Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, January 23, 1910, Page 19

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Y. u D N OMAHMA schoolmaster stood with his small nephew before the reading room door of the Public Library a few days ago and, nodding toward a head of snow white hair bowed aver the librariun's desk, sald to the child: “That woman used to give me books when I was no larger than you are.”” And there are hundreds, yes, thousands of Omaha men and women who might say the same thing to thelr children today of Miss Margaret (FBrien, who will complete her twenty- fifth year of service In the Omaha Public Hbrary next Wednesdny, 8o clowely hax she been identified with the organigation through the years of Its growth and de- velopment that to ita patrons, old and young, her genlal face crowned with a wealth of snowy white halr is more fa- miliar than any other and fis nssoclated With the library as a part of the insti- tution itself. “The Library led By this appels tion sho Is known to thousands who have not known Uer by name and it was esti mated by a member of Omgha's Ploneer assoclation recently that she has bowing acquaintance at lemst with more peuple than any other one person in town. But in spite of her twenty-five years of service and her white hair, Miss O'Brien Is far from bheing a camdiddte for the pensioner's clasa. She is anly beginning to enter middle Iife. Her abundant hafr has been white since childhodd and, like her keen gray eves, s a family feature. And there is that in her alert face and the suggestion of a smile lurking at the eorners of her mouth that bespeak a na- ture and a heart that will never grow old even when those lines that mark every serious face become deepened with age. Tt was when the library was housed in the old Willlams' block at Fifteenth and Dodge streets that Miss O’Brien entered the employ of the city, and her service has been uninterrupted since. She had been teaching for a short time in Jefferson pre- cinct of this county and upon the advice of Judge James W. Savage, a family friend and at that time a member of the library board, she made application for a position As an assistant librarian, At that time the Lastitution boasted two employes, of whom Mlss Mary P Allen, as Mbrartan, was the superior. “It was early Monday morning, January 26, 1885, sald Miss O'Brien, “that I got a card from Miss Allen telling me to come BW YORK, Jan, 22.—There is a door in a Fourth avenue build- ing which has all the hall marks of shipping department doors in general—battered side posts, polished iron chutes, boxes on the sidewalk marked with names that seem to have been taken haphasard from a gazetteer. Husky truckmen are cohtinually ®oIng In and out and through the dusty windows the heads may be seen of clerks checking off lists. It is one of & thousand doors which would to a casual passerby seem devoted to the same purpose. But there Is a special name attached to this particular door. This is the Door of & Million Bibies. Out of this door each year & million Bibles pass to be distributed through the world. The rumor that a conditional gift of $00,- 000 from Mrs. Russell Sage awalts the ac- tlon of the Bible soclety in raising a sim- flar amount is affirmed by one of the of- ficlals, but that any rigld time limit has been placed upon it he dentes. “'Mrs. Sage has been very considerate,” he says, "and appreciating the difficulty at- tendant upon the task has extended the boundary of the period to a generous fu- ture."” Already large sums have been recetved from the various agencles about the coun- try to be added to the fund which Is being raised, It takes approximatey $600,000 to pay the expenses of the souiety each year, and the $1,000,000 that the officials expect to vecelve through Mrs. Sage's gift will be considered In the light of a nestegg, some- thing to depend om in the case of financial depressions and & consequent slacking up of contributions. onty O Book. It was Sir Walter Scott who in his last lliness, after asking a friend to read aloud to him and hearing the interrogation as to the book desired, sald, “Thers is only one.” As to this “only one” there ls, according to the statistics of the American Bible so- olety, no evidence that the interest of the human family has lapsed into indifference. A record of approximately 90,000,000 volumes in elghty years speaks eloquently to the contrary. ““The sociéty was first housed in a small bullding on Nassau street, in a room about the size of one of the secretaries' sanc- tums of today, with its walls lined with down to the library and begin work at once, and I whs pretty happy when 1 pre- sented myself. My teacher's certificate served as a substitute for an examination, #0 