The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 25, 1895, Page 15

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1895. 15 SARAH B. COOPER. [Drawn by a “Call” artist from a photograph.] Kindergarten Work in San Francisco. Written for THE CALL The advocates of the kindergarten con- tend that this system of the great apostle Froebel should be the underlying founda- tion of all education. They contend, also, that the reenant kindergarten principle, Ve learn through doing,” should be the basic principle in all education. This was what the Great Teacher implied when he said, “If any man will do his will he shall know of the doctrine.” The kinder- garten trains the bead, heart and hand simultaneously. The epochs of educational growth follow the divinely ordainea laws of vegetable growth. There is the root-life, the stem- life and the blossom-life. - That the blos- som will depend very largely upon the care and nurture given to the root no one v. The kindergarten has much to rd to motherhood. Hence, this far-reaching and wide-branching in-its scope. Women have had mach to do with the introduction and promotion of the k garten in this country and in thi In fect, this work has been very la reir own hands. Perhaps the re: this lie: the fact that woman, with ber keen intuition and quick insight, sees the tree in the germ; the sage and the great | man in the child. Seventeen yearsago there was not one | free kindergarten west of the Rocky Mountains; to-day there are about seventy in San Francisco alone, including those in orphanages, asylums and day homes. Branchinz out from San Francisco asa center they have extended in every direc- tion from the extreme northern part of Washington Territory to lower California and New Mexico, and they have planted themselves in Oregon, Nevada, Colorado and have swept on to the Hawaiian 3. The work in San Francisco has phenomenal in its growth. No city in the Union has made such rapd strides in this work among the little children as Francisco. This is largely owing to act that persons of large wealth have induced to study the work for them- ves and have become convinced of iis San sc permanent and essertial value to the State, | The press of the City has slso contributed very largely to the result. To wise, liberal hearted men and women and to the press are rgely due the rapid growth and suc- cess of kindergarten work in San Francisgo. Now, the practical question is, What repl, substantial good have these free kin- dergartens actually accomplished for the children, the community and the world? Whatis the bearing of this work upon the future of this City? After seventeen years of faithiul work, substantial resuits are to be seen, which can neither be gainsaid nor denied. The record which these children make when they enter the public school is a tribute not only to the value of kin- dergarten training in the developing of all the faeulties, but to the unfolding of the moral nature as well. There is a steady stream of influence that flows back into the families which tells for zood, no mat- ter how wretched and degraded the house- holds may be. The parents come to feel that their children are of some value, and they treat them with consideration and kindness. The children feel the warmth love, and they unfold and blosso: like plants in the sunshine. . Another point—the kindercarten pre- pares for the arts ana trades. It lays a good strong foundation for industrial edu- cation. It takes the little child at 3 years of age, and thiough the use and agency of utilized play, sets the wheels of industri- ous habits in motion. This universal instinct of play in children means something. The knack is in making it constructive instead of destruc- tive. Activity is the law of bealthful childhood. The kindergarten turns it to good account. In the kindergarten the child is taught to pay for what he gets—to earn it by effort and industry. He is taught to scorn to let others do for him that which be can by SARAH B. COOPER. do for himself. He is not only taught i what objects are, but he is taught to | produce them. He is taught to create. Seli-dependence and self-reliance are thus | cultivated. He is thrown upon his own | ! resources, just as much as possible. It is | a maxim of the kindergarten that all help | h smothers self-help, is disastrous in | its results upon the child. Educate the children for action, for work, for industry; | cultivate their powers for creating and organizing, and then the desire for doing { and accomplishing will take the place of the desire for having and for getting. The kindergarten devotes itself more to ideas than to words; more to things than to books. Children are taught words too much, while they fail to catch ideas. Give achild ideas. The world does not need fine rhetoric—valuable as that is—half as | much as it needs practical, useful ideas. That is exactly the aim