The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 5, 1904, Page 8

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, TUESDAY, JULY: 5, -190s. LS | | | | -— 2 - Nz London Ladies’ Clubf - rather high ideal ' which the 1 of the mew Lyceum + Sttt BT L A FOUR. SISTER | XD CHAIRMAN | LYCEUM CLUE { - - —— = Club set for themselves has had justice done to it in such accounts | of the club as have been senf to the United tes since its opening the day. Pr ply it has been stated arts with a larger clubhouse the Lyce membership a finer than any other woman's club in the world 1 no doubt a good deal has been ling the striking- 1y of distinguished womer oth this country and the United States—whom Miss Constance the bright girl who conceived o Lyceum Club, has suc- ceeded in interesting in the project. The Lyceum is, of course, open to professional women of every nation and aims to do for its members a lot of services such as no social organiza- tion—whether made up of men or womer—ever has undertaken before; but the scheme of the young authoress who founded it goes a good deal far- ther than that. v | “My ideal” Miss Smedley to the writer the other day, “is a union | of intellectual women workers the world over which will advance the in- terests of all of them. That the Ly- ceum Club starts and for the pres- ent has its chief headquarters in Lon- don is merely accidental—though we hope to make our clubhouse here a meeting ground for women workers of every nationality, well as a sort of ‘clearing-h e’ for their work. Our hope is to have, eventually, just as pretentious guarters and equal facili- ties for aiding members in New York and the other great capitals “A woman's trade urion,” some one called the Lyceum in my. hearing a few days ago, and that really sums it =il up. When Miss Smedley's idea of an internationai club for feminine writers, artists, musicians and other intellectual workers was first mooted it attracted no end of atiention and oner was it known that Lady Balfour, the Prime Minister's w, had become its chair- and Mrs. Moberly Bell, wife of the editor of the Times, its vice chair- man, and that half of the intellectual women in this country, including Mrs, Thomas Hardy, Mrs. Craigie, Miss Beatrice Harraden, Mrs. Humphrey Ward and Mrs. Fiora Annie Steel, were in the club’s provisional committee, applications for membership came in almost as fast as they could be record- ed. No small number of them came from the United States, and every other civilized country in the world, including China, was represented, too. At the outset it had been decided that the essential qualification for membership in this club should be active work for pay on the part of an applicant, the jdea being to exclude fashionable amateurs and beginners who had =o far shown no special prom- ise, and this rule has been adhered to, with the result that over 30 per cent of :hese applying were rejected. The list of members includes the names of two Duchesses, several Countesses and a few Ladies, it is true, but each of them is an actual woman worker. For in- stance, the Duchess of Sutherland and her Grace of Leeds are both authors, We the Countess of Aberdeen’s work “=Jtoo well known to need any com- ment. Mrs. Langtry's dacghter, Jeanne, is now, as Mrs. lan Malcolm, one of the foremost liberal hostesses, but she is & member of the Lyceum Club solely because she composes songs that get published. The Countess Feodore Gleichen, another of the titled mem- paints and sells pictyres. The only exception to the club’s rule is made in the case of the wives of distin- man, R I in the persoms of the Countess of Malmesbury and Lady Esher. So far bureaus of the Lyceum Club have been ovéned in Paris, ‘Berlin and Prague. The American membership is not vet sufficiently large to justify the opening of a depof in New York, but such an event seems not far off. At! present (he interests of the Lyceum are being looked after directly by Mrs. Florence Allen Degan of New York.| Scme time ago the idea of the club was | submitted by Miss Smedley to promi- nent American women, and among ‘I those who have comsented to act on the American provisional committee | are Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett, Mre. Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Miss Jeanette L. Glider, Mrs. Burton Har- | rison and Mrs. Denison, president of the | | General Federation of Women's Clubs. | | Probably the thing that American | | women will ask about the Lyceum | Club, however, is in what way it is to | | be of service to its members the world | over, who may never get to London to be “put up” at the clubhouse in Picca- dilly. The best way to answer the ques- tion is to describe the “information bu-| reau,” which is the most interesting | thing about the new club and that which makes it entirely different from similar institution the world over. | So far as the literary members of the Lyceum Club are concerned, this bu-; reau will do the work of a gigamic“ agency in rlacing their work. To be- gin with, a complete register wiil be‘ kept oi the names and addresses of editors and publishers throughout thé | world, together with particulars of the | class of work each accepts and as to rates and times of payment. The stand- | ing of literary agents everywhere will ascertained and recorded, too. But it is as a “‘ciearing house” for the work of writers that