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About The monitor. (Omaha, Neb.) 1915-1928 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 7, 1927)
A quaint ceremony is that still oh tabling in some parts of Normandy, the benediction des bestianx. The oxen and the draft horses are assem bled in front of the chureti. There may also be a bullock or two and per haps some cows. The procession ol peasants, clad In their very best, is sues from the church to the sound of a chant that is droned by the priest The venerable cure sprinkles a few drops of water on the heads of the beasts and when all the animals have received the benediction the next fea ture of the ceremony is to place at the pedestal of the cross facing the church certain bundles tied in coarse j linen. These bundles contain bread and salt, which are to be given to those beasts not able to attend the ceremony, says the Washington Star Power of Love Once when John Ituskln and Thomas Carlyle were discussing the literature of their day. the latter said to hi* companion: "Can you tell me why it is that works on subjects of vital Interest to the race, splendidly written by men of profound scholar ship, command scarcely sufficient sale to pay the cost of publishing; while trashy novels, false to history, false to philosophy and false to the facts of human experience, and altogether lacking In literary merit, will sell by scores of thousands?” After a short pause. Buskin re plied: "There Is hut one explanation of that fact, but the explanation Is all-sufficient; the novel has love In it and the other has not."—Scrib ner’s Magazine. Good Idea Coperscope had arrived home tired and hungry, but the beds had not been made and neither was there the faintest sign of any dinner. Presently he surprised his wife reading a novel in the drawing-room. "Do you mean to say that dinner Isn’t ready?" he asked, with danger ous calm. “Very well, I'm going back to town to dine at the Criterion.' “Just wait five minutes.” replied his wife, throwing aside her hook “Will It be ready then?” he queried hopefully. "No,” was the cheerful answer; "but ril come with you.” Bagpipet in Spain Specimens of bagpipes are found on old Spanish manuscripts. In the beautiful volume of the “Cantigas di Santa Maria.” which was made in the Thirteenth century of King Alphonse the Wise, there are 51 separate fie tires of musicians. These form an introduction to the canticles. There are three pipers among them with bagpipes. Another Spanish manu script of the end of the Fifteenth cen rury, illustrated by a Flemish artist for Queen Isabella, shows many mu sical Instruments, among which arc bagpipes. Relic of Indian Art A relief of the old Mathura school .f Indian art is in the possession of •he Boston Museum of Fine Arts. It consists of a thin slab of red sand rone, carved ou both sides I? Is s n-di merit decorated with a repeatin' irnament of three varieties, the sum ■>n each side of the slab, and wa probably part of the main or onh ■ntrance to a temple which may have been entirely of stone, but more likeir of brick except for the doorway. Special Folding of Bills Prevents Loss With many men it is a common habit to carry a few odd bills In con venient pockets to save themselves the trouble of pulling out their wal lets to pay for small articles pur chased. Frequently these bills are folded In Indifferent fashion and stuffed Into pockets where other bills, folded with equal carelessness, may be reposing. Hankers point out that this Is apt to be a costly habit, as a bill may be dropped when some of them are with drawn from the pocket. They point out that there Is one proper way to handle bills thus carried; that is, by smoothing out the bills, placing them together, preferably with the smaller denominations on top and larger be low, although that Is entirely a matter of preference. Then one end of the little pile of bills Is turned inward to rhe depth of about an inch or so and folded down, after which the bills are creased lengthwise down the center and folded over. Finally the narrow strip of bills is folded from end to end in the most convenient little wad. In this way the bills are all locked together and there Is no danger of any being separated and lost, while the owner can readily unfold them and extract what he wants at any time, re folding the balance securely and re turning them to his Docket. A Walk With Thoreau To take a walk with Thoreau, one must rigidly adhere to the manners or the woods. He could lead one to the ripest berries, tbs hidden nest, the rarest flowers, but no plant life could be carelessly destroyed, no mother bird lose her eggs. First he would give a curious whis tle and a woodchuck would