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McHenry Plaindealer (McHenry, IL), 26 Sep 1907, p. 2

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Pv P a lib DMapaUrtd Foraipi By WILLIAM T. ELUS Iimuilht l» Tranliaf Ateuiul th* World for tlx Pmpm «t tt» A--full from t Purely Disinterested, Secular and Non-Sectariaa Standpoint. Illustrated with Drawings and from Photographs. Eye-Witness Describes Famine Scenes in China * LI Tsing-Kiang-Pn, China, Jan. 16,1907. -It depends upon the bumps on a 's head what he will think of a u great famine. If his scientific bump be Surge he will point out, dispassionate­ ly and learnedly, that famines are one •of the agencies of beneficent nature ""to keep down the surplus population, • mod to insure the survival of the fit­ test. They are painful like a sur- . ®eon's operation, but they are really - ft wise provision for the health of the whole mass of mankind. "Why do you carry that baby?" asked my missionary friend of an aged, withered old woman in one of €he famine refugee camps in central" China, pointing to a starvling which the trembling old arms held. "There fs no one else; the father and moth- -«r have both died." And plainly, the fnfant would soon follow them within •the portals of starvation gat?, through which so many hundreds are daily passing. The death of the parents, -amd^he survival of that old woman •tad tiny babe, were famine para­ doxes; for most of the victims at this stage are the very old and^ tbe very young. In still another instance, I a&w a wrinkled, half-blind old grand­ mother seated oa the bard? and frozen ground, her only home in the camp, -dividing with a wee child the thin rice gruel which she had managed to secure at the relief kitchen. How she -ever made her way through that jam -of voracious wild creatures I cannot tell; on the same day, at the same At Tsin-ki#mg-pu, a city of about 150,- 000 inhabitants, I saw tons of rice so displayed, and all the restaurants open to the street, while outside the city wall were encamped 300,000 famish­ ing refugees, driven from their homes by want, and many of them* dying dally from actual starvation. Yang- chow has an encampment of 80,000 ref­ ugees, of whom the Chinese governor said that 1.000 died in a single night of cold and starvation. Nanking has three camps of these miserable mor­ tals, with about 100,000 people in them, and Chinkiang has 30,000. These, moreover, are the strong who are able to pile their meager goods on the fam­ ily wheelbarrow and travel south from the North River famine district; of the other myriads who are perishing in their homes, nothing can be said. No­ body has ever written a, description of the death-throes of a rat in its hole. If this were a properly symmetrical article it would have dealt at the out­ set with the summer rains and floods which inundated this) great plain of central China; destroying the crops and, in thousands of cases, washing away the mud homes of the peasants. It would likewise have exploited the culpable inefficiency of the Chinese government for not having inaugu­ rated a system of relief before the people began to drop from starvation. Also it would have pointed out the many public works right .at hand upon which the famine safferers oonld be I saw a man so crushed by the "Jam that be could not get to the -mission hospital without help. The --cruel, crowding selfishness of the Chl- »'aese in the scramble for daily bread, "<«nder ordinary circumstances is more -elemental and snconcealed than any­ thing known in the West; add actual starvation as a motive, and you un- •'!' «haln all the savage beasts that lurk il* the recesses of human nature. A few days ago & missionary at ;Suchien thought to alleviate a modi­ cum of the distress that surrounded rJlim by distributing 100 work tickets "to able-bodied men, using relief funds "tor payment. When the hour of dia- "^ribution arrived (it was very early in nthe morning) a mob of 1,000 men, each 'determined to sieze this chance for work, no matter who might get left, surged around the missionary. They crushed him and finally bore him down --all with no evil intention--and trampled him under foot, until he was rescued, unconscious, only with great- j/pt difficulty, and his life barely saved. TUrat is the sort of thing, and worse, which the authorities fear when they refuse to allow individuals to go out iptn the camps and disburse relief. It Is more than a little trying to a white Sian's nerves to have starving people clutching at his coat, or falling on the tground before him, or holding forth