On the Decay of Paper

1895

The introduction of wood fiber into the manufacture of paper, its economical production and the attractiveness of the article so produced have combined to tempt the paper maker not to make for "all time," but for the day, and only sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.

Modern methods of book illustration require a paper of fine, even surface, with the property of semiabsorption of printers' ink, and this latter requirement has resulted in the very considerable use of what is known as "half sized" paper — i.e., paper which has but a small proportion of gelatin or other size, on which the permanent cohesion of the paper depends. Such paper cannot resist the influences of alternate variations of temperature and humidity to which all books are exposed, and thus ultimate decay is probable. — Notes and Queries.



The Wedding "Obey"

She was not made out of his head to top him, not out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved. — Matthew Henry.

Paper Hosiery

1895

Paper gloves and hosiery are named as among the very latest novelties. Stockings which shall sell at 3 cents a pair are proposed. In fact, the experiment of making paper stockings has been going on for several months, and the party engaged therein believes that paper mittens or gloves would possess advantages in their season. The goods are light and airy and very comfortable in summer.

When finished and dyed, their appearance is similar to ordinary fabric goods. The knitting is from paper yarns. The paper yarns are made pretty much after the plan of making common paper twine, except that the former are put through certain special processes. The principle is that of making a sort of a nap on the yarn. This is done automatically. Ordinary paper twine or yarn is too smooth, but a good gigging up gives the yarn a nap, and this imparts softness. After the knitting has been done the goods are placed in a sizing bath made from potato starch and tallow, which imparts solidity and durability to the texture.

With paper passenger car wheels, paper water pails, why not paper socks and stockings? — Glover.

Papyrus and Paper

1895

There is no evidence that papyrus was grown for commercial purposes outside of Egypt during the whole Roman period, and the industry of its growth and manufacture must have been a large and profitable one. In the time of Tiberius a sedition was nearly caused by a scarcity of paper, and a rebellious paper maker, in the days of Aurelian, boasted that he could equip an army from the profits of his business — and did it too.

Parchment was invented by the Greeks when papyrus was scarce, and the middle ages reinvented it. There is evidence that linen rags were used in paper making as early as the eighth and ninth centuries. In paper of that period the fiber was chiefly linen, with traces of cotton, hemp and other fibers. The known specimens are of oriental origin and appear to have been clayed, like modern papers, the material used being a starch paste manufactured from wheat.

The oldest manuscript written on cotton paper in England is in the British museum and dates from 1049 A. D., and the oldest on the same material in the Paris National library is dated 1050. In 1085 the Christian successors of the Spanish Saracens made paper of rags instead of raw cotton, which had been formerly employed. — All the Year Round.

Editorial Comments

1916

Alice B. Glines, editor

More and more newspapers are owned for ulterior purposes.

After the war Europe can engage in iron mining all over the lot.

If the Bremen keeps it up she will become another Flying Dutchman.

We must not think the presidential campaign has really started; Judge Hughes has not ridden on a locomotive yet.

What is a yegg? It used to be headwriters' short for highwayman, but now they are beginning to use it for a safe-blower.

Luckily it was only foggy, not a storm, or it would not have been such a picnic going to the Two Lights to see the Bay State.

Among the numerous plans to "help the farmer," the one that seems never to occur to folks is to keep their hands out of the farmer's pockets.

There is no knowing how soon the war may stop. The Germans are a people much devoted to logic, willing to base their actions on their mental processes. Once they see that every week's delay puts them in a worse position, how long will they then delay?

Portland has reckoned her temporary settlement from 1632 or 1633. If Biddeford is to reckon hers from 1616 Portland could reckon hers ten years' earlier. Christopher Levett did build a house to accommodate the annual fishing voyages, which was still standing in 1632 when the Trelawny settlement at Richmond's Island started. Vines built only temporary cabins if anything; Sir Ferdinando Gorge's book says Vines dwelt with the savages. Levett's house was about three miles from Portland proper; Vines's wintering place about five miles from Biddeford proper. Biddeford is in truth a year or two older than Portland, both in their preliminary settlements, which ended in 1690, and in their permanent settlements, a quarter of a century later.

A way by which our readers can help us in our unequal struggle with the paper mills is by reading the fewer papers the better. The reading public are in the final analysis the intended victims of the paper mills' greed. If subscription rates are raised, the people must pay the increase or stop reading, and if advertising rates are raised the people in the long run must pay the increase in the added cost of the merchandise they buy. But we are not obliged to read any more newspapers than we want to, and the sooner the demand falls below the supply the sooner the paper mills' raid will collapse and react on themselves. Of course if we receive paper for next week (at a high but not highway robbery price), we will issue as usual. At this writing no encouragement is offered us.

