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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Herald, 1914-07-10, Page 5DY1i T,ftopoLIS .A.`1` • Painting Vivid Scenes of the .Great City Under the Electric Lights. London of the stark contrasts does not exist during daylight, •You will. find 'the real London only un- der the. blue~ "blaze of the electri c arcs of the. West. End, the 'sputter- ing ekysign�s of the Strand, the flaring naptha-lamps of the Coni- mercial Road and the New Cut,. There i$ Londonwith the mask off. London no longer cloaking its hu- man moods and passions under an atn%oophere of business energy a' London of gaiety and squalor, of tragedy and comedy,. of wretched- ness and luxury, of crime and char- ity, says London Answers. Hawks and Pigeons. Beside one of the pillars of a theatre a, couple of bluff, genial men in evening, dress are in earnest conversation with a third—a palpa- ble Colonial. Few there are who would recognize in them the hawks and the pigeon. But one man at least does, He is slim, astraight- •6houldered, keen-eyed—a detective on patrol. He steps up to the group, addresses a few words to the Colonial, and the bluff, genial men scowl and slink away. The roads are choked with motor- cars and cabs darting outwards from the 'circle. Any deeentay- dressed man or woman who wants a free ride can get one now, for the police have stopped all empty cabs from entering the thronged area, and the drivers will pick up anyone willing to serve as a human passport. Pickpockets, working in threes, are probably somewhere among the crowds choking the entrances to the underground stations and fight- ewspaing for the omnibuses. The news- paper per sellers and hawkers of match- es and bootlaces are making a last attempt to sell the day's harvest.. Between the Bridges. Policemen are thick among the strolling groups in. Coventry Street —there is one almost every dozen yards, A couple of them interfere in a drunken squabble, and a man and a woman are rushed along to Vine Street. A woman's shriek rings out from some back street and then a sharp report. Almost in- stantly it seems the police -whistles are shrilling out, and men and wo- men are running. A. jealous Italian has quarrelled with his sweetheart and shot at her with a cheap revol- ver. Luckily, the shot has gone astray, but both of them are hus- tled ie. swift, businesslike fashion to the police -station. There is still light and Iife enough. The restaurants and "supper -rooms" are in full swing, but if you would see London in its beauty get down to .the river now. The great buildings of the northern bank stand out in vague masses against the starlit sky. The black sweep of the Thames gives back in a thousand fantastic reflections the light of the bridges and Embank- ment. Barges are dropping down, silently as the black shadows on the waters themselves, to catch the tide. The electric cars make swift bolts of light against the blackness of the sky and buildings. The Newspaper Land. Every seat along the river front has its complement of occupants -- haggard, pinched, ill -clad. Some have obtained old newspapers, which they have wrapped about hem as some protection from the chill night air, A merciful sleep las enabied most of them l#o forget heir miseries. Others there are rho stare wide-eyed in front of here. Perhaps they cannot sleep. ti11 others shamble across the avement to any likely looking assers-by with pitiful appeals for copper ---and a keen eye that there s no constable within eyeshot. Long ago soup has been served Gut to many of these folk, and now omes another messenger of char ty. True, he does not look it. A hick -coated, bloated -faced musical rtist, with a cynical turn of phrase chat Loon converts most of his e c- uaintanees into enemies. His okets are full of sixpences, and e goes from seat to seat distribut- ng them, a, sneer on his lips when meone tries to detain him with .a lard -luck story. It ie indiscrimi tate charity if you like, but it is ving more than one a night in the pen, for several of them are .sham - ling away to the doss -houses aind helater of Blaclsfriare Road. Round about Fleet Street vans uel motor cars are drawn up, while ing to carry the papers to the far- thest limits of the kingdom. Men inside the offices are hurrying in a race against the clock—sub-editors, printers, engineers sweating to save seconds. " A minute lost xray mean a train lost,and a train •lost may mean a hundred •pounde lost, For the first time one gets a sense of loneliness as one orPosses.to 'the Surrey side. The gas -lamps show little islands of light in the bleak - nese, and the`,sttereotypeil houses on each side look even uglier than by daylight. Faro and Baccarat. The coe.