America Leader in Tobacco Trade.The United States holds first rank among the nations of the world as producer, exporter, importer, and consumer of tobacco. Our production of leaf of all sorts averages somewhat more than 1,000,000,000 pounds a year, having a value to the producers of about $100,000,000.An enormous quantity is exported—considerably more than a third of the production in normal years—and the sales of tobacco abroad are excelled by only seven other products. They exceed in value such items as cotton manufactures, electrical machinery, paper and paper products, and leather and leather manufactures.{61}Taking the export figures of the department of commerce for the eight months ended with February this year, the exports of leaf tobacco amounted to 221,129,872 pounds, valued at $28,077,684, and of manufactured tobacco were valued at $4,209,054.The dislocation of trade resulting from the war has had its effect on tobacco sales, however, as on most other businesses. Unmanufactured leaf has suffered most. It is practically impossible to ship leaf to some of the belligerents, while factories in the warring countries that are accessible are not taking their usual supply because of insufficient labor. Manufactured tobacco is holding its own, due to the increased demands from the Far East and Oceania. In the actual war zone the increased consumption by the men in the field is more than offset by the economies that must be practiced by noncombatants.Oldest Circus Man Dead.Charles H.—“Pop”—Baker, seventy-nine years old, known as the oldest circus man in the world, died recently at the county infirmary in Toledo, Ohio, from the infirmities of old age. Baker brought out George Primrose, the minstrel, and twelve famous side-show curiosities.Baker was born in Buffalo. He was an intimate friend of President Cleveland. He was in the circus business fifty-nine years.Triplets Ride in Baskets.Doctor George G. Hartzel, of 1460 Bryant Avenue, and Doctor Edward C. Joyce, of 1926 Clinton Avenue, New York, took to Bellevue Hospital a set of triplets. The little ones were born to Mrs. D. C. Attridge, of 826 East 180th Street. Believing they would have better care in the hospital, the physicians carried the babies from The Bronx to Bellevue in a clothes basket in an automobile.The three children, shortly after their birth, were christened Margaret, John, and Dominick. The father declared that if the triplets had been born in Ireland he would have been entitled to a queen’s bounty of $2,500.Tale of Two Sharks, One Caught by Tail.Commodore Merrill B. Mills, of Detroit, has brought his yachtCynthiato New York from Florida waters, and when he reached the Hotel Wolcott, his friends took it that the season down there was officially closed, though partisans of Doctor H. W. Lawton, whose exploits in the fishing line have often crept into print, insisted that this could not be said until the doctor arrived in New York in his palace-car automobile, an event which has not yet been chronicled. At the same time, the stories of the recent exploits of Commodore Mills that gained currency soon after his arrival indicated that he has had an unusually satisfactory season.In the first place, there was the rumor that Commodore Mills had landed some of the biggest tarpon that have risen to cheer the visitor to Florida in many years; and the tales of his other catches would fill an aquarium—if the fish did not. But the story that went furthest was the tale of how Commodore Mills, just before giving the skipper of theCynthiathe word to “head her for the Hook,” had cast a tarpon line overboard, and had hauled up, single-handed, a pair of life-sized sharks, one of them with the head of a man in its mouth.{62}The story of the catch, as it was given by a supposedly veracious person at the Wolcott—Commodore Mills not being then available—ran this way:“The morning was uncomfortably hot, and the commodore, who had come to the conclusion that if he didn’t hurry North, the hot season would get here before him. However, he decided to cast a line in the ocean for a farewell bit of sport, and the yacht being some distance from the coast at the time, she was hove to, and her owner cast a tarpon line over the taffrail.“Immediately, it seemed, came a tug at it. The commodore began to play his catch as he would a tarpon, but the line did not behave in the same way. What was on the other end, just tugged, and before he could get a half hitch on a convenient cleat, the line had run out almost its full length.“Then the yachtsman pulled and pulled, but the fish would not come any nearer. First one husky sailor after another was called to assist, but there was no result. Finally the commodore had an idea. Surely there could be nothing smaller than a whale on the end of that line—a remarkably stout one it was, by the way, as you will see. He was anxious to get it aboard his vessel, if possible.