Tfcungry children for his pity, while he •dare not ease his feelings by scatter­ ing the few coppers that are jingling In his pocket. But the rule is rigid, ^«nd doubtless wise, that not a copper /penny or a brass cash may be given out directly. Jd Xact, the officials, as well as most •other observers, rather anticipate se­ rious outbreaks as a consequence of the famine. Let nobody delude him­ self into the belief that the Chinese are the abject serfs of an autocratic government ; the hundreds of mandar­ ins who have been beaten, dipped in liuge jars of filth, covered with mud, Treat copyright, bj Underwood £ Underwood, N. T A Chinese Cemetery--Thousands of Famine-Strickerr' Persons .Are Piled In the Ground and Covered with the Ea rth. employed, thus saving their self-re­ spect as well as their lives. But for the life of me I cannot write anything but the haunting, harrowing^ inesca­ pable facts before my eyes. If I could for an hour shake off those thin trem­ bling hands that clutch my coat as I pass through the famine camps, or could shut out the orying of the chil­ dren whose bitterest wailing brings them no bread, or the sight of the mothers and widows wailing over their dead, I might write a famine report that would satisfy the reader with scientific bumps on his head. , Yesterday I witnessed two trag­ edies which seemed not to command more than a passing glance from the highway along which they were enacted. The first was at one corner of an encampment of straw mats, tiny, temporary huts not big enough to house a cow, and yet containing whole families. A child had died, and its body had been wrapped in a piece of straw matting, since the death rate Is too high for the authorities to supply even the cheapest coffins for any but adults. The mat which enshrouded the corpse had been its only shelter while living; and now the gruesome bundle leaned against the family's few possessions. Beside it, mute, with face buried in his knees, sat a big boy. Over it bent the mother, her waitings assailing the ears of everybody within a furlong. But she wept alone, un­ heeded. In a few hours the soldiers would cart away the body and she and her son would be driven back Into the country to face slow death for them­ selves. A few hundred yards farther on I came to a newly-made grave, evidently of a son and husband. It was one of many recent graves along the main highway to Peking. On one side of it crouched a wrinkled, bent and tattered old mother, with scarcely sufficient vitality to make her mourning heafd. After a time she arose and with her bare hands heaped clods of earth upon existence itself as the stake at Issue, it is scarcely surprising to find rever­ sions to beast-selfishness. So, when I saw a woman with two little children, one of them suffering from small-pox, living in a mat hut three feet high, three feet wide, and four or five feet long, I was not astonished to learn that her husband had deserted her; that has been the way of some hus­ bands in every such disaster. The as­ tonishing fact is that so many parents and husbands are loyal; it is royally common among these "Uncounted fam­ ing, victims to find the parents wan ami emaciated and the little children comparatively ruddy. True, many pa­ rents are selling or giving sway their children, and even drowning them, but this is tisually an expression of sollci- tade for the child's welfare. Even the sale of littl^ daughters into slavery must not be judged by occidental standards. Several mothers have be­ sought me to buy their children, or to accept them as a gift This morning I had pressed on me by a forlorn mother as healthy a specimen of Chi­ nese babyhood as one would care to possess. Having been driven from the refugee camp, with her family and pos­ sessions on a wheelbarrow, she was on her way back to the country to starve, she said, and I fear she spoke truly. Practically the entire famine dis­ trict has been almost wholly cleared of live stock. "We have no beasts, and men are eating beasts' food," is the way one farmer succinctly put it lie meant that the people are living on grass, bark, roots, leaves and such like. This morning I inspected the houses of almost an entire village, looking fur food--and such bare, crude, filthy And comfortless homes they are--and nowhere did I see a grain of rice. The whole village is subsisting upon dried sweet potato leaves, which I found cooking over many stoves. Out here it is custom­ ary to extract the oil from peanuts and then to press peanuts, shells and all, into a hard cake as cattle fodder. Beans are