Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, July 13, 1902, Page 26

] THE [LLUSTRATED BEE. Published Weekly by The Bee Publishing Company, Bee Building, Omaha, Neb, Entered at the Omaha Postoffice Ulass Mall Matter. ;‘rT(;t,filc pe; copy—per year, $2.00. cond For advertising r;(e- ld'll’éfl!’pl‘lh‘"‘lh?r, Communications relating to photographs or articles for publication should be ad- dressed. “BEditor The Iiustrated e, Omaha.” Pen and Picture Pointers MAHA'S proposed auditorium has advanced to the cornerstone lay- ing stage, the exerclises of July 6 being of a public and impressive nature. During the summer a large amount of work has been done, and the extensive foundation for the b'g build- ing is now practically complete. Senator SAMUEL GOMFERS, PRESIDENT AMER- ICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR. Millard was the principal crator at the ceremony, but others took part in the af- fair, which was witnessed by many thou- sands of people. bt Samuel Gompers, who visited the city during the early part of the week, is one of the best known of labor lead:rs in the United States, if not in the world. HEN Sir Henry Irving was on his last visit to this country he one afternoon visited a swell Balti- more theater during an after- noon performance of ‘“Du Barry.” Passing the stage door he noticed a couple of pickaninnies walting there for admit- tance and, his curlosity being excited, he accosted them and Inquired what they might be doing there. ‘“Please, boss,'” replied one of them, a coal-black urchin of about 10, “‘we'se actors.” “Indeed,” sald Sir Henry, his stern fea- ures relaxing Into a smile, “and what part do you play? The little son of Ethlope drew himself up proudly. “I'se de footstcol for Mrs. Leslis Carter,” he announced gravely, ‘“an’ Andy, he pours de coffy.” Sir Henry, having bestowed a gratuity upon these youthful members of the pro- fesslon, went on his way, musing deeply on the glories of the drama. —— The recent illness of Attorney General Knox created a great deal of uneas'ness in official circles, and the members of his family were especlally anxlous. Mr. Knox had gone northward, accompanied by a physician, who is a personal friend. He sent no word to his home as to the progress of h's recovery, but after leaving Fort Monroe for New York he sent a mere no- tice of his change in address from the Virginia resort to New Rochelle. Two days later Reed Knox, the attorney gen- eral's son, who is familiarly known as “Judge,” walked Into the office ¢f Mr. Long, the private secretary of Mr. Knox, with a Joyful smile on h's face. “I know the governor’'s all right now,” sald young Mr. Knox. ‘“How do you know {t?" asked Mr. Long. “I know it because he telegraphed from New Rochelle today for his golf shoes and clubs. I reckon vacation will soon be over for the beef trus And it was. At a meeting of the American Dramatic club Dean Hart, who wrote “The Parish Priest,” told this story: “You know I am a hayseed, and live with my father, an Irishman, 70 years of age, on a farm on the outskirts of Wilkesbarre. One day, not long ago, the old man sald to me: “‘Dan, me bye, you're doin’ nuthin’, sup- THE Mr. Gompers is a clgarmaker by trade, and had attained cons derable prominence in the Cigarmakers’ union before he became identified with the American Federation of Labor, which or- ganization he has made remarkably suc- cessful. In his leadership he has profited by mistakes made by others who sought to weld all bedies of organized labor into one homogeneous mass, and has not undertaken the impossible. Instead of a union such as the Knights of Labor proposed, wherein all classes of labor should be controlled by a common set of rules, the American Federation of Labor provides for auton- omous existence of trades unions, closely affiliated with the federation. Unskilled laborers are formed into local unions, which have charters direct from the feder- ation. Thus Mr. Gompers secures a co- operation of forces without conflict of in- terest, thus avoiding the rocks on which Mr. Terrence V. Powderly’s Knights of Labor ship went down. Just at present Mr. Gompers is very much interested in affairs in Colorado, where a schism has o>- curred and a rival organization, known as the Western Federation, or the American Labor union, has threatened his prestige. It is in hope that he will be able to quell the insurrection in the ranks and bring all back into the fold of the American Feder- ation of Labor that he is now in Colorado. Nebraska grows windmills. Almost every farmer in the state has a windmill. Some day the rainmaker, finding himself out of a job, may devise a scheme for harnessing the famous Nebraska zephyr on a wholesale plan, and when he does he will have a power compared with which the falls of Niagara will be puny. Meanwhile the Ne- braska farmer gets back at the wind for blowing dust in his eyes by making it pump water for his stock. The ordinary wind- mill of commerce {8 made of steel and wood and costs $100, and there are others, again, that cost nothing, save some old scrap lumber and metal and the time necessary for putting them together intelligently. The windmill of Chris Kresha, a Merrick county farmer, comes under this head. This ingenious device, which is located on Mr. Kresha's farm, three miles northwest of Silver Creek, is made of an old buggy wheel, barrel staves and some cottonwood poles grown on the place. The wheel Is fastened to the axle and the latter is “sway- backed” so that when the wheel turns the axle swings with a crank motion, thereby