“He decided there was only one way this might be accomplished. So he had the end run through the block on the end of one of the davits, and it was gradually worked in far enough to enable one end to be taken to the winch. Then the winch was worked just as if they were raising the anchor, only very slowly.“The catch kept pulling, but it could not compete with machinery. In less than four minutes, those who were watching saw the head of a shark at the end of the line. Some twelve or fourteen feet back of this a tail was thrashing the water vigorously. It looked as if a twelve or fourteen-foot shark had been hooked.“As the catch came nearer, to the surprise of all on board, there were two sharks, for a second had caught hold of the tail of the first. With boat hooks and strong ropes, the two were made fast and hauled over the side. When the fish were examined, the head of a man was found in the jaw of the shark that had taken the bait.”Inquiries brought out some slight revision of this story. It is true that Commodore Mills caught two sharks, one of them weighing 970 and the other 750 pounds, but it was affirmed that they were caught separately. As for the detail that one had a man’s head in its mouth, it was learned that the big shark did fill that description, but only momentarily, when Commodore Mills had a sailor stick his head between the jaws of the fish. The mouth was so large that there was six inches to spare on every side. The shark was quite dead at the time.With these slight corrections, said the authority, the story was true.Students Needed to Fight Typhus.Professor M. I. Pupin, the Servian consul general, through the New York Committee of Mercy, has issued an appeal to American college students who own or can operate an automobile, to join a volunteer corps to fight cholera and typhus, as well as to convey food to the civilians isolated from the food camps in Servia.The Committee of Mercy has appropriated $10,000 for the equipment of a special sanitary camp for the college{63}men, in which they will be entirely protected from the dangers of infection.Professor Pupin’s intention is to form a Servian organization of college men similar to that now in France, and one that will relieve the suffering that is not caused by lack of food, but by the lack of families for carrying the food from the food camps to the isolated sections.The Committee of Mercy asks that those who intend to aid the sanitary equipment of the college volunteers send contributions to August Belmont, treasurer of committee, 200 Fifth Avenue, New York.“Home-run” Baker Gets $10,000 Job.“Home-run” Baker, who refused to play with the Athletics until Connie Mack gave him more money, and who recently signed to play with the Upland team of the Delaware County League, was recently engaged by John P. Crozer, of Upland, a wealthy farm owner, at a salary of $10,000 a year, to manage Mr. Crozer’s extensive stock farms, according to information received from Harrisburg, Pa. Baker will prepare the Crozer prize stock for fairs and exhibits, and will seize the present opportunity, it is believed, to familiarize himself with a business that will bring him greater financial returns than baseball.Connie Mack refused to comment on Baker’s latest move other than to declare he had never said he intended to blacklist the famous third baseman. “I want to say, however,” continued Mack, “that I never want to see Baker again. He has treated the club unfairly, and I have no time for a man who is unfair in his dealings.“So far as preventing Baker from coming back to the Athletics is concerned, I have not that power. Our contract is mutual, and he can force me to take him, but my sincere hope is that he sticks to his word and remains away. A man who breaks his word once is likely to do it again, and once and for all, I don’t want Baker on my club. We miss him greatly and want his services, but I prefer a losing club to having men whose words are unreliable.”United States Seed Wheat for Spain.The Spanish government has announced its intention of purchasing a large quantity of American wheat for distribution among the Spanish agricultural syndicates for seeding. This information is contained in a report received by the state department from Carl Bailey Hurst, American consul general at Barcelona. Spanish experts regard American wheat as superior to other varieties.Culebra New Gaillard Cut.President Wilson has signed an executive order changing the name of Culebra Cut, in the Panama Canal, to Gaillard Cut, in honor of the late Colonel D. D. Gaillard, who died from disease contracted while a member of the Isthmian Canal Commission.England Losing Great Pictures.A committee of trustees of the English National Gallery appointed in 1911 to inquire into the retention of important pictures in