It was possible for me to begin immedi- ately. It was a modest little library then, too, compared with our present splendid in- atitutt “It occupled a part of the second floor of the Willlams block, but when the third story was added we moved upstairs, and we felt we had expanded greatly. The HE 111l tish board at that time Mmcluded Judge James W. Savage, president; Willlam Wallace, vice president; Louls 5. Reed, secrétary; G V. Gallagher, R. L. Perrine, James M. Ross, John T. Bell, H. P. Lewls and Miss Elizabeth Poppleton, now Mrs. Shannon. Of these members, Mr. Reed alone ha continued on the board, and 1 was sin- cerely sorry when il health compelled his resignation & short time ago. For a time Wwe remalned in the Willlams block, and then came a notable change. We moved OMAHA SUNDAY BEE LOGOOOODCOSOUUGO00 MARGARET O'BRIEN. into the Falconer block at Fifteenth and Douglas, the portion now occupied by the Kllpatrick dry goods house. We had the twd upper floors, the lower being used as a reading room and the top floor for the circulating library. At that time the col- lection included 13,120 books and magazines and was the most complete-of any In this section of the west. We were very proud of it. About this time Miss Jessle Allen, JANUARY 2 Margaret O'Brien’s Quarter of a Century in the Omaha Pu then assistant to her sister, accepted a po- sition In Washington, D. C., and 1 was ap- pointed to her place, and later, upon mo- tlon of John Bell, was formally appointed assistant librartan. This was May 8 1886, “The next important epoch in the history of the library was Its.removal to the third floor of the Paxton bloek in January, 1888, Shortly before that Miss Mary Allen haa resigned her position as librarian and her sister, Miss Jessie, was recalled from Washington to succeed her. Our new quarters were a great improvement the old. The reading room was separated from the ciroulating department by a glass over partition and we had more room than ever. Bverything Indicated that the popularity of the Institution had grown apace with the collection, and we began to dream of a home of our own, a building that should be equipped for our needs. “In April of 1587 the board realizing the necessity of doing something to improve the system, hired Charles Fvans, formerly blic Library of the Indianapolis library, to recatalogus our books. This also meant reclassitying and renumbering, and most of the books wore card catalogued. The gatalogue and finding Nets were lssued In 1388 And then our dream of a bullding of our ewn came true. 1 used to pass the new bullding every day going to and from my work and [ watched it with every bit as much in< terest as If it had been my own. Finally we moved in, and almost everyone will re- member our grand opening reception July 4 184 And now I am completing my twenty-fifth year of service.” At various times Miss O'Brien has as- sumed the dufles of librartan for several months at a time. When il health neves sitated Miss Allen's projonged absence Miss O'Brien took her place, and sinee Miss KAith Tobitt became librarian Miss O'Brien has acted in her place during trips abroad and on other occasions when her absence was enforced. In September, 1805, Miss O'Brien assumed charge of the reading room, the medioal library and the collee= tion of government publications, which po- sition she still holds. Miss O'Brien is a daughter of the late General and Mrs. George Morgan O'Brien, who were among Omaha's early residents. She has been identified with lbrary work and library extension in Nebraska for many years, and has the distinction of having glven the first paper before: the first an- nual meeting of the Nebraska Library as- sociation, which was held at Lincoln in December, 189, Her subject was “The Re- lation of the Public Library to the Publia School.” For seven years she served aw treasurer of that orgenization and is at present its second vice president. She was also a member of the legislative committes of the association that worked with the clubwomen for the passage of the bill creating the state library commission. She is also a member of the American Library association and at Intervals during her mervice In the Omaha library has taken speclal training for her work. “As the years go by I begin to dream of a little fruit ranch out in Washington or some other mild climate. Just a few acres, five or ten, would ba enough to occupy my declining years,” said Miss O'Brien, with a smile. “But the margin an assistant librarian’s salary affords over living expenses Nowadays is not encourag- ing of speedy realization of such a dream-— but I will not be ready to retire from my present position for several year shelves. An officer of that early time sald that he