Evening Star Newspaper, January 13, 1929, Page 88

2 THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., JANUARY 13, 1929—PART T Washington Factory Makes Federal Mail Bags by the Million BY GEORGE H. DACY. HE Post Office Department has designed, built and developed one of Washington's unique fac- tories, a plant which makes new mail bags and repairs old ones by the million, It has come to that this im- peccable capital of capitals, reputed Fopularly to b2 as free from the dust sad bustle of industry as any munici- pality on the world-wide map, is the seat of two interesting Federal fac- tories, the only establishments of their kind now extant. One of these pro- duction centers is a steel ‘plant used as en imporiant ramification of the Wash- ington Navy Yard. It converts scrap and junk metal of ordnance fitness into the finest armament now used on American battleships. The second magufzetory consists of the mail equip- mens shops, the most elaborate and efii- cient plant of its kind in existence. The entrance of the United States Government into the actual production fleld, however, is wholly devoid of dl- vect' competition with professional manufacturers. It was inaugurated solely in the interest of national economy. If you will take the trouble to skim over the appropriations made by our last Congress, you Wwill doubtless be astonished to ascertain that $2.400,000 was the sum set aside for the support of the Mail Equipment Shops during the fiscal year. The production pro- gram for that period features the manufacture of 1,450,000 new mail bags as well as the repair of more than 5,000,000 old canvas containers which carry our correspondence from here to Jericho or farther. Converting spotless white canvas into business-like bags for the transportation of our domestic and foreign mail is but one of the multitudinous activities of the national factory on W street northeast, in the Eckington section. All the postal locks used on mail bags, boxes and other official containers are also made at this remarkable plant. Some 800,000 of the type known among Federal mailmen as the “L. A.” lock will be produced and distributed during the current year. As many as 2,000,000 of threse locks have been manufactured in one year, the plant having a capacity of 8000 a day under extreme pressure. The special rotary locks used ex- clusively on registered mail bags are the product of the skilled Government lockmakers. Just to illustrate the economy. which Uncle Sam fosters by making such equipment himself, it is notable that a certain foreign country recently contracted with an American firm to make a smaller number of these rotary locks for its postal department. The delivered cost of these locks was $16 apiece, Other American manufac- turers produce and commercialize simi- lar locks at retail prices ranging from $10 to $15. The Post Office Department makes these locks in its-private factory st & total cost of $1 apiece. * ok kX TH!S Washington factory, whose ex- istence is unknown to the average District resident, employs a personnel of 450 to 500 skilled and semi-skilled operators. Its working schedule is elas- tic and its labor roster varies according to the -animal ups and downs of its requirements. It is practically impos- sible to plan in advance for all the ac- tivities of the year. The superinten- dent never knows exactly how many mail bags and other forms of postal equipment will b returned for repair. This complicates the business of scheduling work months in advance. At any time a sudden emergency may de- velop which will wreck carefully for- mulated plans. Although the Mail Equipment Shops make all the tools which are used in| that plant, many of the postal acces- sories, such as canceling machines, postal scales, .mail boxes, numbering devices, electrical motors and similar apparatus, are made on special speci- fications by commercial firms. Last year Supt. John B. Cady had clrarge-of the of 300 -machines for canceling letter mail, 1,500 postal scales, 2,500 numbering machines and 325 motors for the operation of the can- celing devices. ; These appliances were “educated” machines that convert enough canvas for country-wide circus tents into new containers for valuable mail, you should saunter through the Mail Equipment Shops. This year some 4,250,000 yards of canvas are being used in the output of mail bags. Enough canvas probably to make a “big top” to cover the entire White House grounds. The manufacture of this canvas is yet another impressive indication of the economy practiced by the Post Office Department in its purchase of raw ma- terials. The canvas is made by the Federal prisoners at the Atlanta Peni- tentiary. The Department of Justice, acting as