England, has issued a blue book, in which the committee states that the exodus of pictures from private collections is proceeding at such a rate as to cause serious apprehension. Masterpieces of the{64}greatest importance have gone either to the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin and the Metropolitan Museum, in New York, among public collections, or to private collections in the United States.The committee recommends that the government be asked to increase the ordinary Parliamentary grant from five thousand pounds yearly to not less than twenty-five thousand pounds, or, alternatively, that the money be raised by taxing the proceeds of works of art sold at public auction and by appropriating death duties paid on works of art. It is further recommended that the trustees and director of the National Gallery shall approach owners of pictures which it may be desirable to secure for the nation and endeavor privately to obtain the first refusal.The committee regards it as inadvisable to legislate on the lines of the Italian law for restriction or prohibition of export of works of art. It is also considered inadvisable to put an export duty on pictures or works of art.An interesting proposal is that some form of order, or decoration, should be conferred on those who generously endow or augment national art collections.Wages Rising in England.War as a wage raiser has brought to a considerable proportion of the laboring classes in England some compensation for the increased cost of living. Social workers estimate that the increased cost of living averages at least ten per cent, while the average increase in wages is not over five per cent. The plentiful supply of overtime work available in most trades makes it easy for most workmen to more than even matters.The upward tendency of the English workingman’s wages has been very marked. According to the official board-of-trade reports, the increases granted during the month reached a total of nearly $365,000. The number of workpeople who shared the increases was 440,000.Increased wages in some of the leading branches of industry are summed up briefly as follows:Railwaymen—All-around increase of seventy-five cents a week.Longshoremen—Increases varying from twenty-five cents to two dollars a week.Policemen—War bonus of seventy-five cents a week upward.Carpenters—War bonus of one dollar to one dollar and fifty cents a week.General Laborers—Increase of seventy-five cents to one dollar and fifty cents a week.Miners—Employers generally offer ten per-cent advance in pay; miners demand twenty per cent.Postal Employees, Including Telephone and Telegraph Workers—Increase of one dollar a week has been demanded.Gas Workers—Increases averaging one dollar a week.Bakers—Increase of one dollar and twenty-five cents a week asked, but employers’ offer of seventy-five cents accepted pending negotiations.Textile Workers—Bonus for overtime work in factories doing work on army clothing.Boot and Shoe Workers—War bonus of five to ten per cent granted in some places.Coppersmiths—Average wage before war, nine dollars; now twelve dollars and fifty cents.Clerks—Some increases; 180,000 grocers’ assistants have{65}asked a readjustment of wages; similar movements pending in other branches.Engineering and Building-trade Workers—Some sections have secured substantial increases.The number of unemployed in Great Britain shows a large falling off.Reform Ousts Tiny Cripple from Stand.“Little Georgie,” the tiny hunchback negro, who for nearly a score of years has had the privilege of conducting the bootblack stand in the basement of the war department, in Washington, D. C., has to move because of the reforms inaugurated by Colonel W. W. Harts, U. S. A., superintendent of public buildings and grounds. Georgie is heartbroken, but, with a catch in his high-pitched voice, he said:“Well, I made out pretty well to stay as long as I did, but I can’t see how my little bootblack stand here in the dark alcove bothered anybody very much!”In addition to the stand, Georgie conducted a little store for the sale of sweets to the employees of the war department. He served also as guide to the interesting portions of the building and the various exhibits of uniforms and models of warships.Weird Old Man of the Pine Mountains.The railroad now building between Callaway, Ky., and Beattieville, Ky., will penetrate the wildest and remotest fastnesses of the Appalachian Highlands and open up to development the vast stores of coal, iron, and other minerals now buried in their recesses; but it will also destroy much of the glamour of romance and fable that has so long hung over and been associated with it.In the past the mountain region of Kentucky has been a world unto itself, preserving, almost intact, the manners, customs, and characteristics of the early settlers of almost two centuries