?t- VOLlli N0.4T ESTABLISH BD IN 1886 PRICE F1VB CENTS. C rJ-"" v ; - , ' ' ' aKi& -9 M LINCOLN. NBBR., SATURDAY, NO EMBER 26. 1898. 9 EHTBKKOIN THE rOSTOFTICB AT LINCOLW AS , SECOND CLASS KATTKS. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY -B- IE COIRIER PRINTING MD POBLISHIO Office 1132 N street, Up Stairs. Telephone 384. SARAH B. HARRIS, Editor Subscription Katee In Advance. Per annum S2 Six months Three months 50 One month 20 Single copies 05 Th Couaiaa will not be responsible for toI nntary communications unless accompanied by retain postage. ..... . Commnnieations, to receire attention, most be sUned by tnofnll name of the writer, not merely as a guarantee of good faith, bmt for publication it advisable. g OBSERVATIONS. The Mecca, a new weekly octavo of izteen pages, is at hand. The typog raphy and the paper leave nothing "to be desired It is edited and published by Mrs. Clara Foltz, who used to live and work in Washington, D. C. It treats of the topics of the day, women' elabs, calls them "current events," editorially, of society and mining, of music and the drama, in short of whatever any weekly paper 1,500 miles ttis side of New York society filli its pages with. The editorial matter is breeay and very readab'e. 1 he paper has the best wishes or Thk Courim and, if we may be allowed, also its sympathy. The Rev. Scudder, who hold9 danc ing parties in the parlors of his church in Jersey City every week for the .young men and women of bis church, has shocked a number of very good people. Dancing is either right or wrong. If it is harmless there is no reason why youag people should not dance at a church sociable instead of restricting themselves to the deadly dull remarks and diversions common to these occasions. If dancing is wrong church members must renounce it or leave the church. It is incon sistent to ask the young people of the Church to amuse themselves by mak ing them talk when music is ac hand to be danced to. Very few good dancers will admit any immorality in dancing, and it is only since Bible times that a prejudice has risen against it In the first place the xhurch pronounced against it and it is an evidence that that institution is returning to first principles and dis carding prejudices that on? of its shepherds presides while the lambs of the flock skip about in time to music the fittest and most natural expres sion of the gayety of youth whether the dancers are colts and lambs or lads and lassies. Some of the war correspondents are delighted and surprised at the reply of Lieutenant Hobson, who replied to a question of how he would like to be addressed by saying: "You might call me Mr. Hobson.'' It is not "worth while inquiring whattbe man thought Lieutenant Hobson ought to be called. His exploit with the Merimac raised him to a rank in peerage which should be represented by a title rarer than mister, according to the ideas of the correspondent who could not re cover from the amazement into which the Lieutenant's choice of 4Mr." cast bim. In consequence he wrote a col umn or two of gush to the New York paper which must have selected bim because of his rare lack of sense he might be counted upon to turn in un usual copy. The yellow journals must contain sensations, and an idiot cor respondent is as rare as a genius and costs less than half as much hence their columns. The relations between Superintend ent Andrews and the school board of Chicago are being watched by teach ers and eyeryone interested in the system all over the country. If he succeeds in carrying out his plans the public schools of Chictgo are likely to become the best in the country. If he fails the Chicago board will find it most difflcu't to fill his place with any body but the typical place hunter, whose incumbency of the mayor's, superintendent's and several city offices has been at the expense of the service. Superintendent Andrews is a man peculiarly and cunningly fitted for the position he was invited to fill by the very numbers of the board who now oppose his recommendations. Of course, if the board will not allow bim to use bis best judgment there is nothing left for the superintendent to do but resign. H- has undertaken to free appointments from politics, a task which honest and able men bare tried before and failed to perform. But he has such prestige that it is hoped that the success said to await the right man in the right place do ing the right thing may crown his en- lightened effort Harvard's football victory has de lighted every lorer of the sport not related to Ya'e, whose victories, well won though they were, have made the Yale ath etic atmosphere a trifle arro gant. The pouring rain was nut suffi cient to put out the enthusiasm of the audience, two-thirds of which was feminine, and it is questionable if the players even knew'tbat it was rainng. In regard to the interest in this par ticular sport the papers tell of a cleri cal looking man who, on looking over the 15,000 people as oblivious of the cold rain as Abednego and his com panions were of the burning fiery fur nace into which they had been cast by their captors, remarked that no re ligious service could call out that number of people in