Golden Age, July 29, 1925
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Contents of the Golden Age
«*» ■■■'■ "■ ~ - 1 ' = ..
Labor and Economics Flotsam and Jetsam
Bisbee, Arizona, Never Recovered
Babies Work New Jersey Farms............
Hard Times in Clothing Industry
Competition Versus Cooperation ■ .
Social and Educational The Majesty of the Trees
Oldest and Tallest Living Things ...
Who’s Who in Trees..... .
The Cedars of Lebanon .....
Trees that Seem almost Human
Evidences of Humanity’s Degeneracy . . . . . . . . . . • 682
Santa Barbara Quake .
Finance—Commence—Transportation Bankers Report Hungary Sound .............
Canada’s Transportation Problems .....
Coal War in Nova Scotia
Peru Has Highest Railway Station
Political—Domestic and Foreign What War Does to a Mob
Peculiar Tragedy in Mexico
Bootlegger Tax-Exempt in Ontario .
Science and Invention A Felt-Wire-Cement Wall
Interior Wiring May Cease
New Bombs Will Wipe Out Nine Square Miles .
Lost Use of Left Arm by Vaccination
Radio /kid to Explorers
Gives Eleven Gallons of Blood
Religion and Philosophy
The Purgatory Scheme Hopf.i.essi.y Outclassed
Significance of the Recent American Earthquakes
Symbolic Earthquake Imminent
Bible Translations and Interpot.ations
All Translations Faulty
Billy Sunday’s Brand of Religion
A Greenlander’s Reply to a Missionary
A Standard for the People
Studies in “The Harp of God”........... .
Published every other Wednesday at 18 Coneord Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., U. S. A., by WOODWORTH, HEDGINGS & MARTIN
Copartners and Proprietors Address; 18 Concord Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., V. S. A. CLAYTON J. WOODWORTH . . . Editor ROBERT J. MARTIN . Business Manager WM. F. HUDGINGS . . Sec’y and Treas.
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Entered as second-class matter at Brooklyn, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1878
Golden Age
Volume VI Brooklyn, N.Y., Wednesday, July 29, 1925 Number 153
The Majesty of the Trees
INF THE northeastern part of Pennsylvania, in a narrow defile in the mountains, lies a tract of several hundred acres of timber’land which has never been cut over. There are many trees on the tract which are several feet in diameter and of prodigious height, straight as an arrow. The man who owns this tract of timber land is a well-to-do farmer, the owner of a valuable city property, but so much a lover of nature that he goes bareheaded and barefooted most of the year.
He refuses to sell a foot of the immensely valuable timber grooving upon the place, which he inherited from his father; and by way of explanation he said to the Editor; “I do not need to cut any of these trees in order to live, and. I do not purpose to see anybody else do it. These trees make me think of God. When I think of the fact that they have stood here for centuries, lifting their giant heads into the sunlight far above these deep valleys, I feel that it would be wrong for me to take their lives and thus to destroy what I cannot hope to see replaced.”
In America we are suffering from the fact that our immediate ancestors considered the forests their enemies instead of their friends. When they landed on these shores, they found the Atlantic seaboard virtually one vast primeval forest. Before they could till the soil it was necessary to make a “clearing”. Thousands of square miles of land were cleared by cutting the timber, piling it and burning it. There are men still living in Indiana who can remember when lands heavily timbered with black walnut were thus cleared in order to prepare for tillage lands which have since afforded a scant living for their owners. If those owners could have found some way to have retained the lands and let the timber stand, they would today be independently wealthy.
Except in the parks and cemeteries and the remote outskirts there are very few trees in New York city, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pitts-
burgh, Cleveland, Chicago, St. Louis and San Francisco. But Boston, Hartford, New Haven, Rochester and Los Angeles seem to have given more attention to this subject. In the British Isles, determined effort is made to preserve tree life as much as possible throughout the cities and throughout the country as a whole. A Frenchman, when asked his opinion of New York, made the astonishing but pointed comparison between New York and Paris: “New York has its bath tubs, but we have our boulevards and trees.” The transplanting of mature shade trees in England and France is a common practice, and tends to the constant beautifying of drives and grounds.
Oldest and Tallest Living Things
WHILE it is said that some of the eucalyptus trees in the forests near Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, are the tallest trees in the world, yet the redwood trees of California are very nearly, if not quite, as tall and are unquestionably the oldest living things upon the earth. There are trees in the California redwood region that were nearly a thousand years old before Romulus and Remus had their first meal. They were 500 years old before history had even deigned to notice that there was such a country as Greece. The General Sherman sequoia tree standing in the Sequoia National Park is thirty-seven feet in diameter, and is supposed to have been planted sometime during the life of, Moses. One was recently blown down which had 4,000 rings. This means it was contemporaneous -with Abraham, and had lived during pearly all the period of human history which either the Lord or man has considered worthy of preservation.
It is believed that the only thing that would cause the death of a sequoia tree is to have its root system undermined through the gradual removal of the soil by water. Some of the sequoia trees attain a height of more than 35Q
feet. While this timber is classed as soft timber, it is nevertheless very , strong, and has such fireresisting qualities that fire insurance companies accept it for fire walls. Few woods equal it in durability.
The sequoias have been mercilessly cut to provide homes for California’s population, and stakes for their grape vines; but the genus has been protected against wholesale destruction in middle California by the creation of the Sequoia National Park, containing 237 square miles and haw ng more than one million of these great trees. We read with some surprise, however, that even the greatest of the American sequoias are exceeded in diameter by some of the chestnut trees of Sicily.
It is not always possible to determine the age of human beings, especially the ladies; they have discovered ways and means of covering it up. But with trees it is different. Nature compels them to disclose their age frankly by means of ring-growths, one ring for each year of their life. These rings are caused by the seasons. In Spring and Summer their growth is rapid, but when Winter comes their growth is stunted, resulting in a comparatively hard and somewhat snarly fibrous ring. If a perfectly even temperature should prevail from one year’s end to the other these seasonal ringgrowths would not appear. It is interesting to note, in this connection, that most of the coal deposits, formed of course from the great trees of the carboniferous era long before man inhabited the planet, do not contain these ringgrowths. This is a confirmation of the Valian theory of creation, which holds that the antediluvian earth was blanketed with a canopy which maintained a comparatively even temperature throughout the year. Where ring-growths do appear in certain strata of coal, they are generally irregular throughout, showing that the dwarfing of the growth of these trees at certain periods was due to local conditions of temporary and shifting nature, and not to periodic winters such as now prevail.
