C
H
OLUM
MAGAZINE SECTION.
HOULTON, OREGON, FKLDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1905.
PAGES 1 TO t
BIA
MEO
THY
3
MRS. SANTA GLAUS.
VXCIS SAM'S DEAD LETTER EX
PERT GUIDES STRAY CHRIST
MAS GREETINGS.
Sends out Many Present to Children
-Hat a Remarkable Memory and
Knowlidge,and Dccpners the moat
Punllng Addresses.
Tucked awr Id a little corner of
the Postoflka Department at Welling
ton behind a deitlc which has bold a
thousand Interesting stories atta a
charming white haired woman who la
known the length and breadth of the
land aa "Mra. Banta Clam."
Ihe woman to whom thla suggestive
ly dear name has been given la Mrs.
MI13."8ANTACLAU8"
rattl Lyls Colllna, head of the "Open,
log and Unmallable Division" oi the
PosboRlce Department
Each holiday season brings to her
deik thousands and tbouaands of
"Santa Claua" letters and were she of
the ordinary type of clerk, thinking
nly of the salary she draws twice a
aoonth. those letters might go Into
Vncle Sam's w.iste basket without so
much as a thought for the writers.
Not so with Mrs. Colllni. Through
her generous heart, her love for chil
dren and, poHBibly, with a memory or
two of her own when she, too, believed
In the real existence of the children's
patron saint, this lovable woman at
tends first to her duties of returning
the letters to their writers If this U
possible and then she plays "Mrs.
Banta Claua" to her army of little
friends.
Christmas Prcacnta to the Children
Whea rn"i a thing Is possible Mrs.
Collins flndiTiut the addresses of these
children, sends them some little thing
they have asked for and gets her
friends Interested In them until she
has now esrncd the title which came
to her so long ago merely through her
associations with this part of Uncle
Sam's poitofflce.
This Is rather the sentimental side
of Mrs. Collins' work, but there Is an
other and scientific phase of It which
has made her Invaluable to the Gov
ernment She Is the official chiro
graphics! expert of the Department
and through her efforts each year
ninety per cent of mall matter bear
ing manifestly Indecipherable ad
dresses finds Its way to the person to
whom It is addressed.
Mrs. Collins is a linguist and a deep
student Added to this she has stored
away ia her brain a fund of goneral
knowledge which enables her to solve
problems which would puzzle a hun
dred other heads. Her knowledge of
streets in various cities of Europe led
to her compilation of a street directory
f Its countries.
The value of Mrs. Collins' work In
ferreting out addresses is all the more
notable when It is considered that each
postofflce in all the large cities has a
division especially Bet apart for de
ciphering illegible and otherwise pus
cling addresses. So after this has been
done letters which are still unclaimed
are sent to the postofflee.at Washing
ton. Knows All Languages.
ir. Pnlllna Vina mflrio RllC.h & RtudV
if 1 1 D, VUllll.Q MWO ' " ----- "
of this rather psychological work that
She knows just wnai wcuuu y. mo
avnn in the cities. In which
vuuuu;i -' - - .
oriAiia nntinnalties have settled. She
hra flrnrni" nn th .TanRnPBfl.
Call yut uvk i"'B'-' ' . V. '
the Chinese, Greeks, Spaniards, Italians
and all the rest oi mem.
rrvi. ...-f inuiar tnipnt. has enabled
Mrs. Collins to decipher many a letter
which would have been otherwise un-
f - i i ,
', ; - ' -
j ('''';''
o
Intelligible. Among the hundreds of
such which she received the other day
was one addresxed to "Ygnac Lech.
Combryja Co, brot stryt no 803,
8zanony Tan."
How many, or rather bow few, peo
ple would have known bow to go about
locating this person. The hater was
postmarked Florence. Mrs. Collins'
own store of information told her that
the Cambria Iron Works of Johns
town. I'a., was employing a large num
ber of Italians and she set the letter
on. Sure enough Mr. "Yanae Lech"
was there and received the letter
which, without Mrs. Collins' assist
ance would never have fallen Into his
hands.
