- - - - - - - - THE SUXTAY ' OREGOyiAy. ' PORTLASt?. NOVEMBER 1. 19Q8.
: ' inn i ' II
urn K w ifi m id mm
iuTciles or the
U&7 MA o -TOT? KIVCTEDIAIIC WMIOT 111YT MMTO .WXfiS&f 2. r7 J
Editor Noi. "On Vvernmnt Ordn"
1 a rtes of interacting atorlva that arc
Inndf.-.tf in th of a formerly wen-
known hut now rertred Bfrrst -service officer.
of Jor.j and faithful rvice. Now that h
im off duty. lie ha ben Induced to tell
rf the mora drajnatlc of hi many
fac:nattor expr.eiic In ome there l
the love emint. In others there . mye-
tery. and all breathe a aptrit 01 aawniar.
'T
PT HAS often been my fortune to
tart rut on some Insignificant
matter and stumble Into something
big
una Important by merely keeping
my eyes open and my wits about me,
remarked Captain Dlrkson aa we
wanned our hands before tha cheerful
fire tn hl anus den and listened to tha
howllnn storm without.
Tha adventure 1 am now going to
relate happened In one of the larger
Southern cities. I had been rent down
there on aome minor matter, tho real
nature of which Is Immaterial. It a
a case that required time and aenrecy.
For thla reason I did not take quarters
at a hotel, but searched out & quiet
boarding-house on a side street, where
I secured a room and excellent table
board at a, figure surprisingly reason
able. "There were three young men besides
myself In the house. The family con
sisted of a gentleman and his wife. If I
had searched the city over I could not
have found & place more completely
suited to my necessities. I pretended
that I represented a Northern wood
working concern and that I was In the
South to buy . timber lands. This char
acter wss easily borne out. as 1 was
often out of the city, and at such times
I save It out that I waa looking over
tracts of timber.
"The city, like many of those In the
Pouth. possessed a large negro popula
tion, and It was a strange thing to me
when I first went there to see negro
shanties sprinkled along the best resi
dence streets wherever there was a low
place or a bayou, several of which wound
about through the downtown districts.
The place where 1 boarded was a small
brick house, one of a block, all of the
same design, and Just between It and
town was a frame building that was
occupied by a negro family. I learned
that this was a spite-house, built by the
owner of the adjoining lot as a matter
of annoyance to the owner of the fcricR
Mock, against whom he eherishel an
old grudge.
"Some days after my arrival, the lady
with whom I boarded announced one even
ing, when we came in for supper, that the
negro family was moving out of the cot
tage and that she Relieved It was going
to he torn down. In this last she was
mistaken, for next morning when I went
to town I noticed workmen repairing the
shanty.
"1 gave the matter no further thought
for several days. One night I noticed
smoke Issrting from the chimney of. the
litue cottage and on closer Inspection I
saw the windows were fitted with fine
lace curtains and there was a lock of ex
pensive make upon the front door. That
Hlght I casually asked my landlady about
her new neighbors. She seemed surprised,
and told me she did not know any one
had moved Into the 'house. Women are
naturally curious, and the next night at
supper she waa in a flutter of excitement.
She said the people next door must have
moved In during the night: that none of
the neighbors had seen their furniture de
livered and. although she had watched the
house all day, she hadn't seen a. soul
about It and no sign of life except the
smoke she had noticed coming from tho
chimney.
"At the breakfast table the next morn
one of the boys, trho had been out late the
night before, said he had seen a private
carriage drawn by two handsome bays,
and with a driver In fur coat and top-hat,
top before the door of the humble little
cottage. He nad been some distance away
and the vehicle had paused but a. moment.
Just long enough to allow two persona to
Copernican Theory of the Universe Is in Danger
Its Soundness Attacked by the Korcshans, Who Declare Karth Is Hollow Shell.
BI J. I- JONES
F3W people understand what a won
derful science astronomy is. If they
did they -would not take so much
Interest in trifling worldly matters Ilk.,
residential elections. They would all
become star-gazers.