treated in the Bame manner. Now these dried cakes are sold as food for human beings. I watched one man, on whose features grim hunger had written large her signature, buy a portion of this. He was given a wedge about four lnehes long, three inches deep, and possibly two inches wide at the outer edge, for 20 cash, which is two-thirds of the government allowance per day for an adult. The avidity with which he seized and de­ voured dry a few additional crumbs-- the "little more" that goes with every bargain In China--was eloquent of the cravings of his body. This dole of 30 daily cash--equiva­ lent to one and a half cents, American currency--the Chinese government pledges to give every sufferer in the famine district north of the Yangtze river. It really seems as if the higher officials are in earnest, and extraor­ dinary efTorts are being made to pre­ vent "squeezing" by the other officials through whose hands the money, must pass. This is one of the manifesta­ tions of a, "new" China which abound these days. Of course, the attempt is not wholly successful, and myriads of starving people have not received a single cash. Most of those who have encamped, ominously, outside of the walls of several cities have been help­ ed; for the officials fear them. Now, with force and fair promises, the larger partjof these refugees are being driven back Into the country. All of them distrust the official promises of help. The assistance that is at pres­ ent extended is not expected to hold out for a month, since a cent and a half a day given to 3,000,000 persons is a sum' to tax any treasury. Foreign relief is being distributed in the form of flour to bring down the prices. "Famine prices," Is no mere phase here; the cost of all foodstuffs has risen 200 per cent, or more. The missionaries, who have been chosen by the general relief committee at Shanghai to disburse the world's boun­ ty, are busy dotting the stricken re­ gions with depots for the sale of food, thus making every dollar given con­ tinue its work throughout the entire six months of distress; for the worst will not be over until July. (Copyright, 1907, by Joseph B. Bowles.) RIFT IN LOVE'8 COURSE. * toned and otherwise ill-treated by , ,. mobs, know far different. The Chi-|,tbe con,cal &rave mound. The widow nese are nearly always ripe for riot. *At any moment the big world which •,;3haa been so callous to the awfulness -*0f this famine that has swept away (he 'entire subsistence of 3,000,000 people, *mt of a total population of 10,000,000, dwelling in an area of 40,000 square miles, may be startled into attention Iby a great outbreak of mad, mob des­ peration, in which ail the foreigners within reach may perish. If so, he it remembered that poise and self-re­ straint are qualities scarcely to be ex- ^pected of men in the throes of actual 1 ̂ starvation. ' These famishing Chinese are, as A /'imatter of observation, displaying a res'pect for law which could be expect­ ed of no western people similarly sit- V: uated. I have been amazed,, to Bee £ heaps of rice and other food-stuffs •freely exposed for sale on the slde- walke of streets along which daily 1^ ; pass hundreds of men, in the lnde- fV *sscribable grip of the primitive passion of : imager; yet not a grain was stolen. Beautiful Girl's Demand Adoring Suitor. Shocked :iv-; '•f-StS who could afford no mourning garb ex­ cept a small square of white cloth the size of a handkerchief upon her head, wept and w&iled as only an oriental woman can do. " Her body shook with shuddering sobs. All the grief of the ages seemed embodied in her mourn­ ing. This famine means more to those two lonely women than it does to my scientific friend. Near the same spot a middle-aged man, with some mourning rags of white upon him, fell on his knees as we approached, and clutched at our clothing. Plainly, he had gone to pteces. He was a nervous wreck, as well is a starving man. He had just been out burying his old mother, and grief, combined with hunger, had been too much for him. So, in an almost delirious frenzy, he besought the hon­ orable foreigners with noble hearts to help him- Our only possible course was to shake him off and pass on. In an elemental struggle such as this, between man and hunger, with FACES,?A NEW ERA. BPtflNG GARDENS, LONDON, SITE FOR ADMIRALTY BUILDING*. SplendlcT Structure to Be Erected in This Place of Interesting and Romantic Story of H Old. , ' " f The decision of the British govern­ ment to place the splendid neftr ad­ miralty buildings which. are to be erected, in the Spring Gardens, Lon­ don, makes the