THE COURIER
be supported. In breadth of waist
tbe Oberlin group seems to be mark
edly deficient, and for this I can offer
no explanation. In depths the east
ern group leads, showing a rounder
type of figure, and the Oberlin group
seems to be especially deficient in this
regard. I can only hazard an opinion
that this may be due to the farm life
that has moulded so large a percent
age in this group, and that this in
fluence is obliterated to some extent
by the Teutonic element in the far
western group. Finally, it is of great
interest to notice that the Nebraska
woman has a much larger lunfc ca
pacity, as she has larger chest girths,
and this item alone would indicate a
higher type of physical ability and a
previous life of greater activity than
is found in either of the two other
classes. In this regard the eastern
college seems to have a better record
than would be anticipated from the
girths."
The care and accuracy with which
Miss Barr has taken these measure
ments have made them valuable. The
size of Chicago girls' feet beginning
in a joke, was worn threadbare by the
funny men till no one thought of dis
puting the legend. By actual meas
urement Miss Barr has disproved the
allegation. The system is still in use
at the uniTersity and when the num
ber of sets of measurements reaches
five thousand conclusions based upon
them may disprove other hasty con
clusions in regard to western women
and to all women.
For sometime the fortune of the
funnyman has been growing desperate
Humour is founded on exaggeration
and when statistics prove that nine
tenths of the mothers-in-law are good
tempered, devoted and uncritical,
that crocheted slippers are no longer
given to ministers and that Chicago
girls' feet are dainty and their foot
falls light as the dew that bends,
without breaking the rose, the ap
proaching doom of tbe funny man
may be read by almost any old seer.
If the moon were near enough to ex
amine, the green cheese joke would
have no point. Recent investigations
into this rumour have discovered its
first mention in the brilliant age of
Pericles. The pages which it has
illuminated since, the many writers
whose reputation for wit is founded
entirely upon its judicious use, are
unnumbered. The only salvation of
the funny man is, that most of him
does not read anything but his own
-wit. There are exceptions like Mr.
TValt Mason of Beatrice who strides
in the van of progress and yanks his
readers along after him, but he is very
rare. The news that the earth is
round has just reached the only pro
fessional funny man in Lincoln the
Journal's Oom Paul. His choice of
subjects, therefore, will remain as
large as ever. These conclusions of
Miss Barr's will not affect his ancient
self complacent humour, or disturb
his convictions as to his choice of a
calling.
Tahitha Home.
Among the charitable institutions
of Lincoln Tabitha Home for orphan
ed children and the aged poor has had
an unusual history. Tbe home :s a
large brick structure a few miles
southeast of the city. It is in charge
of Mr. and Mrs. Heiner. At present
there are about sixty children and
twenty old people in the home. Tbe
number of children has averaged
about sixty for the last twelve years.
Among tbe children for twelve years
there have been but three deaths.
This last is a remarkable commentary
on the cleanliness, the sanitation and
the wholesome diet provided for the
children. Dr. Benjamin F. Bailey is
the physician in charge and although
he visits the institution often for
philanthropic reasons he is rarely
called to treat any of the children.
The income of the institution is vcy
slender and were it not for the thrift
and painstaking superintendence of
Dr. and Mrs. Heiner this record of
uninterrupted health and compara
tive freedom from debt might be
reversed.
The boys at the home work on the
farm and in tne barn. They are
taught to do their work neatly and
thoroughly. The girls are taught
housework and sewing Personal
cleanliness and neatness are taught
and exacted from all. Daily lessons
in reading, writing and spelling are
also given. The children are polite
and shy. Their manners are quaint
and old-fashioned. The constant
teaching and presence of the quiet,
self denying sisters lias had a salutary
influence upon these little German
children, who nevertheless have the
wistful look or children brought up in
an institution. Many citizens have,
from time to time, given liberally to
the home. It is constantly in need of
funds and even under the careful
management of Dr. and Mrs. Heiner,
a large sum is necessary to feed eighty
people. The children live on bread
and milk and mush and milk and
their pink and white little faces show
that the diet is a wholesome one. If
through our neglect the supply of
mush and milk become scanty, no
sentimental tears over the hunger of
Oliver l'wist or the starving millions
in India's famine district can excuse
us. There is no safer, surer invest
ment for money than Tabitha home.
