IS OLDEST ARMY OFFICER
Brigadier-General Daniel H. Rucker, retired,
is not only the oldest officer of the United States
army now living, but also the oldest man that
has ever been in the military service of this
country.
The lapse of time since his birth is most viv
idly realized when it is considered that General
Rucker has lived in every presidential adminis
tration since the government began, save only
three—those of Washington, Adams and Jeffer
son. He was born only ,13 years after the death
of the first president and among his friends and
acquaintances have been a good many people who
knew George Washington.
But anybody who saw the general to-day would
never imagine that these things could be true.
He is quite as spry and youthful in his ways as
many a man of 65. In Washington, where he lives, he walks downtown nearly
every morning and is oftVn seen on the streetcars. Only the other day he
was noticed standing on the running board of an open ear, having got up
and stepped out to allow some ladies to pass.
General Rucker was 97 years of age on April 28 last. But it does not
seem to him that this fact gave any excuse for the remarkable zealousness
of a certain life insurance company which, a few weeks ago, sent a man to
his house on Jefferson place to make a money settlement for his death.
Greatly irritated by this summary notice of- his own demise, he walked down
town the next morning and dropped in at the office of the company.
The company was very apologetic. Yes, it was obliged to admit the gen
eral had the appearance of being alive. His presence in the office was evi
dence in favor of such a supposition. But in a technical sense he was dead.
From a life insurance viewpoint he had passed over to the beyond. There
had been nothing to do, therefore, but to pay up the policy—though the com
pany was sorry if the general had been inconvenienced in the matter.
The general felt very greatly inconvenienced—in fact, he went away in a
rage. The money which the company declared to be due he refused to accept.
He is still so angry about the matter that his friends do not dare to mention
it to him even in joke.
GOES TO THE SUPREME COURT
President Taft has selectetd Judge Horace
Harmon Lurton to fill the vacancy in the United
States supreme court caused by the death of Asso
ciate Justice Rufus W. Peckham.
Judge Lurton has been a judge of the sixth
judicial circuit of the United States circuit court
of appeals, the district including Tennessee, Ken
tucky, Ohio and Michigan.
Judge Lurton, a prominent Tennessee Demo
crat, even though he has never held elective of
fice, is an ex-confederate soldier and in Michigan
is known as the man who once decided a street
car case against the late Governor Pingree.
Mr. Taft’s service on the circuit bench with
Judge Lurton convinced him of the integrity and
rectitude of that jurist. His later contact with
him has demonstrated to his satisfaction that the
Tennesseean is progressive in thought and will interpret the laws in accord
ance with the modern spirit.
The judge was born in Campbell county, Ky., February 26, 1844, his
father, at that time a physician, later becoming an Episcopalian minister.
His education at the University of Chicago cut short by tbe civil war,
young Uurton hurried south and enlisted as sergeant-major in the Thirty-fifth
Tennessee. In February, 1862, he was discharged for sickness. He returned
to the front, he wever, in time to take part in the battle of Fort Donelson,
where he was taken prisoner and confined in Camp Chase. He managed to
escape and enlisted in the Third Kentucky cavalry and was taken prisoner
again in Ohio while on “Morgan’s raid.” This time he was so carefully
guarded that he did not escape until the war was over.
After the war he formed a partnership with Gustavus A. Henry and
came rapidly to the front as a lawyer. In 1886 he was made justice of the
Tennessee supreme court, in 1893 chief justice, and two months later was
appointed to the United States court by the late ex-President Cleveland.
CANADA FOR INDEPENDENCE
Some optimistic persons in Canada believe the
day is not far distant when the Dominion will
become a republic independent of England. In
such an event, they believe, Sir Wilfrid Laurier
would become the head of the new nation.
When the imperial council of defense sent
out from London recommendations that included
the construction, manning and operation of a
Canadian war navy protests arose from all parts
of the Dominion. The actual government meas
ure presented by Sir Wilfrid to the house of com
mons has caused another outburst, which indi
cates clearly that many Canadians look forward
to ultimate independence.
The defense council suggested that Canada
build one Dreadnaught, three cruisers, six de
stroyers and three submarines, beginning with,
the dreadnaught. The Laurier bill calls for three cruisers and four destroy
ers, which will cost $8,000,000 to build and $1,500,000 a year to maintain.
Sir Wilfrid stated on the floor of the house that the Canadian fleet would
not be under orders from London and would not even participate in naval
warfare as a British ally, unless specifically ordered to do so by the Cana
dian parliament.
