Evening Star Newspaper, June 28, 1925, Page 65

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHIN( Having a Peaceful Fourth You Have to Plan What You Are Going to Do on Those Holidays If You Expect to Get as Much Out of Them as Your Neighbors. By NINA WILCOX P M. HERE is one thing alike about the Fourth of July, Christ- mas and other Natural Holi- \d that is, you got to pl t 10 do on them. About one vear ago I and George, fhat's my husband, got to talking about a piece he read me in the paper where it seems there was a effort going on all over the country to have a quiet, peaceful Fourth of July in- stead of saving it with gunpowder and ambulances, and right away we de- cided that was a good idea. w give Junior one dollar for fire- works and_the doctor five dollars for vepairs? Why not keep the money in the family, see, and spend the six iron Henrys on a nice pleasure trip instead? This would not only be a chance to bring Junior up with the right idea, but to actually increase the chance of bringing him up at all. So orge called that Joe Bush of the Hawthorne Club on the phone and says hey Joe, whatter you going to do the Fourth, eh, or sorhething, and first thing you know it was ar- ranged for Mr. and Mrs. Joe Bush and that awful child of theirs and us to go on a patriotic trip to some quiet place in the country. We was 1o find a nice place to park by some habbl < in the shade of the old ket. and the kids would play for aken by togethe h of July Well, thers are when they say they a the day with you, why vou can de- pend on it, the day i zoing to spend, and Mrs is one of them. I like her just as 1s possible in the circum- or being the wife of my ome friends that » going to spend kind of way I and she feel and will le and rub his hands to- ther and suggest lets ask the Joe s over, just as though he was good sen is on a and Joe ount he Bush was pals long before they was | Benedicts, and they like each oth s0 good that they take for granted T and M oe must be the great- est chums. But no such thing. We wouldn't be likely to fall on ch other's neck except maybe to wring it if we got the chance But the both of us has learned to in and make the best of it, and time, even if it was the 4th of ead of Geo. Washington's rthday, why we decided we would the hatchet as well as the fire- nd have a good time for the’ children’s sake. * * x ¥ PBUT we didn't risk too much by going in each other's cars. I and Junior and George went in our own, and the Bushes took their own lives in their own flivver, and we set out real early, having decided to beat the crowd to it, on account of it being the traffic might get thick BY SAM HELLMAN. OU been reading any about this_evolution_trial down in_ Tennessee?” inquires “High" Dome Finnegan. % little,” *hut it don't interest me none. What do I care whether your aunt’s sisters were monkeys or whether I was made out of a gob of first-class mud. An earache would hurt each of us just as much.” “That crac *“‘proves that [ " snaps “High Dome.” vou are the result of evo- lution, excepting that the evolution dian't take. I wouldn’t be surprised any minute to see you climb into that tree over there and begin pelting traffic cops with coconuts. At that. though, you ain’'t no flatter in the dome that most folks in this country when it comes to talking about evolu- tion.” “Thanks,” says T, grateful. Instead of thanking me, Finnegan, “vou ought to be cursing out the backyard jellyfish that starts the race of Higgins. I suppose you think that they ain't nothing to this trial in Tennessee excepting to settle whether men came from monkeys or not?" “What else?” T wants to know, “ex- cepting maybe to give Bill Bryan a chance to ballyhoo for his Florida real estate.” ‘Everything else,” returns “High Dome.” “I guess they ain't been anything more important pulled oft in s country in the last 50 years than s Tow. Here's b “Do_your ‘In the fi zan, “evolution ain't no fact; i A theory and the monkey stuff ain't really got no more to do with it than vou got to do with thinking.” “How do you mean it's theory?” [ inquir “How you gonna say anything's a Mt stastedl aboutia hundied million vears ago?” demanded ne- zan. “There wasn't anybody around in them days to write about fNish turn into a snak Dbird, and a bird into something els and besides it took about a hundred thousand vears for each of these changes to take plec. You've seen tadpoles drop their tails and turn into . haven't you?" hat about it?” I comes back. That's evolution,” he answers. “The whole Idea of the theor that man and every o anin developed through the from son hing that looked er different—as dif: ferent as