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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 14, 1902)
6. "The Commoner Curnnt Zopks THE DEATH OF ELIZABETH CADY STANTON recalls to a writer in the Chicago Inter-Ocean an interesting story of a brief but Bpirltod joint do bato between Mrs. Stanton and Horace Greoloy. Mrs. Stanton had gone to tho office of the New York Tribune to present a petition asking Mr. Greeley to turn his papor ovor to tho cause. After tho great editor had listened to Mrs. Stanton for a while he turned, in a self-satisfied way, and asked her what she would do in case of war. Without a moment's hesitation she answered: "I would do as you did, Mr. Greeley. I would send a sub stitute." Mr. Groeloy had nothing more to say, but he ovor afterward had the deepest reverence for Elizabeth Cady Stanton. WALDEMAR BORGORAS OF THE AMERI can Museum of Natural History recently read p papor before a historical congress in New York city in which ho described in detail tho traditions and beliefs of tho people of tho far horth. Tho Now York correspondent of tho Chicago Inter Ocean gives an interesting summary of Mr. Bor goraB paper in tho following language: "Human souls are like fish or seals to them," he said, recfy- Ing this mythology of the primitive peoples; "they come In tho night time to human dwellings, put their nets across the entrance, and thon begin to poke with long poles under tlie tent skirts, for the purpose of driving out tho souls of tho sleepers from the protecting cover of tho inner room. How- ever, the spirits themselves aro not immune from tho attacks of certain magicians among mortals." Mr. Borgoras mentioned among others these talea of the peoples among whom he worked: "Tho whale skull carrying away a young woman, who afterward Is rescued by her brother and returns to her land In a boat pursued by a whale. "Tho man who married a whilje goose woman and afterward followed her to the land of birds through tho opening and shutting rocks. TJie-small old man with transparent arms whostands on the seashore i. chopping-woodwltn a hatchet and making living fishes of the chips. The aurora borealis is ba lieved to be a special world inhabited by those who die of violence. The red glare is their spilled blood. The changing rays are disembodied'souls playing ball with a walrus head. New-born children are believed to be ancestors come back to earth. Their names are found out by asking the suspended di vining stone all the names of the preceding gen eration in turn. later times brokon apart by the arrival of the Eskimo. We aro able to trace the whole extent of this myth and to see that itt importance, dimin ishes along its route from southern Kamchatka to tho Columbia river." ACCORDING TO MR. BORGORAS THE raven myth is the most important of all. Tho people of the northern regions believe that the raven is the transformer, but not the creator, of the world. Ho brirgs light and fresh water, teaches tho human race the ways of earthly life from marriage to tho making of nets, and at the same time ho la the common laughing stock, is foolish .and dirty, and is the perpetrator of many misdeeds and the object of many tricks. He also has the attributes of a real bird and is always hungry. In one tribe the1 raven Is a deity and his mythical name Is translated, by older travelers, simply as 'God.' He Is connected with almost ev ery talOj and even when It treats of a subject bear ing no relation to tho raven his name will at least be mentioned at the beginning. He is tho trans former of the world, the 'ancestor of the tribe, and the teacher of various pursuits, who, after making his posterity fit for a self-reliant life, goes away to another country or is turned to stone. Some of the American episodes of the raven tale reappear on Asiatic soil. The raven gives the world its pres ent shape, creates men of stcne, and endows them with the power of speech. He breaks the wall of darkness with the aid of other birds and liberated the light , Or else ho steals from the house of spirits three skin balls containing the sun, the moon, and the stars. He transforms himself into a small leaf and drops into a pool, and the daughter of a mighty wizard takes tho leaf to her house in a bucket filled with water. His wives make him . show his tongue, and they hind it with twine, de priving him of the power of speech. He urges the people to flight, under the pretext that the enemy is coming, and then steals all their provisions. He is swallowed by a whale, but afterward kills the whale by pecking at its heart, and comes out In explaining the similarities between the Asiatic Bearing tribes and the North Pacific Indians, we