THE COURIER
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and woman, who on the night of
the flood, descending from a Pike's
Peak expedition, watch the valley
where Colqrado.SpringsJs located,,fill
up with an ocean. The lights go out
and the frightened birds from hun
dreds of miles fill the air above them
with bird screams of terror at a sight
which neither instinct nor experi
ence have prepared them for. The
world is blotted out, so the woman
calls the man Adam and he calls her
Robin. The arrival of the Pacific
ocean has warmed up the climate of
Pike's Peak so that 'three crops of
strawberries ripen on the slopes every
year. The man and woman find a
miner's cabin, furnished with the
necessary turniturc ant sucked with
a few groceries and books. There arc
-cows, hor&es and chickens on the
mountain and the former house-holder's
dogs and cats welcome the new
occupants'. ' The man is young. , He
is an orator and has plans of making
the world better by making speeches
to it. When the flood drowns his
audience it sweeps over his career.
The woman is a grand-opera first
soprano, tired of the world, tied to a
brutal husband and in love with the
orator. After the shock of watching
"Xhe world drown, she is glad of their
isolation. It is a good riddance so
far as the husband is concerned.- She
is a good house-keeper and the little
miner's cabin soon shines with neat
Viess.. And after a year's time the
-orator falls in love with her.
Tuoreau "discovered that it was
necessary to work but six weeks out
of the year in order to raise enough
grain and vegetables to keep him.
After planting three acres with corn
and wheat which raised about thirty
bushels to the acre Adam computed
that if they ate six pounds a day it
would require seven years to consume
their first harvest. To plant and
harvest an acre of corn and an acre of
wheat a year could not keep them
busy. The toilsome life of a farmer
who plants to sell rather than to
consume might therefore be allevi
ated by a change of system. 'Hertzka
an eminent Austrian sociologist has
figured out that if five million men
should work a little less than an hour
and three-quarters a day they could
produce all the necessities of life for
the twenty-two million people of Aus
tria. By working two hours and
twelve minutes daily for two months
besides, they could have all the lux
uries also. And that not for a few,
not for the court and the nobility
only, but for all. There could have
been music and pictures and books
and theatres, and sufficient food and
clothing." This is the object of the
story, this and the duty of the two
survivors to themselves and to pos
terity which they finally decided they
have not a right to deny. It is inter
esting as all well-told Robinson Cru
soe and love stories are. But the
author, like the "Ancient Mariner"
has a lesson to teach. He has views
of how the people of the world should
conduct their affairs. He deplores
their wickedness and if they should
all be drowned again save one pair,
consisting of an absolutely beautiful
and flawless man and a healthy and
only less beautiful woman who is also
very high minded, energetic and fore
handed, be believes that tbey would
manage their household and love af
fairs as he has related.
There is so much discussion about
the way the people of the world man
age their affairs. Every man is anx
ious to express his opinion upon the
subject. Those who are not consult
ed get themselves interviewed No-'
body seems to' approve'-ot the way
things are going: But'there is in- the
derelopement of life and- civilizatlo
a seed or a germ which: ripens in its'
own way. It is of slow germination
and of slower bloom. All the efforts
made to change it into a flower of
another sort- are ineffectual and only
increase the confusion. If all the
people in the world were drowned ex
cept one perfect pair, like these, some
mistakes might be corrected, some
systems reformed, but it is likely that
in a few hundred years the persistent
seed would blossom into the same in
stitutions about which there is such a
babbling now. In- remoulding the
affairs of men nearer to his heart's
desire, Mr. Meredith was right to
drown all but one perfect pair. It is
so difficult to reform a world full of
men and women who insist that their
own ideas of reform are best.
City Improvement.
The Pennsylvania railroad has ex
perimented successfully in reducing
the dust on its road bed by an occa
sional sprinkling with crude oil. In
parts of Pennsylvania and Southern
Cafifornia the public roads have been
subjected to a similar treatment with
equal success; the same method has
also been employed in several Califor
nia cities to take the place of water
sprinkling. A hard, rain-proof coat
is formed on the surface of either
dirt or macadamized roads. It is
noiseless, elastic to the feet of horses,
and is especially valuable as a dust
preventive. For bicycle paths this
coating is nearly as satisfactory as
asphalt, and the cost is very small.