salesman, sells canvas by the carload to Postmaster General New and his assistants. By a strange quirk of fate, those who formerly sought to rob the United States mails and were captured are now manufacturing the raw materials for mail bags such as those which they attempted to loot. de- * Kk * A GARGANTUAN tutomaton, signed and developed by post of- fice mechanics, but built by a Baltimore factory has maws like a mastodon, mechanized arms stronger than the legs of an elephant, and a capacity for speed limited only by the power of elec- tricity. . It is a quadruple-purpose ma- chine, for it replaces a quartet of for- mer hand-labor operations and cuts prints, folds and stacks the new mail sacks preparatory to their delivery to the sewing machines. A huge.bolt of canvas is fed into-the machine at one end while the mail bags, cut to accurate design and skillfully lettered, are delivered at the other. This machine saves the Post.Office Depart- ment $25 a day, and since its invention and installation, it has accumulated a credit balance of more than $45,000. The inventive minds of the Mail sent to Washington from post offices in all parts of the country. !?you would review a beehive of in- dustry where nimble fingers operate Equipment Shops’ personnel are con- stantly at work seeking new machines to cut the cost of mail bag production, Receptacles, Postal Locks and Other Articles Keep 500 Skilled Workers Busy. MAKING MAIL BAGS BY THE MILLION. STAMPING OUT THE TOPS OF POSTAL LOCKS. i POWERFUL PRESSES FOR CUTTING HOLES. necessary repair work at this factory in more efficient ways. One of these to speed up the work or to perform the parcel post mail. It saves the Govern- originated the locking cord fastener for | fure the inception of ment $1,000,000 annually in parcel post packages which were lost or stolen be- this handy device. For 20 years previous to its perfec- tlon public and private mechanicians trick and win a merited reward from Unclé Sam for his inventive ability. Another worker in this District fac- tory has perfected a special guard for and inventors sought to develop some’ such device. It remained, however, for a Government employe to turn the Congress Appropriates $2,400,000 to Run Equipment Shops of Post Office Department This Year—Making and Repairing punch presses. It fortifies the work- men who daily operate these machines against serlous accidents, the loss of fingers or other catastrophes. ‘The morale and fraternalism among the employes are outstanding in this plant. To a man—and a woman, for the female labor roster is large—they are interested keenly in improving the efficiency of the work. A tour of in- soection will make you think that the employes are paid on the piecework basis. Uncle Sam and Supt. Cady, alded by the Civil Service Com- an unusually fine roster of employes, | who take great pride in their work and | the speed and efficiency of their daily accomplishments, despite the fact that they are not piece workers, but are paid by the day or month. Uncle Sam saves everything but the | dust and dirt in the mail bags which are condemned among the millions re- turned for repair. A simple and effec- tive ti containers. From 5,000 to 20,000 of the old bags are laundered each year in similar service stains from the postal “gunny sacks.” At various times suggestions have been made that all the many million mail bags be sterilized with steam once a year. This proposal is prohibitive. Such treatment is unnecessary in the first place, while to executz such an order would necessitate a sterilization plant probably five times as large as the present Mail Equipment Shops. b LL the zinc, copper, iron, steel and scrap junk at the Mail Equipment Shops mission, have filled this factory with bling machine has been evolved which shakes the debris from the worn order to remove oil, grease, glue and other metals which accumulate as are salvaged and sold under competitive bid system by the United States General Supply Committee. This salvage in- cludes the fittings and accessories re- covered from wornout bags. The bags which can be repaired are serviced as often as necessary to keep them in satisfactory condition. They are sewed, patched, repaired, fitted with new grom- mots and lacing cords. The average life of one of these Fed- eral mail bags ranges from six to nine years. Both the new and repaired bags are circulated from 10 depositories at Washington, New York City, Boston, St. Paul, Chicago, Atlanta, San Fran- cisco, St. Louis, Cincinnati and Kansas City. The old bags and postal equip- ment requiring repair are also assem- bled at these centers and subsequentl are forwarded to our National Capital. The mail facing table now used in major post offices throughout