SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE i0404100404010040004000401004040400400400100
!lt . It
New Indian Animal Stories
How the Martin Won the Gourd Nest
iandamental
Principles of
ONE VETERAN RETIRED AND RE
CRUIT TOOK 8ERVICE.
By JOHN M. OSKISON
Health1
i i i
f
Principal. Street, Irkutsk.
A THOUSAND miles after you
have left Russia, Journeying
across a flat, featureless
ocean of steppe toward the
rising sun, you will enter a
wood.
Light-heartedly you plunge through
a crevice of that dark wall of ever
green foliage. The cool gloom Is
pleaBlng after the Bhadeless steppe.
Towering masts of pine and fir and
cedar. Infrequent glimpses of sky
through chance vents in the roof. A
faint dank stench of rotting logs and
waterlogged moss. Not a bird or a
beast to see or hear; clusters of mos
quitoes wreathing in spiralB up a
glancing shaft of twilight. The silence
of the grave, writeB Liassett Digby In
the New York Tribune.
Yes; pleasant after the Bhadeless
steppe. ... It must be a deep
wood though. Miles have drawn into
leagues. Suddenly night falls. . . .
If you find a track in the next three
days, which is improbable, you will
live to celebrate, In some turf-roofed
log hut, your first week's passage
through this forest yes, you begin to
call it a forest now.
Well, to summarize, if you are a
pretty good walker and have luck you
will be getting near the eastern fringe
of that forest about seventeen weeks
later. Long before that you will cease
to wonder at a certain moroeeness, a
certain long-faced silence, In your
woodmen hosts. And not improbably
you will have vowed to paust ior a
day at the frontier of this forest If
frontier it should have, Indeed to lie
on your back on the steppe and gaze
at clouds. You have almost forgotten
what a big, spacious cloud looks like.
Out of the Cedars.
Comes a morning when the cedars
and firs thin out and birch coppice en
sues Presently the birches thin and
thin, trickling away Into a broad down
ward sweep of treeless prairie. A
few leagues ahead glints of gold and
silver flash Incomprehenslvely out of
the far distance. Then splashes of
dazzling white, spires and towers and
domes, and a city appears, swept on
three sides by a river of foam-flecked
emerald, the Siberian metropolis.
If you are looking for Occidental
grandeurs (sic), comforts and culture,
approaching thiB outpost of empire
with the Berlin or the Boston point of
view, you will find Irkutsk crude. To
appreciate her you should come upon
her, mentally If not in actuality, out of
the awful solitudes of forest Jhat
hedge her about; then you will not cry
ne upon her for being the capital city
of Northern Asia and having neither
street-cars nor skyscrapers, few drains
and fewer street lamps, hotels a rlre,
un actorless opera house and roads
that are lakes of mud or drifts of
stifling dust.
Facts? Facts? You can't find a
guide book dealing with Siberia, and
you champ your hungry JawB for
facts? No; there are no guide books.
Facts? Oh, well then Irkutsk, the
capital city of a largish slab of the
world's dry land, about three times
the size of all Europe, exclusive of
Russia, has 80,000 inhabitants who
labor under the delusion that they are
Europeans, though 70 per cent of the
hairiest are honest enough not to give
the matter much thought, wearing
their shirts outside their trousers and
dwelling In small log huts and bovine
tranquility.
In 1652 Ivan Pakhobov, leader of a
filibustering gang of Cossacks and ex
ceeding tough, built a stockaded tim
ber fort at the junction of the rivers
Angara and Irkut. Altruistic patriot
ism was less of a motive of his than
legitimatized plunder of the Booriat
Mongol fur trappers. He levied trib
ute on them extorted loot to the ac
companiment of flag waggings. Some
of it may eventually have reached the
treasury at Moscow. Who knows?
When Professor Gmelin came out,
in 1734, on the pioneer scientific ex
ploration of Northern Asia, he found
839 log huts at Irkutsk, of which most
contained, in addition to a stove and
a bathroom, "une chambre sans fumee
ou en se tient en famllle," which Is
more than one can say nowadays. In
1803 the whole of Siberia was placed
under the administration of a gover
nor general, with a residence at Irk
utsk. Today the city has a cathe
dralOur Lady of Kazan thirty-two
Orthodox Greek churches, sixteen par
ish churches, thirty-five private chap
els attached to residences, some Rom
an Catholic churches, a German Lu
theran church, forty-nine schools, eigh
teen charitable Institutions, an opera
house with nothing going on moBt of
the time, a government gold labora
tory, barracks by the score, several
bankB and breweries and monasteries
and jails, a fine museum with an alert
educational programme of lectures,
and so forth, a very few factories, sev-;
eral tanneries and a major In a caval
ry regiment who weighs 31 Btone,
which Is just short of a quarter of a
ton a blithesome boy who can prob
ably ride a gun carriage with the most
reckless of 'em.