butterfly. * begins just a FWELL." I inquires about teaching that idea in the ichools? You don’t have to believe it, do you? T started out with the id last night that aces up was the b hand in the poker game on the last pot. of ‘the guys in the zame t believe it and they proved 1 was wrong. As far as I remembe nobody tried to stop me from spread ing the theory und that I held the best hand. In fact, I got a lotta en- couragement.” In your guttery w applauds “High Dome,” “you've got the whole bone of the contention. Bryan and his gang argue that you haven't no right to teach any idea that’s contrary to the teachings of the Bible and- “Ain’t the Bible strong enough to ktand on its own legs?” I cuts in. “Does it have to have Tennessee pass taws to make it stand up?” ““That’s the notion down there,” ad- mits Finnegan. “Personally, I ain't no church going gent, but I got a lotta respect for the Book, and I don't need what's wrong a cop on the front step to force me ! to get a lotta good out of it s a matter of facts,” T suggests, ain't - this hurrah about ,evolution gonna cause a lotta people to read hooks on it that never even thought of the subject? I'm old enough to re- member when you couldn't get within a mile of a place where Bob Ingersoll was making speeches or buy a book of his, after the sky pilots started skin- ping him alive. Before the preachers with the daisies and so | 1 tells him,| . a snake into a caterpillar looks from a | ‘D THE MEASLES AND WHOQPING COUGH.” Well our heads was thick, too, on account 1 realized when two blocks from home, that I had left the c locked in the jce chest and we d to go back. Mrs. Joe Bush was real sweet about the delay, und she savs oh never mind anybody is apt to do a little thing like that. And so when we got started ag: 1d she found out she had forgot her share of the lunch, why as polite, al- though the ta ¢ temper com- menced tapping impatiently when that Joe Bush of the Hawthorne Club and my Geo. both actually had the | nerve to confess they needed gas, and | we was obliged to stop once mare. | by th the other parties who hac he bright, orig- inal idea of making a early start got threugh going back for the things forgotten and so the mob | same time as per usual. Well, we had agreed the night before where we would id the main hizhw after the first few es and dingle ourselves down in | some bosky dell and eat, far from |the maddening throng. But in actual fact we couldn’t bosk worth a cent, sn't any of us sure n road and if we had been we couldn’t of, on account the line of cars ahead of us never give us room enough to turn off By noontime we was almost four miles out of the city and hungry from the nice fresh gasoline we had been breathing out there in the country. And by one-thirty we was still in the deep forest of advt. signs and had to abandon the exact plan we had made about where would we eat. Instead of eating in the shade of the Old Oaken Bucket beside the Babbling Brook, we had to compro- mise on the shade of. the old oaken bucket shop, or that was what the noise inside the building sounded like. And the place of the babbling brook was ably taken by a bunch of babbling females. Funny, ain’t it, the way some women will talk right at 3 und the same time pretend not to see you? Well, that was them. e NYWAYS, I can't say that Junior and that awful child of the Joe Bushes picked up any dalsies; but they was sweet and generous to each other. They give each other a black eye and exchanged the measles and whooping cough, and when it come to OVER THERE ANUTS.” {“I WOULDN'T BE SURPRISED ANY MINUTE TO SEE YOU CLIMB INTO - D BEGIN PELTING TRAFFIC COPS had game. “You're right for a change.” says “High Dome,” “but that ain't the |worst of it. Bryan’s spreading the idea around that the majority of the people is got the right to say what 1 be taught in the schools.” What's so wrong about that?” I wants to know, without thinking. | “Everything 'in_the world.” | back n, indignant. “Don't you | know that this country was started by a lotta bimbos from lngland that ob- |jected to having the majority tell 'em room for a eight-handed crap BY PRESTON WRIGHT. LITTLE Spanish girl on a visit in Italy sang a song to e an old friend of her stener, gripped by the | beauty of an unexpectedly great voice, declared it belonged to the world. And so Lucrezia Borjia, who had never expected to sing in_public, be- | came Lucrezix Bori, the grand opera | star, whose motes in time came to | delight millions on both sides of the Atlantic. The story of this prima denna, { who recently made history by being I'the first of the Metropolitan Opera | principals to sing over radio, differs from that of a large number of great i musical figures. Belonging to a well | known family in Valencia, a seaport city of Spain, she was reared in com- ortable seclusion. A career of any sort was far from the thoughts of either of her parents or herself. There was no necessity for it. When she was a mere tot of 6 sgo {had sung in public, but from that time until she made her debut | opera this did not happen again. 