“WIRELESS FROM MONTAUK.“A message received late last night reports a strange happening off Montauk Point yesterday during a short, but fierce, squall.“At the very instant when the operator at the point was trying to get into communication with a trim, black schooner that carried the apparatus, the wind caught her full; she heeled sharply; then the fog, which had held the whole day, once more descended. But there came another sudden rift in the mist when the craft was again sighted. This time it was only her hull, for both masts, in the interval, had been carried away clean to the deck. Then once more the fog descended. No hint of her identity or present whereabouts is known.�
“WIRELESS FROM MONTAUK.
“A message received late last night reports a strange happening off Montauk Point yesterday during a short, but fierce, squall.
“At the very instant when the operator at the point was trying to get into communication with a trim, black schooner that carried the apparatus, the wind caught her full; she heeled sharply; then the fog, which had held the whole day, once more descended. But there came another sudden rift in the mist when the craft was again sighted. This time it was only her hull, for both masts, in the interval, had been carried away clean to the deck. Then once more the fog descended. No hint of her identity or present whereabouts is known.�
That was all, but I shoved the paper quickly into my jacket pocket before the girl returned from the water, where she had been filling our kettle.
Just what prompted me to be at such pains to conceal the news item, I am at a loss to say. Perhaps it was some premonition. At all events, I argued that it would be better to think over the thing a bit before I did anything. Of course, the circumstance might amount to absolutely nothing.
I took good pains, however, not to let any of my indecision or abstraction show, and our delightful little tête-à -tête picnic ended as light-heartedly and happily as it had begun. And just about sundown it was a very[Pg 51]tired little girl, indeed, that insisted upon doing her share of paddling in the bow of the canoe.
Reaching the schooner’s deck, I was astonished to see what order had already begun to show among the former tangle of wreckage. All standing and running rigging had been carefully overhauled, coiled, and tagged. The decks were pretty clear, and what clutter there was was well-ordered.
Stroth met us jovially at the ladder. “Well, girlie, a good day?�
“Oh, fine, daddy, and——â€� here she stifled a healthy bit of a yawn. “Oh, I’m so sleepy!â€�
“Nothing like the open, eh, Grey?� said he genially.
“Nothing,� I echoed, then added: “Nothing for sleep like it, unless it’s tiresome company.�
It was cheap, and I regretted it, even before I caught her look; but, come to think of it, the look compensated.
“Then off to bed with you, honey!� cried her father.
“Bed? Now? Why, we haven’t even had supper.�
“Well, I think it would be better, don’t you? I’ll send in Saki to you with your meal, and you can tumble right in. You must remember, dear, we’ve been through some happenings since——â€�
She broke into the argument with a happy laugh. Then she kissed him, gave me a nod, and left us.
I watched her from sight, then turned to Stroth’s chuckle, as he queried:
“A pretty good showing for one day, isn’t it?� He indicated the decks with a sweep of his right hand. Over his left shoulder was slung a camera.
“I never would have believed it possible in the time,� I replied, in genuine admiration. Then I nodded forward to where Stevens was superintending the construction of the scissorlike arrangement of spars with which he purposed to restep the sticks. “A mighty good man that, Mr. Stroth,� I added.
“I’m beginning to think so,� was the serious reply.
“It won’t be as long a job as you first thought, will it?� I inquired.
“Not by a jugful! Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if we could shake this mooring by day after to-morrow! Yes, Stevens is a gem!�
At this point the little captain himself strode back and joined us, just as I was remarking:
“The hobby again, Mr. Stroth,� with a nod toward the camera.
“Why, yes, indeed,� he replied. “I thought it would be pretty good to have a half dozen or so snaps at the oldRuby Lightin the hospital. I’m going to get some more to-morrow, just as the work’s beginning. We’ll develop them together, if you like.�
“Nothing I’d like better!� I replied.
At the time I simply couldn’t make head or tail to the look of displeasure, coupled to what was almost fear, that Captain Stevens shot at me. But he didn’t offer a word in explanation as we filed on down the steps to supper.
Oddly enough, it was not until the following night that I gave second thought to that account I had read of our accident in the paper the coast guard had dropped.
I don’t believe I should have reverted to it seriously, even then, if something of a kindred nature hadn’t happened.[Pg 52]
Stroth, as he had promised, had spent the day, joyous as a boy, at his picture taking; but along about four o’clock he had filled his entire reel. And it was just at this time that Stevens was about to dispatch a couple of the crew in the dory launch.
It seems there was a broken turnbuckle or two to be replaced, and there was no risk in thus sending the fellows ashore to a chandler’s; particularly as they would return after dusk.
