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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (May 2, 1896)
2&&&2ZZzz2s Jx.i'SM5S5 THE COURIER. r WE AND OUR NEIGHBORS Imbmimimmiotmmmmmmmmimmmmim For a week the weathei has been very warm and poet lenten festivities have lost go. Lawns on which the green grass grows and the kind that girls wear as well as bishops, are popular. The New York papers report society, except a 6tnall part that has stayed at home to get married on its way to Europe or Newport. The warm weather arrived in the metropolis a week ahead of the rest of the country. Even the weather is old when it gets to Lincoln. In London the trades-people are growl ingover dull times, reason unseasonably cold weather. The English spend this time of the year out doors. They are bound to tradition and if it is too rainy to play out doors they will not play at all. Of course custom has suited itself to the average, the usual. In America there is no average, no usual. The weather melodrama is always new. Just at present those abominable hot winds are blowing. They are the Llack beast of the Nebraska climate. It is well. By this means the population is kept from becoming too dense to support itself. The only heart-breaking melting question is: "What will the Summer be?" Mrs. Peattie, in the Omaha World Herald, thinks that the nearsightedness of the contemporary child is due to the blackboard, the varying size of the characters the teachers see tit to place upon it and the pupil's inability to draw them nearer in order to focus the eyes properly. If this be so an electric rem edy is easy if not too expensive. People are so in the habit of working children off for half price or no price, of making their dresses or bits of trousers out of any old thing, of thinking ary salary too high for a woman who only teaches children, that a plan for the preservation of their eyesight will probably seem a great piece of foolishness. Any one who watches the children come pouring out of any one of the public schools will be aston ished and appalled at the number of glasses set astride the unformed noses. There might be a little blackboard hinged to every pupil's desk and con nected by wires to the teacher's desk. When she wishes to impress an improv ing theory on the mind of the school, by means of the blackboard, she may sit at her desk, and write, draw or cipher as the occasion demands and the figures will simultaneously appear on the indi vidual blackboards. Of course the me chanism and the wires must be kept locked from mischievous hands- The juvenile mind lacks a moral sense. Nothing delights it so much as destruc tion and especially destruction in a large sense as of a system. To pull a wire out and thereby set "teacher" and all the teachers in the building crazy would delight even little "Eva." In spite of the diabolical tendencies of children their eye sight should be pre served to them in hopes of an adult re pentance. The electric system referred to would be forever getting out of order unless boxed and locked. Every build ing would require a resident electrician. Perhaps when heating is done by elec tricity it will be possible to get a janitor with a university education. The time is approaching when the man who knows the ways of electricity as only "profes sors' know them now, will be no more remarkable than the man who can read and write now -and only a little while ago heput on 'airs. A mysterious allusion was made in one of the Sunday papers to a weekly paper not designated which is unusually careful of details and which at last has made a mistake in a man's name. The compliment k the most delicate and sat isfactory The CouniEithas received. As there is no other paper in Lincoln whicn fits the description the unknown writer has chosen to apply, there is no forwardness in accepting it. Besides, "I done it,' that is I pasted the cutting from the Chicago Tribune on to the copy, intended for this column and I presume the Gods of the composition room decided not to give credit. Mais, je vous remerci mon ami inconnu. "Our years are like the shadows On sunny hills that lie, Or grasses in the meadows, That blossom but to die: A sleep, a dream, a story By strangers quickly told, An unremaining glory Of things that soon are old." The poetry of some of the hymns that congregations fing is the one remaining literary influence that reaches even as many of the people as go to church. Before the people could read there wad poetic feeling. There was a mystery about literary effects on the heart that fascinated the peasantry and the scorn ful knight to listen as often as the jongleur would sing his narrative songs. Before that in the Homeric period the people listened for hundreds of years to the men who chanted their histoiy into an epic There would have been no Iliad if the people had not listened. Today they will not incline their ears. Only a few of them go to church once a week half of those who go are too late for the "opening services" and miss the message a poet wrote and ages have ripened. Few read now that the heart of the mystery is plucked from letters. The people are absorbed in affairs. Every thing else is vanity. "All the labour of man is for his mouth and yet the appe tite i8 not filled." Mr. John S. Sargent, the portrait painter, whom Whistler has flattered by putting in the same sentence with Velasquez, is to paint a portrait of the right honorable Joseph Chamberlain. The painter can scarcely leave the monocle out of Joseph's eye and if he puts it in he might as well try to paint a serious picture of Mr. Punch. Per haps the painter will paint a picture of his sitter's alert though politically un scrupulous soul. In that case the like ness does not matter and it may be a nice picture. A New York critic says that "the best portrait painters hold that the first essential of great portrait paint ing is that the subject shall not be able to recognize himself." Mr. Sargent is a great portrait painter indisputably and I know of none of his portraits wherein the likeness is said to be striking. Many who saw at the world's fair the picture of St. Uauden's wife and son will be haunted forever by its beauty. On looking at photographs of Mrs. St Gaudens and son it is impossible not to consider them unsatisfactory as family souvenirs. Pabst's new beer advertisement looks like a cathedral window. It appears in the principal monthly magazines and shows a maiden who looks like Ruth, plucking hops and only separated from Boaz cutting rye by Mr. Pabst's an nouncement of the good his tonic has dene. The advertising agent may be trying to attract the attention of those who care only for the lines of church architecture or much more likely he is a Gargantua in a small way. The story, -'Sons and Fathers," fin ished all but the last chapter in last Friday's Chicago Record is a very poor story and a good mystery. When only going to school Do the children go to school? And are they joyous and happy? Is school-life a pleasure? And is progress being made? Or is the opposite true? Does the close oi each day bring a headache ? There is no appetite and sleep is imperfect. The color gradually leaves the cheeks and only a little effort is followed by exhaustion. To continue school means to come to the end of the year with broken health. What is the best thing to do ? Take Scotls truil&iCTu of Cod-liver Oil, with hypophosphites. The cod-liver oil nourishes the body and makes red corpuscles for the blood. The hypophosphites are tonics to the nervous system, giving mental activity during the day and refreshing sleep at night. Don't let you child get thin and worry along. Give Scott's Emulsion; insist on a generous amount of out-door exercise; and the vigor of youth will return. so cU. and i a bottle. SCOTT ft BOWNE, ChemUU, New York Lincoln gteam j5e W0F ROY DENNEY, Proprietor. suits, overcoats, cloaks and dresses cleaned and colored without taking apart shawls, ribbons, laces, feathers, mufflers, curtains, kid gloves, etc., cleaned and dyed. 105 O Street Express charges paid one way Telephone 4 BUY FRESH SEEDS mi GRISMTOLD SEED MYTH FOR THE ARIVIIAIIEII The newest and choicest flower seeds Glovers and blue grass for the lawn CUPID The new dwarf sweet pea grows only rive inches high. The flower wonder of the world, try them. Our 1896 catalogue free. Send for it. Money saved by dealing direct. Don't forget the place ORSVI0iO SEW 00. Cor lOtb e 3V Sta. IKVCOLX . Neb. .- i K. tn- .-""ft3 s. Tor rVrrtTt ! rw abIa in OmaVtn of famkotli'a afat!nna J ' store, 1306 Farnam street. 'id