of the kindergar- | ten—to make the mind creative, to stimu- | late thought, to beget ideas. Habits of observation are carefully cultivated. Ob- | serving is more than seeing. The child in the kindergarten is taught to observe—that is, to notice with attention, to see truly. What he learns in the kindergarten is calculated to make him keep his eyes wide open to the world about him. He is taught to think, and that is the primal thing. The senses are sharpened, the handsare trained, and the body is made lithe and active. The heart, as well asthe head and hand, comes in for a large share of training. | The kindergarten occupies itself very largely with the cultivation of the Leart. It not only tells the little child to be good, but it actually helps him to be good. It | thus makes moral education, more than moral instruction. To keep children from wrongdoing you must keep them wisely occupied. The secret of managing these irrepressibie little folks is in keeping them busy. The occupations of the kinder- | garten do this very thing, and in doing it the pupil acquires a skiliful use of his hands, a habit of accurate measurement of | the eye, that will be a life possession to him. Itis the idle brain thatisthe devil’s workshop. The child in the kindergarten { learns to hate idleness, as nature abhors a vacuum. The aim of the kindergarten is, also, to teach little children to zovern themselves | at the earliest possible period. Let me now summarize the practical re- gults of seventeen years’ work in the free kindergartens of San Francisco. First, as to thechildren: A vastheaven- | land of happiness, never dreamed of be- | fore, 1n which the powers and graces of | body, soul and spirit symmetrically un- | fold, just as do the plants under the genial and entreating rays of the sun. Second—The perceptible growth and de- | velopment of the creative powers, the | } moral and athletic sense, and a love for | that which is pure, true, honest and of good report. Third—The growth of a love to God and | | a love for each other, which is “the fulfill- | ing of the law,” and which will fit them to be manly men and womanly women, doing well their part in the work of life and mak- ing the world better that they have lived in 1t. -And as to adults: | TFirst—It cultivates a deeper, wider and | more far-reaching sympathy. between the top and the bottom of society. The rich | and the poor meet together, and the Lord | | is the Maker of them all. i sSecond—An evident moral uplift, slow | [ but sure, in the localities where the kin- dergartens are located. Third—An increasing self-respect among | parents, 1aore affection in the households, | land a decided tendency to place a higher | value upon their children. | Fourth—A slow and steady growth in i | | moral quahty and in the substantial vir- | tues of practical daily living—such as so- | briety, industry, economy, thrift, self-de- | pendence, good manners, kindness and | temperance ih all things. MME. LOUISE SORBIER. [Drawn by a “Call” artist from a pho’egraph.] Nurturing the Silk Worm in Southern California. For more than 3000 years thesilk in- dustry bas been increasing in active value. It was first known to the Chinese and through all the sweep of centuries that have come to that nation the grand in- dustry has never been given up, but is to- day one of her great and reliable sources of wealth. Every nation that has ever fos- tered silk production as an industry has added largely to the well-being of her citizens and to her own revenues. This assertion applies only where the natural conditions favor the work. England has tried repeatedly to establish the rear- ing of silkwormsin herisland possessions, but the climate is too humid, so the thought has long since been abandoned, and now she is content to import the raw material and manufacture silk goods. In the United States many fugitive efforts bave been made at different times to inaugurate the silk industry. The records of our agricultural resources show plainly that these efforts were not all that could be desired. Two leading causes may be named as the reason why, leaving many unnamed: First, a lack of knowl- edge how to manage the insect, and second, ignorance of the climatic condi- tions necessary to the fullest development of the insect, or its natural food the mul- berry tree. But here we would gladly adopt the language of our own poet and say: “Let the past dead bury its dead. Act, act in the living present,”’ by seeing how and why we can succeed. Southern California possesses all the essentials to a great extent and in an almost unlimited degree to make her the very finest silk-producing country of the world. This section includes 29 per cent of the entire State an area equal to 44,901 square miles. - In 1890 her population was 201,352, a fraction over four persons to the square mile. From these figures it may be noted what a vast increase