Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 11, 1904)
fK"ffl yv9-'t v- b 6 fand sho throw her glasses away. Since' then sho I has had no use for them. So excellent Is her oye i Bight, indcod, that sho has just completec: a largo bcdquilt composed of i.ino stars, each star con taining tho endrmous number of 278 diamonds." MISS PERKINS' is Just as lively as her appear ance indicates, according to this writer, and he adds: "If Miss Perkins does not find old ago - the toothless, miserable existence it is reputed to bo, neither does sho find it a period of superfluity. S'ho is "smart," as they say in New England, about thp house, aids materially m the housework and delights in reading and sewing. She attends church with a regularity that is enough to shame tho younger generation, walks about town on little shopping expeditions, visits her neighbors, , and is as cheerful and lightheartcd as a girl of 1C. Indeed, she says she feels as if hor girlhood were returning to her, but supposes it is'only that second chilcmood.peopld talk so much about. Her mind is perfectly clear and her memory is good. She not only recollects events of her girlhood days, but keeps well in mind tho more recent events. Instead of living in tho. past she takes an intense interest In the present, and she is an entertaining talker." FEARFUL of the effects of a northern winter, the relatives of Ira D. Sankey, the famous , gospel singer, are prepa-ing to '.alee him south in the hope that his life may be prolonged. The New York World says: "The day of the sweet singer who has stirred multitudes in many lands iB prac tically done. 'I have just had a letter from moth er safd Mr. I. Allen Sankey, of No. 369 Park place, Brooklyn, son of the r.nger, yesterday, 'and we have decided to send father south. We hope that the warmer breezes may preserve him to us. Ho is now up-state, just where I do not care to have published, because ho Is so sensitive. We have had hopes that his eyes would improve, but I may now say that ho is totally blind and will never see again.' In us aec.no Mr. Sankey is still the sweet soul of the old days when he was with Moody, but . tho knowledge that he Is b-.nd forever bears hard on him. He who .sang in front of thousands now shrinks from the presence of sympathetic friends. . Jn. seclusion, he spends his days waiting his end. .. .Once in a while in the evening the wandering rustic hears again the song of the "Ninety and Nine," the famous hymn that has infused spiritual life into many vast assemblies. It Sfcnkey singing his old favorite. Then the venerable singer seems to forget his blindness. He has. as it were, re tired within himself, living over again in memory the splendid scenes of his prime. 'Father does not complain,' said the son, 'but he has grown very sensitive and retiring in his misfortune.'" THE old idea of a Panama railway to connect Valparaiso and New York is not dead and according to a writer in the New York World the Panama canal has made this railroad's early completion likely. This writer adds: "Of course it will bo done in links here and there, finally connected. Already one can go far down into Mexico without a break; There are bits of rail ways in the AndeB that would be useful as portions of a 10.000-miles scenic railway that would cast tho Siberian line wholly into the shade. Peru has Issued a ministerial decree regarding the possibility of finding a suitable point for the terminus of a proposed railway in the eastern regions of Peru a link of the Pan-American project. The decree provides for a commission of pngineers to mako ' preliminary surveys." ANDREW CARNEGIE, in dicussing with a Now York World reporter, international peace - said he hoped to see a compact hetween the great ' world powers that would form "an arbitration trust" Mr. Carnegie said: "May I live to see tho day when Great Britain, America, Germany France and Russia will form a compact to settle all disputes by arbitration. In .such a company as that I would like to be a large stockholder, i do not think it would be advisable for any of the powers to intervene In tho far eastern question at this time, as It would only aggravate the combatants I regard theMecision to refe,r the settlement of the North -Sea incident to a commission as one of the greatest triumphs over dreamt of by man ' . I have never said anything in favor of Canadian , annexation, but I do favor a union of interests , .between the. United States and Qreat Britain and .Canada. The Anglo-Saxon people 'should be fcraight closer toother than they n6w are" I do ' l The Commoner. not, however, advocate entangling alliances for this country." SIMON NEWCOMGE, writing in Harper's Maga zine, says: "Speaking roughly, we have rea son, from the data so far available, to believe that tho stars of the milky way are situated at a dis tance between 100,000,000 and 200,000,000 times tho distance from the sun. At distances less than this it seems likely that the stars are distributed through space with some approach to uniformity. We may state as a general conclusion, indicated by several methods of making the estimate, that nearly all the stars are contained within a sphere not likely to be much more than 200,000,000 times tho distance of the sun. Tho inquiring reader may here ask another question. Granting that all the stars we can see are contained within this limit, may there not bo any number of stars without the limit which are invisible only because thoy are toe far away to bo seen." O' N MARCH 31, 1897, just before the republican party took possession of the government and wr.en there was no steel trust, according to tho New York World, American steel rails were selling in this market at ?18 to $20 per ton. Foreigners can still get them for that, but Americans have to pay the trust $28 an increase of from 40 to 65 pei cent. The trust has maintained the $28 rate for home customers without variation sine it was organized, representing a net increase of profits of over $70,000,000 above a normal amount for that time. DR. WALTER THORNER of the University Eye Clinic of Berlin, has devised an appara tus to obtain good puotographs of the background or the eye. The New York World explains: "Dr. Thorner's contrivance constitutes an improvement of the ophthalmoscope invented by Helmholtz in 1850, which only admits of looking at the back ground of the eye. It has been impossible here tofore to photograph the Interior. It is difficult v to illuminate it sufficiently, and even if strong light were used the