Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (March 25, 1917)
10 THE SUNDAY FICTION MAGAZINE, MARCH 25, 1917 - landscape decorating and get "a show ing." I - He knows many pat spots where va cant spaces are aching and yawning and stretching out their lonesome arms to be "covered" with a sniped piece of show . paper. But he may And on them the handi work of another mayhap a rival sniper, representing some other play- house. This is inviolate by the entente cordial of the profession, the freema- ' aonry of snipers and the rigorous rules of the union. As long as the attraction named 'on tho sniped sheet is still in town, that snipe Is "live," and must not be molested. But the minute the show "closes" ail -the snipers start in a race to cover the paper of the departing . brother. The sniper must be, therefore, an alert and faithful and spirited cuss. He must not be afraid to climb and. believe us, he must know, also, how to run. Noth . Ing can undo him except the three words - "Post No Bills," and when there are too many of these he goes out after dark, when he cannot see them, and thus " double-crosses his conscience. OF LATE years sniping has gone into declension for many reasons. To be gin with, the cost of paper has skied, and It rims into money like the mischief .where it was at one time reasonable; secondly, property owners for years fussed and shrieked and sued, until tie available locations were whittled down to comparatively few and not select, within a high enough percentage to get back in advertising the high cost of snip ing and the trebled charges for printing and stock. But some theaters still employ snipers, and the old-time ami traditional mana gers deplore that the sniper, like the ' noble bison, is being killed off. for they swear that sniping is the lifeblood of ' "show business," and that the plaguey movies and the passing cf the sniper have strangled the industry between them. Back in the happy days when the sniper sniped rampant there was a fa mous ash-can billposter and 1 general sniper known to the trade as "Center Flash Higgins. The name grew from Higgins custom of covering every pos sible inch in r near the center of the town, especially early every Saturday fora week-end flash which would live through the period between regular ac tivities that sweep down transitory lo cations. A pedestrian strolling through the principal streets on a Sabbath day could see on every side the product of Higgins application. And many a lonesome traveling man was lured thereby to the theater that hired Higgins. And Higgins was great in his profession and drew down $30 the -week, which was notorious compensation. Higgins saw the years take from him one by one his pet spots. Here a build ing was finished and its Inviting scaf folding and pine-board construction huts vanished. There an old ramshackle two story affair that had been abandoned in the running, and which was duck-soup for one-sheets and show-cards, was gobbled by a real estate manipulator and turned into a granite skyscraper. Wood that great friend of the sniper grad ually fell away, and stone and steel, those invincible and forbidding substi tutes, arose and held forth hard looks and cold exterior to the surviving snip ers, who could moan and cuss the evo lution of civilization as they wished, but who could not raise a linger to stop the wiping out of their vocation. Higgins knew no other way to make a living. He had been a sniper through all his adolescence and maturity. And now that he was 60 and odd it was too late for him to learn new tricks. The theater which had regularly employed him let him out even him, though he was the last. Now and then he got a stray job of sniping, and then he was happy, for there were still a few of the locations left here and there. But his regular business was ruined- He became a hanger-on, and in time a pest. He "made" the theaters regularly and applied for sniping to do. It got so that the managers were no longer "in" for him. But one day lie ran across- Phil Taylor, one of the deans and sages of the prehistoric methods of show promo tion, who was in the city as manager of a flamboyant moving picture. You may have noticed yes, you may have even reflected that the movies, the newest of the show games, utilize many of the oldest ways of making themselves known and attractive. The discarded ideals of melodrama were revivified, pul motored and brought back to a greater vogue than they had eve enjoyed since they had risen, flourished and decayed in the "legit." The slapstick comedy, discredited and kicked out long since from the stage door of the speaking the ater, has come back not only bigger than ever, bat the biggest thing In the new industry itself. And, not so strangely, many of the managers began to apply old and obso lete advertising systems, too, with