are bound to admit a former juxtaposition of these tribes and a lino of direct connection which was in EVERY READER OF AMERICAN HISTORY will remember tho famous English prison ship Jersoy in which several hundred Americans were martyred during the days of tho revolu tionary war. Tho Jersey at that time was sta- v tioned in New York harbor and for fifty years a search, moro or less regular, has been on foot for tho old ship. It was recently discovered in the Brooklyn navy yard lying under twelve or fourteen feet of dirt and water near the water front of the yard. The Brooklyn correspondent of the Chicago Chronicle in describing tho discov ery of this ship makes tho following comment: "The history of the prison-ships and the dramatic story of the men who were imprisoned and who diod In them has not been fully preserved. For many years it was all a mystery and then tho skeletons of about 300 men were found in tho yard. These wore part of the martyrs who had been confined in tho ships by the British when they in vaded New York, and the tale was partly told. The skeletons wore found in the high part of the yard, and the belief has been that the prisoners were shot and then carried to land and buried. Tho finding of the ship strengthens this theory. The prisoners were probably executed and then the prison-ship set on fire and run aground. The dis covery of the skeletons a few years ago is well remembered. Several barrels of bones were "gath ered up and placed in a vault Later they were buried in Fort Greene park with an impressive ceremony. Tho question of whether there are other, skeletons in the ruins of tho ship is entirely a matter of conjecture." OF LATE YEARS WOMEN HAVE ENGAGED in many novel occupations, but perhaps, not many would have the courage to follow the ono chosen by Miss Emily L. Marden of Milwaukee, Wis. This young lady Is a full-fledged game buyer and for this purpose travels extensively through the woods of the northern part of the state. A writer in: the Chicago Chronicle tells of this young woman's achievement in this way: "For three months each year she goes from ship ping point to shipping point, buying direct from the hunters when she can or from the dealers to whom the hunters bring the game they have Idlled. This has to be done as rapidly as possible and there is little rest or sleep for the young woman until she has gathered up a sufficient quantity to make it worth while to take the long and tire some trip back to d-.o city. Under the game laws no shipping is allowed and this means that every time a consignment of game reaches town someone with a hunter's license has brought it down from the north as personal baggage. With Miss Marden this personal baggage Is at times excessive and she has brought in at one trip as many as 2,000 birds which she had gathered up in the course of tl ree or four days' travel through the woods." THE NEWS REPORTS OF NOVEMBER 2 RE ported the destruction by fire" of the old Whittler homestead at Haverhill, Mass. The Chi cago Chronicle's description of the accident was as follows: "The house was destroyed, but every relic was saved by a brave and faithful woman, Mrs. JrM. Ela, the matron, who lost her all ex cept the clothing she wore, while she was saving those things that the poet once handled, little things now so dear tohis every reader. 4I don't care now that I have"-saved them,' she said as she guarded them. 'I have nothing left, not an other pair of shoes, but his things are safe.' While the 'fire was raging Mrs. Ela and her niece tore from the walls and about the rooms those things that the poet once owned, his bible, his pictures, his desk and his andirons, on which blazed the inspiring logs in whose flames he saw the visions he has told of in his verses; his fire pan and 100 other things that were a part of his life for half a century. Tho kitchen is charred, but remains practically intact, and the old chimney, with its big fireplace, stands like a monument amid all the ashes and cinders. The home Is the property of the Haverhill Whittier Birthplace association"; which organization took it about ten years ago, and has since maintained it It has been the mecca for thousands from all parts of the country and the most noted landmark in that section of New England. Vol. a, No. 43. be treated in awothing way with due regard to thn nerves of its readers. The paper is to bo unde? ? direction of a bank director, assisted by two frien 2 who ar lawyers, and newspaper men of nron nence in Austria and Germany have been invited to send descriptions of recent stirring' occurrences treated in this way. Large prizes are offered for the best work. ur NEW CURES ARE