The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 28, 1904, Page 32

— ek Sequoia Gigantea. BY WILLIAM R. DUDLEY, (Professor of Botany, Stanford University.) in the bill now be- reservation of the rees makes any elous works of interest. The heretofore unpublished Seauole Egsntea, Tepre- & T arches of Professor Willlam Dudiey of Stanford University, were pre- (The general interest Congress for the RN ed to the Senate by Platt of Connecticut a view to enlightening his colleagues the subject of California’s glant trees.) The age of the Sequoia gigantea can be obtained by actually counting e concentrated rings of growth on the s section of the felled tree. Of the trees carefully examined and the rings counted the oldest possessed 2425 rings, or had begun its existence 525 B. C. Ex- tended scrutiny undoubtedly would bring to light trees that were older, al- though few in number. I do not expect any to exceed 3000 years in this cutting. Does each annular ring of the struc- ture seen in the cross section represent 2 year's growth? It does in the climate of the Pacific Coast, with its sharply marked wet and dry seasons. I have been able repeatedly to demonstrate this in Monterey pines, Monterey cy- presses, Seg sempervirens, and even in Sequoia gigantea itself in such in the arboretum of Stanford as we have removed on ac- from insect attack or specim: University injury ount of ought A remarkable recuperative power fol- Jowing an injury was found after ex- amination of the sequoias of the Con- verse Basin. The effects of certain tre- mendous forest fires occurring centuries ago were registered in the trunks of these trees and the record completely concealed by subsequent healthy growth. Among a number of similar cases the most instructive record of e ancient forest fires was observed tree of moderate size—about 15 in diameter—5 feet from the ground. It was 270 feet in height and 2171 years old. This tree when felled had an enor- mous surface burn on one side, 30 feet in height and occupying 18 feet of the rumference «f the tree; this was to have been due to a fire occu A. D. 1797. The tree when cut had already occupied itself for rs in its efforts to repair this its method being the ingrowing tissue from each margin of in new the great black wound. When the tree | was cut the records of three other fires were revealed was as follows: 271 B. C. it began its existence. The first year of the Christian era it was about 4 feet in dizumeter above the base 245 A. D, at 516 years of age, occurred burning on the trunk 3 feet wide. One hundred and five years were occu- pied in covering this wound with new tissue. For one thousand one hundred and ninety-six years no further injuries were registered 1441 A. D., at 1712 years of age, the tree was burned a second time in two long grooves 1 and 2 feet wide, respec- tively. Each had its own system of re- pair. One hundred and thirty-nine years of growth followed, including the time oc- cupied by covering the wounds. 1580 A. D., at 1851 years of age, occur- red another fire, causing a burn on the trunk 2 feet wide, which took fifty-six years to cover with new tissue. Two hundred and seveateen years of growth followed this burn. 1797 A. D, when the tree was 2068 years old, a tremendous fire attacked it, burning the great scar 18 feet wide. One hundred and three years, be. tween 1797 and 1900, h: enabled the tree to reduce the exposed area of the burn to about 14 feet in width. It is to be noted that in each of the three older burns there was a thin cav- ity occupied by the charcoal of burned surface, but the wounds were finally fully covered and the new tissue above was full, even, continuous, and showed no sign of distortion or of the old wound. The above details are given to show the wonderful vitality and freedom from disease and decay possessed by these trees. If protected from fire and the lumberman they would undoubtedly live to a much greater age than at present, and would furnish the best living objects for scientific study and measurement covering a long period years extending from one human generation to another. These measure- ments would have a bearing on our knowledge of the laws of growth as affected by pericds of varying climatic conditions. It happens that the only measurements already made were made on the Calaveras big trees {_irty years ago by the geological survey of Califor- nia. It comes near being a crime to not only destroy objects among the most interesting in the world, but to throw away data useful to the science of the future, as will be done if the Calaveras trees are felled, African Pigmics. BY WILLIAM STAMPS CHERRY. ‘African traveler, explorer and blg zame hunter.) (Copyright, 1904, by Joseph B. Bowles.) Some authorities seem to think that the undersized people found in the gloomy depths of the dark forests are the aboriginal settlers of Africa. That the pigmies, as they are called, have ny better claim than other African raceg of to-day to the distinction of being the living representatives of the first people seems