Ex-Governor St. John of Kansas, the Prohibitionist candidate for President in the Blaine-Cleveland campaign, has just gone to his reward without the satisfaciton of voting to back up President Wilson. The curious pranks fortune plays with us humans is illustrated by a personal anecdote told by Gov. St. John on the platform of the former City Hall in Portland. Governor St. John was being branded as a traitor to the party that freed the slaves, and John A. Logan was Blaine's running mate for Vice President. But before the war, when both men were young lawyers out in Illinois, St. John lay in jail for assisting in the underground railroad and helping fugitive slaves to escape into Canada, and John A. Logan was the Democratic prosecuting attorney who convicted him. Another memorable phrase in that speech of 1884 was his advance vision of the blight of trusts. "I was taught in Sunday school," he said, " that the world is 6,000 years old. Now if Eve had never got Adam to eat that apple, and if they were still alive in the Garden of Eden, and Adam had had a salary all this 6000 years at $25,000 a year, and never spent a cent of it because everything was gratis, he would now have $150,000,000. But John D. Rockefeller, who was a clerk in a grocery store out in Illinois when I was a young lawyer, has got more now than Adam would have had." "Did he earn it?" asked one of the clearest minds of our generation.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 26, 1916, p. 6.

Recent Events

1916

What is believed to be first shipment of wood pulp to this country from Europe came in Boston last week in Danish steamship Dania. It consisted of 15,000 bales. Shipment is first of a series to be sent over to relieve paper situation.

Secretary Lane of the Interior announces that during August, 1916, more than 1,124,000 acres of land were designated as non-irrigable and subject to entry under the enlarged homestead act.

In New York City the Mothers' Pension department established by law — with funds collected by taxation — reports that it cost 5 per cent for administration of Pensions to Mothers.

New world's record in naval gunnery has been made by new United States superdreadnought Pennsylvania. Twelve 14-inch rifles, mounted as a main battery in four turrets, on a simultaneous discharge in a recent trial registered five hits on a small target 11 miles away. At that distance a target is not visible to gunners.

Major General Albert L. Mills, chief of the Bureau of Affairs, died at Washington on September 18.

The Montgomery, Alabama, Board of Education announced on September 13 that a tuition fee will hereafter be charged all pupils entering the public schools. The action is caused by deficiency in income.

The estate of James J. Hill, the railroad financier, according to a preliminary inventory by the Probate Court in St. Paul, Minn., approximates $40,000,000, upon which the State will receive $1,250,000 as inheritance tax.

The Province of Ontario closed all bars and liquor shops on the 16th. This is in compliance with a war measure that is to remain in force three years unless repealed. Liquor dealers will be permitted to sell "soft drinks," including beer with two and a half per cent alcohol.

A protest against the presence of four Negro officers as members of a court martial composed of twelve officers trying white soldiers at San Antonio was filed at Washington on September 13. The protest alleges that this is the first time that enlisted white men were compelled to stand trial before Negroes.

Paper Mill Strike

Maine, 1916

Tag day sales in behalf of the Westbrook paper mills' strikers in the streets of Portland netted $140.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 26, 1916, p. 5.

U.S. Government Short of Paper

1916

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The high-price-of-paper situation, which has already forced many newspapers and periodicals to raise their subscription rates and to reduce the number of pages printed, has also hit the United States Government.

One of the last acts of the Senate before adjourning was the adoption of a resolution directing the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the soaring increase in the price of print paper. It was found that the supply of paper for the Government printing office was only sufficient to last sixty days instead of six months, as is usually the case.

The Federal Trade Commission started an investigation some time ago, but nothing had come of it other than a statement issued early last week in which it was urged that steps be taken to prevent publishers from being charged unreasonable prices for their paper.

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

Captured Baby Lynx

1905

W. W. Bridges of Athens, while hunting recently, came upon a peculiar track of some animal, which he followed. He captured the animal, which is pronounced by people who profess to know to be a baby lynx, a very fine specimen, weighing 22½ pounds and measuring four feet from tip to tip.


Boat Made From Paper

In Vienna a paper boat, sixteen feet long, has been built out of the back numbers of a leading daily paper of that city. Hull, spars and sails have all been made from the pulped brains of the literary staff. Four hundred thousand copies of this journal will make a yacht — sails and all.


Many Sheep From Colorado

One hundred thousand sheep will be prepared for the market this winter at the beet-sugar factories in the vicinity of Eaton, Greeley, Windsor, Longmount, Fort Collins and Loveland, Col. The beet pulp makes the best of feed for lambs.


Cost of Removing Snow

Removing snow in New York City is a large item in the city's annual expense bill. It costs about $35,000 for every inch of recorded snowfall. Last year it cost the city $755,000 to remove the snow from the streets. The average fall in New York is thirty inches, but though the snow season hardly has begun, twenty-three inches have fallen this winter, and the cost this season promises to reach considerably over $1,000,000.