appear— a different whistle and two squirrels would run to him. A different note yet and birds would fly and even so shy a bird as a crow would alight od his shoulder. The children must he mute and very motionless till each 'pet was fed from his pocket and had departed. Thus the children wjre in troduced to bis family, as he called them. — Mary Hosmer Brown, in “Memories of Concord.” River Kept in Order by Chinese Engineer In view of the disastrous Mississ ippi floods it Is interesting to note that 2,100 years ago a Chinese engi neer, 1,1-ping, laid down the correct engineering principle for controlling i he flood conditions of a river flow- j dig through a flat alluvial plain. The works that he and his sons es- j tahllshed for controlling the waters ! of the Min river In Szechwan prov- ! Ince and distributing them across the ; great Chengtu plain are still In per- j feet operation. The Chengtu plain Is an area 100 miles long and sixty miles wide. Across this plain the Min river is distributed in eight main branches, converging at the lower end of the plain to form a single river again, which empties into the Yangtze above j the Gorges. Throughout the 2,100 years, the en- , gineerlng principle laid down by Ll ping, without which the whole system would have destroyed Itself centuries ago, has been followed. Flood condi tions are still unknown. On the walls of the temple built to the memory of I.i-pUig and his sons at Kuan-hsien. is written this saying, familiar to every Chinese studpnt: “Shen tao t’Hn tso yen," meaning “Dig the bed deep, keep the banks low.”—Minne apolis Tribune. Fragments of Bottle Good Legcd Evidence Fragments of a broken bottle once settled a legal dispute as to the loea tlon of the original comer post of a surveyed tract. It was customary In the old surveys to place broken bot tles, crockery or other articles that would resist decay In the holes where the corner posts were to be set, and notes of such deposits were recorded hy the surveyor in his book. On this particular occasion, when an effort was being made to establish the location of a post In Canada which bad been set sixty years previously, the surveyor’s gang dug for two days over an area covering more thun fifty square feet. Finally the diggers un earthed broken glass with embossings that corresponded to the notes In the original surveyor's book. With this point established, more than thirty posts In the vicinity were restored and the dispute over the boundary lines wus settled.—Kansas City Star. Optimism vs. Pessimism The talk was of the pesslml-m of tiie young. “I do not understand why,” said one. "You would think that young people would be all op timism with the future before them. You would think they'd see life as a rosy path. It seems to me the mid dle-aged and the old have more rea son to be pessimistic. They have seen their Illusions and their enthusiasms go one by one.” "Because they are middle-aged and old U Hie very reason for their op timism,” said another. "They have learned by the time they reach ma ture years that nothing is so bad as it seems and that this is a pretty good old world after all."—Springfield Union. Satisfied A short-sighted uiun who was also very inquisitive was walking in the country one day when he saw a notice board nailed on a tree that stood in a field. As he could not read the no tice at that distance, curiosity prompt ed him to climb over the fence and walk across the field toward the tree. A few moments later he managed to scramble back over the fence Just in time to escape the horns of a raging bull. “Well," iie gasped breathlessly, “l had the satisfaction of finding out what the notice was.” It said, “Beware of the Bull.” Flowers at Weddings It Is impossible to state when flowers were first used at a wedding, j since this is a very anoient custom. Orange blossoms were worn and car ried by brides from the earliest times, as they portend luck and happiness. Spencer and Milton were of the opin ion that the orange was the golden apple presented to Jupiter by Juno on her wedding day. It was cus tomary for the Anglo-Saxon bride to give her friends small knots and rib bons to wear or carry on the wed ding day. Tills custom still survives In the bouquets of the bridesmaids. Antiquity of Bagpipes Jacques de Morgan, during his ex cavations In Persia, found some terra cotta figures, dating from the Eighth century B. C., playing on what ap pear to he bagpipes. Again we find the bagpipe in Persia In the Sixth century A. D. on the great arch at Takht-i-Bostan. While crude, the representation serves as evidence that the bagpipe was In use during the 14 centuries which elapsed be tween the time the terra cotta figures discovered