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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (May 15, 1897)
VOL 12'NO 20" KSTABLISHED IN 18SG PRICE FIVE CBN'JS LINCOLN, NEB., SATURDAY. MAY 1.',, 1807 inmioiT emciitw AM UOO? S-CX.AM KATTU FU1LIIHXO ITUI lATUmSAT BT eHllEI PfilRTIM U) NIMilM ft Office 1132 N street, Up Stairs. Telephone 384. SARAH l'. HARRIS. DOHA BACHELLEK Editorr Business Manager Subscription Rates In Advance. Per annum 82 00 Six months 1 00 Three months 50 One month 20 Single copies 05 OBSERVATIONS. I f vrw On another page of this issue of The Courier, readers of the paper will find an article on Nebraska birds by Mr. AugUBt Eiche. From his childhood Mr. Eiche has made the study of birdi his recreation. He knows the habits of the different specic3. their nesting time, the architectural characteristics of their nests, the calls to their mates, to signal danger or food found or of pure lyrical gladness. As a boy, he crawled on his hands and knees through the under brush, or stole with red Indian instinct to a place of hiding to learn the secretB of the birds. Since he became a man, no other pursuit has charmed him from that which claimed the whole attention of the boy. His valuable collection of game birds has but just been removed from a store window, where they have been on exhibition for several weeks. For h is an expert taxidermist. He has a valuable collection of birds, most of them natives of Nebraska. Without striving for it, and without caring for it. Mr. Eiche has become an authority on Nebraska birds, their habits, diet, plumage in honeymoon season and at other times, their haunts and hegiras, their enemies and their friends. He has promised The Cockier a series of arti cles on Nebraska birdp, beginning with the common ones we see every day and ending with the rare visitors from the south who leave before the first f rost and do not arrive till the tulipB tind cro cuses have gone to seed. Mr. Eiche has the patience and zeal of a born natural ist. All the days of his life ho his watched the birds. In spite of them selves he has caught them off their guard, without the manners that even birds put on "before folks." His bird stories from first hand have the charm of the returned traveler from unknown lands. He moves in a most exclusive circle. To get in which takes time, that we have not, birth gift, that wo have not, scholarly patience, that we have not. All this summer when the boarders are hero Mr. Eiche can tell us of tbeir history, their tricks and manners and it will be very much worth our while to listen. The requests for free atlvei Using of one kind and another, which publishers of papers are constantly receiving, is discouraging to the dealer in new?, publicity or fame, who ha9only that one commodity to cell and can not make up his gift of space by an overcharge in some other department. Yet all subscribers to a newspaper feel that the publishers of the paper they consent to "take" should write a flittering notice of what ever event occurs in their business for nothing. Whether it is an opening, a banquet, a handsome display in the windows or a chuich fair or concert, the givers and committee want tt writ ip for nothing. When the publishers ex plain that the road to which the some thing for-nothing finger points, leads to penury and want, the old subscriber or advertiser goes away with convictions of the publisher's miserliness to which his christian training does not prevent from whispering to the town. Daily re quests for free advertising come through the mails they would reach their dcB tination, the waste basket, no quicker if they were directed waste basket, south side desk, etc. But because they are persistent and from all points of the compass they mean that the public con siders a newspaper as much its legiti mate prey as a railroad or anything which has once given its valuable wares away. This mistaken means of making and keeping friendp, once used, there after there is nothing but vexation on one side and enmity and jealousy on the other. There is no leason why, if write up's are wanted from a business point of view they should not be paid for as much as any other commodity. If edi tor's had the courage of their rights in this respect, instead of being charaeter iz d by a timidity which makes them the football of rival tradesmen, their bearing would have the bluff pride of the butcher, the "merchant prince' or the "carriage repository" man. News paper notoriety is said to be cheap. It is. Too cheap. But the latest quotations of notoriety are two points bigbtr. Tnere is reasonable hope that the debonair gait of a hardware dealer may be cot unworthily imitated, in the near fu ture, as the essayists remark, by the heretofore abused newspaper man. "Marm Lisa," by Kale Douglas Wig gin, is a story of a "scttlemonfof pretty young women of unearthly ami incom prehensive goodness. They havo es tablished a fre kindergarten in a ward o! the city deserted by everybody who can afford to live elsewhere. The child ren of tho poor worship mistress Mary the unworldly one, as good catholics worship Mary the