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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 18, 1900)
r r . SSk. ' ii-. i A V k X f VOL. XV., NO. XXXIII ESTABLlbhtzD IN 1886 PRICE FIVE CENTS 1 1 LINCOLN. NEBR., SATURDAY. AUGUST 18, 1D00. THE COURIER, Official Organ of the Nebraska State Federation of Women's dub. Kktbkxdin the pcsTomcE at Lincoln as SECOND CLASS MATTES. PUBLISHED EVEEY SATUBDAY BT HE C0DR1ER PRINTING AND PUBLISHING GO Office 1132 N street, Up Stairs. Telephone 384. SARAH B. HABBIS. Editor Subscription Kates In Advance. Per annum " $ 1 00- 8ix months 75 Three months 50 One month 20 Single copies 05 Thb Couxixx will not be responsible for toI untary communications unless accompanied by return postage. Communications, to receire attention, must bo signed by tne loll name of the writer, not merely as a guarantee of good faitb, bnt for publication if adritable. V 9 OBSERVATIONS. a i Funds Furnished by National Committee. It will be remembered tbat Mr. Thompson's candidacy for the Senate last year was not disclosed until after the election of the members of the last legislature. Then Mr. Thompson came out and announced to bis friends that he had carried the legis lature by the use of his money and influence and that he was therefore entitled to the senatorship. It is gen erally understood that he salted a number of legislative districts al though the exact amount of money he disbursed is not known. When Mr. Thompson was asked what he had done to entitle him to become a memher of that body of only ninety men, selected from 75,000,000 people, he said: l,I claim the sena torship because I put my money into the fight and elected the legislature." This assertion of Mr. Thompson's was made many times throughout the senatorial campaign both by Mr Thompson and by his friends, and if the republican legislative ticket is elected, it will Le claimed again that Mr. Tbomosun put his money into the campaign, and won perforce of it. In view of the assertions made two years ago, which, if true, were not to Mr. Thompson's credit, it has just de veloped that Mr. Thompson did not use his own money. My information is authentic, that Mr. Meiklejohn, Mr. Thompson's friend in Washington, obtained $15,000 from the national committee to be used in winning the senatorship for the republicans. This money was secretlj given to Mr. Tiiompson by the national committee and was secretly used. The fact, that Mr. Thompson did not' furnish this money has only Just been discovered. Mr. Schneider, who-was chairman of. the Republican State Central Com mittee in 1898 and who conducted' the state campaign for the republicans, had no knowledge that this money had been placed with Mr. Thompson by Mr. Meiklejoha. Thus Mr. Thomp son's claim is futile that his barrel was the controlling factor in the last senatorial campaign. Elizabeth and her German Garden. There are books whose charm lies altogether in the action or in the plot like "The Prisoner of Zenda," and in some oftLe-modern stories of knight- hood, dungeons, and red robes. There are others whose potency is the in effable charm ot the personality of the writer. The author of "Eliza beth and her German Garden, is unknown but she is disseminated throughout the book and though readers do not know her name, they know her, which is much more satis factory and intimate. For this very reason the author has doubtless con cealed her name: She has told so much .about herself in the, book tbat she shrinks from identifying these confidences with a specific person. It is as though a stranger talked in the dark and fascinated everybody within reach of her melting voice and dis appeared before the light was brought. And Elizabeth's lovers are not like Cinderella's prince, bound to find her at any cost. She has let us know how dearly siie prizes the lonesomeness of her retreat and how she dislikes even the intrusion of old friends. She may stay, then, behind her rose bushes for all of me. Only I hope she will write another book right awajr. Tired of the sound of talking, of the creakicg of chairs, of the everlasting insect buzz of human voices, Elizabeth is quieting and soothes to patience. The spectacle of an unselfish person allowing himself (though it is usually herself) to be made uncomfortable or to be constantly thwarted by others, is irritating. Elizabeth has three babies whom she calls by the months of their birth, the June baby, the April baby and the May baby. She lives in a big house in the country, and of all p'aces in the world where woman is allowed no variation at all, the country is Germany. All the same, Elizabeth lives in her garden, and the babies tumble about on the grass at her feet and are just as healthy as though their mother were forever pickling, preserving, dusting and marking linen. With an hour or two's oversight in the morning the servants are allowed to do the work of the house, while the mistress in vites her soul in the garden. Her neighbors, who have recurrent brew- ing. baking, preserving, and washing seasons are scandalized when these seasons come and go and Elizabeth is not driven out of her garden by them. Like