Evening Star Newspaper, February 15, 1927, Page 8

8 THE EVENING STAR With Sunday Morning Edition. WASHINGTON, D. C. TUESDAY.....February 15, 1927 ting the lawbreaker free of court to continue to practice his evil trade. But these laws have not reached the youngsters, Probably this boy who is now held for homicide never heard of the Baumes laws. He had, how- ever, read about highwaymanry and had seen depictions of crime and “gallant adventures” on the movie screens. He says that he had had possession of his father’s gun for a year. If that be true, he has been a potential murderer for that length of time. This case directs attention anew to the need of more careful supervision over the character of motion picture entertainment placed within the range of children. The youngsters go to the movies with little restriction and see there all sorts of things that arouse them unwholesomely. In this case a life has been sacrificed as a result of this laxness of supervision. What Price THEODORE W. NOYES. . ..Editor The Evening Star Newspaper Company Business Office 11th St. and Pennylvania Ave. New York Office: 110 East 42nd St. Chicago Office: Tower Building. Buropean Office: 14 Hedunl St.. London, Eagland. The Even g Star. with the Sunday morn- ng edi*ion. « delivered by carriers within the city at 60 cents per month: dafly only 45 _cents per month: Sundays only. 20 cents per month. Orders may he sent by mail or telephone Main 5000, Collection is made by «carrier at end of each month Rate by Mail—Payable in Advance. Maryland and Virgini g:xl\' and Sund 3 G ily only. unday only. A1 Utner States and Canada. Paily and Sunday..1yr. $1200: 1 mo. $1.00 Daily only 1yr. $8.00: 1 mo. 7 Sunday only J1yr. $4.00:1mo. 38c Member of the Associated Press. The Associnted Press in exclusively entitled %0 the use for republication of all news dis tehes credited to it or not otherwiss cred- ted in this paper and also the local news Dublished herein ~ All rights of publicatior ©f special dispatches herein are also reserved. McNary-Haugen ? Secretary Mellon has serg to Con- gress an estimate prepared hy the Bu- reau of Internal Revenue on the costs of administering the proposed McNary- Haugen tarm-relief law which is calcu- lated to furnish taxpayers with abun- dant food for thought. Fixed charges are estimated at approxi- mately $800,000 a year, regardless of whether there are any surpluses call- ing for “operating periods” in any commodity. The Treasury makes no attempt to estimate the cost of the army of agents and inspectors which would be necessary to collect the equalization fees during operating periods, contenting itself with point- ing out the difficulties involved and the impossibllity of making complete collections. Some idea of these difficulties may be gained when the number of col- lection points is contemplated. The bill provides that the equalization fee may be collected from purchasers, from carriers or from. processors, as the board may elect in each instance. There is no means of determining the number of possible purchasers, but according to the Internal Revenue Bu- reau there are 3,346 common carriers that would have to be taken into ac- count and 5,432 processors of the basic commodities covered by the proposed legislation. As there would be the ever-present temptation of immediate four additional teachers in the public | financial gain through avoidance of school system. These were included | collection and return of the tax, and, in the budget and were ignored by |human nature being as it is, close and the House committee as a result of ; constant inspection would be neces- a misunderstanding of the necessity |sary if the revolving fund was not to for their services during the next|be defrauded of its sustaining rev- fiscal year. Despite repeated ex-jenues. planation setting forth the facts and| The basic commodities covered in indicating the specific requirement of { the bill are wheat, corn, rice, cotton the schools that are to be put into |and pork. Should it chance that “oper- commission next year, the Senate|ating periods” were declared on all committee has decided to omit the |these commodities at the same time provision. Eventually these teachers i there would be, in an average crop must be provided for as the new |year, something like sixteen billion schools erected under the five-year |units the sale of which would have to building program are completed and |be watched for collection of the fee. put into service. The elimination of Imagination has the privilege of free the item is therefore to be regarded | play when it comes to guessing at the &s a postponement rather than a pos- | number of agents and iaspectors that ftive denial of the ultimate need. would be required. How this army of ‘With the evident intention to place | agents and inspectors is to be organ- the office of corporation counsel on |ized and trained for periods of emer- the same basis of dignity of appoint- | gency and how they are to be em- ment and compensation as the peo“|ployed when there is no emergency is ple's counsel provided for in the new |another feature which the bill leaves public utilities law, the bill as re-|for time and chance to deal with. ported to the Senate provides that| The McNary-Haugen scheme has the corporation counsel shall be ap- | been before Congress and has been un- pointed by the President by and With |der consideration by supposed agri- the advice and consent of the Senate. | cultural economists for the last three Heretofore this officer has been ap- |years, and it remains today about as pointed by the Commissioners. It is|vague a plece of major legislation as undeniably anomalous that there|Congress ever proposed to place upon should be two sources and modes of | the statute books. Many of its pro- appointment for officers so mnearly | ponents even admit doubt as to its affiliated in duties and responsibili- | workability, contenting themselves ties, and the proposed change is t0|with the argument that the farmer is be regarded as a logical adjustment |entitled to some relief, so0 “why mot without involving any implication | give this a trial?” against the capacity and qualifica- iy ARy tions of the incumbent or his removal | The former Kaiser of Germany has from the field of consideration by the | regained his estates and while, bereft President. The provision as written. | of his influence as an emperor, be. however, should be amended to Te- | comes highly important as a realtor. strict appointments to bona-fide resi- dents of the District of Columbia as is the case with the people’s counsel of the Public Utilities Commission and the Commissioners themselves. —— e s China long remalned comparatively| When Europe searches the air with remote. Its fights at least serve a|reference to money matters, the sta- purpose of publicity. tion in request is “U. 8. A.” ——————————— —————ron—. A Boy Bandit. The farm relief discussion may yet New York has had all sorts of ban- :‘" for the ambulance instead of the @its, including the gentleman bandit | P3Y Wagon. and the bobbed-hair bandit, and now it has the boy bandit. Last night The National Arboretum. Michael Ponkraskow, twelve years old,| A bright prospect opens for the shot "and killed a merchant in his | enactment of the National Arboretum store in a hold-up for cash. The lad|bill at this session. Yesterday the had been absent from home for forty- | House rules committee granted a eight hours and was afraid to return. | special rule for its consideration on He had taken with him a pistol be- | Friday and this doubtless insures its longing to his father. Growing hun-|passage, because there is no opposi- gry, he thought to get funds for hisftion to it in the House. It having needs by the simplest means accord- |already passed the Senate its adop- Ing to his lights, which were inspired [ tion by the lower branch will require by his acquaintance with motion pic. | merely the acceptance by the Senate ture adventures. He walked into the |of certain amendments which the shop, asked for an article of mer-|committee on agriculture has pro- chandise and when the shopkeeper's|Posed and to which there is no ob- back was turned he fired. Then, be-|Jjection. The first of these amend- coming frightened, he tried to escape | ments reduces the amount to be paid through a washroom, but was cap- | for the land from $500,000 to $300,000, tured a few minutes later by the po-|and the second eliminates the pro- lice, to whom he told his story without | vision that the arboretum is to be reserve and evidently without any|used for park and recreational pur- realization of its significance. poses. Recently New York has been expe.| Reasons for the establishment of riencing a marked decrease in crime |2 national arboretum near Washing- as a result of the Baumes laws, which | ton have been stated repeatedly in went into effect on the first of July |terms that admit of no question. It last. These laws, a group of amend. | is essential for the proper study of ments to the existing statutes, ang|plant life in this country by the some new legislation, were engcted for | Department of Agriculture that there the purpose of putting fear into the |Should be conveniently accessible to hearts of the habitual and professional | that department a field laboratory. criminals. That they have succeeded | It S0 happens that there is available 1s proved by the statistics. They have [ near at hand a tract of land remark- resulted In a marked diminution in|ably suitable for this purpose, its soil the numbar of major robberies. as-|being of a character to support prac- saults, holdaps and homicides. It is|tically all of the native plant growths believed that & large number of the |and bearing already an exceptionally professional erooks and gunmen of |fine stand of indigenous timber. So the metropolis have fled the State.|unusual a combination is not to be Many of them have gone “up the|found elsewhere and upon its dis- river” under life sentences upon belng | covery some years ago the botanical caught in renewed criminal activity, |experts of the Department of Agri- with a record of three prior convic-|culture proposed the establishment tions. As far as the adult crime pe3." of an arboretum at that point. The District Bill. There is cause for both gratifica- tion and disappointment in the Sen- ate committee’s draft of the District appropriation bill, which was re- ported yesterday with a substantial increase in the amount of funds pro- vided for expenditure during the next fiscal year. The gratification |is caused by the inclusion of an item for the purchase of the Patterson tract in the park development pro- gram, the bill carrying an appropria- tion for that purpose. This project has been under consideration for a number of years. There has been danger that as a result of delay the tract would be occupied by buildings and thereby destroyed for park pur- poses. Fortunately it has remained virtually intact, and if this provision In the pending bill becomes law— and there should be no doubt on that score—it will be possible to add a notable area to the park system and thus afford recreational facilities for & section now without such. It is disappointing that the Senate committee did not see fit to restore to the bill the estimates for seventy- —————— An occasional threat of fisticuffs serves to remind the public that the greatest of statesmen are only hu- man, after all. THE EVENING utterly for arboretum purposes. Al- ready somwe damage has been done, but fortunately the major portion of the tract remains untouched. This, however, cannot long continue, and it s essentlal that no more time be lost in putting into execution a project that means an immense gain for botanical science and practical agriculture in the United States. Elimination of the park and recre- ation provision that was by mis- understanding of the purposes of the project waitten into the bill in the Senate is requisite to establish the arboretum as a strictly national work under the sole jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture. The ar- boretum is mot to be a public park in the sense of offering recreational tacilities for the people. It is to be a fleld laboratory