“If we have no voice in making peace or war,” says the Montreal Herald,
“how can we with safety abandon the right to follow what course we please!
Unquestionably, being who we are, our fleet will almost under any conceiv
able circumstances co-operate with the British navy when war ensues. But the
power of volition in a matter of such moment must be retained.”
The Ottawa Citizen states its case thus: “Should the day come when the
country that was the cradle of liberty proves recreant to its traditions, then
Canada will disown that country and change its flag instanter."
HE’LL BE THE CAFE KING
-----—-_l
Henri Pruger, for the last seven years general
manager of the Hotel Savoy, London, has been
engaged as general manager of the new Cafe de
l'Opera in New York City at a salary of $50,000.
This, it is believed, is the largest salary paid to
any restaurant manager in the world. Mr. Pru
ger is president of the company that will operate
the restaurant, which has just been opened, it
occupies an entire building on the west side of
Broadway, between Forty-second and Forty-first
streets.
In London Mr. Pruger has become known to
thousands of Americans. Before going to the
Savoy he conducted the Grand Hotel Nationale,
Leizone, and a chain of hotels in southern Eu
rope, including the Grand Hotel at Monte Carlo
and the Grand Hotel at Rome.
“I realize keenly,” said Mr. Pruger. ‘‘that my work in New York will be
enough to keep -any man thoroughly alive. American hotels and restaurants
are in many respects the finest in the world. There are hotels and restau
rants in this city which have no superiors anywhere. In the new Cafe de
l'Opera it is our desire to add still another brilliant establishment to the list
of those of which New York is so proud. Two of the best chefs in Europe
have been brought to New York to see that the culinary part of the restau
rant begins operations as it should.
“In furnishings and decorations we have a restaurant unique. I feel
that my life's work lies in New York, and although I was sorry to leave ray
old friends In London I welcome the opportunity of working in America
in a restaurant so beautiful as the Cafe de l’Opera."
New Points of View.
He—My dear, the authorities are
down on this rat business, and I in
tend to rid the house ot all that are
in it.
She—I am very glad to hear you
say so. I need new ones badly.
Natural Deduction.
Naggsby—Griggs told me to-day that
his wife had never spoken a cross
word to him during their ten years of
married life.
Mrs. Naggsby—Poor woman! Has
she been a deaf mute all her life?
Not Hor Heart.
“Does your heart ever reach out Cor
the unattainable?”
‘‘No, but my hands do when my hus>
band la not at home; there are three
buttons in the back of my gowns that
I just cannot reach.”
Its Kind.
“What will be the fruit of the <11»
covery of the north pole?”
“I guess Its fruit will be banani*
“What do you mean?”
“Why, aren't Its discoverers coming
along in bunches?”
mS^FMAS A
wHundebd Years
recreation. So it is certain that the
Teddy bear and the toy dog of the
coming century will be mechanical
marvels. The "Rover” dog that the
little boy gets will be life size. He
will prance about on his four furry
legs and lie down and roll over at
the bidding of his master.
Perhaps the most wonderful feat
ure of all in our Christmas in 2009
will be the changed methods in
our daily life. The housekeeping
arrangements of that time would
seem incomprehensible to the wo
man of to-day if she could picture
them in her mind. The lack of com
HRISTMAS a
hundred years
from now will
be the same old
Christmas, no
doubt, but It
will be celebrat
ed under such
vastly di.Terent conditions that
If you should go to sleep now
and wak*; up a century later
you would think you were in a
different world.
The Christmas spirit will.be the same.
Hut whether It Is a hundred years from
now or a thousand we may be sure that
when the Christmas season comes the world
will be full of the Christmas spirit. Little
children and grown men and women still
will be made happy by giving and receiving,
grudges and grouches will be forgotten, ene
mies forgiven and good will will prevail.
Nothing can kill that. The golden
motto: ‘ Peace on earth, good t
to men,” will be Just as
sacred and as new to
the hearts of men as it
was nineteen hundred
years ago. Everybody
will give everybody
else a present—but the
presents will be differ
ent.
Little Johnny will
not covet a railroad
train. Real cars on a
real track, pulled by a
real locomotive that
makes smoke will not
seem a wonderful thing
to him, as it does to the little Johnny of to-day.
The lad of the next century will want a model
of the latest airship in his Christmas stocking. He
will expect a working model, too—one that will
sail through the flat like a live bird, and perhaps
carry his own weight.
