Evening Star Newspaper, July 8, 1923, Page 72

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHIN'GTON D. C.., Dramatic Scenes in Paris Enliven Tour of Duty of Visiting Reporter| English Correspondent Describes French Capital as Most Attractive City in World—Observer Moust Be Steeped in History and Literature of Country to Appreciate It—Story of the Conflict of Jaures and Briand—How an Interview With Beerbohm Tree, London Actor, Was Written—A Bernhardt Incident. BY SIR PHILIP CAME to know fn many wa in more GIBBS. Beerbohm Tree, the greatest, and | the worst, of our English actors. He was playing Caliban In “The Tempest” when I sought an interview with him on the | subject of Shakespeare. | “Shake ¢ * + Shake- | speare!” he leering at with « beastlike face ording to the part he was playing, and clawing himself with apelike hands. I seem to have leard that name. 1 can about nothing. I've said sand times, and more times than that.” He could think of nothing to say about Shakespeare, but suggested that I should run away and write what I liked. I did, and it was at a yvear before the article was hed in a serles of provincial | rapers. a long article in which T wrote a1l that I thought Tree ought to i it he loved Shakespe: with thing llke my own passion One evening I received a long tele- m from him. “Honor by accepting two stalls any night at His Majesty’s and kindly call on me between the g T accepted the invitation, wonder- ing at its effusiveness. When T called | on him he was playing Brutus and clagped my band as though he loved me. “Little do ‘you have ways me ac say him? No, tb is all T know a thou- more than 1 know a Ay, y- g me vou know done me,” he secretary told me the that I was booked for Shakespeare at the Regent Street Folytechnic. 1 had forgotten it. I had nothing prepared. It was a dreadful nuisance. 1 said, ‘T won't go.' He sald, ‘I'm afraid you must’ * * * Two minutes r a bundle of press cuttings was brought to me. It contained your interview with me on the subject of Shakespeare. [ read it with delight. [ had no id 1 had said all those things. What a memory you must have! I took the the sald, other night a lecture on service “My JEAN JAURES, FRENCH LABOR. LOVER OF FR ERY FIBER OF HIS BODY AND BRAIN,” SAYS SIR PHILIP LEADER HE WA OF S deliv word and it Polytechnic. by reading paper to the ered my lecture for word.” * % ¥ x FTER that I met Tree many times and he never forgot that little service. In return invited me to the Garrick Club, or to his great room at the top of His M ty's, and told me innumerable which were vastly enterta He had a rich store of them, told them with a ripe humo and dramatic genius which revealed him at his best His acting was marred by affect tions that be exasperating, sometimes by of memo: sheer carclessness. 1 have seen him actually asleep on the stage. It was when he played the part of Fagin in ‘Oliver Twist,' and in a sc where e had to sit crouched below a bridge, | waiting for Bill Sikes, he dozed off, wakened with a start, and missed h cue. Another gr he ning. and me loss t figure of the stage I met behind the scenes was ternhardt, when she appeared Collseum in London. he part of Adrienne Lecou- which she was an uncon- time a-dying, after storms | agonv and mad fon. 1 had | ~ppointment to meet her in her room aft the play. and slipped round behind the scenes before she laft the stage. Her exit was aston- sshing and touching. The whole company of the Coliseum and its variety show—acrobats, juggle “funny” men, dancing girls, “star turns"—had lined up in a double row to awalt this queen of tragedy, with homage. As she came oc the stage George Robey, with his red nose and ridiculous little hat, gravely offered his arm, with the air of Walter Raleigh in the presence of Queen Elizabeth. She leaned heavily on his arm, and almost collapsed in the chair to which he led her. She was panting after her prolonged display of agony Lefore the footlights, and for a mo- ment T thought she was really dying. I bent over her and said in French that I regretted she was so much ratigued. My words angered her in- stantly, as though they reflected upon her age. “Sir," she said harshly, “I was as much fatigued when I first played that scene—was it thirty years ago, or forty?