Evening Star Newspaper, September 12, 1926, Page 82

a2 Diver in Search of Lost C Terrigying Experience Results From Brave Attempt on Floor of Mediter- ranean Near Fabled Island of the Lotus Eaters—Tragic Lives of the Sponge Divers—Men Who Are Forgotten After Being Sent Into the Depths—Panic of a | Novice on His First Descent. Count Byron Kuhn de Pro has won world-wide fame for discoveries at the site of anci Carthaze, Rome's great rival. cov- ered by centuries of African sands. ‘The Ruman curse, arthace must be desiroyed.” has heen changed by him to “Carthnge must be re: stored.” and in the excavation of the city's site he has unearthed many secrets and found countiess treasure Born in Mexico ity on October 6. 1865, of Polish-Hungarian par- entage, Count de Prorok, before reaching the age of 5. had been a wanderer among the castles of the Rhine and the Carpathian Moun- tains, the ruins of ancient Mexican civilization and the dark mysteries of the Florida Everglades. The prehistoric cave dweliers of Swit- rland claimed his attention for a me. and he also conducted arch. eological researches in Iiom> and Pompett His greatest adventures. how ever, have been along the northern fringe of Africa. not only at Car- thage, but_in the nearby Medi- terranean Sea, and In the Sahara and Libyan Deserts. It is with soul- stirring and nerve-wracking crisis in these Incalities that this article and two succeeding ones deal In 19 unt de Prorok married Miss Alice Kenny of New York City. BY COUNT BYRON DE PROROK, F. R. G. S. URING seven years' explori tion in out-of-the-way places one would naturallv expect to run up again a thrill or two, but some episodes stand out more clearly than othi The curve of excitement varies. reached one high spot for me while we were working off the coast of Djerba last year, hunting for a sub. merged city, traces of which had been reported by who operate from Sfax. Sfax is the headquarters of the divers, and it iz perhaps significant to report that the men of this calling are provided for fairly thoroughly— and they need it. There is a special hospital’ for them. to deal with accidents and diseases incidental the calling. On shore the fraternity is easily recognized, for its membars move glowly around. almost poweFless less drag trazically along. and the drawn almost bloodless faces speak of the ravages of divers' anemia. Inci dentally. one learns that the percent age of fatality among them is hich. Year by year the ranks are thinned by disease and accident. hut vear by year younger men take the pl the absentees. and the pr malintained. There are tr trade. tricks that belong above the level of the sea and tricks that helong on the seabed. A sort of guerilla war his tare continues between the divers and | the foremen. The foremen have the advantage, naturally, because they at least are dependent upon no service for the air they breathe, but the diver takes his Hife in his hande every time they screw on the great helmet, anchor the air | tube under his arm, and put the life line where he can reach it. prior to giving him a few slaps on the back and the push that sends him over- board to be dragzed down to the sea- bed by the welghts on hix shoulders and the massive shoes on his feet. So much one knew. dimly. before ex ploration took us along the coast of Tunisia to the fabled isle of the Lotus Faters. Most of us had seen divers going down. i the docks in our sea- ports, or off the coast kured of personal safety, human ingenuity sured, and where the haza trade were moderately reduced Seeing the work off Afviea. however, Immediatel> put another construction on the matter. ities undreamed of by the divers who operate from more estahlished centers, We reached the port of SfAx and made our arrangements. \We we'e not secking sponges, we were seeking a lost civilization. and many were the stories we heard from the divers, stories that perhaps ought to have deterred the men from their quest, but they were hardened 1o the work, and glad of variety. Just the same. like chiliren they opened their hes to us, and certainly did not minimi the risks they ran of the \O hear them tell the 1ale, it seemed 1t the Greek sponge divers | the | divers well as- | tar as | could make them as. | There weve possibil- | | ralders. ~ While the rest keep watch {on the shore for possible vengeance, | the native divers slip over the other | side of the ship and presently return w net tuli of piunder. They are child.ike in their glee when they suc- | ceed in making an unobserved raid. These naged divers ave magnificent specimens, who would gladden the heart of a seulptor. To make their dive tiey grasp a heavy weight or stone and dive straight down, armed with a knife and equipped with a small nei.. The knife is to cut sponges or for defense, whichever is | the most immediate need. The net i€ to carry their haul. ook % | [ REMEMBER the first time T saw { L one zo over. 1 was certain he was | drowned, for he stayed under water for a full five minutes. | imagined