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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (April 12, 1908)
mmWuSm y I v . ik. - r . ; 3' tUl .. I , fe b fP-- "t H Y WII.MAM Tj. P1VI.FV i l W tlint Winter hns ps.mi1 N ytRn- of tlr ni-nt ftnnnrinl (nnlc r lln:iin(virhiK. thin an rp look- tuR trlKlitt-r. Tin binl nt rttirninK unci t M crf nn ltu'r !HiK i)rnmt1t for Ititusrs. Thnus.tiiils of nlnwf buvo ri tvol latr-ly, blul.irf!f rc plentiful, ami wmmw rr Rotrftiff Ihlftoty vor thl honif-Tiuttt inK buwin-s. Tu othnr ctny J w f iwrtllnwn Himiinn Hhout the los on a house in my bjti-k yard. In thf rlty It !s a irohIMii with our iiHtivo birds whfii sioritl hundred tlioustind Knplfsh Kpnrrnws tiiy nil W inter and looatp all the clMinif in mlvaiinv If p do mtt kick ttwse Imported forfRnrrs out, dry wilt noon mist our nnt 1 vp nnustprH, and our lopulattin will ho rctnipood of nothin Itnt fHthi'M'd rnfffnnjt. 1 tlii'rr !t hoy or Rirl who would nt 1m wealthy for tlir nskinc? Hi a land lord ! t wn a houp and rnt it. Or sov ral! Tenants aro .ihimd.anl, and font.iKc ia tiot lo b srornpd by any child pvi-n if tic let hi." Tinnsr f(r a f ot'b I f one lives In t he eon n try a a I do. he ran hav hi Rer holdings, hut no matter if he dwells right in the midst of t he city where projxrty ha. a valu of hundreds of dollars a front foot, lie can own a honso and have term tits. linfore I moved t t fie cuntry. owned a hndhouse that sheltered a fam ily of bluebirds, on the roof of our home n hove the rit y street. I got more real t ental out of It than any hird property J have ever owned. I was on hand most DIGGING NATURE'S FREIGHT LINES ntcrMis I, inking ritt.-htirg-, t'hk'Hgo, Minneapolis and Sioux City to the tilf of Mexico. Til K movement for the Improvement of the Mississippi, this rebirth of at er tin nsportatmn in the valley, bss come about through a lorus agitation, f lowly, and men at the end suddenly, with i rernendous rush. Twenty years a go any one who publicly advocated the ncvclojMTnent of a M-foot channel in the li'wci M tVssippf was set aside as an initKMile. Ten years ago he was con sulered a dreamer.. Five years aco he -ft ss an idealist. Today he must hasten his steps to ktep abreast of the times. Twenty years a so the most tmprtant thing a bout the rivers and harlors bill was the number of cotijiresplonal districts Into which it divided the spoils. Ten years ago tho members of Congress had begun to question this way of doing busi ness. Today there is a tendency to con centrate the whoie bill, or the major part of it. upon one desirable project each year and to carry t he pro.iect through. The Mississippi River commission, whiclt lias charge of the stream below Cairo." tried many ex pedients. some of them of its own design, some of them copied and enlarged from foreign works Out of t hem all ha been developed a special type of revt-tmi-nt. or hank protection, consisting of mattresses of willow brush, woven with calvjinisfd wire i.abies. and sunk against the bank, where the current st rikes it. by a facing of rubble stones, "v this means the engineers are able to hold the M'ssissippi rigidly yi its channel, for trie current is thus prevented from eroding the bank, which is the first step in slutting. And by holding the ctirrent tn a ttd channel, tlie samv revetment, aided by narrowing dike? from tho oppo v te shore, makes the river Si-our the c 'is nnel deej and olmr in its fixed posi t on. N'o simpler and yet no more en tirely successful apparatus has ever been lb ised. For many years the engineers have been "getting wiftc." Iut the prH'cs has gone on almost unnoticed by the Westerners. At last, however, some one discovered what was doing. It was the fashion then. it1 had long been, to cail these rivers at .the same t inn "dead" and "uncontrol- of the time to entlert rent ! soon made an important and Interesting disrovprv. It m v not he an entirety new one. but T have never known of it or seen It re corded. The father and mother bluebird had reared one family of children and the mot her waa on her second setting of eggs. When the second brood hail hatched, the older children were full grown and were able to care for them selves. The parents had to give all their time to hunting food for the young