The system at present accepted Is called
the Copernican-, being named after Coper
nicus, a Prussian astronomer who Invent
ed or -worked K out about 400 years ago.
The theory Is the sun Is the center of
the solar system and that the earth Is one
of a number of planets revolving round It
through space In orbits of immense di
mensions. The earth m placed at a dis
tance of over 90.000.OPO of miles, thun mak
ing Its annual circuit cover nearly eoo.OuO.-
of miles. This whole earth la thus
reduced to a mere speck. Invisible to the
naked eve from tho-tuore distant planets.
And It files at the rate of nearly 2.000.XI
miles a day. a speed many times greater
than that of a rifle bullet or cannon ball.
The moon Is a smaller body. 0 miles
In diameter, and Is supposed to be frisky
enough to keep up with the earth In Its
race wnd waits around It 13 revolutions a
year In an orbit of Its own at a distance
of i'.'1"!) miles.
This Is not the worst. The fixed stars
re tutpoi- to be off at such lmmere
distances that the position of the earth
at any part of lis great circuit makes no
deference in their1 apparent places in the
heavens. They always occupy the same
relative positions. That Is the reason
thev are called fixed stars.
But they are not so very well fixed
after all. for according to this theory,
they also are Immense bodies revolving
In orbits of their own. Our own- solar
svstem. including the sun and all the
planets, is flying in a mystic circle
around Alcyone, one of the group of the
l'leiades. The distance is so vast and the
spr-ed eo terrific, that we do not know
anythir-g about It and would not know
we were moving at all if we did not read
books on astronomy. And the end Is not
yet In ight. for this great center Alcyone
Is moving itself around another center
and so on ad Infinitum. 9o we see there
is nothing In all this universe securely
fixed except It be the "principles" of the
different political parties. Let us hang
onto them.
This theory of astronomy is accepted by
the whole civilized world. It is taught in
the schools, colleges and universities. It
is supped to be believed In as firmly as
the Mohammedan believes In the Koran
or the Christian In his Bible. But now
there comes a new and terrible kind of
people called Koreshans and declare that
It la not true at all. that it Is all a pipe
dream and that the Copernlcans have
wheels In their beads.
They say that such a theory Is absurd.
Incredible, ridiculous, unreasonable and
unscrtptural. We ruay recall in this con
nection that the Roman Catholic Church
denounced It as unscriptural In the first
alight. It had driven away instantly.
: Tills had happened aome time after 1
o'clock.
"My landlady was especially Interested
In her invisible neighbors, often talked of
them, and speculated on who might live
there and why they should preserve auch
secrecy about their movements. She of
fered many wild suggestions In solution
of the mystery, but none of them seemed
to fiil the bill, and there seemed to be
no way to teil whether the one or the
other or none of them was right. The
thing finally got on my nerves, and I
never passed the cottage without looking
at U and wishing I might be allowed to
see through its walls.
"I waa called out of town about this
time, and didn't think of the cottage again
until my return. My train arrived after
midnight, and I caught an owl-car up
town, whioh put me off within two -blocks
of my boarding-house. The streets were
deserted and the echo of my foot-fall
rant loud and clear in the still streets.
Some distance ahead I noticed a. man
slouching along. looking about with that
nervous, stealthy air of a man who fears
he Is being followed. This attracted my
attention, and I walked slowly so I would
not overtake" nlm. I wanted to aee where
he was going, and for some reason the
thought of the nivsterlous house popped
Into my mind. We were on the opposite
side of the street from the house, but at
the nearest corner he crossed, and I had a
fairly good view of his face under the
street lamp. He was evidently a for
eigner, but I could not make out the na
tionality. He wore a heavy brown beard
and dark goggles. For a moment he
paused In front of the little cottage. I
stopped in the shadow of a building and
watched him. After looking carefully in
every direction he stepped up on the porch
and the door opened to admit him before
he had knocked. This looked interesting,
and I decided to .vatch the house for a
while and see if any others went tn.
"There was a vacant house directly
across the street, and I slipped into the
side yard and took a position in the
heavy shadow cast by the building. I
had a fine view of the front of the
cottage. Smoke was pouring out of Its
chimney, but there was no light visible
at any of Its windows.
