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About The Athena press. (Athena, Umatilla County, Or.) 18??-1942 | View Entire Issue (July 2, 1909)
IS FATE FLIRTING WITH PRESIDENT BOOSEVELT? THE PRESIDENT HAS HAD FOUR NARROW-ESCAPES FROM SEIMOUS ACCIDENT RECENTLY. Strenuous as his whole term Las been, President Roose velt's final- days In the While House are proving most exciting. Of late be lias given Indications of being a poor accident Insurance risk. Three times recently be has been nearly run down on the streets of Washington. Not long ago he was unhorsed while out riding. Altogether he has been getting as many thrills right In well-disposed Washington as he could expect In the fastnesses of Africa. In the riding accident Mr. Roosevelt was in grave peril when a young horse threw him on a steep bank and nearly rolled on him. The President was only shaken up and was able to remount and ride to town. This happened In the country near the capital. There were other actors in the three accidents whicli occurred on the streets of Washington. While walking with secret service men Mr. Roosevelt stepped off the sidewalk and was brushed by a negro boy who was swiftly riding a bicycle and steering It with only one hand. The President uttered an exclamation, but th boy pedaled away, grinning. He was pursued by secret service men, who reprimanded him. A few days later the President was scraped by the mudguard of a promi nent citizen's automobile as he was crossing the street. The machine had been slowed up or the President would have been struck harder. He himself admitted It was a "close shave." The very next day, while out driving, the carriage containing the President was in the path of a hose wagon going to- a tire. The fireman driver avoided a disastrous collision by pulling his horses to their haunches, the carriage passing unscathed. Shivers enough to satisfy the most adventuresome, doesn't It seem? THE LABORER'S REWARD W labor best in life's long day, When most we labor for the pay That is divinely given. The laborer worthy of his hire It he whom angels can Inspire With love sent down from heaven. Life's labor is not lost to him Who fills his cup of life to brim With love's own satisfaction; Or seeks In toil to realize The joy of labor's perfect prize, The prize of art's perfection. No man can pay the fairest price Of love's most willing sacrifice; No human hire rewards us ; But we have in the strength and Joy, Which ofters gain in our employ, The best that life affords us. Life's true reward is In Itself, Without the gain of sordid pelf It Is the joy of living ! No pay in gold or honor rare Is compensation to compare With just the joy of giving ! Rev. J. J. G. Graham. I LooKino inio ilie Sunsel Yes, thus lived Miss Spencer (at the time of which I write) all alone with Richard of the Lion Heart, and if you isk me for further particulars of Rlch d I JBUlf-mti'tknClw was a canary wuoee pleasure aim uuiy u iu mind his mistress and keep her safe from barm. Oh, but he was a champion bird, was Richard! Afraid of nothing, chat tering fierce warnings to the butcher and the groceryman, and tolerating the baker In a peremptory sort of way only because he was the man who brought the bread; and when anybody sought to Ingratiate themselves with this spir ited bird by inserting a finger between the bars of his cage he almost fell off his perch at the Impudence of them and straightway fell to sharpening bis beak ou his bit of cuttle, bis chirping turned to the horrid croaking of a feathered pet who Is presently going to bite a finger oiy Well, then, It began with slight hoarseness In Richard's highest notes md the moment she heard it Miss Spencer folded her needlework she was knitting a pair of shoes for some fortunate little orphan and mixed a little flaxseed with Richard's birdseed, and shut a door and a wludow to keep the draught off him, but all In vain. His hoarseness Increased to an extent that would have discouraged any other bird, but Richard, Justly named the Lion Heart, persevered In his song un tlll It sounded almost as shrill as a very rusty Raw going through a very hard kuot. In vain he hopped from one perch to another ; in vain he st aled along his perch, as he sang, his poor little beak opened so wide that he had to shut his eyes ; his cold grew worse and worse and he begau to neg lect his food. Lettuce tempted him not, except for hopeful moments; he turned up his bill at celery tips ami green peas, and as for birdseed, he simply wouldn't look at It. Atid there he stood, day after day, on the end of his perch, leaning against the side of his cage, silent, moody, drooping ami only showing a flare of his old-time spirit upon seeing the butcher and the groceryman, when, Indeed, he gave expression to a few aeutlments, of which It Is only char itable to say nothing at all. And that was how Miss Spencer missed going to church for the first time In twenty years, since the year f the great bllw.ard, to be exact, which brings us to the doctor, w hom you will bt able to picture clearly w hen I whis per to you that he was an elderly blue eyed gentleman, beloved of everyone, who lived In considerable awe of his housekeeper and was famous for the great age of his horse. "I didn't see Miss Spencer at church this morning," said the doctor as he obediently sat himself at