Newspapers / The Roanoke Beacon and … / Nov. 27, 1908, edition 1 / Page 2
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Pastimes of y Helen OME of the Inventions of the insane rre of scientific value. A patient at Villejuif invented a "paniacation machine" by combining a bottle, a plank, and small metallic tubes, to which he had fitted faucets. Having set up his machine, he procured loaves of bread the size of a man's head. The bread was good so good that it was decided to make the machine known. One day when it was In action the doctor suggested taking a photograph of it. The inventor watched him as if petrified for a moment; then he ieu upon me nachine wrenched it apart, and trampled it underfoot. The invention an ucceedingly useful one was lost, because no one had seen him make it, and to one dares speak of it to him. To allude to It is to bring on a furious at ack. Most lunatics, no matter how contented they may be, generally cher sh a furtive longing to escape. They collect wax from the polished floors, ake the impressions of locks, and make keys from empty sardine boxes, tpoon handles, or anything to be found. Dr. Marie's museum includes, a col lection of knives of strange and unheard-of shapes. Some of them have slades made from pieces of glass or slate and set in handles of cotset steels. Dbjects harmless In themselves become dangerous weapons through the in leuuity of madmen. . Insane sculptors are as common as Insane painters. M'he insane sculp tor hews out coarse statuettes, fantastic animals, ferocious little horned and Srimacing devils. An ex-mechanic carves all his soup bones. That his old :rade is still In his memory Is shown by the little screws that he makes out f the smaller pieces of bone. He works all day at his senseless and ridiculous ;ask. Another lunatic, who believes he is the incarnation of tne soul of Be lzebub, passes his time carving toy men out of wood. Each pair of his cre ations are joined together, now at the necks, now at the shoulders Harper's Weekly. st J Proclivity and Compunctions By E. S. NTHUSIASTIC professors expound to us that we consume food in enormous excess of our reasonable needs, and' per haps we do; but we find eating a pleasant exercise and stick to it, according to our various capacities, as long as we can get food that suits us and our digestions hold out. As for drink, the habit of using beverages that are more or less stimulating in their qualities is at least as old as his tory, and doubtless very much older. Coeval with it have E been perception of its hazards and warnings against its continuance. Hardly any major proclivity has such a bad name, or is battered by such a fusillade of arguments and awful examples. That rum does any one any good must seem doubtful even to its best friends. When you have said that it is pleasant, and that, though it is immensely destructive to' some savages and to crowds of civilized individuals, a considerable proportion of the most valuable people on the earth seem to be able to play with it without serious damage to themselves, you have said almost all that it is safe to aver. So great a cloud of compunctions swarm over that proclivity that you marvel that there is any life left in it. They do keep down some of its vigor, so that it is less destructive than it used to be, and probably they hope in time to kill it altogether. One could wish that they might, and that it might stay dead for a generation or two, till we could find out whether the world was better or worse without it. But it is not being killed. The army of com punctions it maintains is evidence of Its enormous vitality. To all seeming, o long as the earth continues to spin, there are likely to be cakes on it, and also ale, but with great improvement probably by the humau race in the wise use of both. Harper's Magazine. H M St i ne riea, i ne ijui And The Plague Ey William Inglis. S to the place and manner of origin cl -.-j plague germ, or bacillus pestis, nothing definite is yet known. The manner of its travel and communication to man has been clearly traced. The bacillus lives and breeds in the blood of the rat. That rat is the victim of fleas which live upon his blood, and as they feed draw into themselves the plague bacilli which swim by thousands in his vital fluid. Thus in fected, and thereby as dangerous as so many little dynamite A CH"! bombs, the flea3 pass with the rats into the habitations of human beings which the rats infest, and there, from convenient floors or chairs or be-ds, leap upon human victims. The plague-bitten flea does not poison man with his bite, as the stegomyia mosquito poisons by injecting the bacillus of yellow fever directly into the blood. The flea, it is true, bites human beings as he bites other prey. He sucks blood until he is replete, and then squirts blood from his alimentary canal upon his prey. Therein lies the peril. Plague bacilli are in this dis charge, end if it be left undisturbed on the skin of the victim the bacilli will penetrate the skin and tissues, enter the circulation, and thus infe-ct the per son upon whom the