ago. Feuds have been handed down from father to son for three generations, after the manner of the Scotch Highlanders, and many strange superstitions, among others a belief in haunts, wizards, witches, and warlocks still hold in the bosoms of many of the mountain dwellers.Wise men, seers, and hermits still hold forth among the Pine Mountains, and the greatest among these—and regarded by many as being able to peer into the beyond and read the future as an open book—is “Old Norrie Parysons,” the wise man of Plinlimon’s Heights, at the base of which the village of Calloway is located. His dwelling place is a large cave, fashioned by the hand of Nature, but it resembles not the cell of an anchorite, for it is fitted up comfortably, almost luxuriously.Old Norrie is a man of remarkable and striking appearance. He is the product of the melting pot into which has been cast the blood of the Cymbrian harper, the Highland seer, and the Aztec priest; for his mother, an Indian princess, could trace her lineage back to the days of the Montezumas, when her ancestors, high priests of an ancient faith, possessed secular and ecclesiastical, temporal and sacerdotal authority over unnumbered millions. His father traced his ancestry back to Cadwallon, the last and greatest of the Cymbrian, or Welsh bards, whose only daughter married a celebrated Scotch warlock.The hermit, seer, prophet, or whatever we may choose to call him, is no ignorant and uncultured boor. He is now old, almost beyond the memory of years, and his once{66}raven hair is white as the driven snow, but his form is still erect, his step free, neither is his natural strength abated. His eyes are somewhat dimmed and bleared from much watching over midnight furnaces, and have the weird, pathetic look seen only in eyes that have gazed into mysteries unlawful for men to know; but still in their slumbrous depths can be discovered flashes of latent flame that, at times, seems to pierce into the most secret thoughts of the beholder.Norrie’s parents settled here and made their home in the cave now occupied by the son in the early part of the nineteenth century. Where they came from or their purpose in locating in these remote fastnesses was never known. That they were cultured and educated far above the condition in which they dwelt was apparent even to the few rustic mountaineers who resided in this vicinity. Their cave was furnished with almost Oriental splendor, and negro slaves waited upon and served them.The son, a small boy when they made their advent here, was waited upon by a young negro boy who was deaf and dumb. About the year 1850 Norrie’s parents died, and leaving the cave in charge of the deaf-and-dumb negro, he started forth upon his wanderings, rumor said, to add to the store of occult knowledge he had obtained from his parents, who had long been regarded by the simple rustics as possessing uncanny powers and holding communications with unhallowed spirits.For more than thirty years he was a wanderer in the Orient, learning the wisdom of the East in the temples of India and Persia.The cave contains strange reminders of his travels. Standing in one corner is an orrery such as, in the long ago, Chaldean sages studied the blazonry of the firmament in the Valley of the Euphrates. There is a furnace, crucibles, retorts, mathematical instruments, and astrolabe in juxtaposition with a Jacob’s staff carved out of ebony wood and fashioned in the form of a serpent.On a table lies the latest works on Christian Science, side by side with Egyptian manuscripts, written on papyrus, and tablets from Babylon and Nineveh carved with strange hieroglyphics, together with the Bible, the Talmud, and the Koran.That he will prove the last hermit of Pine Mountain is probable, but in the meantime his vogue is immense and he is consulted by hundreds, who place implicit faith in his utterances.Sees Wolverene Possibilities.Speaking of cows, Bro. Gibson, a Michigan boomer, believes in the dairying possibilities and hog-raising future of the Wolverene State.“Why,” says John, “we have in our section eleven cheese factories and one hundred creameries. It is impossible to describe the grand future of our dairying interests. If all the cows in our State could be put into one cow, she could graze off the equator, while with her tail she could swish the icicles off the north pole. If all our hogs were turned into one hog, he could dig the Panama Canal with three roots and one grunt.{67}”TOBACCO HABITYou can conquer it easily in 8 days, improve your health, prolong your life. No more stomach trouble, no foul breath, no heart weakness. Regain manly vigor, calm nerves, clear eyes & superior mental strength. Whether you chew; or smoke pipe, cigarettes, cigars, get my interesting Tobacco Book. Worth its weight in gold. Mailed free.E. J. WOODS, 230 K, Station E, New York, N.Y.