to me improbable. These people, who are slightly under ’ The history of the tree | stature, live in the forest, where they get little sunlight. They live on meat principally, and when that cannot be had resort to reptiles and insects. They hunt with bows and arrows or spears. They have all kinds of traps, such as slipnooses attached to a flexible pole, which is planted upright in the ground, then bent over to set the trap. When the animal tries to get through the loop the pole springs back into place, cerrying the victim into the air, where it is strangled. They have a net some- what on the principle of that used by the gladiators in the arena of Rome, in which they entangle the wild animals. They dig holes in the paths, driving sherpened poisoned sticks in the bot- tom, then covering the holes with leaves. In the grass they strew poison- ed thorns, and have sharpened sticks two or three feet long set in the ground at an angle of thirty or forty degrees, so that they will stick in the legs as their enemy runs into them. These are | hid away about their plantations of plantains, or around their villages. Three pigmies can kill an elephant, and with only a few thrusts of a spear on which they use a vegetable poison. They understand the business and con- fidence makes them brave. My me.!-l | urements from a tribe of these people on the Sanga who called themselves N'bgongo, and others of the Mobangi, show the average pigmy to be slightly under five feet, almost as large as an average-sized American woman. They were much larger than I had expected. They had the strictly African features, the flat nose and round face, legs short and well developed, big hips. The greater curvature of the spine made| the stomach protrude. The arms were | long and not so well developed as the legs, which is the case with all inland tribes, while with those using canoes the arms are the best developed. The women are conspicuous by their short, stumpy legs and big hips. They often become the wives of the ordinary Afri- can. The children of these unions are as large as the average African. The pigmies of the Sanga have square huts and the others reported north of Ban- | gui in the primeval forest that skirts the Mobangui Lake are said also to have square huts; those between the Ouelle and Aruimma have the round hut, which is about as large as the huts of the larger Africans. The greatest musical genius I ever | came across was a reputed pigmy at| Stanley Falls, who sang, or rather | hummed to an accompaniment which | he played on an instrument of eight | strings drawn across a board fourteen | inches long and ten inches wide, with | bridges under each string at different | places to tune it. It was a very ingen- ious, and altcgether a sweet sounding | and pleasant little affair. The muslician | had a broken jaw. Dr. Junker's conservativc statements | would lead one to believe from his first | measurement of 2 man of five feet that there were many over that measure- ment as well as under. Schweinfurth, | who first told the civilized world of | these small people of the Upper Ouelle, | very conservative also, and although | he and Dr. Junker think these pecple | of slightly under stature a race apart, | there is still an interrogation point after reading their opinion, as neither | of them saw the pigmies in their vil- lages. Stanley gives the smallest meas- urements of these people, vet reading | his work closely for absolute state- | ments we are‘still in doubt, as he does | not state that he saw them in their | villages. The villages were there, but the pigmies were not, and taking the | measurements of a few is very mislead- | | | | THE THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL N FRANCISCO CALL SUND oline et s IO ITATS o B SRS S S SU R T O T e R s DS TS T 'JOHN D. SPRECKELS, Propriefor . + « « « « - + . . Address All Communications to JOHN McNAUGHT, Manager Publication Office ......... ....Third and Market Streets, S. F. FEBRUARY 28, 1904 THE NAVY BILL. SUNDAY.. FTER a prolonged fight the House has passed A the navy bill substantially as it was reported by the committee. Many attempts were made to make a party issu@ of it, and these will doubtless be re- newed in the Senate. The answer to all such attempts is found in the history of the country. If the Democrats will read the oration of Senator Voorhees at the unveil- ing of the Farragut monument, they will get a different viewpoint from that held by those among them who op- pose the navy. We have on the two oceans a greater coast line than any other nation. Along that line are great cities. On the Gulf and Atlantic coasts are Galveston, New Or- leans, Mobile, Savannah, Charleston, New York and Boston, with Baltimore and Philadelphia in a position of secondary exposure. On the Pacific we have San Fran- cisco and San Diego, with Los Angeles, Portland and the Sound cities in secondary exposure. These cities offer a richer spoil in war than all the wealth of the an- cient empires, for which great armies struggled. To provide a navy capable