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< V " ' V - J" y*: J10RSE RACED ENGINE AT0P THE "F!GHT TRfif' M'fF MAI) Walking the Cars It a Halr-RaMitf Experience, the Nevlee Finds Out. HOW THE ANIMAL WON AGAINST AN EARLY LOCOMOTIVE. JEM* ~ ORCE, plcturesqueneas and abil­ ity In congress knows no sec­ tions. Northerners, southern­ ers, easterners and westerners have their strengths and their weaknesses, their likes and their dislikes, their physical manner­ isms and their mental Idiosyn­ crasies Just like all other human beings. There have been men In con­ gress who year In and year out on every occasion have kept hewing to the line of one special legislative endeavor. John T. Morgan, for years senator from the state of Ala­ bama, worked for months untold to secure the adoption by the United States government of the Nicarsguan route for the great interoceanic canal. He lost out, but it is probable that the facts which he obtained in his researches were of more value to the diggers of the canal than those gathered by My other one man. Senator Morgan was one of the noted excep­ tions to the psalmist's rule for the limit of the years of man. Some of the flippant, and pos­ sibly tired, senators declared that Mr. Morgan's speeches were as long as his life. If the voice of the Alabama man had been younger there would have been few sleepy ones in the Benate when he talked--that is when he talked on any other subject than the interoceanic canal. Then it was to fiy before the face of his oratory. There was Substance to Senator Morgan's speeches, and this much cannot be said for the vocal efforts of some of the flippant and younger ones. The aged one's words went into the Con­ gressional Record and illuminated its pages. When he rose to speak many of the colleagues of Mr. Morgan retreated to the restaurant or the cloak room. Only rarely did he take apparent no­ tice of the seeming discourtesy. Once, wisely or unwisely, he said with something of pathos In his voice that he wished he could talk In the lunch room, for there he would be sure of an audience. Mr. Morgan was no imperialist. He had a fear In his heart of the outcome of the policy of expan­ sion, and the note of warning that came from his lips was frequent and forceful. One day, after outlining the position which he believed his country should take, his voice came back to him. Senators starting to leave their seats sunk back and listened. The words fairly rang through the chamber. This was what he said: "In this lofty attitude we can prove the vir­ tue of the republic before the eyes of all man­ kind, or we can set its light as a beacon to warn coming generations that, even in the highest reach of power and advantage, this republic-- the cynosure of all eyes--is affected to the core with the sin of covetousness, and is aflame with the consequent lust of power that is attended with the usurpations, tyrannies and oppressions which have marked the course of the oligarchies and despots that have disgraced the history of other nations." The senate of the United States stands for dig­ nity. Sometimes the dignity is overdone, but, on one occasion the Senate was undignified to the point of striking several older senators with horror. Senator Tillman of South Carolina was mak­ ing nothing less than an impassioned speech. He was reaching toward the skies of oratory, when Senator Warren left his seat, unseen of Tillman, and took station behind the South Carolinian. The speaker had both hands high over his head directing the soaring of his thoughts and words. Warren took a step forward. His hand stole to Tillman's side, slipped into his pocket, and came out again holding in its clutch a big black bottle. All unconscious Tillman went on with his words of fire. Warren held his find aloft in full view of the presiding officer, of his colleagues and the crowded galleries. There was a gasp, then a smothered and simultaneous gurgle of horror from a hundred throats, and then roaring laugh­ ter uncheckable. Tillman turned and knowledge of the awfulness of his situation came to him. For once, possibly for the first time in his life, he was staggered to speechlessness. He strove for words, but they came not at his bidding. His face was first black with something like anger. Then the cloud clear­ ed and a smile broke through. Speech returned, and two words came: "Roracic acid." It was boracic acid, but unfortunately for Mr. Tillman, it had been put into a black and suspi­ cious bottle. A sore throat was the reason for its carrying, and while the South Carolinian is a man of known truth, he would not let the matter pass until he had passed the bottle and had forced him comrades to smell the stufT and make clear his temperance record. Neither senate nor house makes light of pen­ sion pleas in the presence of the galleries, but some of the would-be pensioners play