America Leader in Tobacco Trade.
The United States holds first rank among the nations of the world as producer, exporter, importer, and consumer of tobacco. Our production of leaf of all sorts averages somewhat more than 1,000,000,000 pounds a year, having a value to the producers of about $100,000,000.
An enormous quantity is exported—considerably more than a third of the production in normal years—and the sales of tobacco abroad are excelled by only seven other products. They exceed in value such items as cotton manufactures, electrical machinery, paper and paper products, and leather and leather manufactures.{61}
Taking the export figures of the department of commerce for the eight months ended with February this year, the exports of leaf tobacco amounted to 221,129,872 pounds, valued at $28,077,684, and of manufactured tobacco were valued at $4,209,054.
The dislocation of trade resulting from the war has had its effect on tobacco sales, however, as on most other businesses. Unmanufactured leaf has suffered most. It is practically impossible to ship leaf to some of the belligerents, while factories in the warring countries that are accessible are not taking their usual supply because of insufficient labor. Manufactured tobacco is holding its own, due to the increased demands from the Far East and Oceania. In the actual war zone the increased consumption by the men in the field is more than offset by the economies that must be practiced by noncombatants.
Oldest Circus Man Dead.
Charles H.—“Pop”—Baker, seventy-nine years old, known as the oldest circus man in the world, died recently at the county infirmary in Toledo, Ohio, from the infirmities of old age. Baker brought out George Primrose, the minstrel, and twelve famous side-show curiosities.
Baker was born in Buffalo. He was an intimate friend of President Cleveland. He was in the circus business fifty-nine years.
Triplets Ride in Baskets.
Doctor George G. Hartzel, of 1460 Bryant Avenue, and Doctor Edward C. Joyce, of 1926 Clinton Avenue, New York, took to Bellevue Hospital a set of triplets. The little ones were born to Mrs. D. C. Attridge, of 826 East 180th Street. Believing they would have better care in the hospital, the physicians carried the babies from The Bronx to Bellevue in a clothes basket in an automobile.
The three children, shortly after their birth, were christened Margaret, John, and Dominick. The father declared that if the triplets had been born in Ireland he would have been entitled to a queen’s bounty of $2,500.
Tale of Two Sharks, One Caught by Tail.
Commodore Merrill B. Mills, of Detroit, has brought his yachtCynthiato New York from Florida waters, and when he reached the Hotel Wolcott, his friends took it that the season down there was officially closed, though partisans of Doctor H. W. Lawton, whose exploits in the fishing line have often crept into print, insisted that this could not be said until the doctor arrived in New York in his palace-car automobile, an event which has not yet been chronicled. At the same time, the stories of the recent exploits of Commodore Mills that gained currency soon after his arrival indicated that he has had an unusually satisfactory season.
In the first place, there was the rumor that Commodore Mills had landed some of the biggest tarpon that have risen to cheer the visitor to Florida in many years; and the tales of his other catches would fill an aquarium—if the fish did not. But the story that went furthest was the tale of how Commodore Mills, just before giving the skipper of theCynthiathe word to “head her for the Hook,” had cast a tarpon line overboard, and had hauled up, single-handed, a pair of life-sized sharks, one of them with the head of a man in its mouth.{62}
The story of the catch, as it was given by a supposedly veracious person at the Wolcott—Commodore Mills not being then available—ran this way:
“The morning was uncomfortably hot, and the commodore, who had come to the conclusion that if he didn’t hurry North, the hot season would get here before him. However, he decided to cast a line in the ocean for a farewell bit of sport, and the yacht being some distance from the coast at the time, she was hove to, and her owner cast a tarpon line over the taffrail.
“Immediately, it seemed, came a tug at it. The commodore began to play his catch as he would a tarpon, but the line did not behave in the same way. What was on the other end, just tugged, and before he could get a half hitch on a convenient cleat, the line had run out almost its full length.