of defending these coasts is a matter of ordinary prudence. No one wants war and no one expects it. But the history of the nations proves that war may come, no matter how strictly a country may attend to its own affairs;-and that lack of prepara- tion is merely an invitation to attack. It seems to be the theory of some of the opponents of a navy adequate for our maritime defense that if we have no navy we will need no defense. That may come true when the millennium arrives, but that happy time is not yet in sight. Only one thing will ever justify us in letting our navy decline, and that will be a general international agreement to abate the mnaval force of each nation down to a low and economical minimum. What the anti-naval party in Congress should pro- pose is not invitation to attack by crippling our sea power, but a peace commission to all the other mari- time countries to secure such an agreement. That would test the policy they advocate and would establish it either as a chimera or a fact. Unless they do this, they should withdraw opposition. From the beginning of our history we have sought and depended upon sea power. During the Revolution we had but little of such power, but it was used with excellent effect, and Paul Jones gave a chapter to our book of glory that no American would willingly blot out. In the War of 1812 our sea power had increased, and the feats of Lawrence, Bainbridge and Decatur on the sea and of Commodore Perry on Lake Erie are imperishable witnesses to the need of a navy and to the ability of Americans to fight at sea. President Roosevelt says: “The Spanish war was a little war, but it was all the war there was.” Suppose that our navy had been what it was when Wiiliam C. Whitney took up the work of naval construction! Spain would have whipped us, notwithstanding her vast infe- riority in resources. With no navy we could not have sent a single soldier to be landed in Cuba or Porto Rico. With no navy the Spanish fleet need not have waited death in Manila Bay before Cavite, but would have tor- mented our whole Pacific Coast. It could have coaled maritime | in our harbors in spite of us, and its guns, though in- efficiently served. would have been so much better than none at all that our humiliation would have been com- plete. . It is easy to say that we ought not to have had the Spanish war. The answer is that we «1d rave it, and that in response to the demand of the people, who were ready to crush any administrati-n and party that refused to gratify them. If it were a mistake the people made it. 1t was their war, whether justified or not, and if a mis- take who will guarantee the people against making an- other just like it> So, from whatever point our last war |ing. Since Stanley, though much has been nublished, the question remains | where he left it. Few have been the | additions to his picture of the great | forest. Summing up the whole thing | from my own experience and the actual | facts as given by other explorers, what | is said of the pigmy can be said of | many other African tribes. He differs only in his stature; his features, | physique, his mode of life, hunting, his traps, are used among all the tribes and are essentially as much theirs as his. The poisoned weapons are not so | common, but they are known, while his | religion and patriarchal laws are those of the other African people. Living in the bush without adequate sunlight, living on meat, often resorting to an insectivorous diet, might account | Acr the slight decrease in stature. Why | | should not the climate and conditions | decrease the stature as well as increase | it? On the Mobangui River, situated on a high, impregnable bluff, three days be- low Bangui, is a village of giants, every | man of them over six feet and some measuring seven. It is well known to | the white man. These giants are of splendid physique, their muscles stand- ing out like those of a Hercules. They | are rather lighter brown than the aver- | age African. Their heads are a bad ghape and impress one as unintelligent; | their faces are beastly. They live on | plantains, manioc and the cola nut. | They are in the country of the gorilla ! and chimpanzee, and seem not to have varied from the ways of these animals in food and general life. Yet I never | heard these people spoken of as the | | missing link, or degenerates, and they | are more nearly related to the big apes than the undersized people known as the pigmies. Of all the photographs published of these small people, there is but one that 1 have seen that is satisfactory. They seem to be either children or “runts.” Children have a peculiar stomach that is seldom found in an adult, and is easily distinguished by an experienced observer. Among tribes of average build I found smaller specimens than among the people called pigmies. I found a dwarf that measured wnder three feet six inches, an old wrinkled man, but he was a M'Sacklaw. 