Evening Star Newspaper, January 20, 1894, Page 12

12 THE EVENING STAR, SATURDAY, JANUARY 20, 1894-TWENTY PAGES. BLOWING OPEN SAFES! Scientists Who Played the Part of! Cracksmen. WORK OF AN EXPER? COMMISSION No Ordinary Safe Found to Be Burglar Proof. THE POWER OF DYNAMITE ‘Written for The Evening Star. T LEAST THIRTY years ago the pres- ent vaults of the United States treas- ury were built. They are antiquated and unsatisfactory. More than one attempt has been made to have newer and safer con- structions put in their place. There have been some general ad- vances in vault build- ing which have be- come known to all and have been taken ad- vantage of by thousands of business firms throughout the country. But the govern- ment is slow and has neglected these most widely known improvements,to say nothing of the later discoveries. But even in great Organizations of the most conservative kind changes are finally made and the numerous Successful safe blowings and daring rail- Toad robberies of the past year have strong- ly emphasized the immediate necessity for Teconstruction of the treasury’s strong boxes. ‘Three years and more ago a resolution ‘was passed and $10,000 appropriated for an investigation of the best safe and vault constructions in the country, and also of the success a burglar or a mob would be Mikely to have in cracking them. This in- vestigation was successfully prosecuted and & report made more than a year ago, and the results obtained have been touched upon that will successfully resist under these conditions. To the ordinary idea of tools should be added such quantities of ex- pinstves as will not arouse the nelghbor- “A safe which shall successfully resist a mob must meet the other conditions that @ mob has ample time, carries tools such as can be secured at machine shops, and is ready to use charges of explosives which may produce loud reports, but yet will not do serious damage to the buildings. Con- structions of large dimensions intended to be burglar and mob-proof have been used for the storage of securities and the pre- cious metals in the treasury and subtreas- uries of the government. The attention of Secretary Windom having been called to the weakness of these vaults, he sug- gested that a commission of mechanical experts of note be appointed to inquire into the different modes of safe and vault con- structions in this country, and report which they deemed the best. Upon resolu- tion of Congress commissioners were ap- pointed as follows: Prof. Robert H. Thurs- ton, director of Sibley College of Engineer- ing, Cornell University; Theodore N. Ely, master of construction, Pennsylvania rail- road, who built the famous Johnstown bridge after the disaster there, and Fran- cis A. tt, a noted manufacturer of standards and all sorts of fine mechanical tools. They made an inspection of various works for the manufacture of safes, of which there are a great number. What a Burglar Can Do. “By experiments of mechanical experts they showed that in a burglar’s time and with tools at a burglar’s command it was entirely possible to take off the laminae constituting the doors and walls of ordin- ary safes, and with drills and blow pipes to cut holes four inches in diameter through 41-2 inches of the best metals— Franklinite and other high resistants. “Then by experiments which I conducted it was proved possible by attacks with fulminate of mercury,nitro-glycerine, dyna- mite, all articles of ordinary commerce, to open any of the safes of square construc- tion in less than an hour, often in a few minutés, and by use of charges so small as to do no serious damage to the building or even to the contents of the safe and without producing sufficient report to tract attention {n the immediate neighbor- “The first method of attack was by the door. The common square, most generally used, and the circular, known as e serew door, but also of laminated or sheet construction, were found to yield quickly to a small quantity of nitro-glycerine poured into the crack, which always exists in such construction between the door and the jamb. A casual investigation by anyone ‘will show how considerable these crevices are. In many cases a silver dime may be Placed on top of the door and the door closed; !n some instances a silver dollar will not prevent closing the door. Conse- quentiy a liquid like nitro-glycerine, which is quite fluid, can be easily poured into the ipterstice and can be fired by the trail of fluid left in pouring, set off by a detonating Effect of un Explosion. and briefiy outlined in a very small part in two reports of the treasurer previous to the last. As long ago as December, 1802, ‘Treasurer Nebeker urged the necessity of the early adoption of the suggestions of the report in order that the government might have the full advantage of the work done | by taking it while it was fresh. But an} administration has gone and an admin- | istration has come since that day and the new hands do not seem to set much store by the old crowd’s work and are pay- ing very little attention apparently to thi “Safe and Burglar Test Commission work. There are a good many, however, who, having little to do with politics and having become genuinely interested in their duties, are hoping to see this report that was at one time so much talked of. There are also several hundred persons outside ficial circles who became much interested ‘when the investigation was in progress, and they are looking for the report with long- suffering expectancy. At last all these are to be satisfied, for the report is out and | s00n will be in the hands of all who care to see it. Dynamite for Safe Blowing. Parts of it will be of interest to every- body, and no part more so than that relat- ing to the use of dynamite in safe blowing. This is especially true on account of the very general use of dynamite by cracks- men of late and because anarchists and | other madmen are constantly devising new methods of perpetrating deviltry by aid of | the terrible