Golden Age, March 24, 1926
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Contents of the Golden Age
Labor and Economics
Hebe and There the Wobi.d Over
Sound Sense from Wilkesbarre . .
Britain Marvels at American Industry .......... 392
Social and Educational
Some Troubles of High Society
Our Foreign Language Newspapers
Educational Progress in Eastern Kentucky .
Radio Programs
Finance—Commerce—Transportation
What Interest Really Means
Automobiles by the Million
Salesmanship As a Civilizer
Political—Domestic and Foreign
Ambassador Moore Admires Spain ......
Scenes Shift in Rome ...
Worthy Regime Caught Counterfeiting . ... ._
Another Dictator Now Appears .....
Achievements of .Tews in Palestine
Ford Planes Will Carry Mail ...
The Darkest Cloud on the Horizon
From a Subscriber in Hongkong
Agriculture and Husbandry Sea Gulls in Colorado ......
Science and Invention Negative Gravitation
Home and Health Death ,After Vaccination
Right Foods .
Travel and Miscellany Some Items on Archeology-
Impressions of the Province of Quebec
Religion and Philosophy Prayer ... .............. .......
Pray Without Ceasing (Poem) ...
Studies from “The Harp of God”
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oiw Golden Age
Volume VII Brooklyn, N.Y., Wednesday, March 24, 1926 Number 179
Some Items on Archaeology
AT THE risk of inviting criticism from some of our readers who know more about this subject than we do, we venture the presentation of some data on archaeology which we believe will be of interest to many. The investigation of past civilizations is fascinating, but the current press comments on such subjects are often so sensational and misleading that in the effort to pick out the truth one is liable to go astray.
The true archasologist arrives at his conclusions slowly. Of interest to him are the remains of art, architecture, monuments, inscriptions, literature, language, implements, customs, traditions and anything that will throw light upon the past. Every archaeological "find” is valuable and has some relation to every other such find and to the sum total of human knowledge, but its value cannot be appraised too easily or too quickly.
The modern achievements in archaeology were largely based upon the discovery in 1799, near Rosetta, Egypt, of what is called the Rosetta Stone. For centuries scholars had been trying to decipher the hieroglyphics of Egypt but had been unable to master the alphabet. But on the Rosetta Stone, brought to light by one of Napoleon’s engineers while engaged in excavating the foundation for a fortification, was found a Greek translation of an hieroglyph which proved to be the key that unlocked the language and history of ancient Egypt. Hence we begin our archaeological story in Egypt.
The Finding of Tut-ankh-amen
VERYBODY has heard of the finding of Tut-ankh-amen, the most celebrated archaeological item of recent years; perhaps more celebrated than really important. There is some reason to suspect that the annual publicity attending this matter for the past three years has had as its partial object the attracting of tourists to Egypt.,
The Egyptians of Tut-ankh-amen’s time were heathen, of course, and held to the heathen belief that every man has a second self, a Ka, or soul, or spirit, created within him, which at his death is free to wander at will. And because a Ka might continue to get hungry, and must have a place to live, the Egyptians of Tut-ankh-amen’s time embalmed some food for him and also put up some pictures of the dead at the entrance of the tomb, so that the Ka would not go wandering around over the earth and not know who he was or where he belonged.
All this is very foolish, of course; almost as foolish as some of the immortal soul and hellfire prattle that our own ancestors of the dark ages and more recent times have amused themselves with; but in each case it was the best they knew. It merely illustrated the power of Satan and his friends to deceive and blind the minds of men—work in which they are adepts.
Not to speak too lightly of what is strictly a grave subject, it is said on good authority that those who tasted some of the embalmed beef that had been laid in Tut’s tomb did not find it very palatable. It was in an excellent state of preservation, but neither the embalming fluid nor age had improved its flavor; and if Tut’s Ka enjoyed it he must have had a perverted appetite.
Shortly after the discovery of Tut’s tomb, one of the discoverers, Lord Carnarvon, died from an insect’s bite; and superstition was rife for a time, even among some scientists, that Tut’s Ka or ghost had gotten busy and finished him. Lord Carnarvon had been engaged in archaeological work in the Valley of the Kings for sixteen years before his death.
It took three seasons to reach the body of King Tut who, by the way, was but a child when he died; and even before the body was found a dull silk season was turned into an exceedingly profitable one—Egyptian silks suddenly becoming the rage everywhere. When Tut’s solid gold burial case was finally reached it was found to be so heavy that it required eight men to lift it. Though uncovered months ago, it was not actually transported to the Museum at Cairo until late in January of this year. It is the most elaborate burial case known to archaeology.
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The wealth of bracelets, jewel-covered clothes and the contents of royal jewel chests sewed into the mummy’s clothing left the excavators and spectators blase as these objects were taken out hour after hour by the handful. It is said that any one of these articles would in the past have been regarded as the gem of any national collection. The mummy wore sandals of pure gold and had golden stalls on all the finger and toe nails. Gold stars were placed to mark the heart and lungs. King Tut was' a lad about fifteen years old at the time of his death.
Hopes of a Future Life
HE ancient Egyptians had a very real hope of a future life, and in it we can see some principles of truth even though most of it was error. They expected that at some future date the Ka or soul would return to the body and bring about a second life, this time everlasting. It was for this reason that they so carefully preserved the bodies of their dead, so that the Ka might have a place to come. The word mummy is derived from a wTord meaning '‘pitch”, a substance much used today in the embalming of people of the middle class. In the middle ages pieces of mummy were used as medicine.
The Egyptians seemed to think either that the average Ka would forget much of what he once knew, or else that a Ka is not so bright as he ought to be; because it was the custom to place in the tomb with the mummy such playthings as miniature granaries, gardens, stables, breweries, slaughter houses, carpenter shops and other adjuncts of life. Perhaps this was done so that the restored man would have some patterns and tools at hand and know how to go about things when the time came to live again. Puppets were also buried with these articles, shown in the act of performing various household arts and duties in the fields and on the water; the idea evidently being that by studying these the returned Ka could get a line on what he was expected to do in order to make a living.
