Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 95, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1919 — STORIES of AMERICAN CITIES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

STORIES of AMERICAN CITIES

Professor Keeps Hens Up Late to Wake Them Lay I THACA, N. Y.—Pullets dining at nine o’clock every night and outlaying the most seasoned hens; electric or other lights in every coop, and better health for chickens are predictions for the immediate future in the poultry world by

Prof. James E. Rice of the department of poultry husbandry, Cornell university. Professor Rice states that tests carried on at Cornell during 48 weeks of the laying capacity of more than 200 hens and pullets have proved that lights in chicken coops have a direct effect on the production of eggs. The coops were kept lighted until nine o’clock every night, and the egg totals showed thatlOO hens and pullets in the lighted chicken houses produced

135 3-10 dozens more eggs than the chickens that went to bed when the sun went down. In money, wholesale prices, the increased dozens of eggs in the lighted coop amounted to $71.88. In each chicken house the 100 layers were 55 pullets and older hens and the pullets beat the seasoned layers in number of eggs produced. The light had no other effect on the poultry except that they maintained somewhat better health. The average increase In production of eggs for hens in lighted coops Is placed at “one dozen or more” per year by Professor Rice. The poultryman has control over the egg production by turning the light switch. Laying pullets quit laying when the lights were turned off for a period and began aeain when the lights went on.

Rio Grande “Kidnaps” Texas Farmer Into Mexico HIDALGO, TEX. —One of the most remarkable cases of “kidnaping” ever known in the lower border region of Texas has come to the attention of the United States and Mexican authorities. Jose Cantu, a peaceful land owner

and valley farmer, who has lived all his life, in Texas, was bodily transferred to Mexico by a recent rise In the Rio Grande. Along with him went 400 acres of his most productive land and many head of live stock. Under past decisions of the international boundary commission the center of the bed of the Rio Grande is the dividing line between the United States and Mexico. This shifting of the course of the erratic river places Mr. Cantu and rhuch of his property

on the Mexico side of the stream and, according to the Mexican authorities, he is now amenable to the laws and taxes of that country. Upon Mr. Cantu’s transplanted farm are a number of homes of employees who were also American voters until the river changed its course. To further complicate matters, the Mexican customs authorities are insisting that Mr. Cantu shall pay duty on his live stock and other property that has found its way to that country by no consent of his.

Oft-Told Tale of the Girl in the Country Town . i...., . --- ■ ■- - —- , ———————— DENVER. —Her father —mentioning no names —searched for her many months. He traced her here and knocked on the door of her room in a cheap hotel, calling out, “It’s dad, honey, come to take you home.”

He had come from the little Illinois town. One can visualize the town. The main street, its fixed personnel—the little group in front of the grocery store, interminably whittling, yawning —the drug store on the corner where pallid soda is dispensed to the village beaux and their belles o’ nights after the band concert down on the square; the post office, rendezvous of Mother Grundy and her satellites; the depot, i where ail the town goes for its daily pleasure, seeing the drummer alight

from the train, or Banker Jones return from a business trip to the city, or the cheap burlesque buuch arrive to give a golden interpretation of Life at the op’ry house. The girl was satisfied there until she went to the big city to visit her sister, who married well. Then came discontent. No doubt the daily contrast —the monotony of the village routine against memory’s background of bright lights, surging crowds, shifting scenes—spelled unrest for her. She perhaps was braver, than thousands of her sisters in like surroundings, in all the townu of the kind scattered over the country. She filially bolted. She sought Life. She is dying now. victim of poison, self-administered. She has drunk the cup todts dregs. There may be no moral to this. The death of a few girls more or less In the cities, country girls who answered the Lure, probably could never serve to stay other girls from following the will-o’-the-wisp that calls cityward. But perhaps some day the church, and the municipal administrations, and the women’s clubs will take steps—practical steps—to save these girls from themselves, and the beasts who prey, when they come. Mere preaching and tracts won’t do it. The prim path never appeals to Youth above the primrose path.

When Cupid Helped Mirandy to Run the Elevator

NEW YORK. —Now, there is Mirandy. Mirandy used to be a general houseworker, and discontented. Now she’s one of the elevator girls in a big office building and contented, I think. She’s a very dressy person. And if she were, not a strong young animal -

she couldn’t run an elevator all day with corset three inches too tight, and a blouse that all the draft of 18 stories blows through, and heels so high that one can’t see how a human being can manage them! The other day when the elevator was full of passengers at the ground floor, Mirandy paid no heed to the command of the aged male starter to get her car under way. She stood,

leaning out her door, one hand on the cage and one on the wheel, her right foot out in the rear, like a statue of the Flying Mercury. While the passengers fidgeted and the starter glowered Mirandy smiled and smiled, her eyes looking through him and out upon the sunny street. “ And then everybody saw what detained her. A young colored gentleman In a fawn-colored derby and a cane had strolled over from the opposite side of the street and was coming Into the buHdtng. “Waitin’!” cried Mirandy. coquetlng. He entered the-car, and the starter was obeyed—at last. But what a ride It was! Could Mirandf be expected to stop without jerking, and going by each floor'signalled, when she had an ardent admirer bending over her? Surely not! ,1 ‘ On'e by one the luckless passengers escaped; find only the writer and the admirer were left with Mirandy. The writer wanted to go to the eighteenth floor; the admirer got off at t,he seventeenth story. “Wait for me, honey,” h« said ; “I’ll be gone only a minute.” The elevator made for the eighteenth floor —but stopped before It got there! Mirandy then, despite the irate remarks of her sole’passenger, produced a rose-colored patent-leather vanity case and proceeded to make up! She balanced the case nicely on the elevator wheel, so that its mirror wgs tilted at a convenient angle, and got busy with a lip stick, very red rouge, and a remarkable smoky mess used as face powder by colored folks of quality. She pulled out her hair and smoothed her collar. No 17 buzzed and down she went! Nothing could have detained her. The writer ryde downward with Mirandy and her lover, while floors signalled In vain and the world was wrapped up in love-making. » - ' ' ' • ■- v • .. .. \ : : >-