for tree and plant study and culture. The public may, and doubtless will, be admitted, but under restrictions that will prevent any interference with the work in pros- ress. With the bill amended as pro- posed by the House committee it will meet the needs of the Govern- ment and should become a law before the session ends. — e The Peril of Delay. After a study of the circumstances of a rearend collision on the New York Central line at Savannah, N. Y., on the 9th of January, the Interstate Commerce Commission Safety Bureau has repeated a recommendation for the Installation of automatic train- control devices on that road. This wreck was caused by the ignoring of cautionary and stop signals by the engineer of the colliding train, which was one of eight sections of a “limit- ed” express running at short distances from each other. The seventy-mile speed limit decreed by the railroad was being considerably exceeded, train sheets showing that at times the limit- ed trains were traveling more than one hundred miles an hour, though these figures are declared to be incor- rect, and the speed, it is indicated, was somewhat in excess of eighty miles an hour. The commission’s bu- reau declares that the operation of train sections under close headway at such speed reduces the possibility of effective flag protection to a minimum and places practically all of the re- sponsibility on the engineman. Such a situation, the report notes, clearly warrants the installation of an auto- matic device which will compel the engineman to begin bringing his train under control at the distant signal location, and it concludes that if such a device had been used on this line the collision would not have occurred. This road, along with others, has been for a considerable period under orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission to install automatic con- trol devices on its lines. It has resist- ed, or at least has delayed, the installa- tion. The accident at Savannah, N. Y., is the direct consequence of this. pro- crastination. Recently it was noted that the Southern Railway had not only com- plled fully with the orders of the In- terstate Commerce Commission in re- spect to safety installations, but had anticipated the requirements of the commission by installing automatic control on divisions not yet included in the orders. This example of pro- gressive forehandness and recognition of the necessity of ultimate safety equipment should be followed by all of the lines. Delay means death. There should be some means of hastening the complete equipment of the trunk lines of this country with a system of protection, the lack of which is being constantly proved to be contributive to disaster. e e A modernist and a fundamentalist meet and argue. Nelther has any stg- gestions to offer for cleaning up pub- lic exhibitions or reducing the price of food. e Wealth is said to have become a bore to Henry Ford. Whatever the game he plays, he is a sure winner; and there s no fun in that. — e SHOOTING STARS. BY PHILANDER JOHNSON. Singing a Song. Singing a song of the daytime. Singing a song of the night. Singing a song of the playtime, Or a song of the sorrows that blight. Singing a song of the sinner. (The sinner will sing one of you.) Singing a song of the dinner ‘Where viands are plenty, or few. Songs may be frivolous chatter. Songs may come straight from the heart. ‘What does it really matter? Keep singing and doing your part. Self-Adjustment. “Prohibition is a question which few people agree upon.” “What's the difference whether they agree or not?” rejoined Senator Sorghum. “Everybody appears to be having pretty much his own way.” New Order of Things. Be kind and gentle to the kid— Serve as his willing victim. Grandpas can’t do as once they did— They grabbed the kid and licked 'im. Jud Tunkins says a rascal is usual- ly only a fool with a little passing power. “All men desire peace,” said Hi Ho, the sage of Chinatown; *'yet few of us tear a fight which we feel sure of winning.” Softened. “What are the principal products of Crimson Gulch?"” “Why call attention to our humil- jation?" asked Cactus Joe. “Our prin- cipal products used to be big and bel- ligerent stuff. Now we're contribut- ing to the picture studios and the fillum magazines.” Versatility. . My Radio! My Radio! You bynch 'em all together— The classic tunes of long ago ulation of the State is concerned,| Owing to the development of the these laws have worked out most sat-| District there is danger that if this Sactorily rave to the criminal classea t is not taken at once so-called and thelr coadjutors, the members of { {mprovement works will be projected the bar who have specialized in get- and executed that will destroy, it And talks about the weather. “A man dat can’t trust anybody,” sald Uncle Eben, “is bound admit dat he can't trust even hisselt. STAR, WASHINGTON. D. C, THIS AND THAT BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL. When you take the milk in from the front’ steps do you ever stop to think what lies behind the bottles? Do you ever think of the cow?” The work of the modern dairy marvelous, but more wonderful is the secret alchemy of the cow. Life on a dairy farm is a perpetual round of chores. The cows must be fed, the cows must be milked. Every day, rain or shine, the routine must be” gone through with in order that we of the cities may find our milk neatly bottled on our doorsteps in the morning. Some idea of the I man may be gained f Wagenen's “The ( 1922 in the “Open Country” the Macmillan Co. For more than a hundred years the author's people have mar side farm in New York State, kingdom of the cow.” And if any one thinks for a second that it has been easy work, he should read the last of the boo The very last thor's philosophy “Sometimes our curlously futile is far “the e gives the au- business seems a performance, like traveling always in a circle. All the growing season from April to No- vember we toil to grow and gather the crops that shall fill the great barns and silc And then all the remainder of the year we devote to feeding out the crops we have gath- ered