A facetious student at the University
of Virginia wrote to a young society
girl in Washington and addressed tho
envelope entirely In Greek. It takei
groater obstacles than that to balk
Mrs. Collins and the young woman re
reived her letter as promptly as If
It had been addressed In the most
legible English hand. The list of such
letters Is almost unlimited In length.
A Spaniard sent a letter to "Sr. Per
nado Maya. Fuerte galen Colo" and It
was promptly forwarded to Mr. Maya
at "Fort Garland. Colorado."
Mrs. Collins li a charming woman
and occupies a tiny apartment In one
of Washington's fashionable apartmert
houses.
Senator narrta Balked.
Henrr Clay Evans, late consul gen
eral at London, was once In Congress
V ' v '
. f
.
Zh& .... nku ?)r '
long, long ago lb H7j Men, we m told,
Uden with Myrrh And traaktoecnue'kod gold,
Juraexcd Mfor, and found the Chcphcrd'i told
On tb tint Christ m Day,
from Tennessee and knows all the em I.
nent men of that State. He was tell
ing a good story the- other night of Col.
Sandford and Major Saunders, prom
lnent business men of the Knoxvllle re
Ion. They were once on a Pullman com
ing this way. It was hot and they sat In
pajamas far Into the night An -old
man came in, lighted a cigar, smoked
and said nothing. They did not recog
nize him, and kept on talking about
the miserably poor representation, their
State had in Congress. "It Is a pity,'
said one of them "that a State like
ours should have such poor worthless
men at Washington. Our senators are
no good, old Harris Is played out and
JoBlah Patterson is the only man In
the House that amounts to anything."
At this remark the stranger arose and
In a tone of thunder began to hurl
Invective and abU3e at the two men.
"It is about time I was taking part In
thlB conversation," he yelled and went
on to tell a few warm things to the
astonished party of two. When he
had subsided a bit one of them asked,
"But who are you to get so mad about
It?" "Who am IT Well, I am Senator
Harris, ding you, and I have much
more to say to scoundrels like you.'
Both men were amazed and they has
tened to apologize. They all became
friendly, and the old man often told
the story on himself.
POLITICAL TAXATION.
LEGISLA TIOSUKEL T REQUIRING
VVBL1CAT10S OF ALL LARGE
COSTRWVT10SS.
Such Dill. Introduced Last Year,
was Looked upon aa a (.rank nca.
ure-WUI be on a Different Basis
This Session.
ExpoHure of the pradlco of the
great life Insurance conijwnlos aud
otlu-r corpora tons, of making contil
butlons to political campaign funds
and of devoting large amounts of
money to Influence legislation will
bring before the next session of
congress tho question of the passage
of a LU similar to that Introduced tt
tie last session by Representative
Lourko Cockran, of New York, and
familiarly known as the "Corrupt
Practice' bill. It may not be that
this bill will be taken up and given
the serious consideration which It
was denied at tlie lust season, but
that a bill containing provisions of
tLe same general description as tliose
of the Cockran bill will be introduced
and pressed to a vote la a moral cer
tainty. The Cockran bill provided that
every contribution of more than $50
to a national campaign iuna suouia
be reported to the Cierk of the dis
trict court of the United States,
A r-- ' ;
S
'
And now both
Oh Baby, Baby, may thy life be sweet;
Hay CW-scnJ angels guide 'A little feet;
Hay every day to come be as complete
As thy first Christmas day.
Criminal penalties were provided for
violations of the law.
Looked Upon as a Cockran Oddity.
The bill was treated with derision
last winter, both by the dally press
aud by gentlemen of Uio liouse of
Keprescntatlves, the Senate and
Third House. It was worth a laugh,
people said. There was very little
corruption, they averred. The Idea
that corporations employed legisla
tive agents and disbursed huge sums
of mouey for or against certain bills
was moonshine doled out by sensa
tionalists to gratify tho morbid fancy
and the appetite for scandal of a pe
culiar class of peop'Ic. .
The legislative Inquiry Into the af
fairs and conduct of the Equitable
Life and Mutual insurance companies
nt New York seems to have placed
the mntter of campnign contributions
nnd legislative dlslmrsoments in
other than a humorous light It mp
ters not whether the corporations
come forward voluntarily with their
contributions to cnmnn1n funds or
whether they are solicited and hound
ed by campaign collectors until they
contribute the result Is the same.