—I have forgotten. It is the exhaustion of art, and not of natur whom Sarah the took the vreur, in scionable of an * ok %k % S a special correspondent of the Dally Chronicle (after a spell of iree-lance work) I went abroad a good deal on varlous missions, and vceaslonally took charge of the Paris office in the absence of Martin Dono- hue, who held that post but was fre- anently away on somre adventure in wiher countries, , Camille I nave of | glory, jone {T had | peace, there anything | SARAH BERNHARDT, IN THE DAYS WHEN SHE FIRST PLAYED THE PART OF ADRIENNE LECOUVREUR. ANGERED HER BY REGRETTING THAT THE PART HAD FA- TIGUED HER WHEN SHE PLAYED IT IN LATER LIFE. I came to know and to love Pari by day znd night, on both of the Seine, and in all its quarters, rich and poor. To me it is still the most attractive city in the world, and 1 have an ablding passion for its ghosts, its beauty and its people “feel” Paris one must be steeped in the history and literature of France, so that one walks, not lonely. but as a haunted man along the Rue St. Honore, where Danton lived, and where Robespierre closed his shutters when Marie Antoinette passed on her tumbril; in the Palais Royal, where Desmoulins plucked leaves from the trees and stuck them in his hat as & green cockade; in the great Notre Dame. where a thou- sand vears of faith, passion, tragedy, touch one’s spirit, P hand touches its old stones across the Pont Neuf, where Hen met his murderer, and where all Paris passed, cutthroats and fair women: on the left bank. by the bookstall, where poets and scholars roved., with hungry stom- achs and eager minds: up in the Quartier Latin. where centuries of student life have paced by the old gray walls, and where wild youth has lived its short dream of love, quaffed its heady wine, laughed at life and death; up the mountain of Mont- martre where apaches used to lurk in the darkness, and vice wore the falee livery of jov: in the Luxem- burg rdens, where a world of lovers have walked, hand in hand, while children played and birds twit- tered, and green buds grew to leaf, which faded and fell as love grew old and died, One of the most in with its heroes, interesting times was when the Con- federation Generale adl Travail, un- the leadership of Jean Jaures, declared a general strike against the government of Aristide Briand. It was a trial of strength between those two men, who had once been com- rades in the extreme left of the revo- lutionary labor. Both of them were men of outstanding character. Jaures was much more than a hot-headed demagogue, of the new bolshevik type, eager to destroy civilization in revenge against “capital” He was a lover of France in every fiber, of his body and brain, and a man of many Christian qualities, including kind- ress and charity and personal moral- ity. in spite of religlous skepticism. He sawywith clear vision the ap- aching danger of war with Ger- many. and he devoted his life. and lost it, on behalf of antimilitarism, believing that German democracy could be won over to International if French democracy would link up with them. It was for that reason that he attacked the three years' system of military service, and denounced the increasing expendi- ture of Rrance on military prepara- tions. But to attain his ldeal of international peace, he played into the hands of revolutionary labor, and defended many of its violent methods, including “direct action.” It was with Aristide Briand that he had drawn up the plans of a general aris de; | strike in which every trade union or yndicate in France would join at the appointed hour, in order to dem- onstrate the power of “labor” and to overthrow the autocracy of “capital.” ‘When Briand deserted the left wing, modified his views for the sake of office, and finally became premier of France, Jaures, who had taunted him as a renegade, put into operation against him the weapon he had helped to forge. A general strike was de- clared * oo % HERE gvere astonishing scenes in Paris. "The machinery of social life came to a dead stop. No rallway trains arrived or departed, and I had a sensational journey from Calais to Paris in the last train through, driven by an amateur who had not mastered the mystery of the brakes, 80 that the few passengers, with the last supply of milk for Parls, were bumped and jolted with terrifying shocks. Food from the rural districte was held up on wayside stations, and Paris was like a besieged city, living on rapidly diminishing stocks. The “Metro” ceased work, aud armies of | i SIR PHILIP GIBBS clerks, shopgirls and busin had to walk to their work from sub- | urbs or distant quarters. ey made a joke of it, and-laughed and sang| their way, as though it was the | | greatest jest in the world. But Al! | became beyond. a jest after the first| day or two, especially at night. when Paris was plunged into abysmal dark- |ness because the electric had | | joined the railway men and all other ll)rnn("hx-! of their labor. H The restaurants and cafes along {the great boulevards were dimly | lighted by candles stuck into wine }and beer bottles, and bands of stu- | | dents from the Latin quarter paraded jwith paper lanterns, singing the | funeral march and other doleful | i dittles, not without a sense of ro-t &m.m'-p and adventure in that city of | darkness. The apaches, who not the light, came out of their lairs, beyond Clichy, and fell upon wan- ! derers in the gloom, robbing them of their watches and ready money, and clubbing them if they put up any resistance On the whole there was very little violence, for, in spite of their ex- citability, Parisian cro s are good- natured and law-ablding