project one of more than passing interest, for aside from the buildings which are to be magnifi­ cently proportioned and complete in every detail, the site chosen is satu­ rated with romantic associations. Work on the buildings will be begun in a very short time now, and will consist of two serrate edifices, joined by a triple arch, the southern block being destined to provide accomoda­ tion for the ever-increasing work of the admiralty, while the block to the north will furnish the first lord pf the admiralty and the first sea lord with magnificent private residences. Tho buildings will be complete in two years and will cost $650,000. The triple arch will have passages, on either side for general traffic and a central passage for state processions, which will proceed to and from Buck­ ingham palace by a fine processional road connecting the new buildings with the Queen Victoria palace. The new era which Spring Gardens will see with the erection of the ad­ miralty buildings will be its most splendid, if not its most interesting. There was a garden there in Queen Elizabeth's time, and the name comes from one of those sprinklers which, surreptitiously worked, Bhowered un­ wary visitors. It was placed near a sun dial, and was one of many in Eng­ land in that and future times. Early in the sevsafeeenth century the garden contained^ bathing pond, gravel walks and fruit trees, and in the time of James I. a butt for archery practice. It was also the home of part of James I.'s menagerie', the other part being kept in St. James' park. Here, too, the at that time aristocratic game of bowls was played on a bowl­ ing green ordered- by the first James. In Charles I.'s reigrjtl®|.here was con­ tinuous blbbling and drinking all day under the trees, and two or three quar­ rels (duels) every week. It was most scandalous and insufferable." The King therefore ordered the gardens to be closed, but they were soon re­ opened. only to be again shut^-up by Cromwell. ; "My Lady Gerard," writes Evelyn, 4n MSy, 1654, "treated us St Mulberry Garden, now the onely place of r»- freshment about the towne for persons Of the best quality to be exceedingly cheated at; tCromwell and his parti- tans having shut up and seiz'd on Spring Garden, which till now had ben the usual rendezvous for the ladys and gallants at this season." But Spring Gardens was in full fav­ or again four years later and the rev­ els in full swing, so that it "was usual here to find •some of the young company till midnight." These alfres­ co Watteauesque scenes were special­ ly qoisy after the beaux and belle* had "collationed," on the "trifling tarts, neats' tongues and bad Rhenish," which were to be had there. Pepys, as well as Evelyn, was a fre­ quent visitor, and in the days of the merry monarch it was the resort of bevies of the nobility. In this reign the garden was again closed, after a Central Portion of Admiralty Build­ ings, Showing Trip'e Arch. particularly sanguinary duel, brought about all on account of the beautiful countess of Shrewsbury. The glories of Spring Gardens were then over, but its neighbor, the Mall, through nearly three centuries the promenade of the beau monde, flour­ ished till well after 1810. It was not until 1817, in fact, that Sir Richard Phillips remarked: "The dinner hour of four and five among the great, or would-be, having shifted to the un­ healthy hours of eight and nine, the promenade after dinner in the dinner full dress is consequently lost." In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries people would pay fabulous sums even "for a small window" to watch the parade. But it is a-good deal more than a century since the "glass of fashion and the mould of form" "collationed" in Spring Gardens. IN THE HIGHLANDS. BEAUTY OF THE REGIONS IN THE FAR NORTH OF 8COTLAND. Places to Which the Tourist 8eldom Comes, but Which Are Rich in 8cenic Beauty and His­ toric incidents. It may be safely said that the vast majority of tourists regard Aberdeen as the most northerly town in Scot­ land, and seldom correct the error by "Jack Harkalong, let go of my hand!" In low, tense tones these words fell from the proud lips of - the beautiful Myrtilla Kerneggy. A cold perspiration broke out upon the high, broad forehead of the young man. "What's the grouch now, my peer­ less marshmallow?" he demanded hoarsely. "Of what have I been gutUyr "Jfcck * Harkafong, let go my hand!" v ' "Your words move me strangely, gentle maiden, but they don't loosen my grip. Most beautiful girl, listen! Not even at your bidding is a set of ^phalangeal