hoped the society would prosper to the extent of having all the available space some time filled with Bibles. In 1853 the soclety moved to its present quarters after various changes of residence, the corner- stone being lald with due ceremonies on June 24, 1854, says Dr. Henry Dwight, who acted as gulde to the reporter and is at present one of the secretaries of the so- clety. ! Following him one sees' In the printing rooms men and women working together, a majority of whom have grown gray In the service. Some of the secretaries and clerks have served in the mission field, and Dr. Dwight himself has come to his quiet revolviig chair after strenuous days and nights in Turkey. Where the Board Meets. One of the most interesting places visited is the managers’ room, where board and special meetings are held. It is a fine old apartment with high wainscoted walls and paneled ceiling. Stained glass windows af- ford a mellow light and in it are portraits of men prominent in the history of the so- eclety. At one end of the reom is a fac- simile of a Chinese houseboat used to con- vey a corps of missionaries guarding some twenty tons of Bibles sent to parts of China via the great Yangtse Kiang river. The figures of the latter half of the year 1900 are not yet compiled, but the record shows that during the first six months there were #0ld in China alone some 408,000 Bibles, a total never reached before. In the salesroom of the-soclety are cases filled with duplicate copies of ariginal books and manuscripts. The fact that the bullding {8 not fireproof is the reason why the interesting collection owned by the so- clety is at present housed at the Lenox Ubrary. This collection contains editions of the Bible in more than 150 languages and diklects. Of English versions and revisions thers are approximately 5,000 volumes, ex- clusive of the manuscripts. Here you will see one of the few “Vinegar Bibles,"” Oxford, 1718, in which a printer's mistake has been immortalized, as in the “Bréeches Bible.” There Is a facsimile of the Bible printed on white satin which was presented to the empress dowager of China in 1884 by 10,00 Christian women. There 1s a copy of the Bible done into the Mon- ‘ . » oy Roosevelt's Stunts in Atriea. B WOULD breakfast at dawn and leave the farm about the time that it grew light enough to ses," writes Theodore Roose- velt Seribner's. ““Ordinarily n Our course was eastward, toward the morning ridex were very beautiful. Athi, & few miles distant. These In our was the mountain mass of Donvo Babuk, and the sun rose behind it, flood- Nk the heavens with gold and erimson The morning air blew fresh in our faces, and the unshod feet of our horses made no #ound as they trod the dew drenched grass. On every side stood to watch us, herds of hartebeests and zebras, and now and then a herd of wild beasts or a few streggiing old wildebeest bulls. Some- tmes the zebras and kongoni were very shy, and took fright when we were yet a long way off; at other times they would stand motlonless and permit us to come within falr gunshot, and after we had parsed we could see them regarding us without thelr having moved. The wilde- becsts were warler; usually when we were still a quarter of a mile or so dlstant the derd, which had been standing with heads up, their short, shaggy necks and heavy withers glving thé animals an unmistakable Jook, would take fright, and, With heavy Xurvets, and occasional running in semi- circles, would make off, heads held down #nd long talls lashing the air, “In the open wbods which marked the border between the barren plains and the forcated valley of the Athi, Kermit and 1 skot water-buck and fmpalls. The water- front me W buck is a stately antelope with long, coarse gray Ralr and fine carriage of the head #nd neck; the male alone carries horns, We found them usually in parties of ten or & dozen, both of bulls and cows; but tometimes & party of cows would o alone, \iree or four ‘bulls might be found to- “er. In spite\of its name, we did not it it much Kiven to going in the water, aithough it would cross the river fearlessly whenever it desired; it was, however, &l found not very far from wal Tt liked the woods and a1 not go many miles from the streams, yet we frequently saw it on the open plains a mile or two from trees, feeding in the vicinity of the zebra and the hartebeest. This was, however, usually quite early In the morning or quite late in the afternoon.” Gladstone and Tobaeco. One of the few accomplishments which Gladstone never mcquired was the art of smoking, says thé Westminster Gaszette. His few attempts in this direction are re- ported to have been dismal fallures. Only onee was he known to try a cigarette, the occasion belng one evening when King