explosive. On the subject of explosives in general and of the work of | Opened by Nitro-Glycerine. the commission in particular none is more lly capable of speaking than 1s Prof. | charles E. Munroe, who conducted the ex-| periments with explosives for the commis-| sion. He was seen by a Star reporter at his laboratory at Columbian University, Rhere he ts ‘professor of cheuistry. He | “The safe which has been and is now in use is nothing but a box. The chief im- Provements are the substitution of tron for ‘wood, an increase in the thickness or in the | number and arrangement of thicknesses of | material and in the complexity of locks with which it is fastened. The square or quad-| Fangular shape built up of layers of metal | has been retained throughout. Resistance to attack has been made to depend upon | the thickness and quality of the plates of the wails and door and upon the number of plates. Under the square, or, more Properly, cube, form of safe it is Impossible to increase the resisting power In any other | jow, as these plates are put on in laminae, it is necessary that they be joined together. This is done by a system of bolts and screws, which of course can be renewed as they have been applied. So it is possible of course to destroy any con- Struction of this sort by mechanical means. “The weakest element in the system is, however, the door. As the space into which the door is fitted is rectangular, it is almost impossible to get with the mass of material used in a door a perfect me-| chanical fit. It is the more so, since in| @rder to make the door impenetrable to | 4rilis, or nearly so, layers of tempered | steel are employed in its construction, What a Snfe Should Re. “Now the aim in making a receptacte | for the safe keeping of securities is that {t shall resist entrance either by a burglar or by a mob, who have designs upon tie} securities or valuables. Consequently the Strength of the receptacle necessary may be determined by the following conditions, viz.: That a burglarious attack is one that can be made in a burglar’s time and with | the tools at a burglar’s command. Now the time in which a burglar can act is the | time between the closing of the bank~or | safe—and the opening. which may be in| case of a holiday following or preceding Sunday as much as forty-eight hours. A | burglar’s tools are such as a man or a! squad of men may carry concealed on their Persons or in a satchel without attracting attention. “& safe that is burglar proof is one | National Bank of New York city. cap. The burglar to be out of all danger simply crouches behind the safe till the ex- plosion has occurred. Forcing a Crevice. “When the construction of the door is more careful and a nice mechanical fit has been secured, it is a simple thing, by wedges which the burglar employs, to force a crevice so as to give admission to the explosive fluid. “In some instances attempts have been made to prevent the introduction of explo- sives by. placing a rubber strip in the crevice. ‘This is applied under the mistaken notion that the explosive must be pro- jected through the door into the safe. While this is true with a !ow explosive, as gunpowder or gas, it is not true with a high explosive, as nitro-glycerine. indeed, in the latter case, this rubber packing is rather an ald, for it Is an advantage in this case to have the surfaces against which the explosive is to act as close together as possible. “In one of my experiments a safe taken from a bank was attacked. It had a screw door. The safe was two feet five inches cube, built up of eight alternate layers of iron and steel approximately one-half inch each in thickness and at the back about four and three-quarters inches through. The screw docr was composed of ten one-half inch plates. The first and second plates were of iron, the third of steel, the fourth of steel, and then alternating till the tenth. It was built in five steps, the diameter of the first being fifteen inches, and then each ofe inch smaller till the ninth and tenth, the last was twelve inches in diameter. Barglarised in Eight Minutes. ‘These plates were fastened from within by screw bolts. An annular iron ring was fastened to the inside plate from the inside by ten bolts and had a screw head cut into its exterior circumference. This fitted into another annular iron ring fastened to the inside plate of the safe around the door opening. A circular iron frame hung on hirges acted as a carriage to the door, and into this was screwed an annular fron ring, through which and into the door eight half inch screw bolts passed. When the bolts | were removed, the circular iron frame with annular iron ring could be swung back and the screw door presented itself with its first plate flush with the outside of the safe, and showing six one-half inch bolt holes through the first plate of the door, arranged in a circle about one inch from the outside circumference. Two handles diametrically opposite were attached to the annular iron ring screwed into the iron frame hinged on the front of the safe. They were used to screw up and unscrew the door. “The object of the test was to remove Plate after plate and effect an entrance. First, one one-hundredth of an ounce of nitro-glycerine was introduced and plate one, the least securely fastened, was re- moved; then the amount of explosive was increased as the fastenings became stron- ger, till one-fourth of an ounce was used upon the inner plates. The ten plates were all removed, id access to the contents of the safe obtained in thirty-eight and one- half minutes. “As an example of the opening of the ordinary square door, the attack was upon a safe which was built for the Mercantile It was delivered to the commission locked and sealed as it came from the bank. It was five feet eight inches high, two feet eight and one-half inches wide and two feet two inches deep on the outside. It was found to consist of six plates. The first outer plate was of wrought iron, one-half inch thick; the