er children. The birds of the first brood, although, only n few weeks older than the ones in the nest and although they had no previous experience- In caring for babies, followed their parents about, hunting worms and helped them feed and raise the new family. Hy close observat ion, any boy or girl can make new discoveries In ornithology. The real books on bird life have not yet been written. We have volumes and volumes of scientific manuals 6ti bird class! th attou. strir t ure and variation tn plumage. How much have we on real ive bird character? Handbooks of bird like city directories, are valuable and necessary, but suppose we had otrlv handbooks and man ha Is of the human race. I low much real knowledge of mankind do yon think we would pos sess ? In making fl bird house one should keep In mind the siae and the location, from the point of view of the bird tenant that n to occupy it If one wishes to keep out Knalish sparrows, the doorway must be quite, small and the bird home fdiould be placed six or eight feet from the I ground. for Knglisher does not like a home that can he reached from a chair. I For a house wren or swallow, the door- ahle." AH of a sudden aome one dis covered that they were really very much alive and very easily controlable. He was a wise person, and having decided what would be a good thing to do. he coined a phrase to fit it. A catchy phrase la a fine weapon. Thia one caught the ta.te of the people and spread like ' Sweet Alice, Hen Bolt " up and down the Mississippi and up every remotest tributary, till the whole valley was repeating It. It was simply this: "Fourteen feet through the valley!' That was all. Hut there Is a great deal of meaning packed Into those few words. They mean 'an end to having a six-foot channel here, a three-foot one there, and a 10-foot channel farther on: to the frit tering away of thousands on this back water and that plough ; to letting Tom, Ifok and Harry among the young lieu tenants survey out the rivers and declare what channels can be made in them. In stead, the people themselves, merchants, farmers, teachers, lawyers, all have arisen together and have demanded one thing: a 14-foot channel through the valley. They mean these five words that this channel Is to be built at once, and that all other river improvements are to be sec ondary to it. They do not ntean that we are to reelect nor abandon the Ohio nor the upper Mississippi nor the Mis souri, but that we see now that none of these will gain Us true value until there is a biff main trunk line through the val ley. Afterward, we will make a channel nine feet deep and perhaps 14 up the Ohio to Pittsburg. We will make a six-foot channel in the upper Mississippi, down which St. Paul and Minneapolis can ship their millions of barrels of export flour: up which they and the Northern railroads can draw their coal. On the Missouri we shall have six feet to Sioux City, and a good channel above, so that the deluge of Dakota wheat which now stops all other traffic on the railways, will flow this way, and in flowing down will le counterbalanced by up-bound fleets of coal sent in such quantity and so easily that the Northwest will never again go cold for lack of it. In all the history of the Mississippi no President of the Fnited States had ever traveled on it. Abraham ljincoin crossed TI1K SUNDAY WILLIAM I. F1NLEY" OFFERS TIMEIA1 COVNS&L TO BOV AND way need not be larger than the ait. i of a half dollar, or about an Inch and a i quarter In diameter. For a bluebird, one should have the door a little larger, per haps an Inch and a half or two inchea In diameter. A little study will show that hirdd differ somewhat from people, and architec- turally the same rule will not ftpply for both. The feathered tribe, as a rule, has little tree for bird hotels, that Is, houses with a variety of compartments. Any- It and rode on It many times before be was made chief magistrate and he even patented a scheme for walking a boat over a sandbar. Andrew Jackson rode on the stream many times, but never as Presi dent. But Mr. Roosevelt, In the prime of his career, was invited to come out and see, as President, what the valley had to show him. And he came. That visit of the President to the river, which began October 1. and