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CHARLOTTE DAILY OBSERVER, DECEMBER 3, 1900. , 1 s V v OLD STORIES REVISED Maud Muller WJio 5 Raked the Hay " - - v BY GEORGE ADB , ,-', ? HlUHlratlotte by ,! Albert Levering v "(Copyright, im. by Cfeorge Ade.) . The 'story of Maud "Muller was a ; corker . In Its -day, -it Is now what 'President "Eliot of Harvard. would calj a Lime, , If It wf r larger It would bo . ' v- called a' Lemon. '... r- ..'- ; v Some forty" summer , ago " every sentimental Sarah in the whole coun tJiZJry kept ; In her -room a Gift-Book 3"contalnlng the verses about, Maud In v.i-the hay-neld and, tbe Judge. riding . .' by on hU crestnut horse. It was a ., i riv simple yarn.-but sadly sweet withal. ! " : When a Belle of the sixties retired I". 'U her yappy-little Boudoir. with the i ' ;"!' v cardboard . Mottoes, the , kerosene lamp and the Jhaad worked 8hama, ' ' she always had to read about Maud J vs..-j:"f no her, hard Finish before she-could sink back Into the Feathers. . ; Vy ; Flrst-'she would remove the sting . .. little Hat that usually had one roos V tr. feather In It and waa worn tilt-V'i.vv'-d ever, the -right' eye. ' j. Then she would loosen up the Net, ';. and the. Chignon and the Waterfall, ' : and carefully, put away the Cameo -;' -a Brooch, 'weighing one-balf . pound. VTnen sne would ' bacK out-or tne : Velvet Basque and climb'- over the r- Hoops end divest herself of various ; Garment - rriade. famous by Oodey's Layd's Magazine, after", which she .would be ready for tier .evening, dose of Maud Muller. rJ ". V If a war time Belle mads up In . the freak costume that' was tn vogue when Pa and Ma were young, should '"Walk along Alimony' Alley, In the Waldorf-Astoria th.y would sick the , House Detective on to her. And by the same rule, when you try to -hand a Maud Muller poem to Mabelle.-pf the class of '07. who has a Track Record of 1:58 1-2, she aim ply chirps a couple of times and 'says, "Twice ten plus three for jtou and beat the barrier." The Maud Muller kind of poem has gone into the -Discard with the Melo- dedh, the Lap-Supper and the Kiss ing Game. What the Fly Public wants now adays la Plot and Something ' Do ing. " What Is there In the whole Maud fuller business when you come to 1 sift it right dawn and analyse tt ac cording to . the- methods of Modern Criticism r It seeme that Maud Muller wan out in the field trying to be a full hand V' ' ' 1 M"M mum mt cmst. ast at and save her father some money. We And accurate pictures of her In the old Gift-Book. She was bare ' footed and her hair was out to dry. Kvldently she had been washing It. She had a round, ahiny face and the tine, large belladonna eyes . of the Anna Held variety. She sang as she worked until she . happened to glance at the far off town, when she experienced a vague longing to discontinue manual labor and move Into the city. This same symptom, prevailing to the present day, accounts for the large supply of tManlcures. At this point the Judge comes by on horseback. He Is suppoaed to be a very rich mnn. At the time the poem waa written Judges were getting as high as twelve hundred dollars a year, and the query Imme diately suggests Itself to the reader of the present day did he have some side line of graft? At any rate he was rich therefore disreputable. He pulled up fh the shade of the old apple tree and asked the girl to bring him a drink of water. It might occur to some that -a strong, husky man who had been riding all morning would go and get a drink , for himself Instead of asking some poor working girt to do It for him. - The story has It that she filled the cup from the spring and brought It to him. and as he took It she blush ' ed, for she realised that she was not rigged out to receive swell company. The Judge thanked her and re marked that "a sweeter draught from a fairer hand was never quaffed." . This was going, some right off the reel. lie went on to talk, about the - flowers and the birds and the bees and finally got around to the weath er- A man dealing In this line of conversation could not stay In the game for any great length of time at the present, but" nevertheless It seems that the Judge made , a ten strike with Maud. - After he rode away she watched him and said to herself, as : nearly ' as her remarks can be translated Into' the ; sweet Vernacular of the , twentieth century: "Oh. if t could only land some man like that! . Our : family would -certainly put a crimp In his Bank Account ' He could buy all father's clothes