Of the Irkutsklans Gmelin wrote:
"Us alment l'exces l'oisivite, le vin et
les femmes" not till he got out of
town, though. I'm still in Irkutsk, at
the mercy of the mob, so wait awhile.
Late Dinner Hour.
An odd city, this. At 6 o'clock this
morning frost gripped the ground. At
2 o'clock In the afternoon the sunny
sides of the street were deserted for
the shade, where It was only 81 de
grees Fahrenheit! A lie-abed town.
No one appears on the streets till af
ter 10 o'clock in the morning. Early
lunchers begin to drop into the res
taurants about 2 o'clock. The dinner
hour is from 10 at night till 1 o'clock
in the morning, and you linger over
your drinks and Crimean cigarettes
till 3 or 4 o'clock, listening to the or
chestra or moving from table to table
to chat with your friends.
The chief restaurant in town, the
resort of the creme- de la creme of
wealth and smartness, offerB not un
interesting glimpses. It Is quite good
form, for instance, to enter the crowd
ed room vigorously scraping your hair
and mustachlos and whiskers and
beard with a large and greasy comb.
None of the lunchers through whom
you thus thread your way are squeam
ish enough to push away their soup
plates from your scurf strewn wake
Wanting a waiter, you bang your plate
with a knife, clamorously and with
annlication. till he appears. Mold
and manure stained earthenpots,
standing in water-logged saucers, hold
the rooted once-we-were-flowers on
your table. Argumentative canaries
and vainly shrill linnets trilling from
a dozen cages drive you nearly silly
Yet the food is excellent and the wait
ers models of their genus, apart from
a lamentable tendency to snatch the
fork from your plate wherewith to
pry the cork from a bottle of wine.
Few men care to saunter about Irk
utsk after dark without a Browning
in a handy pocket. The first time I
came to this town I was assured that
there was at least a murder on the
streets every four-and-twenty hours,
with considerably more some nice,
warm nights, when It was a-plty-to-be-Indoors-don't-you-know.
I doubted the
fact till I came back subsequently and
verified it. And now, this spring, af
ter an absence of three years, I find
vesperal murders more popular than
ever. Nasty, uncomfortable murders,
quiet murders in the dark by gentle
men who haven't a thing against you,
but need a spare shirt, or merely want
to keep in good training. There are
no street lamps half a mile from the
heart of this metropolis. That helps,
too.
The lazy and inartistic spirits mere
ly Bidle up In felt slippers and sand
bag or club you. The real union mur
derers are garroterB. Even as Tomsk
Is the educational and cultural centre
of Siberia, Irkutsk is every ambitious
young provincial garroter's goal. It
is a high honor to be in with the gar
roting Four Hundred of this town, the
aristocracy of homicide. Squatting
low on their heels, they lurk in the
gutter at the sound of your approach
ing steps till you appear close by, sil
houetted against the starlight Then
the hide lasso is neatly cast over your
head; swiftly and silently you are
choked to death. Or a partnership of
three will operate. Two chase you.
At the crescendoing sound of rushing
footfalls the third man draws a rope
taut across the street. You trip and
fall headlong. Before you are up again
you are knifed In the back.
Small Per Capita Debt.
The total debt of the forty-eight
state governments of this country on
June 30, 1913, as reported by Director
Harris of the census bureau, was
(422,796,525, as against a total national
debt of $2,916,204,914. Less cash in
the treasury available for payment of
the national debt, it amounted to only
$1,028,064,055, or $15.59 for each man,
woman, and child. That Is very small,
as national debts go. That of Franc
for example, is $160 per capita,
Gringo Civilian Got Titte of Stir
ring Life and Found It to Hli Lik
ing, 8o the Account Wat
Balanced,
Silently the steamer slipped over
the starlit waters, Momotombo's
plume of steam 6,000 feet above
us. The pier we were to take was hid
den In the blackness ahead. Every
light aboard was doused, for we had
iio wish to make a show of ourselves.
' Then somebody opened the fire
doors under the boilers. A plume of
sparks flew from the smokestack and
lit the boat brightly and a hundred
men on deck swore, not too softly,
, Answer came In a flash from the
black shore ahead of us. Bang! came
the bark of a field gun. A rosy spark
boring Its way through the night pass
ed over our heads and on into the
night and lake.
"Turn around, captain! Turn quick,
and go back!"