Who’s Who in Trees
WITH the commendable purpose of increasing public interest in trees, the American Forestry Association has been cataloguing the trees, historical and otherwise, which are most worthy of public attention. Many of those which they list are famous landmarks:
The first Bible printed in America was a Bible in an Indian language which no one now living can read, the work of John Eliot, missionary to the Indians in Massachusetts; and the oak tree at South Natick, Mass., under which he preached to the Indians, is still standing.
There are about twenty historical elms in Massachusetts. One of the most famous. of these, the so-called Washington Elm, under which General Washington stood when he took command of the Continental, army, died in the Summer of 1923.
There is still standing on the campus of St. John’s College, Annapolis, Maryland, a tree under which a treaty with the Indians was signed in 1652.
The Daniel Boone Judgment Tree at Defiance, Missouri, under which the famous frontiersman gathered the pioneer settlers to arbitrate their disputes, now measures sixteen feet six inches in circumference; but it is decaying, and may not last long.
It is claimed for the Hooker Oak, at Bidwell Park, Chico, California, that it is the largest oak tree in the world. The Hooker is 101 feet high, has a spread of branches 147 feet, trunk diameter of nine feet, and a circumference of twenty-eight feet two inches.
An elm on the property of Dumont Kennedy, Crawfordsville, Indiana, has a spread of ninety feet. .
Chicago has a giant white maple tree eighty feet high, nine feet in circumference at the base, and estimated to be a thousand years old.
Four other trees of noteworthy size are the old sycamore on the place of James Hill at Wheatley, Long Island; an elm at Huntington, Indiana, with a spread of seventy-five feet; a similar tree at Framingham, Mass.; and the Wye Mills Oak near Easton, Md., which is said to cover an area of eight average trees and to afford shelter beneath its branches for all the people that can be crowded upon an area one-third ofl an acre in extent.
Noteworthy Trees in Foreign Lands
T TITLE in southern Mexico is a cypress tree called “The Ahuehuetl” by the Indians and “Our Lady of Thule” by the Spaniards, which is estimated to be about two thousand years old. Under the tree the Toltec chieftains have held their powwows for centuries.
GOLDEN AGE
There are many oak trees standing in England’s parks which are believed to have been living throughout the whole period of British history..
There is a rose tree in Cologne which has blossomed every year for ten centuries. There are many fir trees in the forests of Wuerzburg which are thought to be over 700 years of age.
In the vicinity of Jerusalem there are olive trees which are credited with being in existence in the time of Christ. In the plain of Mamre, in the place where Abraham built an altar to the Lord (Genesis 13: 8), there is standing a great oak tree venerated alike by Christians, Jews and Mohammedans. The preservation of this tree for centuries, in a region cleared of almost all trees by the improvident Turks, is remarkable,
Napoleon Bonaparte on one occasion altered his plans for a military road in order to save a single notable tree.
Trees do not seem to thrive in the famous Central Park, New York. It is supposed that this is partly due to the poor soil and partly to the auto gases which have made many of the streets of New York intolerable for pedestrians, no less than for the passengers in the autos. The average mortality of the trees in Central Park is 3,500 per year, the average number replanted annually being about 2,500. The law of mortality is especially large among evergreens, due to the fact that the leaves of the evergreens are permanent and that when the breathing pores become choked ‘with soot the tree is stifled from lack of air.
Great cities are abominations and excrescences upon the face of the earth; and we may be sure that when the Lord’s kingdom is established some better way will be found for providing the people with supplies and necessities than by polluting the atmosphere, the trees, the grass, the soil, and the water by gas and soot and by the convergence of millions of people living over one another like bees in a hive.
The New York Times traces the “Christmas” tree back to Norse mythology. The ancient Scandinavian legend is that the first Christmas tree was one that grew from the blood of two lovers foully killed, and that when it had attained maturity lights sprang from it which no wind could extinguish. The Times adds: “To this, perhaps, may be traced the present practice of illuminating the Christmas tree.” Uncle
Sam uses each year 5,000,000 Christmas trees. About the same number is used in the British, Isles, and three-fourths as many in Germany.
The Trees of the Garden
HE Bible account of the life-giving trees in the garden of Eden is readily comprehended vdien we look about us today and see some of the benefits which trees confer on man. Hundreds of varieties of fruits and nuts delight the eye and please the palate. Almost every person eats a little of some sort of fruit almost every day of his life.
All have heard of the bread tree. But there is a milk tree, too. We do not refer to cocoanut milk. The milk tree grows in South America. Its sap strongly resembles rich cows’ milk, and the natives enjoy it immensely. Then there is a butter tree in Africa which yields 100 pounds of good butter at a time. After a few months a fresh supply is ready. Wlien hardened and salted, this product is said to taste very much like fresh, sweet butter.
There are certain trees in the tropics which furnish fabrics for clothing. The inner bark of others, just in its natural state, makes good writing-paper. There is an ash in Sicily which manufactures sugar. One of the fir-tree family in British Columbia also yields a rare variety of sugar; and in our own clime we have the sugar maple.
There is a lace tree in the West Indies, the bark of which resembles an exquisite lace, and is wTorn as such by women of good social standing. The seeds of an Arabian tree, when pounded and swallowed, give the user an overdose of laughing gas, and cause him to act ridiculously until the effect has worn off.
In one of the driest of the Canary Islands, there is said to be a rain tree, which collects moisture from the atmosphere so rapidly and sheds it so quickly that a cistern placed beneath it is never empty. Mexico is said to have a similar tree (only one) near Tehuantepec. The Turks make soap and coffee from house chestnuts, besides a household remedy, and also a form of liquor.
From the white birch the Russian people make medicine, liquor, syrup, and vinegar. From its midsummer leaves they make a beautiful yellow dye, and from the autumn leaves a stuffing for pillows and cushions. From its bark they make shoes, spoons, bowls, horns, and canoes.