Stroth heard the order, and added one of his own.
“And, lads,� he called to them, above the engine’s first sharp barkings, “you might bring me all you can get of to-day’s papers.�
The cheery “Aye, aye, sir!� spoke well for their affection for their chief.
Immediately thereafter Stroth left us for the cabin. At his disappearance, Stevens turned to me.
“Then you aren’t going with him?� he asked sharply.
“With him—where?â€�
“To the dark room.�
“Why, no—if that’s where he’s bound—I guess not. I suppose he forgot the invitation.â€�
“Maybe so,� said Stevens meaningly, though I invited no confidences.
That night there were again but three of us at the supper table; but this time it was Stroth that was the absentee.
Stevens seemed particularly preoccupied, and left the conversation to Stella and me; but we managed not to miss his share overmuch. I leave the reason to the acute to fathom.
Supper cleared, the girl and I tackled cribbage. Incidentally, she played an abominable game, though I wouldn’t admit it.
Stevens busied himself at a small wall desk, doing some sort of drawing—probably a sketch of the way he would effect to-morrow’s task in refitting.
It was a quiet night, and the moon rose late.
Perhaps the game had run an hour when we heard the pop-pop of the returning dory launch; then came the slight thump as she brought up to the port ladder.
Stevens left the cabin to meet the fellows; returning almost immediately, and carrying a couple of packages, probably the turnbuckles, and a stack of newspapers which he flopped down on the center table.
Then came the slam of a door behind me as I sat with my back to the owner’s stateroom.
Even before I turned I could feel the change in him; and one look riveted the impression. I had begun to know that look.
But it was some time before he said a word. I could see that he was laboring to conceal some sort of excitement—for the girl’s sake, it flashed on me.
We kept on with our game, and, with a grunt, Stroth caught up one of the newspapers from the pile. The sheet shook under his hand as he turned page after page.
It looked to me as if he were almost certain to find some item. It’s hard to make my point clear, but I don’t mean that he was simply looking for an article, a particular page. His search through those crackling sheets partook more the nature of prophecy, as though some force other than plain reason prompted him.
Then suddenly the crackling stopped; his brow knotted, his hands no longer shook. For perhaps two minutes he stood thus.[Pg 53]
Finally he put down the paper, and I could see that he was getting some grip on himself; and it was a good grip, for his voice had almost the real ring as he spoke to the girl.
“Turning-in time again, honey!� he said.
“Why, you’re a regular old ogre at sending me off to bed, dad!� And I saw that she suspected no change in him as she obediently finished the hand, bade me good night, and went to her stateroom.
It was as though he had nerved himself to the limit, and could hold it only till he heard the click of her door latch.
“Grey!� It was little more than a whisper, but I jumped to it as to a bellow.
“Yes?� said I.
“Go to your room, and don’t leave it until to-morrow morning at nine!�
I went.
TO BE CONTINUED.
Old Gentleman—“Do you mean to say that your teachers never thrash you?â€�
Little Boy—“Never. We have moral suasion at our school.â€�
“What’s that?�
“Oh, we get kep’ in and stood up in corners and locked out and locked in and made to write one word a thousand times, and scowled at and jawed at and that’s all.�
The Greenlanders’ mode of life has accustomed them to take things as they come. If they find no game, they know how to go hungry, and in their relations with each other and with Europeans they manifest the same astounding patience.
I would see them in the morning standing by the hour in the passage of the colonial manager’s house, or waiting in the snow outside his door, to speak to him or his assistant, who happened to be otherwise engaged.
They had probably some little business to transact with those officials before starting for their homes, often many miles from the colony, and it might be of the greatest importance to them to get away as soon as possible. If the weather happened to look threatening, every minute would be more than precious; but there they would stand waiting, as immovable as ever, and to all appearance as indifferent.
If I asked them if they were going to start, they only answered: “I don’t know. Perhaps, if the weather don’t get worse,� or something to that effect; but I never once heard the smallest murmur of impatience.
The following occurrence, for which my informant vouches, illustrates this side of their character:
An inspector at Godthaab sent a boat’s crew into the Ameralik Fiord to mow grass for his goats. They remained a long time away, and no one could understand what had become of them. At last they returned, and when the inspector asked why they had been so long, they answered that when they got to the place the grass was too short, so they had to settle down and wait till it grew.[Pg 54]
[Pg 55]
Having dreamed a tramp had entered her home and killed her, Minnie J. Stephens, seventeen years old, daughter of John Stephens, former postmaster of Attalla, Ala., and prominent in social circles, secured her father’s pistol and examined it to see that it was in order for use in case a tramp appeared. While examining the weapon, it was discharged, the ball puncturing the intestines a dozen times and causing a fatal wound.