moving the pump rod up and down. It will be noticed that this home-made windmill has no tail, so that it cannot follow the wind to all of the cardinal points; it will run only when the wind is in the north or s uth—which it nearly always is in Ne- breska. The mill's average is six work days a week, and it pumps water for nine head of cattle. Another home-made windmill, mere original and almost as quaint as its pleturesque Dutch prototype, is the ‘‘go- devil,” a fine.e.ample of which is in a south- ern suburb of Beaver City, Furnas county. Like Mr. Kresha's mill, this one is ef- fective only in a north or south wind, but when the conditions are favorable it will ILLUSTRATED BEE. How the Nebraska Farmer Harnesses the Prairie Winds WINDMILL, MADE OF BARREL STAVES AND A BUGGY WHEEL. develop power enough to run a small feed- grinding machine. It is built on the prin- ciple of the overshot water wheel, the lower half of it being boxed, so that the wind strikes only the upper fans. When the owner desires to stop it he ‘“‘lariats” it by throwing a rope over one of the fans and tying the free end to a tree. e H. M. Powers, ex-county treasurcr of Polk county, is somethiag of a kodak flend. He has taken hundreds of pictures, but the happlest shot he ever made was In Osceola at the Fourth of July celebration. A big balloon was being inflated preparatory to an ascension. Mr. Powers had his camera trained upon it, expecting to take a picture just as the aeronaut shot up into the alir, but at the critical moment an accident happened, which so frightened him that he touched the button intuitively, thereby get- ting a picture of a balloon explosion instead of a commonplace balloon ascension. i fanse Unusually heavy rains during June and July have soaked the west and places that are commonly dry are now lakes or .quag- mires. One feature of the downpour has been the vast amount of trouble caused the railroads by damage done to their tracks. Every road in the west has suffered more or less from interruption of traffic due to this cause. At Omaha the Union Pacific has been the worst afflicted, a large por- tion of the immense embankment that car- ries the tracks running onto the big bridge over the Missouri river sliding away one morning during the week. Traffic was not stopped, for only three of the many tracks in the depot yards were involved in the slide, but the large amount of earth and sand involved in the break and the great labor that will be necessary to repair It makes the matter one decidedly expensive for the road to bear. The illustrations in this number were made from photographs taken within a short time after the slide occurred. “GODEVIL."” WHAT HAPPENS TO A BALLOON SOMETIMES—FINE EXAMPLE OF AN UNEXPECTED SNAPSHOT. Gleanings from the Story Tellers’ Pack pose ye come out an’ give me a hand puttin’ up that fence.’ * ‘Father,’ sald I, ‘T don't know anything about building fences.’ “‘Well, I guess you can’'t spoil it much, 8o come along.’ “I nailed on boards indifferently well. On the hillside, just above us, was a Hungarian miner practicing with a revolver, apparently rehears'ng for the next strike. Directly a bullet came crashing through the fence just beside me. “‘Good Lord, father, that fellow is shoot- Ing at me,” I shouted. “ ‘Never molind, Dan,’ sald he, he's seen one of yer plays.'"” <.>_._ At a little dinner the other night, reports the New York Tribune, a wager was lald that Marshall P. Wilder, the entertainer, could not tell fifty parrot stories in suc- cession. He dld it without turning a feather, and so many of them were new that the man who came away and told about it could remember only one. It was of the parrot which escaped through a window and perched in a tree. The owner's efforts to capture it, even with a butterfly net, were in vain. He stood at the bottom of the tree, swearing at the bird, when an Irishman came along. ““What is the matter?”’ demanded Pat. “I can't catch that darned bird,” sald the man, “‘and here is a dollar for the man who can.” “lI am the man,” started up the tree. As he climbed from branch to branch the parrot did the same. Finally they neared the top and the branches began to wabble dangerously. The parrot was moved to speech. ‘perhaps cried Pat, and he “What the devil do you want?' it de- manded. “I beg your pardon,” ecried Pat, already half way down the tree. was a bird." “I thought you When Dr, Blank of Fourteenth street, who isn’'t the most patient of men at any season of the year, goes away for a vaca- tion, relates the Washington Post, nothing infuriates him so much as the sight of an invalid. A month ago he went to Atlantic City for a few days rest and he had no sooner settled himself for a brief time of being an ordinary mortal than a chronic patient of his appeared on his horizon. He endured her complaints all one day iIn silence, but the next morning she accosted him while he was smoking his cigar on the veranda after breakfast. I will say in her defense that she isn't married and she hasn’t a father, so she didn't know what ehe was doing when she broke in on a man’s smoke. “‘Oh, doctor,” sald she, “I do wish you'd tell me what to do. I just can’t sleep at all. Why, last night I didn't once close my eyes.”” The doctor glared at her. “I didn’t close an eye,” she went cn. do wish you'd tell me what to do." The doctor glared again. “Good Lord, madam,” he thundered, ‘“try closing your eyes. How on earth do you expect to sleep if you don’t?" —n In a speech in London the other day Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman told an