and lend money to brother and pay . mother's traveling , ex Reuses.". i i it waa , evident that Maud really 1nvr.il the Jurlre. . : t - .As for the Judge, he looked back from a hill and saw neir still sol ' dfarlne- and taxing at him and said: "She looks all right to-ma. If I could get some girt like that, Vme for a quiet place In' the country. But ', X don't think my family would stand for her.",- -i " .'' So the Judge rode oh Into tha town j and back to the Court Houae-, while ; Mand stood around, thinking of hhu, until she was -ctrtirm in the rain. , , He married a rich wife wIm travJ eled with tho htgh-rullers. and often 1 at bight when he waa waiting for her lo come home ne wouia gaze into ' the Are and wish that he could get ut .ct It without having hia picture J, ' . ' a In "'( heSnaners. ' ' ' 1 " Sometimes he wondered Vwhy ' toe hadn't played a few t return dates with the good looker that brought him the water. ' ' i As for Maud, she married a poor man, bu ,- what tna coupis lacaea In Furniture-they made up in l"a Bi llyh - ''I,"- ' ':".''.'- V.-'V"'.'- ',' ' ' ' " if'-'' Verv often she ; would sit around the long, r lonesome cvenlngj, with nothing to. read but the agricultural papers, and .'. try. to imagine , what might have been 'If she had made a little stronger play for the Judge. ' This la the end of this story. There is nothing more to It -" BuDoese that some Whittier "of to day should write this kind of' a stery and send it to tne editor or. a Dnsa little magaalne that guarantees you many -a tingle for f -your ten-cent niece.' j r '',.'. V' -J Would the wise man In charge of the dlme-throbb,er, who knows just what the flat-headed public la look ing for. accent any such cmidisn ana pointless narrative as thlsT Not on your 100.000 circulation! ' He would return the Ma to, the Author and suggest a few changes In order to, make the story more Snap py and give the Artist a chance at some cracking gdod Pictures. By the time rhe got through doctoring up the Romance it v would run about as -follows: Maude, with an "e," as a type of the Progressive New Woman, Is ., In the hay-fleld directing the operations of a large gang oi workmen, wnen the Judge comes by in a 60 H.P. motor car. - The Judge has become immensely wealthy while acting as a tool of the Corporate Interests that are slowly but, surely sucking the life blood of the Republic. The Judge is the em bodiment of the pernicious System, whatever that Is. Inasmuch as. he is exceeding the speed limit, Maude, when she sees him coming, goes Into her colonial cottage that coat a half million and gets a shotgun, and aa he comes by she snoots him in the knee. The purpose of introducing this Incident is to give the artlHt an opening for a waah-drawlng that will be full of Action. The Judge falls out of the machine and Maude Muller has him carried Into the houae, whereupon he calls y im for a drink. The Maude Muller of 1906 knows better than to offer a Judge anything that comes out of a spring. She brings him a Scotch. When he arouses himself to the fact that she la a Raving Beauty and furthermore Is highly cultivated, the same as all the girls living in the country, he forgets his resentment snd they spend many happy hours together discussing the problem of Labor and Capital while he Is being nursed back to health. . At lost the Judge returns to town, leaving Maude very lonely. The wires get froaaed and he marries .t ;M aa aomebody else. 8he does the aame, necessarily. Then both of them sit around reflecting on the old ooup let: . "Of all sad words of tongue or pen The saddest are these, it might have been." Only they shift It around after awhile to read as follows: "Of - al( glad words now set to verse "The gladdest are these, It might have been worse." A half Century ago, when married people -got In wrong and found that they were up against It, their only relief waa to sit around and gase In to the re and dream of what "might have been." They were almply Stung and that settled It. Nowadays when Folks find that they have miscued the matrimonial venture they turn their troubles over to a lawyer. In the revised version Maude goes into court and proves that her hus band Invariably wears a red necktie, thereby giving her many hours of acute suffering, and that she can no longer remain under the same roof. Bo the Court seta her free and en tera an trder. that ahe shall not be permitted tp marry again for two woeks. In the meantime, the Judge proves that his wife has been excessively cruel In that