So our brave Colomblano general
In command; a patriot for Nicaragua
and 300 pesos a month.
Pray, don't imagine that he was
scared. He wouldn't endanger his men
out there on the water; the enemy
on firm land and beyond reach of
machetes. No. He boldly stood grasp
ing the rail, and If his arm fairly
shook me as we were crowded against
each other it waB no doubt because
he trembled with bold ardor.
At least I couldn't Bee that he chang
ed color. But then, I never Baw an
ace of clubs change color. Still,
itheres a difference in blacks. The
general's shade was the shinier of the
two in the light from our plumes of
sparks.
"Go back, captain, to a thousand
meters!" the general ordered again,
but with no very great authority of
tone.
"You go to thunder!" Captain Tooth
blurted with what seemed to me an
approach to bluntness. "Isn't there a
man aboard who'll take a ' crack at
them chaps ashore?"
The commanding general walked
aft. A gringo civilian said;
"Hold her as she goeB, Cap. I'll
try a shot."
He dropped to the main deck, sight
ed the little beauty of a breechloader
and jerked the lanyard. A shell stroll
ed shoreward, struck and broke In
many pieces, A locomotive on the pier
vomited burning sparks and rumbled
away from there. The natives who
were he crew of the gun dipped cof
fee sacks in a bucket of water and
laid them on the gun.
"Get out of this with your dishrag!
What d'ye mean! Give me that Bhell,
pronto!1' yelled that mad gringo, jerk
ing the sacks overboard and snatching
the shell.
. Half a dozen other shells went
ashore and smashed themselves to
ruins, one going through the planking
of the motorboat of which the rebels
proposed to make a man-o'-war to take
Managua.
Then that Intrusive gringo hunted
up the commanding general and ask
ed: "Why not land now and take the
place?"
But he ordered the expedition to re
turn to Managua. He wouldn't risk
his brave men by a night attack. They
might run into ambush under fire of
our gun.
The general retired from the ser-
.vlce, and the 300 pesos, the next day
So a soldier of fortune was lost to
the cause of the government. But
the account was balanced that very
day, for that gringo, beguiled by an
offer from the president and tha taste
he had had of war, became a soldier
of fortune.
Lakes Drying Up.
A report just laid before the senate
at Cape Town says definitely that
South Africa is drying up not becauso
of any lessening of the average rain
fall, but on account of the steady dis
appearance of the local water sup
plies. "There Is no doubt," it adds,
"that many parts of the Union will
eventually become uninhabitable."
Long ago Livingstone pointed out
this probability, and within the last
half-century quite a number of lakes
In central Africa have disappeared,
while Lake Chad Is shrinking every
year. ,
Europe is In no better case. A Ger
man geologist recently made an ex
haustive inventory of the European
lakes and found that hundreds had dis
appeared or been reduced to Insignifi
cant proportions. In the canton of Zu
rich 150 lakes were catalogued In 1660;
now there are barely 70.
The Dancing Floor.
From year to year various sub
stances are suggested, tried out,
found satisfactory and then super
seded by others to produce smooth
dancing floors. The wax candle,
chipped liberally over tho floor and
then energetically rubbed In, has had
Its day. So has talcum powder,
which has been used by the boxful
to produce a good dancing Burfaco,
Now corn meal is looked upon as the
best polisher of a dancing floor. It
Is sprinkled over the floor, not too
liberally, and rubbed In by the danc
ing feet
Pleasurable Madness.
"Popleigh is always entertaining
some sort of Utopian dream."
"I rather think the dream enter'
taint him."
Children, Color Up
(Copyright, by McPlure Newspaper Syndl- 1
cats.)
Long time ago, the fork-tailed martin
used to build their gourd-like nests
under the eaves of the council house.
And that was a very convenient place,
too both for the martins, who liked
to live close to the people, and for the
little Indian boys, who liked to watch
the birds swooping and flashing in the
air.
Sometimes one of the boys who was
not satisfied with watching the birds
In the air would climb to the eaves
and bring down one of the nests. And
If he waited until after the young mar
tins had gone away, It was all right.
Then one of the old men would tell
the boys why the martin's nest was
like a gourd.
It happened et the time of the first
ball game between the birds and the
four-footed animals. -
On one side, the Great Bear was the
captain of the players, and for the
birds the Great Eagle was leader; and
for many days beforS the game tho
big animals went about the earth say
ing what good ball players they were.
But the Great Eagle told the birds that
they must not boast; and it was be
cause they did not boast that the little
bat and the tiny flying squirrel joined
the birds and helped to' win the game.