this bureau will be of the greatest service. With its afd, the feminine writer of almost any sort of | & story, article, or what not, can have it puoblished—provided it has _salable qualities—practically the warld over. Supposing, for instance, an American member of the club writes a story and sends a copy of her manuscript to the London headquarters. Once its quality | is established, it will only be a question of in how many markets it can be sold. One of the chief members of the staff in each Continental depot of the Ly- ceum Club will be a translator, who also knows thoroughly the literary field | in her country, and to these folk copies of American and English stories, arti- cles, etc., will be sent for translation and sale. In this way it is believed | that the production of, say, an Amer- ican writer, can be disposed of, not on- ly in her own country and in Great Britain, but in a good many Buropean States, not to mention the English col- onies, where depots of the Lyceum Club also are in process of establishmept. | Payment for such stories or articles will be coliected by the representatives of the Lyceum Club and sent to the London headquarters to be forwarded : to the author. i | There is not space to enumerate the | | detalis of a'l the functions that this ’uniqur bureau of Information will un- dertake, but they may be indicated . With the assistance of the of- of the British Museum and the on Office of Records, a complete being made of archivists and ional researchers all over the | world, ard it is the intention to get in | | touch with each of them in order that | researches may be undertaken on be half of the scientific and university members of the Lyceum Club, so that | in the fullness of time, as Miss Smed- ley exvressed it to me the other day, “it will be nearly as easy to make | | references by proxy in the libraries of Salamanea, Seville or St. Petersburg as in one’s own study Women painters who belong to the | Lyceum Club will be supplied with de- tailed information as to the standing | of different exhibitions throughout the ! artistic world, the times during which | they are open znd the chances for sales at each. The club will" handle members' pictures in almost the same way as it will handle their manu- scripts; for instance, a painting by an | American member could be sent to the | 1 €lub, which would keep it going from | exhibition to ‘exhibition both in this| country and on the Contlnent until, sold. Similar arrangements will. be made for disposing of the work of black and white artists. And, so far as the feminine composers who be- come members of the club are con cerned, their work will be offered to musical publishers, and concerts will| be arranged to introduce it. To all| these services members of the Lyce. |{um Club will become entitled after the payment of their subscription which, at the startout, 1s $10 for Eng: lish and $5 for American and othe foreign members. The only charges | which the club will make to members served through this Information. bu- | reau will be for out of pocket ex-| penses. Of the L®eum—as a club—littie has been said in this article, as I fan- cy .that the most interesting points about it have been covered in the tel- | egraphic dispatches. American women ! ! workers who go abroad may be inter- ested 1o hear, however, that the Ly- ceum contains fifty bedrooms, which will be at the disposal of its foreign members when in London at prices which cannot be touched in the me- | tropolis in point of reasonableness. The catering at the Lyceum “will be another of its features. Foreign mem- bers who wish it will also be given letters of introduction to assist them to put in their time to the best ad- b: welcom: vantage, and they will to the receptions which are to be | THE - SAN FRANCISCO CAL JORN D. -SPRECKELS, Proprietor . . . . . .+ . Address All Commonications to JORN McNAUGHT, Manager Publication OMCe .........c...ouen v......Third and Market Streets, S. F. TUESDAY JULY 5, 1904 FAVORABLE CONDITIONS CONTINUE. HILE business is still quiet, the quietude is due more to the usual midsummer luil than to any intrinsic sluggishness, for the more favora- ble conditions observed during the past fortnight stil! continue. Indeed, the current signs are the best for some months, and the impression that we are to h.ave improved conditions during the last half of the year is steadily increasing. It is true that the country’s bank clearings last weeck showed a loss of 208 per cent as compared with the correspolxd}ng week in 1904, with all but two of the important cities—St. Louis and Cincinnati exhibit, but the week was broken into by the holidays, and the figures for a holi- day week are apt to be misleading, at Iéast on the sur- —on the wrong ‘side of the face. The failures for the week were 244, against 215 for the same week in 1903. The railway earnings, which during the first half of the year ran steadily behind those for the preceding year, have lately taken a turn fo1 the bet- ter, as already mentioned, and during the month of June exhibited an increase of about 3 per cent, which is a marked improvement over the 3 to 6 per cent loss of the sprmg months. The failures, it will be seen, are more numerous than during the corresponding period in 1903, but the liabilities have steadily decreased, showing that the failures as a rule are small. % * ! from -abroad. In financial