THE NEWS OF ALL NATIONS.

More Money for Farmers.

The important farm crops of the United States this year are worth $104,000,000 more than the value of the same crops last year. The total value of the important crops is given as $5,068,742,000 by the government authorities. Adding the value of the other crops, to be announced later, will make a record figure in the nation’s production.

This year’s wheat and corn crops are the most valuable ever grown, the wheat and apple crops are record harvests, and the potato crop is the second largest ever raised. The huge wheat crop and the increased price of that cereal, the large corn and apple crops, and the increased price of oats, barley, and rye more than offset the loss in the value of the cotton crop resulting from the war.

The values of the important crops, based on the average prices paid to producers on November 1, and their values last year, follow:

1914.1913.

Corn$1,885,867,000 $1,730,021,000

Wheat858,056,000587,863,000

Oats484,390,000425,150,000

Barley100,839,00097,469,000

Rye34,387,00026,153,000

Buckwheat13,297,00010,444,000

Potatoes219,396,000230,741,000

Sweet potatoes42,751,00044,706,000

Hay803,353,000786,062,000

Cotton462,483,000880,360,000

Flaxseed18,960,00021,192,000

Apples144,963,000124,470,000

A corn crop of 2,706,000,000 bushels is estimated by the government. This yield compares with 2,447,000,000 bushels a year ago, or an increase of 150,000,000 bushels. The crop has turned out much better than was expected early in the season.

Woman Builder of Death Machines.

A charming, gentle young woman—“Bertha Krupp,” as she is called by the soldiers; the Baroness von Bohlen, as she is known in Germany—is associated with the European war in many fantastic ways.

Bertha Krupp, as the principal owner of the great Krupp works at Essen, is the kaiser’s gun maker. When she was to be married she was so important a personage that the kaiser acted as her godfather. The young nobleman, Baron Gustave von Bohlen und Halbach, was the choice of his majesty. Not only have the Krupp works furnished a vast amount of efficient field artillery to the Germans, but they have supplied the monster siege guns with which the Belgian and French forts have been smashed.

Modest and unassuming, the young mistress of the Krupp works is beloved by all who know her, and especially by the thousands of workmen at Essen, whose admiration she aroused when, shortly after her father’s death, she began supervising the operation of the works and bravely remained close to the big guns while they were being tested. From the income from the manufacture of the guns a fund is set aside by Bertha Krupp to help some of her fifty thousand pensioners. At large orphan asylum is supported by the Krupp money. Throughout Germany the baroness is noted for the charities that she supports with her immense fortune.

And the soldiers, whenever they hear the noise of the terrible Krupp guns, say: “Bertha is talking again.”

Girl Soldier’s Escape.

A girl soldier’s thrilling escape from death or capture is thus described by a correspondent at Petrograd, Russia:

“The daughter of Colonel Tomilobbskaya, of the Russian army, who, in male uniform, distinguished herself in the fighting at Avgustovo some time ago, has been wounded for the third time. She is in East Prussia with her father’s command. While on a scouting tour, she unexpectedly came upon a patrol of German hussars. She quickly wheeled her horse and dashed away, but was hotly pursued in the direction of a stream which the hussars evidently thought she would not attempt to cross. When near the stream, her horse was struck by bullet, and fell, but the girl disengaged herself, and, plunging into the water, swam across. She was wounded in the arm, but managed to stop the flow of blood and got to the Russian lines.”

A large number of women are serving in the Russian army, several have met death in battle and others have been sent back wounded. In last week’s Blade mention was made of a famous Cossack girl trooper who has been at the front.

Engine Hurls House One Hundred Feet.

A freight train went wild in Chicago, plunged across Sheffield Avenue, picked up a two-story house occupied by two families of sleepers, carried the building bodily almost half a block, then stopped. Two children, one four and the other two years old, were instantly killed. Four other persons who were sleeping in the house were rescued by firemen practically unhurt.

Edward Kranch, and Helen, his sister, were the ones killed. Their father and mother, sleeping in another room on the ground floor, escaped, being thrown wide of the house. The family of Edward Matison, including his wife and two children, were safe on the second floor.

Man Kills Dog With His Fist.

