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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (July 29, 1899)
VOL. XIV., NO. XXX. ESTABLISH KD IN 188(5 IMMCEF1VECINTH .JSL km LINCOLN, NKBR., SATURDAY, JULY 21), 1801). sK Ss Kntkukd in tiii: POBTOFFICE AT LINCOLN AS HKCONI) CLASS MATTKK. PU HUSHED EVEBY SATURDAY THE COURIER PRINTING AND PUBLISHING CO Office 1132 N Btroot, Up Stairs Telephone 384. SAIIAH H. HARIUS. Editor Subscription liatep In Advance. E'er annum $ 1 00 Six months 75 Three montlm 50 One month 20 Single copioe 05 The Courikr will not bo reaponslblo for vol untnry communications unless accompauiori by ruturu postage Communications, to recoivo nttontiou, must bo sicucd by tlio full nnmo of thn writor, not moroly as a cctmrantco of Rood fnith, but for publication if ndvisublo. g OBSERVATIONS. 8 The Street Fair. Willi something of the old enthusias tic Nebraska spirit the merchants are taking hold of the street fair and there is every prospect of a successful festival. The plan must have come from England or Ireland where they used to lie held in the streets of the city ui the midst of traffic. Instead of locating the fair at the end of two miles or more of dusty road, the fair is set up in the heart of the city and stimulates and encourages merchants of the city. With a revival of the old t ime spirit of co operation, energy and hopefulness, such as the plans for the fair, already adopted, exhibit, there is no chance except bad weather that it will not be a complete success. Six O'clock Closing. Letters from all the prominent dry goods and clothing merchants of Omaha to one of the most successful and honorable merchants in Lincoln in regard to closing at six o'clock on Saturday, report unanimously in favor of the new plan. At the present time only two shops remain open on Saturday after six o'clock and they arc a small grocery and a jewoller's shop. The World Herald says in a recent article that the movement commenced thrco weeks ago at the city council chamber, when a few of i lie representative retail merchants met in a conference with the Central Labor union and resolved to try as an y experiment the Saturday closing ' movement. The movement had its origin in the discussion arising over the new female labor and child lah:ir laws passed at the lat session of the legislature. Deputy Labor Commis sioner Kent, realizing the necessity of getting the Omaha retail mer chants together, caused the Joint con ference to be held and the great results which fo'lowed are a source of pleasure to all Interested parlies. The merchants have, with but one exception, expressed the conviction that thototal of the three week V silos amount to as large a Mini without, the Saturday night .-ales as with them. The merchants themselves need the rest more than their clerks. If a committee were to select the three hardest workers in Lincoln the choice would most apt to be the three large drygoods merchants in Lincoln. Early and late they are to be found in their stores, inspecting the depart ments, conferring with traveling men. and directing their advertising mana gers or employing now clerks. It is easy to sec from the outside that the detail of such a business isendless.miuute.ex acting and most exhausting A clerk's labors and responlblitle compared with theirs is restful and refreshing. Vet these men, together with nier cliants in other lines are public spirited citizens. They help every institution in the city. They fullil their obligations better than many wealthier and more leisurely citizens. At six o'clock on Saturday night their duties to the community and to their own business should lie linished. Once, let. customers understand that goods are. on sale only between the hours of eight and six and they will be on hand to make their purchases in that ten hours instead of in the four hours after six o'clock on Satur day night, which arc making all the trouble. Complaining and unsym pathetic shoppers say they like to come down on Saturday night and watch the tired, drooping clerks work and others that the bread winners and dress buyers of the family do not get paid oil' till six o'clock Saturday night and that unless the money is spent then for family necessities and family adornment the money will reach the till of the saloon keeper, that for the clothing, drygoods. gro cery, housefurnlshlng, market. Jewel ry, shoo and millinery stores to close at six on Saturdays means the deflec tion of the price of these things to the saloon keopcr. That Is a charge against the sobriety and Judgement of the workmen of Lincoln that my observation convinces me is false, and It is up to the labor organizations to refute it. The laboring men of Lincoln have homes of their own, and are quite capable of carrying their wages from Saturday night to Monday morning without dropping them in the saloon. Tho argument which some of the merchants make thut tliero will al ways be a few small dealers who live over or back of their shops who will not make or keep any agreement to close at any certain time, Is an uu- woitliy one. TIiom: small dealers make small prolits and have few cus tomers. They are as gleaners in a harvest Meld to whom the landed proprietor does not begrudge the few hand fuls they gather, lies Ides the man and wife who