endei. Oc tober 4. when he went down to IxuUana bear hunting, will be memorable in years to come. It marked the real turning point in the Government attitude toward the Mississippi. President Roosevelt had al ready heard about "fouten feet through the valley." He had appointed an inland waterways commission, which has In mind all manner of schemes concerning water waysirrigation, forestry, dry farming, navigation, locks and dams, revetment and the preservation of national rights in waterfalls. But that was too general to suit the 14-foot people. They wanted a specific promise about the channel. The President arrived at the river at Keokuk. Ia.. where there is some day to be a big dam across the Mississippi at a cost of $10,000,000. The Gorvernment will not build that, probably because It would be a paying investment. We have given away the privilege, satisfied wit.i chang ing around the old saying from "dam it they can't" to "dam ft they can." Next day on the steamboat Mississippi the President went down to St. Louis, where the leaders of tne 14-foot agitation have their headquarters; and there the whole valley, through thousands of Ms representative people, accorded him a wel come. Iater a trreat fleet of the old steamboats like the last ery of one condemned bel lowed their hoarse salutes as he sailed away again, and of the number a dozen accompanied him down stream. A score of governors went along, oh the Alton. The Inland Waterways Commission went too. on the Mackenzie. A score or more of commercial and political organizations followed on. other boats, all shouting t..e same thing, "Fourteen feet through the valley." And the President ? He went stamping up and down the deck of the Mississippi V ;. . '.!v ".iy?" . 5-v Jti . f 4 v Vrf s7 vrf m iiiiiiiiimih' li I -'t'i't-ii-t- i -'- -" Tim -,-f- - ii i)iiiri"i ORKflOMAN, POftTLANT), A thing but a crowded a part turn t house bird! Of all things, he dislikes a for big", draughty room with a lot of win dows, or doors at both ends. Some people, like one of my neigh bors, prefer a showy while house built upon a hill. Another friend ban a neat little house built among the firs, but it has such a variety of colored paints that it does not fit the environment. Tn fact, most of us have oxir thoughts turned in such a variety of channels that we have gone beyond the simple and more artistic. as happy as a schoolboy fn long vacation. He swung hia arms like a woodcutter getting ready for work, and shouted greeiinga to the governors whenever their boat came within reach. "Boys, thia is the finest trip of my life." he shouted a dozen times. And as many more he hailed them to affirm, "Boys, this Is bully. And he did more than that. At Keo kuk he rather lavored water transporta tion. At St. I.iOuis he thought we must not get too enthusiastic In our plans. Davy Crockett msed to say, "Be sure you are right and then go ahead ," he said to the convention at Memphis. "Well we are sure we are right. Now let's go ahead." There has been no specific appropriation bill passed as yet. No rivers and har bors bill has come before Congress since the October trip. But measures calling for a bond 'issue of $SOn,000.000 tp carry out the general scheme of all our river improvements, and others calling for an annual TAOfrO.ono appropriation are among the many measures Introduced to carry out the plans which the President has outlined and 'out of which the final act will be framed. And so, before long, the valley is to have its way. It is pot to be an ex pensive way. It will cost altogether $2(0. 000,000, perhaps half as much more, to put the system I have outlined all through, from Pittsburg. Chicago. Minne apolis and Sioux City to the gulf. That will be about 20O miles of navigable chan nel, which will do more work and do it better than 4200 miles of six-track steam railroad laid along the same route. And if it is begun promptly it can all be done in ten years, with some of the ad vantage accruing to the country every year. The plans that the Inland Water ways Commission has worked out for preserving the water at the stream head, for saving out the silt, and for doing a thousand other things that will aid the navigator will some day, be carried out. But for the present there is water enough, and