with such pair nd when Spring comes we have always what we had the y before—an empty barn. And always in fair weather and foul we milk the cows. Does it not seem a bootless task? Sometimes perhaps I ask myself this question. Yet I remember: Take care of the soil and the soil will take care of you. For a hundred years and more my people have worked for this old hill farm, and have lived by it, and on the whole it hgs answered to their care. A hundred Ars ago it sent a boy to college andyit is sending boys and gitls to college still. Of the by- gone men who tilled it none ate the bread of idleness and none has known want. T like to remember that out of its soil for all those years has been nourished a wholesome civilization and a generous life.” * ok ok % Surely that is a fine way to look at one’s job, and it gives some idea sort of man who writes *“The ' There is an impression in some city quarters that a farmer is neces- sarily a “hick,” but the above para- graph ought to show how much mis- taken they are. Here is a family of dairymen who have for a hundred vears been college-bred men, and here at last is one who writes entertain- ingly of the philosophy of the cow. Without the cow our modern civ- ilization would not be what it is to. day, The ‘“beef-eating” nations also are the milk-drinking nations. Per- haps as much of the “push” and *“g0” of our races has come from milk as from beef. It is unfortunate that the term ‘“milksop” ever camé into use, for there is no faod greater than milk. In fact, in some respects it is the only food—that is, it is practical- ly the only substance consumed by man_ which was designed primarily for food and for nothing else. Part of the egg falls into this category, as does honey—but can you think of anything else? Just as the white man took Ameri away from the Indians, so do men of today take the cow’s milk away from the calf. Instead of feeding by look- ing up and taking its food warm, in small quantities many times a day, as Nature intended, the modern calf is torn from its mother only a few ter birth and fed cold skim out of a pail. o “Intellectually and morally, a very good case cannot be made out for Mr. Van Wagenen de- Her standards of ethics and honor are low. In her conduct to- ward the other members of the herd she is both cruel and cowardly. * * * The cow shows herself a mean cow ard, because frequently, if one cow is fast in the stanchion and hence un able to defend herself, another not vet fastened will pitch in and gore her most unmercifully until she bel- lows with pain and terror. The thrilling moment in the life of a cow Is that wonderful day in late May when, after a long Winter of confinement in the barn, she is a ‘turned out’ to the pasture. day stirs up all her hereditary memori cept in the calf i but in the first hours at pasture the whole herd will often indulge in a vild rush, circling the field with tails carried erect, high over the back like banners and with strange, awkward cavorting and galloping—for all the world like the rush of a lot of young- ers let out of school. The most ardent admirer—or apologist—for the cow can hardly claim for her grace of movemen Is there a person living who h not seen a cowpath? If should take a trip to the countr Summer and see one. Th mance there. Our author sa “As commonplace a thing as a cow- path, by the way, is really a record worth studying and musing. The same path is followed year after ear, and if obliterated by plowing and later the field is again returned sture, it will be re-established, ng _almost exactly the same . The explanation is simply that the cow is a pastmaster in the engineering art of choosing the casiest grade between two points. Emphatically she does not go over a knoll, she goes around, and one can only wish that the pioneers who were responsible for the roads through our hill country might have had just a little of this cow good sense.” Of the cow's intelligence, Mr. Van Wagenen further says: “I do not know that the most enthusiastic lover of the cow will contend that she is remarkable for her intelligence. She has neither the spirit and courage of the horse nor the love of mankind that marks the dog, nor the devotion to locality as distinguished from at tachment to persons that distin- guishes the cat, and I am afraid the common barnyard variety of hog is her intellectual superior. This is as it should be, for the extreme dairy ‘temperament’ is characterized by placidity, not to say a phlegmatic dis- position. 1t is plain from that the author cow: vet she 1la tincts and ulness ex- this whole book feels sorry for the is of such a tempera- ment herself that sorrow does not touch her. She vields milk to man, if not gracefully, at least with little fuss, and comes to look upon him in all ways as her protector. Her wonderful milk goes forth to the cities, to bring up races of human children, and to be converted into milk chocolate and butter and scores of other products. No matter how intricate the manufacturing process or how farflung the transportation system, behind it all stands the faith- ful cow, curfous, strange Bos Taurus, forever answering to the old cry, “Co! sl Constant Increase in Output of Bool”(‘si Viewed With Favor Constantly iner ing output of books from American publishing houses and a great volume of buying for home consumption are hailed by the press of the country as evidence of a healthy condition among the peo- ple. The revival of the old-time book store, which was believed to have be- come extinct, is earnestly welcomed and the large representation of non- fiction is accepted as evidence of seri- ous thought in the face of accusations which are summarized in the term “jazz age. “‘American publishers are very much encouraged,” says the Cincinnati Times-Star, “over the facts brought out at their annual luncheon in New York. It appears that about 100,000,- 000 volumes are printed in this coun- try in a year. That is an Immense number, Allocated to our estimated population of 117,000,000, it means that every American buys and pre- sumably reads five-sixths of a book per annum. If bhabies too