1™t was in 1900, two years after the Spanish-American War. A ben- efit had been arranged for the or- phans of Spanish soldiers who had lost their lives in the war. The children of officers in the Spanish army had been asked to share in the program, and, as her father was 2 in went after him he could have put all |how to think? | his followers in a telephone booth and [had a kid in Tennessee, and the ma- Listen, feller, if you jority down there believed that the earth was flat, would you be willing to have him taught that as a fact?” “Talking about the earth being flat,” says I, curious, “‘the Bible story is that it How does Bryan stand on that?” * ok ok ok “I DON'T know,” returns “High Dome,” “but that don't worry the professional holier-than-thous much. Maybe you've noticed the habit of reformers to pick out what they want out of the Bible and out of the laws of the country and ignore an officer, Lucrezia was permitted to sing. “Il Baclo” (The Kiss) was her number. Her tiny voice scarcely reached to the walls of the hall, but she was received with huge enthusi- asm. Then, us now, she was as lovely as a flower, and her appear- ance filled her audience with emo- tion. Nevertheless, she could not be per- suaded to sing again outside her own and her friends’ homes. She feared audiences, and although she was im- mensely fond of singing she ab- jured them. But she studied as seriously as if she intended to be a professional. Taken to the theater, her musical ear captured all she heard and she returned home to reproduce it. The cultivation of her voice became a passion, and luckily her position en- abled her to gratify it. As_she approached the debutante age her father, in keeping with the custom, asked her what she wished for a present. necklace, perhaps—or other jewelry?” he suggested. it his daughter had other ideas. 1 want to see the world,” she said. 1l my life has been spent in and near Valencia, and I would like to take a trip as my gift.” He was surprised, but no\ unfa- vorably. And so, soon after, he took her on a journey to Italy. In Milan they called on MmewGina opening the lunch, Hot Bozo! I w you could of seen what that Bush woman had brought!. When T looked at the six bananas, the cold, storemade ham and the rapldly aging olives shoe box, well, T w; 't surprised she had pretty near forgot to bring it. I wondered she had the nerve to go back for it But we had a real polite meal any- vi ing oh no my dear, you tuke it, T've had plenty, and other picnic etiquette such as trying to remem- ber was it correct to pick insects out of the food with the little finger crooked or lowered. Some day I am going to shoot the guy who invented eating out of doors Well, after we had p: remarks on ain’t it terrible the way people throw lunch papers and old, vacant bottles around. why we threw away our papers and bottles when we thought each other wasn't notic ing, and got bgck into the cars to give ourselves all the thrill of racing back home like a coupla real live snails in company with all the other merry motorists. On the way back happen much. and then stop, sed a few nothing didn't We'd go a little wars the feller “Only the People Who Can Spell Evolution Ever Have Any Belief in It,” Says Higgins what they don’t like. The advice in the Good Book to drink wine is given the air, but the advice to do a lotta other things is given three cheers “All very interesting,” says I, “but what makes this Tennessee trial s gosh-fired important? If the folks in State don't care to hear no scien- ideas that's thelr business, ain't snaps Finnegan. “It's everybody's business when a majority of voters tries to tell a minority how to think. Its all right for a majority 10 fixe the tax rate and the police laws and the rest, but when a majority to frame a minority's religious beliefs or its theories of life it's going beyond the bounds. You think it Hght for a mob to tell the ones that have the apparatus for thinking that they got to think exactly as the nit-wits?” “Well,” says I, “if the smart babies don't like it they can move. Bryan's got a lotta real estate in Florida to peddle at a profit.” “Of course, they can do that,” ad- mits “High Dome,” “and T guess thou- sands of folks will send their children