But there was one section which gave trouble It was the union of terrassiers or laborers. They knocked off work and strolled down toward the center of Paris in strong bodies. looking dangerous and picturesque in their great loose breeches tucked into their boots, short jackets, and flat bonnets pulled over the right eve. Most of them carried knives or cheap pistols, and they had ancient, tradi- | tional grudges against the agents de police. Those simple and admirable men were remarkably polite to them, and generally contrived to keep at a safe distance when they appeared in force. But the mounted police of the garde republicaine tried to herd them back from the shopping centers of the city which they threatened to loot. and came into immediate conflict with | them. A hot affair took place round a scaffolding which had been put up for some new building up by Mont- martre. The tgwassiers, driven back by the mounte® men who used the flat of their swords made a strong- hold of this place, and loosed off their pistols or flung brickbats at| the “enemy,” inflicting several cas- ualties. Orders were glven to clear out this hornets’ nest and the garde republicaine charged right up to the scaffolding and hauled out the ruf- fians, who were escorted as prisoners through hooting mobs. It was all very exciting, and Paris was begin- ning Jo lose its temper. * X X * men on ns love ¢ day | 1 | { AURES had called a great meeting of cheminots—the railway work- ers—in the Salle de Manege. or riding school, down the Rue St. Denis. In the interests of the Dally Chronicle I decided to attend it. It was in a low quarter of the city, and vast crowds of factory workers and! young hooligans surged up and down | the street, jeering at the police, and asking for trouble. Far away, above their heads, I could see the steel helmets with their long black plume: of the garde republicaine. e A narrow passage led to the Salle de Manege, where Jaures had begun his meeting with an assembly of 2,000 railway workers, packed tight, as I could see when the door was opened an Inch to give them air. It was guarded by a group of strikers who told me in rough language to clear off. when I asked for admission. One | | of them however, caught my remark {that I belonged to the Daily Chroni- cle. It impressed him favorably. used to read it when I was a hair- dresser in Soho,” he told me. He opened the door enough for me to step inside. Presently I was sorry he did. The atmosphere was hellish in its heat and stench, arising from the wet sawdust of the riding school and the greasy clothes of this great crowd of men,‘densely massed. Jaures was on the tribune, speaking with a powerful, sonorous voice. I forget his words, but remember his appeal to the men to reveal the nobility of [1abor by their, loyalty and their dis- lcivline. Me was scornful of they ! war, renegade Briand who, he sald, had sold his soul for office and was ready to use bayonets against the liberties of men whose cause he had once de- fended with passionate hypocrisy. After an hour of this, I thought T should die of suffocation, and man- aged to escape. Not only Parix was in the throes of the general strike, but all France. | Tt was a serious threat to the French government and to the soclal life of the people. Briand, who had played with revolutionary Iideas as & younger man, showed now that he had the wisdom that comes from re- | sponsibility, and the courage to apply it. He colors. called certain classes to the If they Qisobeyed, it would {be treason to the flag, punishable by death. If they obeyed, it would break the general strike, as they would be ordered, as soldlers, to run the trains and distribute supplies. It was a great risk to take, threatening civil but he took it, belleving that few men would refuse obedience to military digcipline. He was right, and by this means he crushed the general strike and broke the power of the trade unions. I interviewed him at that time, and | remember my first meeting with that man who afterward. when the world war had ended in the defeat of Ger- many, held the office of premier again and endeavored vainly to save France from the ruin which followed victory. He told® me how great had been the danger to France from the forces of anarchy let loose by the Confed- eration Generale de”Travail by their action of the general strike, and he defended the policy by which he had |broken that threat against the au- thority g of government e from me that he He did not had risked !not only his political life and reputa- even the of France en neces tion, but stability But a b ry. beca; native would have be shareful revolution very peace and that risk the alter- n a weak and surrender to anarchy and ARISTIDE BRIA IN HIS YOUNGER DAYS. THERE WA A GENERAL STRIKE WHEN HE BECAME PREMIER OF FRANCE AS A PROTEST AT HIS DESER- TION OF THE LEFT WI? AURES was beaten, as he deserved J to be, defeat was not then, August of 1914, when those German