the aspiring and newly rich film. Phil Taylor's fingers had itched for long to again direct and captain a crew of snipers. And when Higgins came be fore him Higgins the Napoleon of the eniping world his fever burned hotter and he knew that he must yield. His at traction was renting the theater out right, and the posting as well as the pa per supply was in his hands. "Hig," said Taylor, "what can you do with a bundle of snipe paper?" "What can I do? Me? Say, I can plaster this burg so you won't be able to find the city hall. Ill post a one on the front door o' the society leader, on the statue o' the general in the park, on the main window o the main store on the main street, on the back o Hogan's goat and on the marble posts in the marble lobby o' your hotel. That's just the plain stuff or do you want fancy work?" "If I give you 10,000 sheets of " "Ten how many?" Ten thousand sheets was an extraor dinary consignment it would have been in the gladdest heydey of high days. "You heard me. Can you place them?" Higgins would have said he could if he couldn't. He who had for years cursed the disinclination, of managers to have paper sniped could he, now when one manager had yielded tenfold, back down? He gulped, he sagged a little, he recov ered, took off his hat, looked squarely and calmly into the eyes of Phil Taylor, the emancipator of the sniping race, the reviver of an era, and said: "Sh-sure!" THERE'LL, be 10.000 sheets of paper in the bill room tonight," said Taylor. , "You get at 'era early tomorrow. Take what time you need, put the stuff where you can; but get out the 10,000 and have 'em where I can see "em, as I'm going to go 'round and look at the showing." "Done t'anks," said Higgins, and he' walked dizzily out. How, where and by what wizard-work could be post 10,000 sheets of outlaw pa per in this town, bone-dry of high spots? He went home to his wife and nerv ously ate a little supper; but his heart NAMING THE COCONUT THE brown, hard shell nutcovered witlWPourse fiber and containing a white, brittle, oily "meat" and some sweetish liquor, generally called "milk," is the coconut, and notthe eo k coanut. This fruit of a great palm tree Is a familiar thing on the fruit stands and in the fruit shops and food markets all over the world. It has been an ac ceptable article of food among Euro peans for centuries, among Americans ever since there were such people as Americans, and among the peoples of the tropics for an undetermined number of centuries. It is one of the very useful things that grow. Its use being so ex tensive and its uses many. - lw name is a curious one. Being about -the size f ,a man's head, the Spanish early explorers oversea traders called It the coconut, "coco" being a slang or vulgar Spanish word for . man's bead The word in 'that sense survives iuAmer lean slang, and American audiences iwm erally laugh when a low comedian says ' something about beating another come dian over "the coco." So, some early Spaniard, disregarding the native names for . this nut, capri ciously called it a co-co-nut, and there being something catching in the name it passed from mouth to mouth until it be came established as the proper name of the nut. . A man who took the trouble to look up the reason why the coconut is per haps more often than not called the co coanut has .written: "Coconuts have been misnamed for a century or more. It is 100 years since a proofreader in London allowed the word to slip into a dictionary as cocoa nut. As many dictionaries printed since have shown a sheeplike imitation of this edition, the misspelling of the word has been established. The word "cocoa" Is the name of the bean from which chocolate is made. The oil of coconut enters largely into the life, of the natives of the coconut growing parts of the earth. They use it in cookery as we use olive oil, cottonseed oil, lard and Its numerous substitutes; they-use it as medicine and as an Il luminating oiL It Is said that American soldiers in the Philippines found . the houses in the interior of the island, with tlie exception of those of the so-called "better classes.". lighted only by the flame of coconut oil, though there are numer os other vegetable oils used by natives of the tropics. Some very crude lamps may be see ajnong the humble people of the tropics. : Lamps have ' been found where a glass or smalt earthen or wood en vessel is filled with cocooat oil. and across the top f the vessel a piece of tin from a tin can has been laid. In that tin the. natives nave punched a hole, and in the hole a wick made of one of various kinds of fiber has been set. The milk from ripe coconut Is used for cooking vegetables, all kinds of "greens," breadfruit and squash, and as a substi tute for cow's milk in making Ice cream. In the parts of the tropics where manu factured ice is to be had an