muscles, trained, developed and hardened by years of assiduous strap hanging, to be made to yield their--" "Jack Harkalong 1st go of my hand!": "What for?" he howled. "Because," she answered, la the same low, tense tones, "I wish to ad­ just my back hair!" Loc.ii Avtemors. visiting the norther land Highlands, without an acquaintance with which no one can have a thorough knowl­ edge of the scenic beauties of the-- Land of brown heath and shaggy wood- Land of the mountain and the flood. This indifference with regard to some of the wildest and most pictur­ esque scenery in all Scotland is, in all probability, due to the fact that Bal­ moral and the Dee-side, associated as they are with Queen Victoria, have absorbed more than their due share of public interest, and have led to the popular error that the natural beauties of the country do not extend north of Ballater and Braemar. How utterly erroneous this opinion it is forcibly proved to all who spend a week inhaling the refreshing winds of the keen mountain passes, or re- invigorating heart and brain in con­ templating loch and tarn, mountain side or moor, or^in steeping the'senses in loveliness such as is to be found in scenes where-- The long light Bhakes across the lakes And the wild cataract leaps In glory. Inverness has much beauty of situ­ ation and all the charms of historic associations. King Bruce may, in­ deed, be but a shadow of shadows, but the halo of romance will always hover over the brow of Bonnie Prince Charlie, whose story has captured for all time the popular imagination, and with that story Iverness is indissolu- bly conhected. Of the natural beau­ ties of the district, perhaps the most attractive are those of the islands amongst which the waters of the loch make their escape, and from whence one can enjoy the pungent scents of the shore and the broad-blown breaths of the sea. From Darnoch a short railway Jour­ ney lands the traveller at Bora. Situ­ ated between Brora and Dornoch is the residence of the Duke of Suther­ land, Dunrobin Castle, to which by the kindness of tbe Duke a visit may be paid. This castle is the oldest in­ habited house la the kingdom, and was founded shortly after the Nor­ man Conquest of England. The larg­ er part of the present castle fs mod­ ern, having been built in 1845. The journey from Dornoch to Thur so for the most part is more interest­ ing than beautiful, the railway run­ ning through miles of bleak and boggy moorland, where only grouse and deer can easily find a living. Between Brora and Helmsdale, while the line skirts along the coast, there is no lack of fine scenery, the sea dashing over the rocks almost up to the rail­ way when the tide is high, and some miles of splendid golfing ground may be seen near Loth. From Tbujrso coaches run east and west i to <faMletown and ,Tongue, and private carriages may be had for the drive to John o' Groats. Passengers for the Orkney Islands sail from the harbour of Scrabster, about a mile and a half from Thurso Station. There is a daily service of excellent steam­ ers on this route, and though the pas­ sage across the Pentland Firth ts sometimes a little disconcerting, tour­ ists who are good sailors will never regret paying a visit to Orkney. B* yond the Harbour of Scrabster the road runs to Holborn Head, and s walk of a mile amid the finest rock scenery In the kingdom enables one to view the great "Clett" rock, stand­ ing out in the sea about eighty yards from the shore. ERI And In the Shadow of the 8acred Cod! Any inattention or neglect on part of employes, if reported to the cashier or head waiter, will be deemed a fav­ or by the management---From a Boa- ton Hotel Bill of Fartfb CIVILIZED. See the Woman! She haB step-ladder, corkscrew heels on her shoes and has squeezed her feet into a pair several sizes too small; and she looks as if she was go­ ing to fall forward and be deformed some more. She is having a continu­ ous struggle with the law of gravita­ tion. „ She has a steel frame about her uppes part and has -compressed her. waist so that it looks like the small end of a funnel, and she can hardly breathe, and her internal anatomy has shifted quarters, and there are sev­ eral jobs ahead for the family doctor. 'And she don't know why she feels "poorly" most of the time. She is pinned, tied, laced and braced. She uses cosmetics, hair dyes, paints, powders, belladonna to bright­ en her eyes, and all manner of false and uncomfortable things are on and about her from head dbwn. She has rings on her fingers, ban­ gles on her wrists, a chain about her neck, ap«i cr-any trinkets on her hr^ast, and hei bipod hap to struggle ftrr cir­ culation . . s - She has birds and gay-colored plumes and feathers on her hat, and she weareth many colors. She is not what she was crested, hut Is what she has crested. r Is the Woman a Savage? ^ No--she is the Flower of Civilisa­ tion!