comic roles In the committee rooms and corridors. Claim­ ants who can prove things are treated as old sol­ diers and old soldiers' widows ought to be treated --decently and reverently. Congress in its weakness has voted pensions (m many an occasion, though doubtless know­ ing that the pensions were unearned and unde­ served, but the day of that sort of thing is pass­ ing, if it has not altogether gone. One member was asked to use his influence to secure an in- s*. jfc.1-" _'V- ftjfcsll t*arai mm#at wMt crease of pension for the widow of a soldier. There were papers forwarded to him which bore on the case, and these he turned over to the committee on pensions after his bill had been introduced. The widow did not get her money, and It was not long before the whole house knew why. The member who had espoused the Mfidow's cause had been in congress for years, and the joke at his expense was too good to keep, and one after another of his colleagues walked up to his desk and congratulated him on the wisdom shown in the plea which was in written form, he had turned in to the committee to win the widow's case. It is perhaps needless to cay that the mem­ ber had never read the plea. It set forth the fact that while the amount of pension increase the widow of the soldier hero asked for was large, it must be understood "that she came of good family, moved in the best social circles, and was in need of a large sum of money to keep up appearances." Upon occasion senators and representatives per­ mit their constituents to do their talking for them in congress. Petitions come in floods at times, with the object of securing legislation by external pressure. In the Smoot case, and in the pure food and army canteen matters the pleas of the people came in by the tens of thousands. The members of both houses present these let­ ters, call attention to their import and then allow the petition to do the rest if they are potent enough. Senator Latimer of South Carolina once intro­ duced a good roads bill calling for the expendi­ ture of government millions for the improvement of the highways. The automobilists all over the country began sending letters of approval. They pressed their friends into the writing service, but that they did not always pass upon the persuasive merits of the friends' productions is shown fair­ ly well by one letter on the good roads' subject received by Senator Cullorn. It read like this: "Dear Mr. Culloin: Please vote for this d--d bill, and you will oblige a fool friend of mine who runs an automobile. Yours more or Jess sincerely, " It was a Chicago man who wrote this appeal. There were others like unto it. Th^ good roads bill still sleeps. In the older days the school readers contained the story of "I'll Try Sir Miller." Probably everybody knows who "I'll Try Sir Miller," was. Certainly eveybody ought to know. Gen. James Miller then a captain, was the hero of Lundy's Lane. He said he would try to do the thing necessary for the thrashing of the enemy, and he did it, and "I'll Try Sir," took the place of his Christian name James. For years several representatives In congress tried to secure an appropriation to be used for the building of a monument to General Miller at Peterboro, N. H., near which town "I'll Try Sir" lived on a farm before the war of 1812, and for years after its close. The representatives who had the matter of pushing the bill in hand used the words of Captain Miller at Lundy's Lane to express their own determination to secure a vic­ tory. They certainly did try, and the speeches that were made before the library committee of congress held patriotic appeals in every sentence. Apparently, however, It was easier for Miller to capture a battery against odds than it was for members of congress to capture the dollars neces­ sary to build a monument of enduring stones to his memory. It was a case of try and try again. While the cause of Miller, whose heroism was worth a dozen monoments, was being pleaded, congress voted money for memorials to other men l^ss de­ serving. Finally, however, a New Hampshire member who had been digging into history found out something about "I'll Try Sir's" career which was not generally known. Congress had been told time and again that Captain Miller not only had shown conspicuous gallantry at Lundy Lane, but that prior to that fight he had thrashed a superior force of British and Indians at Managua. Congress had also been told that Miller had com­ manded the ^eiitef column of Geiieiul Bruwii's army, which routed what was apparently an overwhelmingly greater force of the British at Fore Erie. These things didn't make an Impression. Con- greaa bteiueu iu think that inasmuch as Miller was a soldier that it was his business to defeat superior forces of the enemy every day in the week without imposing any monument-raising duty on posterity. The New Hampshire