James G. Harvey, of Hazleton, Pa., who at the age of nineteen defeated John L. Sullivan in a calf-lifting contest, showed his strength by killing a dog with a blow of his fist, when the animal had been rounded up to be killed and no revolver was handy.

Giants May Train in West.

Manager John J. McGraw, of the Giants, is considering a plan to take the New York club to California next spring to train. Secretary John B. Foster stated recently that nothing definite had yet been done in the matter, although the club was considering it carefully. When McGraw visited California last year with the world tourists he was impressed with the fine climate in southern California, and was advised to train there by Charles A. Comiskey, of the White Sox, who has taken his team to the coast for several seasons.

Manager McGraw does not mean to desert Marlin Springs, Texas, entirely, because the Giants have a permanent training camp and baseball park there. If the plan goes through, the Giants will spend three or four weeks on the coast and then go to Marlin for a couple of weeks to put on the finishing touches of the training work.

It is believed that the Giants would be a big attraction on the coast next spring, because there will be thousands of Easterners there to attend the Pacific-Panama Exposition. The Giants have trained at Marlin Springs for several seasons, and, as the place is so well suited for the purpose, it is not likely that the Giants will abandon their camp there. Secretary Foster is already arranging several exhibition games to be played, throughout the South on the Giants’ return trip North.

Hunter Shot by Playful Hound.

Theron Ferguson, twenty years old, of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., was shot by his own dog while hunting on the mountains. He received a full charge in the hip, and his condition is serious. Stopping to rest after a long tramp, Ferguson was examining the shotgun, when his hound playfully jumped upon him. The foot of the dog touched the trigger, and the cartridge exploded.

Disobeyed His Orders, Killed 600 Germans.

At the battle of Vailly the French were obliged to fall back, and were unable to get away with all their guns. They had time to bury most of them, though, and the only one they did not bury was spiked so that the Germans could not make any use of it.

It was with this gun that a gunner of the battery covered himself with glory. The gun crew had been ordered back, but he declared that he would not abandon the gun while any ammunition was left. He methodically emptied shell after shell into the Germans, who were moving up in serried ranks only a half mile away. Closer and closer they came, firing volleys as they advanced, but the gunner stood his ground and still had a dozen shells left when they were not more than three hundred yards away. At this distance he bowled them over like ninepins, but nothing could stop them. He let fly his last shell at only fifty yards, and did such awful execution that he was able to remove the breechblock and make good his escape, notwithstanding that he had received a bullet between his ribs.

Hardened as they were to slaughter, some of those who witnessed the deed turned faint at the ghastly sight of the mangled Germans, more than six hundred of whom were blown to pieces within five hundred yards of the gun.

War Cuts Canal Income.

John Bucklin Bishop, former secretary to the Isthmian Canal commission, who returned recently from Panama on the United Fruit steamship Tenadores, said that the income of the canal for October amounted to $376,000, which, if continued, would mean $4,500,000 a year.

“Governor Goethals has said,” Mr. Bishop asserted, “that the operating expenses of the Panama Canal amount to four million dollars, so that the canal will clear five hundred thousand dollars. The war in Europe has made a big difference in the traffic through the new waterway, and the increase when peace is proclaimed will be considerable.”

“What about the slides in Culebra Cut?” he was asked.

“Colonel Goethals is not worrying over the slides in the canal,” he said. “The big dredges were ready for just such an emergency, and made short work of the two slides on the other side of Culebra Hill.”

Mr. Bishop said that ships could be passed through the canal in ten hours now, instead of twelve hours, as previously estimated.

Courtney, at 65, Works as Usual.

In fine health and full of vigor in body and mind, Charles E. Courtney, since 1883 the coach of the Cornell oarsmen, recently celebrated his sixty-fifth birthday. He received a number of congratulatory messages, and a group of the oarsmen called upon him that evening, but the old man did not take a holiday. He went to the boathouse at eight o’clock, as usual, and did not return home until six-thirty o’clock in the evening. Courtney seems no older than he was at sixty, and his capacity for work appears to be undiminished.

“Boy Zeppelin” Earns Coin from War Kites.

In a little workshop in Cleveland, Ohio, a twelve-year-old boy spends his spare hours these days turning out big, ferocious-looking “war” kites, which he sells to his playmates. The boy is Stuart Jenney, a seventh-grade pupil.

