The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 9, 1903, Page 6

fp— ge a Reform. L. BOOTH-TUCKER BY FREDERI (Cor s n Army in The work rmy of which mine is the honor k mmander lles largely with the r. We are better acquainted with real life, their s than any tions ameng the poor » of much of my of the re- ry grave— hong the rich may mean any thi may mean soclal gs. It COMMANDER OF SALVATION ARMY WHO SAYS MARRIAGE ELEVATES THE POOR. . 2 or financial advancement: it may be a mere matter of convenience; it may be the outcome of idleness and propinquity. But marriage among the poor is the most cogent meuns of reform. By mak- ing marriage universally possible among those who are not blessed with an abun- dance of this world’s goods the most deadly blow imaginable would be dealt 1o vice. The greatest step would by such means be taken toward vice's utter elim- ination. “Marriage is an honorable estate” and “not to be entered into lightly.” But, too often, under present conditions, the poor man cannot afford to enter into it at all. Yet he, perhaps far oftener than his wealthier brother, recognizes the “honor- able” condition of that “estate.” I say this advisedly. Among the poor infidelity is far less frequent than among the rich. The poor man and his wife hold the marriage relation more sacred than do those of greater worldly wealth. It ie therefore doubly unfortunate that a class so worthy of the blessings of mat- rimony should be so frequently debarred fram those blessings; that the people who maintain the sanctity of the marriage tie and who, moreover, bring up larger fam- ilies as a rule than do persons better gble to afford to do so, should be forced to re- mein single while men and women whose marriages are of no advantage to the :filmunhy nor posterity may wed at Conditions among the poor are in many cases such that the rearing and the keep- ing t&emer of a famlly are rendered im- possible. On every hand the poor man’s efforts to establish and maintain the sa- cred relations of matrimony are discour- How, for instance, can a poor man take to himself a wife when the cost of ltving s #0 high that he can barely support life in himself? How can he ask he may at eny time be thrown out of work and per- starve? How can & man rear a family when the chances may all be against his being able to maintain 1t? For a man cannot main- tain a family when he has no work. The sight of & starving wife and children has driven many & man to desperation—even to_crime. . Yet it is the right of the poor to have & home. With them that right is as in- alienable and perhaps more precious than with the rich. And social econditions should be so arranged as to allow the through the blessed bonds of matrimony. These conditions, which are marriage among the poor more and more impossible, are every day bringing more and more sin into the world. e great | T state of matrimony. More than two- thirds are single. The conditions for | marriage there are all against the poor | man and woman. They may fall in love as utterly as could any millionalre, but the gates of the Eden of matrimony are closed against them and guarded by the flaming sword of poverty. They may sigh for marriage, but they realize that such a luxury is far and away above their means. In this country the marriage statistics are almost exactly the opposite of Lon- don’s. Here about two-thirds of the mar- riageable population are married, leaving barely a third unwed. e e e | During my recent visit to Kansas City | several married women applied to me for | positions on_the Salvation Army farms { not seen nor heard from their husbands | for years. I made inquiries, and in each case found | that the wage-earner of the family, able to get work, had gone aw: penni- | less, to seek a livelihood elsewhere, and | had been forced to leave his wife and lit- tle ones to shift for themselves. The sto- ries were profoundly pathetic. For they told of men and women whose right to On investigation I learned that they had ' i 1 THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, MONDAY, NOL‘EMBER 9, 1903. THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL JOHN D. SPRECKELS, Proprietor. . . » « « . . . .m'ummumwmmum,mua PubUoation OPB08. .. s. ¢s - csniesssbs sonssssnsss @ <sseesssece cove. Third and Market Streets, . F. MONDAY.. ..NOVEMBER 0, 1903 CONSERVATISM NOW THE WORD. ONSERVATISM continues the keynote to trade. ‘ The word is now as freely employed as that familiar phrase, “undigested securities,” was some months ago. One cannot pick up a trade report without finding “Conservatism” emblazoned being a synonym for quietude. thereon. It is for the time The fact is that business is still slackening off throughout the country, and from all quarters reports of larger sup- plies of goods and a diminished demand for them are being received. This particularly applies to iron and steel and their products, which are as prominent now in this respect as they were in the boom of the past few years, when the whole country was surprised at the enormous demand for iron in its varied forms. The production of the metal has at last overtaken the consumption, and mills continue to close here and there, or suspend operations more or less. Per contra, some mills have