Moreover, a Ka was supposed to need a little assistance in getting about on his spiritual journeys; hence, in at least one tomb there was found a sun ship, embellished with gold and jewels, in which a certain queen was expected to make her trips through the heavens. What a shock it will be to that lady Ka when some time she comes to look for her sun ship where it was left in the Egyptian sands, and finds that some inconsiderate soul has lugged it off to a museum, w’here perhaps she may have to pay a quarter to get even a look at it again I
Leptis Magna, Carthage, Utica
NOTHER recent and most interesting archaeological discovery in northern Africa was the uncovering, two years ago by Italian explorers and scientists, of the city of Leptis Magna, where it has lain buried beneath the sands and the waters of the Mediterranean for two thousand years. This city was the birthplace of the Roman emperor Septimius Severus, and at one time had 300,000 inhabitants..
The city is, in places, forty to fifty feet beneath the sands, so that its recovery will take a long time; but enough has already been brought to light to reveal the fact that Leptis Magna was an imperial city of great distinction. Perhaps 200 pillars of the size of those in the Parthenon will be found intact. Some have already been uncovered.
There are marble quays, a lighthouse, baths of marble and stone, and large pipes still intact which carried hot water to the steam rooms; also floors of decorated tile and flagstone, carved ornaments, statuary, stone settees, benches and tables galore.
The findings at Carthage suggest the thought that the Romans were justified in wiping out the city. This is not because the Carthaginians were the most luxurious people of antiquity, but because they were the most bloody and barbaric. No one specially resents the discoveries that the Carthaginians used rouge and face powder, lip sticks, pencils for darkening the eyebrows, bronze mirrors, perfumery, beads, hairpins, bracelets, necklaces, razors, spectacles and nail-scissors, also organs and infants’ hand-painted feeding bottles; for all these discoveries sound as though they might have been made in
Boston or New York or Chicago or Los Angeles.
But the thing that arouses the antipathy of mankind against the ancient Carthaginians is that they allowed themselves to be bulldozed by their priests into believing that they could escape eternal torture for themselves by torturing their children. The archaeologists have found hundreds of urns containing the remains of babies that were burned to death at the command of these pagan priests.
More cruel even than the death by fire was the placing of the nuns or ‘'brides of the church” on luxurious cushions laid in the lap of Baal, after which the priests would depart, seal the great stone doors behind them, and then turn lions loose to roam the temple floor. The terror-stricken nuns could then either remain on the cushions and slowly starve to death or choose the quicker method of casting themselves to the hungry beasts below. In heathen customs like these originated the devilish doctrines of purgatory and hell fire which are taught even today.
The findings at Utica were much like those at Carthage, except that at Utica there was found a quantity of clay pipes which needed only stems to make them ready for use. Some of them were new, having never been used, while others had already been smoked, the interiors being blackened by fire. Utica was a center for the manufacture of pottery.
Recent Finds in Palestine
THE whole world is now being combed by archa;ological expeditions as never before. Among the places to which special attention is being given is Palestine, where every year and almost every month fresh proof as to the authenticity of the Bible is being added. In adjacent countries the name Abram has been found upon contract tablets of his time and in his old home town. On the walls of the temple of Karnak, Egypt, King Shishak, contemporary of Solomon’s son, Behoboam, recorded the names of the towns captured by him in Judah as told in the Bible.—1 Kings 14: 25, 26.
In Palestine itself, at the eastern end of the valley of Jezreel, overlooking the valley of the Jordan, excavators have recently uncovered the House of Ashtaroth, mentioned in the Old Testament, the very building in which the victorious Philistines hung the armor of King Saul
after his death. The Biblical name of the place was Beth-Shan. Its present name is Beisan. Names of towns in Palestine have changed but little in 4,000 years. . '
Archaeologists succeeded in opening the tomb of Absalom about a year ago, and in doing so found another tomb which is believed to be that of King Jehoshaphat, but they were unable to continue their explorations because of the threatening attitude of the natives, who did not wish the tombs disturbed. Orthodox Jews spit at the tomb of Absalom when they pass it, in memory of his hateful treatment of his father David.
It is claimed that evidence is now at hand that the time Mount Zion is Mount Ophel, in the southeastern part of Jerusalem, and that millions of Jews, Mohammedans and Christians have been turning their faces in the wrong direction. It is thought that the tombs of both David and Solomon may yet be found in this quarter.
A recent discovery in Jerusalem was the burial place of Antiochus, first cousin of Herod the Great, probably one of the men charged with the slaughter of the babes at Bethlehem.
At present there are hundreds of workmen engaged in archaeological excavations in Palestine. Their work is often confined to a single location for months or years, because the ruins of one generation constituted the building materials of the next. It is claimed that in one place in Palestine there are evidences of about 150 thicknesses of relics of human habitation.
Palestine was a favorite warring ground of Egyptians, Babylonians, Crusaders and Turks. The central point of these battles was the small transverse ridge cutting across the valleys and ranges and forming a natural barrier between Asia and Africa. This barrier was named by the Hebrews Megiddo, or Battle of the Mountain, and by the Greeks Armageddon, meaning the same thing. When General Allenby took Palestine away from the Turks, he did it by seizing this ridge. A literal battle of Armageddon was fought there in the summer of 1918. The fortresses which have crowned the heights of Armageddon are at present the subject of a five-year archaeological expedition financed by John D. Rockefeller and supervised by Prof. C. S. Fisher, formerly of the University af Pennsylvania, as field director.
Digging Up Abrahams Home Town .
TT IS now about twenty-five years since the
University of Pennsylvania began work in Mesopotamia. Years ago they located Abraham’s old town, Ur of the Chaldees, and even found his name on some of the tablets unearthed there. At present Ur’s Ziggurat or Tower of Babel is being unearthed.