socialists, in pacifism and brotherhood of man he had believed, supported the challenge of their against France and Russia, marched with all the rest toward the French frontier. The whole of Jau- res' life struggle for international peace was made vain by the beating of drums for the greatest war in his- tory. Among his own people there were many. once spellbound by his on that issue. His worst but in whose war joratory and loyal to his leadership, who now abused him as the man who had weakened the defenses of France by his anti-militarist influence. There were some, even, who said, “Jaures betrayed us to the enemy! On that night when many nations of Europe answered the calls to arms, stupefled, conscious of enormous ter- rors approaching all human life, hear- ing already, in Imagination, the thunder of a world of guns that had not yet opened fire, 1 paced the streets of Paris with a friend, won- dering how soon he and I would be caught up in that death struggle. “Let us turn in at the Croissant he said. “We must eat, though the world goes mad.” It was late, and when we arrived at the restaurant in the Rue Mont- martre, it was closed and guarded by police. “What has happened?’ T asked, and some one in the crowd answered with intense emotion. “Jaures is aseassinated! He was shot there, as he sat at dinner.” He was shot from behind a cur- tain, in a plush-covered seat where often T had sat, by some young man who belleved that, in killing Jaures, he was helping to secure the victory of France. I saw his funeral cortege. They gave him a great funeral. Ministers of France, men of all partles, digni- taries of the church, marched behind his coffin, and behind the red flags which were blown by a strong wind. It was not love for him, but fear of the people which caused that demon- stration at his burial. It was an ap- peal for that union sacree of all classes by which alone the menace to the life of’ France might be re- sisted. There need have been no fear. There was hardly & man in France who did not offer his life as a willing sacrifice in that war which seemed not only against France and her triends, but against clivilisation itself and all humanity. 1923, by Sir Phl'ip Giggs. rigats reserved.) (Copyrigh A s lords | and | JULY s, 1923—PART 5. Weird, Fantastic Dream of Future BY STERLING HEILIG. PARIS, June 28, HE earth will finally dry up. The oceans, sunk into their deep bottoms, will occupy less than & quarter of its surface, then a tenth, then disappear, like the lakes and rivers, seeping Into earth- quake crevices—or flying oft into space, as hydrogen atoms. The thing 18 going on to-day, but unobservable because earth still has such vast quantities of water. Oceans occupy three-fourths of its surface. But there was a time when water covered all. Land emerged only as the oceans receded. The process is continuous, implacable. Vast areas of the :Vorhl. once flourishing, are now sun-baked deserts. The earth will dry up, predicts a great philosopher of Paris, Rosny, the elder of the Goncourt Academy. And, looking ahead, in pluralist philosophy, he tells how it will happen. « Rosny Is not a sclence popularizer, but a deep leader of the achool of the new pluralism and a man of wide and various attainments. As for the ncourt Academy, all have heard of it—foundation of two wealthy broth- ers, famous writers, who left Parls mansion ard great fund of money, s0 that ten chosen writers might live tree from sordid cares. and appoint successors to maintain their number, called “the august ten,” In perpetuity. As to Rosny's philosophy, it is like this. “Monism” says that if you get at the bottom of things, you will find that reality Is “one"—one matter, one force. one being which ripples into things as they. appear. “Prag- matism,” astraddle, says take it for granted that appearences are real and let it go at that. But “pluralism’ claims that, even in reality, things are many and discon- tinuous. Forever and everywhere are different forces, matter, being, which are not simply variations of “one.” So, now, for the drying earth! TE are entering the radioactive ‘ period, says Rosny, in which the apparent prodigy of radium will be left away behind as slow and neg- ligible “untying” of gigantic energles packed into atoms of all known mat- ter. Any day we may learn to “un- tie” the atom. Then we shall arrive {at vest-pocket motors! Already we are on the edge of discoveries which | will give lelsure and well being to all men and women. Skip 40,000 years of constantly in- { creasing ease and luxury. All we can think of will appear as nothing to those of the glorious proto-atomic age to come. No more half measures of untying matter. Men will draw inconpelvable forces directly from the forming atoms of interstellar space; and all humanity, become like gods, | will loll in universal learning, luxury and ease. Men will begin to change in phy- too. when, after 40,000 years of agriculture and nutrition, the