small even to look at the pictures in a linen book are stricken out of the calculation, the impressive fact emerges that every American buy: book a year. Com- pare this showing with that of less enlightened faces. There are Samo- veds who read no more than a book in a generation, Senegambians who ad- mit difficulty in wading through a book in a lifetime, Eskimos who have mistaken the calf-bound volumes of explorers for desiccated food. But our superb Nation bu nearly as manv books in a twelvemonth as it does inner tubes for its car tires."” The declaration from the publishers that “the last half dozen years have been the most prosperous of the American book trade” and the predic- tion by one that “in the next decade the domestic sale of books will double and the export sales quadruple” are hailed by the Fort Worth Star-Tele- gram as “evidence that not all of Amerlcan prosperity is going into au- tomobiles, radio and fur coats.” The New York World finds “one encourag- ing symptom of a diffusion of literary tastes in the remarkable sale reached by serious books of high price,” and “another heartening fact” in the “in- crease in the number of publishers,’ while “not the least should be counted the revival of the book store.” ok As to the prophecy for the next decade, the Morgantown New Domin- ion is impelled to utter a warning, as it declares “the reading public might he safer if this prophecy turned out to be a ‘flop.” Twice as many books as the publishers are now pouring over our innocent heads looks like an awful lot. It is all many of us can do to keep up with the current output of books. We will have to learn to read twice as rapidly as we do now and perhaps have book racks built onto our dining room tables and into our bathtubs, so that we can read all the time. It's obvious, too, that there won’t be much time left over for mere thinking. Unless, of course, some- body discovers the great truth that it isn’'t necessary to keep up with the whole output, and that ostracism from polite society doesn't inevitably follow failure to read all the current best sellers.” s Of the various individudl products of authors that appeared, the Syracuse Herald quotes from the Publishers’ Weekly the statement that ‘‘nearly 10,000 books—or, to be exact, 9,925— were printed in the United States in 1926, This was at the average rate,” continues the Herald, “of more than 30 for each secular day. Of works of fiction alone the published total was 1,631, or about five a day, exclusive of Sundays. The following statistical list covers the other classes of new books for the year 1926: Religion, 916; poetry and drama, 886; juvenile, 596; sclence, 568; history, 555; biography, 651; sociological subjects, 544; gen- erul literature, 447; historical books, | paper continues: 438; geograph: pihlosophy, 2 tion, 201; 431: medicine, 33. business, 296; educa- agriculture, 262, and fine It is not surprising to find ng the lead, though the to- tal of its volume is far outnumbered by the records for more serious litera- ture combined.” The Herald mlso points to “the hopeless feeling that be- sets the most omnivorous novel read- ers when they contemplate their weekly, or rather daily, menus.” * K K A new incidental development is em- phasized by the Providence Journal as one which “began a year ago, when a group of literary co-operators estab- hed its system of selling to sub- scribers one good book a month—the best hooks of the year as selected by a competent board of judges.” That “Almost overnight the plan had built itself up an enor- mous patronage—a patronage that staytled and perplexed the publishers. * * * The new club has it in its power to increase the sales of any novel by 40,000 coples at one blow."” The Journal, discussing this and other similar schemes, concludes that “any system which spreads the excellent e of reading is of interest and importance. “It is reassuring in the extreme,” declares the Roanoke Times, “to learn that books of the rizht kind, holding a serious meaning, are in considerable demand. This is especially true in view of the flood of trivial, even evil, literature by which the country is in- undated. That better standards are holding their own is a tribute to the intelligence and judgment of the read- ing public.” The Times also remarks, “The prevalent impression that the American people are too engrossed with trivial pursuits, too immersed in jazz and its by-products to have either the time or inclination for serious reading, is not borne out by these revelations.” “This year's ‘best seller,’ " according to the Anniston Star, “may not be found in libraries 100 years hence, for a ‘best seller’ does not always have a literary appeal. Books, however, that sell well steadily, that have a good sale now and 10 years hence, are not scarce. Good books always sell well. The reading public learns about them after a time and buys and reads them.” The Flint Journal adds: “We are inclined to imagine that huge sales and great royalties are twentieth cen- tury phenomena. If we do, we're wrong. Just 100 years ago Sir Wal- ter Scott sold the English rights to his elght-volume life of Napoleon for $52,500. Within a few years his royal- ties had earned him $87,000 more. ——t——— Playing With Fire. From the Waco (Tex.) Times-Herald. It seems to this newspaper that Senators are playing with fire when they say that a sovereign State has not the right to send whomsoever it pleases to the Senate at Washington. Where is the consistency of our Mr. Mayfleld in voting to exclude Smith of Illinois and at the same time de- nouncing the act which takes from the State the power to control the rail- roads within its territory? ——o— - Averting a Crisis. From the Detroit News. ain | -| ingenious TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15 NEW BOOKS AT RANDOM L G. DENATURED AFRICA. Streeter. G. P. Putnam’ There they were for any one" Daniel M. Sons. choos- ing a chance at adventure—three | distinet groups all, for the moment, | engaged in the common business of | trying by look and bearing to live up !to the clear ferocity of the enterprise before them. Up