claimed. 'There's a bill for $27.88 for gas
during- the month of August. We left the
house on July 29, and I just got back yes
terday, four days after the last of August
There hasn't been a soul in the house for
thirty-three days until day before yester
day, when I got back. I've simply slept
out there, taking my meals down town.
Now here's a bill for $27.88 for the month
when there wasn't a foot of gas usedj
"I tried to pacify him, but he insisted he
was being robbed and jobbed, and said he
wanted a man to go right out and inspect
the meter. I finally sent a man 'out with
him. A couple of hours later he walked in,
rather humble, and paid the bill. When I
asked for an explanation he said:
"We found the oven burners of the gas
stove going full tilt. I guess my wife for
got to turn them off after getting breakfast
the day we left."
What's the Joke?
Every now and then one finds floating
around in the channels of trade one of those
old pennies having an eagle on the obverse
side, the eagle being represented with out
stretched wings. President McKelvie of
the Ad club had one the other day and meet
ing E. H. Truman showed it to him and
asked :
"Do you know why the eagle is repre
sented as flying?"
"No, why?" asked Truman.
"Because it is on a cent."
Truman smiled, of course, and passed on.
Later he became possessed of a similar
penny and showing it to Leo Soukup asked :
"Soukop, whv is the eagle represented as
flying?"
"Search me," replied Soukup. "Why is
it?"
"Because he smells something," exclaimed
Truman.
(Diagram: Truman was born in England.)
Hard Luck.
"Time was," remarked Forry Moore the
other day, "when hard luck stories did not
appeal ' to me. However, that was before
I and several other Lincoln fellows took the
road with our late lamented minstrel show.
Before starting I took the precaution to
invest in a meal ticket at F. X. Clark's res
taurant in the Salsbury block. When we
finally managed to struggle home I felt
all right because my eats were provided for
for some days to. come. I rushed to the
restaurant and ate a hearty meal. On my
way to the cashier's desk I dropped the
ticket, and a man behind me who wore hob
nailed shoes stepped on it and punched out
nineteen meals."
Deserving of Praise.
"Perhaps we deserve an occasional roast
ing for the poorness of some of our attrac
tions," admited Manager Zehrung of the
Oliver, in a burst of confidence.
"But," he continued, cheering up a bit,
"I think that the knockers ought to pause
now and then and give us a bit of credit
for not booking some of the atractions offered."
An army of policemen and detectives
swarmed around the participants in the Dices-Gould
wedding. Naturally. The peo
ple attending as guests got theirs mostly
that way, and of course they were suspicious
of one another.
CUR T COMMEN
Tacked away into obsucre corners of the
papers last Sunday, and printed under an or
dinary two-line head, was the announce
ment of the death of a man who held the
undivided attention of the civilized world
a few years ago. This man, a farmer, held
the British empire at bay for months, and
made one of the most notable fights for
freedom ever waged by man. For years he
has been forgotten of the world that once
gave him undivided attention. General Piet
J. Cronje showed the world that a Boer
farmer could meet the trained military
strategists of the world and outgeneral
them; he proved that a Boer farmer could,
with a handful of untrained men, nerved
by love of home and freedom, hold back for
months the armies of a Kitchener and a
Roberts. Given one-half the men and one
half the wealth backing Roberts and Kit
chener, and Cronje would have made Great
Britain look as humble as little Japan made
arrogant Russia look. But it was not to be.
Like the brave man and gallant soldier that
he was, Crdhje accepted the result and re
tired to his farm home. When he died one
of the world's great soldiers died ; and like
wise one of the noble characters of this
generation. And he received a paragraph
dead where he received pages while fighting
for freedom. "How soon we are forgotten
when we are gone," sighed Rip Van Win
kle. ' .
Disregarding the lesson taught by the
failure of other international matrimonial
alliances, and especially the most disastrous
one in which another. Gould girl figured to
her sorrow, another Gould girl has linked
her fortune to the title of another scion of
a washed-out nobility. Last Tuesday Helen
Vivien Gould, the 18-year-old daughter of
George Jay Gould, give her hand to Lord
Decise, aged 44 years, of England. The pa
pers were full of it. The bridal train was
five-yards long, heavily weighted with sil
ver and made a load for two sturdy pages
who carried it. The floral decorations of
the church cost $50,000; the bride's trous
seau cost as much more; the wedding pres
ents on display cost a million or more, and
as' many more were not displayed; the wed
ding cake was the most elaborate creation
of the kind ever ' seen in New York. Of
course the newspapers printed all that rot
because the public wants it and demands it.