the United States was designed at the Post Office Department “shops.” It is & round table to accommodate eight mail sorters. These attendents face the mail by hand and deliver the short and long letters, respectively, to special slots which convey them by means of a re= valving platform to the stacking devices. The experts of the Mail Equipment Shopa are now conducting experiments, seeking to perfect a way of combining | the mail canceling machinery with the facing table. Such an amalgamation | will aid markedly in reducing the hand work in modern major post offices. The “L. A" lock, which is now so popular with postmen from Canada to Mexico, is another piece of equipment designed by these expert Federal lock- smiths. It replaces a former postal lock known as the “double star” which was twice as large and more costly. Uncle Sam now manufactures the “L. A.” locks at a total cost of approxi- mately 10 cents apiece. The “L. A” locks have been in ser- vice now for 13 years and their repair requirements up to the present time has amounted to less than 1 per cent. The grommets of zinc which line the cord holes in the top of each mail bag were also originated in this Gov- ernment factory. The mail bags are hung in postal racks and aboard trans- continental trains by these reinforced holes. Twenty million grommets are used every 12 months at the mail bag factory in the repair and manufacture of canvas containers for our domestic and foreign mail. Two special have been devised which make these important grommets at the rate of 170,- 000 daily. * kX the advent of parcel post and the malling of millions of pack- ages daily of unusual proportions and shapes, Uncle Sam discovered that the steel stamps which had been used for generations in stamping official mail were unsuitable, This led to the de- velopment of a flexible rubber stamp made of printer's roller composition rubber, It was originated in the Wash- ington factory and is now made ex- clusively by that manufactory. Until recently the Mail Equipment Shops were operated both night and | day in order to keep up with the Fed- eral demand for the products. Of course the employes on the night shift preferred to work during the daytime, and that is why Fourth Assistant Post« master General H. H. Billany has eliminated the night work by merging its activities with the day shift. The historical blue stripe in Uncle Sam's white mail bag has passed per- manently from the picture. In the interests of economy, Uncle Sam dis- covered that by eliminating the 12 blue stripes he couid save 1 cent a yard of canvas. This means a saving of $42,- 500 for the output of the current fiscal year. Supt. Cady of the Mail Equipment. Shops will tell you if you ask him that it is difficult to schedule the operations of that Federal factory for one year in advance. This obtains because of the impossibility of estimats ing exactly how many mail bags and pieces of postal equipment will be re- turned to that Government agency for repair during a given 12 months. The operations of the manufactory hence have to be very elastic—to expand or - contract on short notice in coincidence with the increase or decrease in the maintenance requirements of postal apparatus. New Statue of Jefferson Davis Will Be Among Heroes at Capitol Marble Likeness Of C onfederate Leader to Be Placed Among Nation's Great in Statuary Hall. i ni recognition of him? We who have crossed the far boundary of prejudice? Why does he not capture our imagina- tion. He leaves us unmoved, even while our hearts are eager to be touched by greatness in our fellow men, No one looking upon this statue of Davis can turn away from it without a haunting sense of Lincoln, for the face bears some dim resemblance to the lonely figure that the world has now come to reverence. The once golden hair lies smoother above a like lofty brow, and the gray eyes look out from a lean, lined face, where a great preju- dice lives in place of that other's deep humility. A meticulous grooming marks his dress, in inevitable contrast to Lin- coln's negligence. The great height of the man, six feet and over, and the slimness, even thinness, of body fis markedly similar, but a regal bearing lives along the proud shoulders of Davis in place of the weary stoop of the nar- row shoulders of Lincoln. .Dominant chins for each, but the mouth of Lin- coln _runs a quizzical, -half-humorous line, beneath which the shadow of sor- row hides, while that of Davis is set in a determination that is almost obsti- ate. Both are thinkers, both are philosoph- ers, but with this singular difference that the mind of one must move in mathematical precision, must play the role of martinet, while that of the other moved with intuition