1 found another slightly taller: he could stand under my arm with ease, and the peo- | products by the warship Oregon. is viewed, its lesson reads for a strong navy. Without the naval operations before Cavite and Santiago we would have presented a sorry figure. In the cprrent war between Japan and Russia, the weaker nation has equalized herself with an enemy six- fold her superior in resources, by her naval equipment. 1f Japan succeed in holding her superiority in sea power on the east coast of Asia, she may wear out her stronger enemy, just as Spain would have worn us out if we had lacked 2 navy. To extend the argument into commerce, one ship in our navy has produced commerce for us in value far ex- ceeding the whole cost of our existing navy. It is de- clared by American experts in Europe that the foreign market was opened to American machinery and metal When that ship was being built at the Union Iron Works in San Francisco, no one foresaw that she was to be a key to unlock a new market. But when the Spanish war put her on trial she proved to be the best piece of work ever wrought in metal by man. As an example of American constructive skill she left the rest of the world so far behind that the markets yearned for American mechanism. -~ She still floats, the best chip that ever kissed the water, and until she is excelled our constructive work will hold its pri- macy. This should be considered by those who say that there should be no money spent on the navy, but that it should be diverted to other uses which will give an imme- diate and material return. Some of Uncle Sam’s warships are now at Hongkong, a little too far away to watch the movements of the Russians and the Japanese and too close to be out of danger of rubbing the Bear's fur the wrong way. The time is now certainly for our fighting sailor men to learn the splendid lesson that discretion is nine parts of valor. P Rural Letter Carriers’ Association has addressed a strong plea to the country at large in behalf of a measure now before Congress which aims at an in- crease in the remuneration of the rural free delivery letter carriers. The carriers have formally asked for an increase of salary dependent upon length of service. In- stead of the $6oo per annum flat rate of wage which they are receiving now, the carriers would have the Govern- ment pay them $hoo for the first year, $720 for the second WAGES OF RURAL CARRIERS. RESIDENT CUNNINGHAM of the National ple were very proud of him. He was a Linda. Among the Banzirrp was a man with ape feet and hands, the big toe was split away back short, and held in the position of a monkey’s; he was small and his features seemed borrowed from a chimpanzee. e Townsend’s California f‘u‘“ fruits and Special information business houses and public men by the supplied daily to Cali- Press Clipping Bureau (Allen’s). 230 street. Main . fornia Telephone Maln 1042. and $830 for the third and all succeeding years. It seems that for the good of the rural delivery service and in all fairness to the men employed therein, gress should pay heed to this petition of the carriers for an advanced wage. In a recent report the Fourth Assist- ant Postmaster General has advocated raiSing the sala- ries of all those carriers whose route is. not less than twenty-five miles in length to $750, but at the same. time curtailing all privileges of carrying on an gxpresn‘bu'._ ness. This recommendation can hardly fill the breach, for, save in the Western country, there is not one car- rier in fifteen whose route comes within the twenty-five mile limit and the limitation of the advanced wage to these few would be unfair discrimination. On the other hand, if the merit of service be allowed to count for an increase of wages such as the carriers suggest, the effect would be an inducement to long continued service on the part of those who have proved their efficiency. Among those opposed to the extension of the rural free delivery system there are some who say that if the present growth continues to mark the progress of the newly installed service, there will soon be 50,000 carriers drawing annually $30,000,000 from the national treasury. These of the pessimistic turn of mind do not seem to take into consideration the fact that the rural free de- livery system has increased the postal revenue already to an extent which more than covers the cost to the Gov- ernment. Should Congress see fit to grant the deserved increase of wages to the carriers, the increased use of the mails which has followed the adoption of the rural de- livery system would rapidly wipe out the deficit thereBy created. A Russian rioter, convicted of participation in the Kishenev massacres, was sentenced recently to an im- | prisonment of one yéar. is either an imposition upon the prisoner or an insult to civilization. It is such compromises as this that make Russia odious in the eyes of the world. ,BRITISH LIQUIDATIONS. HE recent publication in London of the twelfth an- T nual report of the “Inspector-General in Com- panies’ Liquidation” has aroused a good deal of in- terest in Great Britain on account of the extraordinary showing of losses on the part of investors