reopened. Steel billets have been fur- | ther cut $4 per ton, and it is hoped that this radical reduction { will result in more business. Lumber is steady as a whole, | but building operations are decreasing throughout the East wed and rear families was inallenable and | | yet who had been forced to part from all that each held dear. Poverty, not more mereiful death, did them part. Can any situation be imaginéd that would be more criashing to & man of heart and of pride | | than to be forced thus to condemn to pov- erty and loneliness the woman he loved? Could witnesses to such a tragedy require | a stronger deterrent to matrimony? | " There is far more suffering of this kind | among the poor than the world at large ever hears of. Poor people are proud, and | most of them have a passionate love of home. | themselves to probable death sooner than { t. allow their homes to be broken up. The great dread of the unfortunate poor | is lest their children be taken away from them and committed to an institution. Domicide,” or the breaking up of the home, is to ihe poor man what regicide is | to 1 subjects of any king. E logical standpoint there are many arguments for allowing the poor | man to have a home and family. | right. He is fonder of his chiidren, as a rule, than is his rich neighbor. His home | 18 dearer to nim. Home ties are his only | joys, his only recreation. . | When I find a man starving and unable | to support his family I do not believe in tearing out his heart by proposing the breaking up of his home and the commit- ment of his children to an institution. I | suggest to him, rather, that he go into | the country, where work i& more plentiful and living i cheaper, and I try to find the means for him to do so. Perhaps the best maxim to solve the | | marriage problem among the poor is: “Place waste labor on waste land by means of waste capital, and thereby con- | vert the trinity of waste into a unity of | | production Making Campaign Buttons. BY MALCOLM McDOWELL. (Author of “‘Shop Talk on the Wonders of the Crafts.”") | The button manufacturer was talking: | “Campaign button-makers are getting | ready for next year. Milllons and mil- ical advertisements will be worn—more than ever before in a Presidential cam- paign year. i ‘llnms of the little round pinned-on polit- | There are about fifteen con- | | cerns in the United States which make | a specialty of the campaign buttons, and every one of them hae its ear to the grouna listening for boomlets. “Most of the men who have worn cam- paign buttons beiieve that the picture and words are printed on celluloid. Few of them know that the celluloid is trans- parent and that the printed part of the | button is on paper under the glossy cel- | luloid cover For some time this little | trick was kept as a sort of trade secret, and a few years ago no outsider was | permitted to wander at will around a campaign button factory. The ordinary button for campaign use is seven-eighths of an inch in diameter, and they range all the way from three-quarters of a cent to $150 each. . “The beginning of a campaign button | is the candidate and next his photograph. If the picture is to be printed a half- | tone engraving is made, and if the order | 1s large enough to warrant it a number of electrotypes are made from the half- tone cut, so that many ‘prints’ can be printed on a sheet. If the candidate wants something first class and doesn't mind the extra expense a lithograph of the photograph is made and the pictures are printed on a lithographic press. “The celluloid comes to the factory in sheets 20 inches by 50 inches, and each sheet is a transparent film five-one thou- sandths of an inch thick. The printed paper, with a sheet of celluloid over it, is put in & hydraulic press, the bottom of which is heated by steam or gas. The hydraulic pressure, combined with the heat, causes the paper to adhere so close- Iy to the celluloid that they are practi- cally one sheet. The cefluloid, besides serving to protect the paper, makes the print and color richer and brighter. If the order for the buttons is small the paper ‘is dipped into a solution of grain alcohol or gelatine and is made to adhere to the celluloid by a hot hand roller. “The prints are next taken in hand by boys, who, with rawhide mallets and hol- low punches, cut out each round print, and these boys are so expert that one of them, working eight hours, can punch out 15,000 a day. A finished button is made up of the ‘print,’ the shell, the collet and pin. The shell is a steel disk, and forms the body of the button. The collet ds a tin ring. which holds the print over the shell, and they are all brought together in the button machine, which is a simple mechanism, whose principal features are 2 plunger and two dies. The shell is laid in one die, with the print on top of it The operator brings down a treadle and the print is pressed over and around the «edges of the shell. When the plunger moves up it carries with it the print cov- The collet 1s laid in the other die, which 1s swung under the plunger, the treadle comes down again, and the tin ring is crimped solidly around the shell and the button is formed. Then the pin, made of brass wire, 18 glipped under the incurving edges of the collet