THE COURIER.
braska clubs do not join the General
Federation di recti y. For the glory of
Nebraska and tbe inspiration to be
obtained from such an assembly The
Coukieu hopes that more of the Ne
braska clubs will join the General
Federation. It will only cost clubs
with fifty members or under, five dol
lars. There is still time to send a
creditable delegation of Nebraska
women to the Biennial at Denver. By
a reference to the program printed in
last week's Couriek it will be noted
that tbe program is composed of music,
excursions, addresses and devotional
meetings. No real club woman who
can go will miss it, and all clubs of
the state from whom a member is
going ought to send her as a delegate.
The privileges of a delegate are many
and will only be fully appreciated
when the Biennial is in session.
According to the newspapers the
Omaha City Improvement association
has succeeded in interesting the
children in the work of keeping the
city clean. The boys with the mas
culine instinct to save themselves
from stooping' have provided them
selves with broomsticks to the end of
which they have fastened a sharpened
nail with which they stab, as if it
were a trout, vagrant and wind-blown
pieces of paper or other rubbish. When
the nail file is full, the knickerbock
ered sportsman deposits it in
-the garbage box and resumes his hunt.
The city is already much improved in
appearance and woe to the old-time
parent who throws paper or a cigar
stump in a place which the juvenile
department, has reclaimed from
squalor to seemliness. A child's
righteous disapproval is not easy for
the most hardened adult to bear. The
City Improvement society of Lincoln
has made a corresponding improve
ment in our own town's appearance.
The corner garbage boxes are filled
with the peelings and paper which,
formerly, even the most careful were
obliged to throw into the gutter. The
educational influence of the society
has just begun to be apparent. The
society is looking forward to the time
when Lincoln will be as clean as Paris
or as some of the eastern cities which
have been at work on the problem
longer.
j
Tbe death of Mrs. John M. Thurs
ton on board a yacht in Cuban waters
has evoked the sympathy and regret
of the country. She was of great as
sistance to her distinguished husband,
accompanying him on most of the
journies which his long political ex
perience has made necessary. She
was a warm hearted, devoted woman,
caring more for the vital interests of
her husband's position than for its
ornaments. Her death is a loss to
iOOK
Nebraska and to the Cuban cause.
The universal regret and affection
with which she is spoken of testify to
the reality of her good works and
human sympathies. It is said that
she died of 'a heart trouble, aggravated
by the scenes of starvation which she
saw in Cuba, and the roughness of the
ocean voyage. Sea sickness becomes
dangerous when the patient has a
weak heart. The danger is one that
is apt to be underestimated by those
who are accustomed to laugh at sea
sickness; but it is nevertheless real.
Mrs. Thurston bad a very large circle
of friends in Nebraska and Washing
ton who sympathize with her bereaved
family.
jt
The phrenologist who spent last
week between his lectures in Lincoln
making charts of the heads of the citi
zens of Lincoln, at live dollars a head,
spoke to very large audiences who lis
tened to him with breathless atten
tion. "Professor"' Windsor, the head
cartographer, is neither a fluent nor a
logical speaker and he consumes half
of the time by expatiating on what he
Is about to say. ITis sentences violate
the rules of English grammer and he
misapplies the words of his own sub
ject as a real scientist, however un
lettered, never does. Yet he was
listened to with close attention by tbe
intelligent looking people who went
to hear him. The only oratorical
gift he possesses is a conviction of tbe
value of the message he delivers.
There is no adequate explanation of
the attention he commands except
the baffled search for the mystery of
life and being that every one is en
gaged in. The search is so eager and
so unavailing that even the aid of a
fakir, if Tie proffer it loud enough, is
not rejected.
Jt
The results of a career devoted
solely to the acquisition of money at
tbe cost of honor, the claims of kin.
folks and of citizenship are generally
realized in money alone. Neighborly
and family affection and high ideals
area real hindrance to a money maker.
Crises are constantly occurring where
either money orsomething else must be
sacrificed. Your true financier never
allows any sentimental squeamishness
connected with religion, family or
society to interfere with the pursuit
of riches. But "what doth it profit a
man to gain the whole world, and lose
his own soul?"
Jt
Among the excellent list of republi
can candidates for city officers none
bears a cleaner record than Judge J
R. Webster. He has lived here for
about twenty years. He is a learned
and astute lawyer, a faithful citizen
and a good man. He has discharged
public duties with fidelity and probity
and Lincoln would be very fortunate
to secure his services as city attorney.
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HARPER'S
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m
She seems blind to his faults.
No wonder, he's thrown gold dust in
her eyes.
Did she give you a negative answer
Bobbie?
Yes, and it was quite positive, too.
Marie says she always has two Etrings
to her bow.
It seems to me she has strings to two
or three beaux.
We want to fight, you bet your life.
Andy by pago, if we do,
'We've got the men, we'll get the ships,
Hurroo! Hurroo! Hurroo!
!
I The Passing Show.
WILLA CATHER.
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They say Twinsworth lives off his
wits.
One would think so to dine with him.