all things for him, attacks by fish, eramp, o8t in the rocks —oh, a thou- nd things. And then he bobbed up . smiling. They are trained carefully, and they inherit their profession. Fami- | lies continue the trade, so there may bhe some additional capaciiy inherited. They have nasty moments, however. There are many dangers, not the least of which is the octopus Our divers, however, generally win out against the octopus. In fact they ald him, and 1 have frequently seen them at work hunting for octopus, | which when caught is a considerable delicaty, according to their way of thinking. Occagionally, too. they revert to the strangest ~fishing = imaginable. There are fish that live in the cran- nies of the submerged rocks. The native diver scorns to use rod or line or net in their pursuit. He simply dives overboard, visits the fish in his habitat and catches him by tickling him. The people of the island had their own sense of humor. Nothing pleased them =0 much as to see men In diff- culty, and occasionally they were not plaving a too practical | above fon u | held up by overstrong currents, bad weather and dificulty in following the location of the submerged city, so we | had hunted around for other traces of submarine ruins. We were told that |at a certain spot, where the coast is | very rugged and the rocks are ex- ceedingly &harp, some divers had re- ported ruinz. We made a prelimi- | nary examination of the coast and what we found justified us in putting some credence in the report. We herafore decided to go down. The passage was so narrow, how- ever, that we could not take our hig- ger hoats, and had to work with one boat, eanipped with an auxillary motor. heginning. Our and man was down, stayed down for quite a while. There | | were assuring tugs on the lifeline, and we hoped all was well. Hut tle man began to carry more Tine than we Ilked. and we thought of | moving over to him. It ix not the most rfortable thing in the world to have a man working at the hottom | | of the sen under one's orders. I have never vet hecome accustomed to the sense of apprehension. Just as we had up-anchored to reach the man. a sudden gust caught us and we were slewed around. only a preliminary, for the next few moments found us hatiling with a heavy squall and with a murderous current. We tried to start the motor avd head into hoth waves and wind, #ut the motor was cold and refused to start Instead of pulling nearer diver, we were driven farth way, despite our frantic work at the great We were fighting two battles for while there, and hoth went sgainat us, for we ‘were driven onto the rocks nltimately. Our first care, naturally, was to get the diver up. It happened. and that is Aall 1 can sav. How we contrived to get him ahoard it s impossible to ex- [ plain. Al T can say I that we did | and we got his helmet off. OATS, that risk commenced with the last | turn of the screw that held their hei met in place. 1. for one. ultimately came 1o agree with them. sinee it was necessary for me to go down per- sonally, novice that I was at e would call “inclosed diving.™ what | et diving for the city was less hay. | n one particular than divir thers would be no for man looking for the average haul and ready to force a tired man back to his gearch again if his crop did come up to expectations. These with ered, paralvzed men make no secret of the habits of some foremen. It is the sponges that count human lives. aid ardous for sponges: if the foreman that might be pushed back to do another hour's work. Worse than that. If they were t00 014 to dn zood work, they might be “forgotten™ entirelv once they went over the side told of aged divers who. having passed their fruitful dave. had heen left to die on the floor of tha sea. Others had heen caught in the cur. rents, some had bheen entangled the “doorwavs and windows" of the submerged city which we were to ex plore, and others had lost their lives in battles with the giant fish of the depths together the prospect di was not please. hut eagerness to work per- ! haps offset the tale of tragedy, min imized it a lirtle and led us to helieve that the childish Axaggeration of some divers had magnificd the dangers. We found later that the sxaggera tion was not 8o great as we imagzined. just as we found another strange re action. It was difficult 1o helieve that some of the divere whom we saw would ever be able to work be low. They were twisted and gnarled, slmost enfeebled by diver's paralysis. Yet, as soo as they reached working depth and were subject to the very pressure that had incapacitated them for life ashore, they straightened up, paralysis left them. their hearts snd lungs worked well, and thev were able to move easily and freshly, as though they were young men in their prime. With it all they are a jovial crowd. They have their moments. Inordi nately fond of a mild adventure. fear that occasionally they plan and execute raids on the fishing preserves of other people. an easy thing to do. but humorous to