in stock com- panies. It appears that the capital involved in liquida- tions during 1902 amounted to £64,270,434, and of that amount nearly &£30,000,000, or upward of $150,000,000, was made up of capital supplied by the investing public. These figures_while extraordinary in themselves are not much above the annual amounts of such failures, though they exceed those of last year by about one,mil- lion sterling. During the last ten years the total capital involved in such failures reached the sum of £3560,000,- 000. Of course the whole of that enormous sum was not lost, for the actual amount of loss depends upon the result of the liquidations. Unfortunately no exact statis- tics are available on that point. A London authority in reviewing the report says:| “The actual money loss during the past decade is heavy enough. The Inspector-General puts it at over £ 380,000, 000. Besides, it must be borne in mind that during the ten years in question about 11,000 companies which did not go into actual liquidation -were, for various reasons, struck off the register and ceased to exist; and although it may be assumed that the majority of these represent abortive attempts to form eompanies, yet the Inspector- General is informed by the Registrar that in many cases, including cases where the assets have been swept off by debenture holders, they represent a considerable amount of capital which does not enter into the foregoing esti- mate of loss.” As we have no official figures in America correspond- ing to those of the British report, we cannot make any | reliable comparison of the rate and the proportion of failures of stock companies and losses of investors be- tween the two countries. Our people, however, are more speculative than the British, and it is quite likely our showing of losses, were the statistics compiled, would be even greater than those reported from London. altogether, it will be seen that the profits of the so-called “bloated capitalists” are by no means so great as is some- times supposed. Men of enterprise take big risks in de- veloping new countries and establishing new industries, and when all is said and done they will generally be found to have deserved whatever profits may come to them from successful ventures. Diplomats resident in Washington are now discussing cheerfully the prospects of the Emperor of Korea hav- ing his thoroughly - respectable, unoffending closed by assassination. Perhaps, since the Japanese have takemn everything else the Emperor has on earth, they may as well finish their job by taking his life. A interrupted and driven off the wires by a report that the Dowager Empress of China was dead. Tsi An is her name and she is a remarkable woman. Born a slave, she became a wife of an.Emperor, and be- fore he rested from his labors in the tombs of the Man- chus, Tsi An outranked the other empresses and played the part of leading lady. been Emper(’)r she has governed China, and is by no means second to Semiramis, Tomyris, Catherine, Eliza- beth and the other ladies who have shown that they can run empires just as well as men. Remarkable as she has.been hitherto, Tsi An’s present status, in the eye of the news reading world, eclipses all of her past performances. She lay dead in the headlines of an afternoon gaper in San Francisco for an hour, and then was reswrx to life in an opposition paper. She was dead in a rumor for twenty-four hours at Sacra- mento, and is still dead at Eureka in Humboldt County and in Salt Lake. Some hours after her restoration to life in San Francisco she died in Chicago a natural death, and was poisoned at Pittsburg and Baltimore. In some of the New England towns she committed suicide and in others was stabbed through her corset, if she wore one, and in Minnesota her death was immediately fol- lowed by the dismemberment of the empire she had ruled so Jong. In several Southern States she was merely ill, while lying dead in other parts of the United States. In a very few places she was alive and hearty enough to be taking tea with Mrs. Conger, wife of the American Min- ister to Peking. 5 We await news from Europe to see what Tsi An’s fate is in the other hemisphere, though what happened to her in this country is of sufficient varicty to satisfy the most exacting appetite for novelty. The Chinese legation in Washington could make a big bobk out of what happened to its august and imperial mistress in the brief space of forty-eight hours, in the American press, and it would make the venerable lady pinch her- self to determine whether she is really presiding over broken China, or is sleeping heside the long gone Em- peror and his other wives, in the official tombs of the Manchus. i existence ABOUT THE DOWAGER. FEW days ago the wars and rumors of war were ~ Before leaving for the front General Kuropatkin de- clared that Russia had made such preparations that no Japanese soldier now in the ignvadin‘ armies will ever re- turn to his native land alive. The next news we prob- _bombastic general will have that familiar prelude: “1 regret