second, wrought iron, one-quarter meh thick. The third was one-half inch thick of three and five-ply laminated weld- ed steel and iron strips, presumably chrome steel, with turned corners, each plate being six inches wide. The fourth plate was of Franklinite one and a half inches thick, cast in double basket work, one-quarter inch wrought iron rods laid in sections, with solid turned corners. The fifth was one-quarter inch wrought fron, the sixth ore-half inch wrought iron. The coi tion was excellent. The door was specimen of its kind, beiug provided with tongue and groove and rubber packing. The bolting and locking was a beautiful piece of workmanship of the most elaborate and most approved kind. It was two feet wide and five feet high. How the Safe Was Cracked. “The attack was begun by making a putty well at the edge of the door and pour- ing into the crevice between the door and the jamb 4.8 ounces of nitro-glycerine. The explosive ran in rapidly, notwithstanding the fit was very close. No wedge was necessary. Eight minutes ofter operations began the charge was fired. The safe had been placed in a rough shed, and when all was ready everybody walked away to a distance of fifty feet. So slight was the re- port for which we were listening, that the | commissioners would scarcely believe any work had been done. We found that the whole jamb of the door was blown out, and under the door a space left sufficient to ad- mit the whole hand and arm into the safe. The plate of Franklinite was shattered into fragments. The under door of the lower compartment was blown in, the dividing shelf between the lower and middle com- partments was blown upward, the first three plates of the jamb were torn out éewn to the Franklinite, and the first plate of the three-sixteenths of an inch was en- tirely stripped off. In eight minutes full access had been gained by means easily at @ burglar’s command, into this large safe constructed for a metropolitan bank burglar proof. This was but a type many experiments which demonstrated con- clusively that with the ordinary safe of square construction, sometimes called the “standard,” it is perfectly easy to gain ac- cess by small amounts of easily obtained and safely used explosives. “Among the experiments made to demon- strate the way in which explosives might be used by a mob was the following: A quantity of dynamite, nine and a half pounds in pound cartridges, were made up into a hollow cylinder, according to the ™method which I discovered some time since, and mentioned in Scribner’s for May, 1888. This cartridge was placed on top of a screw @oor safe, in which the total thickness of plates was four and three-fourth inches. The charge was fired, and in an instant bored a hole three inches in diameter through the walls. The experiments showed conclusively that with a comparativel; small supply of dynamite a mob could, without danger to themselves, effect an en- trance into any vault of the square con- struction.” HE WRITES BACKWARD. The Peculiarity of a Boy in an Insti- tution at Vineland. William Riley, a thirteen-year-old boy, a Poor, wan inmate of the Home for Feeble- minded Children at Vineland, has suddenly become an object of extraordinary interest to the most distinguished physicians of Philadelphia and of other cities who have heard of him, says the Philadelphia Press. He has just been shown at a clinic at the University of Pennsylvania and at a meet- ing of the Neurological Society, and his Poor, drawn face and eccentric accom- plishments have stirred up the students of the mechanism of human life as they rare- ly have been moved before. The world of laymen would see in the boy only @ poor, emaciated creature, with right side all paralyzed, but the big doctors beheld in him the incarnation of strange scientific principles and an object worthy of their closest study. They applied to his case all sorts of long and learned terms, but to the lay mind the terms meant that the boy's faculties had been so twisted by @ sunstroke in his infancy that he now sees Willie Riley’s Handwriting. things with his mind upside down and wrongside foremost, although his eyes are all right, and when, he writes he runs his pen from right to left, and to read his Penmanship it must be seen reflected in a mirror. The boy's case grows more interesting to brain specialists every day, as it is consid- ered one of the best cases of this rare kind in the history of medicine. It is one of the few about which there {s no doubt of its genuineness, which is a strong point in its favor. for it is @ comparatively easy thing to imitate. Young Riley came to the training school at Vineland a few months ago, and at that tume he could not write at all. When he was placed in the writing class, and a copy set before him, he seemed to under- stand what was expected of him and im- mediately started at his task. The teacher was much surprised when she saw the results of his toil. The letters resembled nothing to her at first, and she thought that she wouid have a hard task to teach her new pupii how to write. She tried to get him to begin at the oth- er edge of the paper, but he still wrote from right to left and his letters were turn- ed about. Of course, his first attempts at copying would have been anything but leg- ible, even had he written as ordinary boys do, and so the teacher thought that it was simply the awkwardness of a beginner and to his feeble mental condition. Finally, she looked at the result of her pupil's efforts and its peculiarity caused her to take it to Superintendent S. O. Gar- rison. It was examined and found to be an unmistakable specimen of mirror-writ- ing, and from that time on he has been a@ constant source of study to physicians who have become interested in re- markable case. So important is this case that consider- able space in the fifth annual report of the institution, which has just been issued, is devoted to it. The report on this subject was made by Dr. Charies K. Mills of this city, who is