- coffee -stalls e sealis are driving a brisk and "Mixed trade, and savory smells beat en the senses of the little crowd that surrounds each one. •A man in evening -dress is drinking scalding -hot coffee and keeping a hopeful eye for a taxi that is not so easy to find here at this time of night. There is a taxi- driver by his side toying with 'sau sage and onions, but he has left his cab at the garage, and is now walk- ing home himself. A scarlet -coated Guardsman is eating his third hard- boiled egg. A musician, apparent- ly just finished from some late en- gagement, nurses his violin while he eats. Two or three nondeseripts play pitch and toss under a lamp - peat. Away in East London there is night life too—of a, kind . Like the West it has its gambling -dens, but they have few superfluous luxuries. They exist for :strict business, and though shillings are placed on faro rather than banknotes on baccarat, the hawks and pigeons still exist. But in the East the hawks are less artistic or more primitive. The sailorman just paid off is his pet quarry. Drugged drinks are not unknown, and many a man has dragged himself out of some dark alley at three in the morning with empty pockets and aching head, cursing the criminal strangers who had entertained him a few hours before. They would have sandbag- ged him if other means had failed. Where Policemen Fear. There are streets about here which even the police patrol in cou- ples, and it behoves a visitor to walk warily in the middle of the• toad, and beware the man wlio asks the time or requests a light. Now and again perhaps the •stillness is disturbed by a woman's shrill shriek. The inhabitants take little notice. If a man hasn't a right to beat his wife when the fancy takes him where is the boasted freedom of England? A grey streak of light broadens in the sky, and the street lamps grow pale. The traffic of the streets is swelling. All this has been mere- ly the restless stirring of London in her sleep. Now she is really awak- ening. CHAMPION SMOKER. Keeps Cigar Alight Two Hours and Forty-six Minutes. What is believed to be a world record has just been set up at a recent congress of South German smokers at Frankfort. A special trophy, consisting of a, silver eagle on a red and white ribbon, was of- fered to the smoker who took the longest time to burn a Mexican ci- gar into gray white ash without let- ting it go out once. The competi- tion began at 11 o'clock, and very nearly 200 persons contested for the award. By 12 o'clock only twenty were in the running --the rest had regretfully finished their "weeds" or had laid thein to resat in the ash tray for ever. The rivals dropped out rapidly, and by 1 o'clock only one smoker was left—Herr Henz, a Sachsen - hawser) business man, who actually puffed away in peace until -he had to throw his diminutive cigar stump away at 2 hours 46 minutes and 17 seconds after he had set light to it. Herr Benz has therefore been pro- claimed smoker ]:aureate, _sE Not Paid Yet. A man who was very miserly hoarded up his stacke of hay year after year in the hope of making double the price he was offered for them. A well-known hay and straw buyer in the dietrict one day asked the price of a stack. An en- ornious sum was asked, which the buyer accepted. "How about the terms of settlement?" asked the old miser. "Well, you see," said the buyer, "my terms are to settle when I fetch the last load away." "That's a bargain," said the miser, slapping the other's hand. The old ehaap watched every load go. away except the last, and that the buyer has never fetched yet. To the average boy, and the aver- age peen who recalls his boybood, earthworms mean bait, and'`nothing more. It ways Darwin who showed the world that the earthworm le useful 'toman in far more import- ant ways, since its constant bu,,- rowing in the earth keeps the sail so powdered and upturned that A will absorb water, and allow the roots of the plants to penetrate it, Only very recently, however, has the growing interest of naturalists in animals independently of their usefulness to Tran led to ealreri- ments'.on. the: intelligence,• of the worm. Profesusor Yerkes of Harvard has succeeded in teachingearthworms by the following method; He placed a worm in a narrow passage be- tween two glass plates. Light fell upon it from behind, and as worms instinctively avoid light, that .cans-. ed the worm to crawl ,forward. Aht the end of the passage the worm might turn in either of two direc- tions. But if it took the turning to the left, it either touched a strong salt solution, or ,gob a elight elects; tric shock. Would those disagree- able experiences teach it to turn to- the right whenever. : it carne to the parting of the ways As a further test of its intelli- gence, a strip of sandpaper was laid on the floor of the left -land, passage eo that the worm should come in contact with it before it received the electric shook: Would the worm learn to regard the sand. paper as awarning and turn back before it got the shock? Both les- sons the worm learned perfectly.. Next came a very curious -.part of the investigation, Every small boa. knows that when a worm is cut in two it is not killed. Both .parts may live, and each part