Every important town in Mesopotamia in Abraham's time had its city Avails and in the center of the city its Ziggurat, or staged tower, or Tower of Babel, to which the natives hoped to flee in case they saw the flood of Noah’s day returning. It should be remembered that Shem, the son of Noah, was contemporaneous with Abraham, in fact he outlived Abraham by twenty-three years; and the recollection of the devastation wrought by the flood would still be prominent in the minds of all. No doubt Noah was personally acquainted with Terah, the father of Abraham, as they lived contemporaneously for 128 years. Noah, in fact, died only two years before Abraham was born.
The account in Genesis, where it says of the builders of the towers of Babel that “they had brick for stone and slime had they for mortar”, agrees with the facts. There is no stone in Mesopotamia, The use of brick is universal. The men of Abraham’s time were familiar with and made use of the principle of the bricklayer’s arch. They also had ruled ledgers for keeping accounts.
At Kish, once the capital of Mesopotamia, was found the oldest known pen. It is a bone six inches long, with a triangular section and pared ends. After a little practice, one of the archg'oiogists was able to use it in making cuneiform inscriptions on clay with considerable rapidity. One find of special value was an ancient museum, supposed to have been the property of the daughter of the last king of Babylon. She did not know when she gathered together the materials for her museum how interesting they would he for people living twenty-live hundred years after.
It is said that one hall of the palace of the kings of Kish was 700 feet long. A stairway was found which is believed to be the oldest in existence. In an adjoining room the decorations consisted of inlaid slate panels, showing the habits and customs of the people. They employed the arts of writing, metallurgy, glazing, engraving and brickmaking. There are traces here and there of an elaborate irrigation system.
The ruins of this palace cover a ground area of about three acres. It is one of the most mag-nificant specimens of architecture that has yet been excavated in any land. When we read of the work done by the ancients we find ourselves wondering how our friends who hold to the evolution theory explain the existence of these ruins. But perhaps our friends do not know of them.
Elsewhere in Asia Minor
ONE of the most interesting of recent archeological discoveries is the finding of records of the Hittites, several times mentioned in the Bible but at one time thought by some scholars to have been an insignificant people. They are now known to have been a mighty race. From the study of the cuneiform characters engraved by ancient scribes on the clay tablets which formed the official archives of that nation, their language has now been recovered. The recovery of the Hittite language revealed the common origin of the Sanscrit of India, the Persian, Greek, Teutonic, Latin, Celtic, Slavic and other tongues. Eleven thousand Hittite tablets have been recovered.
A hundred years ago the ancient city of Troy ■was a myth. Now the city has been dug to its foundations. References to the siege of Troy have been found in the eleven thousand Hittite tablets above mentioned.
It was an American archaeologist who excavated the ancient city of Sardis. Among the more than two thousand objects excavated were coins of Croesus, minted 600 B. C. The whole American find has been stolen and shipped away. Antique shops in various parts of the world are being watched for their appearance.
At Ephesus has been found the tomb of St. Luke, and here also St. John is said to have been buried. Scientists are now hunting in Ephesus to see what can be recovered that will throw light upon the Amazons who ruled the city hundreds of years before Alexander the Great was born. The temple of Diana, in Ephesus, designed by the architect Dinocrates, was 400 feet long, 200 feet wide, with 128 pillars each 60 feet high. It required 120 years to build that temple. Though destroyed by the Goths in 262 A. D., parts of it are still in existence.
Here and There the World Over
Ambassador Moore Admires Spain
lexander P. Moore, ex-ambassador to Spain, has a very high opinion of that country. He reports having heard of only one murder there in three years, and very few robberies. He finds the people hard working and law-abiding, and thinks the country the safest and best for travelers. to visit. He has also a high opinion of de Rivera and Alfonso. The country is far behind the times as represented in other European civilizations.
The Kaiser Against Jehovah
HE newspapers have headlines saying that the Kaiser is against Jehovah. Of course
he is, and always was. The fact that he is a D. D. does not change the matter. But the Kaiser is wrong when he says that Christ never mentioned Jehovah. When Christ quoted to the Devil “Thou shall worship the Lord thy God” he quoted from a passage in the Old Testament •which reads in the Hebrew. "Jehovah thy God.” The Kaiser is a poor Bible student, as are many other I). D.’s.
Scenes Shift in Rome
JIE city of 'Rome has been given a new form of government. The city passes directly
trying to revive the custom. The Prince that is chiefly implicated in the Hungarian counterfeiting was one of those chiefly responsible for the troubles caused Count and Countess Karolyi in their efforts to enter the United States. It was this same bird, a relative of the Szechenyis and the Vanderbilts, that personally introduced the bill in Parliament confiscating the estates of Count Karolyi and making it imposible for him to return to Hungary. But why he should wish to do so is a question any honest man may now freely ask.
Another Dictator Now Appears
NE would think that we already have enough dictators in the world, de Rivera in
Spain, Mussolini in Italy, Horthy in Hungary, Tchitcherin in Russia, etc.; but now we have another, in Greece. General Pangalos, responsible for the banishment of King Constantine, the execution of five royalist ministers and the Greek Commander-in-Chief in Asia, has now dismissed the parliament and seized the country, announcing himself as dictator.
Conditions in White Russia
BISHOP of the Southern Methodist church who has recently returned from a visit to
under the control of Mr. Mussolini, who has appointed Senator Filippo Cremonesi as the first governor under the new arrangement. Mr. Mussolini in the inaugural address expressed his determination to make Rome in five years the wonder city of the world. It is not unlikely that this change in the government of Rome is marked in the prophecies. We wait to see. Mussolini has started in Italy an Italian Academy patterned after the French Academy.
Horthy Regime Caught Counterfeiting
HE French government is excited, and justly so, by the discovery that a plot existed
Little White Russia declares that in the district which he visited eighty percent of the people can neither read nor write, farming implements are the same as a thousand years ago, and the people, living in their one-room houses, with pig. chickens and cow in the room, today seem as hopeless of advancement as they ever did.