of population may be looked for in the near future. One very special advantage to silk cul- ture here is the wonderful length of season. Instead of forty-two tosixty days as is the case in most silk-pro- ducing countries of the world, this favored region can boast of a sea- son of 20 days—eight consecutive months of the year, during which silk may be profitably produced. This does not mean simply that eight hatches of worms—crops of silk—may be produced. It means that 240 crops may be perfected every year. The only prerequisites to ob- tain these astounding results are an ample 1 supply of mulberry trees, house room for the development of the worm, and help sufficient to care for the insect. The continuoss hatching out of the silk- worm is one of the most important yet | most perfectly demonstrated facts of en- tomological science that has yet been brought to the notice of agriculturists. In this brief paper I cannot explain how this may be accomplished. I will simply say that on a small scale it has been done, and is now being done. and may continue to be done on a larger and still larger scale while the ‘‘everlasting sunshine” of this glorious land continues to illuminate, to vitalize and fertilize our valleys and foothills. This is no mere assertion of a blind enthusiast. 1t is a simple declara- tion of a fact, based on an underlying prin- ciple that challenges criticism and defies disproof, Colonel Charles Brady of New South Wales, the pioneer of silk culture of the world, has fully demonstrated that silk culture can be carried on in that climate for eight or nine months of the year. This fact having become known the people have taken up the industry and are now operat- ing on that basis, and by this means are willing to compete with any country in the world in the profitable production of silk, even where cheap labor is resorted to. All that can be said of the adaptability of South Australia to the production of silk may be said with much stronger emphasis of Southern California. Our climate is as mild and much more equable. Our soil is as good and well adapted to the growth of the mulberry tree. The question of cheap labor has no weight whatever in this question, as is freely admitted by the late C. W. Riley, M.A., Ph.D., entomologist to the Amer- ican Government at Washington. He says: “The greater value of labor here, as compared with labor in the older silk- growing countries, has been in the past a most serious obstacle to silk culture in the United States, but conditions exist to-day that render this obstacle by no means insuperable. In the first place, compar- ative prices so often quoted are mislead- ing. The girl who makes only 20 or 30 cents a day in Krance or Italy does as well, because of the rela- tively lower prices of all commodities there, as she who earns three or four fold as much here. Again, the conditions of life are such that every woman among the agricultural classes not absolutely neces- sary in the household finds a profitable avenue for her labor in field or factory, so that the time given to silk-raising must be deducted from other profitable work in which she may be employed. With us, on the contrary, there are thousands, yes, hundreds of thousands, of women who, from our very conditions of life, are unable to labor in field or factory, and have, in short, no means outside of household duties of converting labor into capital. The time that such might give to silk culture would, therefore, be a pure gain, and in this sense the cheap-labor argument loses nearly all its force.” Let these broad acres that are now but the haunts of wildwood rovers be set to mulberry groves, owned and cared for by colonies of frugal, industrious citizens, native and naturalized, and they can re- tain within our golden State a large por- tion of the $40,000,000 annually sent out to other countries for raw silk of a much in- ferior quality to that which can be pro- duced here. In New South Wales they have estab- lished a colony, New Italy, and assisted Italians who understand the management of the silkworm. From the firstthe Italians were delighted with their success, as they had vastly better results with muc™ less care and labor than they had ever obiained in old Italy. To them the greatest wonder was that there was no loss from disease, | whereas in their own land they always count on losing 25 to 50 per cent from dis- ease. On this point what is said of New Italy may be more strongly emphasized of Southern California. The reason is obvious. The pure dry air and the all- prevailing sunshine prevent rather than consume miasmatic vapors that tend to germinate disease in & more humid atmos- phere. The Government reports of Italy and France show that each individual engaged in raising silkworms earns on an average $6 to $10 per week during the six or seven weeks they are engaged in it each year. This work is done