out of the State if the courts uphold that cuckoo law, but isn't it gonna be grand in this country when a lad's got to get out of it if he wants to read about a theory that ain’t in the Bible?” “Sounds tough,” T agree, “but what gets me in the whole discussion is this: What's happened to the Bible after all these years that you gotta pass laws to make people believe in it? “Ask Bryan,” suggests Finnegan. “He'll talk to you about it for an hour and won't say a thing.” Turkish Fire Fighting. N Constantinople Turkish firemen respond to an alarm of fire with a small hand pump attached to a gar- den hose. heavy that the city virtually is rebuilt every fifty years. And, strangely enough, the most popular attraction in the municipal museum is a mod- ern fire truck in bright red with brass trimmings, presented to the city before the World War by the German Kaiser. The Turks were puzzled what to do with it until some on suggested putting it in the museum. Bonini, an old friend. It was there that circumstances arose which com- pletely changed Lucrezia Borjia's life. Mme. Boninl, hearing her sing, was astonished. “You have a career before you,” she_said. “No, I have no intention of singing in public,” her guest replied. “With this beautiful voice?” ex- claimed the madame—"you don’t wish to sing?” She insisted on taking the girl to Melchor Vidal, the great Spanish teacher of voice, who lived in Milan. After he had heard her he echoed Mme. Bonini's surprise. “It would be foolish not to try for an appearance in opera,” he told her. The idea, thus argued, appealed to Lucrezia Borjia immensely. She thirsted to “see the world.” After all, to be an opera singer would be to ‘see the world. . She was sure her family would not like it. Still, her father loved her, and his disposition was o gratity her_wishes. : She decided to ask him if she might not stay three or four months and study with Vidal. “If T have an opportunity in opera I can change my she said. Her father hesitated, but finally consented. And thus her career was determined. A few months later she went to Rome, obtained an engage- a to sing name,” i TON, D. ¢ he had in the | tries | The clty’s fire loss is so| JUNE 28, 1Y 25 PART all of the Wild Pamphlet Why Do Men Leave Home and Imagine They Are Hunters When the Same Experiences- Are Obtained With Less Trouble? BY STEPHAN LEACOCK. HITS is the season when certain villages begin to distribute lit- tle pamphlets and booklets among the business offices and round the hotels. In them are pictures of pine woods and silver lakes, of men lighting campfires be- side & river, or lifting a 10-pound fish out of a boiling cataract. Any busi ness man who gets one look at this is lost. It was once my fate, or m write one of these pamphlet: only after the thing was done and my pamphlet had gone abroad into hotel rotundas and club cars that 1 realized the terrible consequences that were sure to result. My booklet was writ ten as a description of a plac Dog Lake at the end of a branch line of railw: The plice had failed as a settlement, and the rallroad had decided to turn it into a hunting resort. I did the turning. T think I did it rather well, rechristening the lake and stocking the place with suitable varieties of game. The pamphlet ran like this: “The limpid waters of Lake Owata- wetness (the name, according to the old Indian legends of the place, signi the mirror of the Almighty) th every known variety of to its surf. w0 close » angler may reach out hisj and stroke them, schools of pike, | mackerel, doggerel and | Jostle another the task, one in water. “They rise instantaneously to the bait and swim gracefully asho hold. ing it in their mouths. In the middle depth of the waters of the lake the sardine, the lobster, the kippered her- ring, the anchovy, and other tinned varieties of fish disport themselves with evident gratification, while even Jlower in the pellucid depths the dog. fish, the hogfish, the logfish and the bogfish whirl about in never-ending ahead of us. And the only time the road was’clear for fifty feet ahead ad a blow ou Well, I am strong for peaceful Tourths of July. I realize as good as anybody that one string of fire crackers don’t make a patriot any more than one swallow makes a drunkard. When I and Geo. *and that Joe Bush of the Hawthorne Club and his family got together in spite of everything for a peaceful Fourth, we done a real patriotic duty And in view of that fact I am going | to try again this year, and see it T} can't” have it even peacefuller then | last year's celebration. 