The European Nose

1895

An Austrian scientist has been attacking the European nose. He says that it is a miserable, degraded organ and a disgrace to civilization. He admires the large, full nostrils of the negro and says that it is the sort of nose to have. That is the nose that can smell. The nose of Europe cannot smell. Its olfactory sense is gone. The London nose could never snuff the London atmosphere, nor, he might have added, the much more complicated odors of cologne. He attributes this degeneration to cigarette smoking and to life in crowds. — St. Louis Post-Dispatch.


Sydney Smith's Wit

"By Jove!" said a country squire who had got the worst of an argument with Sydney Smith, "if I had a son who was a donkey, I'd make a parson of him straight away."
"Possibly," returned the wit, "but your father was evidently of a different mind."

Games of the Old World

1895

An Italian editor has been investigating the principal games in fashion in Europe during the dull weather. He finds the present craze in England is clay modeling, the selected victims — and generally misunderstood — being Mr. Gladstone and "Sir Harcourt."

In Belgium, especially in the "Rockersclubs," slow smoking races are the fashion. These end themselves favorably to bets. Big Flemish pipes are loaded with half an ounce of tobacco, and he is winner who can smoke his own through in the longest time without relighting; present record, 67 minutes to one pipe.

Leaping beans are the amusement of Italy and southern France. The inventor has had whole fields of them sown in Mexico and the larvae carefully preserved. The bean leaps best on hot plates, but the southerners paint them as kings and queens and use a little gunpowder. Then the figures go into convulsions, and the game is called "L'anarchie."

Germany, of course, is occupied with the war game, and France has selected "divinertes," of guesses of the future.

U. S. Seems To Be Land of Husbands

1920

FOREIGN GIRLS INVADING AMERICA BY WHOLESALE.

Feminine Army Hailing From All Nations Waits at New York for Lovers.

NEW YORK, N. Y., Aug. 5. — Brides, pink, nut-brown, olive and rosy, slender, chubby and plump, are anxiously inquiring at Ellis Island these days in a Babel of tongues for the sweethearts they have come so far to capture and break into domestic teamwork.

These modern Penelopes, who have reversed the old story and gone in search of their mates instead of supinely waiting and spinning at home, have adventured to more businesslike purpose than did old meandering Odysseus. They have winged a true course despite all the difficulties of these unsettled times.

They, together with aged relatives of kinsfolk already established here and wives and children coming to rejoin husbands, form a considerable part of the present mounting wave of immigrants, and their eager attractiveness just now is doing much to brighten the Island's grim labyrinth.

They're From All Lands.

There is such a choice and so cosmopolitan a bouquet of young brides at the Island that they deserve a consideration all to themselves, excluding from notice all of the faltering steps beside them of the aged fled from the chaos of Europe to secure haven with their children in America, and the prattlers in everything from Gaelic to Arabic, at last in a land of plentiful bread and milk.

Mary, Kathleen, Mollie, Malaki, Helena, Gastana, Taube, Conception, Mitzi and Germaine, all tender in years, all distractingly pretty, all in sparkling spirits, hailing from seven different countries and speaking seven different languages, clustered together in the New York detention room awaiting the arrival of their sweethearts, formed as inspirational citizen material as the Old World has ever sent us.

Mary, Kathleen and Mollie were Irish girls — home-makers they said — impatient to be away from the Island and at their chosen profession. Mollie Malone, a slender, brown-haired, brown-eyed girl from Dublin, jollied all rhyme and reason out of a would-be serious interview. She volunteered that she was going somewhere west of the Hudson River to marry a Yank whom she had met while he was doughboying overseas.

Draws Paper From Stocking.

Malaki Ayoub, a Syrian girl from Beirut, an exotic moving picture princess without half trying, olive skinned, dimpled, lustrous dark eyes, black hair, of plump, languorous dignity, also comes to marry. The interview with Malaki was limited to a word or so and nods, the interpreter, Nathan Greenberg, master of a sheaf of languages, being unable to understand much of the meat of her speech. Malaki, with naive, near-Eastern frankness, drew an official paper from the National Lisle Bank and verified the spelling of her name.