mostly by women and children. Thus we see that a family of five, the parents and three half-grown chil- dren, may earn $210 to $300 for the season. Our season is five times as long, and there- fore our results may be five times as great. And, too, our loss from disease and acci- dent will not count more than 3 per cent. The late Mr. Provost, the pioneer of the silk industry of thirty years ago, says that one person here can care for as many Written for THE CALL by Mrs. CARRIE WILLIAMS, worms as eight persons in France. These are items greatly in our favor. As before noted the hatching of silkworms may be controlled by human agency as much as the hatching of the ezgs of fowls, though not on the same principle. This secret was discovered by Colonel Charles Brady of New South Wales, who has spent more than twenty years on this special branch of entomological science. He now holds it subject for the present to the direction of the Government of that province. With this secret at command, leaf food and cocoonery accommodation and suf- fici ent help, a hatch of worms may be brought out say March 1, another the 5th, and so on every five days till the end of October. This would give forty-eight hatches of worms—forty-eight crops of silk. In thirty days the first hatch would be ready to spin, and in six days after they would be ready for market as green cocoons, or ready to steam and dry if there be not a market near at hand. This place may be occupied by another hatch, and so on throughout the entire cocoonery oneo brood may succeed another in regular order every day —every fivedays, ten days or thirty days—just as there is provided for the warm food and accom- modation. Mulberry slips set outin De- cember and well cared for will attain a growth of five to twelve feet inside a year, and will yield a nice crop of leaves during the first summer. All writers on this in- dustry find it a difficult matter to state the actual money obtained per acre. The lowest estimate I have ever seen was $75, the highest $430 for one crop of silk. This may safely be estimated by three or four, as the trees will yield fresh leaves three or four times a year. In Europe green cocoons sell for 35 cents per pound and $1 25 per pound dried. It would require 64,000,000 pounds of dry cocoons to supply the United States mar- ket with raw silk every year. This means that $75,000,000 might be distributed every year among our agriculturists for honest intelligent labor. Years ago when disease almost wholly destroyed the silk industry in Europe Japan sent there in a few years $85,000,000 worth of silkworm eggs. Not long since Italy paid annually to Japan $60,000 a ton for silkworm eggs. These facts show what a wide field is here open to American enterprise, for no country in the world can produce finer silkworm eggs than Southern California. In undertaking this business large cash capital is not necessary, but a good stock of common-sense and a disposition to ‘‘do well whatever you do.” First—Acquire knowledee of the busi- ness from reliable authority, and if need be secure efficient help. Second—Make selection of suitable local- ity, and soil. Then work as intelligently and industriously as you would atanything else, and you will surely succeed. * x x x » P. 8.—Since the above was written I saw in the Silk Herald of America, published in Newark, N. J., that John Ryle & Co. of that city—one of the oldest silk firmsin this country—advertise that they will buy all silk cocoons raised in the United States. This is good news to all who are interested in the welfare of the general public. Now let us have an experiment station in Southern California, where viticulture will receive a just proportion of attention from our State officials, and a new era of prosperity will sweep over our Golden State, awaking into active life thousands of her native and adopted daugnters who are now but drifting on life’s sweeping current without any definite purpose in life. Mgs. CARRIE WILLIAMS. *““Ah! That one happy Christmas!” While the young, the merry and the for- tunate are mingling with the stream of life, borne on by its glad current in this holiday season, there is one little woman in a downtown tenement who sits alone and sadly watches it flowing past. She has a small, bent figure in which the curves of youth have given way to the angles of age. Her hair is gray and she wears always a gown of the same dull hue. There is a curious ashen cast in her com- plexion that seems to reflect the prevailing gray gloom of her surroundings. The little room in which she leads the cramped, colorless life of a seamstress is plain like the owner, but like her it has touches that indicate a striving after a fuller, broader, sweeter existence. There are little efforts after color effects that do their best to brighten the room and its homely details—but fail. One wonders which is most noticeable about