Ed- ward (then Prince of Wales) was his guest at Downing street. After dinner the prince desired to smoke and Gladstone with fine courtesy sought to place his guest at ease by at least lighting a cigarette. In later years the Grand Old Man one day accused his, secretary of smelling of the weed. No wonder,” was the reply, “I've been over half an hour with Sir Willlam Harcourt.” “What! Does Harcourt smoke?' exclaimed Gladstone. *‘You must tell him to be caro- ful always to change his clothes before he comes to me." e P Jim's Cost a Dellar More. Richard Le Gallienne, the noted poet, was entertalning a group of magasine ed- itors at luncheon in New York. To a compliment upon his fame Mr. Le Galllenne sald lightly: “But what is poetical fame in this age of prose? Ouly yesterday a schoolboy cam and asked me for my autograph. I as sented willingly. And today at breakfast time the boy again presented himself. " ‘Wil you give me your autograph, sir? he sald. “ ‘But,’ sald 1, ‘I gave you my sutograph yesterday!' T swopped that and a dollar,’ he an- swered, ‘for the autograph of Jim Jef- golian dlalect by Schrescnerowsky, a orip- ple, who also did one iInto Calmuck. There is & copy of the “‘Magarin Bible,” the first book printed.from movable metal types in two volumes, which appeared about the year 1466 and the first recognized copy of which was discovered in the library of Cardinal Mazarin—hence the title. It is also called the “Gutenberg Bible,” from the name of the printer, and again termed the forty-two line Bible, from the number of line# in each column of its pages. Coples of the several editions of the Gutenberg .Bible have been sold for sums which would procure nearly 100,000 Bibles now printed by the Americah soclety. ‘There are also coples of the Douay version of the Bible used by Romar Catholics, of the translations from the Latin Vulgate made by the English college at Rheims, of the English version of the Scriptures now in common use and of the revised edition, the work of English and American scholars, which appearéd In 188. According to the terms of the agreement then entered into no other revision was to be published until after fourteen years, so it was not until the summer of 1501 that the American standard edition of the revised edition was &iven out. The soclety exhibits In special cabinets #ome of the queer objects given among the many native tribes in exchange for Bibles. These include personal adornments, weap- ons of the hunt and war, carvings and Paintings, shells, embroideries. il In the Sales Room. In the salesroom are to be seen single books from the Bible printed in clear type and bound in cloth, which retall for 2 cents aplece, those in foreign tongues at 3 cents. The New Testament costs § cents. The complgte Bible may be had for 17 cents, the foreign versions costing 25 cents. The most expensive Bibles, printed for the hol- iduy trade, with soft covers of scarlet leather, cost only §1.80, the object of the Society being to furnish these volumes as cheaply as possible and eliminating editions de luxe and Bibles In expensive bindings, except In rare instances where a direct call is made for them. The low prices, many of them much below the actual cost of production, are interesting in conneotion with the statistics furnished by Dr. Dwight in regard to the expense in- curred In earlier times. “Before the art of printing, the Bible was reproduced exclusively by briefmen, or copylsts, whe wrote it out with the pen, and it was then the most expensive book in the world," he said. “In the thirteenth century a copy of the Bible with a few explanatory notes cost §160. The wages of a laborer amounted then to 18 cents a week, and It would take a workman some fifteen years to earn enough to purchase a volume. ‘‘Even after the invention of printing, the Bible 6old at fabulous sums. In as late a period as that immediately foHowing the American revolution the @earth of books Was #o great that the possession of a Bi- ble ranked with that of the other treasures of a household. The cheapest volume was purchased for not less than $2. Work for Missionaries, Altogether, through the efforts of the so- clety, translations of the Bible have been made into some 450 languages and dialects, These translations are generally made by migsionaries, who In the countries where there s no written tongue find themselves confronted by a work that oftentimes takes anywhere from two to five years and is attended by very great difficulties. As soon as a missionary has formulated a written language from the spoken sounds and has taught some of the natives to read and write, he wants to translate the Bible and requests the Bible society to print the translation and send him the books for