Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 82, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 April 1919 — Page 3

Aerial Mail

By LYDIA M. D. O’NEIL

- (Copyright.) * “By and by, Surly, they won’t need you nor your Lulu any more. They’ll have airships to carry the mall an’ express, an’ then it’s 'Old Black Lulu’ to the scrap-shop an’ you to Highland Park. Surly Simmons. An’ I’ll be sittln’ up In one o’ them airships, all dressed up in goggles an’ gloves an’ things, steerin’ the aerial mail an r lookin’ tony. Aw, say, now, Surly! That bolt Issie to clip me on the head. Don’t be so reckless, throwin’ things around like that. AS I was sayin’—" "Shut up, you thick-head, you! You couldn’t steer a hand-ear. An’ there won’t be no aerial mail in my time, cub. Let ’em run all they like when Pm under the sod —but not in my time.” But Surly was perceptibly disturbed by the idle banter to which he was being subjected to dally. “Old Black Lulu,” officially known as Engine 1448, was his He abhorred electric locomotives, automobiles, gasoline launches, airships—anything and everything that was not run by steam power. “Old Black Lulu” was good enough for him, he said. “Old Black Lulu”’ and the “drag” of express and mall cars she carried were good enough for anybody. Slmmofis did not know that the big trunkline was already contemplating the building of a few airships for the purpose of conveying mail and express, or his mind would have been more troubled. It was rumored that the Continental Airship company was In the process of formation, and a continental airship line would mean more speedy delivery of mail and express, cheaper rates, and, therefore, considerable pecuniary loss to the railroad company. This threatened competition must be met and defeated; so, while Simmons growled and swore, the railroad company planned and experimented. By and by there came a young Englishman from the- other side of the Atlantic, with a little money In his pocket and a grim determination to cam more—-much more. By night he dreamed of cogs and wheels and •crews and, propellers and dynamos and ohms; by day he worked on these dreams and made them come true. He didn’t become famous; he wanted Ho marry. But he hadn’t sufficient money, and no Influential friends. One day his dreams and his labor came to an end. That was the day that his small model of the FenlmoreStokes airship was finished, tested, and found perfect. Then Fate brought him into contact with Hendricks, the recently elected president of the Never-Mind-What Railroad company. Hendricks wanted aan airship, and Fenlmore-Stokes wanted money. Each supplied the other’s demand.- Fenlmore-Stokes sold his patent outright, and went home to Merrie England jind his sweetheart. Hendricks , went his way, rejoicing in the knowledge that he had secured the means to combat the Continental Airship company, which was still nonexistent. The Never-Mind-What company built two large airships after the pattern of the Fenlmore-Stokes model, and then hastened to build more, because, firstly, the Continental Airship line had become a reality; and, secondly, because of -two daring mail and express robberies which occurred only four or five weeks apart and defied solution. Five mall clerks and three express messengers had been round dead in their cars, with their skulls crushed. A sixth mail clerk died without regaining consciousness, and a fourth express messenger became so hopelessly insane -that no clew could be obtained from his confused, Incoherent speech. All the most valuable express packages were missing, boxes broken open and safes dynamited. In the mail cars not one registered letter or parcel had been overlooked. In both Instances, No. 3, drawn by "Old Bluck Lulu,” with Surly Simmons at the throttle was the train selected by the marauders. It hurt Simmons more than any one knew, but that did not mend matters. The N.-M.-W. company decided then to convey express and mail-by means of the Fenlmore-Stokes airships; so they broke a bottle of wine over the gray metal body of the first man-made bird and christened her the “Registered Mail.” The second they named the "Chicago Express.” When he heard of it. Surly Simmons broke two bottles of wine over “Lu-, lu’s” black nose, saying to her: - “If S ain’t worth two o’ them flying-ma-kes, then you can’t run two miles our minutes.” • ■ ; “Lulu” assuredly could run two miles in four minutes; but she sighed, nevertheless, and her iron heart throbbed convulsively. The “Registered Mall” made three trial trips between her terminals—New Yortf and a town half-way between the Eastern and Western coasts —safely and speedily. Ort the fourth day she started west with her first cargo of express and registered mall at the rate of three hundred miles-an hour. Only recently had the airship been utilized for practical purposes, and heretofore two hundred miles an hour had been the maximum average speed attained. In the matter of speed, as -G f . '

