Image provided by: Rogue River Valley Irrigation District; Medford, OR
About Central Point herald. (Central Point, Or.) 1906-1917 | View Entire Issue (March 1, 1917)
MADE INDIANS MAD SAVAGES’ STRONG O B JE C TIO N TO B E IN G P H O T O G R A P H E D . Woman Tells of T r ip to Ancient City of Taos Which Seems to Have Been Highly Exciting— Saw Feast and Dance. SEEK MORE FISH TO CAN USELESS FEAR OF BACTERIA Increasing Demand for Product Has Authority Says People Are Allowing Themselves to Be Needlessly W or Led to Inquiries as to Where It ried Over the Subject Can Be Had. There Is a perpetual and Increas ing demand for canned fish of all sorts. The utilization of the dogfish, or grayflsh, as It Is more politely called, has added to the opportuni ties o f the eastern canners, but those on the Pacific coast are looking to the westward for a still further supply. The yellow and blue fin tuna (known ns the horse muckerel when they ap pear In eastern waters), the dolphin and bonlta are plentiful In Hawaiian waters, and Pacific coast canners are making Inquiries ns to the possibility of securing a catch large enough to warrant the establishment of can neries on the Islands. The commercial fisheries of Hawaii are almost exclusively In the hands of the Japanese. A few years ago they formed small companies to oper ate hand-propelled sampans. These brought the fish to the Hawnliun mar kets, where the catch was sold at auc tion. The gasoline boats have taken the pluce of those propelled by oars or sails and these have a stenmlng radius o f a thousand miles. They are equipped with Ice chambers, so that the fish mny be kept from four to six days. Large corporations have been formed. One company controls 150 Japanese boats and another 40. The tuna at present prices, retailing at 10 to 20 cents a pound. Is too costly to permit o f canning with profit. The bonlta sells ut 3 cents or less and might be used to advantage, as It is very plentiful. There Is also a little sardine fish that Is taken in great numbers. The establishment of United Stntes gar risons at or near Honolulu has greatly Increased the demand for fish, but no survey has yet been made which determines whether canneries can be made commercially profitable. To timid Individuals a recent arti cle In the Journal of the American Medical association on “ Bacteria on Paper Money and Books” may bring comfort. The Sun has endeavored to present only the most relluble scientific as pect of the subject of germ diseases, because the usual hasty generaliza tions o f science and baseless asser tions which continually appear In print under the guise of scientific authority sooner or later redound to the dis credit of real progress. An unwar ranted skepticism Is aroused nnd the distrust of an obvious misstatement unconsciously becomes magnified Into a reactionary Indifference to the better contributions of scientific men. The championship of half or conjectured truths Inevitably acts in the course of time as a barrier to the very objects which are sought In public reforms, for In the end truth always prevails. Some years ago the Sun called at tention to the erroneous idea that tu berculosis may be contracted by per sons using the telephone mouthpiece which has been used by many others. We showed that the postmaster gener al of Oreut Britain had the mouth pieces on the telephone under his con trol examined bacteriologically, with the result of no disease germs being discovered upon them. The Journal comments upon the popular opinion of a few years ago that the handling of soiled paper money was extremely dan gerous on account of the bacterin that may adhere to It. The fact Is that bank tellers do not share this aversion, nor do they present evidence o f ex ceptional liability to infectious dis enses. It has been positively ascer tained and published In the Popular Science Monthly that pnper money con stitutes an unimportant factor in the transmission of disease. While clean pnper money satisfies our esthetic sense, It has not been proved that soiled money Is likely to become a me dium o f disease transmission. With regard to books. It Is tHe cus tom to disinfect them, when soiled, by exposure to sunlight nnd air, but It is a fact that the hygienic laboratory of Johns Hopkins has not found germs of dlphtherin, for Instance, on books com ing from homes in which children had been suffering from this dlsense. The fact Is that the majority of bacteria found on books are the same as those found In atmospheric air, nnd that the colon bacterium, which Is frequently found on the hands of schoolchildren, has rarely been found on the books they handle. There Is really no ma terial risk Involved In the reissue of books roc* ntly read by consumptives, unless the books are obviously soiled, and even then the risks are very slight. Since, however, bacterin like the typhoid nnd dlphtherlu organism have been occasionally discovered on arti ficially Infected books, there may be good reason for subjecting all returned books to direct sunlight before redis tribution. Practically the danger from soiled money nnd books Is no more obvious than the danger from the mouthpiece of the telephone.