dis- tribution. At the present time the Bible soclety is printing the Bible in three of the lan- guages of Africa which have never been used for writing. It is also printing Bibles in five of the languages of the-Philippines and slowly completing the printed list of thinty languages used in the various islands of the South Pacific. ‘W great many of the books intended for distribution in the far east are printed in places other than New York. For exam- ple, there Is a fine printing establishment at Yokohama, under the auspices of the Bible society, which employs Japanese workmen under contract. From this place distribution 1s made to the Philippines and to Korea. The soclety also prints in Shanghai and Chen Tu and at Bangkok in Siam, and at Beirut in Syria similar work s done, some of it on presses be- longing to the Presbyterian Mlssionary so- clety, with whom the American ‘Bible so- clety co-operates, All the books for Bouth Africa are praofted here, and those for the Gilbert islands, the Kusaie and Ponape islands, too, a8 well as many other far away points. The packing of Bibles for these points re- - New York Provides Bibles in Vast Numbers for quires great precautions, which means usually that they are placed in Un boxes which are made airtight and foldered and then put In wooden boxes, so that If they should be dropped overboard on thelr way from the ship's side or In voyaging up riders and through canals the books will not suffer thereby. Colportears an 1 Experts. The United States is divided into sec- tions, and from the agencles established In each colporteurs cover certain allotied territory, ““We are apt,” continues Mr. Dwight, “to think that the missionaries of South Africa, of the Philippines, among the Basques and In Iceland, as may be, must necessarily meet with strange peoples and strange ad« ventures, but we do not have to go be- yond the confines of our own country to parallel them. Many of the colporteurs, particularly those In the northwest, speak at least twenty different languages and continually requests are coming from them and from outside people begging that the Bible may be translated into some dialect or lan- guage spoken In far-off points, the very numes of which are unknown to the ma- jority of New Yorkers. In the agency which distributes the Scriptures from the city of San Franclsco in California, Ne- vada, Oregon and Washington are Spanish speaking Mexicans, Portuguese, one-half of all the Chinese In the United States, Japa- nese, Koreans, Hindus, Malays, Hawallans and Filipinos. The agency established in the northwest during the year ending March 31, 1909, dis- tributed Seriptures in thirty-five different langyages, Including, in adaition to French, Gerfnan, Scandinavian and Finnish, such tongues as the Lettish, Slovak, Lithuanian, Croatian, Slovanian and Arabic. One of the Bible society colporteurs was sent ta “Indianapolis to gistribute books among the Hunyaks. The nkme was unkhown to him. When he went among them he found that the people 5o designated were a medley of Servians, Croatians, Bulgarians, Macedon- fans, Turks, Roumanlans, Greeks, Alban- fans, Germans and Hungarians. “In Haughville, a suburb of Indlanapolis, he found Slovanians, Polanders, Slovaks and Lithuanians. These forelgners live to- gether in groups, in one instance, fifty- three men were living in five small rooms. The colporteurs employed by the American Bible soclety during the last year numbered Bit of Early Nebraska History VIEW OF MAIN STREET N BROWNVILLE IN HE accompanying picture shows the main street in Brownville, @s it appeared in 1869. Brown- ville is one of the oldest towns in the state, and at ond time Was, perbaps, the most \mport- and. In the ploneer days it was the seat of the land office, and played a great part in the river traffie, August 8, 1854, Richard Brown, from Holt county, Missourt, crossed the river and landed at a little cave among the bluffs on the Nebraske territory side, He ‘was lmpressed with the beauty of the spot. As to whether he had dreams of founding & great clty or simply & vilage is un- known, but the fact remains that he drove stakes, and laid out a town—Brownville— which grew and prospered, until an aggre- Salon of crcumstances completed her de- cline, which began In the latter 70's or early 80's, Brownville and Bellevue toss coins for the age hopor, Brownville was long the county #seat of Nemaha county. The Burlington rallroad bullt from Brownville to Nemaha City, and from thence west, and, instead of striking the little town of Sheridan in the center of the county, ran one mile south of it, established a station called Calvert, bought the surrounding land, boomed the town, intending to kill Sheri- @an, capture the county seat from