and feeling to its conclusions. Unbending and unpliant the one, flexible and pliant the other. If Davis could have learned that, when unlooked-for circumstances produced unplanned-for crisis his iron-made provisions called for reasonable modifi- cations, one trembles for the outcome of that crucial struggle that saw Lin- coln feeling his way to victory while the unbending Davis-walked in dignity ta defeat. All that is written line upon line in this strangely life-like study of the President of the Southern Confederacy. It would seem, as Drinkwater says, that a man’s character does preside over event. Was Davis fashioned from birth for his leading an ably supported cause Lo failure? Davis und Lincoln were both born in Kentucky, their birthdays being but eight months apart, and each in due time directed at the same time repub- lics in America. The life of the latter is well known; let us see why the former is called an American states- man by historians. 1In matters that had to do with formal aducation Davis had every advantage t his period knew. From the age of his _schooling was _continuous through his graduation from West | Point, where he assoclated with such students as Robert E. Lee, Albert Sii- ney and Joseph E. Johnston. O writer, speaking of him as the typicr Southern West Pointer, says: “i presence, { | LUCRETIA E. HEMINGTON. ITHIN a few weeks, Statuary Hall, planned and fashioned by Thomas Jefferson, will give room and place to a strikingly lifelike portrait in marble of Jefferson Davis, in the words of Gladstone, “the maker of a nation within the borders of the United States.” ‘History, like justice, as the years pass records with eyes blinded to prejudice and sectionalism a fair estimate of men and events, and in that recording what amazing reversals are set forth. Na- poleon no longer lying in that rocky, sea-girt island far to the south of the land he loved, but sleeping now in the very heart of France, whose flag in his little, majestic hour aroused Europe to progress; and Jefferson Davis, the unwavering leader of a lost cause, the chosen ruler of the States of the Con- federacy, the overthrown and impris- oned hero with chains upon his defiant body, now, by the wish of his adopted State of Mississippi, to stand among great sons of great States, with Wash- ington and Lincoln, with Webster and Jackson, with Calhoun and Alexander Stevens, and with that gallant warrior, Robert E. Lee. These_ things, made possible, are not achieved by fickle changes in opinion, but are the direct result of true evalua- tions that by force of their own innate strength rise above the once submerging mass of hysteria engendered by this and that cause in an hour of confusion and disturbance. Men are not always rignt, and their mistakes may shake a nation to its foundations, but their years were not all filled with error. Good deeds and wise are recorded, oo, in the volume of their lives. So it is with Jefferson Davis, whose marble likeness goes now into the Cap- itol, and whose wind-whipped, caped portrait leads that lofty frieze of mag- nificent gray-clad generals on the side of Stone Mountain just outside Atlanta. With what complacence a thousand years from today will students of his- tory geze upon these time-defying memorials to men who risked all, lost all, save honor and negligent time’s remembering! A balance wheel, this sanity, lest the machinery of earth ex- istence ‘wreck itself. Curious, too, how -contumely falls where it falls. The flawless Lee, the indomitable -Jackson, the masterful Johnstons, the superb delayer that was Longstreet, and that dashing leader of cavalry that was Stuart, all long since have been restored to their rightful places in the history of America. Char- acter and ability made that Southern Army perhaps the greatest army in the world in that age, and men have come dispassionately so to view it. But for the man, who, through no effort on his own part, became the head of that government which supported that army Saere is still much hardness of heart. In purity of character, in ability, in education and in culture, Davis was the equal of any of his lieutenants; and in an undeviating devotion to duty none was his superior. Was it some coldness dn .his personality that withholds our conduct and manner in cated slf-esteem, pride, determinatici; personal mastery.” While serving with the Army at Fort Crawford, in what is now Wisconsin, |of the national Government. frontier camp to find new beauty in life, for Col. Taylor had a fair daughter who set the young lieutenant dreaming of a home of his own. Davis resigned from the Army, married Miss Taylor and went South on account of ill health and took up plantation life. Three months after the marriage