Young Stuart caught his war spirit almost from the day he read that the European powers had declared hostilities. For several years he has been the most skillful kite maker of his district, and has sold many kites to his playmates, but he has abandoned the conventional types for the fighting kind.

Stuart’s “flyers” soar skyward in flocks after school hours, pirates of the air, their long tails armed with jagged bits of glass designed to cut the cords of rival kites that are not maneuvered cleverly enough to dodge their foes.

For overparticular strategists Stuart designs and makes special warriors, collecting, of course, special prices for these models. He carefully selects the wood, linen, and paper that go into their construction, and will not let a kite leave his “factory” until he has personally tested it.

Kite battles mean more orders, for once a cord is severed while the kite is sailing high, that particular pirate reaches the earth a mass of broken sticks and torn paper, totally beyond repair.

Penn Out of Aquatics.

Pennsylvania does not expect to do anything wonderful in an aquatic way this winter, but Yale, Columbia, and Princeton are figuring on winning the intercollegiate championship. The swimming season will not begin in earnest until after the holidays, but long before that time the coaches will know just about where their teams will finish. Princeton will not be able to get its water-polo team out until late, for nearly all the men on this team played on the football team also.

Yale looks forward to a brilliant season. Two of the last year’s champion intercollegiate squad and three members of the record-breaking relay team are available, besides splendid material in every other event. There is no doubt but what the New Haven swimmers will take a lot of beating. The title bearers in question are the fancy diver, McAleenan, and the plunger, Smith; the relay record holders, Captain Summers and Marr and Hoadley.

In addition to these star performers, the squad has several likely veterans, including sprinters Schlaet and Mayer and the middle distances, Gould and Moise, and some most promising new recruits. Leaders among the latter are Rosener, of Andover, credited with breaking the fifty-yard standard in practice; Wooley, one of the speediest dash swimmers seen at New Haven this fall, and Ferguson, of Chicago, heralded a real comer at the furlong. Evidently there isn’t a weak spot in the team.

Prospects for water polo are not quite so good, though they may improve. At present, Van Holt, the best backfield player, is suffering from an injury sustained in football, and there is a question of Leish, the great scoring forward, being in the line-up. Should they prove available, Captain Steiner will have the nucleus of a strong sextet, for Kent, Mayer, and Smith are experienced men. Otherwise it may be difficult to find candidates of championship caliber for the vacant positions.

The swimmers of Harvard will be again obliged to use the Brookline baths for practice, since the dormitory pools are too small for the purpose, and the long-promised natatorium at Cambridge still remains a pious wish.

Matthew Mann, the advocate of the elementary crawl, will coach the squad. He says the Crimson has excellent material, but it is hopeless to believe that it can be promptly developed, owing to the difficulty of getting the candidates to take often the inconvenient trip between Cambridge and Brookline.

Among the best watermen trying for positions in the varsity team are Captain Fullerton, able to do around 1:00 for 100 yards and 2:40 for the furlong; Seymour, almost as fast at the two distances, and Gibbs, Wentworth, Jackson, and Darling, good for about 0:27 at 50 yards, and warranted to furnish likely representatives of the sprints and relay races.

Elopers Drowned in River.

Ivan Heer and his sweetheart, Miss Ruth Rechman, both of Cave-In-Rock, Ill., were drowned in the Ohio River a few miles below Evansville, Ind. Heer and Miss Rechman were in a skiff eloping to Caseyville, Ky., where they were to have been married. Their skiff struck a snag and the craft rapidly sank. Occupants of a launch near by tried to save the elopers, but were unsuccessful.

Heer was about twenty-two years old and Miss Rechman was twenty, and a popular young woman of Cave-In-Rock.

Tires of Looking at His Own Gravestone.

Francis M. Collins, eighty-eight-year-old war veteran, has grown tired and lonely sitting at the foot of his own grave in Forest Home Cemetery, at Milwaukee, Wis., admiring the flowers and the monument—especially the monument. Collins has decided that man was not meant to be alone, on the earth or under it, and is planning to get married.

For twelve years Collins has been a daily visitor at the grave. For a long time it was a source of pride for him to look at his name and war record carved in a solitary magnificence on the handsome tombstone. He prepared for his burial by a budget filed with a certificate for five hundred dollars with a local bank.

