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AS UCOXD-CLASS XATTKB
PUBLISHED KYZRY BATUKDAT
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SARAH l. HARRIS.
Editor.
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2 OBSERVATIONS
0
nm
Dr. Charles Eliot Norton of Cam
bridge, essayist, translator, and critic, in
an address to the Industrial Art Teach
ers association in Boston said that
"chewing gum had such a large sale be
cause young women have not risen far
above barbarism.' If to chew gum is to
be guilty of barbarism, in what ooze of
savagery, what foul recess of the under
world, shall the chewer of tobacco find
his fitting place? Iti what circles of the
neither hell shall the common expector
ator be confined?
The high hat nuisance is in the way
of being abolished, but as long as women
have not the suffrage they will be obliged
to sit in a car that men hare made im
possible with cigar and catarrh spit.
The subject is unpleasant, but the daily
contact with this filth is unspeakably
more so. The inBtinct of cleanliness and
of respect for other's rights is undevel
oped, has not even begun to sprout in
the man who will sit in a car and spit
when he knows that a woman's dress
must inevitably sweep over and be
smirched with it. A woman looks
very ugly when chewing gum aud
sometimes the sound is very trying. It
is annoying to sit behind a high hat in
a theatre but it is much worce to sit in
front of something which leans forward
and squirts a foul smelling stream with
in a few inches of your ear onto an in
clined plane which will conduct it on
to the folds of your dress which neces
sarily touch the floor.
Since tho laboratory student has de
cided that tuberculosis is contagious
and that the most common source of
infection is the sputum which consump
tives leave in public places, and which
dried by the air of Colorado or other
I , T M B IKSssSSjSSojiiyfltrt -srjfe.jrrSa g A r
ESTABLISHED IN 1SS6
LINCOLN, NEB., SATURDAY, JANUARY 30. IS07
consumptive haunted places, is blown
into tho cells of healthy human beings,
several ctates are considering ways and
means to make consumptives inocuous
by compelling greater care on their
part in this respect. If such legislation
might prove effective this earth
would be a pleasant place to walk
on onca more, as it was befiro Sir
Walter Raleigh discovered tobacco.
Funny that Sir Walter, who thought
the wet earth not clean enough for a
woman to step on, introduced a vice
which makes a walk, in trodden paths, a
most nauseating expei ience. To bo suro
tho high bat is a great nuisance, but "it
is not the only pebble on the beach."
Railroad legislation is pending an
thirteen of the state legislatures now in
session and six bills regulating railroad
relations with the public through its
agents have been introduced into con
gress where Representative Sherman of
New York has introduced a bill to com
pel common carriers to provide all agents
authorized to sell tickets with certifi
cates of their authority which mint bo
conspicuously displayed in their office.
It makes it unlawful for other parties to
sell or transfer tickets or passes under
heavy penalties also of fine and im
prisonment for counterfeiting tickets,
and provides that nil unused tickets
must bo redeemed by the companies by
which they are issued.
If the above becomes a law it will em
barrass many newspapers which have
sold taaneportation to scalpers for
years. If it were not for the
fact that any law can be evaded,
under the conditions that this bili pro
poses, the railroads would have to pay
for advertising and the editor and his
Btafl would join the small, the very
small number who pay. and expect to
pay, for transportation the same as for
merchandise or any commodity in a
market composed of buyers, sellers, and
their wares.
The senate committee on Pacific
railroads authorized a favorable report
on Senator Gear's bill providing for
a commission of cabinet officials to set
tle the indebtedness of the Pacific rail
roads to the government.
Another bill proposes to put sleeping
car companies under the jurisdiction of
the interstate commerce commission,
and it declares that "it shall be unlaw
ful for any person having control of
such cars to charge for the use of ihe
upper berth more than two-thirds of
the price charged for the lower one, and
that it shall be-unlawful when only tho
lower berth in any section is said, to let
the upper berth drop, or in any way
prepare it for use as a sleeping place."
Another sleeping car bill provides
that all common carriers engaged in
inter-state commerce by railroad and
running night service chall accommo
date the poor class of passengers with
sleeping berths as good and as cheap as
thoee available in second claeB cars.
The prico of a night's rest shall not bo
over 50 cents u passenger.
Senator Sherman has offered a bill
making a uniform classification for
wheat, corn, rye, oats and barley.