to report.” The judgment of the court | Taken ! Since then no matter who has | TALK OF Close Call for Lees. Several detectives were talking the other day about notcrious crooks and the narrow escapes that happened sometimes to sleuths while making ar- rests. “About the narrowest escape that I can recall,” said one, “happened to the late Chief Lees. A porch climber had been at work for some time and had robbed several of the big houses in the Western Addition. One day a young fellow who had been used as a confederate by the porch climber, whose name was Reese, called at a jewelry store, at that time on Sutter and Kearny streets, to sell a valuable diamond. The jeweler looked at the diamond and suspecting it had been stolen refused to hand it back to the young man and quietly notified police headquarters. “Lees burried to the store and in the meantime the young man had told | Reese of his experience. Reese was an Lathletic young fellow and he hastened | to the store intending to recover the | | diamond or kill the jeweler. Lees was ! there before him and as he entered | and made a threatening demand for] the return of the diamond Lees grab- bed hold of him. Reese shook Lees off and made a movement toward his hip pocket. Lees grappled with him again, | but was quickly knocked down. Just | as Reese pulled a revolver out of his | | hip pocket and was about to fire at Lees | | Tommy Ellis, who was then a plumber | and happened to me passing the store at the time, rushed in and dealt Reese a {blow on the head with a kit of tools he was carrying in his hand, knocking i him down. Reese was promptly over- | powered and handcuffed. Lees was so | i grateful to Ellis for his timely assist- | ance that he got him appointed on the force and he has made an excellent | officer.” . An Effective Judge Ben B. Lindsey of Denver, who has attained national fame among | | criminologists from the handling of { wayward vouth, street gamins and the | young flotsam of the highways and by- { ways, has a fund of rare stories to tell | | in connection with his dealings with | the neglected boys and girls of the | { Colorado capital. It is as presiding magistrate of the Juvenile Court that | | Judge Lindsey comes in contact with | | these youngsters. During his recent | visit to California his Honor poured i forth a flow of anecdote that marked | | his splendid sympathy in the work of | | the court. Here is one of his storfes: “We were having much trouble with the boys in Republican alley over crap- i sheoting. The police made many ar- | i rests and I had done what I could to check the growth of gambling, but it seemed hopeless. One day as I was | passing the alley, 1 saw one of my | wards, Bennie, a newsboy, shooting | craps. 1 called him out of the crowd and said to him: | *Bennie, T thought you told me you | ! weuld quit shooting craps.’ | “‘Yes, I did, Judge,’ replied the | youngster, ‘but you see a big fellow | | came along and offered three to one| (15 cents to 5 cents) and I just couldn’t stay out.’ “We tried to substitute games for craps,” continued Judge Lindsey, “and | that failed. At last we took advantage | |of the strong union sentiment there | and we got a lot of these boys to- | gether and formed a union—an anti- | Union. crap-shooters’ union. And do you know thgt a boy isn't safe now who | | offers to shoot craps in Republican | lalley?” * N The Wind. | S | "Twas such a saucy little brook } | And had so beckoning a look | And had a wink so sly, ! That off I follow'd where it led, | | “caught by its roguish eye, | | Caught by the dimpling laugh that sped | | er ahead. ever ahead. Amid the grasses growing;,— And O the wind was blowing, And O the wind was high! It seemed to me I must chase Forever at a charmed pace ‘Among the parting grasses: Forever taunted by a sound | Of laughing-voiced lasses | Whom never any mortal found: | While all around and all around Grean grasses should be growing And dreams be misty blowing As a peril when it passes. | Fled is the wind I know not where: { There is a deadness in the air And rzin along the sky. Where am I going that I run Upon the muddy flats that lie { In squalor toward a setting sun? Can this same pathway have begun ‘here there were grasses growing? And O the wind was blowing, And O the wind was high! —Everybody's Magazine. Paternal Watchfulness. Secretary of War Taft's father. Al- phonso Taft, was Secretary of War be- fore him, serving with Grant in 1876. An oil portrait of Alphonso Taft hangs | on the wall facing Secretary Taft's | desk in the War Department. | When he reached his office on the | | morning after the day of his swearing- Iin as Secretary of War Mr. Taft stood before his father’s picture and viewed l “That's a good picture,” he said. “My good old governor certainly had a commanding eye. I say nothing twinkling: rally have to be steady and questioning gaze. it for a long time. Then he turned to ‘ i about the comuvelling force of his one of his assistants. hand.” Then he added, his eyes *I am afraid I'll just natu- here, u: nder that