in the right place, for the channels we need, and when these chan nels are cleared and revetted, the boats, the engines and the system must be there, as a part of the most wonderful thing in America the new Mississippi. John L Mathews in Everybody's. Walmi skin Is ud to corer small hoat?. to which it is attached with the jn-'ini of th tusks. . Jr- -2- . APKIL 13, 1908. ... ., - i-mn-,. j,mif- Thin the bird never doea. His borne Is al ways a part of his surroundings. If you want to mRkn a bird bouse, make It out of old weathered boards, nr. better still, sections of tree trunka wild the natural bark on the outside. The best bird home la one that Is drilled out of the dead limb by the' bird Itself: It Is always dry when the weather Is wet; It has the advantage of being protected fmm bird -bun ting animals. Formerly, I made my bird houses out of old boxes, but now. when I want a new one to rent I take a saw and hunt among the maples and alders until I find a mansion tnat lias been drilled out the previous year by a woodpecker or chickadee. The limb is always dead and can lie cut off and car ried home easily and erected in a new and advantageous position. A long, deep bird house wtth the door way near the top is best for bluebird:, "". 7K ..! V ' ' SI WOMAN'S BEAUTY LESS MRKiilitie Neglect of Natural ArlvntifnRe the Cause M.. WENUAU, one of the greatest authorities In Germany on aesthetics and the laws of beauty, has written a learned treatise to prove that nature Iras endowed men with far more beauty than women, and that there is not a fea ture in a man's face or a limb In his body that it not superior to the cor responding feature or limb in ft woman. The book te attracting the widest at tention. "We are accustomed to ieak of the beautiful sex. he says. "We are also used to smile and speak scornfully of a man who Is praised for his leauty. But this does not alter the facts. When I speak of a beautiful man I do not mean a dude out of a tailor's journal or a drawing-room lion In uniform. But this sneering tone adopted whenever manly beauty Is spoken of is a direct conse quence of the decay of this masculine beauty. "Go where you will, you will see weakly young- men with the demeanor of old men crooked backs with other monstrosities, with flabby faces and huge abdomens. They are disgusting speci mens of their kind, but it must be ad mitted" that they are degenerates and In no sense real human types. "In the course of the ages women have developed their beauty, such as it is. while man has neglected his. He pays little attention to his most beautiful ap pendage, his beard; to his proud, strong neck and shoulders. He has even come to believe that the narrow shoulders, long body and short legs of women are more beautiful. "How are men to regain what they have lost? If a man lives an orderly life he will regain his beauty; If he is vicious he will speedily grow ugly. The characteristic ugliness of most men is simply a phenomenon which is the con sequence of a pathological process. ' A fac may be unsympathetic and repliant, but if it shows perfect health it can -A m. - -v. I i - It swallows and wren'. The floor should he six or eight (riches, or even more, from the entrance. The bhd tenant would rather go down Into its nest than through a hoi izont al hallway. This ar rangement Is good, for It gives young birds plenty of room for climbing and stretching. They do not climb out and leave home beore they are well grown and able to fly, and so are not lia ble to fall a prey to stray cats. There is one great objection to the erec tion of bird houses about the vard when they are placed near the ground. The ravisher of Innumerable bird homes, the most detestable enemy of our common songs t era. Is the domes t ic cat. Most of our bird homes ahould have the protection of a wire netting guard. On an average every cat you s"e s responsible for the ' death of 60 song birds each year. Hy never be absolutely ugly. The intelligent, healthy boy is never ugly, even when lie, has irregular features. It is only in adolescence that his features assume these ugly outlines which are afterward developed in manhood. "A man loses his modesty earlier than a woman. With his innocence he forfeits his beauty. Here the ways of men and women