"I did not have to wait long. Scarce
ly had I taken my position when an
other man entered the cottage. He
was nicely dressed, but I did not get to
see his face. He wore a long or-ercoat
and had the collar turned up about his
ears.
"A little after this a carriage turned
Into the street. It drove directly to the
cottage and stopped. A lady, heavily
veiled, accompanied by a gentleman,
alighted from it and entered the shan
ty. In every Instance the door had
swung open before the visitors
knocked. Their coming had been ex
pected. In a short time another man
entered the cottage. He limped per
ceptibly, and carried a package of
some kind under his arm and a big
paper sack In one hand. These mat
ters looked interesting, so I decided
to wait and watch for developments.
No one else came.
"The carriage had driven away as
soon as the occupants had alighted,
and I felt sure It would return. I
looked at my watch, and was surprised
to find it was a few minutes of 3
o'clock. The waiting was beginning
to tell on me and I was suffering for
sleep. I yawned a time or so and was
thinking of going to my room when I
heard the carriage returning.
"About the same time a messenger
boy came skimming noiselessly down
the pavement on a bicycle. I hailed him
softly, and called him Into the shadow
of the building, and asked him if he
did not want to make a couple of dol
lars. 'Sure.' he replied.
"I told him to hide himself and fol
low the carriage when it drove away,
reporting hack to me at an appointed
place where it went. I gave him a
dollar In advance and promised him
place and excommunicated Its advocates:
but the Copernlcans routed the Catholics
and compelled them to accept this theory
as science.
The Koreshans declare that It Is not
science at all. but a bug story or clum
aily devised fable, that it has never been
proven and cannot be, and that the most
eminent astronomers admit that It Is
only a theory. They say that they have
discovered the true form and function
of the earth, that it is a great hollow
cell, with the atmospheres, physical
heavens and heavenly bodies n the In
side, and that we, the people, live on
the Inside, on the solid shell that In
closes It like an ecg shell. This shell is
the firmament of the earth and 3 eternal
and immovable.
The whole universe is within the shell
and constitutes a great cosmic battery.
The sun is In the center, a focalization
of forces that perpetuate themselves.
There are three atmospheres. This lower
atmosphere extends about 1000 miles up.
Above that is a hydrogen atmosphere,
ami within and above that a more eth
ereal atmosphere encircling the central
sun.
The central sun is not visible through
the atmospheres, tmft hemisphere of It
Is dark, the other light. One-half the In
side of the earth Is thus always In dark
ness. The sun revolves with a slightly
oscillating motion. The light of the
bright side 1 projected and focalized on
the surface of the hydrogen atmosphere,
then refocalixed on tho surface of the
lower atmosphere, and this last focaliza
tion Is the visible sun. moving round the
heavens like a great searchlight.
The whole works, sun, moon and stars,
are in the Inside, like the works of a
watch and answer the same purpose of
measuring time, days, moons, years, dis
pensations and greater cycles In eternal
procession. I cannot attempt to explain
Living Without Phones
No Longer an Easy Matter In These Days of Rash.
New York Times.
Now that Paris has been deprived by
a fire of its telephone service, the city
Is heartily to be congratulated on the
fact that Its service was extremely
bad. Had It been better the present
situation of the Parisians -would be
more desperate than it is, for they
would have come to depend upon the
telephone much more than any of them
except their humorous paragraphers
and cartoonists, have ever been able to
do would have come to depend upon
It In almost every relation of public
and prl-ate life as have the New
Yorkers, for Instance, and In a hardly
less degree the Inhabitants of every
American city, town and village, and of
a not very small minority of American
farms.
Kven in Paris, however, the burning
out of the great central station has so
Interfered with the conduct cf business
two more if he executed the commis
sion without attracting the attention
of the persons tn the carriage or of
tile driver.
"The vehicle had now paused before
the little house, and no sooner had it
stopped than the lady and gentleman
came out and entered It. Immediately
It drove away, the messenger boy fol-
owlng it at a distance on his wheel.