watch. and. let me contess, agreeable to participate in. There are two classes of diver: those who go down in- their heavy suits and those who wear no suits at &l The maked divers are the L) not | not men, not morning they ! Tales they ! in | “THE MAN IN CHARGE OF THE LINE TOLD US THAT HE WAS FOULED SOMEWHERE DOWN BELOW.” Then we fought to prevent the ship being ground to matchwood on the rocks. They wera sharp, and we were lifted on a particularly vicious wave jand banged full onto the crags. And still the motor refused to budge. It had the obstinacy of a camel, and the camel is more obstinate, when it is so inclined. than a mule. * ok ox x when the sea left us. We began to pound, and pound hard. so that if it had continued there was little hope for the <hip. Just when it seemed that we could not stand any more racket- ing the motor relented and we had power. ' We stond away from the shore, tre- mendously thankful and tremendous- natives thought it was quite a good joke. They knew the strength of the current; they knew the suddenness of the squalls there, but not a soul among them had suggested the poesi. bility of danger. L} Jjoke | During a little of the time we were | Everything went well, in the | The gust was | "THE SUNDAY STAR ity Is Swept Into Caver “I WAS HAULED UP AT SUCH A RATE THAT MY HELMET CRASHED AGAINST THE BOAT.” After considerably more than a fort night of preliminary exploration [ around the reported site we were gratified by the discovery of ohjects which dispelled any doubt whatever. Our numher 2 man_brought up a piece of pottery totally unlike any thing that had heen seen in that neighborhood within the memory of the present inhabitants, and we thought we recognized in i a dis- i tinctly Phoenician influence. | Work was naturally doubled, and, | despite the currents, our own enthu- | siasm was seconded by the divers | ihemselves. who were, if anvthing more eager than we for the rejentl prosecution of the work. Our pumps | were never idle, and objects came to | the surface rapidly, to our delight and that of the governor of the island, and the piciuresquecaid vho sat |staving at the trophies with eyes i wide open in wonder. |~ With our trophies | seemed like fables. The divers re- | portad that they had actually discov- | {ered the walls of the city, In regular masonry. That was almost too good | to be true, but finally a worked brick | | was brought up, and thereafter we | | conld doubt no more. ! Looking back on it one still recalls | | the excitement. though the memory is | not without a chill along the spine, for the currents were high and powerful, | and our men were sometimes swept along and gave us terrible anxiety. 1 remember on one occasion when one of | the men went over the depth recorder | simply raced to an impossible register, It meant only one thing. that the diver had heen carried along by the | { current and was powerless to fight | agninat it. We tried to haul him up, in response to the feverish signals on | the life line, but we could not move | [ him. | The man in charge of the life line {told us that the diver was fouled somewhere down below, so the work on the pumps was doubléd and air was forced down to him. so that he could | inflate his suit and perhaps float to the | | surface if he succeeded in freeing him- | self. But still the signals came and | theJlife line stayed taut. There was no possibility, it seemed, | of his freeing himself. so we up-an- | chored and followed him, to get nearly over him as posible and so to maneuver the ship that we could help him. For agonizing hours we worked, and finally we found that the life line gave. | It was then a question for an inter- minable second or two of life or death. | whether the life line was broken or the man was free. We did not know until we saw him plop up to the sur- face like a hippopotamus whose corpse had lain long in the sea. hix suit atretched with the air we had forced down to him. | ver did men work so efficiently or | yapidly as his companions that day. They had him ahoard and out of his | snit far faster than usual. and we saw | our man as pale as death, nnconscious, | and a thin trickle of blood flowing | from the corners of his nostr “The fight was not over then. for it was long before we got him round. and when he did recover he had a tale to tell, a simple tale of a seemingly hope less atruggle with death. The current | had carried him under an overhang | were tales that | |10 take a cup of coffee and a changed her position, or thai by the greatest of good forutné we had an- chored again at the only xpot where we could get a clear pull on the life- line, and so extricate him. * x ok ok FORE that happened | had made arrangermgnts to go down myself, but 1 confess that it was with a cer- tain apprehension that 1 garried out my plane, In all, 1 went down 3 1 times, and ench time was easier, hut the first descent will stay with me for many vears as a memory of sheer helplessness and difficulty. thongh I well knew, and now know