All the turpentines, rosins, gums, varnishes, and a thousand other necessities of. life, come . from the trees, not to mention the daily paper. An area of trees ten times greater than the combined area of Staten Island and Manhattan Island, New York city, is cut every year to supply the material required for the pulp and paper industry of the United States.
The Black Walnut Passing
f^|NE of the most valuable of American woods is the black walnut, which is now passing away. Experts tell us that at the present rate of cutting, the black walnut will be gone in twenty years. It was once plentiful; and in the days of generous supply it constituted one of the principal woods used in the making of furniture.
The husk of the black walnut contains a dye which, when it gets on the skin, will come off when the skin comes off, but not before. This dye is a base for much tanning material, stains, hs.tr dyes, etc. The shells make good fuel, of which the resultant ash is valuable.
The black walnut was once called the Liberty Tree, because it so well represented the whole country. But now it is rarely to be found. Not only has the fruit of the black walnut generally disappeared from the stock of the nut dealer, but the wood is rarely to be found at the cabinetmakers, where once it held almost the highest place. The thin-bark Persian walnut (miscalled English walnut) has generally taken the place of the much harder-shelled American black walnut in the nut markets of the world.
On the Pacific slopes there are great areas which have been planted with Persian walnuts, the price per acre running $300 to $400. In the year 1924 the crop was all sold within a few hours after it was placed on sale, so great is the demand. No doubt Persian walnuts could be raised in certain parts of the eastern states.
The Cedars of Lebanon
PERHAPS the most famous forest in the world is that of the cedars of Lebanon, from which King Solomon obtained the timber for the construction of the temple. This wood is so durable that timbers which lay buried in the ruins of Assyrian cities for upwards of two thousand years were as good as ever when brought to light. Pliny, the Roman historian, declared that this wood is everlasting. The ' ancients made their idols from it.
The cedars of Lebanon seem to thrive best in their native environment, but they are to be found elsewhere. There is one of them at Flushing, Long Island. It is sixty-five feet high, seventy-five feet spread, with a trunk diameter of five feet at the base. This tree is preserved by means of a special park or arboretum built about it.
The thing which makes the cedars of Lebanon so long-lived is the oil with which they abound. This fragrant oil is thought to have curative properties, and as such was applied to the bodies of those suffering with leprosy. The Romans used the oil for preserving their manuscripts..........
Of the original forest at Lebanon there now remain but 389 trees, only fifteen of which are of large size; but some of these have a girth of forty-two feet and a height of ninety feet, and.....
the limbs of one single specimen are great........
enough to cover four ordinary city lots. Some of these magnificent cedars of Lebanon, old before the opening of the Christian era, were cut during the World War to supply fuel for military locomotives.
Akin to cedar is cypress, of which the Carthaginians and Phoenicians built their ships, on which the Romans engraved their laws, in which the Egyptians encased" their mummies, and of which Noah built the ark. Gopher wood and cypress wood are one and the same thing, in the opinion of commentators. Like the cedars. of .......
Lebanon, cypress is reputed to be everlasting.
Tree Planting - .......
MORE and more attention is being paid to the planting of trees. Several states have Arbor Days, the exact date being fixed by pro-......
clamation of the governor. In hundreds of ..........
schools there are tree-planting associations. In -one year recently, two thousand elm trees were......
planted along the principal highways between.......
Syracuse and Utica, as a memorial to New York.....-
soldiers who died in the World War. .
American seedlings are fast healing the war-scarred areas of Europe. The slopes once gouged by the tide of battle are now covered with blossoming orchards which had their start in American nurseries. Large areas in France, Belgium, Britain and Ireland have been planted with these imported seedlings. -
A tree must be adapted to the climate and to the soil on which it is to be grown. For use under city conditions it must have healthy foliage that withstands dust and smoke, and a root system not easily affected by unusual soil conditions, by restricted feeding areas, or by root pruning when street improvements are made.
Trees that bear showy flowers, fruits, or nuts are not considered desirable for street planting. Just why this is we do not know. It is the custom in Germany to line the roads with fruit trees; but our Department of Agricul ture recommends otherwise. Some trees are objectionable because their roots penetrate sewers; others because they heave up sidewalks. Oaks are considered more generally satisfactory for planting than any other group of trees, followed closely by elms and sycamores.
The American Forestry Association gives the following suggestions for tree planting: Dig a hole eighteen inches or more deep, then fill to the lower root level with a mixture of three-fourths good soil and one-fourth rotted manure. Set the tree so that it stands two inches deeper than it did in the nursery. If the tree is planted in a sidewalk, the opening should be at least six feet square. Keep the top soil pulverized. The tree stake should be. two and one-half inches in diameter and ten feet long, driven two feet into the ground and secured with rubber-covered wire or with canvass. The tree should have a well-developed head, with a strong leader and branches set at wide, not close, angles. Before setting, the tree should be pruned so that the base of the temporary crown will be seven feet above the pavement. The base of the permanent crown should be ten feet. Cut off smooth every broken root. Preserve the fibrous roots. Rich earth should be packed firmly about the roots.
The Care of Trees
HE time to begin to care for a tree is before it is planted. Trees should be taken out
of their boxes promptly upon arrival from the nursery. The trees should be untied and heeled in. This is done by digging a shallow trench from five to six inches deep, depending upon the size of the trees, and placing the trees therein at an angle of about forty degrees, lean> ing the tops of the trees toward the sun. The trees should be spread rather thinly.
The trees should then be covered with moist earth up to within two or three inches of the top. It is well to heel the plants in a cool and shady spot in moist earth. It is also advisable to water them somewhat, but care should be taken that they are not watered too heavily; for if they are, they may heat. In this way they will keep several days; but it is always best to plant small trees as soon as possible after their arrival.
A tree must be planted in good soil. The tree can survive bad pruning, old age, dust, insects, lack of moisture and cultivation, if it has good soil, but if it does not have proper soil any or all of these causes will kill it. So the first requisite for the tree is proper food, good soil.
And a tree must have water, plenty of it, once a week. During the Spring and Summer, if the weather is dry, each young tree should have five or six pailfuls at a time, once a week. Watering a little each day is injurious. Nature’s way is to give the roots a thorough soaking periodically. After the roots are thoroughly soaked the soil should be broken up to a depth of two or three inches, in order to conserve the moisture, permit aeration and allow the rain to enter. A young tree can be thoroughly cultivated in about five minutes. Cultivation aids the health, benefits the tree, and increases appreciation of it. Trees near radio plants are markedly benefited by the radio waves.
