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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (May 31, 1908)
THE SUNDAY OREGOXIAN. POKTLAXD. 3IAY 31. 1908. IbvinS.Cobb OIN" somewhere on your vaca- 1 tionr' asked the House Detect- lve of the St. Reckless. "I believe It's customary," Bald the Hotel Cerk. "At this season it Is gen erally expected that a couple who've been perfectly happy and satisfied all Winter in a two-room-and-a-Boston-buil-terrier flat will feel it Incumbent upon tnem to so oft and spend all the money they've been' able to save' up Ince this time last year, for two weeks of something that's not near as com fortable as what they get1 every day it home." "Where do you think you'll go?'-' asked the House Detective. "Well, I don't know," said the Ho tel Clerk. "Its a matter that a careful man ought to give a lot of thought to. If your system is all run down and every man who's working on a salary develops Hhat kind" of system, I notice, along about this . time you ought to be very careful about picking out the place where you go to recuper ate or you'll be coining home a com plete wreck. It takes a strong and hardy nature to endure the rigors of me avc-rvge vacation. A business trip is all very well, but when you're em barking on a pleasure exertion, as the poet says, you should safeguard your ualth." "They gay the Thousand Islands Is purty flne," suggested the House De tective. "Yes, they do so," said the Hotel Clerk. "But after you've closely exam ined, three hundred and" thirty-three and a third of them, all looking just alike, you begin to sort of lose Interest in the other six hundred and Vixty-six Islands and two-thirds of an Island." "Well," . said the House Detective, "there's plenty of other places you could go. I just thought maybe I could help you out." Much obliged," said the Hotel Clerk. "But when you come right down to the hemstitches, Larry, theres not such later gets strength enough to turn and . a wide rangeto choose from. I've tried 'em all, from the classy resort, having all the latest conveniences, such as the automatic stopcockroach and the folding-bedbug to the dear old farmhouse up In the mountains, where the butter runs during the early part or the sea son, on being stabbed with the moist warm blade of a kitchen knife, but bite back. I've paid eighty cents for the Summer hotel portion of much rooms on toast, consisting of a scorched slice of bread, under a glass dome, with a shirtwaist set strewed careless ly over it, only when I looked closer I sw they were not moss agate studs hut mushrooms. I have given up as much as two bones for the far-famed shore dinner, composed of three burglar proof clams, part of a sinewy fried eel, and 'a fine-tooth comb with a skin wrapped around it. called a planked shad. I've gone to the seaside to take the morn ing refreshing dips in the salt water, and forgotten to take any of the dips because I was busy pining for the moun tain scenery. Then I've gone to the mountains, but couldn't enjoy the scen ery because I longed with a great pas- BT JIM NASIUM. THB day Old Sport arrived home for a short visit, after taking the West ern trip with the team, he met the Parson coming out of the postofflce. Well, brother," said the Parson, "no loubt you enjoyed your trip with the base ball boys, but after spending so much of vour time with the worldly and aeelng so much wickedness, I suppose it is a great relief to get back into a Christian atmos phere again?" Well. I'll admit it is a great change. Parson." replied the Old Sport, "but getting down to cases on this here Chris tian atmosphere dope, I'm compelled to say that I haven't noticed much improve ment in that line yet. To tell the truth. Parson, when it comes to a Christian spirit of & practical and useful kind, tha kind that doesn't show up a lot of knot holes and1 rotten spots when you scrape the varnish ofT the outside, some of the atmosphere I've been breathing of late makes the air in this little, old village smell like the interior of a rubber boot." "I don't know as I exactly catch your meaning." replied the Parson. "Have you come in contact with the Christian spirit much In your travels, and attended divine services?" "Say. Parson." replied the Old Sport, "if you sky pilots could only dls up tha Christian spirit that I've seen splattered around over the world of sport and trans plant it In your church pews, then irri gate it pretty thoroughly with some of the milk of human kindness, there'd be a thundering lot of your congregation that'd have a better batting average on the Recording Angel's hook. I've been at tending divine services to some extent, yes, and I've been listening to a brand of gospel that hasn't ever been preached to any great extent in this little old dump of a town, and it hasn't showed its muc in the pulpits throughout the country to the extent that it should, either." "What denomination is that?" asked the Parson. Tlie denomination of Fair Play," re plied the Old Sport. "It is a denomina