the place, its neatness, its poverty, orits utter lone- liness. For the little feminine figure does not seem a live entity, merely an integral part of the cheerless picture, symbolizing the dead, gray level of some lines. She plies her needle all day. It is aston- ishing how many are working that others may play to-day. Her needle passes in and out of the dun-colored garment she is making, not swiitly, for the fingers that guide it have lost their youthful skill, but very slowly at times, then less slowly, as though the thoughts of the worker were the motive power. The needle stops altogether when the little old seamstress looks toward a photo- graph framed in silver, standing on the shelf beside the clock. The frame is the brightest thing in the chilly, dark room, where the fog lingers longer than any- where else in the bouse. And it should be the brightest, for it holds the one treasure of a lonely old woman’s heart. The rude photograph recalls every line of a strong, kindly face, a face brown with exposure and bright with candor. Every one hasa star in his sky, and the light of thislonely, twilight life is the photograph. ‘When the solitary occupant of the room lays aside her work to prepare her Chriat- mas dinner, scant but cleanly even to daintiness, she is busy with memories—as who that are old and lonely and poor are not at every recurrence of joyousor joy- less holidays? Yet she is pensive, but not really sad as she reviews past holiday seasons. The small home and large family in the New England manufacturing town; the passing away of the hard-working mother, leaving so0 heavy a burden upon the young shoulders now so bent; the death of the silent, hard-handed father and the fierce struggle with the wolves of poverty that followed; the growth of the young broth- ers and sisters to an age of usefulness and independence; the plain fare and homely gifts of those holidays—a smile in re- membrance of the pleasures they brought brightens the grayish pallor of her face. But the joy of the home-coming of that friend of her childhood, now a biuff miner of the Sierras! She had felt that her life work was done when the struggle for bread for the children was over. She thought of a litlle nook at their firesides that might be granted her. But how different the future looked as he painted it. She smiles brightly at the photograph One Happy Christmas===An Etching in Gray. ‘Written for THE CALL by ADA PATTERSON. as she recalls the short, masterful wooing; the wedding in the Massachusetts par- sonage and the journey to the wondrous golden West. Snow and 1ce and care and sadness left behind, sunshine and flowers and hope and joy in store. She looks at the photograph with shin- ing, exultant eyes. That glaa Christmas after their arrival; the love and thoughtfulness of the dear companion: the beautiful scenes and scents and sounds of the fairyland by the Pacific—it was her glimpse into Paradise. Of the accident in the shaft, of the awful home-coming of the form that had gone forth in the morning so sturdy and glad in its strength, she will not think. There must be only happy thoughts on Christ- mas, and she will think only of the happi- ness of her brief wedded life. That one happy Christmas! There are no tears in the patient eyes as she looks at the faded photograph and remembers that day. The blankness and horror of the days that followed that accident; the cheerlessness of her life from which the light had gone forever; the forgetfulness of the brothers and sisters at home; the wolf’s low snarl ever in her ears—all are forgotten. To-morrow she will appear again in her role of a poor, unskilled seamstress with the weight of age and grief upon her. She will be scolded by patrons and snubbed by shopkeepers. But to-day she is transfigured by memories of love. When the winter closes in she will, like many others whose treasures lie in the past, still be thinkfng of *that one happy Christmas.” Women’s Work for Women in San Francisco. ‘Written for THE CALL by MME. LOUISE SORBIER. Among the many associations in Ban Francisco whose object comes under the category of “Women’s Work for Women” is that cailed the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union, located at 7 Van Ness avenue. This association promotes by practical methods the educational, in- dustrialand social advancement of women. It benefits all women, without distinction of class, creed or nationality. Itmaintains classes in almost everything that women wish to learn at a nominal fee, thus en- abling each woman to learn a way of earning a living without having to ask for charity. This institution helps that class of women particulariy who are only too happy to be self-supporting so as to avoid the humiliation of accepting charity. The classes vary according to the demand of the pupils. The following classes are at present maintained: Cooking, dress- making, hairdressing, manicuring, milli- nery, English, French, Spanish, German, vocal music, instruction upon the guitar, mandolin, violin and in painting. Classes are formed as soon as two women wish to learn the same thing. The mission has connected with it an employment bureau, in which all women in need of employment in any capacity can register, so that any one needing the help of women in any department of labor, from teachers of the highest branches to the so-called menial occupations, may find them through this bureau. Thus many hundreds of women have found good occu- pations. This institution also collects the wages of poor women from whom they are unjustly withheld. The services of able attorneys are given to this union free of charge to defend helpless women, and every case which it has brought before the courts has heen successful in having the wrong made right. The very existence of the union has greatly decreased the in- justice done to the unprotected women of the community. The union also maintains a reading-room, in which is to be found the daily newspapers, monthly magazines and books of reference. It is open from 9 o’clock A. M. to 9 o'clock P. M. Every Tuesday evening a very instruc- tive and elevating social programme is pro- vided by various commitiees where the best of artists gratuitously give their ser- vices in order to have a respectable place where all women can have an enjoyable and recreative evening once a week free of charge. This institution is supported by contributions of one dollar a year from members and donations from our ever- generous public. The officers and direc- tors all devote their time and energy to this institution without sany other com- pensation than the happiness one reaps in the love of helping one another. The following board of officers have just been elected to serve the ensuing year: Mme. Louise A. Sorbier, president; Mrs. N. B. Eyester, Mrs. Paris Kilburn, Mrs, P. D. Hale, vice-presidents; Mrs. L. C. Fraser, treasurer; Mrs. C. F. Kapp, recording sec- retary; Miss M. B. Sorbier, corresponding secretary; Mrs. H. Lewis, Mrs. R. J. Deane, Mrs. E. P. Keeney, Mrs. R. Searles, associate directors; Mr. Richard Chute, Judge M. Cooney, Mr. S.J. Hendy, Mr. M. C. Hassett, Mr. John Steinbach, Mrs. Richard Chute, Mrs. 8. J. Hendy, Mrs. M. C. Hassett, Mrs. A. A. Sargent, Mrs. Jokn Steinbach, advisory board. AT o e, “ ARSI S A G RN a0 11 .j':'M W y/ ';,w\\ ! 1} / NELLIE HOLBROOK BLINN. [Drawn by a “Call’’ artist from a photograph.] Do Western Women Thirst to Vote ? ‘Written for THE CALL by NELLIE HOLBROOK BLINN. The educated women of California do wish to vote. When I say educated I mean in this line, for I have never known a woman who has studied this subject thoroughly, and with an unprejudiced mind, but who believes in the enfranchise- ment of woman, and if every mother, wife, daughter in our fair State will take pains to read all that can be found on this subject we will get the answer from all, with few exceptions, “We do desire to vote.” Let us ask why the women of California wish to vote. The reasons are too numerous to men- tion, but some we will note. The most im- portant of all is this reason: Taxation without representation is against the spirit of our National constitution, and one- third of California’s taxes are paid by women. The California woman wishes to vote be- cause she believes she could, with the help of the good men of our State, make better laws to govern this State and execute them. We have been boss-ridden and mo- nopoly-ridden for more than three decades. Think you, Mr. Editor, if women voted, that there would be 3800 drinking-saloons open at all hours in the City of San Fran- cisco? Think you if California’s woman hed a ballot in her hands, those dark dens of infamy where our youth go down to ruin, the poolrooms, would be open? ‘There are so many reasons why Califor- nia women would be so glad to stand be- side the citizen who look beyond the pelf of office getting and has an eye single to the betterment of the race and the uplift- ing of sunken humanity. The question is often asked, What does woman want more than she hasalready? Isshenot respected and honored? Wherein are her rights in- fringed or her liberties curtailed? It is not that she is abused or neglected; mocst of the noble women who have fought for the enfranchisement of woman have been either happily married or enjoying a peacetul life of single blessedness, not from necessity but from nobility. They place not the interests of woman in antagonism to those of her brother, for— The woman's cause is man’s; They rise or sink together, Dwarfed or God-like, bond or free. But they ask for her as for man equality before the law and freedom to exercise all her powers and faculties under the direc- tion- of her own judgment and volition. ‘We protest against the tyranny of that public sentiment which assigns any arbi- trary