— New York Sun. JUST MISSED DEATH M I S S I O N A R Y ’S F E A R F U L E X P E R I - E N C E IN O L D V A U L T . Cowardice of HIs T w o Zulu "Boys” Nearly Led to Disaster— Wife Helped Rescue Him in the Nick of Time. “ A missionary has to be a Jack-of- all-trades,” remarked Itev. Yandel Collins, who wns home on a furlough after twenty years In South Africa. “There was an underground room, about eight feet deep by eight square, walled with brick and plastered with tarred cement, beneath the children's bedroom In our mission house at Mu- pola; It was for storing corn, or mealle, as they call It In Natal. I didn’t like to use It because it wus so damp, and for a yeur I had been using gulvanized Iron tanks that I riveted and soldered myself. “ I ordered Malusl nnd Mutynnl, two gigantic Zulus, to clean out that vault; but they refused, unless I would go dowm first. They firmly be lieved that a demon dwelt In that black h ole! “ So I got the two boys to stand over the trapdoor while I prepared to de scend the short ladder that leaned against the wnll n foot from the open ing. I lowered a pall on the end of a stout rope, which I made Malusl take hold of, and then, with a lighted candle In one hand nnd a shovel In the other, I swung down on my elbows until my feet found the ladder. “ The ladder wns ns rotten as every thing else In thnt pit. I had not taken more than one step when It gave way with a soft, bending squash; my can dle flickered out, nnd I sat down with a mighty splash In six inches of muck ! “ ‘Pull on the rop e!’ I cried, and I gave the cord an anxious jerk. ‘Malusl, Mutyanl, pull I’ The whole length of rope slipped and splashed down beside me. The two boys had run off in a panic. “ 'Mary, get some help quick! I am being poisoned!’ I cried to my w ife ; but I got no answer. “ My temples throbbed ns If they would burst, my enrs roared, strange lights danced before my eyes nnd a powerful hand seemed to be constrict ing my throat nnd chest so that I could not breathe. I wns being poi soned by the noxious gases. With a tremendous effort I dragged myself to ray fe e t ; Just then I heard my w ife’s voice above me. ’Can't you get out?’ she called. “ The absurdity o f the question hud a stimulating effect upon me. “ ‘No, of course not 1’ I roared an grily. ‘The ladder Is broken.’ I felt my knees giving away, and I ended with a cry like that o f a sick child, •Help!’ “ ‘Don't get mad,' she soothed. ‘I have been after those boys. Here’s Malusi. Where’s the rope?’ She had persuaded that big Zulu baby to reJ turn. He was ns strong as an ox, but I had dropped the rope when I had struggled to my feet. ‘It’s here at my feet, but I don't dare to go after It. Sewer gas;' I cnlled. “ My wife answered promptly, ‘Here, then. Malusl will reach down his hand. Gum Arabic. Mulusi, reach down your hand I Grab Gum arable naturally exudes from hold!’ the bark of acncla Senegal, a tree na "As she spoke I felt the hand o f the tive to north Africa, though other native touch my hair. I clutched It species of Acncla are drawn upon, convulsively, and then I went limp all however, yielding a slightly Inferior over; but I felt him get his other product. Tragnennth Is from shrubs of hand in the collar of my shirt. When astragalus species nntlve to Asia. I came to, I was lying outdoors on the While astragnlus are common In west grass, nnd the world never seemed so ern America none o f them seem to be bright nnd fair as It did then. You of value for tragacanth. The most see. ns soon ns Mnlust had got his shrubby local species Is A. Brauntonll. enormous paws on me I wns s a fe . “ That afternoon, with a new ladder Apple-Growing Is Profitable. Financial Outlook. 