Within the last hundred years steam and elec
tricity have been developed and it is entirely rea
sonable to imagine that within the coming century
men will travel through the air as commonly as
they now travel over the land. The automobile,
the trolley car, the railroad train, and the horse as
a draft animal—all will be gone. Men will use
the earth, as the birds do, for a resting place for
their homes and the principal source of food sup
ply; but when they want to move from one place
to another, they will mount into the ether, even
as the birds do, and flay swiftly and safely to
their destination.
It is probable that there will not be a wheeled
vehicle of any kind on the streets of a great city
on Christmas day, in the year 2009. Our tunnel
system will have developed until the vast subter
ranean net work of bores, chutes and pneumatic
tubes will carry on the heavy traffic of the city
without noise or confusion. The streets will be
given up to pedestrians—to those who walk for
pleasure or wish to travel short distances. The
sidewalk as it is now will be no more, but the en
tire width of the street will be given up to loot
passengers. There will be neither car tracks nor
moving vehicles to annoy.
The suburbanite who does not fly to work in
2009 will be shot through a pneumatic tube, trav
eling the five, ten, or fifty miles of distance in a
space of time that may be only a few seconds, and
certainly cannot be more than a few minutes. It
may be that few people will walk anywhere in
the year 2009. When man learns to fly he will
scorn walking as too slow a means of progress.
Perhaps our great-great-grandchildren, who no
doubt will live in immense apartment buildings
towering a half mile from the ground, may go
for weeks at a time without setting foot to the
earth.
With the passing of the Christmas sleigh there
will be no longer any need for reindeers for Santa
Claus. He, too, will travel by airship, and while
the old Santa Claus will be a myth, the new Santa
Claus will be as real as the bewhiskered and be
furred boys who now entertain the children in the
department stores.
It is not hard to imagine that the big stores
will develop the Santa Claus idea to the point that
Christmas purchases will be delivered on Christ
mas eve by an airship driver made up to imper
V/SJTJMG GRANDMA CHRISTMAS
.MOANING AT HSR HOMS 24S STORIES
\ ABOVE THE GROUND
T/fF MFCHA/Y/CAL
TOYS OF 200QW/LL BE
'MARVELS OF PFRFFCT/ON
forts and the inconvenience of life in
a cottage, it is possible, will drive
most of the city dv,'ellers into the
apartment buildings, which will grow
bigger and taller as the years pass un
sonate Santa Claus. A hun
dred years from now, if
you want to avoid the
rush and do your Christ
mas shopping in your own
apartments, the scientists
probably will have provided for you a combina
tion of telescope and moving picture machine by
means of which you can connect your room with
the toy department and see the display by wire—
or perhaps by wireless—and at the same time you
Get prices and leave your order with the clerk by
telephone.
But perhaps the woman of 2009 will enjoy the
mad rush of the shops as much as she does to
day during the holiday season, and then she will
go to the big store and order her toys and pres
ents. The store could deliver them through the
pneumatic package tubes which will go to all
parts of the city, but it will be more poetic to
have them delivered by Santa Claus.
Christmas eve a score or a hundred Santa
Clauses will set out from the various shops with
their airships laden with Christmas gifts to be de
livered at the various addresses. It will no longer
be necessary to “deliver all goods in the rear” of
the big apartment building, but whether you live
on the twentieth or two hundred and twentieth
story of the big house you will have your own
•private airship landing, and while the family is
gathered at the door to receive Santa Claus the
airship will settle on the landing and the cheerful
“Merry Christmas” of the aeronaut will greet you
as he hands in the packages.
The Christmas tree of a hundred years from
now will be an electrical marvel. Festoons and
wreaths of rainbow colored lights and “chasers”
will scintillate from its green branches. But the
presents that hang on it will be even more won
derful.
There will be dolls as large as the little girls
who will receive them. There will be dolls that
can walk and with the improved phonographic ar
rangements of another century there will be dolls
that can talk and others that can sing beautiful
songs. Some of them, no doubt, will be able to
dance gracefully and to do tricks that would seem
miraculous if performed by an automaton to-day.
The mechanical toys of 2009 will be marvels of
perfection. The most imaginative man cannot
possibly conceive of the new things that will be
invented in the way of machinery, but it is safe
to assume that the wireless transmission of power
will be perfected. Wheels will spin without any
visible motive power. Power may be taken from
the sun’s rays or wireless power stations may be
operated by the waves, the waterfalls, or even the
winds. Before the coal supply is exhausted the
need for coal, either for warmth or power, will
have passed away.