flea has fed. It is this curious manner of infection by dejecta that makes the bubonic plague peculiarly dangerous to people who do not bathe frequently. In Japan and in the United States the spread of the disease among human beings even In rat infected cities Is slow, while in India and China, and certain part3 oi Europe, where people bathe seldom, if ever, the plague runs like wildfire. It fs almost impossible for a person who bathes twice a day to become infected with bubonic plague. Harper's Weekly. St St St to fe CPS f? Th By Yik M'-! F tea Is freshly made full boil and if not for immediate use poured off the tea leaves in, say, five or six minutes into another teapot and use a "cosey" to keep the tea hot such hot tea will cool you off better than any iced drink.' Of course, we Araeri can3 favor cold drinks in hot weather, and iced tea with a dash of lemon juice is without doubt the most satisfying and refreshing: cf summer drinks. No typhoid germs arc I 7 V V "i- V WVJ -5- i 4- possible, for the infusion has been boiled. In the Orient the Chinaman and the native of Japan drink their tea hot Hot water is poured on the leaves in very nmall teacups, and is sipped ruore or less all day long, being continually replenished with fresh tea when th brew beccmos too strong. Even Europeans after tiffin, tired out with sight seeing, find marvelous recuperation in sipping their lea thus made. There is no other way to make tra than to make it absolutely fresh. Ai one hundred and fifty cups can be made from one pound of tea, it is an Im mensely profitable drink to sell at five cents a cun cr glass, and to charge fifteen to twenty cents fcr a Email pot of tea is to restrict the use of a bev erage that in hot weather fhould be obtainable everywhere, even in saloons without permiesicn of any extreme temperance advocate. Madmen f E. Meyer. 4 Martin Fong. with fresh water that has come to a mm ma BELLED THAT BEAR. From Big Indian to East Windham the men in the Catskllls are saddened over the departure of Elmer Ford, who for twenty years has held the title of the champion bear hunter of Greene County and who, in his pe culiar methods of tracking and killing his quarry, could give cards and spades to the mightiest nimrods iu the Adirondacks, writes the Black Dome Valley (N. Y.) correspondent, of the New York World. William Butts, of East Windham, enjoyed the reputation up ' to the time of his death. Trophies of his prowess are still ' displayed in the Butts Hause, which he kept for -many years and where he had a tame bear that in time became a hopeless victim of strong drink. Butts, mighty as he was on the trail, never did the things that made Elmer Ford's name a syno uym for reckless courage. It was Ford's contention that-, the keenness of tho human eye was su perior to brute strength and brute courage and he demonstrated this on many occasions. As many as twenty times he has entered a bear den un armed and chased the animal out after gazing at him steadily for two minutes. That was simply to prove that he possessed hypnotic power which he could exert at will. His great feat, however, was to enter a den. crouch on all fours and compel the bear to leap over him and make Cor the open. This was his invariable practice when he was accompanied by a green horn for whom he was acting as guide. In the fall of 1S99 an Eng lishman who had hunted elephants in Africa and tigers in India visited the Catskills on the strength of a etory he heard on shipboard that in the mountains of Greene and Columbia Counties could be found the fiercest and largest bears on the American continent. The visitor brought an arsenal with him, and after due in quiry engaged Elmer to take, him through the wood3. They struck a trail on the south side of Windham High Peak and followed it for eleven hours, bringing up at nightfall in the thick brush near the summit of South Mountain. In the morning, after a night's rest wrapped in blankets in the shelter of a temporary shack, j they came within gunshot of a full grown black bear, xne ii;ngusnman was given the first shot, and'tumbled bruin over with a shot in the head. He was much disgusted to find that ae had shot an animal weighing about 400- pounds, when he expected at least 800 pounds of bear meat. "I guess those people on the boat were handing you a lemon," said Ford. "This is the wrong place to find grizzlies. That b"ar is about as big as we get 'em, but so long as you'ra disappointed I'll try to show Sou some fun." There was an hour's rest and a snack of luncheon and Ford led the way up the mountain's side. It was a steep and wearisome climb, but after reaching a clearing, the guide pointed to a big flat rock between two trees. "Underneath that rock," said he, "is a b'ar hole. I see by the-signs that -ole mister b'ar is to home. I'm goin' in to get him. You stay here and watch me, and when he comes out just give it to him." Ford put his rifle In the crotch of his arm and crawled into the den on all fours. The Englishman watched him, and as soon as his eyes became accustomed to the dsrknes he saw two gleaming e3'es