There was a slight English girl from Manchester among the brides. She refused to tell her name or anything about herself, but did consent to tell the interviewer that he should be heartily ashamed of Ellis Island and its tedious ways. She said that she reached New York on the Aquitania and she thought it a needless delay to be kept from her friends and sweetheart for four days.

Gastana Marchegiana[*] from Abruzzi and Conception Rodriguez from Seville, Spain, were two Southern beauties. Mitzi was a reticent girl from St. Gall, Switzerland, an embroidery worker. Taube (dove translated) Green (also a translation which she has adopted as appropriate to beginning her life in America) was an unusually pretty Polish Jewess, accompanied by her mother. Taube is a seamstress, as eager to enter the field of American business as she is to begin home-making here.

Conditions Bad in Poland.

Taube, who is going to Chicago, gave a discouraging description of conditions in Poland, where, she said, there is much near famine, and already much of the graft that characterizes democratic government. She said that it took four weeks' time and considerable backsheesh for her party to get its passports to leave Poland.

Germaine Dubuc of Bordeaux, France, following two years later in the wake of a California doughboy now established in a Western export house, was the last but not least attractive of the young brides-to-be greeted as they paced expectantly, some fretfully, before the doors of the detention room awaiting their sweethearts to claim them.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Aug. 7, 1920, p. 5.

Note: [*] This name is right on the fold and so is hard to read. But it looks like it says Gactana Marchegina, more sure about the first name than the last. Earlier in the article, though, there is a reference to Gastana, certainly this same person. And the last name doesn't Google well, but with Marchegiana there are a lot more. Neither, of course, is necessarily right, but this is what we went with.

Warsaw In Danger of Russ Capture

1920

Red Advance Takes Fortress; Americans Prepare to Flee From Capital.

BERLIN, Germany. — The fortress of Brest-Litovsk, the stronghold 110 miles east of Warsaw on the boundary line of Poland proper, is reported to have been captured by the Russians.

Nothing has been heard from the Polish armistice negotiators since they were swallowed up in the darkness within the Soviet Russian lines on their way to meet the Bolshevist armistice envoys.

The Polish emissaries have been instructed not to concede any point that might endanger Poland's independence. It had been intimated in various quarters that the Bolshevists would insist upon a Soviet government in Poland before granting an armistice.

The delegates likewise are ordered to hold out against disarmament of Poland and are instructed not to concede any frontier lines.

Bolshevist cavalry pursued the 2,000 Polish soldiers, who, with forty officers, crossed the German frontier in East Prussia Saturday, according to advices received here. The Russians threatened to follow the Poles across the national boundary, but refrained when German authorities disarmed the fugitives.

A Cracow dispatch say a Soviet republic has been proclaimed in Kovno and that Lithuanian troops have mutinied, being supported by the Soviet troops there.

A large number of ships are arriving at Danzig daily from French and British ports with munitions which are being rushed to the Polish front, according to word received here.

Bolshevist forces which have been concentrated on the banks of the Narew River, with the apparent object of driving to Warsaw along the Bug River, have delivered a series of strong attacks. The statement adds that the Poles have repulsed the Bolshevists with heavy loss in the sector near Topieloe, the Russians abandoning eleven machine guns and leaving 500 dead.

A desperate struggle is going on west of Bialystok, on the Brest-Litovsk railroad, for possession of the line running thru Topczeja and Dubina and along the rivers Nurets and Zerzyce.

The fighting in the Brody region is reported by the statement as favorable to the Poles.

Many Americans in Warsaw have already shipped their baggage and household goods to Danzig, Posen or Prague in anticipation of an attack by the Russian Bolshevists. Many woman workers with American organizations in Warsaw, as well as the wives of American officials, have left.