The solitary name on one side of the stone began to look forlorn and lonely. The veteran got the habit of romancing on how nice it would be to have another name—her name—on the opposite side. There was no particular woman then. But there is now. Her name is Orrie Viola—something—but Collins will not tell the rest of it.

The other day a stone carver came trudging through the cemetery with his tools. He hunted around in the vicinity of the chapel until he found a plot that looked like a little garden, and beside it was an old man with a patriarchal beard. When the stone carver left, the name “Orrie Viola Collins” smiled back at the afternoon sun, and Collins was smiling up at the newly carved name.

Some New Inventions.

A cotton manufacturer of Westbrook, Maine, has patented a machine for the harvesting of cotton which has just been successfully demonstrated at Fairwold, S. C. The harvester picks the cotton by sucking the lint out of the bolls by compressed air, somewhat on the order, apparently, of the vacuum cleaner.

A mechanic of St. Louis, Mo., has invented a “non-skidder,” which is intended to prevent the possibility of accident to an automobile by making it impossible for the car to slide off the road. The attachment consists of two shoes fastened to the rear of the car, between the wheels. When the car begins to skid, the driver touches a button, and the shoes instantly drop to the surface of the road, stopping the car. The shoes are about eighteen inches long and three inches wide, made of hard metal with a corrugated undersurface.

A device perfected by an inventor of Wakefied, Mass., enables the motorman of a street car to see the entire interior of the car or to have an unobstructed view down the outside. It consists of a series of mirrors arranged at angles in a small tube, through which images of any object are reflected.

For use in small gatherings there has been invented an attachment for phonographs that illustrates songs as they are sung by projecting lantern-slide views on a screen hung in front of the phonograph horn.

Bears Eating Farmers’ Pigs.

Bears are causing the farmers around Grifton, N. Y., annoyance. Although there has been no drought to drive them from the swamps, the animals, for some unexplainable reason, have come out of the low grounds in numbers, and their inroads upon the farmers’ hogs and other stock have caused the latter to take steps looking to the eradication of the bears.

Mayor F. I. Sutton and J. E. Forrest, of Kingston, are out in quest of bear in the vicinity of Stonington Creek, and hope to bag one or more of the intruders.

Pushing Buttons President’s Job.

Pushing buttons is one of President Wilson’s jobs. Nothing of big national interest is properly “opened” except by the president. The latest request was for him to press a button at the White House officially opening the new Houston, Texas, ship canal. In a like manner the president the other day opened the new union passenger station at Kansas City, Mo.

The cost of clearing a line for one official flash, involving the suspension of service over thousands of miles of wire, and the attention of scores of men, is borne by any telegraph company over whose line it goes. There is a tacit understanding between the telegraph companies and the White House that the wire service will be free for all events of sufficient importance to merit the president’s attention.

The greatest button-pushing event in the history of the White House was the president’s flash which blew up the Gamboa Dike in the Panama Canal and allowed the water to enter the big ditch for the first time.

The next big event of this kind will be the opening of the Panama-Pacific Exposition, at San Francisco, next year.

Several days before the date of the official opening the telegraph offices at points along the route selected for the flash will be notified that at a certain hour, on a certain day, the president will open the exposition. About thirty minutes before the time set the Washington office will “cut in” a wire from the White House and attach it to one of a certain number of wires assigned for exclusive service between Washington and Chicago. It is the custom to rig two circuits out of Washington, to prevent possible accidents or mistakes that would delay the message.

Chicago is notified that wires, say No. 119 and No. 104, Washington and Chicago, will be used for the flash. During the full half hour prior to the sending of the flash these wires are kept absolutely clear of messages, except the signals of the wire chiefs, who are rigging the circuit. “Repeaters” are placed at frequent intervals along the route. The “repeaters” are simply instruments used to add further energy to the circuit at different points. They do not really repeat the president’s flash. The initial impulse given at Washington carries straight through to the coast.

When the Chicago office learns that Washington is using wires 119 and 104, these wires are promptly hooked up with other wires through to Omaha, Neb., or Ogden, Utah, and the word passes along the line. The Ogden operator finishes the circuit and San Francisco is advised to make ready for the flash.