Achievements of Jews in Palestine
ierre Van Paassen, writing in The New Palestine, says of the achievements of the
in Hungary for putting out throughout Europe thirty billion false one-thousand franc bank notes, and that the plates for printing the notes were made in the government’s Geographical and Geological Institute under the watchful eye of an ex-premier of the Hungarian government. During the- time of the French Revolution it was not uncommon for governments to engage in the lucrative pastime of counterfeiting each other’s money. Horthy’s regime seems to be
Jews in Palestine:
Colonies have been founded, miles of irrigation ditches have been dug, power plants are operating, orange groves dot the Valley of Esdraelon, whole cities have arisen and a university has been erected. Four thousand immigrants a month are pouring in from Eastern Europe. And they are all young people, pioneers, burning with a heroic zeal, a passionate love for the land and a will to live. They are not the old-time pitiful type of Jew who journeyed to Palestine to come and weep at the wailing wall. These newcomers, manv of them university graduates and scholars, are not concerned with the life of the past; they are recreating
life. They are lifting up their heads and losing the deadly pallor of the ghetto.
Training Schools for Palestine's Future Citizens
IT IS interesting to note that in New York
City there are young Jews being trained to be carpenters, plumbers, electricians and automobile mechanics for future work in Palestine; also, at Plainfield, N. J., the Jews maintain a farm where Jewish boys and girls get training . in farm work, while spending their winter hours at the New Brunswick agricultural school. These boys and girls are being prepared for farm work with a view to their life work in Palestine. America is supplying not only money for Palestine, but blood and brawn as well.
Persia’s New King
P ERSIA’S new king, Riza Khan, was born of peasant parents. He is now 48 years old.
Joining the army at the age of 15, he rose to become one of its senior officers four years ago, and in that year marched on Teheran, of which he has since been the virtual ruler. The deposition of the Shah last October removed the only obstacle to Riza’s making himself king.
will not do it; conservatism and worship of the dollar will not do it. Brotherly love, tolerance, kindliness and common sense will. But if they are going to rule the „ world, human nature must be changed, radically. And the place to begin is at home.
Britain Marvels at American Industry
HD HE Manchester Guardian editorially calls -L the attention of its readers to the fact that in the last decade in America, for a given volume of output, the number of wage earners has fallen by twenty-three percent, while the power used has fallen by twelve percent. The Guardian says that these figures prove amazing progress in industrial technique, and are due to the spread of general and technical education and the high wages demanded and conceded.
White Collar Workers Poorly Paid
A FTER a careful study of the statistics, Paul
H. Douglas, Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, declares that the white collar worker, the clerk, is now about five percent worse off than thirty-five years ago, while the real earning power,of those who work with their hands is about twenty-seven percent better than it was then.
Why the Churches Are Deserted
Bishop Manning says that good, clean sport is as much a spiritual developer as is religion. Probably this will explain why so many churches are deserted. Finding that everything nowadays is spiritual, and a developer, and so forth, a good many are finding that they like the kind of development that they get on the golf links better than the one they get in church. Looks as if the Bishop were arguing against his own business.
Sound Sense from Wilkesbarre
THE Wilkesbarre Tinies Leader recently contained the following bit of sound reason. It said editorially:
Right now it is human nature to be empty-headed, vain and foolish; to exalt the trivial and ignore the worth while; to love the sensational and despise the profound; to lie and cheat and grab and be cowardly and at times cruel. That is why we have corrupt polities and slums and poverty and crime waves and wars and despotic governments and million-dollar-a-month prize fighters and movie actresses. If we are ever going to improve we must change so that these things are not human nature. Socialism will not do it; communism
Three Hundred Thousand New Homes
FTHE building forecast for the year 1926 made
by The Building Age predicts that during the year there will be nearly if not quite three hundred thousand new homes erected, at a cost exceeding* five and one-half billion dollars. This forecast indicates great prosperity now here and in sight, and greater contentment for about one and one-half million people.
Little Housing Shortage Exists
IT IS expected that by the end of 1926 there will be little housing shortage in the United States. At the present time the only cities in the country that are reporting any material housing shortages are Miami, Tampa, and Salt Lake City. Most of the large cities are said to be well caught up. There is considerable vacant space in New York’s newest skyscrapers.
Hard to Get Lost in New York
ONE would think it easy to get lost in New
York, when the police are requested to find over 20,000 persons a year; but the police know their business so well that only one and one-third percent were not found or accounted for. It seems that boys have a greater tendency to run away from home than do the girls, in the proportion of five boys to three girls.
Children Play Hold Up
TT IS quite common now7 to see children play--L ing- at hold up. Probably it is natural for them to ape what they know so many of their elders are engaged in. Some manufacturers have pandered to this by selling the children candy cases which are made to exactly resemble automatic pistols. Some of these fake pistols have been used in real hold ups.
Some Troubles of High Society
HIGH society has troubles of which common people know little. At present it is concerned as to the best way to prevent young men coming to dances who have not been invited to them. Sometimes as many as three hundred uninvited young men have found their way into some of the parties given by New York’s financial high steppers. The latest practice is to check them up at the door. If not on the list they do not get in. Another trouble, experienced mainly in Florida, is that there are so many crooks this season that it is not safe to wear real jewels; so the society ladies have been compelled to wear glass imitations.
Homicides in Manhattan in 1925
ON MANHATTAN Island in 1925 motor trucks killed 163 persons; pleasure vehicles killed 112; taxicabs 87; buses 8; horse-drawn vehicles 8; surface cars 14. There were 106 persons shot to death, ten stabbed to death and sixty-eight were killed by blackjacks or other weapons. It is a sad commentary on civilization that 596 persons were thus slain in New York City in one year.
Eucalyptus As a Paper Wood
THE University of Wisconsin has been making experiments with eucalyptus wood as a material for the manufacture of paper, with good results. The wood upon which the experiment was made was grown in Brazil, but the wood can be grown in Florida, New’ Mexico, Arizona and California; and it is estimated that in ten years enough can be grown in those districts to provide thenceforth a permanent supply for the purposes for which it is now used.
Few Lynchings in 1925
TT SPEAKS w’ell for the South that it continues to be so orderly. In the year 1925 there were only eighteen lynchings in the United States. One-third of them were in Mississippi, three were in Florida, rivo in Georgia and one each in Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Utah and Virginia.