chief of the staff of consult- ing physicians. In his report Dr. Mills says: “The boy ranks high mentally as com- pared with other children in the institution and would be classed with the highest grade of imbecijles. He fairly understands all ordinary matters, as telling the time of The wm fur comple Ayong Aamd) wrulng. $2 The Writing Reflected in a Mirror day, the use of common appliances, the value of coins and notes. He can repeat the alphabet, can spell and read words of one syllable. He is docile, sensitive and a somewhat emotional child. He was ex- amined as to touch, pain, temperature, weight, resistance, posture, &c., and no disorder of sensibility was found. Hearing, smell and taste are good.” Dr. Mills then comments on Riley's eye- sight, saying that vision was the same with both eyes together and that he was not at all color blind. ‘He has,” contin- ues the report, “rightside partial paralysis with atrophy.” A study of mirror-writing shows some important and interesting things in the dual action of the brain. There have been sev- | eral cases of a similar kind. Some of these are mentioned in the report of Dr. Mills. In one instance he says: “One of Leonardo da Vince's manuscripts is an example of right-handed to left- handed or mirror-writing, and it has been supposed that this singular style was adopted to preserve the work from super- ficial readers, but another reason is sug- gested. A priest who visited Leonardo dur- jing the last years of his life has recorded |the fact that he had paralysis of the right hand, and it may therefore be that as he | was unable to use his right hand he learn- |ed to write with his left and became a mir- | ror-writer.”” | What is the cause of this pecullar kind of penmanship? That {s what has been | puzzling brain students for many years. Dr. Ireland, who has filled tomes with the | results of his probings into the brain’s se- crets, comments on the probable mechan- |ism of mirror-writing, and, of course, such {opinions are more or less technical. He says: t may be asked, !s the image or im- | pression or change in the brain tissue from | which the image is formed in the mind of {the mirror-writer reversed like the nega- | tive of a photograph; or if a double vision be formed in the visual center, one in the right hemisphere of the brain and the other in the left, do the images He to each other in opposite directions, for example, C on the right side and C on the left side? “We can thus conceive that the {mage on the left side of the brain being effaced through disease, the inverse image would remain in the right hemisphere, which would render the patient apt to trace let- ters from right to left, the execution of which would be rendered al} the more nat- ural from the greater facility of the left |hand to work in a centrifugal direction, | Moreover, when one used the left hand there would probably be a tendency to copy the inverse impression or image on the right side of the brain.” The case of young Riley will be closely watched to see what effect the gradual in- struction at the training school will have upon him. ee Penry’s Guides. From the Chicago Inter-Ocean. ‘Where in the mystic glow of Polar night A frowning host of monster glaciers renr Their ghastly heads into the starlit sphere Of vast, eternal space; where mortal sight Finds but flerce desolation to invite Herole souls; where howling Arctic cheer Shrieks to the dying martyr: ‘Welcome here!” Fair Constancy directs the polestar’s light. And, in the cold embrace of giant floes, Some long forgotten hulk, a glimmering wraith, Lies fondly clasped: more precious ever grows As, safely guarded by gnunt-featured Death, It_mocks approach—upon itt prow there shows Dim, lettered through Time's frost the legend: it GEORGE E. BOWEN. MILLIONAIRES’ TAXE How the Proposed Income Tax Will Squeeze the Rich Men. . WILL BLEED STANDARD OL, MAGNATES The Incomes of Famous Preachers and Literary Men. ALSO RAILROAD OFFICIALS Written for The Evening Star. HE RICH MEN OF the United States will be hiding behind their wood piles dur- ing the next few months. The demo- crats of the Congress are bound that we shall have an income tax, and they pro- pose to collect 2 per cent on all incomes of more than $4,000 per year, This will affect hundreds of thousands of men in the United States, and if human nature is the same today as it has been in the past, not one-tenth of them will pay the taxes. It is laws like this which make it very difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. In 1868, when the United States was boom- ing, we had an income tax on all persons who made over $1,000 per year and less than 260,000 people paid taxes on their in- comes. The number who. received more than this and escaped taxation amounted to hundreds of thousands, and it was even worse when the limit was raised. It was not long after this before the amount of exemption was increased to $2,000 and then the taxable incomes were returned to the number of 116,000 and this number fell right along until 1870, when Senator Sher- man estimated that only 60,000 people were paying income taxes. At this time we had @ population of about 40,000,000, and nine- tenths of the people and ninety-nine hun- dredths of the property holders of the country escaped taxation. At incomes of. over $4,000 it will be worse yet. The gold- plated liar and perjurer will be abroad in the land and the tax will to a certain ex- tent be a premium on corruption. Offictals Who Will Be Taxed. If it could be justly collected it would bring in millions. I have been looking over the rich men of the United States and estimating what they will have to pay if they are taxed on the incomes that they ought to have in proportion to their sup- Posed wealth. Every Congressman on his salary alone will have to drop $20 a year into the treasury. The cabinet ministers will each fork over $80 to Uncle Sam, and President Cleveland will have $920 deducted from his White House income. Private Secretary Thurber