At precisely the time named the president steps to a button in the White House offices, gives it a push, and the exposition opens.

It is the special nature of the flash that wears on the nerves of the telegraph men. If a presidential message should go wrong, they would account it a big blot upon their records. As soon as the flash has gone through the circuit is dismantled and the telegraph traffic flows on.

Four-room Dwelling Hacked from Rock.

James Homer, of Inez, Ky., is building, or rather making, one of the strangest houses ever heard, told of in this section of the country. He has undertaken to pick and hack a four-room dwelling place out of a solid rock, which is seventy-five feet high and projects out of the mountainside some forty or fifty feet. Homer claims he will have it finished by 1916. He said, in a recent interview:

“Some people may think I am crazy, but I am perfectly sane. This is a vast undertaking, but I consider nothing is impossible to the man that has a will. ‘Where there’s a will there’s a way,’ you know.

“I think this will be an ideal home for my wife and four children, and when I have it finished I am going to give a house party, one that will be a surprise, indeed, to the people of Rockcastle Creek, for this will be the only house of the kind that I ever heard of, and probably the only one that any of my neighbors have ever seen.”

Gives His Life for Science.

G. R. Mines, a professor of physiology at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, met death mysteriously in his laboratory at the university. Just what caused his death is not known, but Principal William Peterson believes Professor Mines, in the course of experiments upon himself in his chosen branch of physiology, dealing chiefly with the phenomena of the heart action and respiration, lost his life through the apparatus which was attached to his body getting out of order in some unknown manner.

Wireless an Aid to Science.

Actual difference in time between Washington, D. C., and Paris, France, has been established by the recent series of exchanges of wireless telegraph signals between the big naval wireless station at Arlington and the French government station at Eiffel Tower.

The results of the tests are hailed by scientists as a distinct step forward toward errorless calculation of time and distances. It is approximately 4,000 miles from Washington to Paris and the greatest distance over which previous tests of a like nature has been made was 600 miles.

England Training 1,250,000 Soldiers.

All England is talking of the stirring address which Lord Kitchener, the war secretary, made at the Lord Mayor’s banquet, in which he combined high praise for the army now in the field and appearing for war, with an appeal for further recruits to carry the arms of Britain to success.

Lord Kitchener said:

“The British empire is now fighting for its very existence. I want every citizen to understand this cardinal fact, for only from a clear conception of the vast importance of the issue at stake can there come that great national and moral impulse without which governments and war ministries and even armies and navies can do but little.

“We have numerous advantages of resources, men, and material, and that wonderful spirit of ours which has never understood the meaning of defeat. All these are great assets, but must be used judiciously and effectively.

“I have no complaint whatever to make about the response to my appeals for men. The progress of the military training of those already enlisted is remarkable, but I shall want more men and still more until the enemy is crushed. Armies cannot be called together as if with a magician’s wand. In the process of their formation there may have been discomforts and inconveniences in some cases—even downright suffering. I cannot promise that these conditions will wholly cease, but I can give you every assurance that they have already greatly diminished, and everything that administrative energy can do to bring them to an end assuredly will be done.

“The men who have come forward must remember that they are enduring for their country’s sake just as their comrades are in the shell-torn trenches. The introduction of elaborate destructive machinery with which our enemies had so amply and carefully supplied themselves has been the subject of much eulogy on the part of military critics, but it must be remembered that in the matter of preparation those who fix beforehand the date of war have a considerable advantage over their neighbors.

“So far as we are concerned, we are clearly open to no similar suspicion.

“Our losses in the trenches have been severe, but such casualties are far from deterring the British nation from seeing the matter through. They will act rather as an incentive to British manhood to prepare themselves to take the places of those who have fallen.”

In paying tribute to the leadership of Sir John French, commander of the British expeditionary force, and his generals, and to the high efficiency and courage of the army, the war minister said:

“I think that it has now been conceded that the British army has proved itself to be not so contemptible an engine of war as some were disposed to consider it.” He concluded:

“Although our thoughts are constantly directed toward the troops at the front and the great tasks they have in hand, it is well to remember that the enemy will have to reckon with the forces of the great Dominion, the vanguard of which we already have welcomed in this country, in the very fine body of men forming the contingents from Canada and Newfoundland, while from Australia, New Zealand, and other parts are coming in quick succession soldiers to fight for the imperial cause. And, besides all these, there are training in this country more than one and a quarter million of men eagerly waiting for a call to bear their part in the great struggle.”