Vice-president Gillette of the Mu
tual Life Insurance Company testi
fied thnt his company contributed
$02,500 of the policy holders' money
m r
'::
Li
to the republican committees in the
last three presidential cumpalgns,
and John A. McCall, president of the
New York Life lusuranet Company
admitted that be had contributed
$100,000 of the company! funds to
the same committees. In fact the
big companies have frequently beta
contributors to both political parties,
Pubic May Demand legislation.
There are twe questions Involved
In any fair consideration of these dis
closures. The first Is the desirability
of corporations taking such an active
and Influential part In political cam
paigns and the second is the moral
ity of corporation oncers making
contributions on their own Initiative
out of funds that are really trust
funds.
Cf course a law can be made pro
hibiting campaign contributions bv
Insurance companies or othnr corpo
rations. This may correct the abuso
or it may not Laws are not always
obeyed or enforced. There, for exam
ple are the laws of Moses. The world
has been violating them for thou
sands of years. It might be consid
ered fair If the directors of every In
surance company, savings bank, trust
company or Other corporation hand
ling the people's money, would adopt
a rule forbidding absolutely all such
contributions and holding every oul
cer financially and morally respon
sible for Its observance. Second, po
litical candidates and committ:'"
could announce that they would
neither solicit nor receive c-tribu-tlors.
Public sentiment Is rapidly crystal-
w A
i
v
t
f
-:N
swing and old, with ahlntng
l-mv':
-V: v- 1
V -V-
'.'X 1
1 I I
Gather to watch their Baby'a glad surprise,
Ilia eeataaiea, hie joy, hia gleeful erics,
On hia Tint Christmas day.
lzlng into the conviction that corpo
rate contributions should either be
made impossible or else required to
be made In such public fashion that
they would be robbed of their bane
ful effect
Foole's Farraeo.
Foote. the comedian, when a young
person of either sex applied for a po
sition, seldom refused outright but
gravely handed them the following
lines, and asked them to commit and
repeat them to him correctly in ten
minutes. If repeated with no error,
he promptly took them for trial.
That there could be no collusion
with those who applied later, he fre
quently changed the order of the lines
and the proper names:
So she went Into the garden to cut a
cabbage lent to make an apple pie and
at that time a great she-bear coming; up
the street pops Its head Into the shop.
What, no soap? 60 he died and she very
tipudently married the barber: and there
were present the Picnlnnles, and the Job
lilies and the Garyulles and the great
Panjandrum himself with the little round
button at th top, and they fell to play
In the game of "catch as catch can."
till the gunpowder ran out the heels of
their boots.
The popularity ef "Trilby" for a
time exceeded that of any novel pub
lished, with the possible exception of
"Uncle Tom's Cabin."
SEWP0NT00X BRIDGES.
Collapsible Boat of Canvas) Which
tan e Carried by One Man.
The soldiers of the United States En
gineers' Corps seem to have solved one
of the greatest problems which has
confronted generals In command of an
army when on the march. Small un
fordable streams are often encountered
by the army and these must be crossed
In the shortest time possible. In fact
large rivers often confront an army
when about to git e battle to the enemy,
and It would tae wee'.j, if not months,
to construct even temporary bridges
to allow the men with their heavy
armaments to cro&s. The pontoon
boat, of course, is well known to every
reader of history, for this most useful
In l
THE PRESIDENTS TURKEY
auxiliary came into great use during
the war of the Rebellion. The pon
toon train, however, Is a very cum
bersome affair when the ordinary flat
bottom boat with the necessary tim
bers and accessories are packed on to
what Is known as the "pontoon train."
The German army recently adopted a
sort or sectional pontoon boat which
allowed of greater mobility to the
train.
However, the soldiers of the United
States Engineer Battalion have been
drilling in the use of pontoon boats
made of heavy canvass etretched over
a wooden frame. These boats are wa
ter-tight and when assembled are cap
able of supporting six or more men
A boat may be taken apart and packed
into a small bundle light enough to be
carried by one man. Upon arrival at
a small stream all that Is necessary is
for each man to unstrap his bundle,
quickly put the boat Into shape, and
launch it into the water. The wagons
which must necessarily carry the tim
bering and flooring of the bridge to
be, can be sent forward with a much
smaller guard than is necessary when
the cumbersome pontoon train wagons,
each carrying a boat or section, are In
motion.