tion that preaches a practical sort of a religion in a piacucai sun ui a .a. A gospel of action and not of words, that lias to do with every action of your everyday life. The Bible is splattered full of It, but too many of you sky pilots Utse It In your interpretation. Have you ever considered. Parson, that "fair play" is merely a shorter and simpler way of faying, 'do unto others as you would have them do unto your It is the Golden Rule boiled down. "Lt me tell you. Parson, that you can wade through scripture from Genesis to Revelations, and when it comes right down to cases you'll not find anything that isn't expressed in those two words: fair play.' It is sot only the cornerstone on which Christianity ia built, but it is the whole blamed structure. If you pulled It out you'd have nothing left but a flim sy shell of plaster that would crumble US CHRISTY tso who i v, - .. Bagvrtar VlS sionate long for the sound of the surf rolling: up in a majestic splendor and splashing against the foundations of the bathing pavilion, the tin type gallery, and the moving-picture show. And I've stopped at places where they'd charge an Invalid corkage on . his hot water bottle." - "Where wuz it you went - to last year?" Inquired the House Detective. "I went to one of the fast card places," said the Hotel .Clerk.- "Noth- ng below a ten-spot could get in. By borrowing several diamonds from friends of mine, I managed to look enough like big casino to slip by.' "What made you fall for a joint like that?" said the House Detective. "I became enamoured of a picture on the back of a circular they sent out," explained the Hotel Clerk. "It was a work of art. It showed a regular Howard Chandler Christy boy sitting on the green sward dressed up tn a ye-heave ye-hoe necktie, and a pair of those non-crcasable ' duck pants like you see in a clothing ad, playing a mandolin for a lovely lithograph in a ball-room costume.-who was paddling a brand new birchbark canoe up a creek an inch 'and a half wide. In the background the silvery moon was ris ing over a noble verandah full of beauty and chivalry, the same as the grandstand of a Southern fair the day they have the country trot. T'nder- into ruins at the first stiff breeze. And let me give you a tip, Parson, that there's a thundering lot of your congrega tion who are plugging along through life trying to live in that flimsy shell right no. "I'm not saying that this condition exists because you aren't dealing out the right dope, Parson, but I do say HK-WULBYK-PUlIiD-DC-AT-A-CONVENTION-OF-DANKER-OR-A-CnURai-CONFERENCL." that if you sky-pilots handed out a lit tle more dope on the practical applica tion of the precepts of the gospel; if you got Inside the shell of Christian ity and showed that the kernel consist of playing fair with your fellow man and being a good loser, there'd be a blamed sight more people from this community grabbing harp and get ting a line with the serenaders along the Golden Streets when Gabriel sounds his bugle call. And I've got a hunch, too. that there'll be a thundering lot of these pillars in the church who will be mightily surprised when they have to stand outside the Pearly Gates and -watch a bunch of square sports who have always played fair with their fel lowmen filing in. ' "Now, Parson, getting back to this Christian atmosphere that you was talking about, I've been pumping a good bit of the atmosphere that sur rounds soorts into my lungs of late; " OOV JVS. 5v?' I t "ke a c?uple of BraziI nuts, and they !MXviwYf!2' y1$ H . I . had seven children all the same age. ONE OF THO SEUIFE neath was a line saying rooms would fr bo five a day and up. But when I got there, they didn't have anything left but ups. "Didn't the rest of it pan out acr cordin to the chromo?'i said the House Detective. ' "Well, not so as to cause any grate ful guest to rush away and make an affidavit," said the Hotel Clerk. "Any young gentleman who sat on the green sward in front of that hotel. In a pair of duck pants, couldn't play the man dolin with any degree of satisfaction. He'd have to play the grind organ, so's he couldihave 6ne hand free to skirmish for the red' ants. That hotel may have been shy in some regards, but she ex celled in ants. Persistent little creatures IN WHICH HE HANDS OUT SOME DOPE CONCERNING and I'm wise to the fact that there are a lot of guys connected with- sports who taint the air worse than a BUe factory. But let me tell ' you . tnat you've got them among your mer chants and your doctors. In politics, law offices and pulpits, too. You'll butt into them ' everywhere, and the atmosphere surrounding a lot of those business Joints Isn't, a blamed bit purer than what you can find in sports, but the world has acquired the habit . of using smelling salts aro&nd these dumps. I wonder. Parson, if St. Peter will be using any smelling salts when they line up for inspection on. Judg ment Day, and I'm just a little curious to see If he will make the same dis tinction between the honest sport and the honest