the dinner "Out of town, niebbe," snapped the housekeeper. "No," said the doctor, "she never gocR out of town." The housekeeper rattled a plate. "Itisthefirst time that she has missed church," said the doctor, "since I can remember. The housekeeper rattled another plate and the doctor relapsed Into silence, but soon after dinner he har nessed the ancient nag, and half an hour later Richard the Lion Heart had his little beak opened and a doctor of medicine was trying to look at his tongue r lfiS?lrfl A fortnight passed and the doctor called every day, tempting Richard's appetite with chlckweed slyly rubbed with olive oil swathing his cage with flannels, coaxing him back to activity and song ; so that at the end of the fortnight the doctor announced that his patient was entirely well, and re gretfully added that his visits, his very pleasant visits, for which he would take no other fee than one of Richard's lion-hearted songs, would have to cease and determine. He stayed away a week and then he called one evening, "Just to see," as he told himself, "how" his pntlent was getting along." Little Miss Spencer was sitting at the window knitting a pair of socks for another of those unfortunate or phans, and Richard's cage was on the sill, where he was playing with a bit of yarn, trying to unravel It and call ing to the homing sparrows. What Miss Spencer's thoughts- had been I do not know, hut as she knitted away and looked at the sunset it sometimes hap pened, I think, that she knitted a tear Into those little woolen socks, but yet, when the doctor entered, her eyes were very bright. "Well," cried the doctor In his mild his Image as in an ordinary looking glass. But when light Is allowed to come through the glass from the other side, as when it is placed In a window, it appears perfectly transparent, like ordinary glass. By constructing a window of plat inized glass one could stand close be hind the panes in an unllluminatcd room and behold clearly everytSThg going on outside, while passers-by look ing at the window would behold only a fine mirror or set of mirrors in which their own figures would be reflected, while the person Inside remained' In visible. In France various tricks have been contrived with the aid of this glass. In one a person, seeing what appears to be an ordinary mirror, approaches It to gaze upon himself. A sudden change in the mechanism sends light through the glass from the back, whereupon It instantly becomes trans parent, and the startled spectator finds himself confronted by some grotesque figure that had been hidden behind tho magic glass. New York Tribune. t didn't see miss bpenceb at church. and cheery manner, "and how's the pa tient?" He sat, too, at the window. "He thinks he's making a nest," smiled Miss Spencer. "But what Is ho chattering about?" asked the doctor. "I think," said Miss Spencer, her eyes brightly ou her work, "I think he Is calling to his mate." And si 111 the busy pins clicked In and out of that fortunate orphan's socks, a little bit damp In a place or two, but none the worse for that, and still Rich ard the Lion Heart unraveled his bit of yarn and softly called to the homing birds. "He's lonely," said the doctor, In a voice so low you could hardly hear him, "and so am I," he breathed, "and so am I but if you would care to be a poor old doctor's wife Ann " And after Richard had quite recov ered from his surprise, nud had sung his evening song, and had tucked his head under his wing, and had carefully drawn up one of his feet and hidden it among his feathers, his mistress and the doctor still sat there, hand In hand, gazing Into the sunset little Miss Spencer with her Hps parted, her eyes shining, and that tender look of happi ness which tells of dreams fulfilled. Evening Suu. Ilia Idea of the English. The following Illustrates Louis Phi lippe's idea of England and the Eng lish. He one day asked Hugo if he had ever been In England and on re ceiving a negative reply continued: "Well, when you do go for you will go you will see how strange It Is. It resembles France in nothing. Over there are order, arrangement, symme try, cleanliness, well mowed lawns and profound silence on the streets. The passersby are as serious and as mute as specters. When, being French and alive, you speak In the street these specters look back at you and murmur with an Inexpressible mixture of grav ity and disdain, 'French people !' When 1 was In London I was walking arm in arm with my wife and sister. We were conversing In a not too loud tone of voice, for we are well bred persons, you know, yet all the passersby, bour geois and men of the people, turned to gaze nt us, and we could hear them growling behind us: 'French people! French people!'" "Memoirs of Victor Hugo." St. Peter and the Widower. Bernard Robbins, head of the legal department of New York's Court of Tears this charity helps the poor to adjust their marital troubles without going to the expense of lawsuits said the other day to a newspaper man: "Such work as mine makes you, if you are not careful, pessimistic about marriage, so that you find yourself tell ing grimly over and over again the story about St. Peter and the widower. "What? You don't know the story? Well, It seems that two souls ap proached St. Peter side by side, and the younger wns repulsed sternly by the saint on the ground