she does not always agree with him, -and of course he gets his decree. Then the Judge and Maude get to gether and take the tall Hurdle hand In hand. In the antiquated romance when Mrs. E. D. N. Seuthworth was the Real Thing, the marriage of the two would be the Final Chapter. It will, be recalled that the Hero. after four-flushing and backing up and walking aideways through S00 pages of long conversations and weather report finally came to Taw. He found her In the Conserva tory 6Y else at the rustic bench be neath the hawthorn tree with a dla tant view of the Manor Houae the very spot on which they first met, the morning after Sir Guy waa found murdered In the library. Usually he would sneak from be hind and lean over then she, the startled, little Cry then he, "Agnes, love you. I love yon, I love you" bualneas of Clinching quick cur- tain. Such was the Happy Wind-Up. But it will no longer do. It was once supposed that after the two went strolling back under the elms, holding bandar there waa nothing more to be told. But the Modern problem novel usually begins with the wedding march. Tbe Judge, following the exam Die of the average Central Character In the absorbing Story of To-day, per mits hia lust for gold and powera to lead him Into the alnuous bywaya of financial crookedness. In other words he becomes the Director of an Indus trial Corporation, and about the aame tfme both of the great political parties begin building a gallowa for .v aieat raa yrrecTie a m him. Maude la tempted by the glitter of High Life. She learns to dally with Bridge Whlat at ten dollars a throw. She gets In with the Set that plays tag with the Ten Commandments and eats a light breakfast, consisting of grape fruit and a couple of Mar tinis about three o'clock In the after noon. In fact, Maude begins hitting the most elevated spots. There Is no reason why she shouldn't calm down and behave her self, but for some reason the plain 114 a week mortals who live In suburban Mate like to have their Fic tion served with paprika dressing. ,e.e Aaae hwi and so the poor Society Leader has to govern herself accordingly. Maude gets lo be an Awful Thing. She Is a night owl, and becomes well acquainted with nearly all of the club rowdies in the world except her own husband. At last. In order to keep up the Pace, ahe begins toHirt with the. Dope. Whenever anything happens to worry her, she simply gets out her Light Artillery and gives herself a Shot that blows the ribbons out of her hair. Then In a few minutes she hi picking grapes and watching the Northern Lights. Things go on from bad to worse until Maude, fooling with the Hypo one day gets an overdose and the Judge, threatened with Exposure, jumps off of Brooklyn Bridge. The moral of the whole compli cated story ' of Maude and the Judge Is that all self-representing souls should remain Poor and keep away from Drawing Rooms where the Best Families are wont to con gregate. It Is a good thing for Maude Muller that she wandered Into the field of Romantic Fiction at a time when all she had to do was to rake the hay. swwsa In the Supreme Court of South Carolina a decision was banded down affirming t'ne dcclalon of the lower court, wnch gave a verdict of $1. 000 agalnat the Olenn-Lowery Clt ton Mills to the widow of M. W. Mc Carley, for allowln ga heavy weight to fall upon him and killing him while he was at wor kin tne compa ny' ginnery. The weight waa alleg ed to have been held by a rope, which wft Hallowed to rot. The ault was for $35,000. FROM CRADLE ; 'A ; .-An ethnological tragedy fa to. bid m the proaalc figure of the annual re port of the Federal : Bureau of Im migration. ,- Hidden away In serried ranks of statistics Is the story of the exodus from Lithuania to the United States, a tangible evidence of the. hopelessness and dlapalr that has dla heathened Europe's oldest race In the very birthplace of the blond Aryan type whose descendant have forged a cilcle of conquering civilisation around the world. It la a slgnlHcant fact that this lineal remnant of the original Aryan blond type should, af ter a struggle of countless centuries for the realisation of racial Ideals, turri to the youngest of Its. descend ants for asylum and refuge upon the collapse of the Ill-starred and short liver Baltlo Republic, whose brief page In history drips with blood. Tbe records of the Immigration Bureau show that among the thou sands of Lilthuanlons who for the year past have been flocking to the United States a large number axe flocking to the - farms and