The Reverend Asher S. Preston, of Portland, formerly pastor of the Wayne Street M. E. Church, Fort Wayne, Ind., stopped off in Fort Wayne on his way home from his farm in Steuben County. He had with him an ear of corn which was 14½ inches long, and was raised on the farm of Mack Pogue, just across the road from the Reverend Preston’s farm. Pogue’s corn average about 100 bushels to the acre.
Pink oysters are the latest freak of nature under investigation by experts of the department of agriculture. The rosy-hued bivalve comes from beds in Long Island Sound, looks like a regular oyster when gathered, but turns up pink on the plate of the ultimate consumer.
Frightened epicureans besieged the bureau of chemistry with inquiries, and a volunteer poison squad found the pink oyster not only harmless but delicious.
The chemists have a theory that the oysters are turned pink either by a wild yeast bacillus or some other micro-organism.
Charles Nicholson, a prominent farmer living near Scranton, Iowa, reports the loss of a couple of teeth, which were kicked out by an angry mother hen that went on a rampage. Nicholson was attempting to catch some little chickens in the grass, when the mother hen flew at him, scratching and kicking him in the face.
Mrs. Rose A. Schmahl, mother of Julius A. Schmahl, Minnesota’s secretary of State, is dead at the home of her daughter in Duluth. Mrs. Schmahl was eighty-six years old, and was one of the survivors of the Indian massacre at Fort Ridgely, Minn., in 1862.
Mystery surrounded the disappearance of about fifty of the choicest fowls on the poultry farm of George Bagg, at Brewerton, on Oneida Lake, N. Y. Twenty hens were taken a few weeks ago; soon afterward about twenty more disappeared, and a week ago ten more joined the missing.
The poultry house was double padlocked, a homemade burglar alarm was employed, and still the poultry seemed to melt away. There were no traces of predatory animals, and the superstitious wagged their heads, while Mr. Bagg was in despair.[Pg 56]
A few days ago he put in the day hiding in some bushes midway between his poultry yard and the nearby banks of the river which flows into Oneida Lake. As he watched, the mystery was solved. Four unusually large geese from the farm of Frank Binn, across the river, had been fraternizing with the Bagg hens all summer and been enticing them to leave their home and go over to the other farm.
The geese were seen solemnly waddling down to the water, followed by several hens. When the geese stepped into the river, a hen would flutter a few feet up and down the bank, and then, with a squawk, would fly or hop onto the back of a goose. Then, squatting contentedly, the fowls were carried over to the Binn farm. There Mr. Bagg found his missing hens, the geese having carried them all over on their backs.
While J. F. Parkhill, a prominent stockman of Breckenridge, Texas, was out hunting his cows on the Hubbard River, in the northern part of this county, his attention was attracted to a vacant ranch house by some violent disturbance going on within. Upon approaching the building, he beheld a buck deer on the inside engaged in killing a large rattlesnake. Suddenly the deer made a break for the door, but was fought back by Mr. Parkhill with a scantling until he could barricade the entrance.
The next day, Mr. Parkhill, along with County Clerk J. A. Ault, Colonel Warner Parkhill, and J. L. Griffith, went to the vacant house and hauled the deer home in a wagon. The deer was a vicious animal, and Mr. Parkhill was severely cut and bruised by the deer while trying to keep it in the ranch house until the door was barricaded.
Any one with a leg to spare is here notified that he will be able to do business with Will Taylor, of Portersville, Ala. He appears to be anxious to dicker for one without any unnecessary delay.
The Chattanooga police department received a letter from Mr. Taylor in which he made it quite plain that he wants a leg at once. His, he states, is off just above the knee, but he fails to say whether left or right leg is needed to make his feet track. The letter, addressed to “Mr. Police, Chattanooga,� is as follows:
“dear sir, i will rite you a few lines to let you know that i want a leg. Min is off about six inch above my nee and I want a leg at once. rite and tell me what it will Cost me. i want it at once rite on return Mail and fail not so very truly
Will Taylor.�
Written on the other side of the paper is:
“Back your letter to Will Taylor Portersville Ala. Mr. Police, please send this letter to the leg Man.�
When the Morris Refuge, of Philadelphia, Pa., was remodeled several years ago, the thought that the haven for homeless animals would have a roof garden never entered the minds of the officers. But now there is a recreation ground on top of the building.[Pg 57]
Here dozens of cats, safe from humans, safe from fatal contact with hard substances thrown by outraged citizens, and safe from their natural enemy, the dog, pass their lives in quiet.