Trees That Seem Almost Human
SPHERE is a species of acacia in Nevada which makes preparations to sleep at night.
The leaves shut together at sundown, and the twigs coil up at the end. If the twigs are uncoiled, the tree flutters and moves uneasily and seems to be agitated, at the same time sending out a nauseating odor. It takes an hour or two for the tree to regain its equilibrium.
A story comes from Scotland of the roots of a poplar tree going down under a house and up on the other side, a total distance of ninety feet, and then penetrating the points of a waste pipe until the rootlets completely blocked the pipe. Query: How did the poplar know where to look for the d?ain pipe? James Rodway, the curator of the British Guiana Museum, declares that in British Guiana there are trees which exhibit feeling and taste, and that some of them seem unquestionably to be able to smell water at a distance. Possibly the poplar, famous for choking sewers, has this faculty.
That plants can be acclimated has been proven in Spain. In a certain district where the snow lies on the mountain tops most of the year, the monks have been carrying the growth •of the orange higher and higher every generation, until at last this tree now produces its sweet fruit at the very summit of the mountain where the monastery is located.
One of the curious trees of Java is that which is sometimes called the deadly upas. Whether or not this tree is as deadly to humans who come within the range of its odors as is popularly supposed, is questionable. But it is certain that the natives are afraid of it, and will not rest beneath it or even pass to leeward of it. The sap is poisonous; but the wood is harmless, and is used for furniture.
Sundry Odd Items About Trees
EAR Belfast, Maine, some fifty years ago, a pine tree was cut down, leaving a stump three feet high and thirty inches in diameter. Some seeds of the birch fell on the top of the stump; and by a strange freak of nature they lived and thrived. Today there is a clump of fine young birch trees growing on that pine stump, supported by twenty-nine roots encircling the stump, varying from one-half to three and one-half inches in thickness.
About three years ago a German engineer named Reimann announced that he had found a satisfactory process for coloring living trees. By the use of aniline dyes, thirty-two different shades are produced, including olive green, apple green, ebony, weathered oak, and salmon pink. Reports say that trees of any degree of hardness will respond to the treatment, and that the tallest of them will be permeated in two days.
The Cambridgeshire Forestry Association, Cambridge, England, is said to believe that by a certain method, not stated in the report, it is possible to grow square trees, producing wood of better quality and in greater quantity. It is admitted that this can be done only in certain kinds of trees susceptible to rapid or forced growth. Lumbermen near Tacoma, upon felling a fir 250 feet tall, found that it had bark twenty-three inches thick. The tree was estimated to be 2,200 years old.
A farmer near Reading, Pa., had grafted a late autumn variety of apple upon a sweet summer apple tree. In the Fall of 1920, while the tree was well filled with ripened apples the other side of it burst into full bloom. Fall blooming of certain fruit trees and bushes sometimes happens, but in such case there is no crop the following year.
Trees Make the World a Better Place
N ILLINOIS farmer named Abbott had on his farm about seventy-five acres of barren, sandy soil, entirely devoid of vegetation except for one cottonwood tree. That tree gave him an idea. He planted the entire seventy-five acres to cottonwood, walnut, and locust. Today he has a fine stand of young trees that is causing his farm to increase in value every year.
Harvard University is favored with the ownership of what is called the Arnold Arboretum. This is a farm of 240 acres of hill, valley and meadow in which the students of Harvard may study forestry and botany. In the arboretum are planted trees from every country. The arboretum contains 700 distinct species of the hawthorn, previously supposed to be limited tc> sixteen varieties.
Trees have played their part in love and war. The hanging gardens of Babylon, built by a king to please his queen, is a case in point. A somewhat similar story comes from China where the Great Khan built a hill park for his favorite wife, homesick for mountain scenery. In building this park, the Khan used elephants to carry great trees from their old haunts to the new location. The modern moving of large trees is a business in itself. The famous Duke’s Park, at Somerville, N. J., contains various artifically constructed hills, on top of which have been planted many large trees, moved there in their natural state, by the ingenuity of man and the wealth of a great tobacco magnate.
We conclude with a poem from the pen of Joyce Kilmer:
I think that a shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree: A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed Against the earth’s sweet flowing bl«ast: A tree that looks at God all day And lifts her leafy arms to pray: A tree that may in Summer wear A nest of robins in her hair: Upon whose bosom snow has lain, Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me; But only God can make a tree.
Flotsam and Jetsam
[Radiocast, with other items, from Watchtower WBBR on a wave length of 272.6 meters, by the Editor]
Bisbee, Arizona, Never Recovered
BISBEE, Arizona, has never recovered from her foolishness in loading all the union men of the town on a freight train and dropping them out on the desert of New Mexico. It all looked like a bright thing at the time, but labor has dodged the town ever since and. it has so filled up with cheap Mexican labor as practi-ally to ruin it for business purposes.
A Felt-Wire-Cement Wall
COLUMBIA. University has recently tested a new form of wall, for partitions. It is four and one-half inches thick, made of felt-wire reinforcement, and cement mortar shot into place instead of laid up or poured. The appearance is that of any highly finished wall, the cost is said to be less, as one coat of plaster is saved, and the strength is doubled. The walls are hollow. .
Interior Wiring May Cease
Mr. Bernays Johnson, a radio engineer and inventor, whose home is in the United States, but who is now in France purchasing chemicals for use in connection with his invention, is said to have announced that by a new process it wall not be necessary to bring the electric "wires further than the entrance to any building, the actual illumination taking place by radio, with the lamps capable of being illuminated anywhere within the building. suspension of licenses is being worked out which' it is believed will be one of the greatest deterrents to reckless driving. On the large margins of London drivers’ licenses the police note every infraction of rules; and when the license gets well marked up it is revoked and. the driver is out of a job.
Fishing with a Ferryboat
FISHING with a ferryboat off Staten Island, in New York bay, is a new sport. So far as we know it never worked but once; but it did work the other day when one of the little private ferry boats hit a 400 pound sturgeon, which was later captured and dispatched. This is the largest sturgeon caught in New York waters in a quarter of a century. The fish, sold for $21,8.