8afety FiraL and plenty of ropes, the Zulus cleaned Apple-growing Is not the easiest out the vault, and the next day I went Simpkins— You are looking rather Superintendent— What excuse did delicate, old man. Oldbach offer for declining to buy a lot business in the world, but It Is one that down myself and cemented the rat- is full of pleasure, and when conduc hole, and splashed a lot of good, clean, Tlmklns—Yes. and I'm feeling rnther In our new cemetery? delicate financially. It wouldn't taka Canvasser— 11c said he might be lost ed along the right lines, there Is good hot tar round, and the Job was done.” profit In I t much of a touch to break me. at sea. then he'd have no use for I t — Youth’s Companion. During n Journey through the prac tically unknown Southwest Homebody suggested that I go to the ancient city o f Taos for the feast of Sun Ueronlruo, Mrs. C. It. Miller writes In Leslie's. “ You won’t find photographing these Indians an easy Job, but if you suc ceed you will get something Interest ing.” Taos Is the ancient pueblo about eighty miles from Suntu Fe, and reached by u highway which Is only a trail over u stony mesa. Somebody culled out that the dunce wus at the south pueblo and there was a rush across the logs which served as bridges over the little stream which runs through the reservation. There we found perhaps a hundred Indians wrapped In white muslin robes and carrying branches of trees In their hands. They were making u weird noise and limiting up and down us they marched around the pueblo. It was a strunge scene. The movement of their bodies was slight, but the ex pression on their faces and the low guttural utterances showed suppressed emotion, and suddenly directly In front o f where I was standing one o f the older warriors fell to the ground In an epileptic fit. lie was at once cur ried Into the pueblo and the medicine man summoned. The dancers, how ever, were not disturbed and the un canny performance went on for 15 minutes longer. This was merely the prologue to the feast of the morrow. The foot races were hotly contested by the young braves of the two pueblos. The participants were naked except for n kilt about the loins and were deco Price of a Tree. rated with feathers in their hair, on The owner of an apartment-house their arms and their ankles. The race Is run In a peculiar fushlon. When was ordered to pay $65 for a maple the Judges give the word two men dart tree which he ordered cut down, not from the course nearest the pueblo and knowing that It was city property. Ex run swiftly to the other end. The In pert testimony determined the cost of stant the leader reaches a certnln replacing the tree. When a tree is felled and cut up stone ut the end of the course another man o f his clan takes up the rnce and Into logs Its commercial value Is eas rushes past him on the home stretch. ily calculated, but the worth of a This Is kept up until all the contest standing tree— especially one within ants have had trlul— the final victory the city limits— Is hardly to be deter being a victory for the clou and not mined, except for the very practical for the Individual runner. The pu purpose of penalizing Its destroyer. The enrly settler, with the forest to eblo winning the race Is entitled to keep the statue of St. Ueronlmo for contend with, proceeds to clear the land uliout his home, so that not a the following year. Early In the afternoon the Indian sapling survives. Towns in the midst clowns, known ns the delight makers, of what, a generation ago, was Mich rush suddenly from the pueblos. Their igan's timber belt, are treeless, or faces and naked bodies are smeared practically so, and summer’s sun and with paint and their hair entwined winter’s wind find no obsturetton to with corn husks. Nothing Is sacred to tlielr violence. Yet In cities trees are their touch and they will steal fruit appreciated. It must be that our eyes were In from a vendor’s wagon and perhaps after taking a mouthful spit It nt some tended to receive more green rnys than visitor. They object to being photo any other, since trees are turf are ab graphed. and when one saw me In the solutely necessury to save any prospect act of taking his picture he came at from bleakness. Every tree In Detroit me with a rush, yelling In a savage is precious, and It Is reassuring to fashion. I was sitting on a log. and learn that one cannot bo felled with he sat down beside me so close that I out due action from the authorities.— narrowly escaped falling off. lie yelled Detroit News. and gesticulated, but I sat perfectly still and pretended not to see hint. The Safeguarding the Nation’« Money. man who had sold me my permit came The bureau of engraving and print up behind and sakl something. Finally ing. at Washington, D. C., where all lie left, but all during the afternoon pnper money, postnge and revenue whenever I attempted to take a pic stamps nnd valuable documents are ture dirt was thrown at me and nil printed. Is one of the most carefully the curses known to their savage tra guarded buildings In the world. It ditions were wished on me. The de Is protected by some o f the most mod light makers bent tin pans at horses ern electrical burglar alarms, nnd 60 and caused severnl runnways, and armed night watchmen patrol the frightened children almost Into spasms. plant.— ropulnr Science Monthly.