member, however, found out that after the war of 1812 Miller went back to his farm near Petersboro, plowed fields, chopped wood and milked the cows instead of going to Washington to ask the gov­ ernment to do something for him on account of his record. Mllier's popularity was such after the treaty of peace that the government probably would have been glad to give him anything that it had to give. When "I'll Try Sir" was asked why he was playing Cincinnatus instead of taking a Job in Washington, he replied: "When men begin leaving the farms for the cities the nation will begin to decay." Congress was told of this saying of Miller's, and either admiration for his choice of a farm­ er's life or else belief that he was a prophet who before long might have the truth of his prophecy proved, brought a favorable report from the committee on library in the matter of the monument at Petersboro. The Shepherd of the Black Sheep Professor Sir Charles Bell In the 8trand Calls It a Convulsive Ac­ tion of the Diaphragm. L. 'Laughter," says Professor Sir Charles Hell in the London Strand, "is a convulsive action of the diaphragm. In this state ih*.* person draws a full breath and throws it out in interrupt­ ed, short and audible caehinnatlons. This convulsion of the diaphragm is the principal part of the physical man­ ifestation of laughter; but there are several accessories, especially the sharp vocal utterance arising from the violent tension of the larynx and the expression of th« features, this being a more intense form of the smile. In extreme cases the eyes are moistened by the effusion from the lachrymal glands." There you have a scientific defini­ tion. But it is clear that mankind would hardly take the trouble to go through that experience if that is all that laughter consisted of. They would not regard a Dickens or a Mark Twain as a benefactor merely because a perusal of their writings produced that. No; even the philoso­ phers know that laughter is something better than that--something internal --that there is such a thing as silent laughter. Hobbes calls laughter "a sudden glory arising from a sudden conception of some eminency in our­ selves by comparison with the infirm­ ity of others, or with our own for­ merly." If a laugh is a benefaction and the provoker of a laugh a benefactor, why- are there more statues to dull people than to witty ones? Who was the greatest laugh promoter in historyT It was said of Sidney Smith that he was the father of 10,000,000 laughs. "Laughter," Bald Lord Rosebery re­ cently, "is a physical necessity. We live under a sunless sky, surrounded by a melancholy ocean, and it is a physical necessity for the English na­ tion--even for the Scotch nation and the Welsh nation--to laugh. It ex­ hilarates all social relations. Was not," his lordship added, "the laugh of Sir Frank Lockwood something thai would make a stuffed bird rejoice? And those who listened to the splen­ dor of merriment which he coutd im­ part by that laugh realize the Intense value of that emotional exercise." Alibi. Father (having caught his son In a lie)--Haven't I always told you to tell the truth ? Son--Yes, father; but you also toM me never to become the sMve ct a habit. Machine Built and Driven by Peter Cooper Slipped a Belt--No Brakes or Whistles In the Old Days. In 1822 the first charter was ob­ tained for a railroad in the United States. It was for 3a line from Phila­ delphia to a point 1 on the Susquehan- na river, but was never built. On the announcement of the p r o je c t some one asked obo of the Balti­ more newspapers: What Is a rail­ road anyhow ?" The editor was forced to reply that he did not know, but that "perhaps seme other corre­ spondent can tell." S e v e n y e a r s later on the little wooden track along the Lackawanna creek the first loco­ motive had its trial. The experiment was far from successful, and for a number of years afterward the trains on most of the railroads continued to be drawn by horfees. The first loco­ motive on the Baltimore & Ohio had sails attached. So did the carB. These sails were hoisted when the wind was in the right direction so as to help the locomotive. The rivalry between the railroads using locomotives and those using horses was very bitter. In Au­ gust, 1830, an actual trial of speed was held between a horse and one of the pioneer locomotives, which <Md not re­ sult in favor of the locomotive. The race was on the Baltimore & Ohio, the locomotive being one built by Pe­ ter Cooper, who also acted as engine driver. The horse, a gallant gray, was in the habit of pulling a car on a track parallel to that used by the locomo­ tive. At first the gray had the better of the race, but when he was a quarter of a mile ahead Mr. Coop­ er succeeded In getting up enough steam to pass the horse amid ter­ rific applause. At that moment a band slipped from a pulley, and "though Mr. Cooper lac­ erated his hands trying to replace It the engine stopped, the horse passed ft and came In winner." As there were no brakes on the early trains, they used to stop and to start with Jolts that threw the pas­ sengers across the car. The coupling was with chains, having two or three feet of slack, which the engine took up with a series of fierce Jerks. The shock on stopping was even worse, and "never failed to send the passen­ gers flying." There were no whistles in the old lays. Signals were given fey pushing ap the valve on the dome by hand ind letting the steam escape with a toud hissing noise. On the New Cas- 'le and Frenchtown railroad when the signal was hoard the slaves around the station would rush to the arriving train, seize hold of It and pull back with all their might while the agent stuck a piece of wood through a wheeL There were BO many collisions and explosions that some southern rail­ roads introduced what they called a barrier car between the locomotive and the passenger coaches of the train. This barrier car consisted of a platform on wheels upon which were piled six bales of cotton, and it was claimed It would safeguard the pas­ sengers in two ways--It would pro­ tect them from the blowing up of the locomotive and would form a soft cushion upon which the passengers could land In the event of a collision. There 1b no record of how this experi­ ment worked out.--American Cultiva­ tor. Do you ever think of the irrevocable nature of speech? You may find, years after your light word was spoken spoken, that it made a whole life unhappy, or ruined the peace of a household.--Stopford Brooke. Thought it Was a Giraffe •H- How a Georgia Darky Clubbed and ' Captured Nero, the Ferocious Man-Eating Lion. Capt. Pierre Drouiilard looked from the piazza at the rain falling drearily the other day, says a New York letter to the Cincinnati Times-Star. It re­ minded him, he said, of the time that a one-ring circus u>madoed down in Georgia. The main top was blown down, the menagerie tent was destroyed, all the cages were upset and the animals escaped. The man­ agement huddled about a stove in a cross-roads store and peered pessi­ mistically into a dismal future. The chances were they would never get Jured by the savage and ferocious beasts, which were exhibited at one price of admission. By and by a negro approached. "Did you all loss a giraffe?** he asked. "We lost everything," said the man­ ager, shortly. "But we'll pay you If you get the giraffe back." "It ought to be worf two dollahs to git dat gi-raffe baok," said the darky. "Pears lak he a powahful bad-tem­ pered gi raffe. If Ah hadn't wallop- Railways of Prussia. The railway is almost wholly a state Institution in Germany The Prussian system, with its more than 460,000 laborers and officials, is the largest employer of labor in the world; and this vast business is ad­ ministered with remarkable honesty and efficiency. Cases of embezzle­ ment or other crime are extremely rdfre; relatively few persons are killed or maimed through accident; and the railways are always kept qnite aloof from politics. American writers were accustomed up to about twenty years ago to regard the Prus­ sian roads aB much inferior to Ameri­ can. ones; but much less is heard of such unfavorable comparisons now, for the Prussian roads have made great improvements. Freight rates, Indeed, are considerably higher than the average American rates, but the bulk of the passenger traffic is car­ ried at cheaper piic.es than in Amer­ ica. Bismarck's purpose to use the railway wholly in the interests of the people, as declared when he national­ ized the roads, has not been fully carried out, since rates have been kept up high enough to make them the largest source of revenue for the state, besides paying Interest on the capital Invested. On the other hand, shippers have the peat advantage of absolutely fair treatment; there Is no discrimination among them, tuere are no rebateB, secret or other. Another great advantage consists in having a single system to deal with, as well as simplified tariff schedules; before the nationalization there were 63 railways with 1,367 different tariffs.