and is held there by its own spring. T “The more elaborate campaign buttons are set in fancy brass frames, and some of them run up to $1 50 each, and I have known some particularly enthusiastic partisans who had gold frames made to adorn the campaign buttons of their can- committees of all parties order them by the millions and the thousands of candi- dates for other offices buy them by the tens and hundreds of thousands. But some idea of the immense number of but- I have seen whole families resign | | { ; It is his | and West and structural work is not showing the activity of the past few years. Coal mining, too, has apparently re- ceived a check, and in some States, notably Colorado, mines are being closed down, while labor disturbances, which usually accompany dullness in any particular line, ar- break- ing out in the mining districts. Railroads operating east of the Mississippi are carrying less tonnage than a year ago, and but few complaints of scarcity of cars are now heard. Food products are easing off, provisions are quiet at Western packing centers and the packers are apathetic in supporting their local markets. Trade in clothing is reported quieter and behind last year. This applies more to woolens, as the cotton manufzcturing districts are sending in reports of an increase in activity. It is interesting to observe that whereas cotton ‘lagged be- hind all other lines during the recert era of unprecedented trade activity it is now making the best showing when busi- ness is quieting down. In this connection the South is sending in the best reports at present instead of the reverse, which characterized that region for several years. The activ- ity in cotton is probably the cause of this. Another note- worthy feature in this connection is that while railway and industrial stocks in Wall street have been going down the cotton market has been going up, with pronounced activity and buoyancy during the past week. The other staples show no important changes. What ap- plies to those already mentioned applies to almost all. Hides are easing off in price and the markets are quicter. Wool is dull and stocks of raw are accumulating somewhat. The tendency in grain is downward rather than upward, though the shrinkage is not especially marked. The wholesalers 1 and jobbers say that the volume of trade is not up to the | | | | | | | | | { impairment noticeable I maintain most strongly that there is | tons which will be used next year can be & remedy for vice. And that remedy con- | had by knowing that in Chicago alone sists in meaking marriage possible among | over 40,000,000 buttons are turned out each the poor and in providing for such peo- | year for purely advertising purposes, ple a home. without counting the millions used by zthueountry.num,&nh- fraternal, social and labor - side to the question than in Eu- | One mail order house consumes 1,000,000 rope, as may be proved from statistics. | inch and a quarter buttons every twelve In London out of every 1000 marriage- | months. A religious organization, cen- able persons 729 ul:_h—nld. generally speaking, than marriageable population (the largest city of the world) B £ average of the past four or five years. But in spite of this diminution in the volume of business money continues plen- tiful throughout the country and thus far there is no serious in collections. Failures, however, have been somewhat more numerous and larger during the past month, although those last week were numerically smaller, being 246, against 279 during the corresponding week last year. There were several large suspensions in Colorado, as mentioned above, but along the Atlantic sea- board there were few of first importance. The bank clear- ings of the country were still behind those of 1902, the de- crease for the week being 15.3 per cent, with the gains and losses about equally distributed among the largest cities. Wall street stocks continue unsettled, declining one day and recovering the next. There is still some liquidation, but the brunt of it is apparently over. In spite of the assurances of bankers and other financial authorities that stocks are now down where they can be bought with reasonable safety and a fair promise of profit the public are not taking hold of the market. Money has not yet become tight, as expected along in the spring, and with the regular fall exports of grain, cotton and other products to Europe a tide of gold is setting in from that part of the world toward this. A com- parison between this year and last shows an enormous change in conditions during the twelve months. Then call money ruled from 20 to 30 per cent and stocks were 40 points higher than at present, while money to-day is 414 per cent. Besides we were then exporting gold and now we are importing it. There is certainly nothing panicky in this showing. On this coast business, although naturally exhibiting less activity in sympathy with the East, is still good, without, however, any signs of a boom. Local wholesalers and job- bers are not complaining, collections are fair, the banks are abundantly supplied with funds and solvent borrowers find no difficulty in securing all needed accommodation at nor- mal rates of interest. The export trade of the Pacific sea- ports continues