The entire roof of the institution is caged in with poultry wire. One end is covered. The cats play with gum balls, roll in beds of seductive catnip, and in general lead happy, peaceful lives.
If Señora Rosalie Gonzales, who has a plantation in Guatemala, makes any more ocean voyages, gangplanks may have to be enlarged. The señora admitted sixty years and 310 pounds. She came to New York to purchase a wardrobe, the supply of finery being limited in Guatemala just now. Going aboard the United Fruit linerSixola, she fell on the gangplank and became wedged so she could not get up. A carpenter cut away part of the rail.
The two big sea lions that escaped from the park aquarium, at Philadelphia, Pa., and wriggled their way to a canal leading to the river, are cornered in the first lock, but have balked all attempts at recapture. They haughtily spurn all tempting morsels of fish which it was hoped would lure them back to their tanks. It is virtually impossible for them to get through or over the lock, but their capture is uncertain. Crowds, including many children, enjoy the futile efforts of their would-be captors.
Harry Goodhead died at his home in Milford, Conn., from injuries sustained when his auto was wrecked some hours before in a gale. Carlton Quirk, who was riding with him, was badly crushed and will probably die.
The men, on a gunning trip, were speeding on Fort Trumbull Beach, going forty-five miles an hour, when the gale smashed the windshield, causing Goodhead to lose his hold on the steering wheel. The auto lurched, struck a telephone pole, and overturned. Both men were buried under the car and were unconscious when found.
A lady living near Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, tells of a young dog that is a fierce foe to cats. He will chase them from the house and barn, and should he catch one, he will bite off its tail or inflict bad wounds on its body. Several stray cats came to the lady’s home, and she took them in temporarily. Among them was a black one.
One day the black cat followed the mistress to the pasture gate. When the horses were coming pellmell for their drink, the dog stood right over the cat until the last horse had passed through the gate, and the dog was never known to harm his black favorite, but seemed to enjoy her company.
From time immemorial the spy has been one of the most dangerous factors with which military men have had to deal. Death is the punishment when caught. Although methods of communication have been greatly increased, the spy appears to be more dangerous to-day than ever, and daily executions have followed captures in the war[Pg 58]zone. Women have paid for their daring with their lives. The number is unknown, but they are said to be numerous. Following are two dispatches, each of which tells its story of war:
A message received at Amsterdam, Holland, tells of the shooting of an English woman as a spy in the German barracks at Courtrai, Belgium. The woman, it was said, was dressed in the garments of a priest when captured by the Germans.
A German girl spy was caught a few miles outside of Petrograd. She has been court-martialed and shot. Her clothes were lined with admirably executed plans of Kronstadt and other military stations.
To what extent the spy has been busy is indicated by the references in English newspapers to the extraordinary good information possessed by the Germans concerning the movements and even the contemplated movements of the British troops. At the outbreak of the war it was declared that there were thousands of spies in England. In France many Germans have been executed as spies. A recent dispatch told of the execution of fifteen Germans who were found in an insane asylum in Lorraine. All the doctors and most of the attendants had deserted the institution with the approach of the French army, and their places were taken by the spies. By clever use of flags, the spies were able to direct the German artillery fire, at a distance, against the French.
Fewer reports have come from Germany regarding spies. It is said, however, that many Russians have been detected in Germany. The Russian espionage system is in many ways superior to all others. Russian spies in Austria have been of great assistance to the czar’s army chiefs. In all the countries at war passports have been stolen by spies and the signatures studied so that the holders can produce passable imitations. Spies have even been caught with their own photographs pasted over others in passports and with the official stamp on the photographs counterfeited.
When the spies are captured and sentenced, they meet death bravely. That is part of their creed. Soldiers loathe the task of shooting women, but such is the law of war. All accounts of the executions of women state that they have died as bravely as the men, with no appeal and no complaint in giving their lives for their country.
After Eugene Hyland and Scott Anderson had searched the pockets of Paul Busselet, whom they found lying in the gutter at Sansome and Washington Streets, San Francisco, Cal., early in the morning, one grabbed him by the heels and the other by the shoulder and tossed him over a fence into a vacant lot.
When the pair turned around, they were looking into the muzzle of a revolver in the hands of Policeman Lenhardt. At the city prison Lenhardt charged the pair with attempted robbery. Busselet, whom they tossed over the fence, was not even awakened by the rough treatment and was reported by the officer still sound asleep when the case of the accused pair was called in court.
