the United States navy teaching the enlisted men the finer points of the national game. The commandant at Mare Island is a great booster and a program of sports is planned for the holiday season, among them a baseball game at Recreation park. Lewis has his heart set on winning this game.

FIGHTERS ARE HOBBY RIDERS

After Amassing Fortune Ring Champions Look for Chance to Spend It—Nelson Wrote Book. Most champions of the ring, as soon as they have amassed a fair sized fortune by their fistic efforts, glance around to see how they can spend it and many of them spend it merrily as fast as it is made, which is some speed. Battling Nelson wrote a book and financed it Then Bat tried a comeback in the ring. Jack O’Brien became a real estate operator and was not as good at it as he was at fighting.

Battling Nelson.

iJoe Gans bought a hotel in Baltimore and died penniless. Jack Johnson squandered his coin in racing cars and such. Stanley Ketchel carpeted the pocketbooks of his pals with yellow backs. Horses ran away with the money Terry McGovern made with his fists. And Jess Willard has bought a circus.

CAMOUFLAGE BALL DUE FOR SHOWING

We have had the spit ball, emery ball, shine ball and various other weird deliveries, but when the soldiers who are playing the national game behind the trenches return we may expect something new. They are likely to bring back with them the camouflage ball. The pitcher will provide himself with a glove in which are inserted water-color paints, and as soon as the new sphere is tossed out he will color it to resemble the background.. This will render it invisible to the batter.

SHOULD FIGHT FOR COUNTRY

Prosecuting Attorney of St Louie Deciares He Will Prevent Fighters Appearing Yhere. Howard Sldener, prosecuting attorney, has announced that he will stop ail professional prizefighters from making appearance here. “The time has come when these men should volunteer and fight for their country,” Sldener said. “Dispatches from the battlefields of Europe tell of hand-to-hand fighting. Professional pugilists could win real laurels in such battles, and at the same time help the country.” Sldener favors amateur fighting, and will not attempt to stop it.

Coast Races Cancelled.

Pacific coast eight-oared shell races between California, Stanford and University of Washington will not take place negt year.

COULD NOT FIGURE OUT GAME OF GOLF

There is an amusing story told of a man who had a clock golf course laid out on his front lawn. He was having his house painted, and one morning the boss painter came to him and said: “Don’t you think you had better have a real sun dial put on your lawn?” The owner did not quite see the drift of the remark, and asked why he should do such a thing. He received this reply: “Well, for half an hour this morning I tried to figure out the time by that contraption you have on your front lawn, but no matter how I figured it, I couldn’t make head or tall out of It. So I thought that you might like to put up a sun dial that everybody could understand.”

ATHLETICS ARE NOT HURTFUL

Head of Department of Physical Education Announces Statistics He Had Collected. Trt order to ascertain the after-ef-fects of college athletics upon students, Dr. James Naismlth, head of the department of physical education at the University of Kansas, has announced statistics compiled after extended correspondence with former athletes. In securing his figures, Dr. Naismlth sent his inquiries to football players on teams prior to 1907, believing these men should by this time be able to detect any after-effects of the game. The - questions were sent to football men, as that game, he considered the most violent of college sports. To the question, "What injuries did you suffer while playing football?” 40 of the 85 replies stated they had received none. The other 45 answered that sprained ankles, broken noses and sprained knees were their common afflictions. All but six stated they had completely recovered from their injuries. . None was reported seriously incapacitated from their participation in the game. The valuation placed on the personal benefits received from the game varied greatly, although increased physical development headed the list. Among the other benefits derived were: Self-control, rapid judgment, wide acquaintance, determination and courage.

MAY PLAY WITHOUT CAPTAIN

Michigan's Football Team May Be ~ Without Leader in 1918—Veteran Material Reduced. Michigan’s 1918 football eleven may again be eaptainless. “Tad” Wieman of California, who recently was elected, has announced his intention of entering the aviation corps. Wieman was unanimously chosen for captain by the 18 letter men. Last year “Pat” Smith of Bay City was chosen captain, but when war came he joined the naval forces.