--Atlantic Monthly. r: There came over me as I sat in the caboose that evening a wild desire to ride with the engineer in the cab. Planning to slip ahead along the half mile or so of train at the first stop, I made known my desire to our con­ ductor over that part of the run. "They'll be glad to see you," he told me, "You won't have any trouble ;ettin' there. It's a mild evening." swung open the window of the lookout and called to his rear brake-' man, "Jimmle, run along with this here party." Jimmle pulled me through the window of the lookout before I clearly realized the entire plan. It was a slippery path over the roofs of 60 cars to the big engine that was pulling us, and the wind that swept in from the shores of the ice­ bound "like, along which the tracks ran for many miles, snapped sharply over those car roofs. Jimmle hung onto his lantern with one hand, to his convoy with the other. Long miles over those slippery car roofs had taught him to regard it as no fery serious business. "This ain't nothin'," was his assur­ ance. "It sometimes gets nasty when we get down to ssero an' a blizzard comes a-rippln' from off over the lake. Sometimes you have to get down an' crawl on all fours. It wouldn't be much fun to be swept off the tops of those cars." There was no disputing that, nor that the three lengthwise planks at the gable of the car roofs were not wide promenades. You Jump from one to another to cross from car to car, and a man has got to have some­ thing of a gymnastic training and some circus as well as railroad blood in his veins to do It many times with­ out dropping into one of the hideous dark abysses between them. 'A hand out of the dark slapped me In the face. "Drop," said Jimmle, and, fearing possibly that I might not obey, he pulled me flat down uppn the car roof. "That was a 'telltale,'" he ex­ plained, and before I couM ask fur­ ther we were in a short reach of a tunnel, and I understood. We were whirled through that tnnnel like a package in a tube, and if we had raised our arms we could have touched the flying roof of the bore. The smoke lay heavy in the place. It filled our eyes and nostrils. "Not real nice," said Jimmle cheer­ ily. "But no danger In the holes, save now and then an icicle gets a crack at your nut You see, there ain't much use in arguin' the matter after that 'telltale' strikes you."--Ed­ ward Hungerford in Harper's. DEVICE NOT YET PERFECT Many Automatic Stokers Have Been Tried Out on the Rail­ roads of America. In the United States a number of automatic stokers have been tried out with varying degrees of success; but with possibly a single exception none is yet regarded as entirely sat­ isfactory. As in the case of every other important device used on a railroad, there has been a weary road to travel between the first con- coiiia And Typloally Mlleelan Was Plan He Had Evolved to Put Things Straight, For sixteen years Mike Flynn had cleaned out the town hall after shows lectures, political meetings. Decora­ tion day exercises and other doings, and never a complaint did he make. Recently, however, he fancied he had a kick comfcg, and he went Into the mayor's office to register it. "What is It, Mike?" asked the mayor. "its about the hall, yer honor. The byes stand up in the rear, they do, an' they chew an' spit durin' the intire perform­ ance. An* not a wurrud would Oi say, yer honor, if they would spit out on the fiure where Oi could git at it, but --the varmints--they would spit all over the legs of the chairs in the back row, an' on the placeB where the chairs do be fastened to the fiure, an* hard work it Is fer a man of me age to stoop down an' scrub It off. There's a favor Oi would be askin' of yer honor this mornin' in resplct to It." "What is that, Mike?" "Indade, Oi would ask yer honor fer permission and authority to do away with the back row of seats entirely Nobody likes to sit in the back row anyway, yer honor, an' sinceless it is to hava one in the hall at all."--Kansas City Star. HOW IT HAPPENED. iii. iTBMf ft-* «. m k. Tom--Was it case of love at first sight? Harry--No--first call. She was a telephone girl, and he was taken with her voice when he first heard it. Rifle for Under Water Action. When he Is working in water Infest­ ed by sharks and other sea monsters likely to do him harm, the diver has at present to rely for his safety on the use of the knife, or, failing that, on a quick return to the surface. Now comes the invention of Captain Grobl, a German diving instructor, who has constructed a rifle which can be flred under water, and is designed for the better arming of the diver. The most remarkable thing about this is that it fires, not bullets, but water, which is propelled with such force that it has an extraordinary power of penetration. Indeed, the inventor himself has pierced armor plate of medium thick­ ness with the water jet from his weapon. The rifle has a stout barrel and is loaded with a cartridge cased in India rubber. Another Pressing Need. It's well enough to devote a lot of time and a good deal of prize money to the composition of a National an- ceptlon of the idea and Its practical them, but what's the matter with giv- working out Locomotive mechanical stokers are of two general types, the overfeed and the underfeed. Of the former, which was the first developed, the greatest number have been tried out. Of the latter, but two have been at- ing us a National wedding march, too? Must we be forever indebted to the marches of an erratic Bavarian and a visionary Deutscher? Here's an opportunity for ambitious native composers. Think of the pride that would fol- tempted and but one of these devel- , jow such an announcement as this; oped. I "The happy pair passed down the The first automatic stoker was in- | aigl- to the pui5ating strains of Boll vented a dozen years ago by an en­ gineer on the Chesapeake & Ohio, where it had been found next to im­ possible to keep up steam in the hun­ dred-ion locomotives to enable them to haul their full tonnage over long divisions. var P. Gibson's exquisite 'Marche Nuptiale!'"