to the neck in gear—rolls, bags, boxes, bundles— they stood. Every man among them | was strung from both shoulders and {belted in at the middle with deadly weapons. Each, at the slightest movement, gave out the noisy metallic i clatter of a hardware shop suddenly | vitalized and seized with frenzy, or of a kitchen range upon whose iron { floor all the pots and pans had simul- { taneously come under the spell of | St. Vitus himself. i * k ¥ ¥ | Who are these flerce and desper |men? These are “big-game hunter {One group i& bent upon the Hir one upon the deep heart | Borneo, one upon far Afri | In another way of speaking | men cach of whom has heard and F heeded the long eall of Some atavistic | sire bidding him back into the good old savagery of his beginnings. These have dared—as the rest of us do not dare—to slip back into that dim past ere man and beast frankly matched | wits, back into a time when even | then these half-human foreb told a day to come ih which tooth and tusk and claw would be hopelessly outdone by themselves, the most and . inventive beast of of them all. g No, they are not talking like this they stand here. Certainly not. stead, they < rvice to ence, of incre; world's store of common knowledge, of bring ing back live specimens, or dead car es, or bony skeletons, for the purpose of recreating in our midst instructive bits of exotic wild life. Education is the shibboleth and the sanction of outfarings of this sort. P we are going along. Vicari to be sure. But we are used nee the most of our darings of some one else, since our heroisms materialize, as a rule. through the high deeds of others. A there is much, very much, to be in favor of vicarious adventure—in favor of “letting George do i to speak-—but not here, not now. business of this moment is to make choice among these three chances. ¥ e And ousl to that are by w As for me, T chose Daniel Streeter and Africa. There was in the man's eve a glint of leniency behind the zen- eral austerity of his hunter’s look. This pleased me. And in the rattle of his personal armory there was a touch of the debonair and kindly that hoded no great peril to the wild life of his ostensible pursuit. That lighted me. About the whole man, in fact, there was a pervasive suggestion of promised enjoyment that ensnared me from the beginning. And so, by book last week, I went to Africa with Mr. Streeter to hunt big game. It was a fine choice, its rewards con stant_and full. Here for company was first a man flexible enough to change both his mind and his course upon good occasion for =o doing And he d in a measure change his mind right in the face of that which sent him across the world. Out in Africa he saw a lot of strange beings native folks and animals. Upon look- It would be quite terrible if a rear admiral were sent to Nicaragua to preserve neutrality without being told which side we are neutral on. ! Another Chance for Autos. From the New York Herald Tribune. It is proposed to run_automobiles underground in New York. That would give them another chance at most of the pedestrians. ing them over, both the brute and the human, he found them doing that which, back home, he had looked upon as quite legitimate matters. F shelter made up the prime preoccupa- tion of both classes. That and strictly minding their own business, all of them. Not so bad, this. He began to feel a little like an obtrusive inter- loper, which clearly he wa And this outlook from the new point of view seemed to work a decided change in the mind of the man himself. t that Dan Streeter turned tail and ran away from the hunt. That would be an unfair and an untrue statement. But he came to display a real talent for missing his quarry, for shooting wild, even when a rhino reared its huge bulk before him like a gray and unstable hill. And when he missed a shot he grew so plaintively funny over the mishap, he grew so humble and self-accusing. that one simply had to love him for his carefully executed ineptitudes. When a killing did come about, as many did, Streeter made a pretty shocking business of its sum and substance. Instead of doing an Indian war dance around his chance victim; instead of chanting, “I,” said the Sparrow. “with my bow and ar- row. I killed Cock Robin"; instead of radioing his triumph back home, Mr. Streeter did another w: He set to drama right then and there an actuality of the economic life of wild Afr Waiting, tense, around the huge carcass stood the natives of the locality At a signal they fell upon it, hewing, cutting, tearing away the flesh. When they had done their best, flocks of real vultures came to sit at second table upon the dead animal. After them millions of ants, lice and other minute forms of life covered the bones in a thick blanket, leaving them as clean as a hound's tooth finally. Upon this center, the essen- al need for food, the author creates about a dead beast a truly remark- able picture of these tribes. Within it gather customs, superstitious cere- monies in the taking and use of this food, their modes of dress and forms of shelter, with such 1l usages as they possess. Not at all, vou see, like the carefully staged pageantry of the usual big-game huntins. Instead here is a summary of the life of such tribes as came under this writer's ob- servations with a true and poignant pleture of the lonely settler, miles from other white men, engaged in more or less successful efforts to im- press the desert to the uses of com- merce and progress. And over all Mr. Streeter spreads the sumptuous skies at dawn and nightfall and un- folds the grim splendors of the land, itself. And all this, whether it be the skies or the landscape, the whites or the natives or the wild creatures, is all projected in a gusto which cap- tures the reader and in a vein of humor that is quite irresistible. The whole is adventure from start to fin- ish, adventure that is keenly alive, and to which the adventurer himself is receptive in every power of his mind and body. most _enjoyable and stirring experience is “Denatured Africa. Opening the book quite at random, listen to Dan Streeter himself: a word about these buffalo,” sajd Flint. ‘“Theyv're quite dangerou: Yes?' 1 inquired after a pause. ‘Go on.' “That's the word,’ he answered, ‘dan- gerous. It made more impression on me than if he had delivered a Chau- uqua lecture on the subject. * * * ou're first,’ said Flint. He spoke as if it were a distinguished hono ‘Fol- low your tracker closely, and I might add that you'll ve to work fast. Buffalo 10 or 20 yards away are hard to see in shadows. I'll be covering Frankly it was the kind of a ce in which I would far rather have been last. Then there is a long to-do of stalking and finally the not infrequent conversation between Flint and the big hunter. *‘Why didn't vou shoot?' said Flint. ‘He stood there as ‘plain as day begging for it—not over 20 yards." ‘Sorry,’ I replied, ‘but I simply cannot see these things, To me they are as invisible as disem- bodied spirits. 