business man that the world does. I may be wrong. Parson, but I'd 3 take a little money on -the chance that if the angels wanted to play a game of ball on the vacant lots of the New Jerusalem, they'd at least find enough ball players loafing along the curb stones of the Golden Streets to scare up a game of rounders. '"I hope you'll pardon me for handing you this little spiel. Parson, but I've been wound up on this subject for some time, and you came along and touched off the spring." Oh, that's all right," replied the -Of -TH&-PARTY 60YS . they were. They'd play Mystic Maze in and out o-f a peck-a-boo waist until they got dizzy - and fell down the back 'of some passing neck. I got enough red ants In the two weeks I waS there to last me through the Fall and well into the Winter." ' "How 'bout the gal with the canoe?" asked the House Detective. "Didn't they have her, neither?" "Oh, yes, indeed, she was there." said the Hotel Clerk. "But she didn't sport many low-neck princess gowns, not while I was around. She was shaped like a model tenement, and she didn't wear any shoes, and she had those large, dark red, self-reliant feet, and she lived down by the river in a tent with her husband, who was a bushy party with thumb nails Parson, "go ahead! I'll confess I'm in terested in your views. "Who knows but you will- make me a" convert and an ardent worker for your gospel of fair play?' " "I wish I could. Parson. I wish I could," replied the Old Sport. "It's all right to hand 6ut these spiels about an air of respectability, -and 'gentle manly callings, and all Uat much; but it'd take a powerful lot of preaching to make me think that there was much wickedness in a man who has always played fair with his fellowmen, no matter what his calling or position in this life may be. I've got a good sized hunch that will be mighty hard to knock out of my system,, that he is one-guy who has about as close to a cinch on the Pearly Gates as it is pos sible for mortal man to have. "You'll find a bunch of long-faced old skinflints In this world. Parson, who think that they have the Pearly Gates cinched. Just because they cough up the ante for the contribution bas ket every Sunday, and they fondly imagine that when they climb up the Golden Stairs they are going to enter the New Jerusalem through the pass gate and occupy a seat in a private box. I believe some of these old crabs really nurse the dope that they are stock holders In the institution. But let me tell you," Parson, that I know a lot of good square sports who have always played fair and never kicked a man when they had him down, fel .loys who get the icy mittfrora the so-called higher classes of this old dump of a misguided world, and who are scorned by a lot of hypocritical old skins who aren't fit to couch tne hem of th4ir garments, and you can take my tip that these square sports will have It put all over a bunch of these money-grabbing ' old hypocrites when the season closes and the Recording Angel figures up the official averages. "Let me give you an. instance. Par son. Coming home from the West last week, I sat In a game of poker with three guys who were perfect stran gers to me. In the course of the game I copped four kings, two of the fel lows dropped out, but the other guy had his mug plastered up against a royal flush. I raised his bet, of course, and would have kept right on down to my shirt, as four kings is good enough any time to take a chance at betting your head off. The other guy was sit ting behind the highest hand In the deck, but he simply called and laid down his hand. : saying: 'It's no good, you couldn't take the money from this fist with a gatling gun.' "Now, Parson, that guy had a sure thing, and he could have made me go home in a barrel, if he had wanted to. If he had only held an ordinarily good hand, he would have played it to the limit, but he refused to take advantage of an opportunity - where be had no chance to lose. Now. how many re spected business men have we in this community who would refuse to play a sure thing in their 'business? How many merchants would refuse to boost the price of any product when he knew it was a cinch that he could get it? There Is no fair play in any transac tion where the chances are all on one side, whether it is in playing poker or selling a pound of prunes. And you can take it from me, Parson, that there They sold the hotel its fresh fish "The' assemblage on the veranda was also a disappointment in some respects, Larry. Most of the time Is was clogged up with stout ladies that came down in the morning with so many diamonds on that they looked like a bunch o.f crystal wedding celebrations. . When they's worked through the breakfast card as far as the date line and union label at the bottom.