the choicest weather to an open air meeting, which remark was true as well as apposite. Mr. Keeley, of the Keeley motor, is dead and his secret is buried in the grave with him. and his secret he will keep more. securely than Swinburne's wife kept the poems exhumed so soon as time had moulded the poet's re solve. Perpetual motion, if discovered, would contradict the whole scheme of life which is founded on labor. The purest and best cannot resist a long spell of idleness. Work alleviates sorrow and ennui, but It is a cure which everybody must be forced to take. Perpetual motion would save coal and muscle. A machine which would run of itself would inevitably be the cause of more wickedness than ruin. For this and other reasons it is perhaps as well that the 2,000 pages of relict manuscript said to reveal the secret of perpetual motion which Mr. Keeley confided to his lawyer be not published. The other reason is that such publication would be expensive and would not enlighten the world as to a motion which is the secret of the world itself as it whirls through space and which none of the worms which crawl upon the earth's surface and make faces at each other have been able to imitate. Intimates of Nikola Tesla report bim a visionary and a materialist. He considers the human organism a sort of thermo-electric machine with receivers composed of eyes, ears, mouth, nose and hands. His idea of running the machinery of the Paris exposition with power generated by Niagara Falls and sent by a machine in New York to one in Paris without the use of any connection by wire Is founded on this conception of asensate machine. Mr. Tesla says the essen tial feature of the invention "consists in establishing a region of waves or disturbances and actuating by their influence, exerted at a distance, the devices on the vessels or vehicles which control the propelling, steering orother mechanism. He is suiely at work upon a Frankenstein, or upon two Frankensteins, the one to send and the other to receive, who will use no clumsy and worn out medium of communication, such as wires, the one to give and the other to receive energy enough to run an exposition or a ship. The officers of the Union-Commercial club who have ordered that the by law in the constitution of the club forbdding all games of chance shall be obeyed evidently do not consider whist a game of chance. Of course it is not, but one in which success de mands the undevised attention of the choicest intellects, only it is played with cards and all card games are classified as games of chance In a category too hopelessly old and self satisfied for revision. The element of chance is not eliminated even from the modern game of duplicate whist, if it were the game would become about as fascinating as logarithms, but the alert intellect takes advantage of chance and is not controlled by it and the qui vive attitude is the stimulat ing, fascinating part of whist that neither Cavendish, nor any of his later disciples nor dissenters have been able to destroy. TnE Coukikr is, nevertheless, gratified to perceive by the naif expulsion of all games of chance from the household of the Union club, while whist is still held in supreme favor that the members of the club consider the practice of whist a purely intellectual exercise worthy the honored place it occupies in their club life. The club women of Denver have made their organization on agent for the accomplishment of improvement in the conduct of the street cleaning department in the department of city philantbrophy and for the ameliora tion of the school children in the city schools. The club women of that city are united ic one big club which is divided into departments for the ctudy of practical pnilanthropy and muni cipal economics. There is no city in this country where the women are more determined and pluckier, or where the woman's club is so active, united and devoted to the interests of the whole city. It is fortunate that Mr. Moody should have attacked the club woman in a city which owes so much to ber as Denver instead of in a city of exclusive clubs quite inde pendent of each other, engaged in a dilletante study of history or litera ture or something which grown up people use as an ornament in society. Because when be said that club women went to the club m smoke cigarettes bis audience knew better. Many of the women be was addressing were club women, who bad left well ordered homes to listen to a preacher whose reputation is greater than his judgment or bis future. Mr. Moody has very little effect upon a cultured audience and perhaps he has foreseen that the effect of a union of women for the sake of culture and an intelli gent at'empt to improve the condi tions of the present life for everjbody, might be preparing an unavoidable contrast to his own rather hysterical exhortations in regard to the lire to come At any rate, whatever his mo tive, the absurdity of bis statements will undermice bis authority on sub jects which he has studied for many years The anecdotal character or bis exhortations have made tbem very popular, while at the same time con cealing his. short comings or logic, judgment and education. Whether