Willing to Pay for Fast Trains
WHILE America is in its present prosperous condition, the people who have the money are showing a willingness to pay for fast train service. During the year 1925 the crack train of the New York Central, The Twentieth Century Limited, averaged about three sections each way and brought into the Company a revenue of ten millions dollars.
What Interest Really Means
rpiIE New York Times has a story of a $15 hank account w’hich in one hundred and six
years earned interest to the amount of $2,377. A very simple calculation will show that for the use of that $15 some person or persons paid about $23 annually, which is more than 150 percent. The interest burden is becoming more intolerable and impossible every year.
Ford Planes Will Carry Mail
TTesry Ford’s airplanes, which have been for some time carrying his own papers and other items between Detroit and Cleveland and between Detroit and Chicago, will hereafter carry Uncle Sam’s mails. The contract requires that the planes maintain an average speed of ninety miles an hour, which is very easy for an airplane to do.
Our Foreign Language Newspapers '
A COMMITTEE appointed to read the principal eight hundred foreign language papers published in America reports that they are not only not un-American or disloyal but that the very reverse is true; that they are divided on political issues about the same as the English papers; and that the editorials are on a par with the English editorials. How this ought to shame'Some of the so-called Americans who so persecuted those of foreign birth only a few years ago. It was a narrov’-minded, nonsensical and criminal proceeding.
Gyro Ririder for Airplanes
ISPATCHES from London state that a new rudder for airplanes lias been tried out 'which enables pilots to leave the cockpit and sit in the cabin foi' half an hour or more at a’time while the airplane continues to speed onward. Another device enables the airplane by triangulation with ground stations to locate itself in a fog.
Automobiles by the Million
EW YORK, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Illinois each have over a million automobiles in use. In the country as a whole there are over twenty million motor vehicles in operation. More than a million vehicles were scrapped during the year. The American Car and Foundry Company is going in for the manufacture of autobuses and trucks, which doubtless means their wide use on the railways in the near future.
What a Story This Dog Could Tell
HOTEL keeper in the Catskills lost his pet collie. He concluded that it had been taken by bootleggers who frequently passed his place on the way from Canada to New York. The dog was evidently taken out to Rum Row. After a severe storm he was found running up and down the beach on the coast of Maine, looking out toward the sea, probably for a ship which has gone to the bottom. The owner has his dog back, but the dog can never tell the strange story of his adventures during the past few months.
A Dachshund’s Love for Her Master
THE New York Herald-Tribune contains a touching story about a dachshund. The owner, a poor ex-soldier, sold the dog to a wellto-do man living on the opposite side of the Rhine. Shortly afterward the dachshund became the mother of seven puppies. She wanted her former master to see all of her wonderful family and swam the Rhine back and forth, with a puppy in her mouth each time. This so touched the new owner that he gave the dog and her family back to the original owner. The dog was so exhausted at the end of the thirteenth crossing that it was necessary to administer stimuWts to resuscitate her.
Materializations are Ectoplasmic Emanations
rpiIE thing that happens when there is a so-called materialization of a dead person is that the demon who has the medium under his control draws out of the medium’s body a quantity of living cells, in much the same way that a rubber band is stretched out; and the medium temporarily loses weight as a ’ consequence. With this material, called ectoplasm, the demon fashions the bodies which appear; but in point of fact these bodies are always connected with the medium and are really part of her life. The whole exhibition of materialization is so repulsive that it is seldom done except in the dark or in dimly-lighted apartments. The power is altogether the power of demons, or devils, as the Scriptures commonly call them. Conan Doyle is authority for the statement that these ectoplasmic emanations from the bodies of mediums may and do go about a full-sized room, while the medium herself remains unconscious.
Records of Inquisition Come to Light
EW records of the Inquisition have ever seen the light of day, but the Jewish Theological Seminary of New York has just come into possession of ancient books printed in Hebrew characters in Constantinople, in 1585, which contain accounts of the torture or death of 598 Jews in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Sicily in the days when the Inquisition was at its height.
A Novel Christmas Entertainment
RITAIN has produced something new and interesting in the way of a Christmas entertainment. On certain of the through trains on Christmas day, the dining cars vTere festooned with holly, Christmas trees were erected and mistletoe was hung about here and there in convenient and inviting places.
The Darkest Cloud on the Horizon
THE darkest cloud on the horizon of mankind today is the cloud of autocrats that have grown out of the situation caused by the war which was to “make the world safe for democracy”. All through eastern and southern Europe the people have been falling behind. Their liberties have been taken away from them. Autocracies are coming to be the rule. This only means serious trouble not far ahead.
Educational Progress in Eastern Kentucky By j. l. Bolling
[Note. It is always regrettable when information from sources which we supposed reliable, leads us to a place where we require to receive chastisement of the kind very properly handed us in this article. But let not the uninitiated think that if he took up the duties of the editor lie would fare any better. It is physically and financially impossible to verify every item of news that comes in to us. We print what we believe to be true, and take punishment for what proves to be incorrect.—Ed.]
IN YOUR issue of The Golden Age dated
February 11th, 1925, pages 292,293, under the caption, “Teaching the Young Idea How to Shoot,” you make the following statements:
In the Appalachian, mountains, covering parts of Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky, are about 5,000,000 native-born Americans, the descendants of English, Scotch, and Irish pioneers, who are now’ illiterates. It was poverty that drove them to this condition. In some counties in Kentucky there are people who have never seen a railroad; and in Bound, Caney Creek and Knott counties only ten years ago there were no schools at all. This condition is being gradually corrected, however.
The Golden Age has evidently been misinformed with reference to the counties mentioned, and I feel sure it will be glad to correct the erroneous impression given its readers by the above quotation. The writer is not ashamed to confess that he is a native of the region referred to and frequently visits it. He can, therefore, speak with authority on the subject.