'In a few minutes one of the men
came out and made off down the street.
He was followed by the suspicious
looking foreigner. After he had gone
block or so the man with the limp
stepped out and hobbled off. I let him
get a good start and went after him.
He had left his packages In the house.
"For several blocks I followed mm.
until he entered a small family hotel
on a side street. After he had disap
peared In the elevator I went In the
office and engaged the clerk in con
versation while I made a pretense of
looking .up an address in the city dl-
It all In one article, and I don't know it
all. anyhow, but a duly qualified Kore
shan can explain it all and knock out the
alleged proofs of the Copernlcans as
deftly as any political orator can demol
ish the arguments of his honorable op
ponent. I have studied the thing a little. Just
for entertainment, to while away the
lonesomeness of long nights, and I con
fess that to my mind the .Koreshan is
the more comfortable faith for a Winter
evening. It Is more consoling to the
spirit to be firmly planted In the Inside
of a solid structure, than to.be flying
madly through space, at a terrifio speed,
to an unknown destination, on a little
whirling ball, like a baseball or a marble.
If a person should be spilled off along J
ine zoaiac somewnere or into tne milKy
way and left behind at the rata of 80.000
miles an hour, there would be no cUance
to recover his remains.
I know that the Copernican faith sits
lightly on the conscience of its nominal
believers. Not one In a million of them
ever thinks of It or is aware that he has
any faith or knowledge on the subject.
But the Koreshans are coming, and there
is. going to be a war between these two
systems. It will bo a war In the heavens.
A naval engagement or the fight be
tween the Socialists and the Roman
Catholics will be insignificant compared
with this. There will be comets flying
and stars falliiwr and meteors flashing
and flaming. There will he a wreck of
systems and a crash of worlds. The only
safe place for timid people will be to
crawl Into the Inside of the earth Into a
bomb-proof hole.
One thing Is certain, and that Is that
If the Koreshans win out, Copernicus will
be promoted to the Ananias Club and
canonized as the biggest liar that ever
lived outside of California.
Corvallis. October 24.
that the French capital Is described In
the dispatches as "practically prostrat
ed, commercially," and the suddenly In
creased demand for means of transpor
tation through the streets for men
carrying messages that hitherto have
been sent over the wires has thrown
everything Into Inadequacy and con
fusion. Many of us can remember the ante
telephone days, and people hardly middle-aged
can recall when telephones
began to come into anything like gen
eral use, even In the larger cities.
Their employment was confined, long
after they had ceased to be a novelty,
to business houses. In homes, except
of the rich, they were rare until only
a few years ago. Now they are to be
found In every residence of what is
called U:e better sort, and the very
though of getting along without them
rectory. From the clerk I learned that
the man of the limp was named How
ard Brown. He didn't know anything
else about him except that he was
registered from Boston. - -
"At the appointed time, I met the
messenger boj He had done his work
well. He gave me the street address
where the carriage stopped, saying the
man and woman had entered the house
with a pass key, and the carriage had
been put up in the barn at the rear.
The driver then went into the house
through a back door.
"In the afternoon I looked up the
house. It was a pretentious, stone
veneered residence on a fashionable
street I learned that Its occupants
were foreigners, presumably French.
Jules Lfevre was the man's name. He
represented himself as a cotton buyer
for an export firm In Paris, but Inquiry
among the cottonmen showed he
didn't buy much cotton He main
tained an office uptown, but was rarely
Is almost appalling to multitudes of peo
ple who regard themselves as poor.
That the telephone makes It as easy to
talk to a person ten miles away as With
one In the same room, marvelous as that
would have seemed to the parents of
most adults and to the grandfathers of
all of them. Is now taken as a matter of
course, but we can still experience a
mild thrill of wonder when the distance
reached by a gently spoken word covers
the better part of a continent.
Italian Law . Is Leisurely.
New York Sun.
Two little boys tn Rome were carry
rying their father's pistol to a gun
smith's to be mended. They quarreled,
and the pistol was not so much out of
order as to keep Pletro, aged 11, from
shooting Paola, aged 8.