satisfactory and the products of the farm and factory are still bringing remunerative prices. Mayor Schmitz has announced his purpose to reorganize the Board of Public Works so that in its reconstructed con- dition it may perform public duties for the public good. This appears to be an ominous threat, thinly disguised, that the Board of Public Works as now existing, useless and unlamented, is to go permanently out of business, D Francis Joseph's temporary bridging of the widening rift between Austria and Hungary by granting im- portant concessions to the Liberal party of the Magyar sec- tion of the dual monarchy. After allowing the country to be in a state of practical anarchy since September 30, the date of the fall of Count Hedavary’s Ministry, the leaders in the Hungarian Parliament have at last become reconciled for the nonce and the fractious wheelhorse of that remarkable Hapsburg tandem will swing into the middle of the road for a little while longer. It is all because the old Emperor has perforce decreed that the Hungarian tongue shall be spoken in the military colleges of the eastern kingdom of the dual monarchy instead of German, and that Hungarian officers shall be transferred from Austrian regiments to those of their native country. 2 The world at large knows very little of the political moil and trouble which has been straining the bands of union between Austria and Hungary since June 8, 1867, the day when Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria, became King of Hungary. The stormy meetings of the joint houses of both countries have become a byword ‘in the mouth of the na- tions, but few besides the trained diplomats have troubled | themselves to look below the surface and see the funda- mental causes of the long continued strife between Teutonic Austria and Slavic Hungary. The bitter quarrel over the seemingly trivial question of whether the officer in charge of a Hungarian regiment shall say “Vorwarts” or its Magyar equivalent is only a straw which points the wind. The Austro-Hungarian state is manifestly an artificial union. There is a King over both component parts of the empire who by his personality alone has been able to hold together the divergent halves of the dual Government, ¥ AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. ISPATCHES from Budapest give news of Emperor Tariff and educational questions have been fought out in- cessantly. The growing influence of the German empire in the Austrian half of the empire has estranged the nobles of Hungary more and more. Hungary feels that the Austrians have been encouraging the revolts of the Croats against her authority. But the primal factor in the spirit of disunion springs from the eternal antipathy of race against race. The unconquered Magyar with the blood of the Tartars still in his veins and stiff with the pride of an ancient succession’of Kings, cannot be yoked with the equally proud Austrian, whose house of Hapsburg has ruled since the Crusades. Napoleon found the spirit of nationality first in-down- trodden Spain and he was finally ejected from the peninsula, The reactionary Congress of Vienna tried to weld Belgium and Holland into an artificial state nearly a hundred years ago and their work was undene by revolution. Austria tried later to make herself supreme over an Austrian Italy, but she was turned back by Victor Emmanuel, the Sardinian. So in- evitably there must come the severance of the false bonds which tether the one to the other alien nationalities. When death removes Francis Joseph, the personal factor which has kept this inharmonious union intact, Edrope may see Hun- gary resume her position as an independent power. The Federal officers now engaged in the stern duty of in- vestigating the wreck of the steamer South Portland and its attendant horrors have discovered that some of the witnesses ate guilty of palpable perjury. Is it any wonder that men who proved themselves cowards when any one in a human hide would have been brave will lie to conceal their crime against humanity? ———— ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES. OVED by President Roosevelt's letter on race sui- M/ cide, the London Mail has collected statistics tend- [ ing to show that the English-speaking peoples of the world have a birth rate so rapidly diminishing there is danger it will eventually approach the zero point and the ! race now so dominant in the world will sink to comparative insignificance. It is not in old England alone that the race is dying, but everywhere. In Canada the English-speaking people do not multiply like the French-speaking clement of the population. In Australia the birth rate is very low and in the United States the ratio of births among the Anglo- Saxon portion of the population is less than that among the immigrants from Continental Europe. In reviewing the statistics the Mail says: “What are the explanations of the failing birth rate in the English-speaking countries? Mr. Coghlan suggests in the case of Australia that it is due to the love of pleasure and to the deliberate limitation of families.” His argument seems to be borne out by some very striking facts noted by Mr. and Mrs. Webb in their work on ‘Industrial Democracy.’ ‘there are many indications that the danger to be appre- hended in Northwestern Europe during the coming century is not overpopulation, but a deliberate restriction of popula- tion by the more prosperous, more intelligent and more thrifty sections, brought about by a rise in the standard of life itseli.” That is the admission that the superior race is too expensive to multiply; it means the suicide of that race and its slow replacement by other human material.” A curious side issue to the subject is presented by the fact that the decline in the birth rate of the Anglo-Saxon, whether in the Old World or the New, coincides with a rise in the birth rate of certain oriental races that were at one tima supposed to be about exhausted. While no exact statistics arc available on the subject there are good reasons for be- lieving that the Japanese and Chinese races are much more {ruitful than they were some yvears ago, and it would seem they are better fitted to survive under modern industrial conditions than are the higher peoples of England, Australia and the United States. : In our own country the decline of the birth rate among the Anglo-Saxon elements of the population is not notice- able because of the mixture of races here and the vigor of the American race that is being developed by the intermar- riages of men and women from all civilized countries. In Great Britain, however, the decline is quite notable and is ac- companied by a decline in the physical strength of the peo- ple. Some authorities attribute the deterioration to the ef- fects of urban life and the objection of landlords in cities to let their premises to families in which there are a large num- ber of children, The Mail says: “Australia and England are both states in which the huge city predominates, and it is at least a note- worthy fact that the marked fall in our birth rate coincides with the collapse of agriculture, which forced our country population more and more into the towns from 1878 onward. ‘This may be a mere accident, but country families are still generally larger, if only because of the difficulty of housing in the towns. No point is more painful in Mr. Booth's great study of London than his repeated reiteration of the fact that large families are regarded by landlords as a nuisance and that the large family is too often refused ac- commodation where the small family finds no difficulty in obtaining it.” The problem is the more interesting because it is only a generation ago since men were preaching in England the doctrine that the welfare of the country depended on a diminution of the birth rate, and one philosopher spoke of the large families that seemingly handicapped the workman in his struggle to improve his condition as “a devastating torrent of children.” Times have changed since then. Great Britain is now longing for British children to populate lier empire and is fearing a devastating torrent of foreigners. An old man, masking evil thoughts and sinister désigns under a plausible, respectable exterior, was arrested the other day accused as a “masher.” Is there any more pitiable spec- tacle than that of age which commands disgust not hapor, which makes of gray hairs a badge of degradation? If there is it is the sight of young loafers infesting public thorough- fares to insult women. It might be well for the police to know that there is too much of both in this city. President Roosevelt's splendid assertion that as chief executive of the United States he must insist upon equal rights to all and special privileges to none places him a unique figure in the story of American statesmanship. He is more than the man who would rather be right than President. He is right and President. AL A The election is over, political enemies are again personal friends, the nerves of the public are having a spell of needed rest and the time for the distribution of the loaves and fishes of partisan success has‘come. It is wonderful too what an army of friends the winners have since the election returns_ were announced. When one thinks of it the wonder grows that the other fellows received any votes at all. “A young swain and his sweetheart were married re- mfly-mtfietopdnfiflnbuse;ml.onglmi It will rot be long before they will learn that something more < They state that | TALK OF THE “Quarts” on Religion. “It air some remarkable how religion strikes folks differunt,” remarked “‘Quartz” Billings, gently swashing the beer in his schoonmer so as to bring a bead to the surface. ‘“Some folks who don’t know anything more 'bout religion than a Stwash 'bout soap have a kind of ha'nting superstichun on the subjec’ which is hard to explain. Now there wuz the case of old Mokulumne Johns, who died up in Washoe County over Nevada Wway some ten years gone. “Now Mokulumne Johns wuz a squaw man. He had lived with a big mahal]e' real faithful like for twenty years an he had a child borT to him pretty regular with every second alfalfa crop so as his little dugout up near Paradise Valley looked like a foundling asylum. But in the flower of his youth, as the school marm would say, when he wuz along 'bout 80 years, his bull calf trompled him that Toughly that he died real suddent just as the sun riz one mornin’. “Now Mokulumne had never been a real out-an’-outer for