Professor Agassiz she has not time for these things and her bus band has to get accustomed to a table that is not a triumph of art over nature three times a day. Not that he ever submits gracefully, but he cannot cook as his mother used to, himself and Elizabeth will not. She will not allow, even her offspring to deprive her of her joy in growing things, in the hirschwald, in the sea. She is selfish about her enjoyment of God in'the bush. That is perhaps the cause of the effect of restfulness. No one imposes on any one, least of all, upon the heroine, in this book. Eliza beth can lay evil spirits, as children can, only by enjoying themselves re gardless. Her right to a separate ex istence she does not 'claim, but she' takes it. I wish every woman who is thwarted, or who worries about the nonessentials of life would read this book, and let it influence her to give herself more elbow room. Yet the charm of Elizabeth and her German Garden is still unexpressed. It is reizend! entzueckend! wundervolliand everything else in exclamatory Teu tonic, but this review is as inade quate and meaningless as the phrase, "a dewy rose"' in the ears of a man whonever-in his life got out of Ded till high noon. Predestination. A baby in a New Jersey prison is puz zling philanthropists and authori ties. Six months before he was born his mother was arrested for stealing and sentenced to imprisonment. Three months later the mother was given a short reprieve and the baby was born in a mission house. When he was six weeks old he and his mother went back to prison where he has since lived his twenty months of life. He is bright, beautiful and happy, and prison officials and prisoners love and serve him. The sound of his lovely laughter is the miracle of the cell rooms. But his mother is a thief, so were his grandfather and his great grandfather. His fingers are a thief's fingers and his mother examines them with the same gratification that a pianist notes the loDg, muscular, musical fingers of his baby. Students of ethics who do not believe in born thieves or born murderers or born degenerates of any sort might seques trate this little child, might bring him up in an invironment of refine ment, love, probity and truth. The mother freely admits that her great est pride will be in teaching him to teal. In such a case the state's duty is to protect the child and deprive him of a mother who will surely bring him up to break the laws of the state. It is very difficult to find a family who will take a baby with degenerate fingers. Institutional rearing is not satisfactory. The child is not in an atmosphere of love and at. the most sensitive age, the institutional at mosphere chills the warm little things that were meant for a nest and not for an Incubator. There are plenty of men and women who are ready to write books about child de-4 velopnient and their culture, the' effects of environment etcetera, but in this whole country there is pro bably not more than one or two peo ple who are willing to adopt, promise to love and cherish, and train care fully this son, grandson, and great grandson of a thief. To a woman it would mean the relinquishment of society, all but one club, and a single hearted devotion to one purpose the turning of a life-stream from a vic ious, from a muddled, foul, crooked channel, into a straight, clean chan nel. It has been done, but it is a great engineering feat and the time, the sacrifice of other designs, the ultimate prospect of failure and dis grace will prevent this little prison baby from enjoying a chance to es cape from the fate that his great grandfather wove the warp of, his grandfather the woof and in which his mother has swaddled him. Never theless if through some lover of his kind, this baby's inheritance should be deflected, if he might be loved, taught and reared like other chil dren, if instead of transmitting & curse to his children he should leave them heirs to an honest name and life, the consequences would be worth the chances of failure and the surety of effort and struyijie. J Dwarf Tree. Sometimes it takes a hundred years and sometimes five hundred to com plete the design of a dwarf tree. A gardener plants the seed of a birch, a larch, a pine or a maple, and the de sign may be executed, if it involovcruot exposure at the rate of only a quarter of an inch a year. Thus a dwarf tree of the kind raised in Japan and now so fashionable in this country, may re quire as long In the growing as the Milan Cathedral was in building. Directions are left to the heir from one generation to another until the design is completed as perfectly as though performed in a life time by one man. Victor Hugo's story of "The Man who Laughs." is based on the opera tions of a Chinee guild who knew the secrets of binding and stopping the growth of babies. They could make any sort of a monster that was ordered. These tortured little trees are gro tesquely interesting but they suggest torture and the ravolt of nature. Isolation of the Vest. Musical societies and societies for the cultivation and appreciation of pictures exist In the West The most talented singers and artists mast go to