I
Street and Highway Safety '
THE Committee on Enforcement of the Na- ■ tional. Conference on Street and Highway
Safety has had its first meeting. Judge McAdoo, the chairman, proposes jail sentences for intoxicated drivers, with severe fines for reckless driving or leaving the scene of an accident without identification. A plan for revocation or
' 681
What War Does to a Mob
WHAT war does to a mob was illustrated in the battle which took place recently in New Waterford, Nova Scotia. Eight hundred miners had been on strike for five months. An attempt was made to reopen the mines with non-union help; fifty policemen protected them. The eight hundred miners, all trained in the World War, marched on the mines, and in a trice captured everything in sight. The police were wounded and either put to flight or thrown into jail. Since then company stores containing goods to the value of $250,000 have been entirely cleaned out.. Troops have been dispatched from Halifax and Toronto.
Mother of Six Shot in Own Yard
A T CAMP DIX, New Jersey, four tanks of the First Tank Company were engaged in manoeuvres practising with machine guns, with the result that Mrs. Archie Sprague, mother of six children, was shot and killed while walking in her own yard. And this is in a time of peace.
Mayor Dylan’s Start in Life
Mayor Hylan was born on a farm and came to New York with $1.50 in his pocket. His first job was laying rails in the Brooklyn elevated ; subsequently he became a fireman on the same system. Against tremendous pressure he has succeeded in keeping subway fares down to a nickel. He is popularly considered the best mayor New York ever had.
Girls Administer Nyack’s Affairs
TpOLLOWING the excellent custom set in several cities of letting the boys serve for one day each year as Mayor, Chief of Police, and in other important executive positions, Nyack, New York, has given the girls a chance. For a whole week the girls managed banks, trust companies, the hospital, public library and other' institutions of the city.
Rum Row Moves to Boston
DISPATCHES from Boston state that Rum A-J Row, driven from the vicinity of New York, is now stationed twenty-two miles off shore from Boston and that three destroyers and a seaplane have been requisitioned to encourage the Row to keep on moving.
Bad Liquor Causes Insanity
A NY intoxicated man is temporarily insane, there comes a time, with certain types of minds, when the temporary insanity becomes permanent. The worse the liquor the greater the danger of permanency. Since prohibition went into effect the number of cases of alcoholic insanity in New York state has increased over threefold, numbering from 122 to 375 cases last year.
Elizabeth City’s War Monument
FOR ages monuments have been erected to war heroes. The martial figure, weapons in hand, is to be seen in every large community. Elizabeth City, North Carolina, proposed a monument to the first boy from that section who fell in the World War; and the veterans in that community have startled everybody by asking that the monument take the form of a grim skeleton, pointing out to future generations the horrors and folly of armed conflict between men. Lions will not kill lions; tigers will not kill tigers; hyenas will not kill hyenas. So why should men kill men’
A New Use for Fountains
Mayor Hylax, of New York, never forgets that he was one of the common people, and hence takes a most sympathetic interest in the boys and girls who live in the homes where the heat is felt the most on account of overcrowding. lie has given orders that the street showers are to play all summer and that the police are not to interfere when in the hottest weather the boys take dips in the pools and fountains in the parks.
Heat Causes Disappearances
IN THE early part of June the weather in New York city was extremely hot, with the odd result that on June 11th the greatest number of disappearances was recorded of any one day in the history of the Bureau of Missing Persons, sixty-three persons, all told. Twenty of these were found dead with the heat; twenty-three were boys and girls under sixteen years of age. The second week of July bore similar fruit.
Evidences of Humanity’s Degeneracy
np WO boys, one six and one eight years of age, threw a nineteen months old baby into a Massachusetts stream, drowned it, and then threw stones at its little body when it came to the surface. A gang of boys eight to fourteen years of age in Wichita, Kansas, was found to be a well-organized burglary company. A six foot World War veteran, in Los Angeles, went to the police and asked to be locked up because of the overmastering desire to kill, which had been trained into him during the war. He did not hate anybody; he merely wanted to wound, maim and slay for the thrill of it, and to see human blood flow as it did during the great conflict. ,
A New Form of War
"D ROOK, Indiana, a town of 1200 people, was ■*-* visited early one morning recently by ten men who cut all telephone and telegraph wires, smashed the doors of the Brook State Bank, opened the bank vault with a blast of nitroglycerine that shook the whole town, cleaned out its contents and then escaped. What is this but a new form of war'?
Wipes Out Nine Square Miles
FTTHE New York American says that there are already in existence gas bombs of a type such as when manufactured in large size for carrying by one of the new weight lifting planes, and dropped in the heart of any big city, would liberate an amount of low-lying poison gas sufficient to cause death over an area of nine square miles.
Weehawken’s Bootleg Ring
WEEHAWKEN’S alleged bootleg ring is up for another trial. The members of the ring were Weehawken’s police force; the captain of the ring was the Commissioner of Police. Nine of the twelve defendants are members of St. Lawrence’s Roman Catholic Church of Weehawken, N. J. Father Bennett, rector of the church, is a star witness for the state, but has asked his congregation to pray for acquittal of the men. Judge Charles Egan presides at the trial.
• The Fatal Mule Kick
IN THE year 1923 in the coal mines of the
United States ten men lost their lives as a result of kicks by mules; many more were seriously injured by the same means. There are five thousand coal mines in the United States in which mules are used for bringing the coal to the surface. These mines comprise about
seventy percent of the coal tonnage of country.
■ Lost Use of Left Arm By Vaccination
Alexander Karely, formerly aviator in French army, and now resident in
the
the the
United States, has just been awarded $10,000 damages in the Superior Court of White Plains, N. Y., in an action against the Cunard Line. Karely alleged that he had lost the use of his left arm through vaccination enforced upon him by physicians of the shipping company before he rvas permitted to sail from Cherbourg in 1920.
Peculiar Tragedy in Mexico
MEXICO has been the scene of an unusually distressing tragedy. Bandits had been ravaging the neighborhood of Chilmatlan. An armed band of farmers went out to look for them; at about the same time a band of soldiers was also sent out on the same errand. The two bands, each mistaking the other for the bandits, opened fire on each other; and after a two-hour battle seventeen were killed, while the bandits escaped uninjured.