Well, the game was played In a
smooth meadow beside the river, and
It began early In the morning, when
the dew was fresh and sparkling on
the grass. Out In the center of the
meadow stood the Great Beaver ready
to toes the ball. He looked toward, the
Great Bear and asked if he was ready,
and the Great Bear said:
"The game may as well begin." Tho
Great Bear spoke in a sort of tired
way, as If it was really no use to go on,
but he supposed that the birds would
not be satisfied until the animals
showed them how much better they
were. And then the Great Beaver
asked the Great Eagle if the birds were
ready.
"We have Just Been the edge of the
sun coming over the tree-tops," said
the Great Eagle, "and we are ready to
play."
BOXING TAUGHT AT COLLEGE
Several of Big Educational Institutions
Follow Example of University of
Pennsylvania.
Columbia university, Franklin and
Marshall and several others of the big
educational institutional are following
the lead of the University of Pennsyl
vania In Introducing boxing among the
methods of physical training. A few
years ago such an idea would have
been bitterly opposed, and there would
have been small chance of its adop
tion. But times change, and peo
ple grow more broad-minded every
day. There is no question of the bene
fit of a knowledge of boxing as a
means of self-defense. Anyone doubt
ing this can get the proof instantly
by undertaking to impose on a man
who is a skilled boxer, even If he
is a much smaller person. But the
best use for boxing Is as a means of
healthful exercise. In learning to box
the student learns to act quickly, to
keep cool and to watch for an opening.
He finds that In order to successfully
cope with an opponent he must not
lose his temper. The man who loses
his temper while boxing 1b sure to
get the worst of it. Outside of
swimming there is no exercise to com
pare with boxing for a complete use of
the muscles of the body, and, of
course, swimming cannot be enjoyed
except In the water. Boxing, being a
competitive exercise, Is superior to
swimming through the fact that the
nerves as well as the muscles are
exercised in the sparring bout. Quick
ness of the eye is one of the things
that come with constant practise ot
boxing. The lungs are expanded and
every muscle from the top of the head
to the sites of the feet Is brought In-
This Picture.
So the Great Beaver tossed up the
ball. Before It could come to the
ground the flying Bqulrrel Bprang from
his tree and caught It. Then he ran
up to the very top of the tree on which
he had lighted and threw the ball to
the Great Eagle.
Back and forth in the air went the
ball, while the animals down below
ran round and round wondering how
they were to get a chance at It. From
the Great Eagle the ball was tossed to
the hawk, and when the hawk had car
ried it half way to the goal he passed
it to the bat. Now, the bat had just
got his wings that morning the birds
had made them for him out of some
thin pieces of groundhog skin which
had been stretched over the head ol
a drum and he was not quite used to
them.
As the bat darted and dodged
through the air his new wings got
tangled in his hind feet and he had to
drop the ball In order to get them
loosened.
"Now we have the ball!" cried the
Great Bear, running like the big,
clumsy fellow he was. He stopped for
just a second to shout over his shoul
der to the Great Terrapin, who was
coming close behind:
"I will carry It half way, and then
I will toss the ball to you!"
But while the bear was speaking
these words, the fork-tailed martin
came straight down from far above the
tree-tops like a swift arrow, and darted
upon the ball. As the martin rose
from the ground with the ball he just
had room to get past the big mouth
of the rushing bear.
All day the ball game went on, and,
as the sun was going down, the Great
Beaver said that the birds had won.
And when all the birds came to the
place of roosts for the night the Great
Eagle wouldn't let them go to sleep
until they had found a good reward
for the martin who had saved the ball
for them.
And the best reward they could
think of was to give the martin a
gourd for a nest, and he was so proud
of It that he has kept it to this day.
to play. One of the things which ten J
to keep many parents from having
their boys taught to box is the idea
that it will make them rough and
overbearing in their manner, but the
exact opposite Is the rule, for It la
very rare that a clever boxer is a
bully. Should Buch be the fact it is
natural to the lad and does not com!)
through a study of the manly art.
Pickling Timber.
Timber experts have discovered that
timbers thoroughly soaked in the
brine of the great Salt Lake of Utah
are very slow to decay. Piling which
was driven Into the bed of the lake
over forty years ago is still In perfect
condition because the timber is thor
oughly impregnated with salt. It has
been suggested that timbers may be
soaked in the waters of the lake and
then be thoroughly covered with creo
sote to keep in the salt and keep out
the moisture. Sea water does not
have the same preservative influence
on timber because It Is not nearly bo
salty as that of the Salt Lake. Tho
American Boy.
A Well-Deserved Rebuke.
There is a certain kind of "smart
ness" which any boy may well avoid
if he hopes to be really smart.