religion—fact is, he hadn’t seen a church or parson sinze he wuz in Carson in the seventies. But the big mahalie wuz strong fur havin’ a real burial service. There wuz no Bible short of Klamath Falls, over in Oregon, seven- ty miles away, but what did that 'blg squaw Indian do but she sends Hard Win- | ter—ne wuz her third son, 'bout 14 years old—she sends Hard Winter over to Ore- gon to fetch a Bible. An’ while he wuz gone—it takin’ him four days to make | the trip—she an’ all the other breeds of | her'n jus’ whiles away the time by dig- gin' a grave which got that deep that they had to hist the dirt out in a bucket. “Well, sir, when Hard Winter got back with a Bible the widder ups an’ invites me an’ Scar Faced Williams from our ranch down on the river to cum over to the buryin’, which was set for a Sun- | day. An’ arter they had lowered Moku- | lumne Johns down into that thirty-foot | hole the mahalle asks me to read frum the book. So I takes it an’ turns to the | first page that hits my eye an’ I reads: ““Which of you shall have an ass fall down a hole on Sunday an’ will not straightway snake him out? ™ ‘A Quick Wit. “There is a certain prominent attorney in this city,” said a lounger at the Palace Hotel a few nights ago, “who owes his present position to the quickness of wit he displayed at a banquet he attended at the very outset of his career. “This man, who for convenience sake | we will call Bob, was_the protege of a very prominent man. He shoved Bob to the front every time oppertunity offered, and more than once he provided the op- portunity. “Well, one night he informed Bob that he was to be a guest at a banquet to be { given to a big raflroad official, and told him to -be prepared to make a speech. | “Ana, Bob,’ he sald, ‘it's got to be a good one, for the best talkers of the State will be there’ Bob went to work on his speech and when the night of the ban- | quet came around he was prepared to | cover himself with glory. Really, his | speech was a gem, for I read it only a | tew days ago. “But it was never delivered. When he was called Bob arose, assumed a correct attitude, and started off with, ‘Gentle- men.’ That was as far he he got, for he could not for the life of him remember an- other word of the speech he had spent so many weary hours in preparing. He re- alized that he was done for unless some- thing happened. He suffered agonies for a moment and then his quickness of mind saved him. He allowed his knees to bend slowly beneath the table, closed his eyes and grasping his heart with both hands fell with a crash on the table.” Baby's Idea of Prayer. Alice, the two and a half year old daughter of a Western Addition resident, has established quite a reputation for naive sayings, considered remarkable for one of her tender age. Alice’s grand- mother undertook the task of teaching the little one to pray, and one night, after Aliee had been taught to bless herself, she repeated the words, “God bless papa and mamma, Amen,” after her grand- mother. The latter thought this was quite enough for the first attempt, but Alice looking gravely up into the old lady’s face said: “Don’t you want God to bless you, too, grandma?” As Alice grew more proficient she added the names of many of her relatives and acquaintances to the list of those whom she desired Divine Providence to bless. One night, however, she was feeling more than usually tired after her day's romp- ing and she dismissed the subject of prayer by hurriedly saying: “God bless papa, mamma and all my friends,” and then sank back on the pil- low with a tired sigh. ‘Whenever Alice sings a song she winds it up with an injunction to her auditors to “clap hands,”” no doubt feeling that she is entitled to some sort of reward for her effort. One night when she began her usual evening prayer she asked bless- ings on a number of people whom she des- ignated by name and then solemnly fin- ished the prayer with, “Now clap hands,” much to the consternation of some of her religlous relatives, who had gathered in force to see her safely off to sleep. Sweet Charity. At the home of a dame devout Who in mission work always led, The sewing soclety sat about Plying their needles and thread; And in a melodious key ‘Without hesitation or stammer, Incessantly and relentlessly They sang the song of the hammer. Knock, knock, knock, ‘WIth never a halt or pause; knock, knock, How their bors’ faults are aired! The absent mem! too, Come In for their share of abuse, ‘While these worthy dames, with much ado Sew shirts for the heathens' use. Knoek, knoek, knock, the hours are dragging slow; Knock, knock, knock, Till they all get up to go. Their work for the day is o'er, Their done with zest, ¢ _ Bismarck Feared Woman. “Count Wolkenstein's resignation of the post of Austrian Embassador to France,” says the Marquise de F' { TOWN| \ —p * portance that he actually invoked the as- sistance of the 0ld Emperor against her It was during the time of her first mar- riage to the late Count Schleinits, Min- ister of the imperial house at Berlin, and in these days her salon was not only the meeting place of everything that was graceful, artistic and witty in the Ger- man capital, but likewise the headquar- ters of all the foes of Prince Bismarck. “The Countess, who