“Then the yachtsman pulled and pulled, but the fish would not come any nearer. First one husky sailor after another was called to assist, but there was no result. Finally the commodore had an idea. Surely there could be nothing smaller than a whale on the end of that line—a remarkably stout one it was, by the way, as you will see. He was anxious to get it aboard his vessel, if possible.
“He decided there was only one way this might be accomplished. So he had the end run through the block on the end of one of the davits, and it was gradually worked in far enough to enable one end to be taken to the winch. Then the winch was worked just as if they were raising the anchor, only very slowly.
“The catch kept pulling, but it could not compete with machinery. In less than four minutes, those who were watching saw the head of a shark at the end of the line. Some twelve or fourteen feet back of this a tail was thrashing the water vigorously. It looked as if a twelve or fourteen-foot shark had been hooked.
“As the catch came nearer, to the surprise of all on board, there were two sharks, for a second had caught hold of the tail of the first. With boat hooks and strong ropes, the two were made fast and hauled over the side. When the fish were examined, the head of a man was found in the jaw of the shark that had taken the bait.”
Inquiries brought out some slight revision of this story. It is true that Commodore Mills caught two sharks, one of them weighing 970 and the other 750 pounds, but it was affirmed that they were caught separately. As for the detail that one had a man’s head in its mouth, it was learned that the big shark did fill that description, but only momentarily, when Commodore Mills had a sailor stick his head between the jaws of the fish. The mouth was so large that there was six inches to spare on every side. The shark was quite dead at the time.
With these slight corrections, said the authority, the story was true.
Students Needed to Fight Typhus.
Professor M. I. Pupin, the Servian consul general, through the New York Committee of Mercy, has issued an appeal to American college students who own or can operate an automobile, to join a volunteer corps to fight cholera and typhus, as well as to convey food to the civilians isolated from the food camps in Servia.
The Committee of Mercy has appropriated $10,000 for the equipment of a special sanitary camp for the college{63}men, in which they will be entirely protected from the dangers of infection.
Professor Pupin’s intention is to form a Servian organization of college men similar to that now in France, and one that will relieve the suffering that is not caused by lack of food, but by the lack of families for carrying the food from the food camps to the isolated sections.
The Committee of Mercy asks that those who intend to aid the sanitary equipment of the college volunteers send contributions to August Belmont, treasurer of committee, 200 Fifth Avenue, New York.
“Home-run” Baker Gets $10,000 Job.
“Home-run” Baker, who refused to play with the Athletics until Connie Mack gave him more money, and who recently signed to play with the Upland team of the Delaware County League, was recently engaged by John P. Crozer, of Upland, a wealthy farm owner, at a salary of $10,000 a year, to manage Mr. Crozer’s extensive stock farms, according to information received from Harrisburg, Pa. Baker will prepare the Crozer prize stock for fairs and exhibits, and will seize the present opportunity, it is believed, to familiarize himself with a business that will bring him greater financial returns than baseball.
Connie Mack refused to comment on Baker’s latest move other than to declare he had never said he intended to blacklist the famous third baseman. “I want to say, however,” continued Mack, “that I never want to see Baker again. He has treated the club unfairly, and I have no time for a man who is unfair in his dealings.
“So far as preventing Baker from coming back to the Athletics is concerned, I have not that power. Our contract is mutual, and he can force me to take him, but my sincere hope is that he sticks to his word and remains away. A man who breaks his word once is likely to do it again, and once and for all, I don’t want Baker on my club. We miss him greatly and want his services, but I prefer a losing club to having men whose words are unreliable.”
United States Seed Wheat for Spain.
The Spanish government has announced its intention of purchasing a large quantity of American wheat for distribution among the Spanish agricultural syndicates for seeding. This information is contained in a report received by the state department from Carl Bailey Hurst, American consul general at Barcelona. Spanish experts regard American wheat as superior to other varieties.
Culebra New Gaillard Cut.
President Wilson has signed an executive order changing the name of Culebra Cut, in the Panama Canal, to Gaillard Cut, in honor of the late Colonel D. D. Gaillard, who died from disease contracted while a member of the Isthmian Canal Commission.