blessed one. She trains them to wajB of neatness, purity and love as weak stemmed plants are trained to sturdy uprightness by use of a straight stick, sunshine and plenty of water. As a story the book is lacking in form and composition. Miss Wig gins pu.poso was probably not story making or she would have more nearly accomplished her aim. Tho last ono hundrc 1 pages is an undisguis?u effort to teach charity and tho fate and de velopment of "Marm Lisa,' in whom Miss Wiggin has very unfairly inter ested U3, is made to give way to the boarding school misses who assist Mistress Mary in herkindergarten work. The part of the book that records the workings of Marm Lisa's clouded mind and the intelligent efforts of tho teach ers to remove the clouds are of psycho logical interest, but, as I said, at the last, poor Marm L:sa, scarcely tos into the book at all. Tbereforo it should havo been entitled, "Mistress Mary,' "Free Kindergartens' or some generic title. es enfants terrible., those dia bolical twins, confirm the worst opinions enemies of children already hold con cerning them. And in this respect tho didactic purpose of the bock, defeats itself. For who can love an organism with a largo mouth for gorging and bel lowinj functions with two 6mall cruel hands at the end of infant Hercule's arms, used principally for scratching, striking and grabbing, with two feet to run away with and kick when caught? Of course such examples of viciousness are rare, but one or two specimens of this kind is enough to prejudice the race against all juvenility. In introduc ing ces enfants into the pathetic tale of Marm Lisa. Miss Wiggins has sue ceded in emphasizing the patience and love of her Hull House sisters of mercy, besides reviving the almost forgotten doctrine of original sin. Mis3 Wiggins' admirers think she can do almcst any thing in the way of story writing, and the critics think so too. But in this cas?, as I have said, she probably was not trying to write a story. Interest in ath'ctics in Lincoln is tor pid, if not dead, though bicycling has ar rived to a certain estent, tli9 desire for pleasureable exertion in open air, which a summer or two ago wa3 entirely satisfied in watching eighteen fans ex pend their blows on the circumambient air and by th9 lung exercise which was considered essential to the proper en couragement of a professional baseball club, personal exertion ha3 no pleas ures. As for theamateur sport possible in a waterless plain, for instanco, tennis, golf, cricket and football, outside of tho university students, who are tho only leisure class wo of the west havo tho honor to know, there is very little "nteieet in sports. The tennis club has a fino court and tho club, among itB memlers, numbers somo very skillful players, but with the same material in another placo there would be a waiting list of most respectable length. The apathy on athlet c subjects is probably due to the swiftness and tho exigencies of the raco for money. To pay the rent and het three meals a day in 1893, 180C and 1897 apparently taok all tho muscle and brain endowment a man or woman had. Apparently, becauso ex ercise in tho open air for the sjke of amusement and in congenial rivalry with friends, increases a man's earning capacity. He makes money, saves time, and staves otf many a caso of nervous prostration. New York society deserts ball room and auditorium for ths coun try houses, hunting and all kinds of field sports, early in the spring. Tho society papers are tilled with complaints that "ever body" is out of town, that there is nothing going on, that i3, not in tho city. But the country houses are fullof sunbrowned and windblown belles and beaux, who havo discovered at last that there is nothing bitter than the 6un, the grass, brooks with fish in them and woods full of squirrel, with a sprinkling of fox. Here in the west where a horse can carry a rider for miles without feeling it, so easy are the giades, a party o equestrians would be considered part of a wild west show or a detached portion of a circus, while a man with golf stockings or riding gaiters i3 regarded as a hopeless and un mitigated fop. Such sentiment do credit to our work a-day life, and the ccstume of it. if not to our cosmopoli tanism. A little sweetness and light in the form or athletics mixed with the es sential ugliness of money getting and money making would keep Nebraskans young. I he mad race, not for wealth, but for a living, is making bald heads and wrinkles faster than Xanttipian wives and a real lack o" poetry in the daily lives. In Omaha cow one of its citizens, Mr. Robert Patrick, has ap preciate! the fountain of youth proper ties of golf and has constructed a course of four miles on his demesne which he has invited players of all colors to use when not occupied by a club of twentv which he has organized and which meets on certain specified dajs. On the prairie that ripples and rolls on every 6ide of Lincoln, golf links might be secured at small expense that would rival in point of excellence, those of Lenox. If a few of the bank presidents and cashiers whose heads are just beginning to