Brown- ville and make Calvert a flourishing town, all of which would have come to pass hl} not the Missourl Pacific decided ta bull & line from Kansas City to Omaha, making Sheridan a station. Sheridan boomed, and %0 did Calvert, Each town had & ‘“court house” square, and kept agitating the question of re-loca- tion, but It was evident that locating it in either Calvert or Sheridan, was impos- sible. Consequently the leaders of the two towns held u meeting and decided to lay out & new town which should include the two, and petition to locate the court house beteewn them. A, H. Gllmore, now deceased, had been reading the “Gold- smith's Deserted Village,” and suggested the name “Auburn,” which is now Ne- maha's county seat. The town and Brown- ville, the ‘‘deserted village'' was incor- porated In 1885, and an election held in Feb. ruary of the same year for the purpose of voting on moving the county seat from Brownville. Poor old Brownville was the loser and its decline was rapid. Within ten years, the finest residences in Brown- ville could be rented for almost nothing, and in some Instances the owners were 8o #lad for tenants that rent was free, i , World Distribution approximately 662. Of these 163 were in the home agencles and the remainder in the forelgn agencles and as misslonary corre- spondents, lgiinnte ’ Revisions Require Attention. “The revislons of the varlous translations and editions of the Bible already printed Is also an important branch of the work," says Dr. Dyight. “For example, we have been at wofk since last spring in getting a Spanish revision nl:X\:xp-cl it will take six years to complete the work. For this purpose we brought here three American missionaries from Mexico, three men who have lived in South America for thirty years and know the litorary language per- fectly, and to assist these three native scholars. “They are expected to keep close watch on each other's work and prevent either provinclalisms or the stiff old Castilian tongue from predominating. When the re- vislon of the existing Bible is completed a thousand coples will be sent through the Spanish speaking countries to get the eriti- clsms of the people. This is called the ex- perimental publication, and when the books return to us they will come with many new 1deas, valuable as well as useless sugges- tlons and criticisms of the translators’ and revisers' work. “In China there has been working for twelve y a committee composed of Americans and British, who are revising two Chinese dlalects, and these men will stay there and dlg for several years longer, for it Is a tremendous plece of work. An- other equally difficult task is the revision of the Zulu Bible. One of less arduous work, but of importance, is the Portuguese. “The Arabio reference Bible is now being printed at the préss in Belrut, Syria, and the completion of the Mandarin Chinese Reference Bible continues, slowly progress- ing to an ultimate prefection. The revision work s consideréd of tremendous impor- tance in the soclety, “In regard to the work nearer at hand, In New York there are several auxiliaries which help In this work and there are in Manhattan between thirty-five and forty spoken languages, Agents from the soclety are sent dally to Ellis Island. During the elghty years ended October 1, 1906, the so- clety distributed 2,030,088 coples of the Bible in this way, “Barly In its history the soclety made arrangements to supply Bibles at half cost to hotels, steamboats and raflroad cars, and at the principal seaports, with New York in the lead, a large number are regu- larly sent among the naval forces and among seamen generally. To date about 1,600,000 books have been distributed by the marine committee. Humors of the Work, “Even the dignftied serfousness of Dr. Dwight is not proof against the attack of mirth that seizes him as he relates the introduction of what a barker described to the merrymakers at Coney Island last sum- mer as ‘the washtub’ edition of the Bible. “The Bible at Coney Island ls brought into competition with fascinating and novel forms of amusement and entertainment and the hoarse voice of its own energetic col- porteur is one of many crylng special wares, such as the ‘Loop the Loop,' ‘the Ride Into the Whale' and the ‘Voyage to Heaven and Hell,’ and even those members of the soclety who deprecate the apparent loss of dignity involved in this rivalry are obliged to admit that while it is eminently necessary to maintain the serious character of the Holy Book at the same time it is equally necessary ‘to yleld a point in doing 50 and to take Into account the prevalling moods of the thousands who stroll by the stands—moods of recreation and enjoyment. “The cplporteur at Coney Island hut ready tongue and wit. He