BEING INVENTED FOir tho disease to which flesh is heir, but an heroic method comes from Europe. The Paris correspondent of tho Chicago Record-Herald de scribes tho new cure in this way: "M. Raoud Pictet is a famous Swiss savant chevalier of tho Legion of Honor, discoverer of the liquefaction of oxygen, and a member of moro than forty scien tific societies in France and Germany. He has in vented a cure for diseases of tho lungs, the stom ach, tho 'circulation and the kidneys, entitled 'Frigotheraple,' or the 'Freezing cure.' The neces sary machinery consists of a well of metal lined with thick furs, into which the patient descends the depth being about five feet This well is sur rounded by an outer shell, while the cavity be tween tho outer and inner walls Is filled with a combination of sulphurous and carbonic acid known to the scientific world as 'liquide Pictet' af ter its discoverer. This gas is kept at a liquid state at 110 degrees below zero and is constantly forced into tho cavity by specially constructed pumps. M. Pictet says the patient, surrounded by furs and the icy liquid, has no impression of cold whatever, and, in fact, his temperaturo- rises after three min utos' treatment, increasing from one-half to one degree in five minutes. A period of treatment ranging from five to fifteen minutes is sufficient for the timebeing. M. Pictet says he himself, af ter fifteen years of illness, was cured after eight descents into 'the well.' " AN INTERESTING BIT OF NEWS COMES from Vienna and consists of tho information that there will shortly be published In-. that city a newspaper for nervous persons. In this newspa per great catastrophes, bank defalcations and other events calculated to disturb nervous persons will AN INTERESTING REPORT WAS RECENTLY made by the commissioner of the general land office at Washington, wherein it wn? said that the public land uisposed of by the govern ment during the year aggregated 19,488,533 acres, an increase ovor the previous year. Of this 1. 757,793 acres were sold for cash; 17,614,792 acres were embraced in miscellaneous entries, and the remainder were Indian lands. ACCORDING TO THIS RRPORT TT SEEMS i J that the forest area in the United States Is"-- increasing as on October 1, last, there were fiftv four forest reserves, embracing 60,175,765 acres, an increase of almost 14,000,000 acres since the last report During the fiscal Tsar there were 1,663 forest fires discovered which burned over 87. 979 acres. The destructiveness of forest fires is be ing constantly lessened. Concerning reforestation, the report says: "Assuming that the reforestation of the denuded areas in the forest reserves, where sufficient moisture prevails to make the germina- tion of seeds of the native trees possible, might be expected to result in good time, if the occur rence of devastating fires could be reduced to a minimum, and the grazing of stock restrained with in proper limits and reduced to a safe basis, the forest force has been required to make extra ex ertion to prevent damage by fire, and to keep tho office duly informed relative to tho effects of stock grazing and to keep out stock not licensed to enter the reserves, and all the evidences point to almost unvarying success. The forest trees are coming back where there is a plentiful rainfall, and not a little hope is found in the fact that the native trees are reproducing themselves in the drier por tions of the country, whore the fires are kept out and where grazing is restrained within reasonable Hmitsand many a waste place is becoming a wil derness of verdure." THE EDUCATION BILL THAT IS CAUSING so much discussion in England and partic ularly among tho public of London and the larger cities is perhaps not so clearly understood by American readers. According to a London corre spondent of the Chicago Tribune, the elementary schools -of England and Wales are voluntary schools of all religious denominations and board schools. There are in all 14,2iw voluntary schools and 5,857 board schools. The correspondent adds: "The voluntary schools are mainly, but not en tirely, composed of Church of England schools. They are divisable as follows: Church of England schools, 11,731; Roman Catholic, 1,003; 'British and miscellaneous, 1,052; Wesleyan, 458. In tho voluntary schools there are, in round numbers, 3,200,000 children, In the board schools there are, in round numbers, 2,600,000 children. The con science clause' of the 1870 act makes it compulsory on every school which seeks to obtain a grant for efficiency from the state as a public elementary school to refrain from requiring children to attena ,church or chapel; and it further requires that any I . &