T0L 12X0 21
ESTABLISHED IN 1SSC
PRICE FIVE CENTS
LINCOLN, NEB., SATURDAY. MAY 22. 1807
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Office 1132 X street, Up Stairs.
Telephone 384.
SARAH l'. HARRIS.
DORA BACHELLER
Editorr
Business Manager
Subscription Rates In Advance.
Per annum 82 00
Six months 1 00
Three months 50
One month 20
Single copies 05
t OBSERVATIONS. :
S J
It is not generally known that the gas
and electric light companies in Lincoln
charge, when the bill does not exceed
two dollars monthly, 50 cenls for what
they call meter rent -although the
customer neither occupies the meter nor
is the meter at work for him. But if the
bill is a dollar and a half the meter rent
will bring it to an even two dollars. It
would be a disgrace for any self-respecting
light company to collect any
thing smaller than two dollars. Meters
in other places work for nothing, but
that does not matter. If the customer
were able to regulate consumption so as
to use up the electricity he must
pay for. whether he UEes it
or not, it would soothe his feelings
when he pays bis heavy, light bill.
A grocer might just as well add a
certain sum to every monthly bill,
which in his estimation, did not pay for
the wear and tear on the delivery wagon,
horse and boy. He might as well so
far as the logic of the charge is concern
. ed, but it would be bad for his business,
for there are other grocers who are will
ing to throw in wear and tear on wagon,
boy and repair of both, but ahe'i! and
alas! there is only one electric light m
pany, wboEe bills depend entirely upon
the company's ideas of their proper size.
Shoe rent for collectors and linemen
would be "just as reasonable as meter
lent. Then- is nothing in the habits of
the company to insuro the citizens
against any arbitrary expansion of a bill
-whose size does cot suit the rules of
proportion adopted by the Lincoln Elec
tric Light Co. A protest against the
overestimated labor of tbo meter for the
month in keeping track of he electricity
used by the customer is only answered
by the gentleman who collects the meter
rent that it is a rule of the company
This closes discussion and appeals. "It
is a rule of the company." Allah il
allab.
The hypotenuse is still concealed in
the block of Tennessee marble which is
killing a large square of gras3 in the
stato houee grounds. Poor John Currie
gave up trying to tind it when his ac
quaintances got too poor to advance
money for the search. There are some
inveterate sportsmen who aro willing to
bet that Peary will find the pole before
John Currie finds the hypotenuse. 7 he
Lincoln monument association, though
it has not se'ected a sculptor
Is confident that it wil
be an easy task as eooh
as the marble is their?. Jihn Currie
has not officially relinquished his claim
to Eeek for the hypotenuse bidden,
like Micheal Angelo's scgel, in
marble. The last dajs of his
Bearch were embittered by the im
possibility of the task which he had set
himself. If the statue be ever completed
old John Curries hand should remove
.he veil. He got the Etono in some mys
terious way. He was encouraged by a
hope that he could carve a statue of
Abraham Lincoln before which people
would reverently stand as they do be
fore St. Gauden's statue in Lincoln
park.
The really skillful old stone cutter is
defeated by his lack of early Btudy of
anatomy and modeliDg. The deep
shadows of the decorative friezes around
the tower of tho Y. M. C. A. buildirg,
which grow heavier in successive circles
as they ascend and the difference in the
patterns prove Mr. Currie has artistic
insight. Although not a genius and in
capable now of carving a human figure,
for which a study of the skeleton is
necessary, even to genius, under the in
fluence of an artistic environment and
with an education Mr. Currie
would have made a good scupl
tor, for he possesses, first, a devotion
to sculpture, and technical skill, zeal
and industry when he is working at tho
art which by temperament he is fitted
for and loves. If there is ever a great
statute of Abraham Lincoln here it will
be because of John Currie. His defeat
is pathetic, but if ho loves art for its own
s-ke ho will be content when he unveils
the statute of Abraham Lincoln made
by a more fortunate man.
Miss McXab ban been travelling in
South Africa and sending notes to the
London papers. When -she re tu reed
she found that unprincipalec publishers
(how smoothly those words tit together)
were preparing to pirate her copy into
hooka of their own. She hastily revis
ed her notes and got out her own book,
the looseness of form and lack of style,
of which she makes the vicious publish
ers an excuse for. The book tells of her
experiences in South Africa very graph
ically. In her unconsciously feminine
way eLo says she likes Rhodes and does
not like Kruger. But she gives no
reason for her approval or averaion.