in the farther end of the cave. Ford advanced to within three feet of the bear's head and then gave a sudden yelp. The bear, a female, leaped clear over his back, dashed out of the entrance to the den. struck the Englishman in the chest and bowled him over. Before he could recover the bear had dashed through the brush and was out of sight. "Why didn't you shoot?" asked Ford, as soon as he could stop laugh ing. "God bless me!" replied the Eng lishman. "I never heard of bearding the bear in his den before. Indeed, I was not sure that there was a bear there at all, don't you know" In the following autumn Ford laid a wager that he would go into the mountains and put a string of bells around a bear's neck. When he came back he claimed the stakes, but the stakeholder said it would be necessary to prove that he had done what he agreed. "Wait," said Elmer. Two nights after that he led four men from Big Indian up the side of Black Dome and pitched a- camp. In the morning the camp was awakened by a commotion in the underbrush. A big she bear came plunging down the mountain frantic with fear, ap parently, for with every jump there was a clang of an old cow bell fas tened around her neck. Behind her came two cubs, each wearing a string of sleighbeUs. "Thought I might as well do It right while I was about it," said Elmer. TRIALS OF AN EXPLORER. Frank N. Meyer went out to China with a sort of carte blanche commis sion from the United States Govern ment. Here was the proposition for 1. SO VFTM Kr. VA n sv n -v n i the explorer. The United States pvc tlcally includes every variety of eli mate and soil, barring the Arctics Yet great ' sections of the United States lie fallow marked "barren. Now Korea and China .and Russia have areas with the same climate and the same soil; but those areas ar hot marked "barren." They are cul tivated so they support a population prolific as rats. Meyer was sent t see what grew in those regions, to se how it grew, to examine gardens and farms, to learn the failures and tc learn the successes of those foreign peoples who have been cultivating arid soil more centuries than the United States numbers years, to dc all this and send back specimens oi plant growth and of seeds that gave promise of development In the United States. Very simple, it sounds, doesn't it? It wasn t at all simple In reality. . In fact, it would take a book to give the explorer's experiences. The quest led him to the far interior where Chinese soldiers dare not go. It led him to regions known as banditti haunts like the Border Marches of England in the days of the Picts and Scots. Coolies deserted him in panic terror. Horses could neither be bought nor hired. Baggage had to be carried forward on rafts and wheelbarrows. Night after night, weeks and months at a stretch the explorer had to sleep in village Inns on earthern floors where the house-scraps and filth of ten years stank in a veritable cess pool. The water was not only bad, but it was sheer poison a vile con coction of rain and sewage. Vermin infested every inch of such abodes and flies in clouds corrupted food as fast as it was exposed. Meyer's food was canned meat, biscuits and tea. What with the smell and the vermin, restful sleep was out of the question. Of course, the man's health went ut terly to pieces. It wasn't a case of an illness with a beginning and an end. It was a case of never being well; and the invalided scientist was surrounded by banditti ruffians who had never before seen a "foreign devil," and treated him to such cour tesies as one may guess staring in at every crevice and crack, day and night, in mobs; examining him from the hair of his head to the sole of his feet; lying to him and jeering at him if he asked questions through his in terpreter; accusing him of the evil eye if he examined their gardens; de manding extortionate prices when he attempted to buy seeds and speci mens in fact, treating him exactly as our own criminal population might treat a Chinese explorer if we had no police; and the Chinese police had forewarned Meyer they could not pro tect him In these regions. Did Meyer turn back? Not much. He wore a good revolver and protect ed himself. From "People Who Stand For Plus," in The Outing Mag. azine. DANGEROUS DIVING. Drowning is a quicker death than most people suppose. Insensibility is said to begin in about one minute, and fatal unconsciousness generally supervenes in the neighborhood oi two. Few even practiced divers can remain under water more than a min ute and a half, and it is generally fatal to remain beneath the surface longer than that. At Navarino, Greece, where there are many expert divers who plunge into the sea after sponges, not one was found who could remain under water for two minutes. In the Red Sea the Arab divers generally remain down one and a quarter minutes, while at Ceylon the pearl fishers can seldom stay below for even one min ute. There is a case on record ai Falmouth where a diver had de scended eighty feet, and on giving the signal was drawn up slowly; sc It was two minutes before he reached the surface. Blood ran