It is believed that negotiations between the Polish and Bolshevist armistice commissions may be continued for two or three days, or even longer, and in this event the Soviet advance either from the northeast of the east, if maintained, would bring the Bolshevists dangerously near Warsaw. On the other hand, some military observers contend the Soviet forces will be forced to stop within a day or two by exhaustion and lack of communication or a desire not to invade Poland farther.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Aug. 7, 1920, p. 2.

Thinks War Will End in August, Next Year

1916

Russian Field Commander Praises Roumania as Ally — Expects Allies to Win.

RUSSIAN ARMY HEADQUARTERS (on southern front). — In an interview with a war correspondent Gen. Alexis Brusiloff is quoted as saying:

"It goes without saying that I felt deep joy when I heard that Roumania had declared war on Austria. My left flank, now resting on the Roumanian army, with which it has virtually brought itself into contact, is now undoubtedly secure.

"The Roumanian army is a strength with which one must reckon. It is under good leadership, an excellent spirit animates it and it is subjected to remarkable discipline. Its body of officers are well learned, serious and competent. Above all, the Roumanian army has magnificent artillery which, it uses with perfect skill.

"During the last two years Roumania has had plenty of time to accumulate great quantities of ammunition and that is a capital point, because artillery plays in modern war a role not only enormous, but preponderating, and any nation without the help of powerful artillery would in vain expect great military success.

Sees Fall of Austria.

"If you consider, moreover, that Roumania in taking part in the war closes naturally her boundaries to German and Austrian buyers, who formerly found on her territory huge quantities of corn and maize, you will admit that the armed intervention of Roumania, who proudly enters the lists, is an event of the first order.

"To my mind, the Austro-Hungarian empire, assailed from all sides, will not be able to stand much longer before the hordes of enemies who are hurling themselves against her and are only preparing to increase the vigor of their blows.

"The present war is a war that it is impossible for us to lose, and altho a huge work remains to be accomplished, its successful result is already in our hands. The game is already won. I said so two years ago, and I did not change my mind one year ago when the penury of ammunitions obliged us to undergo great trials.

Compares War to a Lottery.

"We must consider that for the Allies, the present war can be compared to a lottery in which every number has to win, only we must go on until the end and not have the weakness to think about a premature peace.

"Now you will ask me when one may suppose that true peace will be signed, a peace which the Allies will be able to accept with the joy of an entirely fulfilled task. I am not a prophet, the future is in the hands of God, but if had absolutely to make an hypothesis I should be inclined to think that the month of August, 1917, might see the end of our memorable work."

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 3.

The Diseased Rich at Baden-Baden

The Diseased Rich at Baden-Baden

1901

A great deal of grandeur always makes me homesick. It isn't envy. I don't want to be a princess and have the bother of winding a horn for my outriders when I want to run to the drug store for postage stamps, but pomp depresses me.

Everybody was strange, foreign languages were pelting me from the rear, noiseless flunkies were carrying pampered lap dogs with crests on their nasty little embroidered blankets, fat old women with epilepsy and gouty old men with scrofula, representing the aristocracy at its best, were being half carried to and from tables, and the degeneracy of noble Europe was being borne in upon my soul with a sickening force.

The purple twilight was turning black on the distant hills, and the silent stars were slowly coming into view. Clean, health giving Baden-Baden. In the valley of the Oos, with its beauty and its pure air, was holding out her arms to all the disease and filth that degenerate riches produce. — Lillian Bell in Woman's Home Companion.

There Always Comes a Settling Day

1920

By W. D. Boyce (W. D. Boyce's Talks)

A few days ago leading bankers of the United States were approached by confidential agents representing bankers who had invested in Russian bonds to the amount of $300,000,000. It was a feel-out to determine whether pressure could not be brought upon Congress to recognize one of the factions in Russia which is fighting the Reds, or Bolshevists. I believe they were pretty plainly told that it would be useless to introduce such a bill, that it would get nowhere.