Radio Aid to Explorers '
Captain A. AV. Stevens, United States army air service photographer, connected with the Hamilton Rice expedition in South America, has returned to America after nine months service with the expedition. He reports that at all times the expedition was in contact by radio with New York, San Francisco, New Zealand and London.
Gives Eleven Gallons of Blood
Mr. B. AV. Tibble, of London, England, has on forty-five different occasions given a ■ pint of blood, for transfusion to patients in the London Hospital. The usual fee is five guineas, twenty-five dollars, but Tibble has always refused to receive any pay for his services. He ‘ has been made a life governor of the hospital and been honored with an Order by the king.
Banker Reports Hungary Sound
Tj ARON ; Jules de Madarassy-Beck, one of
Hungary's bankers and industrial leaders, on a three weeks visit to the United States, declares that Hungary is now in a better position than at any time' since the war. He claims that Hungary has only 30,000 men in the army, has no thoughts of war, and no desire for or interest in communism. -
Serious Earthquake in China ■
TpIVE thousand persons lost their lives when the almost' inaccessible city of Talifu, China, was destroyed by an earthquake early this Spring. It took many weeks for news of the disaster to reach Peking. Flames followed the earthquake, and only a few houses in the city escaped destruction. Hundreds were entrapped by the flames. .
Babies Work New Jersey Farms ■
NEW JERSEY’S State Director of Employment, on a tour of the truck farms of southern New Jersey, begun on May 20th, reported that on the farms which he visited ten percent of the children working in the fields were under ten years of age. The New Jersey law requires that until sixteen years old these children should be in school. It is alleged that the little folks are brought into New Jersey by padrones who have their headquarters in Philadelphia.
Hard Times in Clothing Industry
THE cloak, suit and skirt industry of New York has been having hard going of late.
Times are not so good, and people are wearing their old things rather than buying new. As a result the unemployment insurance fund of the workers is now being drawn upon to prevent total loss of income. The fund provides $10 a week for not more than twelve weeks in a year, and is made up during busy periods, one-third by workers and two-thirds by employers. .
Easton Trousers Last 41 Years
AMAN in Washington, N. J., now 74 years of age, boasts that when he was a young man of 33 years of age he bought a pair of trousers in Easton, Pa., and has used them for his best trousers regularly every Sunday from that time to this. The next time you want anything good go to Easton for it. ■
Alberta’s Sunflower Crop
Alberta has added a new crop to her list, that of raising sunflowers for silage. Last year she raised 160,650 tons for cattle feeding, and the Alberta dairy industry is coming to be of great importance. England offers to buy all her surplus butter for a long time to come.
Murder Committed in an Airplane
THE New York Times contains reports of a diamond merchant slain by his private secretary while in the air, in Austria. The body was thrown overboard and subsequently the airplane was destroyed. The secretary is said to have escaped with the diamonds, valued at 2,000,000 francs, and is believed to have slain the pilot also to avoid sharing the proceeds of the robbery.
A Shipload of Ivory Soap
THE Proctor and Gamble Company, manufacturers of Ivory Soap, have just distinguished themselves by buying a shipload of whale oil, 19,000 barrels, recently brought into New York by a Norwegian ship that caught and killed three hundred whales in the Antarctic during the past eight and one-half months. After a visit to Norway the ship will go back for more soap.
Czech Sets an Extraordinary Example
Peter Butko, a Czecho-Slovakian, landed penniless in Philadelphia two years ago, not able to speak English. This Spring he was graduated with honors from Pennsylvania State College, receiving the degree of Master of Science in Animal Husbandry. This was accomplished by sheer industry and self-sacrifice. In this time Butko has averaged less than three hours sleep a night. He was a graduate of an agricultural college in Czecho-Slovakia.
“The War to End War”
Under the heading “Consequences of the Wai to end Wars” the Saskatoon Western Producer comments on the invention by Sir Robert Hadfield of Sheffield, England, of a new 16-ineh shell which will crash its way through the thickest and toughest armor plate yet applied to battleships and thereafter explode its hundreds of pounds of high explosive bursting charge. Now all that is needed is a war in which to try it out. No doubt the munition makers will arrange that little detail.
Raising Potatoes and Selling Them
IT IS one thing to raise potatoes and another thing to sell them. In the Red River Valley of Minnesota, in 1923 the farmers received thirty-five cents a hundred pounds for potatoes. It was found that these potatoes were sold in Salina, Kansas; and some interesting things were discovered.
The freight from where the potatoes were raised to Salina was fifty-five cents a hundred. The farmer got thirty-five cents, the railroads fifty-five cents. Out of the thirty-five cents the farmer paid his taxes and his help, and supported his family. Out of the fifty-five cents the railroads had to pay wages, carrying charges and profits. The totals paid to the farmer and the railroads were ninety cents.
But the potatoes actually sold at wholesale in Salina for $1.50, and the retail price was still higher. In other words the wholesalers took a profit of 60 cents per bushel, which was almost twice what the farmer received. No fair-minded person can believe that there is anything fair in such a division.
The Purgatory Scheme Hopelessly Outclassed
A CANVASSER recently learned of a unique method for ushering one into the heavenly host, as developed by the pastor of a church in a Colorado town.
A prominent townsman, who could not be persuaded to make any pretense of religion, 'died recently “without benefit of clergy”. On the Sunday following, this pastor put to a vote of his congregation a proposition to elect the By F. M. Robinson deceased a member of the church, which proposal carried.
Feeling possibly that this vote was not sufficiently authoritative, the pastor put the same proposal to a vote of the audience at the funeral, and it again carried. .
Thus the man was catapulted into eternal bliss, regardless of his personal wishes. This is a long step forward from praying one out of purgatory, and is much cheaper.
Items of Interest from Our Canadian Correspondent
Transportation problems, both on sea and. land, are receiving much attention at the present time, the Petersen subsidy and Crow’s Nest Rate agreement taking up time in the Ottawa legislature, and the tentative proposals for C. P. R. and C. N. R. cooperation taking up the time and attention of the directorates of these two Canadian roads.