well as safety and simplicity, the Fenl-more-Stokes model had proven superior to all competitors. The aviator in charge of .the "Registered Mall” boldly asserted that the ship was capable Of twice the speed at which she was permitted to travel, but the N.-M.-W. company was content with three hundred miles an hour —content to run two dally airships—the “Mail” and the “Chicago Express.” - ■ • Side by side stood "Old Black Lulu” and the “Registered Mall.” Side by side stood President Hendricks and Engineman The old engineer was no longer surly, but sad. He spoke in a voice half-choked with sobs: '2 ■ “Your pa wouldn’t ’a’ done It, Mr. Hendricks. Your pa was a railroad man from ’way-back, an’ he wouldn’t ’a’ done It. You can fire me for that if you like. It’s said, an’ I ain’t a goin’ to take it back.” His Intense sadness and resentment were almost comic. Hendricks laughed a little and tried to “jolly” the old engineer, but Simmons was In no mood for jesting. . He turned away, oiled the 1448, wiped her carefully with a handful of clean waste and polished her as vigorously and unconcernedly as if the "Registered Mail” were no more than a summer shower. But Hendricks heard him murmur once or twice: "They don’t want us any more, ‘Lulu.’ They don’t want us any more.” By and by Simmons walked over to the airship and examined her carefully. “No chance of a break-down, T s’pose?” he queried hopefully. "No chance whatever,” smilingly answered the aviator. Simmons looked about to see if there was anything with which he could tamper—a bolt he could loosen, or a screw he could remove, but there was nothing. Besides, he would have been detected. “ ’Lectriclty, too,” he growled. “Gasoline was bad enough, but ’lectriclty!" He turned away, and climbed into the cab of 1448. He carried baggage and passenger coaches for the first time In many years, and a feeling of shame stole over him as he gazed at “Old Black Lulu” and the string of cars behind her. It had all come ao “suddenlike.” Only a few days ago, it. seemed, airships were only toys at which he had laughed. Yet one of these toys had supplanted his “Lulu” —and there she stood, flaunting her triumph in his face—the blue-gray hulk three times as large as the largest car he had ever hauled and carrying his precious freight—his express parcels—his registered mall! “Old Black Lulu’s” days of glory were over —and so were his! Alas, how bitter! No. 3‘ counted off the miles as she always had. “Old Black Lulu” puffed and whistled, and clicked and pounded over the. frogs, just as she always had —and, by and by, she started to sing a crazy little song of her own composing: They don’t—want me—any more —’’ They don’t—want me —any more —” Simmons heard and understood—v and answered: “You’re right, old girl. They don’t want you any more. ‘Lulu’ to the scrap-shop, an’, me to Highland Park.” In a short time they passed the ’ninetieth mile-post, and Simmons began to look forthe "Registered Mail.” Somewhere along the line she would cross the N.-M.-W. tracks, headed directly west. She had no signals to heed, as “Lulu” had, no curves to take or hills to climb; she had it so easy—all plain sailing for her. She would cross the N.-M.-W. tracks at the bridge, and sail away Out of sight before No. 3 could — “The devil!” The captain, or motorman, or whatever he called himself, had told him there was no possible chance of a break-down, and yet— The “Registered Mail” was wabbling—swaying—swinging! She was going to drop! Some one had blundered. Simmons’ was not the man to let a golden opportunity pass. Not he I Swiftly he calculated the distance to the point where the "Registered Mail” would fall, and swiftly he jerked the throttle open wide. Then he “hooked her up”—gave her “the short stroke,” and she responded. “ ‘Lulu!’ 'Lulu'!” he- Cried. “You go to it, old girl! Work hard now—hard, hard! ‘Lulu,’ old girl, do your blatnedest! Go to it, ‘Lulu!’ ” The short stroke won the day for "Old Black Lulu.” Simmons leaned out of the window And watched the airship anxiously. Down —down—down it dropped, and “Old Black Lulu” plowed into its shiny body just as it struck the bridge. They plunged Into the river together—the “Registered Mail” and her crew, and "Old Black Lulu,” with part of her . “drag.” Simmons still sat on the leather-cushioned seat, his greasy, sullen face transfigured by a trimphant smile. - » • “Old Black Lulu” was never sent to the scrap-shop. She Iles there, at the river-bottom, still “hooked-up,” covered with mud and victory. , And Surly Simmons never went to Highland Park, for he lived just long enough to say: . ’ “They can run all the aerial mails they like when I’m under the sod —but —not in—my time. No. ‘Lulu’—old girl—not—in our time.”