1 have not definitely decided yet just what T think will be a good sub- stitute for that day’s outing, but at present I think I will fill a wooden bucket with fire crackers, political addresses, dynamite, season with red fire and gun powder, and spend the Jay sitting on it. [t (Copyright. 1 BY RING LARDNER O the editor: All I know is what I read in the papers and we ain't been getting none lately on acct. of the lady news deal- er at Great Neck having a pe- culiar idea that you ought to pay | for them once in a wile. So this wk. | will half to try and satisfy you with a few of my personal experiences in regards to matters that concerns only myself and what I lovingly refer to Long Island public and T realize it may not maybe be interesting to you don't stay away from church or lodge to read this article. Well in the first place it seems they s another bene show the other day for the Authors league of America which I am one of them through a | slight misunderstanding but any way this show was to be put on at a place called Jackson Heights which can’t avold passing it when you dri in to N. Y. city from where we live and the boys in charge put up big post- ers all over Long's Island saying who was going to be in the show and my name was amongst same and between you and I dear reader I hadn’t never been consulted and don't never ap- pear in shows except a little pan- tomime once in a wile during the few minutes it take me every 3d. day to shave. So I didn't pay no tension only to wonder what and the he—ll and at noon time on the day the show was coming off the phone rung and her who I always think of as the madam answered the phone and it was George Creel on the other end of the wire and my madam talked to him civilly on acct. of he being Blanche Bates’s husband and he exclaimed that he was in charge of the show and wanted ‘to know if I would be {sure and show up. So the .madam said why my husband ain’'t never been informed that he was to take part in no show and Mr. Creel said we realize that and the reason we are calling him up so late is because we figured that if we took him by sur- prise he might consent to take part. Well it was a well though out scream and the only trouble with it was that by that time T was over in Philadel- phla spearing hazel nuts so 1 guest the show must of been a flop, at least {my ment, sang the role of Michaela in “Carmen” and made a tremegdous hit. Her beauty, added to her Voice, made her irresistible. . She appeared under the name of “Lucretia Bori” to which she has held ever since. An amusing circumstance &ttended her debut. It occurred about the time of the coronation of a new Pope. Many Spaniards were making the pilgrimage to Rome customary on such occasions. They attended the opera in large numbers. Among them was a group from Valencia, who occupied four rows of seats in the orchestra. Most of them knew Lucrezia Borjia well, but “Lucretia Bori” was a stranger to them. They seemed to recognize in the girl on the stage an old acquaintance, but when they examined their programs they grew doubtful. They looked at each other, completely mystified. They went home no better in- formed. But Bori, recognizing them from the moment of her appearance, was much amused and perhaps sang all the better because of-the circum- stance. She was on her way to fame and fortune in her own right. Also, she was to see the world. After her European appearances came an_in- [A S MORE, H Owatawetnes merely ngler’s paradise. Vast forests of primeval pine slope to the very | shores of the lake, to which descend | at droves of bears—brown, green and bear-colo while as the shades of evening fall, the air is loud with the lowing of moose, caribou, ante lope, musk oxes, muskrats and ot graminivorous mammalia of the for- est. These enormous quadrumana generally move off about 10:30 p.m., from which hour until 11:45 p.m. the whole shore is reserved for bison and buffalo. “After midnight hunters who so desire it can be chased through the woods, for any distance and at any speed they select, by jaguars, pan- thers, eouga tigers ‘and jackals, whose ferocity is reputed 10 be such that they will tear the breeches off a man with their teeth. Hunters, attention! Do not miss such attrac- | tions as these!” Wik wiE Nor is Lake ] HAVE seen men—quite reputable, wved—men reading” that pamphlet of mine in the rotunda of hotels, with their eyes blazing with excitement, 1 think that it fs jaguar attraction that hits them hard- because I notice them rub them. lly with their well-s hands whi Of course > fect of this sort of literature on the brains of men fresh from their of- fices, and dressed out as plrates. Just watch them when they get into the bush! Notice that well-to-do broker crawl- ing about on