The latter is a proposition which, with proper development might do much to help the shipper. Amalgamation of the two roads is urged in some quarters, and some interesting figures are produced to show great potential savings. In the legislature, for instance, the Saskatoon Western Producer, reports:
“Mr. Euler again endorsed Mr. MacLean’s scheme for the amalgamation of the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railways. He urged that this would enable the Government to reduce taxation by nearly one-third, that it would stimulate trade and lower the cost of living and at once solve our ocean freight rate problem and, greatest of all, that it would lead to the extinction of our enormous public debt. Some figures are worth reporting. The investment in road and equipment of the Canadian National is about $1,837,000,000, the total assets about $2,074,000,000, loans from the Government amount to $560,397,957.64. The intereston these loans amounted last year to $31,000,000; the debt to the public of Canada, not the Government but outside bond-holders, is $913,9'13,082.80, involving fixed charges of interest of $38,361,704.14. That is a total, in round numbers, of fixed charges on the Canadian National Railway of $69,000,000., Deducting the operating revenue of $17,000,000, we have a net deficit of $52,000,000. .
“Mr. Euler showed the duplication and competition that existed between the Canadian National and the Canadian Pacific, and stated that he had it on the highest possible authority that if the two roads could be amalgamated there would be saved the colossal sum of $100,000,000 a year.”
On the contrary, Mr. E. W. Beatty, President of the Canadian Pacific Railway, does not see such great savings. As reported, in. the Moose Jaw Evening Times:
“A dressing the shareholders of the Canadian Pacific Railway at the annual meeting here this afternoon, E.W. Beatty, President of the Company, declared that although the Canadian Pacific was in favor of a cooperative policy which would eliminate as far as possible duplicate train services on the lines of that railway system, and of the Canadian National Railways, such a policy was not sufficient to constitute a solution of Canada’s railway difficulties.
, “This, he said, was the only proposal that had. been discussed between the Canadian Pacific and the Domin-< ion Government, and no situation had arisen which should give the shareholders of the company any reason To believe that their interests would be adversely affected in finding a solution to Canada’s problems as regards the Canadian National Railways’.”
That even a more efficient operation of the Canadian National Railway has not produced a solution of the problems of railway management by Government ownership is shown in the following culled from the Montreal Weekly Star:
“How many Canadians try to realize what is implied in the statement made a few days ago by the Minister of Railways, that the railway debt of the Dominion had increased by $116,292,696 in 1923, by $59,621,818 in 1922 and by $133,192,254 in 1921?
“Year after year we are assured in Parliament that operating expenses are reduced or that profit has been earned by railway operations; and yet all the time, by bond issues to cover deficiencies, our debt is increasing to mountainous proportions!
“Budget speeches tell us absolutely nothing of the true financial position of the country, but are evidently framed for effect upon the destiny of the political party in power at the moment.
“Of course the enormous interest charges upon these bonds have to be met. It would be bad enough if we had to pay them out of the taxes. But the misery of it all is that we axe not meeting these interest charges out of the country’s revenue, but by issuing further bonds adding to our interest-bearing debts! What mercantile concern could go on doing business that way ? Last year’s interest charges came to over $65,000,000. That, presumably, or the greater part of it, will also be added to our funded debt!
“Yet there are those who pretend that the country is prospering, and doing so well that it can afford to run into further indebtedness. The undoubted fact is that at present our richly endowed though sparsely settled country is not paying its way, in spite of the taxation which is crippling trade and of the money spent outside in luxuries.
“We are running deeper and deeper into debt and our politicians with their party cries are so beclouding the issue that the bulk of our population is asleep to the fact.
“WJiat, one wonders, will be the effect of an awakening? Or which way shall we turn when settling time comes, and our credit can be extended no further? That time must come, sooner or later!”
The Hamilton Herald reports the frantic police investigation into the recent burglary of the Duro Manufacturing Company of that city, when desks were systematically ransacked and $1.50 in cash and a number of metal slugs were
stolen. A police detective, after following up certain clues that might have evaded the eagle eye of Sherlock Holmes himself, trailed the bold bad burglar to his lair and caught him red-handed in his mother’s kitchen! He was six years old. Later a five-year-old was picked up and held as a “vag’” after five days absence from home. The police inspector sees dark days ahead for the “forces”. “Pretty soon they will toddle into police court and put their baby milk bottles on the table as they plead to arson, dynamiting and murder. We’ll have to have a nurse as well as a matron,” he added in despair.
Canada’s northern garden of Eden is to be explored. In northwest British Columbia a subtropical region of valleys has been found which the discoverer says is always warm, watered by rivers of warm water and producing immense ferns, rosebushes as thick as a man’s wrist and of great height, willow trees three feet thick. Animals are fat and tame and increase enormously, owing to the all year round warm climate and lush growth of grasses on which they feed. The Vancouver Daily Province, reports that the discoverer of the region, Mr. George Perry, and Mr. George Platzer, who is financing the expedition, are leaving Vancouver by airplane to examine the ground thoroughly.
The Vancouver Morning Su-n, under the title “America’s Food Drunks”, editorially quotes the famous American, Chauncey Depew, on the subject of eating:
“Drinking was never really the curse of America. Eating was and is. Ninety-nine out of every hundred Americans go to the cemetery from twenty-five to fifty years before their allotted time because of gluttonous eating. Longevity is largely a matter of curbing appetites until temperance and moderation become habits.”
The Sun’s editor then comments:
“Millions of people on this continent are food drunk. They have gorged themselves until their insides are producing chemicals infinitely more poisonous than pure grain alcohol. Chauncey Depew is not a theorist; for sixty years he was a glutton himself. Then he realized that if he wanted to live longer he would have to eat sensibly, and that idea has worked for thirty-one years. Today he says he enjoys life to the full.”
Not in decades has there been such a concentration of public opinion on the need for more sensible eating habits, and slowly but surely the people are learning the value of foodstuffs.
A peculiar situation has developed in Ontario over a notorious bootlegger, Cecil R. Smith, engaged in the illicit booze-running business to United States points, who has resisted an assessment of his $100,000 income for tax purposes on the grounds that as his business is not recognized as legal it is not assessable for taxation.