And Still Another.

And while we are still on the subject of color scheme, did you ever notice what a peculiar ability a redheaded boy has for distributing black eyes among all his playmates?” -

Spasmodic Sermon.

A soft answer is »o good for the guy who is hard of hearth*.

THE EVBWIMO BEPUBLIOAM, BHWSSBLAER, IXB.

The inventors of sport clothes should favor us by furnishing a new name for those sport clothes de luxe which have increased in importance and In volume of production for the past three seasons. They might be called “veranda” clothes, but that title Is not broad enough to cover their usefulness. They are very smart and they are informal; since they suggest sports they cannot be anything else. But new fabrics used for them may be truthfully called gorgeous. In the picture a costume of jersey silk deserves to be called “stunning.” It has a skirt of white jersey and a blouse in turquoise blue. Many covered buttons and pipings, in white, contribute to the distinction of a dress that has wonderful designing as well as wonderful material, to place it on the plane of the highest art in appareling. The new weave of silk and fiber silk that belong to the tricolette family makes Ideal mediums for this character of dress. The blouse in the dress pictured is piped with white, and buttons up along

Easter Millinery in Tailored Styles

She who wears a suit and tailored hat on Easter Sunday may do so with the assurance that she is above reproach as to the correctness of her Easter garb. The most austere of critics will not find fault with her. It is a good rule to follow, that which admonishes us to wear quiet clothes to church. Even tailored hats this spring are less simple than they have bben for several seasons past. There is a great liking for black hats In high luster byaids, trimmed with fancy feathers, ribbons or flowers. Even when they are all black there is nothing somber about them, because the shapes and their trimlmngs_have a brilliant sheen. Here are three black hats that can be recommended for general wear. They illustrate the greater elaboration In making hats that has come in with peacetime millinery. At the top of the group there is shown a braid hat having little loops of silk all over the shape. The same idea appears in hats having loops of beads put on in this way. There is a facing of satin and a -folded baud of satin ribbon about the vrown. A wing is posed flat against the underbrim at the back. - The hat with round crown of lisere braid has an openwork brim of slpperstraw woven from crown to brim edge and back, that makes it very cool looking. It has a collar and tie of narrow “stove-polish” ribbon and a fan Of imitation goura feathers at the back. , •’ On e of the new "cut-out” shapes completes the group. It ls of lisefe braid having the brim faced with

Stunning Sport Costume

the under arm seam. It is cut with the effect of straps oyer the shoulders, the white piping serving to outline the straps and belt which are in turquoise blue. Buttons are set on at the front and the long, plain, tight-fitting sleeves are buttoned along the forearm. The hat and shoes for wear with this character are Items that must be considered in connection with It. For in all lines sport clothes require special designing.

Homemade Tinting Solution.

- Red crepe paper has long been used to give pink and flesh tints to georgette and silk. blouses and underwear, but everyone 1 does not realize that any color paper may be successfully used in the same way. Squeeze a piece of ordinary crepe paper in clear water until you have the color you desire. Then remove the paper, rinse the garment to be dyed in clear cold water and put it in the tinting, solution. Allow It to remain until sufficiently and evenly colored.

•» * satin and bound with piping braid. The brim is slashed into sections, and each section rolled back. It looks like a difficult bit of millinery work. Loops of silk cord slipped over satin-covered buttons on the crown make a very tailored finish on this model.

Stoutness and Sweaters.

In spite of the great vogue of sweaters, it is not every figure which can wear a sweater well, as It seems to cut one off -so; If one !• Inclined to be round, not to say fat, the sweater and its charms Is not for one; however, it can be helped along a little by adding a belt of some .sort and adjusting the lines a little. A good way to do this with a coat model is to leave the front entirely open and falling rather loosely from the shoulders and tying the sash twice around the waist, with the ends In the back.

Lavender Georgette Negligees.

There is a wide use of light violet and lavender shades for negligees, especially in georgette. When we began the winter, with thought of last year, eoalless and with a zero temperature, we thought most of heavy negligees, of warm -velvet and padded silk. But as the mild winter did so much to stretch out the coal supply, we have again taken the transparent and filmy negligee to ( our hearts. And so it Is that the lavender georgette things have come to have tremendous vogue.