--Henry Waldorf Francis, la Life. Encouraging Him. Mr. Crimsonbeak--I am discourag­ ed! I don't think I'm any account Is this wsrld! . Mrs. Crimsonbeak--Oh, don't say that, John. I was reading only yes­ terday that somebody had said that the normal human body haa in it the iron needed to make seven large nails.---Yonkers Statesman. , No Fiction. The Father--What is that book yon are reading, my son? The Son--It's a story of a man who invested his money in a western gold mine, and lost every cent of it. "Oh, that's all right, my boy, I was afraid you'd got hold of a work ot fiction!"--Yonkers Statesman. ™A.RADF0RD ^DilORsr *Ir. William A. Radford will answer questions ind give advice FREE OF COST on all subjects pertaining to the subject of building for the readers of this paper. On account of his wide expe­ rience as Editor, Author and Manufac­ turer, he is, without d-^ubt, the highest authority on all these subjects. Address all inquiries to William A. Radford, No. 194 Fifth Ave., Chicago, 111., and only •ncloae two-cent stamp for reply. A five room cottage with roof space for ahout three rooms more on the floor above If shewn In this plan. I find there is in some neighborhoods a Strong prejudice against cottage housas caused usually by the dilapidat­ ed appearance of small, hopeless-look­ ing houses that are out of courtesy called cottags>g. But the fact is some of the happiest homes are enjoyed by families Hiving in cottage houses, homes that attract attention beyond the family and its immediate relatives. It Is difflcult to be really ha^py ur.> der a heavy mortgage, and I find that most large houses are encumbered for a large share of the purchase price. I would never discourage a man from securing a home because he couldn't pay spot cash for it, but I would strongly recommend him to select something smaller, a neat little af­ fair like this, perhaps, that he could pay for without a great deal of un­ necessary worry. The good wife can tuck the babies away in a small room that is heated by a drum from the kitchen stove and they will sleep just as . sweetly and wake up and be just as happy next morning as they would in an expensive nursery presided over by a white-capped graduate from some The size of this house on the ground is Si feet by 45 feet 6 inches, "but the front projection is quite narrow.. The parlor is in this projection, away by itself, so it may be shut off from the main part of the house, and this is another economy which works out In the saving of fuel in the winter time. It is a very cheerful room, es­ pecially when there is a fire in the grate and it is anice cool room t» the summer. The dinlng-rocim with its three win­ dows attracts the family more than the parlor in such a house; it is larger, more central and it feels more comfortable. When necessary the din­ ing-room may be used in connection with the parlor by leaving the sliding doors open. In general, this arrange­ ment of the rooms is good. No space Ib taken up with a hallway, because a hail in sucn a licusr is nut necessary. It is an easy house to do the work In, and it contains all the conven­ iences necessary for a small family. There is need of just such bouses in every community. More cheap houses means more homes owned by the people living" in them and this means a better community, more gen­ eral improvements and a higher stand­ ard of living. Modern suburban trans­ portation is bringing the outlying sec­ tions of cities and towns closer to business, when measured by time, which in turn is increasing the de­ mand for low cost, comfortable homes. Land is too valuable in or near busi­ ness districts to have such houses, be* rS Cy iy.; .» mum 7 -- r ̂||| fashionable clinic. The trundle bed expense is only a fraction of what the swell affair usually costs and the real happiness is mostly on the hum­ ble Bide, at any rate divorce cases seldom or never emanate from pretty, well-kept cottage homes. Young folks often are ambitious, which is all right so long as their ambition takes the right direction, but ambition differs with individuals. One woman wants her children well edu­ cated that they may become useful cit­ izens, while another wants to shine forth in all the latest finery as soon as It is sanctioned by the most perni­ cious fashion