circles @t New York the feeling of coufi- dence in the future, so often mentioned of late, is as pro; nounced as ever. It is felt more by professionals than the public, however. for the latter are still indisposed to purchase ‘even standard dividend-paying stoc except in a small and tentative way. Perhaps they hafe not recovered from the enormous losses of 1003 and the early part of 1go4 attendant upon thé great liquidation in railroad and industrial shares, for as time passes and the facts <lowly leak out it is seen with increasing clearness that the public losses from the famons shrinkage were cnormous. re There are thousands of persons in the United States whose stocks declined anywhere from 25 to 75 per eent during that long, slow shrinkage, and large indecd must be the bank account that can stand such a drain and leave its possessor solvent, Many fortunes were swept away altogether, and everybody, professional or out- sider, who had money invested in Wall street, lost. Un- der circumstances time must necessarily such some | elapse ere sufiicient recuperation is gained for further investment, and even then the purchase of securities will be slow and cautious. This is probably the reason why Wall street stocks, while showing a buoyant undertone, do not-advance, though everybody says they ought te, and is surprised that they do not. Similar conditions prevail in Europe. banker, lately returned from abroad, says: “Money is very plentiful in Europe, and ratés are ac- cordingly low. The situation there is very much the same as There very noticeable tendency among foreign investors to choose short-term securities in preference to the standard long-term investments. Ameng the leading English bankers there is more op- timism on American securities than there is among eur own bankers, I do not think, though, that they are look- ing for an immediate rise in market values.” The crop prospects, upon which, as already stated, the condition of trade so largely depends this year, are not as brilliant as they were a week or ten days ago, but they are still exccllent, and plenty of wheat, corn and cotton is assured. In Europe the wheat crop has suffered some deterioration, owing to bad weather, but the world’s sup- A New York here. is a . ply of this grain will probably be ample for all require- ments. | The provision market is in rather better condition age'n, as the ~ccent liquidation has about ceased. Stocks are still 'iberal at the leading packing centers, but there s no congestion. There is nothing new worthy of note in the rextils industries, except that nothing more is heard cf growing depression in these lines, and there is no mcre closing down of mills and factories, though some here and there are occasionally working shorter hours. ihe railroads are making no more staff reduc- tions, as*lar as reported, 2nd those made some weeks ago turn out to have been considerably exaggerated. Aside from the reduction in the wage scale of the iron workers at the beginning of the year, and which was then sup- posed to be the beginning of a general scaling down of wages all over the country, there have been few wage reductions affecting large bodies of men, and labor seems to be well empioyed throyghout the countfy. The condition of trade in San Francisco is pretty well illustrated by the locyl bank sclearings, which in June 587, against $117,404.342 in June, 1903. For the first six months of the year they were $727,421,345, against $737,654.053 for the same time.in 1903. The back figures show that while we are still behind 1903 in these local clearings, we regained some lost ground in June, for on June 1 we were about $18,000,000 behind 1903, where- ¢ we are now only about $10,000,000 behind. This ap- parently indicates some gain in local trade in June, for the clearings in May were $110,208,206, or about $6,000,- 000 below thpse for the month of June* This exhibit is confirmatory of the preceding state- ment that during the past several weeks business has taken a turn for the better. As the improvement comes during one of the two dull periods of the year, it is doubly reassuring, and presages a very good fall trade. Prices, too, are. keeping up in spite of the depressing tendency of all the recent talk about “recession,” “dull times,” etc., and nobody seems to be worrying about the future. As far as current indications go, therefore, the outlook for continuned good times in the United States is excellent and much better than during the first half of the year. —_—_— T A TEXAN NOVELTY. : EXAS is a Jarge State and has been. settled by a held trequently with the idea of mak - great variety of people. No wondgr that it fur- ing the clnbhou.:‘. as it§ founder says, | nishes a variety of incidents of human interest, “a common meeting id for_intels " . " W L Redaepppentioryc g o ',‘lm‘ from trying to pray the cotton weevil to a standstill to over.” Among the American women of prominence who will make use of the club this summer are Mrs. May Wright Sewall, who returned from Berlin the other day with Miss Smed- ley, Miss Laura Gill, dean of Bar- nard College, and Miss Woolley, pres- ident of Mount Holyoke 3 The Lyceum Club has the advan- being started in a businesslike Capital to a practically unlim- is behind the enterprise of the club premises at Piccadilly, as wel ‘working the las the ‘:;mhlunn, have E' P shooting preachers for failing