part, with the results that we see. "What influences the body influences the face. It is not sickness alone that gives the features their particulHr im press. The slightest self-indulgence, evil habits, extremes of eating or drinking, any excess, no matter how slight, if in dulged In, all tell their story to any one who has learned to read the face of a mart. "What has caused that thick, crooked, half-pendent lip on so many men? To bacco cigars, pipe;, cigarettes. Where do the red noses and copper cheeks come from? Wine and spirits. Why do the features lose every vestige of spirit and purity? Alcohol, lasciviousness. And the hang-dog face with the furtive eyes which more and more men are develop ing? Impure thoughts. The lazy, big atomached man with his besotted look and spongy muscles? Beer. "All over Germany, and other countries as' well, the number of those who drink and smoke increases, and In consequence the number of those who spit and scratch themselves and are itchy. They are our contemporaries, and they hurt the feel ings of any man or woman with even a trace of aesthetic sense. Such men are ugi. "The high collars reaching up to the ears, the stiffly-ironed shirts, the top hats! Have men a right to point the finger of scorn at women because they wear corsets! "Live cleanly, think cleanly, live in the fresh air and your beauty will be again as superb as it was in the days jpt an cient Greece. Our hair will return to js. so will our teeth, and bur straight backs, and clean lines, and bright eyes. One physical culture Instructor in Bos ton, who is having great success in teach ing round-ehuuldred girls to stand and Tf, T t: ' v 1 1 . . r. . 'I a c Mia I count one at dest roved six bird t rests in a single day. Wo I Icons" doga and aim to h'M (hese anirmils Hornowhat In check. Our 1wk fine H man for kill ing one aong hiid. In the meantime, we allow worthless '-a ts Jo live without re Htralnt and destroy as many songsters as they wish. I should sooner think of giving my horse or cow the freedom of my garden than allow w vagabond eat. on my prem Ises. i if course, much can be done In t he way of 1 1 a in log cats, to let birds alone. Kvry owner of a cat should In fluty hound see that it is provided with oilier food than young robins, song spar rows, wrens and thrushes". Many cats are maintained about, farms to keep mice and fit her rodents In check, but the eat in turn doe as much or more harm than good. Hodents -ari be dealt with rniteh more ef feet ively by the Intelligent use fpf poisons and t raps. THAN MAN'S of lretjii( Inferiority. walk erect, says tho whofo secret is In the way the head is held. "Throw up your chin." is her ru! This throws the head upward and ba'k ward, and the shoulders will nrfturatly settle backward and in their true position. Those who stoop in walking generally look downward. The proper way is to look st raight a head upon the, same level with your eyes, or, if you are ini-lined to stoop, until that tendency is overcome look rather above than belo(w the level. Mountaineers are said to be as "straight as an arrow," a nd the reason Is because they are obliged to look up ward so much. It Is simply impossible to stoop in walking if you heed and practice this rule. You will notice that all round shouldered persons carry the chin near the breast and pointed downwards. lion Are Bit In. E'lgar r Itlen in tli Detroit New. f F, luMird ar a flirty in' , 'I'hrotjffh tiit sunny hour; Ze;hyr a,r a hrinitin. riwet perfume of floweri. I.'iiV'j are ail a Ktlrrin'. Whinperin to ths hreez, HiMn ar buildin' castle- In thi murmur in' tr . Bees n r all fl ki'iri'. Honey to the comb, Fi."h nr nil a hi tin In I he little creK at home. I.t'fe are a grow-in On its th '')- eecf; "Water is a llowl'i" fBxt h mossy 1'lpe On its tiny li I I"m. s. Streaks or silver wht'e. Pant the puy willows Flipp! in" w i h del ich t Th shad v rapids lighten, With t!: snow-white foam; Fi-h are afl a biHn' In 1 be little crek at bom a. T:i no time for rodncM, I8V asfd your care; The nor id is fu!l of gJaiinesn. A il thn world Is fair. Hsr the water fallln'' O'er the !trppin stir.-. 'Tis the wfld a t-aliin", "a!lin to its own. While I'm busy writ in' This foolish pome, Fih are nd a bltin' In the little creek at noine.