ranches of the West and Northwest,- for the Lithuanian has been a tiller of the soli and a hewer of wood from times Immemorial. But not a few of them go to Increase te strug gling colonies of Lithuanians tn the big cities, where relentless compe tition drivers them In gaunt want to the sweat shops. Chicago has a large colony of Lettls, Lithuanians, and Baths, from which place they have spread over Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, the States which show the largest proportion of the new Immigration. CAU8ED NAPOLEON'S DOWNFALL Lithuania, the home of the Letts, Lithuanians, and Esthonlans, is one of the moat primitive and least known regions in Europe.l Untl quite recently it was practically terra Incognita, a harsh, Inhospitable cli mate sheltering an almost savage people upon the marshy shores of the. gale-swept Baltio. It haa for, centuries been darkest Europe. Only now and then at great tilstorical In terval haa It emerged out of Its fogs and mists to attract general notice, as, for Instance, when It gave Napol eon hia coup de grace In the fateful march from burning Moscow. It was In the swamps of Lithuania rather than on the field of Waterloo that Bonaparte's grip on the desti nies of Europe was wrenched loose by savage, revengeful, blood-lusting Letts. Politically, Lithuania Is Included within the boundrles of the Russian governments of Livonia, Vllna, Kovno, Grodno, Vlbesk, Minsk, Mohalev, and Suwalkl, and in Prussia It includes the provinces of East and West Prus sia. Long years ago It was an Inde pendent kingdom with Ita own prince and nobility, a dim tradition which, however, has kept alive the national spirit through centuries of political servitude. Crowded In between con quering Germans on the one side and aggressive Russians on the other, Lettish autonomy succumbed to over powering forces and sullenly acepted foreign suzerlans. ' A SCIENTIFIC TREASURE HOUSE It Is within only the paat ten years or so that Lithuania has been rec ognized as the scientific treasure house of Europe, a region which held the answers to the most perplexing anthropological and archeologlcal problems, discoveries .which have cast a flood of light upon race origins and forced the abandonment of time-honored theories. As the re sult of patient Inveattgatlon and long delving a considerable school, prob ably the most authoritative, declares that the birthplace of the Aryan race waa not oh the high planes of Asia, where Muller sought to fix It, but that the point of dispersion, the cradle of the Aryan race, waa on the shore of the Baltic, In the home of the Letts and the Lithuanians. Scholars for many years held the theory that Sanskrit was the oldest tongue, the one nearest the original Aryan speech, but Investigation haa proved to the moat primitive of Aryan tongues. The testimony of philology is held to support the the ory that Lithuania la the home of the primitive Aryan. The Lettish Lithuanian language forma a famt- Slavic and Teutonic, but far more primitive than either and with pecu liarities of Ha own that shoy a close kinship with both Sanskrit and Latin, it la the common speech of the 3. 000.000 Lithuanians and gives evi dence of little changea through the centuries. o There la more evidence that the Lithuanians are the remnant of the ly by Itself, Intermediate between original Aryan stock. It Is a country of densk forests and swamps, an In hospitable wilderness past which the conquering hordes of the more pro gressive militant Aryan trlbca swept without Invading, leaving the Letts, which had been crowded from the more fertile valleys and plains Into this refuge, to develop without the spur of competition, the struggle for existence being almply one with the elements. Civilization . spread slowly north from the shores of the Mediter ranean and as a result, the Lithuan ian tongue has remained practically unchanged down to the present rlm!, long after Its old time relatives In tho family of languages, Sanskrit, Latin, and Oothlc, had died out, giv ing place to the more advanced Hln duatanee, Romance tongues, and Ger man. REMOTE FROM CIVILIZATION. So remote from civilisation was Lithuania that Christian missionar ies did not reach its borders until about J4S0, just forty-two years be fore Columbus discovered the new world. At this time Lithuania was sunk in the deepest paganism. Hu man sacrifice, beastly orgies, and the worship or oak groves were features of the religion here centuries after the suppression of the Druids - in Western Europe