from his ears and nose and he was insensible. He died without speaking. Insensibility, however, does not al ways involve death, for in many cases a person may be resuscitated by the use of energetic measures. The bringing to of people who have been under water for five consecutive min utes, however, is considered doubtfuJ by physicians. RUNNING DOWN A COYOTE. The next morning I was mounted on a fast horse and at the place ap pointed. The old gentleman appeared with his two greyhounds and twe wolfhounds-fighting dogs, he called them. As we passed around the hill wi could se9 the carcass lying in th( sagebrush, and just beyond it a coy ote busily engaged, apparently, ir pulling off meat. The brute raisec his head and made a break to escape up the valley. Mike say him first, then Jim, anc" they fairly darted over the leve ground, gaining all the time, unti Mike made a grab for the beast's nine leg but missed it. Then the coybti apparently started to turn on the dog but changed his mind and went for ward again at full speed, when Jin made a successful grab and trippet him. Up he jumped, only to b tripped by Mike. And thus he was delayed until the fighting dogs rai up and ended his earthly journeying Far up the valley we jumped twt other coyotes from the sagebrush One was killed by Mike and the tw fighting dogs;' the other one wa: checked by Jim until Mr. Miers urget the other degs forward and finall: caught him also. Forest and Stream A lovebird, no larger than a ca nary, has taught itself to speak ai fluently and as distinctly as the bes of talking parrots at the village a Ambleside, England. Road Preservation. It is interesting and gratifying that the need heretofore pointed out in these columns for some new sur facing for macadam roads to prevenj their, being sucked apart by automo bile tires is recognized in the ener getic adoption of remedies by the citj and county. These may be yet ii the experimental stage, but theii early results together with" the re ported experience of other cities give good hope that the problem will be adequately solved. The county has applied either the asphaltic crude oil or the prepara tions for oiling with solutions of bit umen or tar to several of its roads, with the result so far producing a compact surface without the I033 ol fine limestone in the form of dust. The bitulithic surfacing on a portion of the Grant boulevard has up to this time maintained that severely tested highway in excellent shape. A cor poration producing one of the prep arations for road surfacing sends The Disptach this formula for the treat ment of macadam roads that have undergone some loss of the necessary binding material: First, bring th surface to the required grade and crown with new stone. Then apply one to one and a half gallons of the surfacing solution per square yard oi road surface. Surface this with one cubic yard of clean, three-quarter-inch screenings to each fifty feet ol road surface, and roll to smooth end harden. This is claimed to establish a permanent, waterproof and dust less surface at a minimum of cost. The crucial test of these remedies Is in the lapse of time and the suc cess with which they resist the frosts of winter. Next spring we shall be able to judge more accurately wheth er the roads so protected will prove reasonably permanent. It will be great gain if, as experiments else where indicate, they furnish the ele ment of permanence, which, undei the new uses, was seriously threat ened. Pittsburg Dispatch. For the Cause of Good Roads, Month by month the movement foi good roads grows in Kentucky. The permanent organization this week ol the Kentucky Good Roads Associa tion -crystallizes into a definite, dy namic force the sentiment that has been expanding in the State. The association, formed of representa- tives from the width and length ol the State, constitutes a body of possi bilities and promise. Primarily formed for the development of support foi the proposed amendment of the Con stltution as embraced in the Bos worth bill, its aim is necessarily to arouse amoDg the entire populatioE a realization of sthe importance tc Kentucky agriculture, . commerce, comfort, wealth and life Itself of the construction and maintenance oi smooth, well surfaced and complete highways. A poor county can be morev surely kept poor by bad roads than by any other medium, for pov erty is not so much a cause as an ef fect of disreputable roads. By the same token, the rich county may be come poor by neglect of its highways or be preserved in their wealth bj jealous care of them. These are nol theories, but facts, provable by the statistics. All the world is awaken-. ing to the inestimable value of good roads, as Kentucky has lately shown a disposition to do. Kentucky Is really somewhat lagging in the task European countries and some of the other American States have been de veloping systems of rural boulevards while we stood aside. But at las1 the sentiment here waxes irresisti ble. People know. Our roads are better and more numerous, to-day than they were ten years ago. Ten years hence they will be better