But it is a sad commentary upon the intelli
gence of the public. While all these mil
lions were being squandered or worse than
squandered in a vulgar display of wealth,
. within a stone' throw of all the revelry ex
ists the most utter and abject misery and
woe. Within the shadow of the mansion is
the blight of the slum ; within sound of the
music of revelry is the stifled sob of widow
a nd orphans starving and freezing; within
sound , of the wedding march hopeless and
helpless humanity going down to unmarked
graves because of human greed and human
selfishness and human indifference. It is a
merry world, my masters!
Despite the censorship maintained by the
government of Mexico .enough has leaked
across the border to indicate that the Mex
ican rebellion is something more than a
mere riot. We love to prate about pur
"sister republic of Mexico," but the fact
remains that no monarch of Europe is more
despotic than Diaz, nor has any European
country, not even Russia, a greater degree
of serfdom to the "upper classes" than Mex
ico. And the pity of it all is that our own
government has lent itself to the monarchial
schemes of Diaz and helped him to' throttle
the aspirations of Mexicans who yearn for
T OF THE DA Y
real freedom for the substance instead of
the shadow. But this republic has lost
something since the day it refused to rec
ognize the Boers in South Africa and bought
sovereignty over "yellow-bellies" at $2 jer
head.
Is Mr. Morgan and his cohorts planning
a magazine trust? Really it looks like it.
Having practically throttled the big daily
newspapers by using the business offiice to
throttle the editorial rooms, "Big Business"
thought it would have easy sailing. But
"Big Business" had failed to reckon with
the magazines. "Everybody's" started the
trouble with its Lawson articles, and there
was soon trouble a-plenty for "Big Busi
ness." It is due to the magazines more than
to any other agency that we had so much
light shed upon "Big Business" methods,
which light brought about reforms. And
the thanks of the people are due the mag
azines despite the appellation of "muck
rakers" applied by the "Strenuous One."'
The American Magazine has been secured
by one of Morgan's partners, and negotia
tions for others are well under way. The
plan is to get all the big magazines into the
hands of men representing a community of
interests. . That will stop the "muckraking"
of course. Then will follow the exploita
tion of the magazine business, just as our
railroads, our street railways, our gas com
panies and our water works systems have
been exploited. Magazines are no longer
luxuries ; they are necessaries of life. Hence
"Big Business" will profit. But it will be
a sorry day for the United States when the
magazines are throttled as the daily press
has been throttled. -
While Representative McKelvie's bill ap
propriating $50,000 for the extension of farm
education is being vigorously pushed, who
is pushing with equal vigor some sort of
legislation in the interests of the 75,000 wage
earners of Nebraska, half of whom work
around dangerous machinery, and none of
whom has the slightest protection in law.
Far be in from Will Maupin's Weekly to
oppose the expenditure in the interests of
agriculture, but it does insist that the 350,
000 Nebraskans dependent upon industrial
pursuits are entitled to as much protection
and paternal care in proportion to their num
bers as the 600,000 people dependent upon
agriculture. Yet Nebraska pays more to
prevent cholera in hogs than it does to pro
tect its industrial workers from the ravages
of consumption; and it spends a thousand
dollars to educate farmers how to improve
their methods where is spends a penny to
teach mechanics and artisians how to im
prove their methods and conditions. Gen
tlemen of the Nebraska legislature, it is not
fair; it is not just.
The spectacular robbery of Rector's cafe
in Chicago last Sunday mo'rning merely
goes to show how easy it is to scare men.
Also how easy it is to get away with the
money. A lone bandit holds up an entire
train. A couple of men terrorize a crowd in
a bank and ride away with a sackful of
money. The Rector incident is not with
out its humorous phase, for we are inforrried
by the " dispatches that the Chicago police
"believe the robbery the work of a pro
fessional crook who had planned it for some
time." Wonderful perspicacity possessed by
these Chicago sleuths. One would naturally
suppose that the robbery was the work of
a college professor Or a'clergyman, corhrnit
ted on the. spur of the moment. " . ' '