that since he had never been married he had never known suffering. "The older man advanced with glad confidence. He stated that he had been married twice. "But he, too, the saint repulsed, say ing: 'This Is no place for fools." MAGIC GLASS. A Curloaa Mirror That Mar Be Made Transparent. One of the most curious inventions of this age is what Is called platinized glass. A piece of glass Is coated with an exceedingly thin layer of a llqulfl charged with platinum aud then raised to a red, heat. The platinum becomes united to the glass In such a way as to form an odd kind of mirror. The glass has not really lost Its transparency, and yet if one places it against a wall and looks at l( he sees GILA MOIfSTERS UlCREAJSIffa. Whether Bite of Title LUard la Fa tally PoUonous to Man Unsettled. "Naturalists who recently visited the llojave desert in Arizona say tb-tt there has been an Increase in the num ber of glla monsters in that region," said Dr. A. B. Cedron of Prescott, Ariz., according to the Washington Post. "These lizards are of great interest to naturalists, for in spite of investiga tions, authorities still differ as to whether the bite of a glla monster is fatally poisonous. I have had several Instances come under my observation when men have been bitten by glla monsters, but none ever died. In the case of a glla monster biting a guinea pig, however, the poison was fatal a few minutes after the guinea pig had been bitten. The natives of the South west, particularly the Indiana of Mex ico, sincerely believe that the bite of a glla is fatal to a human being and the lizard is held in much awe by them. "It is likely, however, that this fear Is occasioned largely by the repulsive appearance of the reptile. The head is very prominent, comprising about one fifth of the total length of the body and, like the back, is thickly covered with yellow and black tinted tubercles. Its skin Is very tough, and, although the bones of the tail are fragile, this part of the reptile is very strong, it being possible for, the monster to raise itself and balance the body on the tip of the tail, thus enabling It to climb rocks and steep ascents. There is no doubt that the teeth lead to glands con taining poison. It is very slow in its movements, but it is not timid like other reptiles. If one attempts to trlke the glla with a stick it will grasp the weapon in its jaws like a dog does, and when angered It emits its breath In a succession of quick gasps. It is supposed that the breath of the gila has a drug-like effect on in sects, and as it can be detected at a considerable distance, it is believed that this is the way it catches Its food." m SOMETHING FOB EVEEYBODT An Awful Animal. "Really," said the stylish lady, en thusiastically, to her friend, "it is quite worth while going to the zoo, If only to see the wonderful supply of rhodo dendrons." "Is It?" replied her friend, languidly. "I'd like to look at the great, big, clum sy beasts, too, but it always smells so unpleasantly round the cages." Lon don News. The Flerceneaa of Debate. Campaign Adviser You think yoo next speech will make an impression? Candidate I do. Campaign Adviser Have you any new arguments to place before your opponent? Candidate No; but I have a lot of new names to call him. Legal Information In Cunningham vs. Castle, 111 New York Suiiplement, 1057, plaintiff was injured by an automobile which the chauffeur had been granted permission to use for his own pleasure by the own er -Plaintiff recovered Judgment In the lower court, but on appeal the New York Supreme Court reversed it, on the ground that the chauffeur was not engaged in any business of defendant at the time of the injury, and that the permission to use the machine made no difference as to defendant's liability. The Alabama statutes of 1907 regu lating freight and passenger rates on Intrastate business were declared in valid as denying due process of law by the United States Circuit Court, in Central of Georgia Railway Company vs. Railroad Commission of Alabama, 161 Federal Reporter, 925. The pro ceedings were to enjoin the State offi cers from enforcing these statutes. The defense was that this was an action against the State, and beyond the Jur isdiction of the Federal courts. The court held otherwise. Plaintiff and her brother were the only heirs under their mother's will, which gave the brother practically ev erything. Plaintiff thereupon entered into an agreement by which she was to receive one-third the estate for not con testing the will. The will having been duly probated without contest, the brother tried to escape the compromise agreement. In Blount vs. Dlllaway, 85 Northeastern Reporter, 477. the Su preme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that, although a win contestant had a statutory standing in the probate court to enforce compromise agree ments, it did not prevent equity taklug Jurisdiction under these circumstances and granting specific performance against the executor, The Wisconsin tenement house act, which provided that every tenement house must have courts of certain di mensions, and must be equipped with the ordinary modern Improvements as to water supply common to cities hav lng public water and sewer systems, and that any person violating the pro visions should be subject to fine or im prlsonment, was declared unconstitu