The little fratricide was at once ar
rested, the magistrate committing him
to prison while they prepared to deal
with the case. Unfortunately for Ple
tro, the day on which he shot his
brother wcjt September 18, 1870. On
that day General Blxlo began his
march toward Rome, and two days later
he entered the city.
The papal magistrates had ample ex
cuse for forgetting Pletro, and Pletro
was forgotten for about six months,
when the newly appointed functiona
ries took up his case. So deliberately
did they take It up that It was not un
til 1S82 that all the material for the
prosecution had been completed.
Then the abolition of the death pen
alty In Italy caused a fresh delay.
Three specialists were appointed to In
quire into Pietro'a state of mind, and
they disagreed, causing the affair to
be shelved Indefinitely. There Is no
one now who remembers at first hand
the incident of the crime.
Pletro Is 49, having spent 38 years In
the house of detention, and once more
efforts are to be made to bring him
finally to trial.
To s City Tree.
Youth's Companion.
Pad sifter ef the forest, can it be
God meant that you should dream.
Here where the enolesa traffic, like a
stream.
Flows ceaselessly?
How lonely Is your fate!
How doubly desolate
Your pallid life, that seems a mockery I
Around you all day long
You hear the avrful city's thundering song
You who should hear
Only the winds, the clean winds, bluff and
strong.
That maks wild music as they shift and
veer.
But In the Summer noon perhaps you know
How many a heart, sick with the clash of
trade.
Has watched your soothing shade.
And dreamed an ancient dream of some lost
glade
Where quiet blossoms blow;
And then your soul has known
How eweet it Is to linger here alone,
A glory in the desert of the streets
Where the sun mercilessly beats!
'EDITED ttT VlSkT.
In It. His bookkeeper, a young man
of dark complexion, whom I Instantly
recognized as the coachman, never
seemed to have anything to do but
smoke cigarettes and write letters he
never mailed. These matters made me
decide to sift the mystery of the little
cottage to the bottom and see If I
wouldn't find something of conse
quence in the ashes.
"For three nights I shadowed the
house without seeing any one enter or
leave it, although the continual outpour
ing of smoke from the chimney showed
that some one was always at home.
The fourth night I again saw Lerevre
and his wife and the three men I had
observed on the former occasion enter
the house. They arrived a little after I
o'clock.
"I telephoned for my friend, the mes
senger boy, and when the house party
broke up and the mysterious members
began to slink away In the night I fol
lowed the suspicious-looking foreigner.
Will Offer the
This Is One of the. Features
By. F. WT. Fitzpatrlck.
El who have battled so strenu
ously for postal savings banks
have been keeping tab on the
newspapers for comment upon the Bank
ers' Association doings at Denver, but
through some inadvertence we had not
seen The Oregonian until a marked copy
was received here this morning from Mr.
T. trook White, of the U. S. Reclama
tion Service, now a fellow-citizen of
yours. We owe, him our thanks, for
your editorial on postal savings banks
on September 30 ranks, in our estimation,
away above and beyond any and all of
the many favorable comments made by
the so-called leading' papers, and even
the great financial ones of the country
that favor the movement. It Is clear,
succinct, to the point, and covers the
ground thoroughly, and with your per
mission we shall ha-e It reprinted with
credit to The Oregontan. of course, and
scattered to the four corners of the coun
tryand to all Intermediate points as
one of the best bits of reading matter
we have In our campaign for postal sav
ings Banks.
A postal savings bill has been before
Congress regularly every session for
seemingly aeons of time: Congressmen
come here, particularly from the West,
pledged to rts support and enthusiastic in
Its favor, but their enthusiasm soon
dwindles and the bills find their way into
a capacious but well-crammed pigeon
hole marked "Postal Savings." But the
movement Is gaining strength withal,
and, Allaih willing, It Is only a question of
a little while now when we will have it,
spite of banking opposition and cajoling.