In the first place, permit me to say that there is no Caney Creek county in the State. There is a. community which goes by that name in Morgan county, and the people there enjoyed the advantage of common schools and newspapers more than thirty years ago. Many of the leading citizens in that neighborhood are graduates of Hazel Green Academy; and the people, on the whole, are well-informed. I visited that part of the state recently and delivered Bible lectures, and incidentally inquired with reference to this matter, and received assurances along this line which I consider reliable.
As to Rowmn county, misspelled in your article “Round” county, I know from personal knowledge that the Morehead Normal School, Morehead, Rowan Co., Ky., was in existence twenty-five years ago. I quote from a letter to the writer from the President of that institution:
The school with which I am now connected was made, about one year ago, by the State Legislature, into a State Normal School and about half a million dollars appropriated for buildings, etc. The old Morehead Normal was a church school conducted by the Disciples of Christ, and was founded in 1887 by Mrs. P. E. Button and her son through the liberality of Colonel AV. T. Withers, of Lexington, Kentucky. For the last thirty years there have been in Rowan county about fifty common schools. At the present time the number is fifty-four. The public school in the town of Morehead has a building which cost about $30,000, and has about four hundred pupils, including high school.”
The Secretary of the Board of Regents of the Morehead Normal is Judge A. IV. Young, whose brother, Judge William A. Young, ranked high as one of the leading legal lights of the country for three decades. And he was reared and educated in Morehead. I knew him personally, and feel that this should be taken as good proof of the efficiency of our educational methods in the mountains.
With reference to Knott county, I wish to say that the Hindman Settlement-School, Hindman, Knott County, Kentucky, was founded twenty-three years ago; and the number of pupils has increased every year, until they number today about 325 in the grades and 100 in the high school, not to mention the twenty or thirty in kindergarten.
For more than twenty years boys and girls from the town and country round about have been studying the same books as the boys and girls beyond the mountain barrier. During this period they have come in and enrolled from remote “branches” where there were no schools, to stay in the Settlement.
Today the effect of this work can be seen all over the mountain districts. The girls have studied home-making with their other studies, and they could teach the city flapper a thing- or two about cooking and other household duties. The boys have had manual training and practical farming along with their regular courses, and today when one travels through the hills, no insignificant part of the scenery are the pretty bungalows which dot the hillsides, owned and lived in by many of the students.
Graduates of the Hindman School can be found at Berea, State University, Center, Science Hill, Richmond, Exeter and Harvard. Many of them are teaching in country schools and raising the standard of education throughout the mountains.
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Miss May Stone of Louisville, and Miss Katherine Petitt, who has since founded Pine Mountain School, started the Hindman School twenty-three years ago. At that time there was a school there which was in charge of a Prof. Clark. Later he opened another school for older boys and girls, which was finally burnt and not rebuilt. There are other schools growing up in the vicinity of Hindman, founded on the same plan: one on Carr Creek and one at St. Nicholas. The Hindman School is incorporated, and is endorsed by the National Information Bureau, Inc., New York City.
Some of the illiteracy which you mention is of course voluntary, and those who prefer ignorance to enlightenment often cast reflection on the intelligence of others. The missionary will photograph the ignorant and imbecile and exhibit such pictures as representative of the whole people, which is utterly false and misleading. Thus the exception is taken for the rule in many cases, where the missionary represents the natives as peculiar in dress, custom, etc.
It is manifestly unfair for one to select a family which is mentally below par and hold it up to the gaze of the world as a fair sample of the community in which that family happens to reside; yet this is frequently done. It would be about as accurate for me to say that the city of Washington is insane because it has a St. Elizabeth’s.
A missionary met a young mountaineer lad riding a corv along the public road “just for fun”, and she straightway went home and spread the report that the mountain people ride cows! She mentioned the boy and his novel mode of conveyance, but overlooked the horseback riders, the run-abouts, the Fords. Studebakers and Chevrolets!
It is my belief that there are few persons of normal intellect in the mountains who could not educate themselves if they so desired. Of course, the desire for an education must be strong-enough to outweigh all opposing thoughts and overcome them before one can hope to make progress, and this would apply to anyone regardless of environment or advantages. The inherently lazy will not study. The proverb is often heard in the mountains, “You can lead a hc-rse to water, but you can’t make Iris drink”; and it is likewise true that we can lead one to the Pierian springs of knowledge and such can refuse to partake.
Advantages of the Mountaineers
HP HE average mountain boy or girl of today ■*- enjoys much more advantage than Abraham Lincoln did, and lie was a Kentucky mountaineer by birth. He spent the formative, impressionable period, of his life in the mountains; and from this point of view, was a Kentuckian and a mountaineer. But he wanted education, and he got it. Every other mountaineer has the same privilege, and better opportunities.
The present governor of Kentucky, William J. Fields, whom I know personally, is a native of Carter county, a mountain section in every sense of the word. And doubtless the governor, like the writer, has split rails, husked corn, and done everything else that Lincoln did, except run a flatboat, and neither feels that he has been contaminated thereby.
Even Christ was born in a manger. Let us have done with the idea that one is inferior merely because he grew up out of the soil, for the natural product is always better than the artificial.
Many of the young mountain folks have now caught the modern spirit of progress and are being despised by the less ambitious because of their superior attainments. Their “inferiority complex” is aroused, and consequently they have become haters of all progress and enlightenment.
Such delight in mouthing the expression that “education is ruining the world”, because it has overthrown some of the old superstitions and uprooted false ideals and theories of life. Their provincial views are endangered thereby and threatened with destruction, and they deeply resent it. But some surrender after more mature reflection, and join the other camp.
Of course, there is often a physical or mental cause for illiteracy. Many who are unambitious and unprogressive fall into this category. Hookworm spells failure for thousands. Lack of sex education brings both physical, mental and moral ruin upon other thousands. A campaign of education in this direction alone would bring most gratifying results. But there is a crying-need for this kind of enlightemnent everywhere, and the danger referred to is one which besets all children arriving at the age of puberty, and is not confined to any one section alone.