still With such a body as the Kentucky Good Road3 Association laboring zealously and determinedly the re suit should he ultimately a splendid road system. The association will have influence with voters. It will have weight with the Fiscal Courts, which have charge of the highways And so It ought to accomplish what has not been feasible before. Per sons concerned in the material uplift of Kentucky should be grateful to the men backing the association, and from all quarters of the State should hurry recruits to the movement. Louisville Courier-Journal. Poetry and Prose. A school book publishing company in New York recently received the fol lowing, written on a postal card, from a dealsrin "General Merchandise" at Indian Trail,- N. C: "Pleas send by return mall with out fail to Mis3 Ida Vail at Indian Trail one copy of Blanks jpgraphy." The publishing house replied as follows: "We regret that we are unable to acknowledge receipt of your order of the 17th inst. in language couched in poetical form, our oflice poet being out of the city. Hence yuu will kind ly pardon the prose in which we beg to advise you that upon receipt of $1.25 we will be pleased to accede to your request for one copy of Blank's Geography." New York Press. There are over fifty groups of Es perantists in the large towns and cit ies of Spain studying the new Inter national language. ,Many business houses have adopted' Esperanto for correspondence. - mien ' AT THE CHOP HOUSE. Mary had a little lamb, But later said with grief That if she'd known how dear it waa ; She would have ordered beef. Chicago Tnbuna, BETWEEN "FANS." ' : Madge "Was it a spectaculai catch?" Mabel "She ran to Europe fot him.' Puck. NOT SO EXACTING. "So you're a butcher now?" "Yes," explained the former drj gopd3 clerk. "The ladies don't trj ,to , match spare-ribs or ; steak." v Washington Herald. ,. , A FINE PART. "I think- I'll dramatize one o! Henry James' sentences." "Only one sentence to the play?" ' "Sure. That ought to satisfy any lady star.',' Louisville Courier-Jour nal. AN EXCUSING SPIRIT. "Didn't I see the grocer's boy klsa you this morning, Martha?" - "Yes'm. But he ain't to blame,, ma'am. Twas the iceman set hin the bad example." New York Jouir nal. - DISCUSSING TERMS. "Did you come to terms with that cook?" "Haven't as yet. I'm holding out for more afternoons out per weelt than she wants-to allow." Houston Chronicle. i THE POWER OF NIAGARA. Mr. Howard "Isn't it wonderful what force Niagara has?" Mrs. Talkmuch "Marvelous! Do: you know when I first saw it for 9 full moment I couldn't speak. "-w Brooklyn Life. STRICTLY CONVENTIONAL. ' "Anything out of the ordinary about this wedding out in the mining, regions?" "Not a thing. There was the usual fracas, and the groom wore the con ventional black eye." Kansas City Journal. . . SMALL CHANGE. "It's three years since I was in this city," said the stranger, as he finished his dinner. "City looks the same." "I don't find much change," re marked the waiter, as he took up the dime that vras left from the dollar bill. Puck. tttthtt? nnT.TFKTrc prvs ( First Mother (reading letter from son at college) "Henry's letters al ways send me to the dictionary." Second Mother (resignedly) "That's nothing. Jack's letters al ways send ma to the bank." New York Journal. HOW ROWS BEGIN. "Hubby, I dreamed last night that you didn't love ine." , - "How foolish you are." . "Foolish, am I? As if I could help what I dream about!" And the fracas was on. Louisvill Courier-Journal. RETROGRESSION. "The last time I saw you you were complaining about your servant be ing slow. "Oh, she's progressing now." "Is she really?" "Yes, she's getting slower and slower." Democratic Telegram. CONTINUOUS PERFORMANCE. "Why have you quit work?" da manded the farmer. "I just put in twenty minutes saw Ing wood," replied the actor who had hired out on the farm. "Well, you ain't- in vaudeville, You're playing in the legit now." Pittsburg Post. A DISTINCTION. "Phafs Tim Phelan lukkin' so chisty over? O'ill break the face av him!" "Shure, an' it's th' proud day for Tim. He's just got a letther from th' ould sod, sayin' thot his cousin's bin hanged fer killin' an' robbln' an Ens lishman." Judge. . AN EXPERT HERSELF. 1 "Now that is what is known as a Bafe hit," volunteered the escort, "and entitles the runner to take his place "Yes," responded the damsel, "and if that duffer had the base-running ability of an ice wagon he'd hava stretched that bingle into a three- bagger." Louisville Courier-Journal. mmi PRACTICE OI LAW. "Should I go into court with the bald statement that a man was sane at ten, insane at eleven, and sane again at twelve, I'd be thrown out." "Well?" I "But lemmo embellish that plea with a few hundred to-wits and whereases, introduce a hypothetical question and a email line of expert testimony, and I've Kgt--a"case, sir, I've got a case."-Jtfo":svnie Courier . JouniaL"--" ; a
The Roanoke Beacon and Washington County News (Plymouth, N.C.)
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Nov. 27, 1908, edition 1
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