To look for approval or support from
the Bankers" Association Is a good deal
like expecting contributions to and moral
support of a temperance movement from
a convention of brewers. It Is the bank
ing Influence that has kept 'postal sav
ings so long in limbo, and yet it Is legis
lation that would help them tremen
dously, for it would put vast sums Into
circulation that now they never see or
touch, and It would accustom people to
banking and give them a confidence In
these institutions that is noticed chiefly
by ita absence under present conditions.
The very greatest benefit postal sav
ings would be to us Is the facility, the
wheat we might call the temptation to
us to save money. We are a most prod
igal people, -wasteful of our resources,
rutnless devastators of the great nat
ural riches to which we have fallen
heir and scandalously uneconomical In
our mode of living. What is the result?
Ninety-six per cent of our merchants
fall In business at some time or other
cT.&g&CW
and got the messenger boy on the trail
of the gentleman of the big overcoat.
"My man gave me a long chase. He
traversed many streets, cutting from side
to side and back again and acting In ev
ery way like a criminal who seemed to
fear he was being followed. It required
all my skill In shadowing to prevent him
from discovering I was watching him.
On one occasion be almost caught me.
He turned a corner and I had stopped
to allow him to get some distance away.
I could hear the ring of his footsteps for
a while, and then all noise ceased. He
had either stopped or entered a build
ing. I was afraid to peer around the
corner lest he should see my. head. Some
thing prompted me that he was coming
back, and I slipped Into . an alleyway
between two buildings. It was well I
had done so, for I had scarcely concealed
myself when .the man came sneaking
around the corner like a vagrant cat,
doubling on his track. He passed al
most In arm's length of me and dodged
Into a stairway that entered the build
ing at the side of which I was hid.
After making sure that he did not leave
the building by some back stairway, I
went to the appointed place to receive
the messenger boy's report. His man
had gone directly to one of the best
hotels of the city and had retired. He
was registered under the name of James
Whltcomb. New York City.
"My mind was now made up to find
out something about the mysterious lit
tle cottage and the Invisible persons who
lived in It.
"That afternoon I looked over the sur
roundings of the cottage both from the
street and from the side window of
my boarding house. The shanty was
raised on brick piers and the space be
tween them was Inclosed with trellls
work. It abutted directly on the walk
beside my boarding house, the cottage
serving as the dividing fence for Its
length. This gave me an Idea,
"About midnight I removed a section
of the trellis-work and crawled under
the cottage, armed with a sharp chisel.
It was the night for the queer charac
ters to assemble. With great caution 1
cut a tiny hole through the floor, under
the back room. Just large enough to
determine if the room was carpeted, a
matter on which depended the success
of my plan. Of this I was reasonably
certain, for the house appeared to b
well furnished. My surmise was correct,
and I enlarged the hole sufficiently to
allow me to hear all that transpired In
the room. I could hear each of the. rhree
men as they arrived, but beyond a curt
word of greeting they did not talk.
They appeared-to be watting for some
one. I surmised that it was Lefevre.
He must be; the leader.
"When the carriage arrived I fairly
held my breath, for I felt Intuitively
that I would now learn the secret of
the little house and of Its visitors and
occupants.
"Lefevre acknowledged the greeting of
the others curtly and then began. In
excellent French:
" "We are all here. Let us get to
work.'
"And to work they went with a will,
first one making reports and then an
other; one reading a letter, the others
commenting on It, Lefevre dominating
the meeting as if the others were chil
dren. As. I listened my heart began to
beat like a force-pump until I was afraid
H would be heard by the six persons In
the room. It did not take me long to
hear enough, and I crawled out and set
off for the police station on a run.
"The night captain and desk sergeant
were iplaying seven-up when I burst in
on them, hot and disheveled, and they
looked up at me a bit suspiciously. The
tale I told them almost mad a their hair
stand on end. They hastily summoned
the patrolmen from the nearby wards and
In less than 30 minutes we had every
avenue of escape from the little cottage
guarded by blue-coated officers.
"I had given them descriptions of all
the persons within the shanty, and had
Temptation to Save Money
of a Postal Savings Bank; Charge of Paternalism Is Unjust.