Machines for mixing and sprinkling
are used, and not more than three ap
plications a year are necessary to
keep a well traveled road in good con
dition. The experiment might be
tried with advantage on our own city
streets. If houees, shrubbery, trees
and streets could be kept free of dust
at trifling cost, the citizens would feel
that money spent for this purpose
was indeed well expended.
The Veb of Life.
The despair of youth is hopeless.
Even men who are old enough to
write books and sustain the dignity
of a professor in a university some
times catch these children's diseases
and they are always more severe than
in infancy. Mr Herrick, the author of
The Web of Life," and of 'The Man
who Wins," is a young man with a
smooth, round face, and a placid ex
pression. But he can find tragedy in
the cheerfulest seeming circum
stances. He has a young man's love
for sorrow, for desperate plights and
for unmitigated gloom. He enjoys
his dreary tales as much as a world
ly widow her weeds which she knows
are the most correct in cut and tex
ture and represent as perfectly as
mere crepe and dead-black wool can,
an absolutely crushed and broken wo
man. Mr. Herrick's gloom is not
enlivened by any light. The widow
carries a handkerchief, the center of
which is white But Mr. Herrick
draws the line more sternly. In "The
Web of Life" there is no humour.
There is even no humourous aspect.
Nevertheless the book is very inter
esting, though his hero is like Mr.
Herrick himself, very much afraid of
happinesss and sure that it is a sin.
He succeeds, like most reformers, in
making a mess of bis own life, in
nearly breaking the heart of one wo
man and of driving his wife into Lake
Michigan. Though Mr. Herrick's
reasouing is fa'se or at least incon
clusive and though be relates bis
tragedy with evideut relish and with
the same aloofness and indifference
that a magic lantern "artist" throws
pictures on a screen, be is evidently
in earnest about his disapproval of
the way the Chicago rich live. Mr.
Herrick really cares nothing for his
noble, single hearted, simple-minded
Alves or for his honest, earnest, prig
gish young doctor. Like all the rest
of the reformers, Mr. Herrick cares
less for literary art than to have his
say about how the world is going to
the dogs and that he for one knows a
better way to live and can show two
or three puppets living his way.
J J
Rue with a Difference.
An exhaustive exposition of the sin
of foolishness and.tbe sufferings the
fool's foolishness entails upon his fam
ily has never been written. Crimes
are expiated on the scaffold, but a
fool's mistakes and bis officious med
dling with other's affairs means mis
ery to every one in his entourage but
himself. He dies at last in his bed
with roses piled about him and his
family actually weeping for him while
other and worse men, but who have
known enough not to rock a boat or
explode unloaded guns in a friend's
face, die out on the wold unlamented.
The family of a real fool never finds
out that the head of it is a fool.
They think poor Pa is a suffering, ben
evolent gentleman whose good inten
tions towards his friends are frus
trated by unavoidable accidents, for
which be is in no wise to blame.
There is such a gentleman in "Rue
with a Difference.'' He is a clergyman
and lives beyond his means. When
his wife remonstrates with him he
assumes the hereditary attitude and
tone of an insulted English husband
and informs her, as the head of the
house that he knows bis own affairs
best. And next Sunday he preaches a
sermon intended especially to awaken
his wife's remorse. After a while he
dies and leaves his children and
widow in want and his daughter en
gaged to a man whom she does not
love but recommended by her father
with bis usual lack of insight.. The
widow's regrets are therefore miti
gated. She loved her husband, but
with a difference. She was one of
the quiet analytic women who recog
nize a fool even if he happen to belong
in the family. Rose Nouchette Cary
is a prolific writer of the sentimental
school. She Is a cut above Rboda
Broughton, but she composes with her
unexampled skill and volubility. I
think she belongs with Mrs. Van
Renselaer Cruger and other very
highly placed social leaders who are
careful not to be intimate with even
derogatory literary types.