Now a bigger and wider scheme is proposed (no doubt a bill to that effect will be introduced in Congress) to send to "starving" Europe three hundred million dollars and not to collect the interest on European bonds which our Government took during the war. The balance due is going to be $1,500,000,000 (one billion five hundred million), and the Secretary of the Treasury further is quoted as stating that he had not the heart to ask the European Governments to pay what they owe us. That does not sound very good, specially as the United States Government has the heart to ask everybody to pay four times the normal taxes. We spent our money to send our boys to Europe to fight for the freedom of the world, but we never agreed to finance and set on their feet again the countries at war. We had nothing to do with bringing the fight on in the first place, and we should not be punished for the lack of foresight on the part of the Allies in not observing that Germany had been preparing for forty years to establish a Middle Europe, a German country from the North Sea to the Gulf of Persia.

I cannot understand why we should, keep on adding to our taxes in order to quickly establish Europe as our competitor in the markets of the world. If the other countries would go to work like England did they soon would be on their feet again. England exported and imported during the last twelve months $1,000,000,000 more than did the United States, yet England had been at war far more than four years. Talk about "starving Europe" can hardly be true for the war has been over now for fourteen months and Europe has had time to grow a crop. If she could live without starving for four years and at the same time keep millions of men fighting she ought to be able to get enough to eat in times of peace.

I get tired, too, of hearing and reading about the debt we owe to France. During the American Revolutionary period France sided with us, it is true, when we revolted against England. But it was because France was having trouble with both England and Germany at that time and England had a German King on her throne. The only reason France sided with us was because she wished to help rob England and Germany of prospective colonies and thus weaken her own enemies. Some of the educated French may have sincerely wished us well, but ninety out of every hundred of them didn't even know there was such a thing as the United States. Few of them could read or write and their minds were taken up with the sole objective of earning their daily bread and sour wine. France at that time was a monarchy and as a political unit had no love for republics.

Today France is the richest country in Europe, but she is hollering so loud about conditions and whining so much that the yelp of the Daschund can hardly be heard. The United States has set herself back forty years to prevent France from being subjugated by the Boche and if any debt is due now it is a debt of France to the United States.

Always there comes a settling day, and until the United States demands that Europe pay at least the interest on the money we have loaned the different countries over there they will not go to work, either to raise food enough to feed themselves or to make money enough to pay us off. If we extend any further credit we will "bust" Europe.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 6.

Chrysanthemums

1910

Chrysanthemums stand fourth in commercial importance among flowers. Only the rose, the violet and the carnation surpass them, and that chiefly because the chrysanthemum season is so short, while the others can be had from the florist nearly the whole year round. Greece gave us the name. Chrysanthemum means "golden flower." But the name was invented long before the big butter yellow globes were known in the Occident. It referred to the prevailing gold in the small varieties that were known. Strangely enough, the first chrysanthemum brought into Europe was not gold, but purple. It was a small flower about two inches across, shaped, like an aster. Somebody took it to Europe from China in 1790 — and, presto, the modern history of chrysanthemums was begun. — Argonaut.

Hunting Giraffes

1900

No Danger Attends This Sport Except From the Animal's Heels

A good giraffe skin is worth from $10 to $20 in South Africa and much more in Europe. On their hunting trips 10 or 15 years ago it was a common matter for one hunter to kill 40 or 50 of these graceful animals in one day. The reason for this is that the giraffe is the most innocent of animals and easily hunted. They are absolutely defenseless, and there is hardly a case on record where a wounded giraffe turned upon the hunter. It is true, they bare great powers of speed, and they can dodge rapidly from tree to tree in the woods, but they offer such a fair mark that these tactics hardly ever save them.

Not until it is unusually frightened does the giraffe make its best speed, and when it is often too late, for the hunter is upon it. There is really no element of danger connected with this sport, and that makes it less exciting and attractive to a true sportsman. Under certain circumstances it is possible to be injured with the powerful legs of the giraffe, which are capable of kicking a blow that would kill a lion. The latter beast, for this reason, takes good care to attack the giraffe at unexpected moments.

