VOL. XIV., NO. XXX.
ESTABLISH KD IN 188(5
IMMCEF1VECINTH
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LINCOLN, NKBR., SATURDAY, JULY 21), 1801).
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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