by reason of her pas- sion for Wagnerian music used to be known as ‘La Princesse Thompette,’ never lost an opportunity of provoking the old Chancellor, and I remember that on one ocacsion, when M. de Sabouroff, the Russian Embassador, was expected to attend an important meeting at Bis marck’s palace in Wilhelmstrasse, the Countess prevailed on the envoy to ac- company her to a garden party, and thereby kept the Chancellor waiting for him the entire afternoon. Bismarck's rage at this treatment on the part of the Muscovite Embassador was so great that he actually went to the length of per- suading the St. Petersburg Department ¢ Foreign Affairs to recall a diplomat who was frivolous enough to prefer the so- clety of a Countess of Schleinitz to that of the Chanceilor of the German smpire. “After the death of the old Count Schieinitz the in those days ethereal and blonde Countess gave her hand inm mar- riage to Count Wolkenstein Trosthurg, who had long been devoted to her and who was the hero in the romance of her life. When he was appointed Embassador to Paris she found herself in her ele- ment and together with the Countess de Greffuhle (formerly Princess de Chimay) is responsible for having converted the Parisians to Wagnerianism and for hav- ing aroused In their breasts wild enthu: fasm about the very German composer who in his lifetime they had hissed off the stage.” Praises Colonial Soldiery. Colonel James A. Buchanan, for three vears in command of the American mili- tary forces in Porto Rico, recently paid a high compliment to the military spirit of our subjects there. He said: “I left Porto Rico with genuine reluc- tance, modified only by the fact that [ probably remained on the island as long as was wise on account of my health I organized the Porto Rico regiment and was deeply interested in the organization. The Porto Rieans make splendid soldiers. They are amenable to discipline and le: rapidly. TWhey drill like seasoned v ans. They are willing to do any demanded of them. They are sober loyal to their officers. They have a pride in the uniform and an affection for the flag. The people of Porto Rico are also very proud of the regiment. It has ex- erted a splendid influence upon the people of the island and has been a great school. The men in the regiment have not only learned to speak our language but are now expert interpreters. They are nat- urally good penmen and they translate the two languages back and forth with great facility. I think it would be a splendid proposition for the Government to send the regiment into camp at the St. Louis Exposition for two or three months. It would be a liberal education of the Porto Ricans in American life and methods which they would lucidly explain to the people on their return_ and it would afford those who visit the fair an oppor- tunity to become familiar with Porto Ri- can character under most satisfactory conditions.” Watches Take Rest, \ - “You know that the vital energiles are at lower ebb at night than in the day- time,” sald an old watchmaker. “Would you believe that some watches—especially the cheaper ones—are similarly affected? “You know a good watchiiaker always wants several days in which to regulate a timeplece. That is because the only way to regulate it properly is to compare it with a chronometer at the same hour every day. Otherwise the variations in the speed of the watch will baffle his efforts. “The man to whom I was apprenticed told me this, and I thought the idea ab- surd. We were working late one night and he called my attention to a lot of watches we had regulated and were ready to deliver. It was near midnight and every watch low. The better timepleces had lagged behind some seconds. The cheaper watches were a minute or more out of the way. Next morning every one of the lot was exactly right. “The fact is, you can regulate a watch to make exactly twemty-four hours a day, but you can’'t persuade it to make Just sixty minutes in each of the twenty- four hours. Why this is no one can tell.” —New York Times. The Priceless Radium. In regard to the value of radium, ra- dium chloride of the activity of 240 sells for about 0 an ounce. The radium salts used by the author in the experiments at the American Museum of Natural His- tory, 127 milligrams—equal to about one- eighth of a gram, or 1-240 of an ounce— represented a value of $274, or a rate of $64,800 per ounce troy. This radium was of the activity of 300,000. The museum ordered, at the request of Edward D. Adams of New York City, and as a gift to carry on the investigations, radium of an activity of 1,800,000, valued at $660 for 100 milligrams, or at the rate of $198,000 per ounce. The small sample used represents the concentration of more than one ton of pitchblende; the 1,500,000 sam- ple probably the congcentration of four or five tons; and yet the entire quantity could be put in the end of a thimble and not occupy one-fourth of the space re- maining between that and the finger. Radium compounds with an activity of 40 can be bought for $20 an ounce. It is only when it has been fractionated and increased in its activity that it becomes very costly—like steel, itself worth only a trifle per pound, but worth many times the value of gold when manufactured into ’ {