Unity Club Discusses Six Poets, Studying "Cranks" Next Week

Newport, Rhode Island, 1896

Unity Club.

The miscellaneous literary evening last Tuesday proved to be a very pleasant one, at which the six New England poets, now dead, were discussed. Miss Emily B. Chace read a short paper on Ralph Waldo Emerson, Miss Maude Harrington on John G. Whittier, Miss Emily Bradley on H. W. Longfellow, Miss Ada Crandall on James Russell Lowell, and Miss Grace Brazier on William Cullen Bryant. Extracts were read from their most celebrated poems. Miss Maude Harrington displayed considerable elocutionary power in her reading of Whittier's soul stirring poem entitled "Barbara Frietchie." The idea of having one evening devoted to the study of six New England poets was an excellent and very successful one. The next study evening is on the 5th of March and the two subjects to be treated on will be "Galileo" and "Cranks."

—Newport Mercury, Newport, Rhode Island, March 2, 1895, page 1.




A. O'D. Taylor's Paper On "Cranks," at Unity Club, March 5, 1895

Newport, Rhode Island, 1895.

On "Cranks."

At a Study meeting of the Unity Club held on Tuesday evening the 5th instant, Mr. A. O'D. Taylor read a short essay on "Cranks," of which we have the pleasure in giving a summary. He treated the subject in a thoroughly original way, and it created considerable merriment amongst his audience.

He began by saying that the oft-quoted recipe of Mrs. Glasse for making hare soup, "First catch your hare!" might well be quoted as an introduction. That saying was really one of the humorous Tom Hood's brilliancies, and originally ran "Ahem! Hare! First catch your hare then do him till he's done." Mr. Taylor went on to remark, I would therefore say "Crank! Ahem, first catch your crank, then do him till he's done." With this view, I invited three specimens here tonight, in an apparently guileless way, but they all refused to come, having evidently some furtive idea that they were wanted for illustrations. We must, therefore, do without them. It is all well enough to begin in this jocular way, but before we are "done" you will probably feel uncomfortably warm, and say this essay is no laughable matter at all.

What is a "crank?" He then explained the mechanical crank, the bit of machinery; then the application of the idea of a twist therein involved, to topography, to speech, and to the mind. But, like all words which first have an objective and clearly defined meaning of some material thing the word "crank" has, by colloquial use, come to be applied to human character, to individuals, and in the sense of meaning a person given to impracticable schemes, one who has a twist in his mental perceptions, one whose judgment is perverted on some one particular subject. The use of the word as a noun in this sense is much more general in the United States than in Great Britain and Ireland. Yet it is not what is sometimes called an Americanism, except in the usage of being applied to people. As a word applied to caprice, whim or crotchet, or even a fit of temper, it is a provincial and truly English word — while its application to a human being is American, and apparently originated in New England. May there not be a good side as well as a bad one, in cranks? May not the crank of 1605 become the sage of 1845? We are censorious. There is no harm in forming a judgment; that arises automatically by the exercise of our reason, but the golden rule "Judge not that ye be not judged" means, and would be better translated "Condemn not, that ye be not condemned." He then spoke of the murderous crank like Guiteau, the economic crank like the absurd Coxey — the religious crank, the political crank, the domestic crank, the literary crank, and the scientific crank. Or it might actually be some Unity Club crank, who tells you that he has long noticed with alarm the steadily increasing influx of female members into the club, and that, if the men do not stand shoulder to shoulder, every office of honor, those of President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer &c., will be snatched from them by triumphant women, and that the only evening on which men will be allowed to open their mouths, will be on a "Miscellaneous Literary Evening." Then, perhaps half a dozen of the tamest and best behaved males will be allowed to read extracts from the works of approved and strictly moral authors selected for them by the female directorate.

Mr. Taylor then outlined the characteristics of enthusiasts, oddities, devotees, visionaries and fanatics. Without enthusiasts the world would stand still. Fanatics are not mere cranks; they are more dangerous, more united in action, less individual — a herd of wild animals instead of one. He then discussed psychologically the boundary lines between sanity and insanity showing how feelings can arise outside the sphere of sensation. It is when emotions are not controlled by the will, but are allowed to develop into passions, that the process of mental disintegration begins, that the bounds of sanity are overstepped. But in the good natured sense of the word "crank" we often include all those who differ a little bit from the ordinary hum-drum people of the world. We have a sort of affection for such "cranks," in fact nearly every family will privately confess to you that it has one in its own domestic fold, quietly packed away, either sitting reading in the parlor, or just gone to bed.