Mr. and Mrs. John Kiser, who live in Kentucky, just across the mountains from Big Laurel, Va., have the largest family in this part of the country, if not in all America. They have been married thirty years, and have[Pg 59]twenty-eight children, including one set of triplets and five sets of twins. Only a few days ago two boys were added to the family. All the children are unmarried and make their home with their parents.
“I want some bounty money on a wolf.�
“What name?�
“Wolf.�
“No, no. Not the animal’s name. What’s your name?�
“Wolf, I say; Adolph Wolf, of South Superior.�
After the little misunderstanding had cleared away, W. J. Leader, county clerk, at Superior, Wis., gave county and State orders for ten dollars each to the applicant for bounty money.
Wolf shot his wolf inside the city limits, and was given a permit by Mayor Konkel to collect the bounty.
Alfred Hillpipre, of the town of Superior, also was granted bounty money on a wolf he killed along the Tower Road, south of the city limits.
Arthur Adams, of Shamokin, Pa., is exhibiting two potatoes, the largest ever raised in this section. One weighs three pounds and four ounces, the other one three pounds. The potatoes were grown on the farm.
When the Civil War was ended and Laurentine F. Higby failed to return to his home in Exeter, members of his family finally decided he had been laid away in one of the many battlefield graves filled with unidentified dead.
Higby, however, was not dead. He had been wounded in action, and when he recovered, he forgot his past, and, after the war, went to Kansas, married, and reared a family, later going to Wilmington, Ill. He remembered only that he had served in the army and applied for a pension under the name of Lauren F. Higby.
Government pension-office agents identified him through communication with relatives in Exeter, and now they are on the way to Wilmington for a reunion with the man they had thought dead for fifty years.
Higby served with Battery A, First New York Volunteers.
The second Canadian contingent will comprise 15,270 officers and men, 4,765 horses, fifty-eight guns, and sixteen machine guns, and will be ready to sail from Canada in January.
A third Canadian contingent of approximately 25,000 men will be ready to leave for England early in March. Including the first contingent of 33,000 men, the Dominion by spring will have sent more than 70,000 men to the firing line.
The military authorities also have decided to keep 40,000 men under arms in Canada to serve as a base of supply for the contingent at the front. As the British war office has informed the Dominion that reënforcements should be provided for at the rate of twenty-five per cent per month, instead of on the smaller basis of seventy per cent per annum, as at first anticipated, it will mean a drain or the numbers recruited for reënforcing purposes[Pg 60]of from 6,000 to 8,000 a month, with increases in proportion as the strength of the Canadian forces in the field is enlarged.
When the second contingent of 15,000 to 17,000 men leaves for Europe in January, a further enlistment of 17,000 will take place immediately. It is believed that mounted Canadians will be sent to the Suez region of Egypt.
With a contingent being sent to England every two months, together with reënforcements, Canada expects to have placed between 200,000 and 250,000 men at the disposal of Great Britain by next autumn.
The old belief that the age of a rattlesnake can be told by the number of his rattles is wrong, as also is the belief that a deer’s span of life is accurately recounted by the number of points on his antlers. Scientists have found that the largest rattler may have few rattles and a small snake twice the number of the big one. Careful study has shown that the points on a deer’s antlers have no bearing whatever on his age.
Portable wireless apparatus adopted by the United States army and carried on an automobile of special design has a sending radius of 800 miles and has received messages from points 2,500 miles away.
A telegraph wire in the open country lasts four times as long as one in a city.
In Korea, widows never remarry. Even though they have been married only a month, they must not take a second husband.
The visitors at the Panama-Pacific Exposition are not to be annoyed by any realization of the flight of time. Clocks are not to enter into the architecture of any of the buildings.
Showing a love of country that could not be more self-sacrificing, Carl Barwieck, an aged resident of Davenport, Iowa, has given to the German war relief fund committee his most treasured family heirloom, a rare German Bible, 311 years old. The book has been in the possession of the Barwieck family for over 300 years. It was printed in Wittenberg in 1603 by Lorenz Seuberlich.
“I haven’t anything else to give. Maybe you can sell this for something and get money for the fatherland that way,� said Barwieck, when he produced the old heirloom. His gift was accepted. It is expected to bring several hundred dollars. Wealthy Germans here are planning to buy it and give it to the Academy of Sciences.
Quicksilver, according to the United States Geological Survey, is being used for many new purposes. It is used mainly in the manufacture of fulminate for explosive caps, of drugs, of electric appliances and scientific apparatus, and in the recovery of precious metals, especially gold, by amalgamation.