by De Morgan were molded and the carving In the rock at Takht-I-Bostan. Electric Cash Counter Money flows like water In the Bank of England, In London, where a novel electric machine sorts and counts silver coins and dlschargei them into bags hung beneath Amounts of from U to £100 sterling are automatically allotted to the proper receptacles, says Populai Science Monthly. Far more rapid and Infallible than a human hand, the do vkce measures out the equivalent < *7.W» in an hour. Seaweed Harvest of Importance in Japan Japanese soldiers do not give much trouble to the quartermaster’s depart ment. In the Held they ure capable of great endurance 6n a diet of dried rice, dried fish, dried seaweed, and pickled plums. The seaweed Is wrapped round the rice and used as a “relish" to It. Given a tiny fire, a stew-pan, and the rations mentioned, they ure per fectly content, whatever the weather and however long the marches. Seaweed Is grown specially for food purposes, being cultivated with as much care as any other crop. After the typhoon season, the women may be seen bearing great loads of young trees which have been stripped of their leaves, though all the small branches are left intact. These ure drawn Into the weed on the shore acres of brushy saplings being ar ranged In long, parullel rows where the tide ebbs over them twice dally Gradually, the green fernllke weed collects on the branches, and Hour tshes there until the farmers harvest it. It Is then carefully picked over and dried for future use. Curative Power Long Ascribed to Flowers The forget-me-not was formerly known as scorpion grass, because the (lower buds were thought to resemble the coiied-up serpent, and our fore fathers, believing In the doctrine of signatures, supposed this to Indicate thut they would cure venomous stings Vying with the forget-me-not in Its sentimental associations Is the lily ot the valley, which also blooms In May and Is indeed sometimes called the May-lily. In the old herbalist’s hey dey It seems also to have vied with the forget-me-not In curative prop erties. In the world of legend, how ever, the forget-me-not seems to have a distinct advantage, for whereas an angel scattered them for us, the Illy of the valley sprang from the tears of a mere mortal. Eve, as she left the Garden of T.den.—Chicago Journal. God’s Grea'cst Gift The Pall-Mall restaurant Is a fa tiinus establishment in the Huy Mar ket section of London. All prominent men and women go there at least once. It it he only to Inscribe their ■ames In the ‘‘Allium of the House." Patti was there once and wrote b*> neath her name: “A beautiful voice Is one of God’s highest gifts." Some time after Yvette'Gullhert was there, and having read Patti's Inscription wrote down: "An ugly, but eipres sive voice. Is also one of find’s high est gifts." She thought, no doubt, to have the last word, t’hance would have It that Sir Rider Haggard drop ped In one day at the Pall-Mall and started leafing the album. He smiled and In turn wrote something beneath his name. Tills was It. ‘‘Silence Is God's greatest gift!"—Pierre Van Paassen, In Altanta Constitution. - " , Philosogrin There Is no peace In hymns of hate, nor in the road that Isn't straight; there Is no Joy In lifting fobs nor per petrating hold up jobs; there Is no gain In drilling holes In men and let thlng oat their souls. The good for evil stunt Is great! Heap burning couls upon the pate of the guy who has done you dirt, and then stand hack and watch It hurt! There may tie profit in red gold, in robbing men but when you’re old. and you've los' even self-respect, you know Indeed your life Is wrecked, and all the schemes you’ve put across have brought you nothing else but dross The good will of your fellow men and love are better than much yen. and peace, when life's noon turns to shade bents all the kopecks ever minte.— Judd Mortimer Lewis In the Houston Post-Dispatch. Syrian Wedding Custom An ancient Syrian custom which In sometimes observed even at the pres ent time Is the assumption by a newly married couple of a royal stntus. On the village threshing floor la placed a throne on which they are seated dally for seven days, during which time song* and hymns In their honor are sung and poems recited In praise of their beauty, etc. Some leading Biblical scholars have divided the Song of Solomon Into seven sonnets or Idylls, which would furnish one for each day of the "King's week." Language of Diplomacy The French language was us,.d ex tensively in Europe In the Twelfth and Thirteenth centuries. The French literature was greatly developed and spread throughout the various eoun tries, and persons of culture studied the language In order to he able to read