the season of chill and fever came on, and both were syept into its merciless current. Within a ;e‘rdy brief time young Davis lost his ride. This single incident was perhaps the most weighty in his formative years, for he withdrew into strict seclusion on his plantation estate in Mississippl for al- most 10 years. Through exacting at- tention to his plantation he amassed a fortune from cotton and at the same time read widely in his brother's ex- cellent library. There he found the best English magazines, the leading American newspapers and the English classics. He read, too, political philos- ophy, political economy and public law. This unlimited range in reading made him later a remarkably able public speaker. It was during this period that Davis determined upon his_political course. He was a Democrat, a States’ rights man and a follower of Calhoun in preference to Jackson. It is not the purpose of this paper to follow his life closely. Rather is it to show the influences that shaped him | to his event and to dwell upon some of his statesmanlike efforts while he was serving the Government of the United States, for he was drawn into th::. service and performed his work well. During Davis’ first session as a mem- ber of the House of Representatives he resigned to lead a regiment of volun- teers from Mlslssippl into Mexico. His old West Point training came into play, and he drilled his men to the degree that made him unpopular with them. He was ever the martinet, He served gallantly in Mexico, especially at Mon- terey and Buena Vista. In the latter engagement his father-in-law, Gen. Taylor, advised him to leave the fleld, | 50 badly wounded was he, but he re- mained all that day with his men. In 1847 Davis was appointed to fill out a term in the Senate. This was followed by an elected term in the same body, but he resigned in 1851, only to be re-elected in 1857, serving until his State seceded from the Unmion, in 1861. As Senator, he was the leader of the Southern Democrats, taking the place made vacant by Calhoun. ‘When Plerce ran for the presidency, so active was Davis in his cause in Mississippl and other Southern States that Plerce carried the vote there. Davis was rewarded by beln{ made Secretary of War, There was little or no -objection to this .?polntmem, for it | was openly conceded - that Davis, by training and mrou,h experience, was excellent material for this office. It should be added that the President was under the influence of this Secre- . tary of War to the extent that it was »id that anything that Davis desired ‘cree would grant. Like all exaggera- , the statement contained its “leus of truth. In the activities of this man as War retary lies much of his unques- claim to statesmanship. If , it is scarcely remembered that was given direction of extend- the Capitol of the United States. end his architects planned and r.»d the execution of the Senate and House wings of the pment' l;;n-ne( It is o he was under the command of Col. interest to yemember that when Lin- Zachary Taylor, and began in that coln was inaugerated the now THE NEW STATUE OF JEFFER AUGUSTUS DAVIS, CARVED IN LUKEMAN, MARBLE BY cent dome was a growing thing under a mass of scaffolding. et For years, on the face of one of the stones in Cabin John Bridge appeared the name of Davis, for his efforts had thrown that then broadest arch in the world across its valley, but Con- gress decided to remove it. Time has taught us gentler acts, and the name of Davis has been restored to its place on the bridge. With * characteristic thoroughness Dayis began to institute needed reforms in the Army. He secured for both offi- cers and privates an increase in pay, | th for living expenses had increased 40 per cent, while wages had remained stationary. He enlarged the standing Army and he adopted the most proved equipment in arms and ammu- nition that the period afforded. Addi- tional forts and arsenals were erected and the Signal Corps service was per- fected, Lee was at this time superintendent of West Point, s0 Davis, through him, had a thorough investigation of that institution and its eurriculum made, with the result that both were im- proved so that our national military academy was sald to be the equal of simil Institutio in w' mhr ution anywhere ‘ With Washington, Jefferson and Jackson, Davis was an empire builder in dream and in plan, even if condi- tions interrupted his schemes. In his day the question of transportation was as yet unsolved. New States were gradually pushin goods had difficult and expensive pas- sage through the mountains to the Eastern coast. A raflroad from Mem- phis to Charleston through Montgom- ery and Atlanta was already under way, and a second one ‘was planned ugh