The litt'e help the home has received
from this district has been wisely
used. There is great need of furni
ture. A few pictures would be much
appreciated. The daily routine of
the children is colorless. They sleep
and eat and study in detachments.
System and discipline are necessary
but a little kindness and luxury of
color contributed by the outside
world to these motherless little chil
dren, would be appreciated.
The Twentieth Century.
A baby as soon as born is in his first
i -ir, but as three hundred and sixty
five days of living must elapse before
he is a year old, he is not a year old
until he has lived three hundred and
sixty-five days, though he has been
in his first year till the dawning of
the anniversary of his birth. There
are also a hundred years in a century.
The nineteenth century began in 1800
and last Monday tbe first day of Jan
uary 1900 was tba first day of the
twentieth century. Contention has
pronounced the baby in his first year
before the end of three hundred and
sixty five days living and it has set
tled the fact that on the first anni
versary of bis birthday he enters the
second year of life. Therefore con
vention has made the years into a
circle and because we have further
divided the years into centuries the
progression is not stopped. When
the world is 1901 years old it will be
gin to live the second year of the
twentieth century. Be not deceived
by a few astronomical loafers about
Greenwich. Pope Leo XIII has said
that we are in the beginning of the
twentieth century and be settles
things for more people than any other,
man alive. He may not be absolutely
infallible but he is more infallible
tuan any one else. Bssides, the presi
dent of Wellesley college wno is some
thing of an astronomer and an all
arouud authority herself says that the
twentieth century began last Monday
and it has and it did and we are in it.
I THE PASSING SHOW:
I WILLACATHER f
t Jw
4In that voice what darker magic
Lurks to wake forgotten pain?
Why do all the wounds recovered
Break within my breast again?
"Keep your tragedies, dark woman,
Veil from me that languid eye,
When you sing thl loves departed
Wake again, again to die."
I After Heine.
The real Trilby has come across the
seas in the person of liss Clara Butt,
the Trilby whose voire differed from
ether voices as the flavor of the peach
differs from apples, tte Trilby with
the voice without a Voul. Certainly
she is unique among contraltos and
unique among women. Conceive, if
you will, a woman six feet two by
actual measurement, sfender, willowy,
serpentine; long, long arms, narrow
shoulders, a trifle stooped, outlines
almost epicene, a small head set on a
long, curved throat, heavy lidded, lan
guid eyes, a lace common and middle
class, and a nose which belongs to
the genus of cheapside and you have
Clara Butt. Then give this long,
swaying creature a contralto voice as
big as a choir of ordinary contralto
voices, with a range uncertain but
unlimited, tones as deep as a pipe
organ or as light as flutes. There is
something uncanny about tne mere
dimensions of her voice, as there is
about the long, straight lines of her
figure, something that makes you
shiver a little and stiii holds you.
She is not an artist, not a bit of it,
she is simply a wonder. Not that she
is a freak, like Miss Yaw, but rather a
phenomenon, with something quite
magical and a little bit gruesome shut
up in that long, slender throat. Her
methods are good, for she has been
well taught, but her execution is
slovenly, and she sings as she pleases,
not as she was taught. She hns been
told that her voice is a full orchestra,
and she believes it. Her lower tones
are good by nature; there, if she but
knew it, lies her strength. Her upper
tones are artificial and her continual
abrupt and showy transitions from
her full, sonorous lower tones, to her
weaker upper register is sometimes
unpleasant. Her middle tones are
uncertain and she has not perfected
them by ceaseless toil. Indeed, Miss
Butt is averse to toil. Her natural
vocal equipment is so remarkable, she
found that she could succeed with
a minimum of labor. She was too
gifted to aspire to perfection. Her
early triumphs unfitted her for in
dustry. Having begun her career as
a wonder, a wonder she has continu
ed to be, and it is as a wonder, not as
an artist, that one must consider her.