and the debacle of the old mythologies in Rom- and Greece. Here In Lithuania survived the ancient Aryan belief in the su preme God, which became Zeus - fr the Oreeks, Odin for he Teutons, and Jupiter for the Romans. ' Here remained in prttine vigor the human sacrifice to the wheat spirit. Cut off from the rest of the world, they tlved as had their prehistoric ancestors and followed closely tne savagi religious beliefs of the original Aryans, But in appearance also the Lithu anians Justify the belief that they are the traoat primitive type of the an cient Aryan. Very tall anl straight. thef are the Blondest people in uu rone. -Compared with them the flax en-halred. blue-aye J Scandinavian appears almost as a briiwtia. In many localities, , especially - In the neighborhood of PI risk, the blond neaa of the Lithuanians approaches almost to Albinism. ., , i Despite the progrns mane during the century past, the Lithuanians re- msln , probably the most i primitive people of Kuropt. t nave no lit erature worthy of the name, and with the exception of one man of eotence, Takowenko, the .birthplace of the Aryan race has not produced a single great statesman. - warrior, poet, philosopher, or artist.' . The Lithuanians are a race of peasants pure and simple. . Their 'literature consists almost exclusively of bibles and religious works translated from ether " languages., The tongue mir vlvttl la unwritten lorm down to mod OF lIIITE RACE ern times.' In 114? German tnhwio.. arleg translated Luther's catachUtu Into Lithuanian, and this was the Hrat book published in that language. So unprogreswive : was this rsmnaut of tbe old .Aryans that . they never evolved an alphabet of . their own, and to-day part of them read books printed . In Roman j characters, and those living near the ' borders of White Russia , employ the , Slavic , " Greek character In writing and read- -Ing. '. ;,. ... v.v,.-.,V."' BOUND ON FUNERAL PYRE.. '. Under such barbarous conditions ' Christianity made but Slow progress, and aa late as the fifteenth century one of the grand dukes of Lithuan ia waa burned in the old pagan fash ion on an immense funeral pyre on . which a number of horses and cap-! , tlvo Germans and Russians were also sacrificed. , The history of Lithuania Is a brief . page during Its period of autonomy. Only scraps of tradition remain upon which to reconstruct it,, and accord- - ' Ing to tradition the only real gov ernment under Lithuanian rale was established In the thirteenth century ' by Orand Duke Ryngold. a conquer ing German rover. He was succeed ed by Gedlman who waged victorious : -war against the Russians, carrying ; his conquests to tbe very door of ' Kiev and Mascow. In the fourteenth ' century Lithuania and Poland were united through the marriages of the ruling houses of the two countries, and since that time Lithuanian an-,' ); tonomy has been a historical mem- :"' -ory. ..i".",;; It was In the fourteenth century;1 about 1340, that Lithuania was arous- -. ed from Its lethargy of centuries and , v saw the first act of a tragedy upon '.' . which the curtain has just fallen with a collapse of the Baltic Republic It was at this time that the German . . hordes of freebooters swarmed Into -'' Lithuania to an easy but not blood- '; less conquest They carried Are and -; ' sword, enslaved the native Letts and f; " Lithuanians, set themselves up, aa " nobles, and held the country In eub- ' lugatlon with a heavy hand, estab-1 lishlng a German dynasty with the ? aid of Polish and Russian adventur- .' era. Tbe Lithuanians were treated N with contempt and were allowed no; part In the government, even In- ' . termarrlage with the Invaders being' , denied them. - The Invaders seised V: all the lands and forced the Latha-. anlans to work for them aa slave. r ' APPLIED TORCH TO CASTLE- : V , i Powerless to revolt, the natives , re-! matned in servitude under tbe cbang- ' Ing governments for centuries, sul- '.: lenly slaving for their masters," but keeping alive the tradition of the'; time when they were their, own mas ters, and had quaffed mead out of the skulls of the hated Germans, who '. were now their rulers and task mas-, tera. When Napoleon and his great" ' . army paaaed through Lithuania on hia way to Mascow, there was 'an', awakening and the sluggish peasants believed that the mlllenlum had fin-'.' ally arrived with the opportunity to . : slake their hatred to the dregs. Na poleon's proclamation of emanclpa- ' tion establishing a new government ' was greeted as a license to