American who has lived in the Philippines has written that "coconut milk imparts little or none of the flavor of the coconut to the ice cream, and the ice -cream itself is made In much the same way as the cream made from cow's milk, and is rich in Jwdy and satisfying to the taste." The blossom of the coconut tree is not unlike a head of cauliflower, and is es teemed very much as the "cabbage" of the cabbage palmetto, which grows to some extent in Florida. The coconut blossom is boiled or eaten raw with a salad dressing. Prom the blossom of the itree the natives also make a pleasant drink, soft when first made but strongly Intoxicating when" fermented, and quite often it is allowed to ferment. By one treatment of this flower-liquor It is also made Into a native vinegar- The trade in copra, which is the dried meat of coconuts, Is one of the important trade lines of the world's markets, copra giving forth coco oil, which has many uses, its principal use being in the mak . ing of soap by the great soap manufac turers of the world. Coco butter has also come to be an Important article of world, commerce and much dried coco meat is used throughout the world in the confec tionery business. Baltimore Sun. wasn't m it He had taken on a job. n had promised the impossible. The pasta brush was no magic wand and miracles weren't in his line. Now what was he going to dp about it? BEFORE the night watchman had sur rendered his office to the-day janitor Higgins, pale, worn, haggard after a painful and sleepless night, was banging at the door. He was admitted to the room under the stage where the paper was stored. He attempted to whistle, as of old, when cutting the ropes on pack ages of printing, as he opened these heavy and numerous bundles; but noth ing came out, for his throat was dry and his tongue was limp. He mixed his paste and he shouldered his brushes and went forth. The bagful of paper was heavier than it had seemed of yore and yet it was made up of but the conventional 500 sheets. The sun was rising and Higgins blinked up at it It hurt his eyes they were not as strong as once they had been when their keen glances had detected at 1,000 yards bare spots Just big enough for one-sheets. His feet were not entirely steady and his shoulder ached with the rheumatism and with the burden of his stock. But on toward the "center," his hunting ground of glories past, he shuffled. A policeman, seeing him pass and surmising from his tools his mission, hailed him and gave warning that no violations of ordinance or liberties with property would bo countenanced. Hig gins nodded wearily and pressed on. He knew a spot or two, anyhow, where pa per could be slapped. After that? He would seek further he would seek where he knew the finding would be slim. But he would try. Providence would provide it always had until the managers shut off its need. It took him half an hour, with stopping twice or thrice to put down hia bag and rest, to reach the principal cor ner of the city. There, through force ol old habit, though well he knew he could discern no waiting location, be stood and pivoted slowly. He felt a faiatness and he dragged himself back against Ch building. There he stood In semi-consciousness for many minutes, as hit breath came hard and jagged. His coma was dispelled by the arrival across the street of a crew of workmen. What was that? They were putting u a barricade of planka Oh, glory! Here, cn the garden spot of the main stem, was to go up a sniper's paradise. He watched them, electrified. The apparatus was a modern one, erected In advance and set up by application of a half dozen ready bolts. It was up. Higgins reached Into his bag and drew forth a gaudy one-sheet. He gripped it at the top edge, clutched his short brush in his other hand, with his paste pail hanging off his wrist, and started eagerly for the bulwarks of the repairmen. His steps were light the first two; then of a sudden his knees bent under him. He pitched across the walk. And the one-sheet, which he still held, fell Jape up, shrieking in Its' three-color elo quence the sensational merits of the un- rivaled photofilm. And thus the corner policeman found him dead of heart disease. But there he lay, undisturbed and un moved, and the cne-sheet lay there, too, for the full hair hour it took to call the "wagon."' , And in the thousands w ho raw was Phil Taylor, who was the first to later . Identify him at the public morgue. And Taylor sent the widow a check for 4200, the price of posting 10,000 sniped sheets. With this letter: . He was a sniper to the end. He gave the show a showing on the busiest corner that couldn't have been touched if he'd put up all the 10,000 ones as in the bygone days. It was the greatest "center flash" of his career. Accept my sorrow and this check. He earned both. ICopyrizht, 1IT, by J. Keeleyl