And whatever triumphs men make in the in
dustrial world they impart to their games and
til they will he literally •'skyscrapers” within a cen
tury.
In one of these big buildings, while the machin
ery will be out of sight, domestic affairs will be so
mechanical, even automatic, that you can get al
most anything the family needs simply by turning
on a switch or pressing a button.
The flat dweller of that distant day will not be
bothered with servants or the servant problem. By
pressing a button the Christmas dinner will come
up noiselessly from the kitchen on the mechanical
waiter or perhaps in a pneumatic tube.
After your Christmas dinner is over the dishes
will disappear as silently and swiftly as you could
wish. Some sort of mechanical dish washer in the
kitchen will take care of them—or, what is more
likely, they will be made of a cheap composition
and will be destroyed by burning after they are
used once. The antiseptic precautions of the mod
ern surgeon will be common to the kitchens of the
next century and hygiene will be a real science.
When you have eaten your Christmas dinner, if
you want to go out for the evening you can press
a button and an aerocab will come to the landing at
your door. Or, if you prefer it, you may drop down
the pneumatic elevator to some point 50 or 100 feet
below the surface of the earth and be whirled
through the pneumatic subway at a dizzy rate of
speed to your destination. Only the speed will not
make you dizzy. You will not be able to feei. it.
You may sit in your cushioned car, well lighted and
warmed and ventilated by some process yet to be
discovered, and before you realize it the miles will
speed away and you step out to the opera or the
play.
If you prefer to remain at your apartments the
telautoscope attached to your telephone may be
connected to any theater you desire, and you can
sit in your easy chair and smoke while you see the
play projected on the wall like the most perfect
moving picture. All the stage settings will be there
to make the play seem real, and the improved tele
phone will bring every shade and subtle inflection
of the actor’s voice to your ear.
It seems certain that this telautoscope arrange
ment—the exact word to describe it will be coined
after the process is discovered—will be one of the
triumphs of the coming century It will enable you
to see the person you are talking to over a tele
phone.
The flight of the coming airship probably will be
so rapid that the business man and even the sal
aried worker, if he loves the country, can have a
villa or a cottage at a great distance from the city
and go to work in his own airship at Blight cost.
On Christmas day in the good century to come
this flight in the air will be the means of many
family reunions that are Impossible now. A few
hours will take one to the most distant part of the
country, and the practical cessation of business
during the holiday week will leave all free to fore
gather with the loved ones and pay deferred visits.
Utilizing His Spare Moments
- «
Congenial Occupation for Hubby Juet
Before the Opera.
Husband (who is going to the oi>era
with his wife)—There! I took time by
the forelock, to-night Here I am, an
hour beforehand, with my evening
clothes all on and everything ready.
Now I’ll go down stairs and have a
quiet smcke while you get ready.
>— --- -
Wife—Oh! darling, can you erer for
give me?
"What’s the matter now?”
"Why, the cook tells me the furnace
fire went out this afternoon, as the
furnace man failed to come. The baby
has a cold, you know. Would you
mind going down in the cellar and
making it over? You've just got time,
love.”
Plenty Good Enough.
Aunt Chloe was burdened with the
support of a worthless husband, who
beat her when he was sober, and
whom she dutifully nursed and tended
when he came home bruised and bat
tered from a fighting spree.
One Monday morning she appeared
at the drug store and asked the clerk
for "a right pow’ful liniment foh ach
in' In de bones.”
“You might try some of this St.
Peter’s Prescription, aunty; it’s an old
■>nd nonular remedy, cures cut3, bruls
es. aAes and sprains. One dollar the
bottle. Good for man and beast."
Aunt Cbloe looked at the dollar bot
tle and then dubiously at her flat
purse. “Ain’t yo’ got some foh 50
cents?” she ventured. “Some foh Jes’
on’y beasts. Ah want it foh ma ol’
man.”—Lippincott’s.
Real Assistance.
The only sound and healthy descrip
tion of assisting Is that which teaches
independence and self-exertion.—'Glad
stone.
Nebraska Directory
A Lady Says of
UNCLE SAM
Breakfast Food
AS A CURE FOR CONSTIPATION
“Your food is a splendid thing
and does all it claims to do . . .
and am anxious to have it right
along.
Mrs. D. H. Bower.