will yield up $20 and the justices of the Supreme Court will each have $120 a year less to spend on the capons, terrapin and other delicacies. If in addition to this they return the incomes that they should have, supposing their wealth brought them 5 per cent, Cleve- land’s two hundred odd thousand dollars would make him pay $200 more of an in- come tax, and Secretary Lamont will have to plank down the same amount out of his profits of street railway investments. Every millionaire in the Senate ought at this rate to pay something like $1,000 a year income tax, and if Don Cameron, Cal Brice and John P. Jones do not wince when they are asked to give up $5,000 and up- ward apiece to the treasury I am much mistaken in the men. Senator Stewart is said to be worth a million. He will pay $1,000. Watson C. Squire has a million dollars’ worth of real estate in the state of Washington and he ts too sharp a business man to let it bring him in less than a $50,000 Income. He ought to pay $1,000. Of all of John Sherman's big fortune I doubt whether there are many dollars lying idle, and Vilas will probably have to drop $1,000 a year from his Wisconsin assets. Fully half of the members of the Senate have incomes of $5,000 and more in ad- dition to their salaries. They will have to pay $100 and upward aptlece, and Henry Cabot Lodge, George C. Perkins and Sena- tor Stockbridge are among those who wilh be expected to pay their thousands. The most of these men will kick when the bill comes before the Senate and the general opinion is that it will not be allowed to be- come a law. . Millionaires by the Thousand. The millionaires of the United States! Their name is legion. Each one of their millions ought to bring in between $40,000 and $50,000 a year, and from this tax they should pay at least $1,000 per million. Look at the list and see some of the golden spots upon which the muriatic acid of this tax ought to fall to prove whether the fig- ures are genuine. William Waldorf Astor is said to be worth $150,000,000. His vast wealth is in lands and houses in New York city, and it is supposed to bring him in 6 per cent. If this is so he gets more than $9,000,000 a year, and his tax will be more than $180,000, or about $15,000 per month. The Gould estate, it is said, amounts to over $100,000,000, and at 6 per cent it will bring in $3,000,000 a year and would have to pay a tax of $120,000. One of the biggest fortunes of the United States is that of the Vanderbilts, which amounts to in the neighborhood of $200,000,000, and which, if reduced to gold, would equal more than 700,000 pounds of the precious metal. It is all safely and conservatively invested, and it probably brings in an income of $12,- 000,000 a year and it ought to pay a tax of something like $20,000 per month, or over $000 a day. The two brothers, Willlam K. and Cornelius Vanderbilt, are together sup- posed to be worth nearly $200,000,000, and when Willlam H. Vanderbilt was living I got an idea at the Treasury Department of his immense estate. I was looking into the investments of our millionaires in 4 per cent bonds, and I was told that at one time Commodore Vanderbilt had held $45,- 000,000 in these securities alone. The interest was paid quarterly, and this one man got from the United States treasury 1 per cent on this amount every three months, Without the slightest risk he re- ceived from the United States government a check for $450,000 every ninety days. It made me feel like an anarchist. I could have forgiven him the receiving ten times this amount from an investment in which | he stood some chance of losing, but to re- ceive $150,000 a month, $5,000 a day, or over $200 an hour, without doing a stroke of work or risking a cent of oss was entirely tao much for me, and for the moment I flaunted the red flag and envied him. Ten Cents a Second. It is hard to get an idea of what these millions mean, and the enormous incomes which they bring in. The Astor fortune if | put into $1 bills and pasted together would make a crazy quilt big enough to cover fifty-six farms of 100 acres each. The Gould estate would carpet more than 3,000 acres, and if the bills were pasted together end to end those which could be realized from the Vanderbilt fortunes would make @ green ribbon more than 22,000 miles long, or long enough to almost reach around the earth. And still there are other fortunes nearly as great as these. Collis P. Hunt- ington is said to be worth $50,000,000 and he ought to pay $50,000 a year of an in- come tax. I would like to see the long face of Russell Sage shrivel up when he is asked to give Uncle Sam $50,000 out of his in- come. I venture he would have the money brought in in barrels of pennies and paid out one at a time in order to hold on to it the longer. Russell Sage makes his money at high rates of interest. He always has a vast amount on call, and he can figure up what 4 per cent means without using a pencil or pen. He is supposed to-be worth $50,000,000 and his transactions are such that the tax inquisitors will not find it hard to estimate something as to its profits. According to the published account, how- ever, Russell Sage is credited with taking in 10 cents every second, $6 a minute, a little more than $8,000 a day, about $250,000 @ month, and over $3,000,000 a year. His property must be protected, and you will agree with me that an income tax as to him would be just. Standard Oil Millions. By the way, speaking of the justice of an Income tax, makes me think of a question which was debated in one of the literary societies of John Allen's corgressional dis- trict in Mississippi. This was: eee is the best place to have a i 2" The decision arrived at was: “On the other fellow.” And this is the way with the income tax, it is all right provided it comes on the other felicw, and these mil- Monaires are the other fellows. Take the Standard Of! magnates. They have turned globules of of] into gobs of gold and their own heads buzz when they try to compute their