tional In Bouuett vs. Vallier, 116 Northwestern Reporter, 8S5. The Wis consin Supreme Court held that the statute was such that an ordinary per son would relinquish his right to use his real estate for tenement houses rather than take the chances "of vio lating the statute, and that the effect of enforcing the penalties would be to take property , without due process of Taw. Cnrb Widow' Expenditures. The Lambeth (London) Board of Guardians has decided that no outdoor relief should be given to the widow during the first six months of widow hood if they have spent lavishly on funeral and mourning any money re ceived from a club. Insurance society or other source, Another Anthorlty. Mr. Howe I suppose you have studied all the authorities on social and economic questions? Mr. Wise Not quite all. My daughter's graduation es say ! not out yet. Life. Other people may have good tastfe, but of cours yours is a shade bet ter. Co-operative Pnrehaalns Aa;eaer A co-operative purchasiug agency is being organized in this country for supplying American and English mis sionaries with certain necessary sup plies. ' When a woman says her husband will not give her any satisfaction when she accuses him, she uieaus he will not confess. Bog comprises about one-seventieth of Ireland's area. The Servians look upon light hair with marked disfavor. The average snowfall in the vicinity of New York is seven feet. A man's beard is generally heavier on the right side of his face. The latest storm doors for large business places are revolved by electric motors. In 1652 a duty was imposed on ne- groea imported "into New Netherland to work on their Bouwerles." The chief publishing centers of Ger many are Berlin, Leipslc, Vienna, Stuttgart, Munich, in the order here named. ' An electric wagon with a platform supported by a strong telescope tower, is used in New York city for trimming and repairing the street lamps sus pended high above the thoroughfares. The Avfgust meteors, according to a leading astronomer, form a stream so broad that the earth, though it travels fatter than eighteen mjles a second, takes seven weeks to cross it. In Japan about OS per cent of the males of school age attend the educa tional establishments and 93 per cent of the females. In Mexico only 16 per cent of the population can read and write. The Tuilleres hydro-electric works, the largest of the kind in France, is nearly completed. It is built on the river Dordogne, where nine 2,700-horse power turblnea produce 23,000 electri cal horse power. The Michigan Central will electrify lti terminals at Detroit and the main line as far as Ypsllantl, thirty miles west of the city. Electricity will be obtained from the water power of the Huron river at Cheslea, Mich. Edison, who has not done much in the way of Improving the telephone for some time, ! now working on a new tranamiter, which is very sensitive and enables conversation to be carried on with greater eaae and lesi liability of error. Manitoba became a province In 1870. Iti population was 62,260 in 1881, 152,- 506 in 1891 and 255,211 in 1901. The value of Manitoba's harvest last year was a little short of $70,000,000. The census of 190 gave Winnipeg, Its cap ital city, a population of 90,000. There is nothing wild in a guess that its pres ent population Is not far from 120,000. Servians in their good nature and love of humor are laid to remind trav eler! of the Irish peasantry. They are hospitable to strangers; their patriot ism is vehement, almost quixotic, and they take great interest in politics. Many of the domestics in the .towns and cities com from abroad as the Servian girl Is too Independent for do mestic service. London ladles stimulated by the Olympic games of, last summer have taken to the foils, and fencing is now the fashion. Indeed, an official of the Sword Club holds that fencing is like ly to have an even wider vogue among women than among men. Many women prominent in the social world are act ively Interesting themselves in the foils, and there seems every likelihood that something approaching a craze may be'atarted in the fencing world during the coming season. Boston women established the first playground in 1902. Last year there were eight, and nearly $2,000 was ex pended, or about $1 for each child, a very cheap price for the amount of good obtained. The Playground League Is the name of the society of the play ground boys themselves, who wear buttons, and discipline all bad boys, thus making the government easy enough for those in charge. Not the least important result of the play grounds in that city Is said to be that involved in the self-government In the year 1694 William Patterson, founder of the Bank of Scotland, con ceived the grand project of planting on the Isthmus of Darlen a British colony which, in his own words, "should se cure for Great Britain the keys of the universe, enabling their possessors to give laws to both oceans and to become the arbiters of the commercial world." This colony waa actually founded at a placs still known as Puerto Escoees, but its people were aubsequently forced by the Spaniards to evacuate and re turn to Scotland. A suggestion that shoe repairing, or cobbling be made a part of the manual training activities in the ungraded schools and in the Parental School of Baltimore hat been made to the au thorities, but