ASK YOUR GROCER ABOUT IT
HE CERTAINLY KNOWS
U. S. B. F. Co., Omaha
NILURS HOTELS
American--S2.00 per day and upwards.
European--Si.00 par day and upwards*
OMAHA
Take Dodge Street Car
at Union Depot.
POSITIVELY CURES
ROME MILLER
alcohol:c
INEBRIETY
OPIUM
MORPHINE
AND OTHER DRUG ADDICTIONS.
THIRTY YEARS
of continuous success. Printed matter sent
in plain envelope upon request. All cor
respondence strictly confidential.
THE tfEELEY |HST5TUTE
Cor. Twenty-Fiftn and Cass St., OMAHA.
lJo you want the Best Corn Sbelter mad*? If
insist on having a
MARSEILLES CORN SHELLER
Write for catalog or see your local dealer.
JOHN DEERE PLOW CO.. OMAHA
THE PAXTON
Rooms from $1.00 up single, 75 cents up double.
CAFE PRICES REASONABLE
TYPEWRITERS g&*
H w> X Mfr s prlee. Canh or time pay*
nients. Rented, rent applies. We ship
] any where for free examination. No d»
Pp***. VTrlte for big bargain Hat au.l offe
R.F.8«vanaon l’o..427 Woodman BMf .OaKta.
\A/ET| niMf2 auto genoue »y
fir EL Ik mJ I HI V3 this process all broken
parts of machinery made good as new, Welds
cast iron,cast steel, aluminum,copper, brass or
any other metal. Expert automobile repairing.
BERTSCHY MOTOR CO.. Counoil Bluffs.
Stated In Cold Figures.
It costs on an average about $250
to cure an incipient consumptive or
to care for an advanced case of tuber
culosis until death. If he is left in des
titute circumstances without proper
attention he will surely infect with
his disease at least two other persons,
and possibly more. Considering that
the average life is worth to society
in dollars and cents about $1,500, the
net loss which would accrue to a com
munity by not treating its poor con
sumptives in proper institutions would
be, for each case, including those who
are unnecessarily infected, at the very
lowest figure, $4,250. On this basis, if
the poor consumptives in the United
States who are now sick were segre
gated from their families, and either
kept in institutions until they died, or
else cured of their disease, the sav
ing to the country would be the enor
mous sum of $1,275,000,000.
The Idea!
The wife of a western man of ex
tremely humble origin, whose fortune
had been accumulated within the last
few years, recently confided to a
friend her intention to enlist the serv
ices of a new family physician.
The friend expressed surprise in
view of the fact that the physician
then attending the family was gen
erally reputed to be the best in the
city.
“Oh, I know all that!” exclaimed the
first mentioned woman. “But the idea
of his prescribing flaxseed tea and
mustard plasters for people as rich as
we are!”
Taking the Tips.
"Why did Dollarby sell his hotel?"
“He wasn’t making money fast
enough.”
“What is he doing now?”
“He’s luxuriating in the position of
head waiter.”
Method in Their Madness.
“Why do so many otherwise clever
women write silly letters to men?”
“They’re probably making a collec
tion of the answers they get.”
HABIT’S CHAIN
Certain Habits Unconsciously Formed
and Hard to Break.
An ingenious philosopher estimates
that the amount of will power neces
sary to break a life-long habit would,
if it could be transformed, lift a weight
of many tons.
It sometimes requires a higher de
gree of heroism to break the chains of
a pernicious habit than to lead a for
lorn hope in a bloody battle. A lady
writes from an Indiana town:
rrom my earliest childhood I was a
lover of coffee. Before I was out of my
teens I was a miserable dyspeptic, suf
fering terribly at times with my stom
ach.
“I was convinced that It was coffee
that was causing the trouble and yet
I could not deny myself a cup for
breakfast. At the age of 36 I was in
very poor health, Indeed. My sister
told me I was In danger of becoming
a coffee drunkard.
"But I never could give up drinking
coffee for breakfast, although it kept
me constantly ill, until I tried Postum.
I learned to make it properly according
to directions, and now we can hardly
do without Postum for breakfast, and
care nothing for coffee.
“I am no longer troubled with dys
pepsia, do not have spells of suffering
with my stomach that used to trouble
me so when I drank coffee."
Look in pkgs. for the little book, “The
Hoad to Wellville.” “There’s a Reason.”
Ever read the above letter f A new
one appears front time to time. They
are nennlne, true, and fall of bantam
interest.