incomes, John Rockefeller is said to be worth al- most as much as William Waldorf Astor and the most conservative estimates put him at $100,000,000. He did many a job of hauling along the wharves in Cleveland when he was a young man for a dollar a load, and he knows how much $1 means. but even he cannot figure out In his mind the enormous amount of $100,000.000. His money is invested in standard oil stocks, which are supposed to be as good wg wd and which sometimes pay 12 per cent divi- dends. His income must be in the neigh- borhood of $10,000,000 a year, and an in- come tax of $200,000 would would not hurt him as much as a tax of $2 would injure the average reader of this letter. He spends his thousands on horses, country homes and Baptist Sunday schools, but they don’t begin to eat up his income, much less his vast principal, and he can pay this tax and rot come to want. Another rich Standard Of] man is Oliver Pavne, who is said to be worth a hundred million and who {is a bachelor with no house to take care of, no children to keep in shoes and no bills to pay. You would think that he would not object to helning Uncle Sam out to the extent of a paltry couple of hundred thousand dollars a year. Henry M. Flagler has his extrava- gances in the way of his immense Florida hotels, but these are but mice bites at the great round cheese of his income. At 5 per cent his fortune ts said to bring him in $3,000,000 a year or $250,000 a month. The income tax would leave him more than $2,900,000 for his year’s expenses, and his Principal would remain untouched. He ts said to be worth $50,000,000 and at 5 per cent his income is nearly $350 per hour. Flagler _was once as poor as John Rocke- feller. When he was a boy he thought he could make a fortune at keeping a hotel and,he longed for the chance to try it. The remit was that when his connection with the Standard Oil Company brought him in money faster than he could count it he concluded to realize his boyish ambition and he built his big hotel at St. Augustine. Pinching the Coin. One reason why our rich men object to paying taxes les in their early lives. The most of them began saving penny by penny. Until they were of age a dollar was as big as a cart wheel, and they can now appre- clate small amounts better than they can large ones. They look upon their millions as matters of course, and in the way of business they e and lose fortunes with- out winking. en it comes to spending, however, they pinch the coin until the nose of the Goddess of Liberty is pushed down in- to her throat and the eagle fairly screams in his agony. Even in his last days, it is said, Jay Gould estimated the dollars he spent as the profit from the sale of so many rat traps. Andrew Carnegie once worked for $3 a week, and though there is no man more liberal in the lump I venture he can tell you how many meals a poor man can get from every dollar he spends, and Levi S. Leiter, who has been paying $10,000 for house rent and who has just finished a palace more gorgeous than that of ary fec- ond class kingdom of Europe used to hustle about trying to get a start on $6 a week. Russell Sage made his first money in selling sugar as a grocer in Troy, N. Y., and he thinks of the barrels and barrels of sweet mixture which the $50,000 tax on his income would buy, and his face is anything but sweet at the thought. Joseph Pulitzer will have to pay several times $10,000 if this bill passes, and he will remember how hard he worked to.make his first dollars in driving @ coach in St. Louis or as a poor reporter on the smaller newspapers there. Sidney Dillon will remember how he ran errands as an office boy, Henry Clews will figure up the whole on the basis of the value of the money to him when he was getting $ a week, and D. O. Mills will estimate how much his income tax would amount to if he were back in Sacramento, California, trying to get enough money to start life by selling lemonade and root beer. I hope they can Squeeze a big tax out of Lucky Baldwin. He ought to pay $50,000 a year, and if he does it will make him feel as if he had 50,000 pins | oer, pricking at 50,000 different places in his an- atomy. This wi!l not be the case with George W. Childs. He began life a poor boy, but he has never been miserly, and the big income tax he will have to pay will not hurt him. He has made money rapidly, but he has spent it just as freely, and thor he made no more than $600 a year until he was seventeen, before he was twenty he was on his way to fortune. Still he worked | 4 once for $ a month. Whitelaw Reid, who will have to pay an income tax as big as the President's salary, said not long ago that he was glad to get $5 a week as a cor- respondent of a Cincinnat! newspaper, and | ; John Wanamaker, another of these tive big income tax payers, began’ life by working for $1.25 a week. Phil Armour will Pay a tax on millions. He worked hard in the mines of California to get his start, and he knows the exact value of the tens of thousands of dollars which he will have to pay. It is the same with a dozen other rich men whom I could mention. They all began at the bottom, and the most of them will realize the value of the money they will have to give up. A few of them will, I ven- ture, lie about it, and say that they make less than they do, but many will be honest and turn in to Uncle Sam a fair account of their profits and their losses. Professional Men. It will be the same with professional men. The best brain and the most skilled fingers of the United States will be affected by this tax. There are a number of lawyers in New York who make many times $4,000 @ year, and there are railroad officials, edi- tors and bank presidents in all the big cities who receive fortunes for their work. George B. Roberts, president of the Penn- sylvania Railroad Company, is said to re- ceive $50,000,a year his salary, and Chauncey Depew rec: a like amount. Both of these men have big estates out- side of their salaries, but on their salaries alone they