has a more di cult proposition to handle than his com- petitors, and he handles it deftly. To ohe he says reprovingly, In answer to a jest, “This book will keep you from sin, Sin will keep you from this book.! On the cards he distributes and among the printed poste: decorating his well stocked stall the passerby may re Satan trembles when he sees Scriptures sold cheap as these. ““With his megaphone in hand John Henry Way, a lifefime devotee of this special branch of work, calls out to the moving multitude, ‘Don't forget the Bible, and some are singled out for special commenty adapted to their speclal needs, The small boys whose greedy mouth is open to re- celve & large chunk of lce cream sandwich is, for instance, arrested by the statement, ‘You can have a book that will last you for years for the price of a sandwich that is lost In & second’ Probably the sand- wich is lost and the book s not gained, but the boy has beedf made to think." Quaint Features of Life Sudden Close of u Wake, FTER being placed, shrouded, in a_casket which was surrounded by mourners gathered for an all-night wake, at Pensacola, Fla., Mre. Jessle Miller leaped from her coffin Christmas night, a perfectly well woman. Physicluns twelve hours before had pro- nounced life extinet. The woman's hus- band, Captain E. J. Miller, master -of the army steamer Poe, had left the city to make arrangements for a grave for his wife, and for couducting the funeral Mrs. Miller, in breaking out of, the cof- fin, toppled it over and was slightly in- Jured. The consternation among the mourners was so great that it was with difficulty they were induced to return to the chamber and render ald The case 1s declared to be one of suspended respira- tion, ERPUIS Why Jap Bables Are Good, Americans wonder at the amiable temper of our Japanese bables, says & native in the Dellenator; the real marvel s’ the measure of good nature which the Ameri- can baby manages to retain after all he is called upon to go through in dressing. How on earth can the most perfect of saints, let alone & baby, be expected to retain his Christian virtues! FHis legs and neck are twisted into all sorts of double knots three, four times a day, that they may be squeezed through a tight-fitting shirt. Our baby clothes are certalnly simpler. Incidentally they are wide-minded and wide-sleeved enough to let & baby grow In them without its putting up e ring fight. Baby dresses are cut, along general Iy the same as the kimono of the grownup: Only for the baby the sleeves and skirts are longer and wider in proportion, so that they will cover the bare feet; besides pro- tecting the bare hands, the long sleeves save faces from heartless scratchin After the first bath the nurse takes out an undergarment, fits it Into the inner side of an outer garment and then lays the dresses thus fitted upon the woft-padded mat floor and simply and naturally puts the baby into the open folds. No screams. What excuse can the baby have to yell? Simply & matter of dress—nothing mpre. But seo what a difference it makes in life! To the American mother the century-old hysterical fit of screaming so territying to her; to the Japanese mother, perhaps, the sweetest melody on earth—the mellow cool- ing of content Tragedy of ‘elephone, W. L. Ross, treasurer of the Cuyahoga Telephone company, tells of the awful case of & woman on & suburban party line who was In the habit of talking, or listening to other people talking, over that line all day long, or until hunger would drive her from the phone. One day & man on the same line picked up the receiver and heard this woman and another one working conversational re- lay He was annoyed over having to walit and set about making the women mad at each other so that they wouldn't talk any mo! He placed the recelver on his phon up against the transmitter, with the result that when either woman was talking, her words came right back to her own ears. The woman that happened to be havin the flow of words to the face at that mo- ment thought her nelghbor was mocking her, and after telling what she thought of the bringing up of the people that would #toop to such discourtesy, she hung up. Then the man put In his call and was not molested ~Cleveland Plain Deal Jim Jeftries was talking to & reporter about the purse of §101,000 that goes to the winner of the Jeffries-Johnson battle. “Oh, no," sald the hurculean yqung man, “it Isn’t an enormous one for America. We look st money in such & large way here ‘‘Coming over on the boat 1 heard two Chicago men talking in the bar. ‘' “Which would you rather be,' sald onu of them, ‘very rich or very poor? “ ‘Neither,' sald the other, In our large natlve way, ‘Give me my cholee and I'a have about 36000000 “-—New Yerk Times