the literature. Many foreign students were attracted to the Uni versity of Purls, and thl* also helped to spread the language. As a Ian guage for treaties and foreign Inter course among nations, French became general In the time of Louis XTV. Highly Dangerous While two gay spirits were giving in unusually hair-raising display of acrobatics at a recent flying pageant, and to the lay eye seemed to be try ing their best, with the aid of some 'Ive hundred or so of horse power, to ear the wings off their frail steeds of •dicks and canvas, a solemn voice i line through a loudspeaker: “Would spectators be good enough • refrain from the highly dangerous uctice of standing on their seats?" SHOE REPAIRING BENJAMIN & THOMAS always give satisfaction. Best material, reason able prices. All work guaranteed 1415 North 24th St., Webster 5084 TO SEE YOU Miss Etta Green is the authorised Monitor collector. She lias your bill, j Please pay when she calls. She is j coming to see you. Be prepared to pay something on account if you cannot pay all. Please do not put her off. PLEASE PAY Many subscriptions are now1 long past due. It will be great- j ly appreciated if you will either bring your money to the office or be prepared to pay when our collector calls. ! — ^ WATERS f BARNHART PRINTING CO. I I 1_ (I OMAHA ^ FOR RENT—Nearly furnished rooms. Strictly modern. Kitchen privi leges. Harney car line. Web. 6613. FOR RENT—Front room and kitch enette. Web. 5188. 1204 North Twenty-fifth street. | FOR RENT—Furnished room, mod ern. Two gentlemen preferred. Web. 0162. 2909 North Twenty eighth street. FOR RENT — Furnished apartment or furnished room in strictly mod ern home. Webster 4162. 2310 North Twenty-Second Street. FOR RENT—Furnished er unfurnish ed rooms. Near carline. Reason able. WEbster 1053. FOR RENT — Homelike furnished rooms. 919 North 26th street. Tel. Harney 1904. Classified i _______ ——— FOR RENT—Furnished room in strictly modern home. One block from Dodge carline. Call during business hours, WE. 7126, even ings, WE. 2480. tf-12-10-26. FOR RENT—Neatly furnished room. Modern home. With kitchen priv ilege. Call Web. 6498. —tf. j FOR RENT—Furnished rooms. Web ster 2180. 2516 Patrick avenue. FOR RENT—Three room apartment, partly modern. Kenwood 2093. 2213 Grace Street. FOR RENT—Six rooms, 1148 North 20th street; five rooms, 1152t4 North 20th. Modern except heat. Webster 5299. j FOR RENT—Furnished room in mod ern home, with kitchen privileges. Man and wife preferred. Call WE. 0919 mornings. FOR RENT—Furnished rooms, 22nd and Grant. Webster 0257. NICELY furnished rooms. All mod em. WE. 3960. FOR RENT—Nearly furnished room in modern home, kitchen privileges. WE. 3308. 4-T. UNDERTAKERS JONES & COMPANY, Undertakers 24th and Grant Sts. WEbster 1100 Satisfactory service always. PAINTERS AND PAPER HANGERS A. F. PEOPLES. Painting and decor ating, wall paper and glass. Plas tering, cement and general work. Sherwin-Williams paints. 2419 Lake St. Phone Webster 0366. If EMERSON’S LAUNDRY f j y The Laundry That Suite All I ' \ 1301 No. 24th St. Web. 0820 £ jj N. W. ’ :: ATTORNEY ;; 1208 ifodge Street, 11 Phones Webster Cl * ► lawyers V\. B. BKYANT. Attorney and Coun selor-at-Law. Practices in all courts. Suite 19, Patterson Block, 17th and Furnam Sts. AT. 9344 or Ken. 4072. W. Ci. MORGAN—Phones ATlantic 9344 and JAckson 0210. H J PINKETT, Attorney and Coun .-'(•lor-at-Law. Twenty years ex perience. Practices in all courts. Suite 19, Patterson Block, 17th and Farnams Sts. AT. 9344 or WE. 3180 HOTELS PATTON HOTEL, 1014, 1016, 101b South Uth St. Known from coast to coast. Terms reasonable. N. P. Patton, proprietor, THE HOTEL CUMMINGS, 1916 Cum ing St. Under new management. Terms reasonable. D. G. Russell, proprietor. - — __i.'ZLniT-"- "c BAGGAGE AND HAULING .! A GARDNER’S TRANSFER. Bag gage, express, moving, light and heavy hauling. Reliable and com petent. Six years in Omaha. 2622 Maple Street. Phone WEbster 4120. C. H HALL, stand, 1403 No. 24th. Baggage and express hauilng to all parts of the city. Phones, stand, WE. 7100; Res., WE. 1056. Harry Brown, Express and Tranafer. Trunks and Baggage checked. Try us for your moving and hauling. Also, coal and ice for sale al ail limes. Phone Webstea 2973 261.3 Grace street. DRUG STORES ROSS DRUG STORE, 2S06 North 24th Street. Two phones, WBb.-iter 2770 and 2771. Well equipped to supply your needs. Prompt sendee. THE PEOPLES’ DRUG STORE, 24th and Erskine Streets. We carry a full line. Prescription* promptly filled. WEbster 6T23.-, BEAUTY PARLORS MADAM Z. C. SNOWDEN. Scientific | scalp treatment. Hair dressing and manufacturing. 1154 No. 20th St. WEbster 6104 < > • > WARE f AT LAW :: Omaha, Nebraska 613-Atlantic 8192. | 7 < I t {