Jackson to Mobile. These en- deavors set Davis ‘)llnnln(,l road from Memphis to California. The roads would join the South and the West and would "be adequate to handle trade diverted down to the South instéad of going to the East. In order to carry out his plan, it was necessary to send groups of engineers along the three possible routes to Cali- forn! Much information of the new West was thus accurately obtained and laid before the members of Conj ‘The route most fayored was that extreme South, ing with difficulty through New Mexico, an obstacle easily avoided by the purchase of land lx:n[ to the south and known as the Burchase, which was Westward and their | gress. to the | pi ob- to. prevent that tained from Mexico by Gadsden for $10,000,000. Co-existent with that- nation-de- veloping plan, there ran another which our modern times is seeing carried to success. It was nothing less than the dream of securing protectorates over Central America and parts of Nica- rauga. Cuba had at first been in- cluded in this vision of wider bound- arles for the United States, but that dream was shattered in the flasco of the Ostend manifesto. Davis saw clearly enough that travelers and car- goes of commerce made their chosen | passage to the Pacific through Nica- rauga. It was one of nature’s routes and the line of a future railroad or canal. Through & man named Walker, who furnished American forces to aid a revolution in that country, Davis came close to realizing his aim, but events came to pass that frustrated, not only this scheme to create a sphere of influence to the south, but also that great plan of arterial rail building to the west. In all these matters the North had volced its opposition, on the ground that “the fulfillment of such plans meant the inevitable extension of slav- ery, but this objection would in time have been skillfully met and nullified, as had similar enterprises once vigor- ously denounced, had Douglas not !opened the whole question of slavery | by his Kansas-Nebraska bill. A sort of tacit agreement had been reached by the whole country with the Compromise of 1850, and that agreement never to {bring up the question of slavery again had been violated by this insistent volce that would organize that vast area known as Nebraska on the principle of squatter sovereignty. This new bill had an amendment in it which repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, a sacred pledge in the eyes of the North. Strange as it may seem, since Davis did not like Douglas, it was left for Davis to secure a special hearing with Plerce so that Douglas could persuade the President to agree to this amend- ment. This was in 1854, and so far-reaching were its ‘consequences as to include the nullifying of all the wide imperialistic I schemes of Plerce and Davis. No addi- ‘tional territory by nature favorable to slavery could now be added when the great Nebraskan area was open to the Islave and no project to weld by facile |transportation the West and South could be permitted while the Northwest | was open fo the aggrandizement of the South. It was a period of bitter re- jcrimination, with = Douglas probably bidding for the presidency. The debates in Congress and the articles in the press centered on but one subject—the re- nounced _and never-to-be-discussed- again subject of the extension of slavery. And Davis, who loved the Union in spite of his allegiance to the doctrine of State’s rights, was the instrument of this destructive force for his construc- tive scheme of consolidation and pro- | | | 'the momentous act in the whole cabinet career of Davis. Had he omitted this, he might have gone down in history as a sta n of large and humane Dlllnl-—n bullder, indeed, of & vast em- re. By 1856 Davis was again in the Sen- . _The country was on the brink of civil war, and a committee was appointed to draw up a compromise disaster, Davis was tectorate. No doubt this bringing of | forgettable Douglas into the presence of Pierce was | House of Commons, even as Davis is to Walked in Dignity in Characte a member of that group, but before their plan was completed South Caro- lina had seceded, and when Mississippi followed her sister State out of the Union, Davis resigned from the Senate. In due time the South turned to Davis to direct their newly organized republic, for he was their natural lead- er, trained in the science of war at West Point, experienced as a leader of men on the field of battle and a states- man of recognized ability. He had hoped for amicable settlement between the North and the South, and he ac- cepted secession only as a last neces- sity. He believed in a policy of de- fense only; he and his government would not invade the North. They asked only to be