to do it Bat all the incidents, secular and religious, are sent away back by the _exploits of a Texas Bluebeard, who, in a fit of unjustifiable jealousy, inflicted upon his young and handsome wife a punishment so unusual and so savage and original as to make the efforts of fiction to portray the green-eyed passion scem stale and flat. Shakespeare has touched the subject with the gilding of genius il Othello. But Desdemona was permitted to piously say her prayers and then was quite nicely smoth- ered with a pillow. As we see the unfortunate lady on the stage, she makes no efficient defense of her life, but _just, takgs her smothering as if she deserved it. -~ . The Texan Othello and Desdemona- have-caused the- imagination of Shakespeare to seem fecble and impaired. The Texan tied his wife’s hands, put a gag in her mouth and then suspended her by the heels, head down, and put in the night burning into her flesh with a red hot file the name of the other Texan gent who was supposed to be the co-respondent. The letters were not lower case, either. They resem- bled the ’flaming block letter-in which Mr. Hearst an- nounces that he has given turkeys to the poor on Thanksgiving day. The husbind did not hurry the job | of printing at all, but took all night for it, and when it was finished and punctuated to suit him he took the gag out of the-tortured lady’s mouth and then departed. She was able to make an outcry that attracted rclief and was right-ended and turned over to the doctor, while the Sheriff went after her husband with a sawed-off shot- gun, 3 Now let the novelists and the playwrights who put realism on the - stage go off and indict themselves of feeblemindedness. This vengeful beast in Texas has out- done all the figmeph of their fancy, and made the wild i Comanche and Apache to resemble little Sunday-school girls. 3 AMuch concern has been expressed that the crops of Germany have greatly dcteriorated this year and that the*food of the Fatherland will have to be obtained This should be a matter of congratula- tion rather than of regret, for our German friends may now find of necessity what good things there are in the United States. It is a lesson which should have been learned by choice THE MOVEMENT OF FREIGHT CARS. HE commercial and non-commercial public gdes its way. getting used to inconveniences or to con- veniences alike, quite thoughtless of the progress in what has become the science of transportation, upon which all commerce depends. One of the most serious obstructions. to commerce ‘was the detention of freight cars, caused by those who chartered them using them ! ‘as Storage warchouses by not promptly unloading them when they arrived at their destination.” This detention on railroads east of the Missoun River averaged cight‘ days, and west of that line five days, per car. While a shipper was using a car standing for storage that he paid nothing for, another shipper was waiting for the car to carry his goods, and was subject to loss by the unjust detention of the facility he desired to use. The effect extended to the whole commerce of the country. The railroads had a car auditing system by which the location of every freight car in the United States was known every day, and also the use to which it was being put and the cause of its detention, if any. By a clearing house system all the railroads adjusted their accounts | with cach other for the use of their cars, but this did not | prevent the abuse of their charter by the private ship- | . pers who. used the cars for stationary storage. to enforce uniform regulations for the unloading and use of cars by shippers. “ The cars handled at the beginning of the work of the association numbered 600,000 a year. 045, and the time of detention has declined to about a day and a half. In 1903 the association handled a total of 29,624,020 cars. 1f these cars had been detained by shippers for storage purposes an average of five days, there would have been a loss in use of 143,120,140 days, which would have fallen not only upon the railroads but upon the commercial community. As a matter of fact the detention amounted to only 48,391,404 days, thus cffecting a saving of time in the use of 29,634,020 cars of 04,778,606 car days over the old system. This has been effected by imposing a charge«of $1 per day for the detention of cars after the expiration of forty-eight hours. The cars now move more promptly and the facilities of the service have been improved by this greater mobility. Perhaps the community would not have known of this increase in facilities which it has en- joyed except for a suit that is just entered against the Car Service Association by the Coal Shippers’ Associa- tion of Chicago to have it declared iliegal and a trust in restraint of trade. The coal shippers are interested in wareh(').using on the track. If they can hold loaded cars an average of eight days they save storage. In the ag gregate that means an enormous sum to the coal ship- pers, but as they do not pass the benefit on to their cus- tomers the public would suffer from a blockade of trans- portation facilities, with no corresponding benefit. As the time saved last year amounted to the service of 315,928 cars for each of the 300 working days of the year, it will be seen that a return to the old detention system would mean the withdrawal of that many cars from service entirely. This would cause