England Losing Great Pictures.
A committee of trustees of the English National Gallery appointed in 1911 to inquire into the retention of important pictures in England, has issued a blue book, in which the committee states that the exodus of pictures from private collections is proceeding at such a rate as to cause serious apprehension. Masterpieces of the{64}greatest importance have gone either to the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin and the Metropolitan Museum, in New York, among public collections, or to private collections in the United States.
The committee recommends that the government be asked to increase the ordinary Parliamentary grant from five thousand pounds yearly to not less than twenty-five thousand pounds, or, alternatively, that the money be raised by taxing the proceeds of works of art sold at public auction and by appropriating death duties paid on works of art. It is further recommended that the trustees and director of the National Gallery shall approach owners of pictures which it may be desirable to secure for the nation and endeavor privately to obtain the first refusal.
The committee regards it as inadvisable to legislate on the lines of the Italian law for restriction or prohibition of export of works of art. It is also considered inadvisable to put an export duty on pictures or works of art.
An interesting proposal is that some form of order, or decoration, should be conferred on those who generously endow or augment national art collections.
Wages Rising in England.
War as a wage raiser has brought to a considerable proportion of the laboring classes in England some compensation for the increased cost of living. Social workers estimate that the increased cost of living averages at least ten per cent, while the average increase in wages is not over five per cent. The plentiful supply of overtime work available in most trades makes it easy for most workmen to more than even matters.
The upward tendency of the English workingman’s wages has been very marked. According to the official board-of-trade reports, the increases granted during the month reached a total of nearly $365,000. The number of workpeople who shared the increases was 440,000.
Increased wages in some of the leading branches of industry are summed up briefly as follows:
Railwaymen—All-around increase of seventy-five cents a week.
Longshoremen—Increases varying from twenty-five cents to two dollars a week.
Policemen—War bonus of seventy-five cents a week upward.
Carpenters—War bonus of one dollar to one dollar and fifty cents a week.
General Laborers—Increase of seventy-five cents to one dollar and fifty cents a week.
Miners—Employers generally offer ten per-cent advance in pay; miners demand twenty per cent.
Postal Employees, Including Telephone and Telegraph Workers—Increase of one dollar a week has been demanded.
Gas Workers—Increases averaging one dollar a week.
Bakers—Increase of one dollar and twenty-five cents a week asked, but employers’ offer of seventy-five cents accepted pending negotiations.
Textile Workers—Bonus for overtime work in factories doing work on army clothing.
Boot and Shoe Workers—War bonus of five to ten per cent granted in some places.
Coppersmiths—Average wage before war, nine dollars; now twelve dollars and fifty cents.
Clerks—Some increases; 180,000 grocers’ assistants have{65}asked a readjustment of wages; similar movements pending in other branches.
Engineering and Building-trade Workers—Some sections have secured substantial increases.
The number of unemployed in Great Britain shows a large falling off.
Reform Ousts Tiny Cripple from Stand.
“Little Georgie,” the tiny hunchback negro, who for nearly a score of years has had the privilege of conducting the bootblack stand in the basement of the war department, in Washington, D. C., has to move because of the reforms inaugurated by Colonel W. W. Harts, U. S. A., superintendent of public buildings and grounds. Georgie is heartbroken, but, with a catch in his high-pitched voice, he said:
“Well, I made out pretty well to stay as long as I did, but I can’t see how my little bootblack stand here in the dark alcove bothered anybody very much!”
In addition to the stand, Georgie conducted a little store for the sale of sweets to the employees of the war department. He served also as guide to the interesting portions of the building and the various exhibits of uniforms and models of warships.
Weird Old Man of the Pine Mountains.
The railroad now building between Callaway, Ky., and Beattieville, Ky., will penetrate the wildest and remotest fastnesses of the Appalachian Highlands and open up to development the vast stores of coal, iron, and other minerals now buried in their recesses; but it will also destroy much of the glamour of romance and fable that has so long hung over and been associated with it.