One use in the United States, and possibly elsewhere, is the coating of ships’ bottoms with a paint containing quicksilver to prevent organic growth. Mercuric oxide—red oxide of mercury—is the active poison in antifouling paint successfully used on ships’ bottoms. The metal appears to be but little employed in silvering mirrors, as nitrate of silver is now chiefly used for the purpose.[Pg 61]
Increasing use of quicksilver is probably to be expected in the manufacture of electrical appliances and fulminates and possibly of paints for protective coatings on metals. The demand for quicksilver for amalgamating gold and silver has greatly decreased, as is well known, with the decreased supply of free milling ores and the increased application of cyanidation to gold and silver ores. Industrial chemistry and inventive genius are to be looked to for increasing the demand.
The quicksilver production of the world during 1913 is estimated at 4,171 metric tons, against 4,262 tons in 1912 and 4,083 tons in 1911. Spain last year headed the countries of production with 1,490 tons. The United States produced only 688 tons. The other producing countries were Austria-Hungary, 855 tons; Italy, 988 tons; Mexico and others, 150 tons.
No longer will the song “Tipperary� be heard at the United States Naval Training Station, at Newport, R. I., because Lieutenant Commander Frank Taylor Evans, executive officer, has decided that for navy men to sing it is a violation of President Wilson’s neutrality order.
The marching song seemed to have struck the popular chord with army and navy men, not because it was the song of the Allies, but because it had the ring and rousing chorus suited to the men of the service.
One night recently, when a thousand or more apprentice seamen at the training station were having their weekly motion-picture entertainment, with songs between the pictures, the orchestra struck up “Tipperary,� and it was sung with spirit, and an encore was demanded.
While the apprentices were having a vaudeville show in their theater at the station, they sang the chorus of “Tipperary,� while a vaudeville actor led the singing, so Lieutenant Commander Evans stepped in and issued the order that “Tipperary� was not to be played or sung by the men.
All that the executive officer would say to-night was that the song came under the president’s neutrality order.
The Canadian military authorities are investigating a report that there is a secret store of arms and ammunition on the Isle of Orleans, in the St. Lawrence River, opposite Quebec. A concrete base, upon which a siege gun could be mounted, was found there and destroyed.
A German two years ago bought a tract of land on the Isle of Orleans and established a plant for the manufacture of concrete blocks. It is upon this property that the concrete foundation was found. It commanded the defenses of Quebec and of the St. Lawrence Channel.
A moving-picture company, the leading officials of which were Germans, spent last summer on the Isle of Orleans reproducing the battle of the Plains of Abraham and making films of it. They employed several young men of Quebec, uniformed them, and provided them with arms which they borrowed from local military authorities. They had both cannon and rifles, and fired a large amount of blank ammunition in their operations. The firearms which they borrowed were returned to the authorities, but it is now reported that they took advantage of the opportunity to land guns and secrete them in pits, which they covered carefully.
The Canadian military authorities have regarded the[Pg 62]information they have received as serious enough to warrant an investigation. Excavations have been made in search for buried guns. So far none has been found, and as the island is twenty miles long and seven miles wide, the search is likely to prove tedious. At its nearest point the island is four miles from Quebec. As far as the Canadian military authorities have been able to learn, the films made last summer were never exhibited.
Albert S. Cox, a magazine artist of Grantwood, four miles from Hackensack, N. J., offered the government a cloth of his invention two years ago, saying uniforms made of it would render the wearers invisible, and he told his friends the government was overlooking a great opportunity when it declined to deal with him. His friends sympathized and weren’t particularly worried about Cox, for he didn’t invent anything else until lately, when he confided to some that he had made a paint which, applied to a military fort, would make it disappear.
Still, nobody minded much until the other day, when Cox announced that his house was a fort and was being attacked. He appeared at the windows and discharged bullets at foes, who apparently were wrapped in his invisible cloth so far as the neighbors were concerned, but when bullets began to fly promiscuously around Grantwood, Sheriff Heath was notified.
He persuaded Cox he was an ally and led him off to the Morris Plains Insane Asylum.
When Mrs. James Gordon, whose family has just moved to Pitman, N. J., from Indiana, went to the telephone to answer a call from a local expressman who reported the arrival of the Gordons’ dog from the Western State, she was interrupted by a scratching at the back door.