his stomach in the un. derbrush, with his_spectacles shining like gigfamps. What is doing’ He is alter a caribou that isn't there. He is “stalking” it. With his stom ach, Of course, away down in his heart he knows that aribou isn’t there and never was; but that man read my pamphlet. He can't help it; he's got to stalk something. Mark him as he crawls along: see him crawl through a thimbleberry bush (very quietly so that the caribou won't hear the noise of the_prickles going into him), then through a bée’s nest, gently and slow- o that the caribous will not take fright when the bees are stinging him. Sheer wooderaft! Yes, mark him. Mark him any vy you like. Go up behind him and nt a blue cross upon him as he wls. He'll never notice. He thinks he's a hunting dog. Yet this is the man who laughs at his little son of 10 for creeping round under the dining room table with a mat over his shoulders and pretending to ow see these other men in camp. Some one has told them—I think I first started the idea in my pahphlet thing is to sleep on a pile < branches. I think 1 told them ten to the wind sowing (vou know the word I mean), sowing and crooning in the giant pines. So there they are upside-down, doubled up on a couch of green spikes that would have killed St. Sebastian. They stare up at the sky with blood-shot, restless eves, waiting for the croon. ing to begin. And there isn't a sow in_sight! Here is another man, ragged and frying a piece over a little fire. of bacon on a st Now what does he think he is? The chef of the Bilt more? Yes, he does, and what's more he thinks that that miserable bit of bacon, cut with a tobacco knife from a chunk of meat that lay six days in the rain, is fit to eat. What's more, he'll eat it. So will the rest They’re all goofy together. There's another man, help him, who thinks he “knack” of being a carpenter. He is hammering up st s to a tree. Till the shelves tumble down he thinks he is a wizard. Yet this is the sz man who swore at his wife for ask ing him to put a shelf in the back kitchen. “How the blazes,” he asked “could he nail the thing up? Did she think he was a plumber?” After all, never mind. Provided they are happy let them sta; Personally the Lord has the up there I wouldn’t mind if the; back and lie about it They get back to the city dead fagged for want of sleep, i with boot leg liquor, bitten brown by the bush files, trampled on by the moo chased through the brush by and skunks—and they have the nerve that they Sometimes 1 thi | Men are onl and fee 1 arou something bite t Ouly why haven't they tion to be able to do the s with less fuss? Why not coats and collars off in the office 4 crawl round on the floor and growl a one another there? It would be just as good. ima, (Copyr “MEN FRESH FROM six-day growth of beard EY HAVE IMPORTED ONE OF THE GREAT LAKES AND YOU CAN KEEP ON PLAYING WITHOUT ABOUTS OF YOUR TEE SHOT.” NO DOUBT AS TO THE WHERE- I have seen several people since that was in attendants and they all iooked just the same as ever. o e NOTHER big event down our way was the opening of the Lakeville golf club which after you have paid the initiation fee to same, why you don’t half to worry no more about where you are going to go for.the Summer because you ain't going no place. The Lakeville club has got a club house as big as the Yale bowl or Gene Buck's living room and if you go in the front entrance and from there to the caddy house to get vour clubs, that counts for nine holes and you only half to play nine more. The showers 1s so attractive that a great many of the members that never took a bath before has been tempted to try it and in time this is expected to work towards a better and cleaner Great Neck. In regards to the golf course it- strongly | vitation to sing in America. Now she is a fixture here. . (Copyright. 1925.) “I SET DOWN IN THE DARK AND SEE HOW MANY SONGS I CAN REMEMBER.” N self T was only over it once but man- aged to make a few changes in it though as a rule I left the fairways alone. They have got a great time saving device on the first hole. On most golf courses when you slice ur drive off of the first tee it takes long wile to find out where did it £0 to. On this course they have im- ported one of the Great Lakes to catch these kind of drives and vou n keep on playing without no doubt in your mind in regards to the where- abouts of your tee shot. The first gleam of hope for a golfer of my calibre occurs at the fourth hole which seems to be the first hole that wasn't laid out by Nurmi. I come within two strokes of making a birdle on this hole and speaking about birdies, why I and the funny looking golfer I was playing with