loot, burn,, ' ' and alaughter. They refused to work.' . gave themaelves up to drunken orgies V and In ravaging bands, as In the re-, cent days of the Baltic Republic, -' scourged the country, killing the V German nobles and applying the torch to their castles. When the French, troops restored law and order with v ' -bullet; sword, and gibbet, everyi ' -. Lithuanian was Napoleon's bitter foe. ' When the Emperor and his army ) swept back In retreat ever the old Bobruisk road, Lithuania was In the ' grlo of famine and the supplies he depended upon to feed his army did -not exist and in addition to ' the bitter winter, he was forced to fight ' starvation and the revengeful Letts and Cosaacka, who hung on the flanks . of the straggling columns like hungry : ' wolves. In the tangle of swamps and W dense woods Napoleon's great army " ' melted away. ,. SUNK BACK INTO SLAVERY. : Again for almost a century the' Lett and Lithuanian aunk back into '; the alavery that seemed their inev- : (table heritage. Then came the up- -heavat In Russia following the war-'. -with Japan. Again the peasant tdled to strike off the fetters and realise the dream of national Independence,, .-.' but the story of tragic failure Ms too recent to need retelling. In despair of ever escaping the clutches of the Russian bear while In their ancient home, the cradle of the white race, Lithuanians see across the AUantiO their only land of promise. Not only la Lithuania the last ref uge tn Europe of the most primitive of the Aryan languages and peoples, but also by reason of Ita great swamps and forests It Is to thla day the final refuge of the big game that . once roamed over Europe. The giant wild ox. or 7 urus, which Caesar, saw In the Hyrcanlan forest, became extinct In Lithuania less than two centuries sgo. Wolves and bears, the, elk and the red deer, lynxes, gluttons, and beavers are still common' lo Its forests, and In the great forest of Bialnwlcza, once the hunting grounds of the grand dues of Lithuania,"'! latv the property of the Kings of. Poland, and to-day the Imperial pre serve of the Czar of Russia, la pre aorvtdone of the two last herds of tire Kuropoan bison or aurecha, which In days gone by roamed from the fresen Volga to the sunny Tagus Just aa our own bison, not so many years ago, grased from the Saakatch- . ewan to the Rio Grande. " Grant's Court err. ' " 1 Chicago Record -Hera Id. . : ?. Major Bumuel C. Glover, a member of tbe Loyal Legion, waa In a reminis cent mood the other night and among other stories related this one of Gen. . Grant to a select few gathered around the open fire. The question. "Did yott ever meet Gen. Grant T" brought this reply: "I remember well the nrst time I ever talked with Grant It was at Vlekaburs; and I was a mere boy In see, thnurh I had seen months of aervlc. aa I went atralght from old Miami Uni versity wnen me can came. "I had orders to so' to Grant's head. . quarters on business pertaining to trie ' commissary department, and Instead of saklng for the Adjutant-General, a would have been proper, and who wrmi.l nave given me uie requisite information, I stepped ud to the sentinel snd sink.l for Gen. Grant He pointed to a anviil tent whloh I entered snd found myaelf face to faoe with the head of the army ' and In bis own private guarters. was seaten upon a wnooan stool. ' bot i elbows resting on a table, , and his fnr was buried tn his bands, A map wm anraad , out before him. Which he w evidently studying with keen ; Intert when I 'broke In. Glancing up anl acknowledging the best salute I coiiia offer, he asked bit errand. The inform tlon was given in the kindest pnewiM manner, with no hint that. L eouid an, should nave gone elsewhere for Instrue Uons. ho displeasure at being disturb, t. end I left With boyish convictions t u our general was not only a great sold.ur but a moat eeurteous gentleman. "After that I saw hint rrwonenuy ru ing ever the 'works' at Vlckaburg; day he dismounted and stood en a c which waa expoeed to tbe direct r.r the enemy It was at a time when t aight of a head above the .ni waa anotich to call forth a moat ! . shower of shot and shall down on but there Grant stood, ermarant' -In thought , finally, a . Liter , him and -he turnti without at hia voice, besawl patm f r ennnsing tha ni"n, and 1 . .. aoUuUed part, of the brtui , .
The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.)
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Dec. 2, 1906, edition 1
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