Wieman played only Rugby football before he came to Michigan. He made the freshman team, however, and has been a ’varsity star for two seasons, fie played tackle in 1916, but was shifted to fullback this season. He scored 125 of Michigan’s 304 points in 1917. Michigan’s great mass of veteran material for her 1918 eleven is steadily being reduced. Sparks, Rye and Weston have been accepted for the aviation service. All of these men were stars.

Chief Meyers After Job.

Chief Meyers is wintering on a farm in Connecticut and is anxious to sign with one of the major league dubs.

Play Indoor Baseball.

Canadian soldiers in Toronto camp I play indoor baseball.

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

LOW WEIGHT KEEPS GOOD JOCKEYS OUT

Shaw, Dugan, Powers, and Others Cannot Make Scale. Old Timers Outclassed Riders of Pres* ent Day Because Jockey Club Per* Mists in Racing a Very Low Scale of* Weights. Old timers on the turf are prone to scoff at the ability of the present-day crop of jockeys now riding in this country. They wail loud and long and sigh the deepest of sighs for the day's of Sl ran * s » Garrison, Spencer, Sloan and the rest, who rode in the vanished years termed “the good old days.” As a rule, there Is little sympathy with those who continually harp on the superiority of athletes of the past over the present. Usually there is no real basis for their contention that participants In sport have grown less skillful with the lapse of years. However, when it comes to the jockey question the old-timer is right. The present rider does not compare with those of ten years ago. They never will regain their prestige, either, as long as the Jockey club persists In racing at the ridiculously low scale of weights now in vogue. Dugan la Back. Willie Dugan, just back from Russia, is a great jockey. He has been rlding with marked success in Russia for several years. He was recognized as a top-notcher here before going abroad. The war has driven Wilffe back to this country, as it did his brother Eddie. But Willie will not be able to ride here. He Is no longer a youngster. He cannot do lid pounds and under, and could not get enough mounts over that weight under the present system to hold his form. Dugan is not the only sufferer from the ridiculous weight scale. Take the case of Willie Shaw. Shaw Is a great jockey—greater than Dugan ever was. In all the history of the turf there are not a half dozen riders who can be rated beyond him. Shaw Is here, ready to ride, but finds he is too heavy. He has been riding for years in Germany. He, too, is out of employment because of the war. Powers Good Boy. Then there is Lincoln Powers. Just a few years ago he was the ranking jockey of the country on the flat. Now he has to ride over the jumps, because he can’t do better than 116 pounds. Powers tried to train down this spring and ride on the flat again. He found the effort too much for him. Here are three Instances, not ct ordinary jockeys, but great rldern, whose services would be available ur der a sane scale. To the list might t e added Joe Notter, who, although be can make 115 pounds, IS able to Til's only in the big stakes, and Eddie Digan, who at 112 pounds is on tie ground most of the time.

LETTER TO TWELVE MAROONS

«C" Is Distributed to Coach Stag fa Chicago Athletes—Sure Things Are Overlooked. Twelve members of the University of Chicago football squad have been awarded letters for their efforts on the gridiron during the recent season. The announcement of the names of the new “C” men occasioned somewhat of a surprise on the campus, not

Elton, One of Lucky Few.

only because it was the smallest nuur bex ever given the coveted honor, but because two men who were regarded as sure things were overlooked. The players receiving the award were: Blocki, Bondzinskl, Brelos, Cochran, Elton, Gorgas, Digging, Jackson, McDonald, Mellin, Moulton and Rouse.

Phillies Sign Scout

Pat Moran has signed Billy Doyle of Portsmouth, Ohio to scout for the Philadelphia Nationals; Doyle enjoys quite a reputation as a scout and is said to have a number of youngsters of ability within his reach.

Athletes in Service.

Harvard boasts 58 ’varsity H athletes in the government’s military service. Yale has 55 and Dartmouth 54, exclusively among New England institutions.