As she opened the door, the dog came bounding into the room. He had broken out of his crate in front of the express office, more than a mile from the Gordon home, while the expressman was telephoning. There were three dollars express charges due on the dog, which the expressman gave up hope of ever collecting, until Mrs. Gordon drove into town an hour later and told of the arrival of her pet.
The population of the United States is more than 100,000,000, and the money in circulation totals $3,419,090,000, while 11,000,000 of the thrifty inhabitants have $4,375,000,000 in the savings banks.
Such is the announcement made by Uncle Sam in a pamphlet issued by the department of commerce. The pamphlet is entitled “Statistical Record of Progress of the United States, 1800-1914.� It gives a “half-century retrospect� and a “clear perspective� of the nation’s quadrupling of population and multiplying a hundredfold of industrial values.
“Since 1850, the population, then 25,000,000, has more than quadrupled,� says the bulletin. Commerce has grown from $318,000,000 to $4,259,000,000, and the per-capita value of exports from $16.96 to $23.27.
National wealth has increased from $7,000,000,000 in 1870, to $140,000,000,000, and the money in circulation from $279,000,000 to $3,419,000,000. For the entire country,[Pg 63]bank clearings have grown from $52,000,000,000 in 1887, to $174,000,000,000 in 1913.
Improved social conditions among the people are shown in that 19,000,000 children are enrolled in public schools and 200,000 students in colleges. The total expenditure of education approximates $500,000,000 a year.
In 1850 there were 251,000 depositors in savings banks. There are now 11,000,000, with deposits aggregating more than 100 times as much as at the middle of the last century.
The value of farms and farm property increased during the last half century from $4,000,000,000 to $41,000,000,000; value of manufactures from $1,000,000,000 to over $20,000,000,000, and the number of miles of railroad in operation from 9,021 in 1850 to 258,033 in 1912.
George A. Carter, maker of the giant cheese that was exhibited at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, died at Geneva, Ohio. The cheese, which weighed more than a ton, is believed still to hold the record as the biggest one ever manufactured.
The United States frigateIndependence, last of the fighting ships built for the War of 1812, has been sold to Captain John H. Binder, of Berkeley, Cal., for $3,515. The old vessel for fifty years has been used as a train-ship at Mare Island before it was placed out of commission. The navy department appraised it at $4,000, but was unable to get bids at that figure.
In a letter to high-school principals of the United States, Doctor P. P. Claxton, the government’s commissioner of education, urges special study of the countries of Latin America, those portions of America inhabited by races of Latin stock, including Central America, South America, Mexico, and parts of the West Indies. Doctor Claxton writes:
“We should teach in our schools and colleges more of the geography, history, literature, and life of the Latin-American countries, and we should offer instruction in the Spanish and Portuguese languages to a much larger extent than is now done.
“All our relations with the countries to the south of us are bound to become much more intimate than they have been in the past. The completion of the Panama Canal, the changes in commercial relations brought about by the war in Europe, as well as other recent events, have served to call the attention of the people of the United States to the recent rapid growth and development of the Latin-American republics.
“These countries comprise an area three times as great as the United States. They are rich in minerals, forests, water power, and a wide range of agricultural products. They have 70,000,000 of people, with governments modeled after our own. Their foreign commerce amounts to more than $3,000,000,000 annually, and is rapidly increasing.
“The third American city in population is in Latin America. Another Latin-American city has 1,000,000 inhabitants. Three others have approximately 500,000 each, and five others have each 20,000 or more. Some of these cities rank among the most beautiful and attractive in the world.[Pg 64]
“These countries are making rapid progress in elementary and secondary education and in industrial education. Several of their universities enroll from one to 2,000 students each. The history of their countries is interesting, and they possess a rich and varied literature.�
According to a dispatch from Athens to the Exchange Telegraph Company, in London, twenty-three persons were killed and others were injured in the earthquake recently in Western Greece and the Ionian Islands.
On the island of Santa Maura the earthquake caused strange convolutions of the earth’s surface. A mountain collapsed and crumbled away for a distance of nearly two miles, and the waters of the Ionian Sea covered 125 acres of the valley. New small mountains appeared at different points on the island.
F. A. Wirt, who teaches farm mechanics in the Kansas Agricultural College, is planning an interesting collection of machine relics for the college. The first mowing machine in Kansas will soon be on exhibit if his plan works out. He found the sickle bar of this machine reposing in a junk pile near Milford. He is looking for the rest of the machine, and hopes to assemble the different parts. The machine was taken to Kansas in 1850, and was used on the reservation at Fort Riley. It was so heavy that it required six government mules to pull it. The bar weighs 125 pounds and cuts a swath five feet wide. The guards are thirteen in number and are two inches longer than the guards that are used on more modern mowers.