The grandmother who is "crank" enough to tell Carrie that it would be better for her to be mending her little brother's stockings, than sitting up past midnight in a twilight room with her lover Harry — is probably both a sensible and loveable old lady, despite her alleged "crankiness." The father who is so "cranky" as positively to prevent his growing son from joining some young men's club where billiards and cards are played every evening, and where just a glass of beer or a little claret and water, can be had by any one who is thirsty — may be regarded by his young hopeful as a "crank" about drink, but the boy will probably live to bless the day, when his old "dad" showed that cranky turn. And our young lady — who sulked when advised to mend the stockings — will probably, when a grown-up woman feel that her dear old "crank" of a grandmother had given her an excellent lesson in pointing out that domestic duty ranged above a personal gratification.

In the working world of men, we all know some other wise good fellow, who is simply a terror on a committee. A man whom no argument can convince, who is as set in his opinion and hard as a rock, when he has taken up some position opposed to the majority. He is a "crank" for the time being, of the first rank; for he has espoused some crotchet which all his peers agree to be impracticable, yet he holds on to it like a bulldog. Yet may it not be that such men — in the first place — are sent as a sort of test of our good temper, as a trial for our forbearance? and in the second place, is it not possible, that as this whirligig of time goes on, we are amazed to discover that the one obstinate man, the so-called "crank" on the jury was right — and that the other eleven men in the box were wrong?

This has many a time happened; and the lesson I draw from it is this. There is a good side to the apparent "crank." As I said in the early part of this paper the supposed "crank" of today, may be the admitted sage of tomorrow.

The records of science and literature bear ample testimony to this view, Galileo furnishes a notable instance. Socrates was regarded as a dangerous "crank" — and had to die – why? because he was the noblest and best man of his age.

Cornelius Agrippa, a philosopher and chemist, was regarded by the people as an object of horror, and sometimes found the streets empty at his approach, why? Because he had displayed a few philosophical experiments which any school boy can now perform but which was then supposed to be magical. He was a terrible "crank."

Roger Bacon, said to have been the inventor of gunpowder was equally hated as a "crank" and worse, because he knew more about the constituents of matter, and what their combinations effected than his neighbors did.

Petrarch the poet, was supposed to hold counsel with some demon, as the inspirer of his poems; and Descartes the materialistic philosopher, was horribly persecuted in Holland for his opinions on scientific subjects. There is no doubt that the idea which we now associate with the word "crank" was in some degree applied in those bygone days to the famous men whom I mention.

Religious, political, social erudities — novelties whose superstructure attracts, but which have no real foundation — are pre-eminently the hobbies of "cranks." Let us bear in mind that present conditions have grown, by the unfaltering process of evolution, out of the past; and that all innovations are very far from being reforms. A new thing is not necessary a true thing, and this is what the dangerous "crank" cannot be made to believe. As a rule when a great change is to be made in human affairs, the minds of men will be fitted to it, the general opinions and feelings will draw that way. As Edmund Burke wrote when treating of the French Revolution — "Every fear, every hope, will forward any mighty change and then, they who persist in opposing this mighty current in human affairs, will appear rather to resist the decrees of Providence itself than the mere designs of men."

Strange it is, yet true, that those who are quick to perceive faults and defects, do not make the best reformers. "By hating vices too much, they come to love men too little." So it is in certain well-meant efforts to set wrong habits right. The measures adopted omit human nature. And, as regards theories of government, we will find, in looking quietly round, that much as we have been led to believe that fanaticism about some dogma in religion is the worst sort of fanaticism — fanaticism about some form of government really excites men as much, and that political fanaticism is nearly as bad as religious rancor. In these two great regions the "crank" is always pre-eminent. Of late years the economic "crank" is also becoming dangerous, with all sorts of absurd nostrums for reforming the social fabric, ignoring the human texture of which that fabric is made.

What, finally, is the outcome of all these random reflections which I have jotted down?

It seems as if what the old divine, Bishop Hall, wrote, nearly 260 years ago, strikes the true key for us in our investigation. "Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues."

Even though enthusiasts on any subject, we can be moderate with those who differ from us. We can avoid ever being "cranks." Each of us can so control his will, so weigh his conclusions, as not to be betrayed into morbid habits of thought or act, can so guide himself, by nurturing a regard for others and the feelings of others, as never to become an abnormal excrescence on society — never be a "crank." Each of us should study to be

"Rich in saving common sense,
And — as the greatest only are —
In his simplicity, sublime."

—Newport Mercury, Newport, Rhode Island, March 9, 1895, page 1.


In our issue of today we give our readers a tolerably full report of a paper read this week before the Unity Club on "Cranks," by a well-known literary gentleman of our city, who is the president and managing director of the Newport Herald. As it is an unusually interesting paper, and as neither the Herald nor the Daily News published any outline of it, we feel glad in being enabled to furnish our readers and the public with a summary. "Cranks" can be found even in Newport.

—Newport Mercury, Newport, Rhode Island, March 9, 1895, page 4, editorial page.