may grow again its missing piece. Now hu- man beings learn with the brain. The earthworm's brain consists of two masses of nervous matter at the end of the animalthat do not appa- rently differ much from other mas- ses that occur all along its under side, except that they are somewhat larger. Professor Yerkes out off the head end of the worm that had learned to turn to the right. As soon as it had recovered from the elight shock of the operation, it continued :to take the right-hand passage, al- though it lead lost its "brain." Evi- dently it had learned' not only with the brain, but with some part of the nervous system that remained after the operation. In fact when the worn had grown a new head and a new brain, it forgot about turning to the right,. and had to learn all over again ! The newbrains as it were, issued new orderato the low- er parts of the nervous system, which had to obey the new master instead of continuing to carry out the orders of the departed one, What we should like to know is whether a worm without a "brain" would have learned in the first place ! QUEBEC'S MAFTME INDUSTRY. Worth $2,000,.000 a Year to Those Who Are In It. The Agricultural Department of the Province of Quebec took a novel way of celebrating Dominion Day. Twenty-two thousand small boxes of maple sugar were distributed to patrons of the railway, hotels and dining ears, steamship restuarants and to Canada'an clubs throughout Canada, along with small illustrat- ed booklet telling how maple syrup and sugar is produced in Quebec.. The world's production is confined practically to Eastern Canada, and by far the largest part of this pro- duct is made in Quebec, the oldest. Province of the Dominion. When the first settlers landed on the shores of the St. Lawrence, they learned from the Indians the art of making syrup and sugar from the sap of the maple tree. It is stated that the maple industry is worth, now, upwards of $2,000,000 a, year to the producers in the Province, who, to guard the public against adulterated goods, point out that the very best grades of maple syrup are clear and of a light straw or am- ber color. To a great many old cus- tomers, syrup of the best gradde will not at first appeal, as they are ac- customed to the sharp sweet taste that has more or less of a griping after effect. Forgot Mother. Johnny—You're the , meanest, hatefulest, spitefulest thing I know, Tommy --And you're the crabbed est, ugliest— Father—Boys, boys!. You forget that your mother is in the room. , Leathe • pads have been. patented to:protect the knees of persons who keel at work. Peru will beiven • aviation school b,y priva a �subseri tion government fund. An extensive • depesit al . PR t of . asphalt ofhigh quality has been discovered in the Philippines. Phenol. and formaldehyde are eonipressed together to forret a new insulator for electrical purposes.` An aeroplane is beingbuilt for flying over forests in est Africa and prospecting for rubber trees. Lemon juice, applied first and al- lowed to dry into the leather, will facilitate the polishing of new shoes. Portable power plants up to. 50 horsepower that use erode -oil .for fuel are coming into .common use in France, Supported entirely from a horse's collar, a new feed bag permits an animal to' have the tree nese of his bead, Uruguay, much of which formerly was treeless, within. a few years has planted more than 17,000,000 forest trees. When a hydro-aeroplanefell into Swedish waters a submarine boat dived under it and brought it to shore uninjured. In a South Dakota town, water that flows from an artesian well at a temperature of 1OOE is used for heating purposes. Tests of various kinds of. eon- eretes and cement mortars now un- der way in Germany will extend over a period of 30 years. The Venezuelan government has decided to use one per cent. of the import duties collected for a fund for sanitary ,purposes. A steamer chair which opens into a life raft When it strikes the water is a life-saving appliance patented by two New England men. A Danish nerve specialist places his convalescent patients on toe of a piano that they may be benefited Eby the vibrations- as it is played. So that a man can sit down to shine his 'shoes there has been pat- ented a blacking stool that can be temporarily fastened- in front of a chair. To protect roosting poultry from attack by vermin there has been in- vented a 'trap which, when fastened to a perch, catches and poisons in- sects. Battles in human blood between white corpuscles and disease genus have been photographed with the. motion -picture camera by two French scientists. Swiss railways use :an ambulance car completely equipped with elec- trical` appliances that are supplied with current by a generator mount- ed on one axle. Scientists in both Germany and France are seriously trying to as- certain if there is any value in the divining rod for locating under- ground water and metals. In a New York ehureh there is an incandescent lamp that has