left to themselves. If the inhuman institution of slavery had not been of the very texture of their government, Davls would have se- cured England’s recognition and assist- ance to the sure end of victory. As it was, without foreign aid, with con- stantly diminishing army and supplies of war, his inimitable, Lee was fighting, in spite of victories a losing battle against the North, with her wealth of supplies and her ever-renewed strength through fresh troops. And when the South went down to defeat the weight of war's hysteria fell upon the ruler of that South and he became for them their martyr. What- ever of error was his, whatever of weak- ness, was forgiven, was forgotten, and he became for them once more a hero {;fider who was vicariously suffering for en. The gallant Lee could seek to regain his citizenship under the flag he had Iserved for so many faithful years, and | could, being denied that boon, without |bll,!,crn!ss and in humble service, round out his days; but Davis could not, and would not, because of an otd pride and as old a stubbornness, ask for any such clemency, and he could as his days ran toward their close write a history in which he criticized the generals who iserved him so successfully, Is the test of & man's character his behavior in defeat? The years now have run a full decade past the half-century mark since that mighty conflict and thoughtless chil- dren no longer sing as they play, “Hang Jeft Davis to the sour apple tree,” and adults grown from these same friendly children will look upon this newest ad- dition to Statuary Hall with something of complacence. Cromwell overthrew all | the British government and his soldiers destroyed much property, yet Cromwell in all his solid mastery stands in un- marble just outside the stand now among the makers of our history. And he, too, looks like a mas- ter of men, fearless, stanch, proud, in- domitable, asking no quarter and giving none. ‘This excellent carving in marble is by Augustus Lukeman, whose peculiar gift is the reproduction of the quality of the thing portrayed, be it the texture of broadeloth or the caliber of a man’s soul. Mr, Lukeman is engaged at the . A Martyr of Lost Southern Cause Who to Defeat Is Likened r to Lincoln. present time in cutting rrom the living rock at Atlanta a study of Davis, a part of the martial frieze that shall record on Stone Mountain the valor of South= ern arms. A Census of Pests. IT is probable that few persons save naturalists ever consider the enor- mous amount of life other than human which exists in any locality, civilized or not, densely peopled or thinly settled. A plague of rats in London within recent years prompted an interview with a distinguished scjentist, who esti- mated that within the area of greater London there were 20,000,000 rats, more than three times as many rats as people. Sparrows undoubtedly come next in point of numbers among London’s warm-blooded population, but the scientist preferred to make his esti- mate cover all the birds in the United Kingdom. He believed that the bird population would average 800 to the square mile. That would give a total of nearly 97,000,000. Thus the bird population outnumbers the human by something like two,to one. As for the insect population, that is quite beyond any statistician. But, allowing that each bird eats only 50 insects a day, British birds would con- sume more than a billion insects in & year. Yet such an estimate seems quite futile when we consider that the insect population of a single cherry tree infested with aphides was esti- mated by a competent authority to be 12,000,000 Lord Avebury once calculated that a single ants’ nest might contain as many as 400,000 individual insects. Recent re- searches have shown that these fig- ures were too high; yet the actual facts are astonishing enough. A French entomologist killed the ants in five hills by means of a poisonous gas and undertook the prodigious labor of counting the dead. The result showed that in the smallest hill there were nearly 18,000 ants; in the largest 94,000, and no man would dare esti~ mate how many ants escaped. . |Woman Flyer Needs l Only Street Dress ‘You really don't have to dress up like a lady from Mars or deep-sea diver when you go flying, even in Winter time, and the special costumes for those who travel by air that were launched s few seasons ago now look as absurd and as uncalled for to the woman woo is a professed flyer as the automobile costumes that were launched when horseless carriages first came Into e istence would look to the modern girl Wwho drives her own car. Amelia Earhart recently made the statement that -the customary. street costume, with a small, close-fit! hat, would do very nicely for any /