I and but 3 out of every 10M of our mer
chants and business men have as much
as $5000 at the age" of 65. The art of
saving la almost a lost one with us.
Our banking friends prate about "ex
perience" In postal savings. Why, bless
you, we are the only civilized nation
that has not postal savings, though we
have recently given it to some of our
"colonies' a queer, an anomalous term
In a republican form of government.
The Knglish postal savings banks have
doubled in their deposits and in their
assets since 1S90. Canada wouldn't give
up her postal savings for anything;
Japan already has 1,000,000 depositors.
The real milk In the cocoanut is
that the banks fear that postal savings
would compete with them and cut them
out as being safer and more accessible
depositories. As a matter of fact,
postal savings actually fosters private
savings banks. In France, postal sav
ings was instituted In 1881 and may
be said to- have given birth to private
savings banks, of which in 1904 there
were 550, with 14fil branches, doing
business with nearly 8.030.00.1 deposi
tors. Spite of postal savings there Is a
private savings bank In England to
every 3000 people; In France one to
6000; In Sweden, one to 1250, and so the
figures run, while in this country we
have but one savings bank to 67,000
peoplel That Is the figure for the en
tire country, but remember that in 18
Southern states there are but 120 sav
ings banks, and in all the Southern
and Western .and Pacific states there
are but 700, or less than one bank per
100,000 Inhabitants. Not one person out
of 600 families has the opportunity of
patronizing a savings bank except at
grand personal discomfort and trouble.
Do you wonder at people keeping
money In mattresses and under the
front stoop? What a godsend it would
be to have every village postoffice a
bank and whose soundness is vouched
for by a guarantee that has never been
repudiated, and means wherever it Is
placed Just one hundred cents on the
dollar, the guarantee of the United States.
They tell us that private savings
banks will meet every demand made
upon them and will be located where
they are needed. It may be news to
our banking friends that the country
over our average citizen has to travel
30 miles or more to reach a private
savings bank! In panicky times peo
TIe, particularly your foreign-born citi
zens, beg the postal officers to store
their savings for them, money that they
probably have taken out of the private
savings bank. It is almost invariably
that same class of people who start
the "runs" on the private savings
hanks, perhaps Incipient alarms, but
that often lead to great national tribu
lations. Last year nearly $72,000,000 in
postal orders was transmitted to Eu
rope. Much of that went Into foreign
postal savings Institutions, and there
aro banks today here that make a spe
cautioned thorn particularly to let each
victim get far enough away before ar
resting him so that tho others would
not become alarmed. I wanted to bag
the entire outfit and not have ny alips
or blunders.
"We caught the three men and Mr.
and Mrs. lefevre without difficulty. Only
the bearded foreigner showing fight.
The officers overpowered him before ho
could use the pi.ol and knife with
which he was armed. Mr. and Mrs.
Lefevre were indignant at what tliey
termed a base Insult. a
"The most dangerous part of the art
venture was still before us. ' There were
two persons now In tho house, a woman,
and a man with a voice like the roar
of a waterfall and evidently of gigantlo
build, for he shook tho little house to Its
foundation when he walked across the
floor, as I had learned in my spying
beneath it. I had thought a good deal
over the best method of effecting their
capture, and finally decided to employ
again my friend, the messenger boy, I
summoned him and gave him his In
structions. I bad learned the name of
the man while listening under the h?ui--e,
and I addressed a dummy letter to liliu,
which the boy was to deliver.
"Two policemen and I took positions
on the porch and the messenger noy
knocked at the door. It was opened hy
the woman, who peered through a env.'l
crack suspiciously.. When the boy cnlled
her by name and exhibited the letter
she became excited and Rllowed the door
to swing wide open as she took the en
velope with trembling hands.
"This was our opportunity. One or
the officers seized her and clapped a
big hand over her mouth. The captain
and I rushed into the house, our vs
volvers held ready fc- Instant use. The
front room opened directly on the porch.