In the Exchequer Court his defense was rejected ; but in the Supreme Court, to which he appealed, his defense was sustained. Mr. Justice Mignault rendered a considered judgment which shows the devious reasoning of the legal mind as against the judgment of honest common sense. As reported in the Toronto Sentinel, he said:
“If the gains derived from crime are within the contemplation of the statute, then the expense incurred in making the gains, that is in the employment of criminal a*ents, would be chargeable as reductions against them, and as to all information furnished by the wrongdoer, there would be a promise of secrecy for his protection.”
“Truly,” comments the Sentinel, “in Canada the wicked flourish like the green bay tree.”
When “justice is laid to the line and righteousness to the plummet” the legal aspect of things will have its corkscrew twists straightened out and pure justice will replace the application of law.
The coal war in Nova Scotia is still on. A dispatch from Sydney, N. S., intimates that three hundred mines are now closed down, 70,-000 men idle and more mines closing all the time. The war entered its second stage recently when picketing was commenced, and officials driven from pump houses, pumps and fans shut down and mines allowed to fill with water and gas.
For this fifteen ringleaders were arrested and lodged in jail. The next logical move will be acts of actual sabotage, probably (as has been proven in many similar cases) done by thugs hired by the Coal Companies and charged to the strikers, the calling in of militia to defend property, the militia fired on by other hired thugs, and a state of martial law declared. Then comes the last act of the tragedy, wholesale arrests, shutting down of all relief, starvation of the intimidated workers, eviction of the people, employment of alien labor and forcible smashing- of the strike.
Significance of the Recent American Earthquakes
NEW YORK’S great skyscrapers were , swayed, and the city’s congested population was much alarmed when on the last day of February the northeastern corner of the United States, covering a territory of 1,000 miles, including Washington, D. C., was visited with earth tremors said to have been the most severe in the memory of Easterners. The tremors began at 9:21 p. m., and continued until 10:30. The center of disturbance was about 500 miles from the Federal City. Northern Maine experienced the most severe shock. The quake was felt at Dayton, Detroit' and Chicago, and as far north as Montreal. No casualties were reported, but electric lights and means of communication suffered.
In Washington, the District Building and many other downtown structures were shaken slightly, but escaped serious injury; but in nearby sections the quake was sufficiently violent to rock chairs and disturb pictures on the walls of residences. At Georgetown University, Washington, D. C., the experts declared that the seismograph had recorded only one shock of equal severity in the past, the needle being completely thrown off the scale,sheet twice during the registration. The other similar occurrence was several years ago, during the great earthquake in Turkestan. The machine recorded "violent vertical actions”, and the registrations were in an “East-to-West” component. The seismograph in Washington is the most sensitive of its kind in the world.
In New York city, where the skyscrapers swayed perceptibly, the quakes were so apparent that they were misunderstood as terrific explosions. Two distinct tremors were felt. The first lasted five seconds. It seemed that the buildings gently swayed back and forth. A moment later came a second quake, shorter in duration. The seismograph in New York’s Museum of Natural History literally danced.
In Montreal, hundreds fled from their homes, telephone exchanges were put out of commission, and pleasure-seekers in dance halls and cabarets were panic-stricken when the walls -trembled and floors shook. At Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N. Y., a panic was narrowly averted in the crowded auditorium. In Cleveland, buildings rocked and tenants fled into the streets. Residents of Buffalo, Philadelphia and Boston noticed the tremors, which were less
By J. L. Bolling
severe than in New York city and Cleveland. Mount Vernon and Haverstraw, N. Y., "waved gently as in a breeze.” Other small towns reported tremors. Filaments of light-bulbs in many homes were broken.
Broadcasting stations in the East were overwhelmed with requests for announcements on the air regarding the quake. Police were called out to quiet the Italian section of Jersey City. Over 2000 people rushed from a theatre in Bloomfield, N. J., thinking that it was another munitions explosion. A large theatre in Syracuse, N. Y., was emptied, the quake there being quite severe; andheroic measures were necessary to quell the fears of the crowd. Rochester, N. Y., was shaken, and buildings rocked in the nearby town of Irondequoit. Tall buildings in. Canton, Ohio, trembled, and night workers rushed into the streets in fear. Pittsburgh was alarmed in like manner. The telephone exchange building at Titusville, Pa., was hurriedly vacated, and communication with Jamestown, N. Y. was severed. Guests in the upper stories of hotels in Atlantic City were frightened. Reading, Pa., was shaken. In Detroit, in police headquarters, the clocks stopped. South Bend, Ind., felt the earth tremor, and there was much alarm in the business section.
Some authorities believe that this quake was actually a gigantic "slip” in the ocean bed, about 500 miles off the North American coast; for the more violent shocks were felt in the extreme northeastern part of the United States, along the Atlantic coastline.
Symbolic Earthquake Imminent
IT IS a very significant fact, overlooked by the press, that this earthquake affected only the area embraced by the recent eclipse of the sun. This may be taken as symbolic of two things: First, the darkening of the sun immediately prior to the shaking of the physical earth aptly illustrates and calls attention to the fact that the American nation collectively is in the dark concerning the meaning of the signs of the times,, that it is groping in darkness brought on by the beclouding of the sunlight of Gospel truth by so-called higher critics. The darkness of infidelity has invaded the minds of the people, blinding them, to the glorious things in store for them.
Second, the quaking of the earth signifies that
'AmRrican institutions, manned for the most part by those who have accepted the evolutionary teachings, and who have ceased to trust in God or look for His guidance, are about to be overthrown in the coming “earthquake” or social revolution predicted in Scripture. The greatest contributing cause of its overthrow will be loss of faith in God, selfishness, egotism and pride. ‘Everything ■will be shaken which can be shaken’ is the substance of the Scriptural warning in this connection. ,
“And there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.” (Revelation 16:18) The earth is getting ready for a great symbolic earthquake, a quake which will shake society to the foundations. This may be preceded by a universal earthquake, literal in character. It is to be remembered that symbolical scriptures often have a literal fulfilment also.
The quake above recorded was probably a culmination of numerous slight seismic disturbances which have been noted in press dispatches at frequent intervals ever since the Japanese catastrophe of 1923. Yet, in a relative sense, they constitute but the premonitory click of the divinely-provided alarm clock, apprizing earth’s inhabitants of an unparalleled disturbance about to take place in the earth’s crust, which will further prepare the planet for man’s eternal abode.
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