Her physicial proportions forever bar
her from attempting anything in
opera, and just so her peculiar vocal
limitations and unusual vocal powers
keep her always a little outside the
pale of the rigidly "legitimate" and
make her more or less a musical
curiosity.
At one of Miss Butt's recitals, how
ever, all these things are forgotten, or
rather they do not occur to one. It
is only afterward that one figures
them cut in cold blood. When I
heard her, her first song was Hatton's
"The Enchantress " This tall crea
ture, dressed in a dark green gown
embroidered with silver serpents,
accentuating her slenderness, swayed
to the front of the stage with asweep
ing bow, like a tall tree bending to
tbe wind, and with her head thrown
back, her chin raised, her heavy,
lusterless eyes half closed, she sang:
Warriors I have brought to shame,
Turning glory to disgrace;
Kings have trembled when I came,
Reading do.m upon my face.
But for thee, but for thee,
My wild hair shall braided be
With the rose of richest breath,
With the jasmine, white as death.
And my voice in music flow,
And mine eyes all gently glow,
O believe me, love like ours
Is the power of magic powers.
"But for thee, but for thee," after
the crashing crescendo of the first
verse, how the subtile, insinuating
tenderness of that refrain steals
through one, how heavy and dark and
Circe-like are those tones, such as the
witch of the Aeaean isle might have
used when she turned Odysseus' com
rades into swine, and that tall crea
ture with the silver serpents and the
terrible eyes was the woman io sing
it. She is wonderfully like Burne
Jones' women, like those tall, angular,
bloodless women with the .sensuous
ness of the soul in their pale, worn
cheeks, chained by a fever that is
never fed. There is something of
their unwholsonieness about this
Clara Butt of the trumpet tones, for
she is not at all like the rose, but like
the jasmine, white as death."
I cannot say just why this young
woman gives one a creepy feeling as
she does. She made me think of all
the verses of all the Degenerates, and
sometimes I thought she was more
terrible and pessimistic than Yvette
Guilbert herself. She recalls a littlej
the paintings of the Pre-Baphaelites,
and somewhat the sorrows and deadly
veree of Baudelaire. She sinjjs, in
deed, much church music, but her
singing of it affected me much as
Paul Verlaine's religious poetry," as
feverish, over-strained, unnatural.
It is the faith of pessimism. Miss
Butt's second number was Beethov
en's "In Questa Toinba," which she
followed by Schubert's "Death and
the Maiden." That, of course, came
directly within her scope, that haunt
ing, horror-begetting quality of her
low tones finds its most proper ex
pression in songs of death and en
chantment and languor and dark
magic. Next she sang Chaminade's
"Silver Ring" and quite spoiled the
effect of it by over dramatic phrasing,
dragging the last verse horribly in
conformation to a cheap conception
of pathos. Then came '-He Giveth
His Beloved Sleep" and there again
Mi&s Butt seemed in her element. It
was an ocean of voice that we listen
ed to, deep, sonorous, self sufficient,
like the moan of the sea or the
sighing of the forest in the night
wind. The grand climax of the re
cital was that noble hymn of Bid
die's "Abide With Me," sung with
pipe organ obligate It filled my ears
like the sound of many waters, it
crashed through sleep for nights
afterward!
"When helpers fail, and captains flee,
Help of the helpless, abide with me!"
It seemed as though it must be
heard up aloft there, above all the
singing of the celestial choirs. The
concert hall could not contain it, it
rang out into the night and the star
light. It was the most effective piece
of emotional, religious, singing I ever
heard. If Miss Butt had joined her
gifts for a season with those of Mr.
Moody, Sankey would have been for
gotten. People would surge in hun
dreds up to the altar rail. This hec-
I