digestive organs hecome smaller and the breathing organs larger—follow- Ing on the rarefaction of the air. look out! The rarefaction of the | air! Behold the progress of earth's dry- ing up! But men will laugh. They have such powers! The last “natu- ral” animals disappear. Food animals become evolved deliberately to hide- ous, weak-limbed, ovold, stuffed meat producers of superior quality Only a few species of birds escape this food degradation. grow to sur- prisingly large size—and take surpris- | ing intellectual development. With these birds Rosny appears really appears to see far in the future. From century to century they increase in charme and sense, and are finally Ini- tiated to a human language of special syntax and phrase imagery, to render unique service in laboratories by rea- | son of their delicate instincts. They become able to foretell earthquakes. Look 60,000 years ahead. Men, in glorious proto-atomlc Iife, will not be happy. Magnificent and mysterious poetry is dead—no more wild life in ! vast, free spaces, forests, plains and swamps of the old radioactive pe- lriod; no more adventure, no more novelty from a world combed and {marcel-waved by art and science. i Sulcide becomes more deadly than the anclent microbe. Adventure seems far off. Catas- trophes? Men, armed with powers like theirs. laugh at the lowering oceans. When they need water, they will make it. Later on, they do make water—until all hydrogen matter is used up or has fled away in proto atomic jugsling when not disappeared into the earth’s interlor. Terrific earthquakes begin to de- stroy ten cities in a day. New moun- tains form, three times higher than the Alps—but there remain no gla- clers. Vast quantities of water con- tinue to disappear with each earth- * % % % | | | 1 § 1 quake period of a changing planet— changing, but not dying. * K k% N the splendor of the proto-atomic age the population of the earth had risen to 23,000,000,000, all living law-ablding lives of luxury and cul- ture. Skip 15,000 years. of catastrophes. The population has fallen to 4,000.- 000,000. The oceans, sunk into their deepest beds, occupy only one-quarter of the earth’s surface. Rivers and; lakes have altogether disappeared. Armed with titanic powers, men struggle frantically. Water-making does not last 3,000 years. They return to pipe-line reservoirs and wonder- ful economies of irrigation. You un- derstand, they have unlimited free motive power. They have metal- making on the spot where needed. They have vast and multiple ma- chines, whose work is all but human. But rain ceases. Domestic animals perish. During 1,000 years it is imagined that they have evolved more hardy species; but the evolution energy seems finally worn out. Plants and birds remain. Plants become miraculous food pro- the_uttermost Ibirds think and Rosny the Elder Talks of the Time, 120,000 Years From Today. " When the Earth Will Dry | | and the Last Men Will Await the End Up Around the Remaining Water Hole—Strange Metallic Creatures in Control. ROSNY THE ELDER. PHILOSOPHER OF PARIS. WHO PROPHESIES THAT THE EARTH WILL DRY UP. ducers. The majority of great birds will become a danger. Growing sav- age at the unjustice of man (as the ay). they prey vast heights with intelligence. They per- killed off by strange on civilization from semi-human ish finally, a waterless earth—the ferro mag- netics. The birds that dwell with men plead for their lives, and escape food degradation by the workings of men's consciences (the great birds talk, and almost. reason) and their valued stincte. Skip 30000 years of struggle. Men come to think that minerals, so long vanguished by plants and animals, are finally to have their turn at life on eerth and its mastery. Ther comes a period of despair, in which the total population falls 300,000,000, and the oceans dry up to a tenth of the surface. Then 4,000 vears of respite restore optimism. works of preservation ems doomed to But the race The earthquakes re- commence. Water continues to dis- pear. And the habitable parts of the world continually narrow. Until (and here Rosny opens with a story) after 40,000 vears of earth's “hostility” and men's decline in spite of thefr almost unlimited powers, the last men are found reduced to a few bismuth-bound “case: irrigated from great wells, miles deep, which Itap “lost water’—discovered at rare intervals by consummate science. * x x * UMAN life, in those oases, is pro- tected by continuous barriers of bismuth, from the strange creatures known as ferro-magnetics—the new, “dry” metallic life which is destined | to inherit the earth. All of which, of course, than mere talk. In Rosny's thesis we perceive the pluralist philosophy which would seem to deny that plant life, aninial life, or even the mind of man have any permanent place: but that new forces, “different” life proc- esses, and consclousness and thinking creatures (who. perhaps, shall quite surpass ail human attainments) are