the Sun of that city sees no merit In the scheme. It lays "That class of boys who would profit by learning the trade have, as a rule, only a few years to devote to school, and those few years had best be de voted to learning how to read, write and cipher, with such other practical and necessary elementary atudles as their time will permit" Having raised $500,000 to duplicate Andrew Carnegie's gift and having re ceived Mr. Carnegie's check for the half million, the Unlversty of Virginia now has $1,000,000 In cash to add to its endowment The $500,000 given by Mr. Carnegie will become the permanent endowment of at least six schools In the university the school of engineer ing, the school of political economy and political science, two chairs In the school of law, the school of English and the school of pathology. These will be named for great men who have helped build the university and the re- publto . Oecatlon for Aunt Kllaa'a Statement of Matrimonial Philosophy. Uncle Joshua was catching flies. Un cle Joshua's method' of catching flies was to stalk them one by one, follow ing them about the room with a stealthy shuffle and bringing his big hand down with a ponderous slap, which nine flies out of ten easily evaded. It must be confessed that if a fly was caught. It proved fatal. Betty, watching Aunt Eliza beat up a pan of gingerbread In the kitchen, listened to the shuffle and thump and muttered exclamations till It got upon her nerves. Aunt Eliza's fate, over the gingerbread, was full of placid con tent. Finally Betty could Btand it no longer. "Aunt Eliza," she asked, "doesn't It drive you wild to hear Uncle Joshua catch files?" Aunt Eliza laughed. "Bless you, no, child. It don't hurt the files any. By and by, when I get round to It, I'll drive them out. There ain't more'u half a dozen In there, ever, but he likes to think he's clearing them out." "But he thumps so," Betty answer ed, laughing, and yet persistent. Aunt Eliza glanced at Betty's left hand, and her wise eyes became grave. "There was a time once," she said, slowly, "when Joshua's chasing flies nearly drove me wild. It was the sec ond year we were married. If we'd discovered nerves in those days, I sup pose I'd have said It got on my nerves, and gone off to a rest-cure or some thing. As we hadn't, I fought it out myself. "Joshua was real kind and thought ful and a generous provider in all the big things, I knew he was a man In a hundred. And he was patient, too, over my quick speeches. "Then I thought about the other men I knew. Eli Potter used to sit with his feet in the oven I couldn't have stood that, anyway. And Jacob Jarvls was the worst hand for tracking in mud you ever saw, and Jont KI1 grove never would wear a collar, even to church and so it went. It seemed as if every man had to let off steam somewhere ; and when I thought it all over, I concluded that flies were about the best of the lot ; they don't "last more'n three months, anyway. "So after that when Joshua chased flies, I'd go and do something I spe cially liked to do till 'twas over, and presently it got so I didn't mind It a bit Mercy sakes, child, the best man that ever lived will have some llttlo way or other that you'll have to get around. The secret Is in seeing how little it is beside his love." Betty, looking thoughtfully at her ring, was silent From the sitting room same a thump and a triumphant ex clamation. Uncle Joshua had caught a fly. Youth's Companion. Hotel Cella. The chief difference between the av erage hotel cell and the average pris on cell, viewed from the standpoint of social psychology, Is that one is locked on the inside to keep outsiders out, while the other is locked on the out side to keep insiders In. The occu pant of the hotel cell is afraid that something will be done to him or that something will be taken from him by some one who ought to be in a prison cell. That Is the theory of it. "Lock your door and leave your val uables at the office," cautions the oblig ing innkeeper. "If you had valuables you wouldn't be here," observes the witty prison keeper. That is to say, the question of valuables seems to en ter largely into the matter. It would be great to have a civi lization which considered valuable only those things which could not be stol en, such as mental and moral equip ment, skill and goodfellowshlp. Then we could be a little more sociable. We coma uuk to eacn oiner wiiuoui oui toning our coats or feeling for our dia mond studs every few minutes. Then the man who willingly secluded him self in a stuffy hotel cell could be lock ed in and made to stay there, on the ground that something terrible was the matter with him. Success Magazine, The Boss So it was your grand mother's funeral kept you away from the office yesterday? Wrho officiated? Johnny De umpire. On Hla Side. Satan danced in mad glee as he held the sheet and glanced over the spring fashions. "Why do you rejoice?" asked a sad shade. "Somebody loves me," smiled Satan. "Who loves you?" "The man who Invented Btyles fox women." It Depended. "Is your mother at home, little girir "Are you the lady with the new dreu or the nne from tho Installment house?" The empty back seat of a big auto mobile is one of the things that add to the discontent of a man on foot If there is so much fun in dancing, why don't families dance by tbeor elvcs at home) ,