will pay $1,000 to Uncle Sam, and the same will be the case of a number of other high salaried men. The president of the Western Union Telegraph Company is said to receive $50,000 a year. The presi- dent of the Equitable Life Insurance Com- pany gets a like amount, and he is a poor | bank president, who does not receive as much as the chief justice of the United States. Bob Ingersoll is supposed to make $100,000 a year out of his law practice and | lecturing. He ought to pay $2,000 of a tax, George Hoadley probably makes $50,- 000, and it is said that Bourke Cockran still gets the same amount out of his practice. I know a lawyer in New York who made | about $25,000 last year, and who gets a | big salary from a corporation, and is paid } in addition $100 a day whenever he is away from the city on business for it. It is the | same with doctors. There are said to be | a hundred doctors in New York who make | $10,000 a year and upward, and it is said | that Dr. Weir Mitchell once refused a fee of $25,000 to go over to Europe and back on the next steamer to pay a single medi- | cal visit. There ure more than twenty doctors in New York who make over §2U,- 000 a year, and nearly every profession has its $10,000 men. Even the preachers | will have to pay income taxes. Dr. T. De- Witt Talmage will pay $100 out of the sal- ary he gets from the Brooklyn Tabernacle, | and the assessment on the remainder of his income will call, I venture, for $500 more. Dr. Morgan Dix will be asked for $200, and Robert Collyer will give Uncle Sam a like amount. Even the newspaper. men will have to pay. All of the big editors will be assessed and a number of the literary men, W. D. Howells will probably give at least $500 out of his income to the United States treasury. John Brisben Walker will be one whose income taxes ; will ran into the thousands, and Mark Twain will shell out several times as many | gold dollars as he made during the days | when he worked for a living as a news- paper correspondent here at Washington. Wealthy Women. Among the people upon whom this tax will most heavily fall will be the rich wo- men of the United States. Their incomes are better known than those of the men, and the widows of our millionaires, the exact amount of whose estates have been told in the courts, will be assessed at 2 per cent of all they receive over this $4,0UU, Mrs. Stanford will have to pay many thou- sands every year. Mrs. Senator Hearst will annually pay a fortune to the government, and Mrs. Zach Chandler will be called upon for a large amount. Everyone has heard of the great wealth of Miss Hetty Green. She is said to be worth $30,000,000, and at 6 per cent her income from this must be $1,800,000 a year. At this rate she will pay $36,000 in taxes, Miss Mary Garrett of Baltimore will be another large tax payer, and there are some women in Wash- ington who could buy diamond necklaces out of the amount they will have to pay if this bil) passes. FRANK G. CARPENTER. Ses FOR HOME DECORATION The Eternal Fitness of Things Should Always Be Considered. The Person of Taste Allows Individ- uality to Overrule Con tion- ality—Many Clever Ideas. Written Exclusively for The Evening Star. “How to make home beautiful” is a study that refined natures have always found worthy of much attention. Assuredly, it is one of the things worth living for, but it is subject to fashion’s decrees, and its require- ments vary and increase, until now, in these days of elaborate luxury, the beauty of a house is too often intrusied to a profession- al taste, while the fancies of the owner are left, In a measure, out of sight. Yet, the woman that has the inborn sense of “eter- nal fitness” and a fearless independence of Judgment may bring about far happier re- sults than the decorator who yields to the oracle of prevailing fashion. Her rooms may be furnished a little disproportionately, it is true, but they will be quite charming in their effect of freshness and unconvention- ality. Of course, the style of the house should be first considered. If it is old English, we can hardly have our walls hung with choicest tapestry produced by the members of our own family, or our tables furnished with bowls exquisitely wrought in gold, cups dainty with jewels, and salvers huge and gorgeous. But we can refrain from dados and from choking up our rooms with a bun- €red and one heterogeneous curios, and from littering them with “every kind of china uselessness;” and we can have oak tables, settees and chairs beautifully pol- ished and carved, the work showing feeling rather than ornateness, If we have built s house in colonial style, then we may have high white mantels, carved in festooned wreaths which suggest old graveyard tombstones, the narrow shelf ornamented with tall, columnar, silver candlesticks. We may bring into drawing- room prominence an old chimney-corner chair, with the stuffed back and sides high enough and broad enough to have protected the occupant of early days from the draughts that used to rush through the doors of the half-heated rooms—draughts that have no terrors for us now, when the crackling blaze is a mere ornament and an efficient furnace is our real comforter; and, if we are consistent, we must have spindle-legged tables, high, stiff, not particularly comfort- able chairs and a sparsely furnished hall. Comfort in the Home. But if we have just any kind of a house and want to furnish it in just any sort of a@ way,the rooms may be treated differently. If one is possessed of the golden fleece a Louis Quinze drawing room may be at- tempted, full of carved curves and flowered brocades; but this delicate style is not suited to economical treatment. Unless Produced with the greatest skill by superior At present the highest fashion is to avoid the fashion; that is, the best taste leans to individualism, following only the general terdency of the fashion. The ideal of the Most a la mode woman is to furnish her been the custom of recent less bric-a-brac, and is it overcrowd