QUESTIONS FOR YOUNG MEN.
Reading edition
ON ATHLETICS.
There was a time when the college man who joined an athletic team felt that he must train hard for a month or two before his great match came off, and that then his duty to his college and his team ended, and he could go out of training until the next season. "Training" then meant a somewhat barbarous plan of eating half-cooked meats, drinking limited quantities of water, taking physical exercise almost all day long, and doing little else. Since those days we have all discovered that training consists in eating normal food that is well cooked and taken at regular times of the day, going to bed at night by nine or ten o'clock, and rising to half past seven or eight o'clock breakfast. That part of the matter has been pretty well settled, but perhaps the most important defect in the old training system has not been corrected, though every one will acknowledge that it is a defect the moment he thinks it over. This is the absurd idea that you can get ready for a big athletic game in one or two months. A very long time ago it was discovered that if you want to do anything well you must practise at it day by day for many more months than can be crowded into one year. Nobody ever made a great success at anything by working night and day for a month or two. And it is precisely the same with baseball or rowing or football as it is with studies or law or the ministry.
You may have been eating all sorts of things during the summer, sitting up late at night, and getting up late in the morning. Do you fancy that on the 1st of October you can begin an entirely new life, and make a good football-player of yourself by Thanksgiving day? Not by any means. If you want to be the member of some college athletic team, begin before you get to college. Begin by eating carefully, not by eating food fit for wild animals, but by eating good meats, and so on, and not filling up on candies and sweets day after day at meals and between meals. There is a reason for this. A man whose stomach is weak has no courage, and if he has no courage he carries himself through a game on his nerves, and is completely exhausted at the end of that game. No one can give himself a strong, vigorous digestion in one month, nor in one year if he is at all weak there. It requires years of normal living to do this, and it is the most important part of all training. Probably the famous story about Napoleon is quite true, that he thought more of his soldiers' food and shoes than of their guns, for he maintained that no man could fight in pinching shoes and on an empty stomach. In the same way you cannot train your muscles, to do extraordinary things in a few short weeks. It requires months and years of gradual work. If you start in late and work hard every day you will ruin your muscles instead of improving them, and as a matter of actual record many a good man has been lost to his team for this reason alone.
What is the most critical time in a baseball match or a football game? When does the oarsman's great test come? Certainly not at the start, for we all do well then. But at the very close of the game, when, after all the players have become exhausted, the real nerve of the contest arrives. That is the time when the man who has been slowly and carefully training year by year will find that he is better than all the others, and that he can put in the extra pound at the oar or the extra speed at the long football run which carries his team to a closely won victory.
Athletic training, therefore, is nothing sudden, nothing to be "taken up" at any one time for a short space, but a general self-control and guard which the boy or man keeps over himself in summer and in winter, keeping himself healthy, in good hard condition, and ready for anything he may be called on to do. Any one will tell you this is quite in line with the best methods of study, of work, or of business in after-life; that it is the steady, careful man that wins. But as we are not preaching here, this must be left for fathers and older brothers to do.
THE COST OF ROYALTY.
Here are a few statistics lately published that will doubtless prove interesting to the reader. The royal family of England costs the British government, in round numbers, $3,000,000 annually. Of this sum the Queen receives nearly $2,000,000 a year, besides the revenue from the Duchy of Lancaster, which amounts to a quarter of a million. The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland receives $100,000 a year for his services and expenses, and the Prince of Wales $200,000 a year. The President of France receives $240,000 a year for salary and expenses, an enormous salary when it is remembered that the republic is sweating under a stupendous national debt of over $6,000,000,000—the largest debt ever incurred by any nation in the world. Italy can have ten thousand men slaughtered in Abyssinia and still pay her King $2,600,000 a year. The civil list of the German Emperor is about $4,000,000 a year, besides large revenues from vast estates belonging to the royal family. The Czar of all the Russias owns in fee simple 1,000,000 square miles of cultivated land, and enjoys an income of $12,000,000. The King of Spain, little Alfonso XIII., if he is of a saving disposition, will be one of the richest sovereigns in Europe when he comes of age. The state allows him $1,400,000 a year, with an additional $600,000 for family expenses. We are said to be the richest nation on earth, yet our President's salary is only $50,000 a year. It was only $25,000 from 1789 to 1873.
NEW USE FOR A WATER-CART.
Two countrymen were paying a visit to the city of Edinburgh recently, when for the first time in their experience they saw a water-cart employed in laying the dust after the orthodox fashion. They had been warned by their friends before leaving home not to be surprised if they saw many wonderful things, and, above all, not to give expression to their astonishment, as they would probably only be laughed at for their ignorance. Hitherto the clodhoppers had attended fairly well to these instructions, and so far at least had not made fools of themselves. But, alas! a water-cart was too much for them. No sooner did their eyes alight on it than Jock, the more enthusiastic of the two, rushed off towards it, shouting to the driver:
"Hey, mon! hey, mon! stop, for guidness' sake; yer scaling a' yer watter!"