French Orchards Devastated by Germans

TTENTION has been dlrectA ed recently to the havoc A which hap been wrought by JA the Germans among the or>lA chards, fruit farms and nursery gardens of the de- ' ~ vastated portions of northern France, Belgium, Poland, Serbia and Roumanla. The manner in which the Teutonic forces deliberately and systematically carried out their policy of, destruction has been disclosed in those portions of France which hrtv& been released from German occupation during the past year. Not a tree was left standing or alive in the beautiful orchards which were the pride and at the same time the means of livelihood of the people of this de-

vastated country. The disclosure of these conditions has resulted in the formation of plans in London for the raising of funds to be used in the restoration of these orchards and nurseries. It is estimated that about $5,000,000 will be needed to complete this work of reconstruction. Some thousands of trees have already been dispatched to France for planting in the district which has

been wrested from German control. The destruction of the orchards is described by a writer in Country Life who went to France to learn what plans were being made to restore to prosperity the regions that have been laid waste in war. "No description in the newspapers brought home to me so vividly as a personal visit did the heavy hand which has been laid Upon these regions,” says this writer. The one phrase which kept rising in the mind and ever coming to the lips was the Scriptural one, “There shall not be left one stone standing upon another.” Before the war the region was one of the most fertile in France. Agricultural authorities assured me that the .best crops of wheat in the country were raised on the wide flat plains. The land at present is growing only thistles and other weeds. The ruin here differs entirely from that seen in such war-battered towns as Reims and Verdun. These have been smashed apd knocked about by shells and bombs till they are but ruins of what they once were. Still, there are houses standing untouched amid the general destruction, and they still are at least the shells of towns. But, to take for example the district around Noyon, not only have the streets been wrecked by fire and shell, but before leaving them the Germans went methodically through a course of destruction, blowing up roofs, gathering up implements into a heap for burning, and employing a kind of battering ram for breaking down the walls. So that to recur again to the phrase that keeps welling up like the burden of a song, there is really not one stone left to stand upon another. “More may be said about that hereafter. The main point today is to direct attention to what has actually been done by the Germans in the way of ruining gardens, orchards and nurseries. Those who have been in the country in peacetime will remember the rows of apple and pear trees that were grown along the straight roads running between unhedged fields. They will remember, too, the groups of plantations of trees in the fields, as well as the orchards and gardens near the pretty rustic houses characteristic of that French district. In preparation for evacuation, the German soldiers appear to have been ordered out with ax and saw to level these trees with the ground. Whether it is that nobody has found time to remove them or that the ruined trees are preserved as a monument to German brutality, there they are lying as they fell. Some, and these the most slender, have been clean sawn through; others cut with the ax; a few have been attacked with both ax and saw. But there they lie dead. Whatever there was of nursery or garden has been swept away. Even the hutches where the rabbits were kept have not escaped destruction. If one recognizes that these represent the chief elements in la petite culture, in which a considerable proportion of the inhabitants were engaged, it will not come as a surprise that the French officer commanding

MUCH IN LITTLE

For modern requirements concrete piles having a section less thani 14 inches square or equivalent should never be used if more than 30 The South station at Boston has about 12,000,000 more passengers a year than the North station. Manufacturers of rubber shoes Sweden have notified their customers that no more of these goods can be delivered for this winter’s trade,

in the district told me nothing had so angered and embittered his Poilus. They accepted the rest as a natural outcome, of the war, and what an extraordinary “rest” it was. One has to go far back to find anything to compare with it. After Bannockburn the Scots used to raid the adjacent parts of England, so that for years it was impossible to raise crops, and the houses were so systematically destroyed that the buildings of wood and stone were ultimately replaced by turf and wattle. The desolation there in the fourteenth century must have been comparable to the desolation produced in the twentieth century by a nation which counts itself cultured beyond most. And what was worse than damage to property was the carrying away into captivity of the whole population, excepting such as were too old to work. Into what various regions they have been scattered no one knows. Very few have found their way back. It was, however, the preparation for subsequent misery that inflamed the soldiery. I could see their eyes harden and shine like steel at the bare mention, and one effect has been that the French army will not be content with any end of this war which is not consummated on the further bank of the Rhine. “Lieutenant Traffaut, with a touch of* satire, remarked that the Germans