the floor space with cabinets. For upholstery and drapery she uses finely woven tapestry instead of silken materials. She provides plenty of comfortable chairs, not a few of them large and for a club sm she has cozy corn win- ard one of his primary directions always to keep cheerful and not dwell = complaint. Upon one occasion he vis- ited a patient whose bed room was cov- ered with a wall paper of that depressing shade and pattern with which the average builder delights to disfigure rooms. “That said Sir Andrew decisively, quite enough to send a healthy man’ mel- ancholy mad; its effect upon an invalid who is compelled to lie still and gaze upon it all day must be awful. You'll have to move the patient into a more cheerfully Papered “But, Sir Andrew, this is the best of them gg the a “Then,” said the great doctor, “you must ber & ®& bright cretonne or something and hide these dreadful walls.” And cretonne was purchased accordingly. The Floral Decorations, However, the furnishing of a house is nowadays a small part of its decoration. At least when that is accomplished it is really finished, but the floral decoration is considered almost as essential and that must be cared for from day to day, re- quiring eternal vigilance to reach and hold success. Each room should have its deco- ration in one color as far as flowers are concerned. The newest idea in room deco- ration is to arrange sprays over the door- ways in light effects. Each spray must be allowed to assert iiself and show its own beauty. The graceful, artistic perception of the Japanese has the sea and stems” crossed taught us the value of the “dear of flowers. The pale, subdued tints, so refreshing in the hot summer weather, should be re- placed with more brilliant colors as the cold, gloomy come on. Then a red decoration of autumn branches may be carried out. To harmonize with this a very striking effect can be produced by adding a Nght wooden frame to the fireplace, start- ing from the floor in front of the fender on each side, going up the jambs and meeting under the mantelpiece. Upon this frame ches may be tied with red ribbon of a soft, glowing shade. When the fire is lighted the effect of the flames glistening through the branches is c . This is especially beautiful in the hospitable hall, with similar branches tied to the banisters with huge scarlet bows. At the foot of the newel a little hollow tree trnuk may epee. filled with graceful — tall grasses led from silver to wn. In a house of colonial style flowers should be arranged in bowls—large nankin blue china bowls, with their odd little figures and quaint scenes with which flowers biend so happily. There should be bowls in the staircase windows, on the old chests, in the corners where they will catch the light from a window. They should be filled with fragrant old-fashioned flowers—dear, oid- time pink roses, narcissi and lilies of the valley. In the Dining Room. Decoration reaches its highest mark in the dining room and on the dinner table. Devices are innumerable, and new beauties constantly overtake us. Candle shades are arriving at a state of elaborateness marvel- ous to behold. They may be found to match every conceivable design of decoration. The newest of these are the Loie Fuller and the folly; the former are made of rain- bow-colored chiffon, and the latter are pink, green and red, with narrow silk rib- bons tipped with little bells to form the hanging part of the shade. Others are made of pink silk, slightly drawn, with a deep flounce covered with beautiful lace. Although these candle shades are very be- coming to the guests around the table, they are extremely distasteful to a lover of ele- gant simplicity. The soft light of a wax candle is becoming in itself and “little Miss Netticoat” looks much prettier without her pasteboard petticoats. No setting 1s considered too rich or rare for flowers when they are sent as gifts. The latest refinement of luxury in this way is a box covered with rich fur, lined with delicate brocade and filled with orchids. ALETHE LOWBER CRAIG. A NEGRO OUTRAGE. An Old Story Retold. ‘Tho Victim is Now 83 Years Old and at the Louise Home, Washington, D.C, (From the Washington Post.) Eight yearr ago, when negro outrages in this city were More frequent than now, there oo- curred a case of assault in broad dayligbtonour streets, which, at the time, wes noted tn the city press, but which has now been forgot®n. While our reporter was out at the Loulse Home yesterday he had a conversation with the vio tim of that assault, Mrs. Ann Atkinson. She 1s now 83 years old. She repeated the story to me and seemed overjoyed at her recovery t “I was born in King George County, Ve.,on ® plantation about twenty miles from Fred- ericksburg, in February, 1810. Eight years ago I was attacked by a negro who made @ grab for little satchel I was carryingon my arm, In the struggle which followed the man knocked me down and dragged me along the pavements for @ distance of 30 feet. Afver securing the satchel he ran off and | was picked up and oar- Tied to the Home. An ugly gash over my lef eye was sewed up and my left arm, which was dislocated, was set. Asa result of my expert ence, congestion of the brain and nervous pros tration followed. So nervous was I that 1eould not bear even the noises of the Home and I was removed to a quiet spot in the country where I Wotary a An analysis of Dr. Williams’ Pink Pilissbows that they contain, in a condensed form, all the elements necessary to give new life and rich ness to the blood and restore shattered nerves, They are an unfailing specific for such diseases or female, and all diseases resulting from viti- ated humors in the Blood. Pink Pills ave sold by all dealers, or will be sent post peid on re- ceipt of price, (50 cents @ box, or siz boxes for $2.50—they are never sold in bulk or by the 0 REMINGTON’S Sure Cure FOR Rheumatism And Gout From $7 to $2.50. neessi,425 7th S S es CHEST PROTECTORS. We've too Felt Ghost’ Protectors for’ thie toe ‘of