Hammond Times, Volume 16, Number 161, Hammond, Lake County, 29 December 1922 — Page 9

II

I 11 v4

f ft

3

-I

C

URI

What Makes

Stop, Look

tit i rt i 1 1 i i f 1 1 it "w r i x iir j

HAVE you ever studied the philosophy of the crowd in the street? The surging masses that stream through the busy hours of the day with monotonous tread, some with hurried paces, some with lagging strides, all bent upon some objective in their path, are a commonplace of the throbbing arteries of city life. But, lo! A hat off, an oddity of dress, a clumsy motorist in a jibe with a guardian of public order, or a crash in the moving lanes of traffic, and distraction at once sits in the eye of the throng. It is contagion. The knitted brow unknits. The vacant eye awakens a gleam of interest. The crowd of the sidewalk is transfused in a flash into the common leaven of insatiable curiosity.

It wants to know. the mirror up to nature, showing virThe Human Crowd. -tue her feature, scorn her image and That is only human. A crowd is in the final analysis our plain gulalways human, except when it liability.

Sweden's Telephone System Is Like a Dream Come True IN Sweden the telephone system is many workmen's houses. The lastso well organized that it has be- named are accorded specially cheap come a real social nexus. Even rates, which allow of from seven to before the war Swedish telephones ten calls a day. The larger business were rapidly being installed in many and government offices even have parts of Russia and Poland, and branches as extensive as the exsince the war a French commission change itself, and that hotel is of has visited Stockholm to study the little account which has not an insystem on the spot -strument in every room. In the capital of Sweden not only When you are absent from your ofevery business house and every firm -fice, or if you live alone in a house is linked up by the telephone, but and expect to be out for a time, you nearly all middle-class and even have but to instruct the exchange.

Golden Gleanings

O

S

Them

and reaches stretches beyond orderly restraint. Hamlet may assure us how, like a god, is man in his powers of reason, but the anthropologist, after all, has a powerful pivot of argument when be asseverates that in instinct and unconscious impulse we are quite like the ape. Hence, our curiosity. In the busy streets curiosity has its widest wing. There are all sorts of curiosity morbid curiosity, idle curiosity, stupid curiosity, emotional curiosity, every variety of curiosity from a simple expression of mild interest to the major limits of hysteria. We all have it, are born with it, retain it as a life possession that we never can be parted from, whether we would or not. So to dissect it or dismantle it of some of its eccentric phases to the life of the streets is merely to hold BIFF WHACK BANG BANG

. k. ' S

it

TO SEE A ON THE NOSE WILL STOP THE STAIDEST OF US We are just gullible, that's all. An airplane scudding through vaults of clouds with the grinding whirr of a sawmill lifts all eyes to and the names and numbers of all callers will be recorded and reported to you on your return. It is interesting to compare this with our own system, in which, if a subordinate has blundered in receiving a message, it is almost impossible to find out who has rung up, even though you make inquiry two minutes later. The Swedish telephone girl reflects the brightness and alertness of the system she operates, and is so popular a person in Stockholm that she is able to organize dances and other entertainments, at which one may meet charming people of good standing.

1

V n n n

H rat

F

' r ' t-i"7 J n A 7 S5 Fil ,7. ib. (COLlTKSy jr. pfi

WHEN THERE ISN'T EVEN A SPECK IN THE SKY heaven; that is, eyes in the street, up goes one head, two heads, hundreds of heads, multitudes of heads, and myriad eyes scan the regions above. For just that minute all creatures here below are forgotten and all earthly cares are momentarily lost. The crowd is centered upon one idea, the idea of that fleeting object in the skies. Minds are lifted from the drudgery of daily pursuits for a brief instant and all hearts are akin. The Greatest Leveler. Curiosity brings us with astonish-

The Story of an UNC' EDINBURG'S DROWNIN," which Thomas Nelson Page considered the best picture of life in old Virginia which he had ever drawn, was written to obtain the money with which to purchase his engagement ring to the lovely bride of his youth, Anne Seddon Bruce, daughter of Charles Bruce, of Stanton Hill, Charlotte county, Va, The description of the heroine, although not identically the same, was that of his fiancee, while the setting of some of the scenes was the home of Miss Bruce's brother, the late Seddon Bruce, of Richmond, which she often visited in her girlhood. Seddon Bruce's daughter, now the wife of Rev. Arthur Kinsolving, rector of St. Paul s Episcopal Church, Baltimore, was a great favorite with her aunt, and after her death Mr. Page brought this ring to her mother, with the request that it be given to the little girl as soon as she was old enough to wear it. This Mrs. Bruce did, and the interesting souvenir is now the property of Mrs. Arthur Kinsolving.

It is a good and safe rule to sojourn in every place as if you meant to spend your life there, never omitting an opportunity of doing a kindness, or speaking a true word, or making a friend. -Raskin.

TH

E

on

' i'f il

(COURTESY PHILADELPHIA RECORD) -ing suddenness into a unity or mind and impulse. As a great leveler It has democracy itself beaten. Then there is the common street casualty of the victim who miscalculates the approach of a motor vehicle. That is becoming almost too common for the ordinary phase of the curiosity of the streets. Still it has its morbid attraction. The grewsome has a horrible fascination for most- so no matter if the poor victim is pulverized to a pulp there are those who battle to have a look, even if it bowls them over. And they rush in like currents of air in a simoon. It's the thing of the hour. Nothing else has any place in the mind or the vacuity of mind of the man or the woman in the street. That spot is a million-ampere electromagnet They are glued to it. Engagement Ring The second wife of Thomas Nelson Page, a refined, cultured woman, "reared," to quote him, "among beautiful pictures and the best books," cherished always the sweetest feelings for her predecessor. During a visit to Mrs. Seddon Bruce she asked to be carried to her grave in Hollywood, on the outskirts of Richmond, and as she looked down upon it, she exclaimed: "To think of my taking the place of this lovely young creature!" The modest stone marking the spot is symbolic of the author's circumstances during those early years of struggle, but the inscription "In Memory of an Angel," followed by "I thank my God on every remembrance of you" -makes of it a testimonial too high to be exchanged for the loftiest monument. Other memorial tributes from him are a window in Holy Trinity Church, Richmond, representing a young woman distributing loaves to hungry children, illustrating Mrs. Page's helpful sympathy for the poor.

-TO (1

-Mill

C

R

3-

The flapper wings her fight through the vortex of the gathering mob to gulp in the horror of it The policeman wares the majesty of his office with a gesture of his club, the portly lady sinks with emotion in the clasp of a nearby maid, the boy rushes in where never a boy fears to tread and the fashionable gentleman with the cane is unconscious of the loss of his hat in the scramble for a glimpse of the victim. The victim alone, tragic or otherwise, is the only being in that jostling horde who feels no prick of curiosity.

.1

Photo by Underwood. JAVA'S ONE-MAN SPRINKLER SYSTEM. And what could be simpler? Here we have a native boy laying the dust along the road in the suburbs of Batavia.

OW

D

.S S I

His sensation may be either fright or pain. But he has no curiosity. It is for the scrambling, pushing crowd to manifest the force of that attraction. The overpowering impulse to see holds it in a grip like a vise and there it stands, immovable. Sometimes it is a very simple cause in the streets that will fill a sidewalk with an attentive group of idlers. The organ-grinder from Naples with his fantastically-dressed ape belongs to a past age as an attraction to street crowds. Yet the charm of it never falls.

J6 r.