To sit in the Metropolitan on a gala
night is an experience. 1 was there at
Melba's last appearance in concert
there this season and Twill never for
get it. There were a number of good'
people on the program. Mr. Mannes,
tbe violinist, acquitted himself bril
liantly and was warmly received. Dur
ing the applause which followed his
first number he stood bowing up at
Miss Daniroscb, . to whom he is en
gaged. -As tbe Damrosch box was next
to ours we got the full effect of this
little family aside. M. lbos, a gentle
man whom I had not heard before,
sang an aria from the fourth act of
Halevy's "La Juive' and the ever
beautiful' buffoon' song from Rigo
letto. Mr. David Bishpam sang "Go,
Heart, Unto the Lamp of Light" and
"Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes"
In his usual faultless butvery churcyh
manner. Mr. Bishpam is a man who
suffers from too much method. He
thrusts his "method" at you; it is
obvious and aggressive. It completely
conceals the man and too frequently
obscures his naturally remarkable vo
cal powers. Then his solemnity de
scends upon you like a shroud. He is
unpardonable In opera; he sings an
aria as though it were an anthem. In
short he has never quite recovered
from having been born in Philadel
phia. He did one brilliant thing,
however; he sang Damrosch's "Danny
Deever" and the composer himself ac
companied him. You will have to
hunt a long time to find another song
as stirring as that. To say that it is
dramatic but mildly describes it. The
words, of course, are Kiplings:
"For they're hangm' Danny Deever,
You can bear the dead march play,
The regimenftmhoOow square
They're hangar him today;
They've taken all hit buttons off
An' cut hit stripes away,
A.' they're hangin' Danny Deever
In the mornmV
Medame Melba was Indisputably the
personage of the occasion; the audi
ence knew it, and she knew it. She
was magnificently got up in pink and
silver and she was thinner even than
when I heard her in Pittsburg several
months ago. She subsists on
grapes and crackers to keep her
proportions down, poor thing; but the
result is satisfactory. She was down
for two solos, but the audience got
five out of her. That impetuous, in
sistent, peremptory applause was new
to me. Nothing like it is ever heard
in the provinces; it goes to your head;
you feel as though you were at a fire
or triumph of a conpueroi.
First she sang the eternal mad scene
from "Luccia de Lammermoor."
Either she always sings that or it is
my happy destiny to always hear her
sing it. 1 thought she had never done
it quite so well before but then one
thinks that each time one hears her.
Her execution of those fabulously diffi
cult trills at the end is not to be
equalled on this deficient planet. She
left one breathless, overcome, ex
hausted, I forget the encore. Next
she sang Massenet's "Sevilleana,"
which I had heard her give recently
in Pittsburg. The terrific applause
brought her back tosingitover again.
Then the thunder of Niagara broke
loose. She came back and back and
back and shook her head most vehe
mently, but it did no good. She came
back twice with all her wraps on,
ready to get into her carriage, but the
gallery only shouted, "O, Nellie, Nel
lie!" At her ninth reappearance'she
flung her cloak and mantilla off on the
stage with a jesture of despair and
resignation, and seating herself at the
piano sang that "Romance'' by Tosti
which I have said before is in some
respects the best thing she does. It
is the one number of her repertoire
which seems to mean anything to her
emotionally. I prefer to remember
her not as the triumphant "Luccia''
occupying the center of the stage and
in the full glare of tbe footlights, but
sitting quietly at the piano, a little in
the shadow, with a sort of shadow
about her voice, too, singing that
melancholy romance softly, as though
to herself. Tbe house broke loose
again. It was the first time 1 had
ever seen flowers thrown promiscu
ously upon the stage. The men in the
boxes rose as when a royal personage
enters, and the women pulled the vio
lets from their corsage and threw them
at her. At last they let her go, "a
tired queen by her state oppressed,"
go home to crackers, grapes and glory.
Nat Goodwin played here the night
after his marriage with' Maxine
Elliot, and that performance was a
festal occasion. The company pre
sented the blushing pair with an
enormous true-lover's knot of La
France roses,- which, Jlr. Good win re
ceived with an appropriate speech and
Miss Elliot with even more appropriate
smiles. The play, "An American Cit
izen" never seemed quite so amusing,
and all those lines about the hero im
poverished by alimony came in very
neatly just now when poor Goodwin is
forking up seventy-five dollars a week
alimony for his sometime wife, Nella
Pease. It was a honeymoon weekand
no mistake. The incorrigible Nat
went about the town with such a be
nign good will-toward men expression
that you would not have been sur
prised to find a spray of orange blos
soms in his coat, such as rustic grooms
wear. The boys about town called
him "The Bride" and the street urch
ins whistled the Lohengrin wedding
march when he strolled out on the
avenue. He took it all just as good
naturedly as though he had not been
through this trying experience twice
before. Probably you know that on
his wedding day he gave his wife the
deed of his fine old Elizabethan prop
erty in Kent, England, and a half in
terest in his business.
I went to see him in "A Gilded
Fool" and found his Chauney Short
quite as irresistable as ever. As for
Miss Elliot,
, tbe it fairer than
the evening air,
Clad in the beauty
of a thousand ttan."
I don't know a more poetic beauty
thanher's. Lesbian Sappho must have
had eyes like those. She is not a great
actress, and never will be, but she is
more satisfactory than some who have
talents of a higher order. She never
does anything in bad taste, and her
face is of the kind seldom seen out of
dreams.
Although Jlr. Goodwin played in
the best theatre here, the stage set
tings of "A Gilded Fool" were cheap
and tawdry compared with those with
which the play was put on in the
Funke in Lincoln several years ago.
Jlr. Zehrung outdid himself that night
and the mise-en-scene of that first act