still hetter, that 1 was only doing once or twice what other men are doing day by day, vear in and year out, But there are times in one's expe- rience when reason sxeems a very in effecinal ally and the emotions over- ride the mental processes. It was ad- visable, however, to try to check the | divers’ reports concerning the walls of the city and the site where we had recovered the amphorae, o I sub. mitted. There are preliminary discomforts to the life of a diver: for example, the men who go down are strictly dieted, and for 23 hours hefore the descent food is prohihited. They are permitted ciga- hefore welcome sev- rette, if they wish for one, j the descent, and it Is a respite. My wriste were greased, and the tight-fAitting euffs of the it were also Iubricated, o that there should he no leakage: the cumbersome suit was donned, and 1 felt the clumsy leaden shoes fixed to my feet, utterly inhibit- ing any leg motion. I was told that once I reached the sea-floor the weight would not worry me, but that seemed impossgle. Tt seemed too closely similar to a burlal at sea for comfort when the great suit was finally drawn up over my hody, and the helmet was screwed on and the weights affixed to my shoulders. The airline was tucked un- der my arm and fastened, and the lifeline put into my reach. Fverything went according to pro- gram, except one thing. The crew were so excited at the idea of my go- ing over that they all watched me, even to the men who should have been working at the pumps, and the heat in the suit grew intolerable, and my breath was hard to get. I feared for the moment that T should die of suf- | WWE were put on the rocks and held | and had held him there. He had been | focation, but either my signaling or there, to slide off for a second | driven under into a cavern. perhaps something eise took the men back to { part of the city, which had been hol- | | Towed out by the ceaseless drift of the |air coming into my prison. Then there | probable winners and probable odds. | were three rapid slaps on the bhack | An_officlal handicapper gives his se. | deep current. work, and I felt a welcome draught of | | ting my information trom.” upon. WASHINGTON, D. C. SEPTEMBER 12 the other fighting against the ent. Failing t6 walk forward, and won- dering why they had used such 1926—PART 5 | I\ A\ heavy boots, or why they had put the crushing weights on my shoulders, 1 imagined 1 could make better head- way if 1 crawled, and that, for me, n Under !was an unwise mov |on hands and knees I could neither walk forward nor could I rise again. I was simpiy fixed where I dropped, and 1o add to my discomfiture 1 felt a cold trickle of water down my neck, Actually It was perspiration from the heat of the suit hefore I dropped over, but I did not know that. | imag- ined that the suit was leaking, per- haps a pardonable thought considering all things, and time seemed to drag halting fest through ages. 1 know that I reviewed the history of Tunisia, and my own life during the time I was on the seabed trying to regain my feet. Ultimately 1 gave that up as im- ible. and, since the trickle con 1. 1 considered it wiseat to signa! which I did. but re I laid hold of the for once 1 was ting for the ascent, ceived no response. cord nearest to m Aefinitely, imperatively. so that there man on the side of the ship as to my detires. but either he was asleep or Ignoring my signals. for there was no response, and I thought for a while of inflating the suit o that I should float upwards. but the warnings of Rhossetos, who manages the divers came to my mind. He had specially ecautioned me against a too sudden rise to the sur face. The changing pressure can plav serious tricks with the heart, or even result in the breaking of blood vessels. ra who had suffered nse they eame up by the short route. t my case was not without its ney. 1 pulled again on the cord and--chifted the weight on my shoul der. 1 had been hanling on the wrong cord. \WHen T found the real life-line 1 e it such a jerk that they told me later T nearly pulled the watch- man overboard. I was hauled up at such a rat that my helmet crashed against the béat. and [ waited for the sea to pour in and write finis to the adven ture. It did not, however, and I was towed to the ladder and helped ahoard. Then there was a slight dialogue. While hands helped me. tongues ques. tloned me. They thought I had been attacked by a fish or something, and when they discovered that I had not. they asked me why I had come back. 1 told them that I had been down there two hours. and that there were uncomfortable trickles down my back, | that I could move neither forwards | nor backwards. It was only the usual You May Pick Winners at the Rac hand and pulled. | should be no donbt in the mind of the | 1 e the Sea happening incidental to apprentice ship to the diver's profession. My subsequent descents were wasfor, and things were familiar, but en that firat time, when they told me that 1 had been down enly five minutes, I naturally denied ft. till it was prove And with that proof came the under standing that after all is said. seven days were surely lonz enough in which to create the world. (Conyrizht. 