to be expected on a changing earth. The ominous metallic creatures (in the story) had evolved from violet- colored, rust-like stains, observed is early in the radio-active period of “human” iron—that is to say, iron handled by men continually, re- r elted, re-formed and re-handled in the industries. It was as if new, in- dependent “magnetic” life must get its start. so to speak, from ahimal life, as animal life is supposed to have begun from plants. uese early scientists (say, 300 yeass from the present time in which we live) were astonished to find the violet rust-like stuff a kind of meta lic pre toplasm. g Whic. brings us to Targ, the last man. Rosny’s terrifying work begins with dwindling humanity already huddled 20,000 years in its oases. Young and in love, Targ ‘is denied marriag: by laws which are univer- sally respected and provide for all continencles. Though there have been no earthquakes for years, the water of the oases in which he lives he ° owered, so that its population m be kept at exactly 2,000 persons. total population of the world had sunk to 15,000 souls, in five oases situated -thousands of -miles apart; but distance ls nothing to their great Men undertake prodigious | more | | metallic creatures destined to inherit | fiber Y | | i | “ONE DAY THE TALKING BIRDS CAME, FORETELLING NEW AND TERRIBI.E EARTHQUAKES.” 2 | ally drawing such red globules to the { shavings of a violet cofor. | whose | aerial’ planetaries. Even the little | flyers used for T00-mile trips to near- est neighbors carry two years' motive ! power and can support four persons, though designed for one. Like houses. reservoirs and machines, th are made of arcum, universal mineral | spun for clothing and a to rep iron and x ox % % NE day the prophesying lands. nearest oa it seemed luck most com- pres wood. ‘talking birds” came, | rthquak: Red- | . was shaken: but for both it and Targ. Hurrying there in a relief party, he discovered new water. by venturing for miles down, diagonally. in a fresh fissure. By law, he chief man of Redlands. and won |u.: loved Ere in marriage! Als dis- coverer of water, he stipulated a hus- band for his sister Arva i Targ and Arva, having children, | were perfectly happy. A tiny repast of concentrated gluten and essential | hydrocarbides kept a strong man urished twenty-four hours. The necessary work of each (so little as| to sought for, a pleasure) maintained all in ease. Men had for- gotten the more grandi ence of their ancestors, but still possessed more than they could use in an oasis' s for their physique, they had no sickness, and the regulation life was 120 years The red globules of their blood had evolved to almost pure haemoglobin, and it was by magnetic- became his be as | | surface of their skin and the iron particles thereof through space by a species of induction that the ferro- magnetics “drank the life” of their human victims when they got a chance. They could do no harm to those in- side the barrie Outside explorers, afoot. would sometimes die of exhaus- tion. preyed on magnetically, at a short distance, by the wormlike resembling | tangled iron They were evolved scarcely more consciousness than an earth- worm. But. one day, Targ was terri- fied to discover. in the desert, a gigan- | tic species, nine feet long! Growing on the “human” iron of buried cities, they were, doubtless, destined to con- creatures supposed to have tinue with other elements—building up. complexly, from each other, ever greater bodies, to form, finally, in dis- tant ages magnetic-metallic intql- lectual giants! One night Targ's reveries were stop- ped by a slight earthquake shock. By noon all the waters of their three deep wells were subsiding slowly! In fwo days they had cut vast reser- voirs, this time, from rock. As the first was pumped full, the last of the three wells went dry. The only water remaining on earth could now be measured! * % ¥ ¥ OLD, Impassive, the grand council gave its orders. “We are 4,000 persons,” said Rem. Three thousand must take the eu-; thanasia today. Five hundred will die by the end of the month, and the remainder will decrease from week to week, so that fiity can main- tain themselves five years. By that time, if no new water be discovered, it will be the end of humanity!” He added: “Two oases have been utterly wiped | colors . Of the ‘World Comes to Philosopher out. The two others have lost nearly all their water, and are preparips ¢~ dle. The last hope of men is witn ourselves!” Targ and his wife revolted tha their children must perish along with the entire family of his sister He knew there must be fifty years food and several years' water stil remaining in the equatorial oasis inhabitants had hastened t, dle ahead of the hour of starvation But Mano. his brother-in-law, fused to budge. “Here 1 die, ably,” he said. poisons are delicious, miserably?" So, while sweet poisons, women fled with through the blue world. Dead? No, thought Targ, glancine proudly at the family. Once, in the night of ages, earth held one mar and one woman. Now, & ne humanity should spring from thess dear children. He would again di cover water! They lived equatorial oasis re fearless and agree “The euthanas %o why perisl the tw thousands absorbed Targ and the the little oxygen of a one dea lonely, happlly. in th In his planetar: Targ beat up vast stretches of th world for water. How he found after a new earthquake, is part the heartbreaking end Hastening across the earth. Targ called. joyous, to his family. Silence They lay, white and motionless, upon their beds—the same earthquake had let in the ferro-magnetics! 