been used seven hours a day for more than seven years which is believ ed to be the world's record. By introducing minute partieIes of zinc into the tissues by powerful electrical currents a Philadelphia surgeon destroys cancers and has effected many notable cures. A fireproof cement to close cracks in furnaces is made of 75 parts of wet fire -clay, three parts black ox- ide of manganese, three parts white sand and one part powdered asbes- tos. For the convenience of carpenters there hasbeen invented a machine which, held in one hand, feeds nails into the position in which they are to be driven with a hammer held in the other. No waiters appear in the dining - room of a new French hotel, the guests telephoning their orders from their tables, to whieh the food is delivered from a kitchen below by electric elevators. A French ,scientist who has been experimenting for eighteen years to ascertain the effeets of low tem- peratures on fieh and animals has found that common snails can with- stand the greatest amount of cold. Beauty of Character., There is a sweetness of the child, and a sweetness of the old. The sweetness of the child is largely in- dependent of his personality. Ib is in hie ways and in his leaks, and the same thing is true, tlhough not quite iso much; of the young wo- man. But when sweetness comes at sixty it is the impression of the very nature of the soul: J: M. Barrie; somewhere, we believe, has said that no woman is really ,beautiful until, slag is fifty-three. The beauty that is worth • most is the beauty that is .connected with the ebarae- ter. itself. ,. 44 SV 21. e)to: cirl,W China's greatestproblem is a do- mestic one. Important matters of a suitable coin currency; Provision Of rail ays;; u. standing army of; re- pute, al:neared and yell -disciplined; the development of ite vast supplies ofhidden mineral wealth; •a ns;.vy of adequate dimensions, are, pro- blems of ` preesing importance, writes Charles CT"erken, As a sue easeful nation, the standing' - of China depends ;upon the ;solving of these matters, But, after all is done, we corne back to the 3fact that, as ever, "the poor ye /sieve' al.,ways with,you," and China's poor is its overwhelming coolie class. The hoi' polloi of China, are ig- norant, illiterate—and innumer- able. The Blass, or money division, is. an insuperable barrier. A "'gen- tleman" may be known not merely by the Glee of tihe house in which he resides, but by the number of his eoolie servants, Men .and women, and even children, of this class, work incessantly, and for amere~ pittance. The picture of hordes •.af workers, like a busy ant -hill, is a familiar one to .those wholive in the East. What is to become of then, . "Despised and .rejected of - men," dirty, perhaps, in habits, as we understand matters, they ap- pear outwardly contented and are known to be thrifty. Workers gen- erally have to be ! Numerous .guilds and secret societies protect the "interests" of the worker, though they do not appear to have regulat- ed a reasonable working day. Some day there will be a revolution of. another •kind, an industrial upheav- al, when 'China's workers. will right- ly clamor .at the door for-•_aiogni- tion of its dues. A consideration of China, would be incomplete without a reference to its owra peculiar difficulties. There is the almost ineuperalble barrier of the language, or to speak more correctly, of 'the multitudin- ous dialects into .whieh it is spilt, making it impossible for .a man from one district to understand his neighbor from another. The pre- sent internecine trouble is not to be understood by an impartial onlook- er, unless it is that it is another ease of human weakness—jealousy, a mutual mistrust of the aims and ambitions which direct the mindsof the rival factions north and .south, or the unusual spectacle of a "strong" man, and, that a China- man, spending' himself` in the her- eulean task of forming cosmos . of chaos. China's awakening must of ne- cessity be a slow procedure. A giant sleeps heavily and arounees himself slowly. China is but in the early stages of its uprising. It may be an awakening to constant inter- nal imbroglios, or to the deeper sense of the reality of a nation with might, power, and influence. The future is whatever the Chinese like to make it. Recognizing as time goes on what it means to be a citi- zen of no mean country, and that he who does most for his race will best serve his own nation. 