Our own legislature has introduced
bills prohibiting the giving of passes
under penalty, together with a bill re
quiring the companies to give all etate
officials free passes. In his inaugural
message Governor Holcomb said:
"Some action might very properly be
taken to discourage discrimination be
tween political parties by railroad com
panies operating within tho state. Tho
issuing of passes to an army of political
workers and the giving of special rates
for political meetings make tho railroad
companies a power in shaping tho polit
ical destinies of tho state. Railroad
companies do the business of tho pub
lic, and should be restrained by whole
some legislation from active participa
tion in party politics."
In Montana petitions are being circu
lated all over the state, asking the mem
bers of the legislature to reduce tho
fares from 5 cents to." cents per mile.
In New York. Frank Sargent, chief of
the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen,
has prepared, and Assemblyman Bondy
of Syracuse has introduced, a bill pro
viding for the maintenance of employes
of railroad corporations injured in the
discharge of their duty.
The Brotherhood of Locomotive Fire
men has also presented a bill to the
Indiana legislature of similar purport to
the New York bill.
In South Carolina a "Jim Crow' car
bill, requiring separate coaches for
the races, has been introduced in tho
houee, and the indications are it will
become a law. The roadd have been
fighting such legislation for years.
Missouri, Iowa, South Dakota and
Minnesota are struggling with maximum
freight rate bills and a 2, 2) and 3 cents
a mile paEsenger fare.
It is fortunate that state legislatures
are composed of men of brain and brawn
or the subject of freight classification
might stump them. Conic sections is a
game of alphabet blocks compared to
the classes of freight and the charges
when considered in relation to the vol
ume carried.
"Ho writes from far Nebraska, an tho
story's mighty short;
1 just can't tell his mother; it'll crush
her poor ol' heart !
An" so I reckoned, parson, you might break
tho news to her
Bill's in the IeKislatur", but he doesn't say
what fur-"
"The Triumph of Death," by Gabriele
D'Annunzio, translated by Arthur Horn
blow frm the Italian, is an end of tho
century novel. It is without action and
almost without incident. The move
ment or action is internal. The external
world does not appear in the four
hundred pages except to give the
author a chance to show his
ability as a landscape and weather
PRICE FIVE CENTS
painter. Tho hero is a degonorate.
When confronted by a necessity for
action ho is incapable of taking it. Fol
lowed from his birth by u hereditary
tendency to suicide, he finally accom
plishes it by jumping from a high preci
pice with his mistress whom ho has
draggod shrioking and imploring to tho
edge of it. Tho wo am n loves him but
he kills her because she has enslaved
him and t'cadened his spiritual nature
Utterly unconscious of any moral pur
pose in life. D'Annunzio describes with
tho power, and modernity of Zola, things
which tho most depraved seldom Bpeak
of. Liko Zola ho shows that tho end of
sensuality is death in tho most ropulsivo
form. Perhaps thero is no bet
ter way of teaching this. To
thobo who must learn tho les
son it is batter than tho experience, be
cause after an actual experience it is
impossible to begin over again and tho
literary xperienco leaves only the mind
tainted and the soul has received a
Spartan lesson which will at least pre
vent ignorant Binning. But it is a ter
rible danger which can warrant such a
warning. It is a far cry from tho gentle
persuasive saints of old Italy toGabrielo
D'Annunzio who is moro tho voguo
there today than the classics. Yet I
can not thick it is worth whilo to read
him. Tried by the sane, healthful
literature of Shakespere, D'AnnunzIo's
story becomes obsceno, fanciful
scrawling on tho walls of a madman's
cell. Ho is unsanitary and although
his art is exquisite the English trans
lation of "Ihe Triumph of Death" has
no mission in Great Britain or America.
The thirteenth biennial report of tho
Nebrabka Hospital for the Insane shows,
among other things, that the institution
is overcrowded. Dr. Abbott estimates
that the average number of patients for
the coming two years will be 350, and
that the expense per capita yearly will
be 8171.45. Therefore tne amount re
quired for the biennium is 8120.000. If,
however, the legislature should deem it
proper to grant the permanent improve
ments asked for (sewing room for women
and work shop for men), thereby per
mitting an increase of the number of
patients to 425, it would require a total
appropriation for current expenses of
8134,500 00 for the biennial period end
ing March 31, 1809. the same being a
yearly per capita cost of 8153.25 a saving
to the state of 813.20 for each patient
annually. The report showB very care
ful bookkeeping and attention to detaiL
The State Journal has just issued
an almanac which appears t) bo a val
uable book. It is impossible to think
of anything, off hand, that yo l cannot
find in this book, but just wa t till you
really want to know how to stop a run
away horee, or to keep a baby from
choking to death and you cannot find it.
But politics, numismatics, marriage
laws, associations, sporting recordf.
I