LaLucha.
A Cuban-American paper, printed
in Havana, it looks more like aPrench
newspaper than like one printed on
this side of the Atlantic. The pa
per on which it is printed is very
coarse and a greenish white. It has
two title pages, both heavily leaded.
The type is large and plain, I think
hand-set. The outside title page is
set in Eoglish, the remaining five
pages in Spanish. The third page is
also a title-page but the scanty tele
graphic news in English does not
seem to be duplicated in Spanish.
The eight columns are wider by two
ems than the ordinary thirteen em
columns, and the column itself is
twenty-seven inches long. La Lucha
is therefore both wider and longer
than the ordinary American news
paper. It is a prosperous paper. Of the
six pages three are covered with small
advertisements. The Cuban women
are not particularly interested in
dress-reform. Lectures, on the evil
effects of corsets, if they have- ever
heard them, have not impressed them.
The advertisements of corsets are
numerous. The cuts accompanying
them show a corset such as has not
been worn in America forat least fifty
years. The measurement across the
c'lest is three times the width of the
waist. There are many advertise
ments of perfumery, but not one if
soap. There are other interesting
items about the paper even to a for
eigner who does not read Spanish. The
Cuban doctors seem to have no preju
dice against running a card, stating
their address and calling as there are
about thirty such professional card
on one page. There are the usual
number of patent medicine advertise
ments, but there are evidently new
cures in Cuba. One called estom
acalina, cures according to the ad .er
tisement, las dispepsias estomacales
las dispepsias intestinales, la disen
teria, la gastritis, and los vertigos
vomitos. Although in a strange
tongue the list is familiar enough.
Chocolates and liquidas, unguents
and want advertisements complete
the list. When one knows what a
people consumes a very good begin
ning of acquaintance has been ac
complished. J
A Taxpayer's View.
With two years of large city expen
diture in prospect the composition of
the council is somewhat discouraging;.
Socialist and populist brethren com
plain continually about theinfluenceof
rich men in politics. A few more well-to-do
citizens in the council would be
greatly appreciated by the taxpayer?
of Lincoln. It is so much easier to
spend other people's money than one'
own. The office-holding class are
continually trying to raise salaries,
against the protest of the taxpayer
to whose contributions to the general
fund the office-holders contribute very
little. It is proposed to raise the sal
ary of the captain of police of the city
clerk and of other city officials. If
any city official can make more money
by his own exertions than he now re
ceives from the city, he is at liberty
to resign and begin to make it. Most
of the citv officials serve two terms or
as many as they can be elected to. Lin
coln is in debt and is paying her pres
ent force of clerks, treasurers, depu
ties etc just as high salaries as the as
sessment permits. There are plenty
of competent men willing to perform
the same labor for these salaries.
Then why should Lincoln be forced
to pay more than the market price?
Those who took pains to get nomi
nated and elected to positions were
fullj aware of the salaries attached
to the various positions when they ex
erted themselves to attain them.
Now that they are more or less cred
itably fulfilling their duties, it is tak
ing an unfair advantage of the city
from a position of vantage to work a
salary-raising ordinance through the
council. The mayor can be depended
on to veto such an ordinance, but it
seems as though thecouncil too should
be on the side of the city. The at
tempt of Councilmen Lyman, Malone
and Pentzer to make up the impor
tant committees without consulting
the Mayor and to make chairmen of
councilmen who were the props of the
Graham administration, was frus
trated. But the revolt of this ele
ment against the mayor is an indica
tion of their designs on the city.
Hawaian Agriculture.
San Francisco now furnishes most
of the vegetables for Hawaii, whose
climate and soil ought to make it the
garden spot of the world. Uncle Sam
has decided that this is poor economy,
and an experiment farm of 200 acres,
running from the coast to the top of
a mountain, will soon be established
by the Department of Agriculture.
The first efforts of this department
will be directed to teachingtthe poor
now to raise vegetables," and to care
for poultry, pigs and cows;
"V
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.;&aHsaag:'. . - zas&axiir'