10761 | Curious I.enses. AFTER man ' of experimanta- tion a French scientist succeeded, by using glass shells filled with liquid, in producing optical len: maid to he good as the best massive glase {lenses in present use, and of much | greater size. The importance of such an inven tion in the fleld of astronomy fx ob viously great The average large lens manufactured out of massive glass for astronomical purposes has a diameter of abont one and a half meters and it requires a period of sev eral vears to it. while the price is much in excess of $100.000. Sueh a lens, it is claimed. may he manu factured by the French process in A few weeks,at a cost of from $500 to $750. Lenses of smaller dia for photographic purposes. for glasses, reading glasses. etc produced at correspondingly cost. The lens consists of a fuld stance inclosed hetween two unusnaliy | hard glasa surfaces, similar to watch crystals, in which the refractive and other characte: . prop are =0 chosen that the glass surfaces not only sevve to hold ths finid..but alse combine with the finid to ov yme sich defects ave scarcely to be avoided In erdinar lenses. 1t is for this reason also that the lens is achromatic. i smallar Sterilizing by Oxygen. “FERIA can he Killed by oxyges it the pressure is made strong Ry means of this discovers Cleveland of the Harvard Medical School has devized sterilizing and preserv |ing fruft juices without infuring thelir delicate favors. He uses the ordi- nary commereclal oxygen gas, sold in eylinders for welding and other infus Itrial purposes, and he says he ean kil all germs and other micro.organ jsma by using this oxyvgen In from 12 hours to 5 days. Track I B2 | | enough. br. L. R. | University |a method for And Yet Find Yourself Broke at the End BY JOCKEY DELMAR. A< told to Prospar Buranelh. NE day at the track 1 picked up a big. ferocious-looking Greek. In two minutes [ had given him a horse. He was easy, one of those fel lows who have a gnawing hunger for the “inside dope.” A baby could have touted him. How long had he been walking aronund loose? 1 wondered. 1 gave him such a hot tip that he put down a big bet for himself and a $20 | het for me. Starting time was near. 1 never like to be with A patron at the finish. No tout does. Fven the best sport may be a trifie annoved with a tout who picks A loser. T alwaye give a client for whom I have picked a losey a chance to conl off before going to see him agaln. If my horse wins. | immediately hunt out 'my patron. So T said to the Greek: “See you in a few minutes, Nick. I'm going down to the atables and talk to a couple of the jockeys I am get- He scowled like a wild animal. “No." he growled, “a fellow did that to me yesterday. The horse lost and I lost $200. And the fellow never came hack. Another fellow did the same thing last week. Maybe it's a swindle. And maybe yon're a swin- dle. If the horse loses I will know. Then you look out.” He was bursting with suppressed rage. [vervbody in the world had heen touting him with sad results, and T had heen unlucky enough to come on the scene just at the boiling point. It looked as though I would get a heating if my harse lost. The Greek was both strong and lithe, 1 was sure that he could both outrun and outfight me. All I could do was wait and hope that Providence would be kind enough to bring my horse in a winner. I have never watched a race with such_palpitations of the heart. I watched that horse like a hawk. The colora were green and white: The Jockey had a broad green stripe down his back. That green and white was third, then fourth, then Afth. The horse was out”of it. I conld aee that. I turned a frightened glance to the Greek beside me. But his face was tense with excitement and hope. Hix eves were fixed on the firat horse, I looked, too, and saw the reason. The colors were blue and white. A broad gtripe of hlue decorated the jockey's hack. I, as an old race track goer, wenld never confuse the green and e biue, but the Greek, a novice, had gonfused them. I let out a tremen- 8ous howl in his ear. “He's winning! He's winning! Coma on, there!” “Come on, there!” he hegan to yell It was a thrillingly close race. T nearly died with excitemeit. The Greek nearly died. ton. In a close finish hlue and white won. | The Greek was dazed with delight. “You've won,” I velled. “Go on and | Ret your money.” "And T pushed him | toward the bettinz booth. In an in- stant the name of the winner would | he posted and he would be disillu- stoned “Sure, I've won,” he howled, and took 1t on a wild run to the booth. I took it on the run in the opposite | direction. I'm still wondering what | happened when that whooping Greek got down there in the hetting ring and tried to collect. 1 left town that night and went down to the track at Rowie. That tou Wneident sickene ing for a while. 