a car famine of such proportions as would inflict great injury upon the commerce of the country. % The Coal Shippers’ Association, in its averments in the case, says that the power to force the mobility of freight cars by imposing a detention charge of $1 per day may be used in serious restraint of trade, and therefore is obnoxious to the anti-trust law. It is not plain that the power to impose such a charge is in restraint of trade. Freight cars-are chartered for transportation, not storage. Unless there is some way to procure their prompt unloading and return to the rolling service, the shipper can retain them indefinitely for warehouse pur- peses, subjecting their owners and the public to great losses and inconvenience. A court of equity would prob- ably say that the detention of cars is such a restraint of trade as to warrant the means used to prevent it, and a court of law might well hold that what the Car Service Association does should be embodied in the interstate commerce law. If it be held that such service is ob- noxious to the anti-trust law, that statute should | be amended in that particular. The organization of the Car Service Association, perhaps for the first fime known to the general public, illustrates the development of our American railway system, and its attempted impeachment in the courts shows how closely law follows everything done or left undone in our vast system of transportation. It may have its defects, but if the country were compelled to resort to the crude methods it has displaced the result would be ruin and famine for millions of people. — _ The Board of Public Works has resolved upon the flushing of thoroughfares, wherever possible, as a means of cleanliness and sanitation that will remove the in- cessant hazard to human life which is involved in flying dust. This measure commends itself to public approval. | it is practically impossible to estimate the evil that lurks in the dust of the streets where the deadly microbe is insistent and vigorously alive. Finally, | sixteen years ago_ the Car Service Association was or- | ganized, representing all of the railroads in the country, | Now it is 1,828,- — License Came Too Late. Among the applicants for dog licenses at the City Hall recently was a young Swedish damsel, who was ac- companied by a fine specimen of the St. Bernard breed of canines. Chief Deputy Tax Collector Simpson took the ! applicant in charge and soon ascer- tained that she was rather ignorant of the purpose of her missicn. “Ay bane told I must get a license for my dawg,” said .the lady, “but I know not what that manes.” “Well, madam,” replied the genial Simpson, “you see, you must secure a license to be placed on the collar of your dog go the poundmen will not i seize him and incarcerate him in the { pound.” . The lady did not quite understand. | but ‘after further explanation said: “T SHE HAD THE LICENSE, BUT i THE CITY POUNDMASTER HAD | THE DOG. L ; -+ !a door which had been opened by an- | other appiicant. The lady ran excited- ly out of the room, but found no traces of her pet. She ran distractedly through the City Hall corridors and finally found her way out to McAllis- ter street. She was just in time to see the poundmen catch her dog with their ‘net ard hurl him into the wagon for deportation to the pound. She waved her dog lcense, but without avail, for the wagon dashed by her and- the poundmen only smiled. | A Grizzly Photographer. Bert Gibbs is the amateur.photog- rapher bear hunter of all Round Val- ley. But he doesn’'t hunt that class 1 of subjects since a big Mendocino | grizzly took his camera away from "him. He had shct everything in his neighborhood and to his prized collec- | tion of snaps of living birds, squirrels and deer he longed to add the photo- graph of a live' bear. OQne with a flerce, whiskered phiz, with tongue lolling out and eyves gleaming in all the savage fire of lowest brutedom. He was brave, was Bert, and filled | with the enthusiasm of the true “flend,” took his solitary way into the far woods armed with his loaded piec- ture-box. While cautiousiy beating up + a huckleberry patch trying to flush his bear he fell over a bank and badly sprained an ankle. After lying all | night disabled where he had fallen he concluded that he was doomed to re- main there till he starved to death. | He photographed in his mind his ema- | clated body found days hence and the !sad idea came to him to take a last | “shtot™ at himself. He had heard that | people in the last ditch always reserved flnsl shots for their personal uses. He | would do this and the faithful camera | would give up a farewell view ¢f him taken while dying. Then he fastened a string to the | shutter of the machine, placed it on a |log and was beginning to “look nat- ural” before it when a huge grizaly i lumberéd out of the brush making | more noise than a fullgrown avalanche. | Gibbs heaved himself in one mighty | spring. His ankle was disabled but he | found nc difficulty in getting up a nearby tree. The bear paid no atten- tion to him, but, squatting on his haunches, proceeded to instruct him- self in camera-craft. He picked it up with his fore paws and was making a minute examination with eyes and nose when the shutter snapped. The sharp sound frightened him and drop- ping the box he galloped off in the woods. Gibbs came down from his tree cured of the sorain, picked up his