It takes a good horse to run down a giraffe, and if the least advantage is permitted the wild creature the race is lost. Its peculiar gait is very ungraceful and deceptive, but it covers the ground with remarkable facility. In the open veldt the hunters have always the best of the race, but the giraffe, when surprised, makes instantly for the forest, where tough vines and intermingling branches make travel difficult for the hunter. The bushes and thorns tear and lacerate the skin of the horses, but the tough skin of the giraffe is barely scratched. The creature will tear a path through the toughest and thickest jungle and never suffer in the least.

This skin, or hide, of the animal is its chief article of value. No wonder that the bullets often fail to penetrate this skin, for it is from three-quarters to an inch thick and as tough as it is thick. This skin when cured and tanned makes excellent leather for certain purposes. The Boers make riding whips and sandals out of the skins they do not send to Europe. The bones of the giraffe have also a commercial value. The leg bones are solid instead of hollow, and in Europe they are in great demand for manufacturing buttons and other bone articles. The tendons of the giraffe are so strong that they will sustain an enormous dead weight, which gives to them pecuniary value. — Scientific American.

Criticism of American Potatoes

1910

"Perhaps better potatoes will be raised in this country some day," said a man from Europe, seated in the Knickerbocker dining room. "At present many dinner menus are arranged without potatoes, In fact they are not highly prized, and I believe it is because the best kinds are not cultivated here. The soil may have something to do with it, but I tell you there is nothing to compare with the 'blue mouse' and the 'red mouse' raised in the Rhine country. There are many others kinds, with the flavor of nuts, mealy, and — well, I am often homesick for them." — New York Herald.


Easy Money at Great Parisian Banks

If you present a letter of credit at one of the great banks of Paris, like the Credit Lyonnais, an usher in livery receives you in a splendid parlor, like the salon of a palace, and bids you be seated in a sumptuous chair. Presently he brings you a check, made out for the amount you demand, for your signature. A quarter of an hour later he brings you the cash on a silver tray. You do not come in contact with the clerical force, or see the inner workings at all.

Montenegro May Become Zeta

1910

"Changing the map of Europe" is a phrase that had a grim significance during the greater part of the last century.

There were people with long memories who knew that changes in the map of Europe as a rule were brought about by war. But there is a possibility of a peaceful change of the map of Europe by Prince Nicholas of Montenegro.

He proposes when his principality becomes a kingdom an event that is to be celebrated with appropriate brilliancy this month — its name shall be altered to Zeta, which is what is was called in ancient times. Map-makers will take notice.

Women of Toulon Buy Foods Much as is Custom in Some American Cities

1917

Pays To Go To Market

To the continental woman, marketing is both a time-hallowed custom and a leading outdoor sport. Europe has always been far more economical than America, and this method of careful food purchasing is one of the first aids to economical housekeeping, according to Niksah. You see what you are getting, there are always opportunities to pick up bargains, and there are no delivery costs. Marketing by telephone is almost unknown in Europe outside a few big cities, because the telephone is not nearly so much a household institution there as here.

Toulon market is open every day from seven o'clock until noon. If you are a Toulon housewife of the upper class, you sally forth about 10 a.m., followed by a maid with a basket or a cord bag to carry your purchases. If you are not rich enough to have a maid, you carry your own vegetables in an embroidered cloth bag swinging from your arm. This cloth bag is an important point, because it marks you as an independent housewife. If you were to carry a basket or a cord bag, you would be taken for somebody's maid.

On either side of the pavement under the plantains are ranged scores of stalls covered with drab awnings. Most of the stall-keepers are women — Frenchwomen, Italians, Corsicans, Spanish. They sell all the vegetables known to botany, and delicacies like mushrooms, snails and ravioli, which is a dish made of macaroni and meat, as well. There are booths for the sale of flowers and medicinal herbs, and chickens and doubtful looking cuts of meat. The cream of the custom comes between nine and eleven. in the last half-hour there is a great bargain sale of everything that will not keep until the next day and the poorer classes rush the booths to purchase slightly damaged but nourishing goods at ridiculously low prices.