1 was ready to ckened, anyway. Through my run of luck at touting I had a few thousand In the bank. 1 thought 1| might as well pick a few winners for myselt. That's what you always think. 8o I went ahead as a profes. slonal better. It was a_ matter of playing mutuels. The Southern tracks -are on the mutuel system. Tt is different | game from betting with the book- makers. The mutuel system has many a funny twist and turn which the ~cunning better can calculate I worked the game carefully nd made money at it. I played smail | sums on each race every day, watch- | ing for the curious breaks of the avs- | tem and taking advantage of them | me with the | whenever I could. | The newspaper handicappers give duily in advance their selections of was sent plunging downward |1y tired. When we reached harhor the | Finding it impossible to work back- |and I | ward, he had built little ridges of |covered in perspiration from the heat | sand on which he might get leverage [of the uniform and the lack of air. uficient to force himself to the clear | 1 remembered that there was a| | floor of the ocean. hut as soon ax he |valve on the helmet to release the | had built his fulerum and tried to|spent air, operated by pressing one's | lever himself on it. it had crumbled | head on a small button. and in a few | | and he was washed farther in. He moments I had acquired that neces | gave himself up for loat, and. so far isary trick., and all went well until 1 as his emotions were concerned, he | reached the sea floor. But there my died inexpertness took its toll. I simpiy Consclousness went from him. He|could not move, though fer what did not even know that the ship had |seemed ages I tried to put one leg A ections. But the actual odds ar!l determined by the distribution of the | hets placed in the mutuel booths at the tracks. The people who have bet on the winning horse to win have distributed among them in accordance with the slze of their bets the money that has heen bet on other horses to win. Thus if $1.000 has been bet on the winner and $10.000 on the losers, then the people who bet on the winner colleet 14 to 1. In addi tion, there are categories for place and showthat s, third positions. Rats made for place and show are handled in the same way as hets to win. The significant point about the whole system is that the actual odds paid, these being determined by the money bet, generally do not agree with the probabilities as stated hy the handicappers. The handicappers are not always right. but they are generally more nearly right than the green betting public who actually de- termine the odds. You would think that the public's bets would more or less follow the lists given by the handicappers, that the greenhorns would bet mostly on the horses that were listed as probable winners. Well, sometimes they do and some. times they don't. Therein liex the wise hetter's chance. One day down at Bowie T was watching the board at the betting hooths. by a mechanical amounts that have heen bet on the various horses. As the hetting goes on the numbers are changed. You can compare the money on cach horse and by simple arithmetic determine the odds on an individual horse ac cording to the money already up. If you wait till a minute or so hefore the bets are closed for a certain race attachment the “HOW LONG HAD HE BEEN | _ WALKING AROUND LOOSE?" you can pretty well tell what the final odds will be on that horse. There were two horses which the handicappers had given very good chances. My own opinion, too, was that they would fight it ou Never- theless, comparatively little money had been bet on them. It had been placed mostiy on a couple that seemed out of It. The odde on the good horses were about 20 to 1. when they should have been about 3to 1. It happened that 1 knew the rea- son for 1 knew that several touts hed very busy with noth- On the board are registered | of nags! “HE'S for second and|ing more than hunches and had lined | me the winning on & up a lot of bets on the two horses | that hadn't a chance to win. It was | their clients who had put the heavy money on the two. My cue was ob vious. 1 put good hets probable horses. I was certain to lose one, but | was almost certain to win the other. With the odds as long as they ‘'were. it was an excellent sure thing. I won. i I have noticed that the behavior of the horses in the paddock will affect the odds in a ridiculous way. One horse looks lazy and languid. Another prances around and seems full of fir Those indications don't mean sny thing. But the green public doesn't know that. People look over the horses hefore betting and think the lazy looking horse is out of condition for the day. The mettlesome he. haviér of the other mos them. Other factors: Greenhorns may he affected by the fine sounding name of A horse, by good looking colors of a stable. and, above all things, b hunches. 