WOULD NOT HEED WARNING

World Refused to Profit by Exhibition of German Cunning Given FortyEight Years Age. Alsace and Lorraine, those familiar names, found almost every day in almost every paper; those two oblong strips of country between France and Germany—how little some of us know about them, after all. The ex-crown prince, In order to prove the Ignorance of our fighting men, reported an American prisoner as saying that Alsace was a large lake. Perhaps he did, this soldier of ours—and perhaps there was a twinkle in his eye and a laugh in his heart when he said It; for our boys packed a lot of humor in their kits. When we come down in it, however, we Americans —yes, and our English, even our French, brothers —might well have known more of these two “lost provinces," We had a chance. But in our crowded lives many books are left unread; and so It is that these Alsatian stories, translated from the French of two authors who wrote under their combined names of Erckmann-Chat-rfan were little known except to college students. Even then, the prophecy which these books contain went unheeded —a warning so plain, so certain, so convincing, that as we read it now in the light of what Germany has done these last four years, we wonder It was not trumpeted to us in every street. In their book, “The Plebiscite," Erckmann-Chatrain gave us not only the tragic story of what happened in Alsace and Lorraine in 1870 and 1871, but warnings of the German designs on the rest of the world. Before most of us dreamed of this awful war, they told the story of 48 years ago, and in the telling pointed a certain finger to the future. Only a year after the Franco-Prussian war ended, after picturing freshly remembered German brutalities, they said: “Those who shall come after will see worse things than this; since men are wolves, foxes, hawks, owls, all this must come round again. “Those Germans are the most perfect spies in the world; they come into the world to spy, as birds do to thieve; it is part of their nature. Let the Americans and all the people who are kind enough to receive them think of this. Their Imprudence may some day cost them dearly. I am not inventing; I am not saying a word too much. We are an example. Let the world profit by it” That was our warning almost half a century ago.—Ariadne Gilbert, in St Nicholas.

Rich Chinese Provinces.

Shantung, the Chinese province which Japan has been demanding from China, is a mountainous promontory 100 miles wide, which projects eastward from the mainland into the Yellow sea for 200 miles. Its area is about 55,970 square miles. The central .portion is occupied by massive limestone mountains, culminating in Mount Tai, famous In history and considered sacred by the people. West, southwest and north of these mountains lie the Shantung portions of the great alluvial plain of north China. East and southeast of the mountains and throughout the promontory are many fertile valleys and small plains. The provi nee is wel i watered, though its lakes are few and small, and there are no rivers of importance except the Hoang-ho, which traverses the great plain in the west and north. The Grand canal runs through the whole province from north to south. Agricul- ' ture is a flourishing industry and the crops include some cotton, a little rice, tobacco, Indigo, wheat, barley, maize, millet, pulse, peanuts and vegetables.

Novel Use for a Periscope.

Turning the sword into a plowshare is a figure of speech, but "using the periscope to direct the players in a pantomime has actually come to pass. This peaceful adaptation of the means whereby the submarine commander has watched the ocean, to the purposes of a musical director watching a stage, took place at the first performance of a pantomime, In New York. The composer of the music had come from Chicago to direct the orchestra, and found his seat in the orchestra pit so far below the stage level that only a neck like that oh Alice tn Wonderland, after she had eaten the mushroom, would have let him look over the footlights. So the management installed a periscope. It was probably some littie time before the whole audience had guessed what the think was, and that a musical director down below was perlscoping the players on the stage while he beat time for his orchestra.

Coffee Instead of Booze.

If the dope of Mr. Manuel Gorzyl is correct coffee will supplant booze and coffee houses will stand where the wet drinks once held forth. Mr. Gorzyl, who by the way is from Porto Rico, bases his predictions upon what already has happened in his own country, which recently went dry. From statistics, he says Porto Ricans are drinking 75 per cent more coffee now than before prohibition went into effect. “There Is no demand for the socalled soft drinks,” declared Mr. Gorzyl, “and there will be no increased demand for such drinks In your own country. Coffee will become the favorite drink between meals as it is now at meals. Coffee phops will take the place of corner saloons”

The Reason.