In the past the mountain region of Kentucky has been a world unto itself, preserving, almost intact, the manners, customs, and characteristics of the early settlers of almost two centuries ago. Feuds have been handed down from father to son for three generations, after the manner of the Scotch Highlanders, and many strange superstitions, among others a belief in haunts, wizards, witches, and warlocks still hold in the bosoms of many of the mountain dwellers.
Wise men, seers, and hermits still hold forth among the Pine Mountains, and the greatest among these—and regarded by many as being able to peer into the beyond and read the future as an open book—is “Old Norrie Parysons,” the wise man of Plinlimon’s Heights, at the base of which the village of Calloway is located. His dwelling place is a large cave, fashioned by the hand of Nature, but it resembles not the cell of an anchorite, for it is fitted up comfortably, almost luxuriously.
Old Norrie is a man of remarkable and striking appearance. He is the product of the melting pot into which has been cast the blood of the Cymbrian harper, the Highland seer, and the Aztec priest; for his mother, an Indian princess, could trace her lineage back to the days of the Montezumas, when her ancestors, high priests of an ancient faith, possessed secular and ecclesiastical, temporal and sacerdotal authority over unnumbered millions. His father traced his ancestry back to Cadwallon, the last and greatest of the Cymbrian, or Welsh bards, whose only daughter married a celebrated Scotch warlock.
The hermit, seer, prophet, or whatever we may choose to call him, is no ignorant and uncultured boor. He is now old, almost beyond the memory of years, and his once{66}raven hair is white as the driven snow, but his form is still erect, his step free, neither is his natural strength abated. His eyes are somewhat dimmed and bleared from much watching over midnight furnaces, and have the weird, pathetic look seen only in eyes that have gazed into mysteries unlawful for men to know; but still in their slumbrous depths can be discovered flashes of latent flame that, at times, seems to pierce into the most secret thoughts of the beholder.
Norrie’s parents settled here and made their home in the cave now occupied by the son in the early part of the nineteenth century. Where they came from or their purpose in locating in these remote fastnesses was never known. That they were cultured and educated far above the condition in which they dwelt was apparent even to the few rustic mountaineers who resided in this vicinity. Their cave was furnished with almost Oriental splendor, and negro slaves waited upon and served them.
The son, a small boy when they made their advent here, was waited upon by a young negro boy who was deaf and dumb. About the year 1850 Norrie’s parents died, and leaving the cave in charge of the deaf-and-dumb negro, he started forth upon his wanderings, rumor said, to add to the store of occult knowledge he had obtained from his parents, who had long been regarded by the simple rustics as possessing uncanny powers and holding communications with unhallowed spirits.
For more than thirty years he was a wanderer in the Orient, learning the wisdom of the East in the temples of India and Persia.
The cave contains strange reminders of his travels. Standing in one corner is an orrery such as, in the long ago, Chaldean sages studied the blazonry of the firmament in the Valley of the Euphrates. There is a furnace, crucibles, retorts, mathematical instruments, and astrolabe in juxtaposition with a Jacob’s staff carved out of ebony wood and fashioned in the form of a serpent.
On a table lies the latest works on Christian Science, side by side with Egyptian manuscripts, written on papyrus, and tablets from Babylon and Nineveh carved with strange hieroglyphics, together with the Bible, the Talmud, and the Koran.
That he will prove the last hermit of Pine Mountain is probable, but in the meantime his vogue is immense and he is consulted by hundreds, who place implicit faith in his utterances.
Sees Wolverene Possibilities.
Speaking of cows, Bro. Gibson, a Michigan boomer, believes in the dairying possibilities and hog-raising future of the Wolverene State.
“Why,” says John, “we have in our section eleven cheese factories and one hundred creameries. It is impossible to describe the grand future of our dairying interests. If all the cows in our State could be put into one cow, she could graze off the equator, while with her tail she could swish the icicles off the north pole. If all our hogs were turned into one hog, he could dig the Panama Canal with three roots and one grunt.{67}”
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