1 don't believe 1 care for any_more phantom shooting. For the prefent 1 throw up the sponge on buffalog “hey are difficult to see in the shadows,’ said Flint. ‘Next time it'll bef easy." FlUnt is the most op- timist§e fellow." ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS BY FREDERI Q. apple trec of the fru A, Tests farm by ¢ effect upon the quality -R. K made at the Arlington nt horticulturists fruit were necessary of good size and qual- ller number of leav fruit was not. only but was low in dry sugar content and of When a sm present, th M X It is estimnted that 158,000 Jews live in Palestine Q. Office L s A. During ti ink section 1 pounds of ink, Kinds Q. Should one accompany a gue to the front door when he is leaving F. B A._If one is living inf hospitable to accompany a guest the door of the house apartment when the latter is leaving. A hoste whose home is conducted upon for mal lines bids good-by to her guest at the door of the drawing room. Q. Why does the air grow colder with height?—L. M. A. The earth and the atmosphere are heated by sunshine. A large part of the sunshine comes directly through the atmosphere and is absorbed by the earth. The surface of the earth thus med heats in turn tl mosphs at the surface. This hea ed air expands as a result of heating, thus becomes lighter and is pushed up by the denser air round about it. As it is pushed up the pres sure on it gets less and less by the weight of the air left below. It there fore expands—pushes out against the diminishing pressure—that it does work, but does it at the expense of its own heat. In this way the ascending uir gets cooler and cooler with in crease of height Q. What is the last date a person might file a claim against Mexico for losses to mining companies during the revolution beginning in 19107— LD M the Government facture its own ink? Does man Printing W 6 the 118,061 tiscal year nufactured includin mally it is { comets remain visible two or vod and | A. The Mexican Claims Commis- sion says that the last date for filing Has the number of leaves on an | 30 to 40 medium- | Jewish population | 5 different | | | W(W the | C J. HASKIN. ims for losses to mining companles | during the revolution of 1910 was Au | Bust 18, This be extended SIX months if satisfactory evidence or | the need of such extension is present d to the committee Q. What is the biggest ever erected”—R. M. K A, The main building of the Buffalo | World's Fair of 1902, more- strietly | known the Building Manufac jtures and Liberal building ever erec ere Peter structu butlding at Rome o in size ranks second to this |- Q. Who was the first of Abraham | Lincoin's ’ O™ | “A. The e 1 Robert Todd August 1, 1843 deatn occurred Ju fore his S3rd birth was the late He was barn " ve an old Wha Q@ 1 K A We have ench emba | the inseriptic depends mind of it. Generally speaki will do.” "It goes we thing is all risht Q. Who holds the it the pre time A. This title ¥ | The ca the: T ol AL now Letters a crery minu from our ireau in Washing cver they A in ansiwer to all kinds of i all kinds of subjects, from a {of people. Make use of | ice which The Evening Star taining for yow. Its only pury | to help you and we want you fit from it. Get the habit ’ |ing to The Evening Star Informati | Bureau. Frederic Haskin, direc tor, Washington want to hnow. They @re Kinds is ma D BACKGROUND OF EVENTS BY PAUL There is going to be much bad fc tune for somebody next June. for tronomers announce that a huge c et will be visible in the heavens. years. Comets have portended over turning of thromes and deaths of kings throughout all historic times Kings are getting so scarce nowa d s that it seems a great ite raw material to shoot a comet mill miles just to broadcast one more departure of royalty. Now there are many June brides; perhaps June’s comet has some of in mind. Or there is the impendi war of the Orient and Occident, brew- ing in China. That may be approach- ing the comet class in magnitude. To which part come? It is just as easy for any par- ticular person or party to assume t the ill prophecy t is aimed at some other vietim as ill omen as applying to one’ 357 poleon saw a comet on the eve of invasion of Russia, and he interpreted it as very bad news—for the Russians. When the Roman emperor, Vespasian, was dying, he heard courtiers com- menting on a comet and intimating N 9| life would perish. that it meant the emperor’s demise. But he roused himself to say, “No, this hairy star does not concern me it means rather the King of the I thians, for he is hairy and I am bald Perhaps our own presidential candi- dacles will crystallize next Summer, while this “hairy star” is high in the heavens. Will it be bad luck for beardless and baldheaded candidates, or predict success for mustached presidential Barkises? referred to as “the go Does tha forecast success for the “‘goat party” Unsubstantiated history relates that when Halley's comet appeared in the middle ages, while the Turks were in- vading even Central Europe, the Pope excommunicated the comet Gen Hunniade, head of the Christian Army, won a battle over Mahomet, com- pelling the enemy to raise the siege of Belgrade. x % oxo® is to pass throu the ne’s heavenly fiver, and there is speculation as to what poison