sphere to woman. What right has man to give to himself privileges whick he withholds from woman? Is he any better made than his sister? What has this self- made lord fed upon that gives him the right to dictate? We believe the real cause of the degeneracy of the race may be traced to the long-continued disregard of the laws of God in relation to man; and never until human wrongs are righted shall we enjoy the perfect happiness which our Creator has pre- pared for his children. Not that the enfranchisement of woman will be the panacea of all political ills, but, as time moves on, with the working to- gether of the humane and noble of both sexes, we shall see better times, better laws and laws better executed; we shall see woman emerging from the shell of | ignorance and superstition, shall see her building her home, the foundations of which shall be justice and equality to each and every member, and this home shall be what it should be— not a living place only, but a place where father and mother stand on an equal plane, where brother and sisiér have equal advantages. This will make our boys better boys and set up for them a standard higher than a poolroom or the racetrack. It will make them more loving, more homelike, more patriotic, more like the true California woman desires to see them, the perfect embodiment of an American citizen. Behold a strong and gentle host! They gather from every clime and coast, With steady faith and a purpose high, ‘And hearts united by holy tie; Who runneth may read—'tis woman’s hour! The lips, long silent, are clothed with powerl The heart of the world Has come abroad, Its cry hes entered The ear of God. The age of might grows old and late, When woman stands at the mystic gate. The wise men toiling, the world to win, Haye sought the prisoner and set him free; Have drenched the valleys of earth with blood, In giving to slaves their liberty; They have lifted the serf to a noble place, And wrought for half of the human race; But the golden day For which they pray Shall never dawn upon slave or throne Till woman cometh unto her own. She has given the world the dew of tears, The nations are born in her ery of pain— The nations that after the weary years Lie at her feet, the strong ones slain. "Twas here they missed it—the Master’s will— And hindered the promise he shall fulfill. But, 10! At the arch of the mystic gate Is woman’s hand with the touch of fate. History of Kissing, *'Tis certain,” said Dick Steele of kiss- ing, “nature wasits author, and that it be- gan with the first courtship.” But thisis incorrect. ’Tis certain that to many hu- man tribes kissing is unknown. Instead of saying “kiss me,” they say ‘‘smell me,” and this, doubtless, represents an earlier form of salutation. The kiss is much later than the dance. It isstill unknown among many races, and may be cailed conven- tional. Some nationssmell and rub noses, lie horses, in salutation; and, where two Frenchmen will run and kiss each other, two Central Africans will deliberately spit, by way of friendly greeting. Dr. Tylor says: “The idea of the kiss being an instinctive gesture is negatived by its being unknown over half the world, where the prevailing salute is that by smelling or sniffing, which belongs to Polynesians, Malays, Burmese and other Indo-Chinese, Mongols, etc., extending thence to the Esquimaux, and westward to Lapland, where Linn=zus saw relatives saluting by putting their noses together.” The kiss is the salufe by tasting, and it has to be taught to children. Preyer, in his excellent book, “The Mind of the Child,” states that at first they are averse to, and even fearful of the performance. However this may be, it is certain that Europeans speedily take to it as though to the man- ner born. Osculations were far more com- mon in the good old times than at pres- ent. The custom which most delighted Erasmus, when in England, was that the girls all kissed him. When ceasing to be performed, some of these ceremonies leave their trace in language. Thus both Austrians and Spaniards say, “I kiss your hands,” as a polite term for returning thanks. John Bunyan was a very different man from Erasmus, and in his “Grace Abounding” he says: “The common salutation of women I abhor; it is odious to me in whomsoever I see it.” And to those who defended it as the holy kiss he pertinently asked: “Why they did salute the most handsome and let the ill-favored go?"’ e gugs v Can You Figure It Out? “Browne swears that he has crossed the Atlantic eighteen fimes.” “And he’s in Chicago now ?"” “Yes.” ““Then he has lied.” “How do you know.”" “He'san Englishman.”--Chicago Record. — ——— Mr. Poppington—Why did you marry me? Mrs. Poppington—You led me to believe you were rich. Why did you marry me? Mr. Poppington—You led me. to believe you were handsome.—New York Recorder. i, MRS. CARRIE WILLIAMS. N gy [Drawn by a “Cali™ astist from a photograph.}