keep open late for the belated traveler Is doing a worthy service to tho victim of accidents or of constitutional procrastination and deserves to enjoy Ills prolits lint large retail warorooms lllled wlih em ployes cannot allord to remain lighted for these late customers who are only reminded of the coming of Sunday and rest by the closing of the doors and the exodus of tho clerks. Recreation. It is only lately 1h.1t stores in Council Willi's. Iowa, have closed on Sunday. The people there said what some of us are saying about the Sat urday night closing, namely that they wee too busy to shop on week days, could not get away, or could not. getaway in company with the hus band or the wife, forgetting that what we can do and what we can't is dependant on somebody s habits and the customs of the rest, of the people who live in the same city with us. A western man notices the lirst tiling when lie goes from the west to live in one of the eastern cities that recreation and rest form a much more important part of the lives of the business men there. They knock off earlier in the day and are not dis posed to talk shop' at night or after business hours. Tho talk in clubs, on the cars, and in the stations is of g.ilf. yacht-racing, of base ball, lish ingor hunting, even of horse racing and of sports less free from criticism than golllng, polo playing, etc. It does not matter, anything is better than the breathless, never diverted race of western men after the dollar. Their lives are sordid, entirely com mercial and sweetness and light is fading appreciably year by year from the lives of western men. Woman's sentimentalism keeps her from shut ting out the light cntirely.Tlie young, unmarried ones, enjoy the conduct of their own romances and the married women arc busy keeping alive the sen timent in their own and their hus band's love story and in matcliiuHking for other people. They also study his lory and read fewer newspapers and more books than the men do. And book reading (non professional) has not so much connection with money making as newspaper reading Newspapers are all business. They deify and pic ture millionaires, they report the stock-market and they print the news of the latest combine. The readers have no look of intellectual enjoyment or amusement on their faces, which arc knotted and lined as though they were playing chess and getting badly beaten. They do not read for the sport of it, but to lind out how to make more money or If and how some one else is making it. It is question able if the interest in prize tights, which is so nearly universal is to be condemned in toto.wlien It Issulllclent to dim, for the time it. takes to read the four or live columns In a daily paper, the glitter of silver and gold in the eyes of the diggers and del vers. If a prize light is the only thing thai, can delay the chase for the dollar, (and it seems that neither literature nor art, nor music, nor the drama can do it) ihen long may It flourish, for the unremitting, Irresistible, rush of the people afl or money Is making us a most uninteresting, sellish. heartless people, whom religion only affects artificially and to the eye only. Lady Soldiers. News of (lie reception given to tho First Nebraska by the Capllal City ol die state from which the volunteers enlisted, will be telegraphed over the country. It is hoped that nothing so absurd as the evolutions of female soldiery will have a place in the "ex ercises" of the three days the boys are expected to spend with us. Tho Courier does not admit that women who are willing to dress as soldiers and carry guns in a street parade, not for the purpose of helping light an invading enemy, after the men folks have all gone to the warn or on the stage as part of a spectacle and in the character of a supernumerary, but for the purpose of securing a conspicuous station in a parade. The Courier does not admit that these women imo representative women either of Ne braska or of Lincoln. Hut for the sake of the reputation of tlio state and because the boys from Manila have, lioeu brave and faithful soldiers and do not deserve to be parodied by their female relatives, the young women who are spending the time drilling that might be more prolitably em ployed swinging in a hammock, are almost unanimously requested by tho community not to take any military part in the welcome to the First Nebraska. Robert Ingersoll. Mr. Ingereoll is dead He was an orator of some power and a successful lawyer at the bar. He was neither better nor worse than the ordinary man. In his youth lie became con vinced that the bible was a lie and he hated, rather inconsistently, tho f!od whosi existence lie denied With tlio love and champ.oiiship of youth for Justice he rebelled against the helxaie conception of a divinity which ap proved of shivery and the mistakes, which he said, Moses mde He struck an attitude when he was still in his teens and, what ho was pleased to consider, Its originality and dra matic isolation pleased him so, that it became characteristic he ceased be ing a student and thereafter wrote and spoke dogma of his own. Ho wns neither a deep nor a patient thinker. Nor was he more than a pleasing and brilliant orator, if It had nut been that the defiant attitude ho struck in his youth shocked a great many and