1t happens 120,000 years from now Targ. the last his dead, to die. rustles in a corner. metallic monster, conscious, drags lowly in its multiple grandiose development man, must not evolve in shares in subtlest powers and sun, direct! But we need not accept these rev eries. No, really! The convictio of plain Christians are more charn ing? ahead man. lies down wit! A nine-foot tertiary The magnetic complex, vague about, communins being. Wha surpassinu life whici of eartin “Blue Roses. have a yellow well agreed but amons a blus WE may rose, it is pret scientists that if we ever one it will be by a process of con tinuous variation and selection. B this it is meant that if a blue rose is ever produced fyom a red variety, instance, the change will not bLe sudden one, a leap from one to the other, but the result gradual progression through a series of steps leading regularly from red to blue In fact, it has been found that both plants and animals exhibit 4 tend- ency toward a definite succession of colors and certain colors have been regarded as representing higher stages of development than others The changes toward these “highe are usually continuous and require a series of variations, while, ¥ on the other hand, instances of sud den reversion to “lower” colors are not uncommon. Red is regarded as a this sense than vellow. The yel- low primrose sometimes varies to red, but change is ‘never sudden discontinuous, because it is a change in the direction of progression. But from red to yellow the change some- times curs by a jump, so to speak, because it is golng backward. The same thing seems to apply in the case of birds. Red and green species of birds may vary to yellow, but the utmost efforts of breeders to pro- duce red canarles from vellow ones have only resulted in an orange hue. Although there is no relation ap- parent between the two phenomend, it is interesting to recall in this re- lation the fact that among the stars certain colars appear to characterize difterent siages of change or devel opment. Red stars, according to the see a higher color in or | testimony of the spectroscope. differ widely in their constitution fr white or yellow ones, and it has been thought that varying color may g a clue to progressive changes in heavenly bodles. Sirius, for instance is sald to have changed from red to white, and some have suspected that Arcturus is fading from red toward vellow. Thus science as it clears up mystery reveals another waiting turn to be solved ity "Laboratory on Wheels. VWHILE protected from permanent loss through delivery of bad rails by the steel companies, a rail- road may suffer serious temporary embarrassment .from the necessily for rejecting and returning a siderable part of a rush order which does not come up to the mark. One road has met this situation quite suc- cessfully by taking the whole cnus of testing the rails off the railmaker and placing this responsibility upon its own shoulders, A travleing testing plant has be o installed by placing all the neces- sary equipment in a standard pas- senger coach, and this runs about the lines from -place to place, drop- ping in upon the various railmakers and testing their raw materlals and finished product on the spot. The testing plant comprises a very com- plete chemical outfit as well as stand- ard apparatus for physical tests of metals. This rolling laboratory really protects the steel company quite as much as it does the raflroad by in- suring the former against using up its valuable labor on rails that will be rejected by the buyer. | Tennis Ball Scales. EW tennis players know how ten- nis balls for the tournaments held under the sanction of the National Lawn Tennis Association are tested It appears that the machine that one expert uses to weigh tennis balls is similar in appearance to an instru- ment used to find the specific gravity of a liquid. It consists of a long glass tube in which water Is placed at 75 degrees Fahrenheit. A second tube, on which fractions of ounces are marked, with a certaln welght of buckshot in the base and & holder for |the ball on top, floats in the, . b A 'ball must weigh no less than two ounces or more than two and one-sixteenth ounces to be accepted, and when it is placed in the holder the tube reveals the slightest irregu- larity in its welght.