exposure would last too long. Dr. Thorner first obtained photographs of the eyes of cats, but the interior of the human eye being much darker it required many improvements be fore good photographs could be taken. With a soft light the eye is first so focused that its back yields a clear image on the photograpbic plate. The plate put in, tho camera Is opened by a special lover, and a flashlight composition is ignited by an electric spark. The background of the eye is lighted for a moment sufficiently to produce a good image on the plate. It is possible to distinguish healthy eyes readily from sick ones, the eye of a strongly short-sighted person being, for instance, characterized by a peculiar ring around the il luminated centre. Oculists may now watch tho progress of eye diseases step by step." A WRITER in World's Work says: "Although the population of Russia is nearly Ihree and a half times as great as the population of .Japan, and its area nearly six times as great, the Japanese have a million more pupils. in their schools than the Russians. They publish more periodicals and books. Although Russia has nearly nine. times as many miles of railroad, the Japanese roads carry more passengers, though less freight. They send half as many again letters by post as the Rus sians send. With onlyabout one-fourth as many miles of telegraph wires, they send nearly as many messages. Their trade per capita is greater than the Russians both in imports and in ex ports, although the total trade of the Russians of course, is very much greater. The apparent financial and military strength of the Russians is incomparably the -greater. Yet so cheaply does the Japanese soldier live that Japan may do more with little money than Russia with' more." THE number of immigrants enterrhg the United . States in the fiscal year ending Juno in 15)04, was 812,870. This is a larger rdcord than Vat of any year except 1903, when tho total was nenriv 55,000 greater. Of Austro-Hungarians there was a decrease of 28,855, of Italians 87,326, of SwedeTV 265, and of Japanese 5,704, while there was au & TC ?f Gernians 6,294, of Russians and Finns ' 9,048, of English 12,407, and of.S'cotch 4 949 ? sent over 193,296,' Aus'tria-Hugary m'lBa Rus sian ompIreFinland 145,141, Germany 4680 and England and Ireland 74,768. , ' VOLUME 4, NUMBER 43 UNAi!2P loy reIsna In b borne of v, srick Elenbrok, of Baltimore. Th 2m more correspondent for the New York WnrM li" Ou Bnndjy Mr. Elenbrok willTeSoetiS third anniversary of his life, and his wife who , over fifty years his junior, presented hta J&5 with-a daughter. Mr. Eienbrok is a good 15 flcation of Senator Davis' theory that a 1? ' young at eighty. He is a member of several ?P? man societies and much beloved for the intere he takes in the aged people's home. About a yea ago Mr. Elenbrok surprised his friends by takln, unto himself a wife. To their bantering Mr Eiin brok answered by asserting his right as a frco American citizen to fall in love, even though ho was an octogenarian. Mr. Elenbrok was born In Lippe Detmold. At the outbreak of the civil war he organized a cavalry company for the confed eracy. He was arrested and spent a year in tho federal prison at Fort McHenry." ANOyEL demonstration of generosity was given by Captain M. B. Lloyd of Fort worth, Tex., a .short time ago. The New York Sun tells this story: "Captain M. B. Lloyd of this place has won the gratitude of many poor children by saving the lives of their pet dogs which had been condemned to death for failure to bo tagged. An ordinance of Forth Worth requires that a tax of $1 a head shall be paid on all dogs and that each an.mal shall wear a tag showing that the tax has been paid. Untagged dogs aro taken to the dog pound, where they are kept 48 hours, and if .the tax is not tfaid they are killed. Many poor people were unable to pay the tax on their dogs, and when the dog catching season opened a few days ago the dog catcher reaped a rich harvest of untagged dogs. It was a dismal day for the poor children who saw their pets car- ried off. The next uay after the season opened Captain Lloyd learned that the pound was filled with dogs condemned to death. He went to tho city collector's office and inquired how many dogs were In the pound. The collector called In tho dog catcher and repeated the question. When in formed that there were seventy-one of them, the captain placed as many dollars en the counter and had the animals all released and announced in the papers that all the dogs in the pound would bo tagged and released at a certain hour of tho next day, and that their owners should be on hand to claim them. A PAYMASTER for an eastern iron company, according to a dispatch printed in the Des Moines Daily News, recently lost a satchel con taining ?16,000 in cash. Louis Fry, a poor boy, found the satchel in the road. Discovering tho value of its contents, he took it home to his par ents. The paymaster did not miss the satchel until he had arrived at the furnaces. He rushed back immediately to look for it. As he passed the houso the boy hailed him, and inquired if he had lost anything. The paymaster said he was looking for a satchel. "Well, I guess I found it, mister," said the boy. The money was found undisturbed. The paymaster rewarded young Fry by giving him 35 cents. AVERY valuable book is to be sold shortly and if reports concerning it are true, deep inter est will attach to the sale. It is desginated as "Shakespeare's Own Bible," and is a copy of the Sacred book in which the great jard wrote his own signature. The London Telegraph, referring to this book, says: "There are extant only two or three signatures of the bard that are unques tionably his, and to possess the Book of Books, with his name written by his own hand, would ho a treasure indeed. It is certain that the Bible to be offered is not that from which Shakespeare learnt his Scripture knowledge. It was apparently printed in 1613, and bears the imprint of tho sec ond edition of King James's Bible, our authorizea version, the first issue of which was in lull, in 1611 Shakespeare's dramatic work was done. " is doubtful if anything proceeded from nls pen after that, date except, perhaps, "Henry vi . which is only in part his, "The Tempest, ana "Cymbeline" But, apart from this consideration, there is now little if any doubt that tho Biwe the poet's youth and manhood was tho enev" version turned, into English by tho reformers nr smuggled into this country .in 1557, and afterwui .freely and widely disfriouted." 1 i i