“Monday is generally a fine day for motorists.” “Why Monday especially “Because it comes after the Sunday speeding pinches.” ■'

RELIEVED HIS MIND

Sumner Shaw Tells of His Defeat of Insomnia. Possibly There Are Others Who Would Sleep More Peacefully, if They Squared Up With Conscience, as He Did. The schoolmaster, who with others was whiling away an hour in Squire Marr’s office, complained that he had not been sleeping well lately. He dignified his trouble by calling it Insomnia. As might have been expected, the squire had a specific. “The thing to do," he said, “is to make your mind as near a blank as possible. When I find that my mind Is disposed to work overtime. I resort to-the old nursery jingle: The House That Jack Built.’ I repeat it rather slowly from beginning to end, and go over it again and again. To me the rhythm is very soothlpg, and the pictures that the words call up are constantly changing, just as in dreams. Presently I begin to get a little tangled up, so that perhaps it will be the priest all shaven and shorn that milks the cow with the crumpled horn. It Is not long after that before I drop into real slumber that lasts until I am awakened, may be, by the cock that crows in the morn.” “Did you ever try reckoning Interest as a means of inducing sleep?" asked Sumner Shaw, the carriage maker. “As a rule, Pm not much subject to insomnia," he went on. “But I got an Inkling of what it is like when I was staying overnight at my nephew’s in the city, four years ago, or so. They make long evenings, and It must have been close on to ten before I got off to bed. “ ‘Remember that you don’t have to get up at some unseemly hour, Uncle Summer,’ says Susie. ‘We don’t have breakfast until eight.’ “Well, I dropped right off to sleep, same as usual; but when I woke up and turned on the electric light at the head of the bed, I found it was only three o’clock. * ‘Now, then,’ says I to myself, ‘l’ll have to get another nap.’ “But that was easier said than done. The harder I tried the wider awake I was. I guess it was insomnia, fast enough. Finaljy I got to thinking over my past life. Well, probably I’d done worse things in my life, but what I seemed to fasten on was a little business transaction with the Widow Wiggin. I sold her a sleigh at my own price; and the very next day I sold one Just like it to Cap’n Gray, and he beat me down five dollars, and I made something at that. In the circumstances I felt as if it would be no more than fair to go to Mrs. Wiggin and make her the same discount. But you are apt to let such things go, and pretty soon she took sick and died. She had no immediate family, and the property went to distant connections out of the state. So I kind of let the thing slide, as being of no great consequence, anyway. “But it loomed up big there in the dark, and at last I had to promise myself that if I lived to get home I’d get clear of that five dollars somehow. At that time a Belgian relief fund was being raised, and I concluded that it would please her as much as anything, if she could know it, to put down a subscription in memory of Mrs. Maria Wiggin. “Having settled that, I felt easier, but not real sleepy, as it still seemed a long to breakfast time. Then it occured to me that about eighteen years’ interest ought to go with that five dollars, and I fell to considering how much that would be. I am pretty good at figuring in my head, and I could have worked out the simple Interest easily; but compound interest is another matter. However, I began casting it up, and I got as tar as the fifth year. Then the next thing I knew Susie was singing out: Breakfast, Uncle Sumner !’ “So you see, reckoning Interest got the better of insomnia that time. Hebbe, though, purging my conscience had something to do with it. You are • welcome to both of these remedies, Mr. Jenkins,” he added with a friendly wink, “In case the squire’s doesn’t work.” —Youth’s Companion.

A Rare Bird.

- The white-headed stork, one of the most Interesting and valuable possessions of the London Zoological society, Is dead. It was a native of the Upper or White Nile, and so far as is known the only living specimen of this remarkable bird in Europe. As long ago as 1860 the then British vice consul at Khartoum —Mr. Petherick, himself an Indefatigable naturalist—brought two specimens to London, and those were the first ever seen alive in Britain. After an Interval of many years the present sirdar —Sir Reginald Wingate—presented to the society the specimen which has just died, and which was a familiar object in Qie vicinity of his palace at Khartoum. Visitors to the garden In Regent’s park will recall the 'rather melancholylooking bird in the aviary adjoining the Southern entrance. For long periods it remained almost motionless, save for the twinkle of an extra mobile eye. r •'

Safety in Debate.

, “Papa,” said Willie Hohenzollern, “aren’t you worried about what they may do with us?” “Np, Willie, inhere te so much difference of opinion as to what would be a suitable retribution that I think the argument may easily be prolonged indefinitely. >