admir- able story of the advice given by an Eng- lishman, a Scotchman and an Irishman respectively to a gentleman whose servant was constantly breaking articles in the household. The Englishman said to the employer: ‘“Oh, get rid of him—dismiss him.” The Scotchman’s advice was: ‘“‘Stop the money out of his wages.” ‘‘But,” sald the master, “he breaks more than his wages amount to.” ‘“Then,” sald the Irish- man, “raise his wages.” weusil The party in the smoking room of the steamer was falking of Irish wit and the quickness thereof, says the New York Trib- une. Several gave personal experiences, and one man, to his sorrow, tried to use an old story. Then spoke the agent for an exporting house. “I was coming up the South American coast on a sailing ship last winter,” he sald, “when this happened. There was a Norwegian in the crew who was abs>lutely fearless aloft. He dld a number of tricks for us one afterncon, and as a grand finale stood on his head on top of the malnmas*, We held our breaths until he swung him- self back into the rigging. “ ‘I would like to see any of you do that,’ he boasted when he reached the deck “ ‘I can do it said a little Irishman, one of the kind who will never be ‘stumped.’ ‘I can do it," and forthwith he started up the mast. ““We could see from the way he climbed that he knew nothing of moving about aloft, and the captain yelled at him through the megaphone to come down before he killed himself. He howled back that he was going to stand on his head first. He reached the crosstrees and was actually putting his heels into the air, when the ship rolled and down he came. We held our breaths again. “Fortunately he struck in the sag of a loose sail, bounded off and lit on the deck on his feet. “‘I'd like to see any of you do that,” he cried, even before he had recovered from the shock. ‘I'd like to see you!'" —_—— A story of Abraham Lincoln would have to be older than the one below to lose its characteristic savor. In the summer of 1857 Mr, Lincoln was sitting in his office, when he was visited by one of his neighbors, an excellent farmer, but one inclined to increase the size of his crops, even after harvesting. He had given on this particular morning a skillfully padded account of the hay he had put in. “I've been cutting hay, too,” remarked Mr. Lincoln. “Why, Abe, are you farming?" “Yes.” “What do you raise?” “Just hay."” ““Good crop this year?"’ ‘“Excellent.” ‘“How many tons?"’ “Well, I don’t know just how many tons, Simpson, but my men stacked all they could outdoors and then stored the rest in the barn.” TGN The elder Booth acquired a skull for use in Hamlet in an odd maner, according to a story in Seen and Heard. The tragedian, somewhat in his cups, was traveling near Louisville, when he took a horse from a fleld and rode off with it. Horse stealing at that time was a capital offense in Ken- tucky and the greatest horse thief was a man named Fontaine. Booth was soon overtaken and when asked where he got the animal, said: “I captured him in a fleld back here.” ‘‘Indeed!" sald one of the farmers. “‘And what might your name be?” “My name is Fontaine,” said Booth, with- out a smile. “Fontaine!"” ejaculated both men simul- taneously. “Then you are the very man we want. Come back to town with us.” “Certainly,” said Booth, in the most good ANOTHER HOME-MADE WINDMILL July 13, 1902, KNOWN AS A natured manner, and, wheeling the horse, he rode back to Louisville with his captors. The city jaii was then in charge of a Colonel Thomas, who knew Booth well. ‘““We have brought you Fontaine, the horse thief, and claim the reward,” said the farm- ers, proudly, addressing the jailer, ‘““Where is he?’ they were asked. Booth was produced. ‘“Why, what does this mean, Mr. Booth?"” asked Thomas. “I haven't the slightest idea,” said the great tragedian, with the utmost simplicjty. “I met these two men with this horse a they insisted upon giving it to me. I guess they stole it. I think one of them is Fon- taine.” The rustics were about to be locked up, when, by the most singular coincidence, a man rushed to the prison door on horse- back and shouted out the information that the real Fontaine had been taken into cus- tody. Booth made Fontaine's acquaintance in jail and the horse thief, who was exe- cuted later, left by will his skull to the actor, e — Eugene Ware, the new pension commis- sioner, is having experiences which shake the complacency with which he entered upon his position. “I am convinced,” said Mr. Ware, shortly after taking the office, ‘“‘that if one will not get angry and will bear patiently with the old soldiers, who are more or less cranky, he can get along with- out friction of a very annoying kind.” A week later Ware returned to Topeka to settle up some private business. At once his office became the mecca of pilgrims, who came not to worship but to demand. A sniveling specimen of humanity, who probably never served outside of the com- missary department, was persistent in de- manding a pension. There was something about his clalm that he couldn't prove. “Get some afiidavits from your wife and children,” sald Ware. ‘“Well, you see, colo- nel,” said the man, “I kinder ran off and left my wife and children and I don't know where they are.” ‘“Ran off and left your famlly!"” snorted Ware. “Well, you mean scoundrel, get out of thie office before 1 drop you down the elevator, and don't you ever show your ugly face around here again!” And thus the new pension commis- sloner gave evidence of that long suffering patience which is to conquer for him those paths of peace.