- they'd , come out on the porch and sit in a row and be exclusive. A lady with two stomachers and a tiara wouldn't speak to a lady with only one dinky little stomaclier and no tiara at all, and the poor, forlorn lady who only had a pair of diamond earrings would sit there alone with 'em hanging down on each side of her unhappy countenance like quotation marks enclosing a harsh word, and she'd have to talk to herself. "It was one of those cs la oli airmen ts where everybody dressed for '.inner and then fried to look like they were used to doing It every night at home. Their at tire was so correct it was painful. An elderly gentleman would come todJ'.lng flown stairs in his dinner coat and his THE GOSPEL OF FAIR is more spirit of .fair pj more de mand for an equal chance all around, in sports today than there is In every day business methods. "An equal chance and a fair deal is the very spirit of sport, without which It ceases to be sport -and becomes a graft. You don't cough up the ante to get into a prizefight to see a heavy weight knock the eternal daylights out TjllNK-m-MVE'THE-PEABTf CINCHED-bE.CAUcJL-'niEf' C0U6H-UP-THE-ANTE.-F0R-m0miBUTION-t)A5KEI-VERrUM)AI nf some skinny little shrimp - of " a featherweight, like yon see the strong combinations of capital putting It all over the little guy in the business world. Not on your life. In the sport ing world . each contestant has to be doped out to have a chance or there is nothing doing. The trouble with a lot of you guys. Parson, is that you place yourself on a pinnacle so high above the world of sport that -you can't -see its good points with the Lick telescope. And if you do condescend to take a peep at it, you plaster your mug against the wrong end of the telescope. "Now, while we are on the subject of prizefighting, which this old dump of a world probably regards aa the lowest form of sport, let me tell you e'bout an Incident which made a dent in my thinking machinery that time can never plug up. I was planted In a bunch of low brows at the ringside one night when, just before the windup came on. THE BUNCH ON the lingerie vest, accompanied by his lady wife, all in white, with three kinds of jewelry. He'd be looking like one of those foolish birds they call a penguin, and she'd be a cross between a floating island and a memorial window. But they couldn't keep . from reverting to form when they began to eat. . He needed a laprobe and a pair of overshoes when he tried to invade a grapefruit, and when she went to the consomme the general effect was something like - draining the bass, tuba after a hard street parade. But after dinner- they'd go out on the veranda, and when tire band wasn't play ing they'd have a strictly private discus sion In a loud, clear tone of voice about whether they'd buy another touring car right away or try to struggle along a month or so with the four or Ave they had. "You know how it is, Larry, After a while grandeur palls on you. But I've always been very proud of the fact that I once paid eight dollars a day for a room the size of a bureau drawer. "I think it was the year before that I went'to the seashore. But I didn't care for the waiter I had. It was a warm Summer, and he was so opn -pored. PLAY. a weazen-faded cripple kid crawled through the ropes and leaned on a crutch in the middle of the ring. The shriveled little body was twisted and distorted, and the' prematurely aged face had physical and mental suffering plastered all over it. The noisy mob instantly buttoned up their gab to see what was going to come off, and the kid's weazened little face opened and GATES- turned loose a song'in a piping, tin-can sort of 'voice. Before he had waded through the first line a quarter hit the canvas Inside the ropes, and then fol lowed a shower of silver contributions that would make some of your church societies splatter the local paper full of reports to put the world next to the good they were doing. Another kid got busy with his cap, and when the returns were all in he had hie own and the cxipple kid's cap both full of silver coins'ihat had been chucked into the ring" oy that gang of low brows, all of whom dug Into their jeans to give the unfortunate kid a lift. Com parisons may be odious. Parson, but I couldn't help wondering bow much the cripple kM would have pulled down at a convention of bankers or a church conference. There's nothing to it. Parson, there's no finer thing in all Christendom than charityA And let me tell you that if a That's my luck at a Summer hotel. 1 always catch a barber that's having a tooth treated and a waiter that suffers from the extremes of weather. I seemed to notice the onn oores in mv waiter tliA first day. and after that I asked him t bring me mine In a covered dish. He did. and then it reminded me of rain on a tin roof. "So 1 didn't think so much of him. If I went out on the beach after dinner I butted into one of those life-of-the-party boys telling ha'ck-page humor to Mag?. G'ggle and her cousin. Ma me Gurgle. Or a flock of mosquitoes the sire of homing pigeons came out of the marsh and tried to undress me. If I struck to the porch I missed the child comedian, but I always got wedyed into a corner by some stout old party who went to sleep with his mouth ajar, so he looked like, a general delivery window in the fare and made noises with his larynx, like a sealion coming up to breathe In Puget Sound." - c "Well, there's them country farmhouses where they have home cookln and every thing," put in the House Detective. "I've taken that course at the Sum mer, normal, likewise," said the Hotel Clerk.