was disgusting the question of why do they talk about birdies and eagles and if S0, why don't they delve further into the archives of the Audubon so- ciety and pick our some nicknames for the kind of golfers we are. * K %k 1KE for inst. suppose they’s a hole that the par for same is 4 and you make it in 5. You might call that a parakeet which in Brazil means par (par) akeet (not quite). -If the hole is a par 4 and you take 12 shots with- out golng towards it and finally you pick your ball up, thet would be call- ed & hoot owl on the grounds that it you kept on you might make it dur- ing the night. That is about all the news-except that the other evening it sprinkled which means that the electric lights went out and so did the telephone and of coufse that happened to be the night when I was planning to read a few chapters of the Old Testament to say nothing about expecting a call from the White House but instead of that had to set down to the piano and see how many of Irving Berlin's songs I could remember. And oh yes I recd. another one of these chain letters which says if you will keep up the chain vou will have good luck and it met its final resting DRE:! D OUT AS PIRATES Ring Discovers That New Golf Club Offers Some Inducements It Would Be Hard to Beat place in my house namely the waste basket. Let them send me a letter that guarantees good sense and I will act different towards it. I don't need no luck. . Crossing in Four Days. HAT is the atlantic pa | to cross the oc | this they would ship capable of erace speed of average speed of for the whole passage is cred the Mauretania, 1 soon after her recent overhauling made the crossing at an average speed of knots. It is probable that the maximum speed of vessel for a single day’s knots, for she has actuall averaged that on one or two occasi: Variable conditions of the wind, sea and ocean currents, however, rend likelihood of trans- by four days? To do ve to travel i maintaining an kr nots. At the speed of 2 ts she must have de- veloped at least 80,000 horsepower and to drive the ship at 30 knots in smooth vater and under favorable conditions would necessitate ralsing her horse- power to 108,000, It is questionable if this could be done with steam turbines. Her present motive power is of the early type, with large direct-connected turbires turning at the low speed of 180 revolu- tions per minute; moreover, she is equipped with Scotch boilers. If she were re-boilered and re-engined, she would carry water-tube boilers and smaller high-speed turbines with a single or double mechanical reduction gear. Thus equipped, she would un- doubtedly be faster, but she would be incapable of making the required 30 knots for a four-day trip. If ever a 30-knot ehip is placed on the transatlantic passage, she will ur doubtedly be furnished with improved | Diesel engines of the two-cycle double acting type, which has been showing such excellent results in the later motor ships; but in the present state of the art, we doubt if there is an: Diesel engine builder who would be prepared to guarantee an output o 108,000 horsepower on four shifts. 1t is true that a ship designed for this speed would be given a finer form even than that of the Mauretania and in such a vessel. of the displace- ment of the Mauretania, 100,000 horse power might prove to be sufficient In that case two engines placed tar dem on each of the four shafts would call for 12500 horsepower per engine. or, say, about 2,000 horsepower per cylinder. However, the development of the Diesel engine is going ahead by leaps and bounds, and its low con- sumption of four-tenths of a pound per horsepower-hour relieves the problem of the obstacle of high cost of operation, which renders a steam driven ship of this speed impossible from the shipowner’s standpoint. Underground Plants. UEER green plant algae that live and thrive in complete darkness nine feet deep in the soil are being investigated by Dr. George T. Moore, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis. In spite of the fact that millions of them inhabit a clump of earth, thelr true function in life is unknown. One species of these sub. terranean algae is surprisingly ublqui tous. Dig a hole three or four feet deep in any part of the world and there the algae can be found. Pretty Green Roads. INOR eve {roubles resulting from the reflected glare from gray white auto roads in England are flicting a number of driver British optician declares, and recon: mends that n coloring matter he mixed with the surfacing material to curb the evil. The effects are said to be most pronounced among drivers who are compelled to gaze at the road intently. »