Britisher Reads Stars and Sees New World War to Begin in June 1926

1919

There will be another world war beginning in June 1926, according to a writer in the British Journal of Astrology. This prophet, who signs himself "Sepharial," asks for a serious hearing, inasmuch as he claims to have published a year in advance in each case the exact date of the war of 1914 and of the cessation of hostilities.

"The first phase of the next war," he writes, "will begin with Turkey, whose perfidy will lead to its final overthrow in 1921-22. This time Prussian intrigue will dominate the position in the near East, affecting Greece, Turkey and Russia. But, according to my calculations, the great crisis will not be reached until June 1926.

"In this great way, which may be regarded as Prussia's counter to the war of 1914-18, the malevolent forces take their rise in Vienna and Berlin, ascend to Petrograd, penetrate through the whole of Russia and descend via the Black sea and Turkey in Asia, on to Syria and Palestine."

Another allied victory is predicted by Sepharial.

The Kissing Cashier of Paris

1905

Ideas That Draw Custom

Proprietors of European Cafes Show Enterprise

In many of the European cafes of the cheaper order it is the invariable custom to print the daily menu on the napkin provided for the guest, so that when the latter desires to study the bill of fare he has to raise his serviette from his knee in order to do so.

But perhaps the most extraordinary custom in connection with restaurant life is that which obtains in a certain little cafe in the suburbs of Paris, where every customer whose bill amounts to 25 cents or over is entitled to receive a kiss from the very attractive young lady who acts as cashier to the establishment.

So used has the damsel become to the osculatory routine that she goes through it without the slightest reticence, looking upon it purely as a matter of business, and it is reported that the proprietor of the restaurant is more than satisfied with the result of his curious device for attracting patrons.

Another enterprising restauranteur has instituted the practice of making a present of a box of Havana cigars every New Year's day to those patrons who have been pretty regular in their attendance at his establishment during the preceding year.

Must Face His "Gold Brick"

1915

Also Victims Who Claim to Have Been Fleeced

PITTSBURGH, Pa., Dec. 16. — E. A. Starkloff, an alleged "gold brick" king, recently arrested in Altoona, is accused of defrauding wealthy French and English persons of considerable cash. Starkloff's alleged scheme was uncovered in 1910, when he was arrested, placed under a cash bond of $22,000 and, after securing his release, jumped the bond. He has now been returned to Philadelphia, where a big brick, apparently of gold, which figured in the indictment, has reposed in the safe in the postoffice building since 1910.

According to Inspector Calvert of Altoona, who made the arrest, Starkloff would address letters to English and French people who had visited this country, but who had since died. The letters, written as tho the writer was ignorant of the person's death, would fall into the hands of the heirs. The letters always referred to "Frank Thomas," a prospector who had staked out a claim in Wyoming gold fields, had struck it rich and advised the purchasing of an adjoining claim.

Armless Judge Going to Europe to Aid Crippled

1915
Click Photo for Bigger

There He Will Arrange Plans to Help Allies' Maimed

Photo Caption: With only his mechanical arm — designed by himself — Judge Quentin D. Corley dresses and shaves himself, handles his own food, writes his own opinions and handles his own records in the County Court of Dallas County, Texas. He drives an auto, bowls, plays billiards, carries bundles and even helps his wife with the housework.

Over in Europe there are many armless men who feel they are hopelessly helpless. So the Dallas judge is going abroad to do what he can to aid war victims "for humanity's sake," as told in another column on this page.

The top picture shows Judge Corley completing his dressing operations. A contrivance, attached to a suit case, permits him to put on his collar and tie. With an almost similar machine he shaves himself. Below is a photograph of the judge bowling.

DALLAS, Texas, Dec. 16. — Quentin D. Corley, the "armless judge" of this city, will soon take up the burden of the maimed in the European conflict. On Dec. 22 he will leave for Washington, D. C., to confer with an official whose name is not known and who had told the Belgium ambassador to America that Judge Corley, the armless, does the work of a man in everyday life.

It is expected that the judge will sign a contract with the Allies to teach armless soldiers to be happy and to be useful.