1s possible for the cool. sensible hettor to get an edge on the odds constantly The mutuels do eurious things. I know of a case where a prominent owner had a sad experience. He knew his horse was win. He wanted 1o het heav But ing y. on his horse that would drive the odds down so far that he would get scarcely more than his money bhack. | sort to the bookmakers. They will |have agents In New York place big !bets with the hookmakers | These bets are pald off at mutuel odds, and since the big money does {not get Into the mutuels on the i horse in question. he pays in accord “sucker money" at the track. The | nnlncky owner followed this sensible iplan. But he bet too much with the | New York hookmakers. His agents {went around distributing $1,000 hats. The hookmakars found themselves with too much money on that partle- ular horse. As {8 thelr avstaem, one went to an- Lother to distribute exceas heta and aven off. But the bookies found that they were all loaded up on that one particular horse. Their policy in that case fa to wire the money they don want to carry down to the track where their agents put it into the mutuel. Thus our owner's money, b a roundabout way, found it way into § the mutuel. It heat the odde down to 1 ito 5 or something like that. The | horse won, but the owner collscted | mighty amall profit T made money on the mutuels ax ilong as 1 plaved them ecarefully and did not plunge. But I grew careless |and plunged. T got tired of the small i steady pickings I was making by ge ting the bhest of the odds. T got | hunches and hacame inspired by the i brilliance of my own “doping them {out.™ 1 fell for my own hunk. This happened in New Orleans, couple of monthe T was broke. | The season was nearly over. and 1 made one final attempt to avoid hav- |Ing to take a_freight train back to New York. T tried touting. 1 found L4 fellow whe would put dewn a gaod bet for me if T convinced him. RBut he was hard to convinee. [ finally got him tn accept a proposition that a tout often makes agreed to pay n hoth of the | With such irrational proceedings it | if he put big money into the mutuels In thir circumstance the owners re. | there. | {ance with the odds dictated by the | and In a | HE'S WINNING! HORSE!" WINNING! COME ON, YOU £95 het it 1 | pieked him a winner that wenid pay at least 5 to 1. If it paid less than |3 to 1 1 would get nothing Lnck seemed to favor me The: was & horse listed at hetter than to 1 for probable odds. [ gor realls A sound bit of information thari he was going to win. It was very much on the quiet, wnd it was certain tha | no floog of money at the last minunie [at the track wonld heat the odds [llr)\ln i 1 took the horse to my wae still doubtful. |of talk to convince him | siasm and conviction nrevailed. The: | prevailed too well. Unfortunatels. | | WA not with him at the track. Whal I had told him kept workinz so hard In hit head that he. like a fool, w [to 2 window and houcht £1.000 worth of the slipe on horse. That of conree heat the adds down for him | Tt heat the odds down hel 5te | %0 that if the harse won still 1 wanld | zet nothing. The horse won. and | rode a freigh | back North RERICE S aem man. He I gave him a line My enthi Water in Deserts. E reglon of the Colorado Decer:, wher the escape of the Colorade | River has more than once cansed seri ons trouble, has heen made fertile. the [ underground water being utilized for | Irrigating several theusand acres. ! Among the products that are mak |Ing thix reclalmed land rich are | melons. barlay. potatoss. alfalfa, oranges, grapes, sugar hests and | dates. "On the agricultural experi {ment farm at Macca, in this region. {are to be fonund rare varisties of | dates. which for a long time wera pro | duced only in Arabia. but which are | new successtully grown in Calorado. Tt _hax been found by Government | exverts that the fertilits of sofl de. | pends Iargely on_their capacity for ‘rflulnln' moisture. In many West ern_localitien crops grow luxuriantly [ ®ith scarcely any Summer ram. ft i even ‘thought that it is pessible that the parmanent water supply ex- {isting at a depth of from 40 tn 100 | feet may he responsible for the ever. | present molsture. i . Movies in China. ]1‘ appears that the Chiness motinn pleture enthusiast wants flme (dealing with native Chinese theme: |and scenes in preference to thoss de. | pleting forelgn iife. There 4s said to he a big field in China for the deveiop ment of native films, and it is along this line that the greatest opportunity exists for American producers. A few | foreign films will always find a place {In the Chinese motion pictire ahow but it is not helieved that the Chinese publie will continually patronize these shows when natlve fiilms bacome avail- able. { Motion pictures are eapecially |adapted to Chinese andiences, many of the native Chineve plays fo jwhich they are accustomed are panto. mimes. The Chinese also have a erude motion picture intraduced ecenturies Ago, And might be called a transparen- cy. Chinese pictures are painted on an oiled transparent siik and manipu- ated hehind a screen in such a wav as to produce a motion-picture effect. I