Evening Star Newspaper, February 3, 1929, Page 54

12 AROUND THE CITY BY NANNIE MAN got off a train at the Union Station, sprinted over the concourse and out to the track, where he took a car, seated himself in a corner, tucked his suit case under his feet, pulled a book from the pocket of his slicker—and was Jost to the world. For him the passen- gers around had no existence, but— It was different with a girl across. She was a pretly girl with a blush in her giggle, as she said to the woman with her: “Wouldn't he make a fine actor, Miss Julie?” Miss Julie was a lady of lumpy con- f. tour who couldn’t [’ look pretty to save her life. She seem- ed to know it and not care. “I reckon he makes a better drummer——" “I think he'd be grand in the movies —and he must have a gorgeous time traveling around and around as if he were a top and the earth was just a place for him to spin on—and his tags are thrilling, aren’t they? The yellow one is Boston, and the blue one is New York, and—I can't make out that other blue one, can you?” Miss Julie didn't try. Her glasses were hooked on a hillock of black cloth that was coat, and she had packages in one hand and a bag handle over her arm. “It must be perfectly exciting to get on a car and act so that everybody will stare at you, mustn't it?"” “Well, if that’s your ambition, all you got to do is to cut some red and blue labels off a raflroad poster and paste them on a suit case—your clothes will do, and the cars are always handy.” “Now, Miss Julie—-" and the girl's giggle was a joyous thing to hear. “Of course, I'd want to go to places. Oh, dear me, I get so tired of tagging to office every day and coming back the same old road, as if I was of no more account than a horse in a milk wagon. Don't you wish this was a Pullman and everybody was going to some far-off place instead of to a Government office or department store? Let's shut our eyes a minute and make ‘believe we are traveling and traveling and traveling— I'm on my way to Hollywood by way of the Rockies—won't you join me, Miss Julie?” Miss Julie must have had a tender heart for youth hidden in the right place under her bulky contour, for her eyes sparkled understanding of its divine foolishness, and her tongue voiced happy co-operation: “Sorry, honey, but you will have to meke the trip alone—I'm leaving you here for Chicago.” And the stout and eminently respect- ,able lady got out before the Treasury Building. Foolish chatter, of course, but it was the way a woman and a girl talked while riding on a street car. And life, we are assuted by a certain, though long-gone, poetical school teacher, is made up of small things— “Little drops of water, little grains «of sand—" * ¥ % ¥ WHILE Sister Maryland is making up her mind to exchange hanging for lethal gas, such as Nevada has intro- duced, you might take a neighborly in- terest in hearing a bit about the way that State treats her criminals, gen- erally, from a Washington woman who spent a little time at her 3tate Prison, some years ago. This prison—like the heavenly man- sions of Scripture—was not made by hands. It was originally a mountain of volcanic stone and boiling water, which had been shaved at the top and quar- ried out and hewed around into one of the ‘most impregnable strongholds in- side of history or out. But a horseshoe of hope hangs over the entrance. Which puts Nevada one over Dante! In excavating under 40 feet of stone a pick found a human bone that corre- sponded in size to gigantic footprints that track the vast inner court, at dou- ble the normal stride. They were made by a man 12 feet tall. The guard who was showing the woman through told her so. And he looked as if he knew. Scientists from the Smithsonian In-|i} stitution—again quoting the guard— explain that the stratum of petrified clay was once the bed of a stream— which you could see for yourself, be-|f} cause of the claw prints of water fowl and the deep-bedded, close together tread of some mammoth with feet the size and shape of a tub. “We consider this"—guard speaking— *“the most humane prison in America. A convict doesn’t lose his identity when he comes here, but keeps his name in- stead of going by a number—a shame that eats into a fellow’s nerve. our |t system enccurages the men to make good records, because when freedom comes they know Nevada will give them | a fresh chance. “Out in this country we give a man credit for redeeming himself, instead of everlastingly reminding him of his falls. Here is something you never saw be- New Price Reduction on VICTROLA RADIOLA Was $250 —Now 185 Complete This is the power- ful all-electric radio combined with the Victrola to make com- plete entertainment possible. In hand- somely designed cab- inet. *10 Delivers It! Tae Hecar Co. 1| alds the coming of the first robin and LANCASTER. fore in a place of this sort (covered-un=- der bathing 1 that looks like a quar- ter acre of glass roofed over by unquar- ried stone). “This natural stream of hot water has to be tempered by water piped from outside, for we don’t grow cold water of our own. Many of our boys spend most of their playtime in the water; nothing like a hot plunge after break- ing stone. “Some men are here for selling whisky to Indians—good men, under- | stand, who will turn into fine citizens when they get their chance. Along | with them we have stage robbers, bank breakers and two poor chaps in the lit- tle deathhouse outside waiting to be hanged. But a rope is barbarous pun- ishment, and we are looking for some- thing more humane.” It is cheerful out in the big court with the hot-water fountain in the mid- dle and the glassy pool under its dome of rock. Inside there are grim iron doors, sleeping bunks as narrow as graves and floor gratings that give sinister hints of cells beneath—and gone-mad nerves. Armed sentinels patrol the top of the walls, and blood- hounds are forever waiting on the out- side grass—“imported” grass kept in trim by trusties. Nevada's most des- perate outlaw—maybe you have heard of Tracy, who killed himself rather than be hunted to cover—makes you know that no convict may hope to es- cape from Nevada’s State Prison, and yet, Lord love her, she keeps a horse- shoe over the door. Having at last determined that gas was more merciful than either rope or chair, the prison commissioners fixed up a little room at one side of the build- ing, and as the time approached for the first criminal—a Chinese—to meet deati he was placed in the lethal chamber, and at some hour while he slept, or sat, or walked about, the law turned on the gas. And what happened next to that criminal Nevada will never know. * Kk ok K A MAN said, the other night—on a platform—that the pessimist is al- ways among those present. For one thing, you can always spot him by his fear of the flu. By that token an optimist is a pleas- ant individual to run across—unless he tries to put silver linings in your own pet seamy sides, but, anyhow, it doesn't matter—an optimist is a pleasant in- dividual to run across—especially on a gloomy day. One came in an office the other day— a day that was cold, with a razor-sharp wind and a general undercurrent of sneezes that betokened the world was getting the flu. You could tell she was an optimist because, after thawing un- der the influence of a hot radiator, she unbuttoned her coat and frankly yawned: “I feel so weary—— Spring fever, I guess.” Not the flu, with its sinister sugges- tions of a funeral, with the weather too bad for your friends to see you to the frozen churchyard—but Spring fever, the luxurious languor that her- the first sappy greensward that pierces the warming earth to make way for the first jonquil—and yet—— A man said the other night—on a platform—that he had never seen an optimist for the reason that an opti- mist does not exist. We are either pessimists or half-and-half mixtures. Which shows that he never met the Spring-fever lady who came in an of- fice the other afternoon. —_— Yale foot ball has entered the ranks of big business, its profits in the last year having been $543,084.76 out of gross receipts of $1,033,211. e ' A Special 4 Community Dinner ’ Today The Highlands Cafe § ’ Connecticut . 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