One Good Use for Millionaires.
Regret has been often expressed re
garding the threatened extinction of
many species of wild animals.
Of late, however, some of the world's
millionaires have begun to devote their
attention to the task of preserving
them, and numbers of wealthy men
have established or endowed parks
and private zoological gardens, in
which buffaloes, antelopes, giraffes,
gnus, and other dwindling species are
carefully cherished. In some cases
herds of bison are kept, after the fash
Ion of deer, on the estates of great
landowners.
Nor are Europe and Asia behind
hand. Large preserves of big game
are to be found In France and Ger
many, and In England the Duke of
Bedford has made a wonderful collec
tion of wild animals at Woburn Park.
It comprises many rare animals, in
cluding waterbuck, gnus, sable ante
lopes, and some almost extinct species
of deer.
Strong oa Details.
'"Rastus, Where's that; rake?"
"De rake's wid de hoe, Marster.
"Well, then, Where's the hoe?"
"Marster, de hoe's wid de rake."
"Well, 'Rastus, confound It, where
are they both?"
"Bey's boff togedder, Marster. 'Pears
like youBe pow'ful tickler 'bout details
d'i mawnln. You leave de regulatin
of All dat to me, Manter, and I'll look
out fo yo' Interests."
Time to Move.
Oh that I were where I would be.
Then would I be where I am not,
For where I am, I would not be,
And where I could be, I cannot,
EfllTE E0U3E MS BLUR
THE ROOZEYLLT hAllILY CELE
BRATES izinn C0CDCLD
FASHIONED WAT.
Always Have Huge Rhode Island Tur
key Which Is not Spoiled by French
Cooks. -President Himself Does)
the Carving.
Old fashioned cooks and old fash'
loncd cookery hold the fort la tho
White House kitchen at Christmas
tide. When the President and Mrs.
Roosevelt give one of their great state
dinners to elcMjr or one hundred
guests, they usually entrust all tho
preparations to professional caterers,
hut when It comes to the dinner whlck
Is pre-eminently the home meal of the
year the French chefs have to give
way to women who know Just how to
prepare the generous wholesome
dishes that an American citizen looks
forward to finding on his dinner table
on the Joyous holiday. President
Roosevelt also shows a fondness for
carving the turkey himself.
A good old fashioned Christmas din
ner, moreover, with all the essentials
from turkey to plum pudding Is a reg
ular Institution at tho White House
during the present administration.
Perhaps President Roosevelt, with
hia assertive good health and his fam
ily of lively young folks, are partial
ly well qualified to appreciate a rous
ing yule-tide feast, but whatever he
the reason certain It Is that during the
Roosevelt regime the Christuas re
past has become one of the most im
portant as well aa .one of the JcUIevt
meals of the year.
To De Family Reunion. k
President Roosevelt and his family
follow the general policy of all pre--vioua
occupants of the White House ia
observing Christmas as a family fes
tival. This year it will have especial
significance as a reunion, since of late
months the Junior members of the
Roosevelt household have been scat
tered as never before, by reason of
their attendance at different schools
and colleges. The Roosevelt Christ
mas, while a family affair, is by no
means confined to the Immediate
household. The Roosevelt children
have long been allowed to entertain
their numerous cousins on Christmas
and other relatives are likewise fa at
tendance, while the President and
Mrs. Roosevelt usually ask a few per
sonal friends to also join the party. '
Christmas dinner at the Whits
House is served in the evening and tho
President arouses an appetite for it y
(Continued oa next nagej
Do You Use
Acetylene?
if 60,
We Want to Send You
A SAMPLE BUFFER
1
We believe we hsre the very best and the
cheapest line of Acetylene Burners. Our sample
will show better than we can explain here way
It would pay you to use our burners.
Write us to-day, mention kind of Gene
rator wed, enclose 8 oents in stamps to eorec
postage, and we will send you
A Sample Bufrner
7. M. CBA.IE COUPAHY
113133 BROADWAY
Room 10 New York, N. Y.