The judge says any work he may do will be for the sake of humanity and not for money. "I shall only accept the same salary. I am getting now, and expenses," he says. "If they see fit to honor me if I do their men a service, I shall be glad of that, too."

Story of the Judge's Career

Judge Corley's story is a strange one. He was of a roving disposition when young, and took no qualms at satisfying it as a guest of the railroads. He was riding thru New York State on a freight train when a burly brakeman's head showed over the far end of the car. He slipped and fell as he tried to flee. The trainmen picked him up a poor, mangled youth. One arm was gone at the shoulder and the other just above the elbow.

As he lay in the hospital fighting for life, he began figuring how he would use that life once he was out again.

"I strove to invent and picture in my mind a mechanical hand, but of course I could not get anything but the open and shut movement; no one has," he says. "Then I thought that if I made an arm with an elbow joint in it, and so rigid that it would have both lateral and perpendicular movement, I had the problem solved."

A youth of 23, seemingly handicapped for all time and yet doomed by a healthy body to live a long life, Corley came home to his parents in Dallas with only his idea of a mechanical arm — and a deathless ambition to conquer the terrible odds against him.

How His Plans Worked Out

For four years he studied law with all the mental force of his brilliant mind, and at night he spent hours upon the plan for his mechanical arm. When completed, it was a steel hook made of two steel flanges, which opened and shut on cogs, a little handle which turned them being worked by his teeth. In this way he gripped things tightly, and with the hook he could handle almost anything he could lift.

From then on it was easy. He soon learned to write and then passed the bar examination. He began to practice law and to practice the use of his arm, and study means by which he could use it. His progress was wonderful. He invented other machines, to be used in dressing and sport, until today he can do almost anything a normal being desires to do.

He has a desire bordering on passion to aid the soldiers who have lost both arms in battle. There were more than ten thousand of them in the Allies' armies alone at last count.

Wants to Make Them Useful

"I know I can teach them to use my inventions within a short time, and I want to do it," he says. "I want them to get away from the terrible feeling that they are burdens upon the state and upon their families. If they'll put these men in my hands I can teach a thousand in three months to use this arm and take their places in life and seek happiness."

His friends say he can do it, too. He has pupils all over Texas who are learning from him the secrets. They invariably make good when he turns them loose.

Judge Corley has the inventions he uses patented, but does not sell them. "I have them for humanity," he says.

The plan on which the Belgian ambassador is said to want Judge Corley to work will be a school under his supervision, at which armless men will be equipped and trained by him. It will take him to Europe about four years, if the war continues a year or so longer.

—Saturday Blade, Chicago, Dec. 18, 1915, p. 5.

Seeking to Help Wounded Veterans Regain Lives

1915

No one has yet computed the sums which have been contributed by this country to the relief of war victims in Europe. The list of the official relief societies grows daily and the contributions run into seven figures, while placards announcing teas, dances, bazaars, fashion reviews and theatrical performances meet us on every hand. And still the insistent appeal goes on, in changing form to catch the attention of the generous. The greatest artists turn orators to beg for their pitiful, starving compatriots, and every ship brings an emissary with another earnest plea which cannot be resisted.

The latest of these emissaries is Mme. Charles Le Verrier, wife of the head of the College Chaptal, the great Lycee, or boy's school, of Paris, which is now, like all the others, a military hospital. She comes to the United States as the accredited representative of the Federation des Jouets, which has been formed for the benefit of the mutilated soldiers of the republic.

"Something had to be done to bring together individual effort and save the waste of funds and energy which comes from the lack of cooperation," Mme. Le Verrier says. "Wonders have been accomplished, but there is still so much to be done that we cannot afford to lose the smallest amount of time, strength or money. We found that we must organize, affiliate with the relief work of the provinces, and all pull together toward a definite end. The Federation des Jouets is one of the results of this attempt at organization.