Bob, says Llppincott's Magazine, la
a shrewd and quick-witted old negro
Janitor of one of the New England
colleges, who is thoroughly liked by
all the students. One day he had
burned off some of tho dead grass In
the college campus, when a freshman
came along, and said:
"Well, Bob, that grass Is Just the
color of your face."
"Yes, sah," said Bob, suavely; "but
dat don't matter. In about three weeks
ItU be Jes' de color o' yo' face."
By ALBERT S. GRAY, M. D.
1 (Copyright, 1914, by A. S. Gray)
WATER.
Water Is such a common, every-day
thing that few of us give it any
thought whatover, and Just because It
Is free a vory large number of per
sons do not drink It In sufficient quan
tities to maintain a good degree of
physical health. No other article of
diet enters so completely into the con
struction and support of all living
things both animal and vegetable as
water, and It Is this very omnipres
ence of water acting on that peculiar
twist of the human mind that leads
us to treat familiar things with reck
less contempt that results in our crim
inal Indifference to water supplies.
As a matter of fact, water is an ele
ment of vast significance in the main
tenance of human life and efficiency,
and to secure and maintain health the
Individual citizen muBt know the truth
concerning this most Important part
of our diet.
The scaly cells on the surface of our '
skin, our hair and the tips of our
nails are the only parts of our bodies
that can live In air. About 99 per
cent of the cells that constitute our
bodies are still aquatic organisms and
can and do live and grow only when
swimming In Bait water.
Under favorable conditions we can
live for 30 days or more without food,
but not more than a few minutes with
out air and only about three days with
out water. Were we to spend a mate
rial part of the money we squander
on food for good air and good water
no doubt we should be vastly more
efficient, certainly we would be hap
pier, for there can be no real happi
ness without good health.
Deprived of water for three days wa
become delirious and die from poison
ing by our own waste products. A
steady stream of water flowing
through our bodies Is necessary to
wash out and carry away the toxins
resulting from cell activity or we
must Inevitably succumb to disease;
and to keep this cleansing stream flow
ing In sufficient volume we should
drink about two quarts of fluid daily.
Absolutely pure water Is not found
on earth.
According to average local stand
ards, water Is "pure" and fit to drink
if it is more or less clear, does not
smell bad and does not quickly orig
inate some clearly defined disease In
the body of the drinker. That It con
tains pathogenic organisms or pto
nialneB from the action of bacteria
upon decaying organlo matter is dem
onstrated only by some unusually se
vere outbreak of disease in a commu
nity, and generally not until then Is
It even suspected that the water may
be "impure." If you are In ill health
have your drinking water analyzed
and the source of supply investi
gated. Delivery of drinking water contain
ing elements deleterious to life is go
ing ou In every section of this coun
try, but because of our grossly inade
quate vital Btatlstlcs bookkeeping we
are unable to deduce the vastly valu
able knowledge to be derived there
from. However, the concentration of
! people In the cities has compelled at-
tentlon to publlo health matters so
that money and organizations are em
ployed and rules and regulations en
forced that have" for their object the
protection of the inhabitants against
infection through water, milk and
waste productB.
Taking typhoid fever as a gauge, let
us compare conditions in several parts
of the world. Germany, with a popu
lation density of 310.9 per square mile
(more than ten times greater density
than our own), had in the same pe
riod of time a typhoid death rate of
4.7, compared with our 23.5 per 100,
000 Inhabitants; the Netherlands, with
468.8 density, a death rate of 6.4; Swit
zerland, with a density of 242.7, a mor
tality of 3.8, and England and Wales,
with a density of 372.6, a death rate of
only six per 100,000 inhabitants, com
pared with the United States with a
density of only 30.9 nd a mortality
of 23.5.
The city of Chicago in 1891 had a
typhoid rate of 173.8 per 100,000 In
habitants. An Investment of $62,000,
000 (approximately $27 per capita for
the population of the year 1912) in a
drainage canal and the adoption of
other reasonable sanitary precautions
reduced the typhoid fever death rate
In 1912 to only 7.5 per 100,000 inhabit
ants, probably the lowest rato ever
recorded for an American city of more
than 500,000 Inhabitants. " '.
Obviously this demonstrates what
may be done In the prevention of dis
ease. K we are as intelligent as wa
assume ourselves to be, and thero la
not something fundamentally and rad
ically wrong with our entire system ot
doing things, why this difference In
the same period between Europe, or
even the city of Chicago, and the to
tal vital statistics registration area
of the United States? And what about
the non-registration area? Good health
and long life can be purchased; why,
do we not buy it? i