'China can not fail to come into its own. WHIMS OF LOCOMOTIVES. No Two Engines Have Yet Been Know a to Behave Alike. "Railway engines are peculiar things," said a. locomotive driver the other day, "and every one has her whims. • A dozen engines built to the same pattern will develop quite as many personal traits as an equal number of members - of a family. One wifl be a very bad hill - climber, and fly like the wind on the level, while another will only keep to speed kr .a short distance,, awing to her being unable to =at- tain Iyer steam pressure. Again, an engine rarely runs two days alike, as drivers and firemen know too well. A method of firing that will suit an engine one slay may. be worthless the next. "The driver, when in the cath, has. to keep a keen eye on the ma- chinery, for there are bolts and picas whieh are liable to stip or snap. As a matter of fast; there is not nut,or a tap on an: engine that may not at any moment re- quire attention. -Every 'beat' of the loco, must be true in time and sound, and every rattle and shake must 'be found and remedied' while. she is `under way.' The fireman also has an anxious tinge, Re has to watch the fire constantly and his ehovel is rarely -still. Unless the e fireman worke hand -in -hand -with the driver, the engine will not run smoothly., or keep good time -and goad timeis essential one the iron - road:" Occasionally a max- doesn't show bad taste in dressing because he can't afford it. �1. 7j1 Iir'jir,�t�, �gy�r-rAt�111, i r. mn... Russia ha;s sayers,] women pi' Cleveland bas'a niounteci p police-w•ora enp . . Only 5 i-5 per cent, of the Crin h cls arc women. For every seventeenman plysi Maas there is .one woman dexter." , The majority of Japanese girle marry at the age of 0'1° years: Women trap a largeA prLpor�tiori of, the educated.,elass than men. In Turkey husbands divorce their wives wb will Grid •by .a word.. Sixteen per cent. of the girls in Boston :work in candy factories, Nearly 200,000 women immigrants entered the United States last year. There, are two women street rail- way foremen in the. United States: Queen. Elizabeth of Belgium s known as the "mother of her peo- ple," Over, half the workers in the cot- ton and silk industries are wommen. Nearly 850,000 females are work - Virg for wages. in England and Wales. Pope Pius says that women will want to be Pope in a few yeaes f eome. Women outnumber the men eight •prominent occupations which they take part. There are over 800,000 women . the United States working with tale- needle and sewing machine. Waitresses work twelve `hour,, .a day in New York, while those in California work only eight hours. The 'United :States government has an official bakery, of which Mies Wessling is at the head. It is claimed that girls should shun "cigarma�king jobs, as the fumes ruin the health and morale. Rindoo women who have lost their husbands are not allowed to u•sethe front door of a house. The rich women of China are giv- ing large sums to provide educa- tion for the girls of their country. Out of the .two {professions -n which women oittnumber men, the female teachers lead by three - to one,. and in nursing by ten to one. Miss Jane, better known as Aunt Jane Syron, to been selling news- papers in Elizabeth, N.J., for the last sixty years. Miss Ruth McAdie, policewoman of Bayonne, N.J., has issued an edict to the effect `'that there must be no spooning in the parks." At Rouen, F.ranee, seamstresses make shirts at the rate of four an hour for which, they are paid at the rate of four cents a dozen. Women will be admitted on an equality with' men in the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, at the opening of next term; Miss Gertrude M. Williams, a medical student at Syracuse Uni- versity, has been awarded a silver cup for beating a class of male stu- dents at dissection. Miss Oeeil Leitch, winner of to ladies' golf championship, played recently in England,, began to ,play golf when she was nine years irf age and has never had a lesson. Although she is not yet twenty years old, Mrs. Elvis Guiterriez is known as the Joan of Are of North- ern Mexico, having taken part in seven battles in the rebel ranks. According to Dr. Louis Broeq,. the eminent French physician, wo- men are fast deteriorating •physica' ly owing to the exaggerated '< forts whieh they are making towa what they call their emancipatit, Among the women workers then are to -day 30 times as many book. keepers, clerks and • office workers as there were a generation ago. 50 times as many saleswomen, 00 times as many journalists and 100 times as many packers, shippers and agents. and no less than 2.00 times .as. many woman lawyers, Wireless 7'elephome Perfected. By means of a wireless telephone apparatus invented by two French.. naval officers„ Commander Victor Colin and Lieutenant Maurice Jeance, conversations have been carried on over a distance of 150 miles, The words carte with great- er distinetness, it is said, than is customary even over a telephone connected by wire, the speaker's voiee -being -clearly recognizable: . The inventera of the new appara- bus succeeded in transmitting speech by wireless five years ago. There instruments were installed in the Preach 'battleships \ erite and Justice, but they could not be de- pended aped, ohieily owing to flee variablequality of .the ;oscillations of the Hertzian waves:: By experi-' went the inventors finally succeed- ed in overcoming the difficulty by Omens of an attachment which :fil- ter;s' the waves. ,este ,rxl