--Cleveland Plain Dealer. "Boy Scout" Movement Spreads. The "boy scouts" movement has reached the Malay peninsula, and The original stoker was | Singapore is to have a fine organiza- worked by hand at first, then a steam i tion under the patronage of the gov- the animals back. The chances were I ed him wlf a club, dat gi-raffe would some one would be in- j done bitten me." bet ter tha t "Giraffes dont bite, yon fool.' the manager said. 'Giraffes kick. But you bring him back and well glva you two dollars." "Dis gl-ralfe bites," the colored man insisted. In a few moment he reap­ peared, leading by a rope around his neck, Nero, the Most Ferocious Man- Eating Lion in Captivity. "W'oa," said he, Jerking at the rope. Nero stopped obedient in the rain. "Qimtne mah two dollahs, wlie man," said he. "Heah'a youah gi-raffe. ia' he de bite." Longest Straight Railway. Egypt has a desert railway which urns 45 miles Inv a straight line, but the longest straight piece of railway line In the world is paid to be from Nyngan to Bourke in New South Wales. This railway runs 126 miles oq a level in a dead straight line. motor was applied. It did very wel> but was unpopular with the firemen, just as the injector, the air-brake, sight feed lubricator and all other Im­ provements were at flfst. Since then considerable improve­ ments have been made on this orig­ inal mechanical stoker and today 22 locomotives on the Chicago, Burling ton & Quincy and two on the Iowa Central are equipped with automatic feeders. On one trip on the Burling­ ton a locomotive equipped with a me­ chanical stoker hauled 500 tons more than its rated capacity at an average speed of 17 miles per hour over the di- vision. The steam pressure did not vary more than four pounds and there was very little blowing off. At the end of the trip the fire was in such good condition that the engine could Lave gone back over the division without having the fire cleaned. Di F. Crawford, superintendent of motive power of the Pennsylvania lines west of Pittsburg, has devel­ oped an underfeed stoker which prom­ ises to produce great results when all the minor det'slis have been per­ fected through tests in service. He started out with the proposition that the stoker must do all the work all the time, that It must be a part of the locomotive and not an attachment to be thrown aside at will, that it must be saving of coal and that it must produce no smoke. These re­ quirements Beemed to bar all forms of overfeed stokers. Australian Steel Ralls. The first steel rails ever rolled In Australia recently were turned out by e New South Wales iron works. Made to Climb Himalayas. The Darjeeling-Himalayan railway fs one of the most curious in the world. It Is of two-foot gage, and on account of the steepness is full of loops, curves and spirals, many of the curves having only 70 feet radius. Some of the gradients are as high as one foot In 28. A special type of locomotive, the "Garratt,' had to be made for it at Manchester This locomotive was required by the specifications to be able to travel on reserve curves not exceeding 60 feet radius, with only 20 feet length oi tangent between the curves. The engine consists of a frame supported at each end by four-wheeled bogies: each of which is described as a mlnla ture locomotive without boiler. Th« boiler is carried on the frams between the bogier ernor and chief justice. It is a good thing in many ways, aside from the military training, and bids fair to become one of the permanent and most popular institutions of the penin­ sula. All through the British colonies "boy scout" organizations are being formed. Supply. New Minister--Now Just one thing more before I accept this charge. Have you got a "supply?" Deacon--Well, yes, though we never said anything to the last preacher about it. I'll show you where It is, and get you a key, but I tell you you'll have to be Just as careful about using it as the rest of us t--Puck. A THnuijik Ot Cookery-- Post • Toasiies Many delicious dishes have been made from Indian Corn by the skiD and ingenuity of the exr pert cook. But none of these crea­ tions excels PostToast- ies in tempting the palate. "Toasties" are a luxury that make a delight­ ful hot-weather economy. The first package tells its own story. "The Memory Lingers" SoM by Grocers POSTUM CEREAL CO.. Ltd. Battle Creek. Mich.. U. S. A.