The book is full of Kaffir terms and
phrases which, with British politeness,
sbe does not explain. Why is it that tho
English, when they visit India, Africa or
Central Asia, incorporate into their re
ports the phraceology of a barbarous
people and when they visit America in
sist on their own terminology? Even Rud
yard Kipling scorns to apply the terms,
baggage, depot, street car, conductor,
servant or hack to tboEe objects which
we have designated thus ourselves and
which do not exactly correspond with
tho nearest English equivalent. Luggage
does very well for the English because,
until lately, they have cot had the
baggage check 6 stem and from tho
moment they started on their travels it
was a case of lug. Station is a better
word than depot, which means, except
in America, a place to etoro things.
British arrogance is teaching us better
and "educators"' are beginning to say
station too. Our street cars are not
trams the latter is neither descriptive
nor picturesque, nor exact. A conduc
tor is not a guard nor is a hack a cab.
Maid and man are better words than
servants for such employes and they also
are superceding the lets sympathetic
word. But why do we not deserve the
creditor blame of our own nomencla
ture. It may be a poor thing but it is
our own. And when Mr. Kipling allows
the heathen to keep their bungalows
tiffin and jinrik shas why should he de
prive a much more intelligent people,
of the same ancestral origin as his own
and who are his wife's people, ot their
household phraseology? Hack is a
much better word than the outlandish
jin-rik-sba, yet he discards hack in order
to do so, tearing out tho front windows,
elevating the shafts, and mounting the
driver up behind, thus making it a cab,
"which it aint." Besides mak
icg kindling wood of the
hack in the Anglicising pro
ces?. ho has lost entiiely local color
Local color is the excuse or Du Maurier
for making bis Ecglish books mere
French than English. Local color is the
reason for the bad livers and the heathen
names in Kipling's storied. And the
reason is cogent, But even English
literary men have enough combativene-s
from defeated sires to wish to discourage
any kind of American independence of
speech,
The features of the president of this
country are more familiar to a lar er
number of the citizens of Lincoln than
is tho aspect of Mayor Graham 'and his
council. President McKinley could not
walk the streets of Lincoln without in
stant recognition. His personality is
familiar to the public of the United
States. Although his character is not of
such immediate and apparent impor
tance to us we are better acquainted
with him than with the executives of
our own city government.
The humbler city officials, such as the
policemen, assessors and tho city scaven
ger, are the only representatives of the
city known to the property holders at
large. Policemen, outside of any influ
ence, are appointed because of their
brawn, Lonesty and liability to stay
awake nights and not at nil on account
of their polish. In spite of which the
police, as I have known them have never
exhibited their power for the purpose
of frightening and bullying law abiding
citizens. And the city officials
in the persons of the scavengers
and street cleaners havo been
above reproach. But the assessors,
who more than any of tho city's hired
men. come within conversational reach
of the plain citizen, sometimes bring
reproach upon the very important de
partment they are sent out
to secure funds for. In times
times past they have been good natured,
hard working men who executed their
mission with a subdued sense of power
that did not deprive the assessed of all
dignity and self respect. Some of the
men, to speak exactly, one or the men
who is paid to estimate the taxable
personal property of the Fourth ward,
has caused more suspicion of and ob
jections to the city government than the
strictest bicycle regulations. With his
hat on his bead he enters a house
presided over by a timid woman, who,
as the case may be, is cooking, washing
or sweeping. Her, he questions with a
manner at once coarse and terrifying.
In this individual she converses for the
first time with the law and her reverence
is replaced by disgust- He goes from
house to house and as fast as he goes
he makes the city government unpopu
lar with that member of the famiiy who
is at home da times and whose hand is
said to rock the world. This particular
deputy of the assessor has exceeded even
an assessor's privileges, in consequence
of which his services to the city are
about to end.
The board of managers of the Trans
Mississippi exposition is supposed to
meet every Saturday, but for several
weeks, it is said, that there has not been
a quorum present. Thefore the exact
functions and power of the woman's
board of managers has not yet been de
termined upon. So far as the situa
tion has unfolded at present, the wo
man board is a sub-committee com
petent to report and advise but not com-