"One of our greatest problems is the maintenance of disabled men after the war is over and during its course. We cannot consign them wholesale to institutions. There are too many, in the first place; France would become one vast institution if she attempted to care for all the wounded, the widows and orphans, and the destitute in that way. Besides, family life, the very foundation of the nation's life, would be in large measure destroyed. How to leave the wounded soldier in his home, how to provide him with a means of livelihood so that he may remain there with his family, is our great problem. Obviously he must first be taught to make something, and then a steady market must be secured for his work.

"We naturally thought of toys. Years ago the dolls of France had a great reputation, but we allowed Germany to learn from us how to make them, and then apply her genius for organization to take our market away from us. But we are going to win it back. The education of the men has already progressed wonderfully. While they are still helpless on their backs in the hospitals they are given wood and tools and models, and they dab at the bit of wood, happy in their hopes for the future. I have brought some of these tentative efforts with me, not that their crudity is interesting or attractive, but to compare with their later work as examples Of the rapidity of their progress. They learn very quickly indeed, and their delight in their own achievements is touching.

"More difficult than the teaching of the men is the finding of a market for their work. Europe doesn't want toys."

An Incomplete Education

1899

Ignorance, even dense ignorance, is often to be met with in this country of public schools, but it is seldom that one finds a man in all his senses whose mind does not contain some suspicion of a world beyond his potato-patch or logging-camp.

Among the European peasantry, however, education is often absolutely unknown. Sad to say, a conversation which occurred between a French conscript recently taken from his farm and the adjutant of his regiment is not unique, although it may sound so.

"Come!" said the adjutant. "You are a Frenchman — a soldier; do you know why you are here instead of working in the fields? I ask you why you are here — a soldier? You give no answer. Have you never heard of the Germans?"

"No, my adjutant."

"You have never heard of the Germans? What is Germany?"

"I don't know."

"Are you a Frenchman or a German?"

"I don't know."

"This is wonderful! Where were you born?" "At Vaucouleurs, my adjutant."

"At Vaucouleurs, and not a patriot! Did no one ever tell you of the invasion?"

"No, my adjutant."

It would be hard for a Jacques of Vaucouleurs to grow up in the United States. — Youth's Companion.

King of Beasts Sometimes King of Feasts

1896

The Things People Eat

The so-called king of beasts is usually associated with eating rather than being eaten, yet the lion is an article of food among the natives of the countries he inhabits, according to the Boston Traveller.

Several species of monkeys afford food for the natives of their habits. Travelers who have tried them declare them good.

Dogs are eaten by the California Indians in times of distress; they do not use them for this purpose in ordinary times, because they are too valuable to them for other purposes. Marco Polo says the Tartars used dogs for food, as did also the Mexicans the native dog or Alco.

The chase of the horse for the purposes of food was one of the chief occupations of man in Europe in the Neolithic Age. The Tartars eat horses as regular diet, and there are many butcher shops in Paris and Vienna where only horseflesh is sold.

The wild ass is eaten in Abyssinia; and the flesh of the suckling foal is esteemed by the Lasilio a great dainty. The milk of asses is also used in Abyssinia, as is the milk of mares by the Tartars.

The tallest and awkwardest of all creatures, the giraffe, when grown to maturity, is defended from all human teeth by its impenetrable toughness, but when young it is esteemed highly as food.

Substitutes Mustard for Electricity

1900

A street faker in Kenton, Kansas, had a thriving business selling electric belts until someone examined one of them. Then it was found that beneath a strip of gauze was a layer of dry mustard. When the wearer perspired a little the mustard was moistened and set up a burning sensation and the deluded victim believed a current of electricity was passing through him. Before all this was discovered, however, the faker had smelled danger and was on his way to another gullible neighborhood.


Debts Make Life Bitter

Ex-King Milan finds it more difficult every day to borrow money. His debts and his difficulties make his life very bitter. He has arrived at that stage of his continental career when he is looked on with suspicion and is placed on the ominous black list of Carlsbad's business people, who warn all their friends against "a certain Milan, formerly king of Servia," and announce that no goods should be sold to him except on a cash basis. — James Gordon, in Chicago Record.