mongers. Between these types there are all grades of ambition and all sorts of motives among most of which may be plainly seen the influence of wealthy neigb- bors which very well Illustrates the fact that our wants are governed for the most part by our neighbors' sup­ plies. A cottage house 1s easily furnished. It does not demand the expensive BED Waw aronoOM F/oor PIm combinations of furniture, rugs ami drapery that fashion says should go with a lai-ge •'.w>story house. The kind of furnishiug that suits a cot­ tage is more home-like, more in keep­ ing with one's every-day life and busl- JH • r ^ c t e " . •Tii.nL ^ f&L'.KV. b, - S •w', Of coarse there are cottage hooaee furnished luzuriuntly in one general style throughout. This is especially noticeable in -summer resorts whera people of means build cottage bouses for holiday use und furnish then the same as they would stock a art of book shelves, In fancy bindings with colors to match, more for looks than tor use or com>ort, but this house plan is Intended to deal with the ot> dinary cottage heme as it is generally- built to shelter the fandly the year around and provide comforts month after month and year after year. 'Some houses look belter and feel better If the furniture is not so very expensive. It may he good and plain. The oiiairs may te cushioned with cotton covered cushions, the floors may be covered with oarpets or rags designed for *-esr rather than looks and the windows may" be curtained in a cheap, ta«ty manner, but in such homes you >* 111 generally find comfortable lounges decfrated with soft, inviting sofa pil­ lows, very often representing many different designs, and there is always an easy chair for each member of ths faifiily and an extra one for a stranger, and the stranger feels at home the minute he enters the door. cause it does not pay to pat s cheap bouse on a high-priced lot ! WHEN PUYALLUP BURNED. The Bucket Brigade Worked Manfully, but Melons Saved the Day* When our town started to burn vp it was named Puyallup. The name still sticks. Better if it* had scorched off, bnt it didn't, laments a writer in Sunset. The town was often called Pullyayup or Pieallup, but it was a good straight American name after the Indian tribe that had camped around there. The fire started in ths old pioneer Uvery stable, but when we saw that it was doomed nobody mourned. It had been standing in the way of prog­ ress long enough. But further on loomed up the big ptoaeex general merchandise store with its |S0,000 stock, and near it the depot and little bank. These must be saved. The bucket brigade centered its ef­ forts on the side walls of this build­ ing, but the water thrown on scorched, sizzled and ran off. It had no staying qualities. It seemed that the build­ ing and the precious stuff beyond were doomed. But on a side track near by stood a carload of real, ripe watermelons fresh from the big patches of the great Yakima country across the Ca»- cade range. One of the workers was struck with an idea. He rushed to the melon car, gathered up a melon and dashed ills brains out against the hot side of tb» steaming building. Half the putp> stuck to the weather boarding and re­ fused to ran off, as the water was doing- In a second the other fire fightws had caught on, and all dropped buck­ ets and smashed watermelons against the sides of the building that was the pivotal point in saving the town. Ths pulp stuck--stuck well. Every watermelon was sacrHieedL Not one was left to tell the tale. But each one of them had more backbone than ten buckets of water, and their clinging crust made the walla fire­ proof until the opposite building burn­ ed down. And thus the watermelons saved Psysllsp. v Red Bananas New to London • There seems to be a glut of rare fruits in the market just now, says the London Graphic. After passion fruit and espartillas, we com* to a freak vartety of the homely banana. This Is the red banana of Jamaica and it is now to be seen is a city fruiterer'?*. Much like the ordinary canary banana in shape, though a trifle fatter and shorter, its skin ?s of a dull red color and its flavor very much richer. It costs throe ttaea tb* price of its yellow brother. ^he Liar. He adored her, but Ws prtde wis very great. "Elsie," he faltered, "fa yo« lovs me?" Above the boom of the sea her vote* sounded clear and cold. "No," she said. "No, Mr. Manner* ing." . He laughed unpleasantly# , % ^ " -Well," he said, "I feared ym 4tf, that was all, and 1 just wanted to warn yoa that I am already engaged.'*

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