Honor for l_l/'—a‘shingtan. Booker T. Washingten, whose “Up From Slavery” was pronounced to be one of the notable human documents of the nineteenth century, recently fig- ured in an incident that gratified him very much. He was going North on a train in the South, and while geated in the dining-car watched a group of young men at the end of the car. He became a little suspicious on account of the size of the group and their con- stant gaze. The dining-car conductor had to request the young men to keep out several times. ‘one of the men came to Mr. Washington's table | e THE TOWN +* lege, attracted national attention. Pro- fessor John Spencer Bassett of the fac- ulty declared that the head of the Tus- kegee Institute had done a notable work. There was a fierce storm of criti- cism. Dr. Bassett was brought to trial for his utterance. A notable victory for academic freedom resulted. Lettuce Prevents Disease. Don't forget that lettuce is a pre< ventive of smallpox. So far as it is possible for a human being to be protected from catching smallpox, lettuce is a protection. No need for vaccination whatever, Any person who eats a small quantity of lettuce twice a day, morning and evening, is as well protected against smallpox as it is possible for any one to be. To be sure, one ought to be clean, ought to live in ventilated rooms and avoid dirt of all sorts. Also avoid ontact with people who have small- pox. Foolish exposure to the conta- gion of smallpox is not to be thought of. But there is no need for vaccina- tion. Go calmly on about your business. Provide a small quantity of lettuce morning and evening, and you can feel sure that you have protected yourself and your family in the best possible way against smallpox. Lettuce is one of the oldest vege- table remedies known to the medical profession. Long before it was used as food it was used as medicine. Many times it has been claimed that it has magical or miraculous powers to pre- vent contagious disease. We believe this is carrying matters altogether too far. But lettuce does furnish to the tem exactly what is needed to pro- | teet it against the poison of smallpox. We defy any one to produce a case of smallpox that has been contracted by anv person who made daily use of lettuce as a food. If there is any such case on record, we would be glad to hear of it.—Medical Talk. Plain As Day. Nathan's teacher believed in reduc- ing poetry to diagram and visible out- line. Therefore, according to the Boston Herald, she told the class to make a rough illustration of the poem, “The Old Oaken Bucket.” Nathan's illustration consisted of a large circle; three buckets and a bunch of dots. “Nathan,” said the teacher, “I don't understand t What's the circle?” “That’s the well,” replied Nathan. “And why have you three buckets?” “One is the old oaken bucket, one is the iron-bound bucket and the other is the moss-covered bucket which hung in the well.” “And what are all those little dots?" “Those are the loved spots which my infancy knew.” Answe. . to Queries. JAPAN-CHINA WAR—A. 8, City. No American naval officer served in the Japanese navy during the Japan- China war by authority of the United States Government. FULL PAY—A. E, City. When an officer of the United States army on the retired list is, at the request of the Governor of a State, detailed for duty with the organized militia of that State, he receives full pay and allow- ance of his grade. s ETIQUETTE—Subscriber, Alame- da, Cal. No habit is in worse taste than that of too many well-meaning men of grasping a lady companion by the elbow, while walking with her, to guide her awkwardly over every crossing and puddle. If it becomes necessary for a lady to take the arm of her escort she should place her hand, usually the left one, just in the angle of his elbow. ALASKA—Subscriber, Shady Run, Cal. A great deal of information rela- tive to Alaska is to be found in “Alaska; Its Neglected Past and Bril- liant Future,” by James, and in “Through the Gold Fields of Alaska to Bering Straits,” by Harry de Windt. These books are illustrated with mang maps. Large maps of the Alaska Ter- ritory may be obtained through any™ first-class bookseller. HAGUE TRIBUNAL—C. W., Gon- zales, Cal. What is known as The Hague arbitration convention was or- ganized July 29, 1899, and is composed of representatives of the signatory na- tions, who were appointed for six years and mav be renominated. All the na- tions are not represented. The decision of the body is final unless a revision for good and sufficient cause is de- manded within a stated time. PROPERTY—A. K., Oakland, Cal. In California if a woman dies and leaves |a husband, but ne children, the community property goes to the husband without administration. If she left separate property, but ne will, one-half goes to the husband when there are no children, and the balance is divided according to the law of suc- cession to the heirs at law. A married ‘woman holding separate property can dispose of the same by will, and is at liberty to devise the whole of it to her