VOL 12'NO 20"
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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.
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SARAH l'. HARRIS.
DOHA BACHELLEK
Editorr
Business Manager
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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