Poverty has been a factor in the equation, but it is incorrect to say that “it was poverty that drove them to this condition”. Poverty is rather an incentive to progress. It was so in Lincoln’s case, and it has been true in thousands of other cases.
The sons of rich parents seldom contribute anything of real value to the world’s progress. It is a well known fact that the higher institutions of learning are often frequented by such, chiefly for the social and business advantages accruing therefrom. They have become social clubs for rich young men.
The mountain people on the whole, I would say, get more real enjoyment out of life than the average city dweller. They lead a more wholesome life in almost every sense. They breathe purer air, eat better food, get an abundance of outdoor exercise, and many of them live in cleaner and better homes than millions of metropolitan tenement dwellers enjoy.
Almost every mountain family owns one or more horses, or an auto. They raise their own foodstuffs, meats, etc., and send the surplus to market, thus swelling their bank account. Oil, coal and gas development has brought wealth and comfort to thousands of mountain folk, and has given employment to other thousands.
Take the matter of the healthful and pleasurable sport of horseback riding: How many whitecollar workers in our large cities can afford a horse? Few, if any. The expense would be prohibitive in most cases. And how many city workers are at liberty to take a week off from their labors any time they may choose? The mountaineer and his family, as a rule, work whenever they feel like it, and rest when they desire to do so. Luxury of this kind is simply unknown among the masses generally; in fact it is unattainable under present commercial conditions. In this respect alone, the mountain folks enjoy a priceless advantage over the average city dweller.
The fact is, there is too much public sympathy wasted on the “ignorant mountaineer”. The ones who really need the sympathy are locked up in mines, factories, sweatshops and other industrial hells of “civilization”, where they eke out a bare and thoroughly miserable existence.
Let the mountain missionaries forget their false “religion” and devote their energies to ameliorating the condition of the industrial slaves of the big cities; and when this is done, if there is any time left, they might then try to help the “poor mountaineer”. Big business will serve a better purpose if it will turn its attention to benefitting its own workers, instead of shedding crocodile tears over a liberty-loving, , contented and prosperous country people whom meanwhile it steadily seeks to devour.
Death after Vaccination
RHHE Dayton, Ohio Herald, contains a picture -®- of a beautiful little girl and the following pathetic account of what happened as a result of filling this little one’s veins with filthy pus, in place of the pure blood which God made to circulate there:
Ethel May Rosa, o-year-old daughter of Arthur B. Rosa, proprietor of the Dayton Key shop, 2161/2 East Third street, collapsed at Fifth and St. Clair streets, while walking along the street with her mother and aunt, and died a few minutes later on the. v-ay to a doctor’s office, shortly before 10 o’clock Wednesday morning.
The child had been in ill health since she was vaccinated three months ago, and her death is believed to have resulted from a heart attack due to her weakened condition.
The little girl was walking between her mother and her aunt, Miss Edith Mohler, of Wadsworth, Ohio, when she fell to the sidewalk. The two women carried her into the Brown Furniture store, nearby. Still living, she was placed in the automobile of Leopold Brown, who rushed her to a doctor’s office in the Fidelity building. She was dead before she reached the office. '
Coroner J. F. Torrence was notified and will conduct an examination to determine the exact cause of the child’s death.
“No greater fortune can befall a child than to be born into a home where the best boks are read, the best music interpreted, and the best talk enjoyed; for in these privileges the richest educational privileges are supplied.”’
From a Subscriber in Hongkong
SHORTLY before the Prince of Wales reached here on his Far Eastern tour to Japan, we had a seamen’s strike, which lasted about two months. It grew to such an enormous extent that every Chinese employe—clerks, office-boys, servants, laborers, plumbers, litters, engineers, tram, bus and motor drivers, scavengers, sanitary coolies, rickshaw runners, both private and public—went out on strike, leaving the European population to shift for themselves. Markets and shops were closed down or run by volunteers. Hotels and restaurants were serving meals cafeteria style.
You cannot imagine the inconvenience and -discomfort all this brought to Europeans. We had to shop, cook, wash and wash-up, scavenge, run blisses and cars, patrol the streets by day and night, keep the electric plant going, run the ferries, slaughter, milk the cattle, run the dairy farms and markets; all this in addition to carrying on business as usual where necessary. There were oyer 150 steamers, all oceangoing vessels, heldmp in port. A special launch toured the harbor, supplying cooked meals daily to the European engineers and officers on board each ship.
The population of Hongkong is only one percent European; the Chinese population numbers three-quarters of a million. Had the government of Hongkong been firm and held out for only one week longer the Chinese strikers would have given in and not enforced their demands of nearly one-third increase in wages and the restoration of all the Chinese labor guilds that were disbanded by the government during the strike. But owing to the fact that the Prince of Wales was due to arrive shortly, the home authorities gave in to all the Chinese demands, and great was the general jubilation of the strikers over what they considered to be their victory over the British rule.
The news spread like wildfire throughout China, and now after three years we are faced with a general boycott of the British and British goods in China. The general hardship of the masses since the overthrow of the Mancha dynasty and the great war, the whole country being torn and rent asunder by marauding bandits and military generals, has been erroneously and maliciously attributed to the presence of the foreigner in China.
With no settled form of government any-
where in China, it was an easy matter for a handful of students to start the fire of hatred towards all foreigners and the British in particular, over a very small matter in a Japanese cotton mill in Shanghai. This discontent, fanned to a flame of hatred, began in Shanghai and, fed by an undercurrent of Bolshevism or Socialism propagated by Russians, has quickly spread throughout the whole of China. Hongkong too has been caught in the vortex of this storm, and another general strike now exists here. The majority of foreign missionaries throughout China have had to vacate their stations, and numbers have returned to America via Hongkong. No doubt you have heard of this.
The feeling of hatred ran very high in Canton, the southern capital of China; so much so that all the foreigners, especially the British, with the exception of a few Russians flying the Soviet flag and a few Germans wearing certain armlets and flying the old German flag, were expelled and ordered to leave the city.