Another interesting relic is the hub of the cart used to haul the logs that were used in building the first Statehouse in Kansas. The hub is twenty-three inches long and eighteen inches in diameter. There are holes for sixteen spokes which were 5 by 11½ inches. The wheel was eight feet in diameter and required a tire four inches wide and three-quarters of an inch thick. The logs were suspended under the axle of the cart. The axle had a spindle 7¾ by 5 inches.
When dressing a chicken for dinner, Mrs. Charles Wingate, of Albert Lea, Minn., felt something prick her hand as she was drawing the insides. She soon discovered what caused it. The fowl had swallowed—perhaps in meal—a needle, and the needle had penetrated the gizzard and the point was protruding about one-third of an inch. Once, she says, she found a needle in a growing cucumber. It was badly rusted.
The Pierce-Arrow Motor Company, of Buffalo, N. Y., has received an order from the French government for 300 five-ton trucks. The order amounts to about $1,000,000. It is expected that it will be followed by others. The truck “tested out� to the satisfaction of the French army representatives at Bethlehem, Penn.
Part of the French order goes also to the White Motor Company, of Cleveland. That company will make 200 five-ton trucks.
Some time ago the Pierce Company received an order from the British War Department for 250 one-ton and[Pg 65]two-ton trucks. It is reported that a competition will be held for a big order expected from the Russian government.
The new order will keep at work at the Pierce plant several thousand men, day and night turns. It is not likely that any extra men will be needed, because the present force has almost finished the contract with the British government.
Mrs. Roy Trimble, of Atchison, Kan., has a jar of peaches that took first premium at a recent fair. Nothing unusual about that, but the remarkable part of this story is the fact that the same jar of preserves took a similar premium at the Kansas State fair twenty-eight years ago, when they were exhibited by Mrs. Fred Hartman, Mrs. Trimble’s mother. The fruit is apparently just as perfect to-day as it was when preserved more than a quarter of a century ago.
A preparation which it is said will stop almost instantly the flow of blood from a wound has been devised by Professor Theodor Kocher, of Berne, who was awarded the Nobel prize for surgery in 1912, and his assistant, Doctor A. Fonce. It is called coagulen. The powder is dissolved in water before being applied to a wound.
The discoverers of coagulen have made a gift of their secret to the armies in the field. They have sent large quantities of the powder to the surgical headquarters of both German and French armies.
Before the war an average of 5,000 immigrants used to arrive daily at Ellis Island, New York. Now the average is only 150 a day, according to Commissioner Uhl.
The total number of immigrants into the United States last year was 1,197,892. Of these the number admitted from the Russian empire and Finland was 291,040; from Italy, 265,542; and from Austria and Hungary, 254,825.
John Phipps, a farmer near Kalamazoo, Mich., has an old horse that had done her full share of work and was finally allowed to take life easy. Two or three days later, when the other horses had been led to the tank and watered and were being lined up to be harnessed, the old horse ran from the pasture and took her position beside the workers, evidently willing and ready for duty. The old horse has just died.
Twenty men, eight of them playing, were backed away from a poker table in a private room at Iowa City, Iowa, at two o’clock in the morning by a lone bandit and relieved of a forty-dollar pot and about $200 in the bank of the game. He then made a safe get-away.
Mrs. Sarah Brandon, who died at her home in the southern part of Belmont County, Ohio, a few days ago, was 113 years old. She was known as the “Mother of the[Pg 66]Civil War.� She had sixteen sons who served in the war, fourteen for the Union and two for the Confederacy. Most of them never returned.
A correspondent sends the following from northeastern France: “The great bayonet charge by the Zouaves near Bixschoote, of which you have already heard, was a particularly gruesome affair, for the Zouaves, like the Gurkhas, love the joy of a hand-to-hand battle. And it came at the end of three days of constant fighting.
“They charged a wood, an officer told me, like a gale of wind, not giving a cry till they got within touch; then they let out yell upon yell as they plied their bayonets among the dripping trees.
“The enemy mostly were first-line men, and met them like heroes, firing in volleys once or twice, then leaping out to the combat. The impetus of the Zouaves carried them through. They did not stop to kill. They dashed through the first time, killing only as they went, then they charged back on the broken lines.
“There were hand-to-hand struggles until ten o’clock that ended with both sides falling on the ground, exhausted. Four of the Germans, fighting together, gave a terrible account of themselves before they died. Three of the four were, I think, brothers, and they were brave soldiers.[Pg 67]�
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