camera now | and went home. Then he d“eh‘ped‘ the photograph which the grizzly had taken of itself with the last shot he had reserved for himself. . The Power of One Word. T like to think of old Bismarck as he sat by the window that opens on the windy park of Friedrichsruhe, in an old gray shooting jacket, a rug over his knees, a pipe in his le as a North German farmer, this man who had almost held Europe in fee. A litgle vulamremhw mhemmwmmm. All the world knew that the old lon ‘was sulking in his den in no amiable mood toward the young Emperor who had turned him out of doors. It was known that his memoirs were writ- ten and that his was correspondence #et in order. A New York publisher know now. They cannot put my dog in | the pound when he has this tag.” Then she turned around and found | that the dog had left the office through thought he might secure the papers in which Bismarck had told the real story of the birth of the Germaa em- pire—that strange story of craft and heroism, littleness and grandeur. Tt was on this mission that I sailed for Hamburg. I had two letters for Bis- marck. One was from a negligible Embassador. The other had been given me by a German statesman of some note, with whom, in other days, I had been a student in the University of Jena. My friend had been a fa- millar of Bismarck’'s household and bespoke me a kindly hearing. I sent the letters on from Hamburg and fol- lowed the next day. On the table at his elbow, as he sat by the window, I noticed my let- ters. The valet who had placed a chair for me took his stand by the door. I said what I had to say. Tt was (permit me to affirm it!) an ad- mirable speech. For ten days and nights I had rehearsed it as I paced the deck of the stormy liner; so—in tolerable German—I declaimed it. Tt was dignified; it was diplomatie. When I had finished Bismarck took the pipe from his lips, said “Nein"— and put the pipe back again. 'Twas the shortest answer I ever had in my life. 1 waited for a mo- ment. The old man smoked and stared out into the park. I got up and bowed: I had rehearsed that boy and did not intend to waste it; I bowed to his old hairless head—the flabby vellow jowls and big mustache—to the old gray Jacket and the pipe. It was like | salaaming to a stone wall. Then the valet led me out. In the park I re- gained my senses Success, The Stweat Box. The “medieval torture chamber still exists, if we may judge from the re- ports as to the “sweat box” and the “third degree.” What the concealed in- famy of the last may be is difficult to learn. The “sweat box" is a method of confining suspects in heated air un- til the torture becomes so irritating as to elicit almost any confession desired, especially when couvled with cunning questions and probings of the prose- cuters. But where is the boasted trial by jury and by his fellows of the An- glo-Saxon love of justice? It has been supposed, wrongly, it seems, that a man is held te be innocent until his crime has been proved by orderly and just trial. Punishment should not therefore begin until after conviction The poor degenerates at best are poor matches for the subtle and astute ques- tioners, without the added perplexity resulting from torture. Why not revive the rack and screw and be dome with them quicker and without trial? Will some one tell the simple truth about the abuses of the so-called examina- tions of prisoners hefore trial? What exactly is the proceeding in the “third degree’” torture business? By what law are such things allowed, and what have the Judges and lawyers been about to permit sueh barbaric anachronisms in the twentieth century >—American Med- icine. Teach Children to Swim. The Editor of The Call, San Francisco: Dear Sir<If not too late, may I sug- gest a lesson taught by the awful Slo- cum . calamity, in which it seems $50 out of %00 victims were drowned? It is that swimming be made part of every child's education. It is easy to learn, never forgotten and may save thousands of lives every year. Although it does not invariably pre- vent death, it immensely increases the chances of life, while to know how to swim would help many a woman to re tain her judgment when presence of mind is the next best thing to abs: of Body. Yours very respectful T. W. JACKS« ence Answers to Queri A PHRASE—A. S, City. “If T were you, I would wear another coat” Is a proper phrase. “MILLIONS IN IT"—T. Z., City. ‘The name of the play in which John T. Raymond frequently used the ex- “There’s millions in it,” is FLOWERS AND PLANTS-—A. S City. The following by a writer on plant life is an answer to the question, “Do plants and flowers breathe?" “There are two distinet and appar- ently opposite processes going on in the plant. (1) The decomposition of ca:- bonic acid—the fixation of the carbon for the purpose of building up its own | tissues—and the iberation of axveen This constitutes vegetable nutrition. (2) The exhaling of carbonic acid, the result of the um®® of the oxygen of the atmosphere with the carbon of the veg- etable tissues. This is analogous to respiration.” Flowering plants of few small plants of delicate odor may be kept in dwelling-rooms without in- Jury to health. They may be even bene- ficlal to the air by absorbing the car- bonic acid gas and warning oeccupants 'by their drooping leaves whenever air is but no one should sleep in a room where there are pungeni flowers or growing plants. .