- "You lay awake in your snug little bedroom upstairs over the kitch en refe"! eelng a smelling contest be tween a coal-oil -lamp, a bouquet of wax flowers in the parlor, and the afterglow of the fried , cabbage. A pinching bug a little larger than ft Philadelphia roasting chicken comes la and tries to butt his brains out against the,celling, and can't make it. and gets disgusted and fa(!s in your eye- and wants to settle there and make his home, A dog that ate something for dinner that didn't agree with him gets under your window and refers to the matter. And so you lay there think ing of the close, etuffy city where ths lights are all lit on Broadway, and where the roof-gardens are going, and where the electric fans are buzzing, and where everything must be miser able, and then along about daylight, when you're just drifting off, all the roosters in the county and the adjoin ing county begin to practice one of Victor Herbert s pieces, and you have a perfectly grand time. Or" else you walk three miles through the dust to a roadhouse and crowd into a box stall and drink meadow lark booze. You know the meadow lark brand the kind that makes you want to sit In the damp grass and sing to yourself?. And you order soft-boiled eggs of a moin ing and when they come you're sorry you didn't make It dropped eggs, be cause the best thing you can do with that kind of an egg is to drop it hur riedly and step aside and leave it. And you go out in the woods, and the poison Wy gets you. Leastwise, 1t always gets me. Poison ivy will skip right on by fully 20 young, teething babies, all with a predisposition toward nettle rash, In order to touch me up with red spots until I feel like a Studcbaker wagon." "It does look like you're kind of lim ited," said the House Detective. "What d'ye reckon you'll do?" "I think maybe I'll stay In and have a real vacation," said the Hotel Clerk. lot of those long-faced old crabs who like to 'chuck a few coins where the rest of the world will hear them jingle and know all about it would only show half the charity that Is being pulled off every day in the world of sport that nobody talks about, this little old dump of a world would be splattered with a little more happiness, and .the sunshine would filter through the chinks into the dark corners with a little more frequency. "It is (he spirit or fair play that prompts charity, Parson, and the spirit of fair play is behind every Chris tian impulse. And let me give you the tip that 'fair play,' an equal chance and being a good loser, are th little lessons that every sensible man should pull out of sports. That's the Chris tian atmosphere that I've been pump ing into my lungs, Parson, and it' the gospel that I've been spreading. If you can bjeat it in this old dump of a village you've got to show me." "I'll confess there's some food for thought there, anyway," replied the Parson. "Well, thlrk it over, Parson; I'll ee you' later," replied the Old Sport. As the Old Sport passed the parson -sge next morning on his way to the blacksmith shop to pitch quoits, the Parson hailed him. "Come around to the church next Sunday," he said; "the text of my ser mon is to be 'Fair Play, or the Golden Rule Boiled Down.'" "I'll be on the job," replied the Old Sport. Talking Record Says Too Much. New Tork Tribune. "Take it from me." said a commercial traveler who has Just returned from a long trip. "If you have the talking ma chine habit at your house and you send records to your wife with loving mes sages, have a dress rehearsal every time before you address the package. I sent a retird from Chicago, and when it came my" wife called inthe family, the children and my mother-in-law to "hear papa talk.' Things must have got mixed in the shipping department at Chicago, be cause It wasn't papa's voice at all. and what the machine did say was probably arranged to be heard anywhere except in a family circle. My wife stopped it in time, but her mother well, as I said, be sure and avoid trouble and insist on the dress rehearsal." .Submarine for Sponge-Fishing. London Echo. Illustrations, together with a full de scription, are given in a Parisian Jour nal of a novel type of submarine intended for the sponge-Ashing industry on .the coast of Tunis. The vessel is built whol ly of Iron and is 16.4 feet in length by 6.24 feet In diameter, the general form be ing cylindrical, with hemispherical ends. It is intended to carry two men, and is fixed so as to enable the vessel to move along the sea bottom. An electHc lamp with reflectors fixed in front will serve to illuminate the bed of the sea, and a glazed spv hole in the bow of the vessel ! enables the crew to seek out and to I gather the sponges.