gases may be in that immeasurable tail. The spectroscope has found in it carbon monoxide, which is deadly poison. Hence the timid ones foresee the end of all life upon earth within a few minutes of the first whiff ¢ that huge mass of poison gas. The world is to come to its end—again. Scientists indicate _no wor: The earth tail of next J of carbon is produced with an automobile is set running in an unventilated garage, until all human life in that trap expives. There are opponents of chemical warfare who assert that it is terrible (though it is far less fatal than anv other weapon for defeating the enemy), but what a horror would he upon humanity if the entire earth were swept with a poison gas of in- finite quantity, so that in a breath in the twinkling of the eye, all life human and animal, birds and fishes, were utterly destroyed, and the round | and desolate globe were left to roll on its orbit, through all time, a sepulcher! What if some of the sases should unite with the oxygen of the air, and all atmosphere should burn and dis- appear? Both animal and vegetable | The moon has no atmosphere; probably other planets have none, so why must it be as- sumed that the planet Earth will for- ever retain its air? * K X X “Astronomy,” by Stewart—three working t@- A new book on Russell, Dugan and eminent astronomers gether, says: “It is probable that the earth has undergone many collisions with com- ets during geologic time. It may read- ily be computed that a small, rapidly moving body, which approaches the sun within one astronomical unit, stands one chance in 400,000,000 of hitting the earth. As about five com- | ets come within this distance every | vear, the nucleus of a comet should | hit the earth, on the average, once in about 80,000,000 vears.” The books des 000 times the earth’s distance from the sun. use trying to dodge when a comet actually gets so close as that. Perhaps our first 80,000,000 years are still unfinished—but so is the earth. There is the tail, dragging behind, millions of miles. It might whip around and choke somebody. What is this tail? Of what is the whole comet composed? * oK ok K The comet has a nucleus of solid matter—mountains and _plains—per- haps a group of bodies like the earth —like several ‘“earths” bunched to- gether—traveling an immense orbit around the sun and out into im- measurable space. Tt takes some of the bad fortune to | It is sometimes | though they confess to the presence | monoxide—the gas which | deadly effect when | V. COLLINS. ) miles of 1 it be plode, sending toward t} £ |p hat great tail iat tail is made of solid particles of & The 3 shaped ftw nuclet are illumined and possibly b then £1es formi other and light of | visible tafl from the sun is of sunbeams upon |is now known to | act as that of a str | thrown from hose pri | repulsion is 15 or 20 times greate than the force of gravit land so the matter of the tai on its own parabolic fligh space and Is never r nucleus. Thus the nucle: |its substance through the ce | whenever it nears the heat sun, until at last it wears out and appears. Even though that matte whether stone or metal, is in sma units like fine dust, it obeys the laws | of motion and goes on forever upon | set path, for it is traveling thre acuum, where even fly on forever around “assigned” to it. * an orbit « * e There is a cometic answer to Lov | ell's query, “What is so rare as day in June?” The answer is a come: fia Juns\ e any ather month Tos | comet tail and coma are so extremels | “rare” that they do not even curtair | the stars and those lun | visible through the dens |the coma and tail. The | whatever their ttered i the tail |the sunlight trave through between | “dense” as five or six marbl tered through a cubic mi | matter of the tail is affected by ational attraction of the plane near. comet in 1770 came so earth—a few millions of it had its tail bobbed by vitation, the length equiva t distance which light flies two and onehalf days. Jupite clipped the orbit of Brooks' comet it 1886, so it was shortened from 24 years to a ear time table, From that fact lea istronomers_deduce that a given mass of that tail would weigh only one tenthousandth as much as the same bulk of our earth nd they comfide to us that “if comet of average size (nucleus 80,000 miles _in or 10 times the diameter of rth) had a mas: equal to a millionth of that of th earth its density would be 1/230,00 of that of ‘the air at the earth’s sur face—a degree of rarefaction reached only by gcod air pumps, hat story sounds “thin,” but it fs vouched for by Dr. Hall of the Naval Observatory. So what is there to worry about If this tall, so much thinner than alr, should swipe the earth? The bulk of all matter in a comet would amount to only 5 per cent of what was excavated in digging the Panama Canal, and it extends millions of miles. Even if the tall contains poison gas, it i3 so lght that all that would touch the earth would do no harm. Could it even penetrate our far denser atmosphere A cublc mile of a comet tails welghs only half an ounce. A whole comet: tail and coma and nucleus—weighs 000,000 tons. but it is so big and carth 'is so tiny, we could not get more than a little wag. “Why worry?” ¥ the * ok ok K That brings us to an atom, which in school we were taught was infl nitely small and indivisible. Science now tells us that a single atom is miniature of the solar system; it has its nucleus, around which roll its planets, proportionaliy as far from the nucleus as are the solar planets from the sun. When the question was asked of Dr. Hall, at the Naval Observatory, whether an atomic “solar system” also had its comets flying in tiny orbits, he answered, “Possibly,” and perhaps his great telescope will discover the hyperbolic curve of some wandering atomic comet. A great meteor struck the earth near Cincinnati last weck, which may be an advance card from next June comet, though science has not defi- the comets centurles to get once around their orbits, back to encircle the sun. » As a comet arrives within 200,000, nitely read the name—"Pons-Wi- necke.” (Copyright, 1987, by Paul V. Collins.) "