We had made some disturbance, and a
we crossed the threshold a bass voice
bellowed: "What Is it. Katrlna?" We
flashed our electric lamps toward the
corner from which the voice came. Sit
ting up in bed, a large revolver in either
hand, was the most powerful specimen
of a man I have ever ,een outside c-r a
sideshow. He was bearded like a Hon.
and the huge muscles of his arms showed
like knots through the thin sleeves of
his night shirt.
"He seemed to divine the trouble.
Quick as thought both his revolvers
flashed. One bullet sent the capwui's
cap sailing from his head and the other
spat by my eAr uncomfortably closr.
Before he could fire again our revolvers
had replied, and he sank back groan
ing upon the bed, staining it red with
his life's blood.
"We searched the house, and what
we found made us glad the aflair had
not terminated more seriously. In the
back room were enough explosives to .
have blown the cottage and every
building in the neighborhood into the
middle of next year. There were bomlw
of all sizes and shapes, all of masterful
workmanship. There were bottles and
Jars and cans of explosives of the most
powerful kinds. There were documents
and letters which showed we had cap
tured the most dangerous company of
anarchists that had ever Infested this
country.
"The man we -had killed was an es
caped Russian convict, for whose arrest
a large reward was outstanding. The
woman was his wife. There was also a
price upon her head. Lefevre was a
French terrorist, well known to the Paris
police. The three others were all no
torious criminals, men whose names
made crowned heads tremble and thrones
to totter.
"Among the papers we captured in the
cottage and at the rooms of the others
was correspondence relating to several
contemplated assassinations of European
sovereigns. There was evidence, also, of
a cunningly conceived plot to murder a
certain high official of our own Govern
ment who was soon to visit this particu
lar city while on a tour -of the South."
(Next week Captain Dickson will relate
the story of "The Affair of the Iron PH."
cialty of sending money to foreign
postal savings banks for foreign-bom
people.
Our private savings banks are patron
ized by the well-to-do. The average de
posit is $433. In the average postal sav
ings bank of other countries it is $(t6. A
class of people is reached by postal sav
ings that never thinks of saving a penny
here. What we want Is a banking sys
tem for the plain "peepul." In all our
land we have hut 1319 savings banks,
with" 8.037.000 depositors. Judging by w hat
other nations have done. If our. 60.()
postofflces were made savings depositor
ies, too, we would soon have 27.400.000 de
positors, and within a very short time of
their organization the billion and a half
of money now in the hands of the peo
ple, and much of it in hiding, would find
Its w-ay through those postal repositories
into the private banks, and thus into clr-:
culation.
They prate to us that the thing is "pa
ternalistic." Why not? Can anything
that a government of the people, by the
p?ople, for the people, does for the peo
ple be dubbed "paternalism," in the op
problous significance of the term? Not
only would the people be benefited in-dlvlduallj-,
but likewise would it re
dound to the welfare of the Govern
ment or of the people as a whole. In
vest an individual with a selfish Inter
est In the maintenance of the Naiton's
credit, and although he may have been
careless and Improvident, he would at
once bo transformed into a conserva
tive and dutiful citizen, charged . with
the Inspiring obligation of voting In
telligently upon all questions affect
ing the well-being, the stability and the
perpetuity of the Government. It would
bring to him a keener realization of
the fact that between him and tho Gov
ernment there had been established a
species of partnership. Imposing upon
him peculiar obligations which he
would be prompted to respect. With
that would come the elevation of- the
standard of citizenship, the cementing
of the ties that bind the people to the
Government, the strengthening of the
public credit and the ultimate better
ment of all concerned. Is it not rea
sonable to believe that If the masses
of the people were Induced Into greater
thrift and saving In their habits, they
would be more likely to be contented
and happy; and if their hard-earned
savings could be placed in the hands of
the Government, upon whose soundness
they could rely. In which they have abso
lute confidence and In the welfare of
which they are so deeply concerned, they
would come to a better, a higher realiza
tion of the duties they owe to the coun
try and to each other?
Washington, D. C.
Prescott, Ontario, has become an ent?r
ln port for American coal. One firm
landed 300.000 tons there during the navi
gation pcrltxl of layt year. A lai'ne un
loading and loading plant hai been installed.