OUR FAIR WEATHER FRIENDS

Young Woman Who Was Almost Destitute, Learned True Meaning of the Well-Known Phrase. Once I knew a girl who was the spoiled, and only, daughter of a rich family, Margaret E. Sangster writes In the Christian Herald. She had always been In the position of a fairy princess with a wishing ring. Anything that she desired was brought to her as if some magic genie waited for commands. And then her father failed in business and died. And her mother, broken in health and spirits, soon followed him. And the girl was left alone. She had always had a number of friends —firm friends who accepted her dinner invitations and her concert tickets. But when she lost her money and was left alone, the girl found that her friends were all marvelously busy—that they were too busy to see much of her, to give hf?r much advice and help. With a little money left from the wreck of things she took a secretarial course in a business college. She had to hurry, for there wasn’t much money, so she finished the course in. half the prescribed time. Now she has a very responsible position and a very interesting salary. Talking to me not long ago, she laughed in a not very humorous way and said: “You know, I never knew the meanIng of the term ‘fair weather friends’ until my great trouble; and then, when I needed friends so very badly—when life was so horrid and unfortunate and sorry for me—l found that there were

A new spare tire rim is hinged at four points so that it can be folded and carried in an automobile tool box. “The messenger girl,” for the first time in the history of the government has made her appearance on the government pay roll at Washington as a result of the shortage of boys and men in the capital for that work. , Mrs. William Nickerson of Orwell, Vt., has a hen which in the last few weeks has laid’two dozen eggs each with a double yolk, the weight of the two dozen being jdx pounds.

trees in the middle of a field. They only put difficulties in the way of plowing, difficulties that will be greatly accentuated when the tractor plow comes into more general use. He agreed with other experts witl> whom I had an opportunity of conversation that the better plan was to set about the planting of new tree*, which should be chosen with special regard to their suitability to the soil and the district, and to their usefulness. For many years it has been pointed out in vain to the French peasant, just as it has been to. English farmers and gardeners, that the old mossy trees, picturesque though they may be, which are usually found in both countries, could advantageously be replaced by young saplings of the best varieties. “But the French peasant is every bit as conservative as the British farmer. As long as his trees carried annually a certain amount of ill grown apples that he could make into a very indifferent cider, nothing would persuade him to remove them. He was equally deaf to the argument that cultivation would be easier if the trees were removed; from the middle of the field and planted along the sides. Out of evil comes good. A plan has been formed for reconstructing these orchards on an entirely new basis, with the co-operation of the British public.

very few who really showed up in a real way. In a time of trouble character really shows!” “I’ve known you for a long while,” I answered; “a very long while. When I knew you first you were a butterfly, with about as much feeling and as much responsibility as a butterfly. I never thought you would amount to anything I And then sorrow came, and there w asn’t any money. And I thought again, ‘That girl will go to the-wall/ When you finished ahead of time, we could scarcely believe it. And now we are still surprised—but we’re getting gladder about you every day!” The girl looked at me quite speechlessly. ?“Tn a tlme of trouble,’” I quoted, « ‘character certainly shows!’ ”

Musical Conductors.

Really great musical conductors are few, and of these Hans Richter stood in the forefront. It is difficult, says the Christian Science Monitor, to define just what; differentiates a good conductor from a mere time beater,-nut a story that is told of Richter may help indirectly. In the p'relude to “Tristan und Isolde” occurs a beautiful passage for the oboe, which rises, swells and dies away to a pianissimo most effectively. To indicate the quality of the playing which he wanted from this instrument, Richter, beating the time with his right hand, placed his left hand over hfe heart, and the oboe player at once responded to a direction all-inclusive in its simplicity and intelligibility.

Clear Conscience.

Say, old fellow, don’t carry the joke too far. Send the umbrella to Rohm 11, Fraternity Building. If the owner is not In just setJt up beside the door. Or if you have that weak feeling and are in need of a tonic, and not able to climb the stairway, you can Just pitch the shower stick In at the lower door entrance and return home, or any old place you like, carrying a clear conscience of one having done a good and worthy deed. Try it once.—Winchester Sun.

who had gone out to wreak mischief on the peaceful 1 Inhabitants ha<T unwittingly donothem a good turn. Many havepreached for years that the time had come to destroy and replant the orchards. They weremuch too old for grafting. The varieties grown were not good! and, besides, it i»Inimlcal to modern systems of cultivation tohave groups of