It was on the 23rd of June, 1925, that a great procession of Chinese guilds and students, followed by cadets, volunteers and soldiers carrying rifles and fixed bayonets and loaded chambers, marched through Canton and along the Bund, past the French and British Settlement of Shameen. Shameen is a small island in the river, and is separated from the city of Canton by a narrow creek spanned by only two bridges, the new French bridge of reinforced concrete and the old British wooden bridge. When these Chinese cadets and armed soldiers were opposite the British bridge, two rifle shots were fired at the British Consul-General, Mr. Jameson who, with the Naval Commander, was standing near the British bridge watching the procession. This was a signal for all the armed party to open fire on Shameen.
As if obeying a word of command they all turned to the left and faced Shameen, then leveling their rifles they commenced firing. The Consul and others, who were unarmed observers on Shameen, had no other alternative but to duck down under cover or to run for shelter. A French merchant, M. Pasquir, was killed and the Commissioner of Customs, Mr. Edwards, was wounded, before the British marines could reply.
The Cantonese were quite unaware that there was an armed squad on Shameen. They had
hoped to rush the bridge and take Shameen, and they had an army of 4,000 soldiers waiting not far away to come up later and help them wipe out the foreigners. But when the British marines began to play machine guns over them they were all routed. Still some more daring ones carried on snipe-shooting from the roofs of buildings and from behind pillars on the Canton side until their ammunition was expended or until they fell when their hidden position was discovered by the British marines on Shameen.
Impressions of the Province of Quebec By Gerald Barry
TT IS said that first impressions last the longest. While this may not be invariably true, it is certainly a fact that the distinctive traits and peculiarities of a people are more quickly noticed by a stranger than by one.who has been accustomed to them all his life.
The French Canadian people of the Province of Quebec possess many lovable traits, and as the writer has spent the past year amongst them in their principal cities, Quebec, Montreal, Hull, Three Rivers, Sorel, St. Hyacinthe and Sherbrooke, as well as visiting them in some of their country places, the purpose of this article is to record briefly the impressions he has gained of them whilst living among them.
The city of Quebec is an old-fashioned place in many respects. It is divided into the upper town, built high up on the rock extending towards the Plains of Abraham on the south, and in which live almost all of the Englishspeaking population of the city, and the lower town, which lies at the foot of the Rock of Quebec on the north side, and is almost exclusively French.
The Power of the Pope
HE Roman Catholic Church has a great hold upon the people of the city of Quebec, as it has also upon the people throughout the whole Province. While residing in Quebec the writer witnessed one of the spectacular processions of the Roman Catholic Church. Planks were placed against the curb on either side of the streets down which the procession was to pass, to which were nailed evergreen trees, about five or six feet high; and the houses also were decorated with flags suitable to the occasion.
At the head of the procession walked a young man bearing a large crucifix; he was followed by altar boys and, shortly afterwards, by a number of priests. A little further along in the procession came a company of “zouaves” (soldiers of the pope); following them came two young men scattering flowers on the road, and two others walking backward who carried censers containing incense which they waved in front of the pope’s representative, who followed them, walking underneath a large canopy which was supported at the corners by four poles borne by the hands of four men.
The pope's representative carried the holy sacrament, which was contained in a fan-shaped receptacle and which he held in front of his face. Behind him came a number of gentlemen with top hats, and many other gentlemen, ladies and young folks, all dressed in their Sunday best, which ended the procession.
This surely furnishes the key to the reason why the Province of Quebec has not progressed equally with the other parts of Canada; the Church of Rome, with its perpetuation of ancient superstitions, has been the retarding factor. When the yoke of the Church of Rome has been lifted from the shoulders of the- French Canadians they will surely make wonderful progress in every direction, for they are a bright and intelligent people. Their faces generally reveal character, intelligence, and decision; when educated, they possess the ability to reason logically and deeply, and to make quick decisions; but they need the stabilizing influence of the Word of God and a knowledge of His great divine plan of the ages. Thank God that the day is dawning when all mankind, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, will know Him as a God of love.
Montreal
MONTREAL, with its population of nearly a million, is one of the great cities of the world. It is not simply one big city, but consists of a group of cognate municipalities—West-mount, Verdun, Montreal West, Montreal East, Outremont, etc.—all of which go to make ujj Greater Montreal, somewhat on the order of Greater New York. A large cross has been, erected on the top of Mount Royal, facing the city, which is lit up by electricity at night and which, it is claimed, can be seen from any part of the island.
Montreal has the reputation of being a wicked city. It has an extensive "red light” district, and there is a great deal of open wickedness and vice. An investigation has been going on before'Justice Coderre recently, and a judicial inquiry into the city police administration.
Montreal and Quebec are the two ports mainly used in summer by the Atlantic steamship lines between Canada and Great Britain and Europe. Approached on an Atlantic liner at dusk, when all the lights of the city suddenly come into view as the vessel rounds the bend in the St. Lawrence river, Quebec is a most magnificent sight. Just before reaching the city, one sees on the north side of the St. Lawrence the celebrated Montmorency Falls.
Ail through the Province of Quebec, in the railway stations, post offices and other public buildings, all notices are printed in both English and French; and in the cities and along the lines of travel many of the people can speak both languages, though in the country places very little English is heard, especially among the old folks. It is quite interesting to sometimes hear young children speaking fluently in both languages.
There is a considerable Jewish population in the city of Montreal. The Jews seem to be a qniet and orderly class of people, and manifest, a noticeable lack of that spirit of bad temper and violence which is so often exhibited by the sons of Japheth. Doubtless their long period of chastisement at the hand of the Lord has mellowed their national characteristics and made them more meek and submissive, and thus has prepared them for the great blessings that are shortly to come to them through Christ’s kingdom.
Sea Gulls in Colorado By J. A. Boknet
EIGHT miles out from the town of Greeley (named after Horace Greeley, who said, "Go west, young man, go west”) there lives a family named Farr, on a half section of farm' land including a lake of thirty acres. The chief croppage thereabouts are sugar beets, beans and alfalfa, together with stock raising. The land is quite level and abounds in China pheasants and magpies.
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