Jim, his companion, was not so easily deceived, however, and, vexed to see Jock make such an exhibition of his ignorance, ran after him, and seizing him by the coat tails, reprimanded him as follows:
"What for are you makin' such a fule o' yersel' for, Jock? The man ken's brawly that the watter's scaling. Lo'd, man, if ye had ony sense you could easily ken that it was only a dodge tae keep the laddies aff the back o' the cart."
A neat little correspondence took place between David Roberts, the artist, and a friendly art critic with whom he was in the habit of hobnobbing. Roberts had painted a number of pictures into which he put all his genius, and upon placing them on exhibition, much to his surprise and mortification his friend the critic severely attacked them. In due time, however, a note arrived, addressed:
"My dear Roberts,—You have doubtless read my remarks upon your pictures. I hope they will make no difference in our friendship. Yours, etc., ——."
This had a tendency to slightly increase the painter's wrath, and he couched the following:
"My dear —-,—The next time I meet you I shall pull your nose. I hope it will make no difference in our friendship. Yours, etc., D. Roberts."
It is not recorded whether they met afterwards, but it is safe to say those erstwhile friends hobnobbed no more.
This Department is conducted in the interest of stamp and coin collectors, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on these subjects so far as possible. Correspondents should address Editor Stamp Department.
Three important measures have just been agreed upon by the House of Representatives, and probably will be accepted by the Senate. The first bill introduces the principle of responsibility on the part of the government for the delivery of registered letters and parcels.
The proposed law provides that senders or owners of registered matter lost in the mails may be indemnified to an extent not exceeding $10 for any one letter or package. This will do as a beginning, but the American public is entitled to at least as much as is given to the citizens of European nations by their respective post-office departments. For instance, we pay 10c. for a registered letter, and by the proposed law may collect up to $10 if the letter or parcel is lost. In England a registered letter costs 6c., and if lost the owner can collect up to $25; if 10c. is paid, the indemnity is raised to $75.
The second measure is one permitting the use of private postal cards to which a 1c. stamp is affixed, provided the same be approximately of the same size and weight as the officially made card. If passed, there will be some very handsome and many very humorous cards sent through the mail, and interesting collections could be made at a very little cost.
The third measure is one providing for the appointment of letter-carriers in small places, who shall collect 1c. for each letter or parcel delivered. This is practically applying to small villages the system which fifty years ago was common in New York, Philadelphia, and other large cities. If the charges are collected by stamps, it will revive the collecting of U. S. Locals.
B. J. Jones.—The old Anti-Surcharge Society was organized about six years ago through the efforts of Mr. C. B. Corwin, but it soon went to pieces, as the great body of collectors refused to discontinue the collection of the innumerable and uncalled-for varieties. The evil has abated of late years, from the fact that the burden grew too heavy for all philatelists excepting a small body of very rich men. The "Seebecks" are declining in price rapidly.
J. Learned.—The collecting of entire U. S. envelopes should be followed where possible. Discard all varieties of water-mark paper, shapes, sizes, gums, etc., collecting simply by dies and papers.
A. A. Weilman.—It is claimed that the first envelope in modern times used for prepayment of postage was the New South Wales for 1838. A genuine copy would probably bring $250.
W. H. Carr, Jun.—You can buy the Philatelic button of C. W. Kissinger, Reading, Pa.
H. F. King.—The Japanese wedding stamps were issued in 1894. The red is sold at 4c., the blue at 5c.
O. Lewis.—You do not state the paper, or whether used or unused. On white paper it is worth 20c.; on amber paper, 25c.; on blue paper, $5; on fawn paper, $15.
% %.—The half-dime, 1856, can be bought for 15c.
J. P. Wilton.—The stamp-dealers are offering $2 Columbian stamps at $1.75. They are used for postage by the large banking houses, chiefly for prepayment of postage on packages of bonds, stocks, etc., sent to Europe.
G. R. D.—I do not know what dealers pay for stamps. Their selling prices are quoted in the stamp catalogues. Your Agricultural Department envelope bears the seal of the department. No commercial value.
C. C. Ransom.—It is impossible to give values for long lists of stamps. Any catalogue will price the stamps both used and unused, give the date of issue, and much other information. The standard 1897 catalogue costs 58c., but good catalogues can be bought at 5c., 10c., or 25c. each.
Philatus.
The price of good things oft is high, But wise housekeepers tell That Ivory Soap is cheap to buy And best to use, as well.