Ridding Country of Cattle Plague.

How did the foot-and-mouth disease start its epidemic in America?

The answers to questions like this are always lost in mystery. But at the great Chicago stockyards, closed for the first time since 1865, the story is told that at Niles, Mich., where the plague first broke out a few weeks ago, there is a tannery which imports hides. It imported a sizable consignment of water buffalo hides, so the story runs, and imported them via Italy. They came packed in Italian straw. They were unpacked and the straw carelessly thrown to one side.

A Polish farmer in the vicinity, with the sound thrift of the Old World, saw this straw, and inquired about its eventual use. He was told he could have it if he would haul it away. He hauled it. He fed it to his little herd of cattle.

But the cattle, instead of waxing fat and prospering, began to grow thin. They developed a fever. They put their heads down and began to lick their hoofs. The local veterinary authorities had their attention directed to the case. The government came in, and the foot-and-mouth disease was officially declared extant in the United States.

The foot-and-mouth disease, which has caused a quarantine on live stock in so many States, is violently contagious among animals. It is characterized by sensitive sores on the tongue, palate, and hoofs of the animals. The sores become red and raw within a very short time, and cause the disease to spread rapidly to other cattle. Government experts have declared that the only way to stamp out the disease is to destroy all animals affected.

In the world-famous Union stockyards of Chicago infected cattle were killed in great droves, regardless of value, and were buried in quicklime to prevent any possible spread of the disease. Similar methods have been followed by cattle raisers of States where the quarantine is in force. The work of cleaning up and disinfecting the Chicago stockyards progressed rapidly. The only sign of excitement coincident with the shutting down of the yards was a shotgun onslaught on the hundreds of thousands of pigeons ordered killed by the State and government authorities. They were doomed as disease-germ carriers. The work of driving the rats from the yards was started. Poison fumes were sprayed into the holes and crevices in the brick pavements in those pens in which the work of cleaning and disinfecting had been completed.

In all the vast acreage of cattle pens, ordinarily marked by tossing horns and eddies of sheep and swine, there was little life save where men handling the disinfecting machine waged battle against the germ of the costly malady. The twenty-five miles of streets and alleys within the inclosures were wintry in appearance, snow white with the lime spread over them.

The resumption of slaughtering at the Chicago yards will not mean the restoration of business to its normal volume because the business in stockers and feeders will be affected. Two of the greatest cattle-producing States, Illinois and Iowa, are under the government ban because of the presence of the foot-and-mouth contagion. When Delaware was put under quarantine it was the thirteenth State in the list. By special order of the United States department of agriculture, Canada was included in the quarantine area. No evidence of foot-and-mouth disease had been discovered in the Dominion, but it was learned that infected cars had been sent over the border and the order was issued to prevent their return.

The government authorities took steps to prevent the disease from getting a foothold in the ranges and grazing sections of the West. “The government will kill all infected animals,” said Secretary of Agriculture Houston. “It will stop all movement of infected cattle from infected areas, and will do everything to localize the epidemic.”

That the foot-and-mouth disease cannot be transmitted to human beings by eating the flesh of diseased animals, but can be contracted by drinking unboiled milk or butter made from the milk of an infected cow, is the statement made by doctors who have studied the disease.

Fate Calls Upon a Modern Valjean.

This is a story of a few sheets of legal cap paper faded and yellow with age, a modern Jean Valjean, whose quarter of a century of peace and industry may end in a black cloud of misery and death, and a passionate crime in which brother slays brother.

Unlike Victor Hugo’s celebrated character, this modern Valjean has not mounted the rostrum of justice to proclaim his guilt and true self before the wide world, but, to the contrary, the man accused refuses to acknowledge the alleged facts and criminating evidence that the hand of the law spreads before him.

Recently carpenters moving an old desk in the district attorney’s office in Pittsburgh, Pa., accidentally broke open a locker, from which tumbled a number of dusty papers. Among them were the verdict and minutes of a coroner’s inquest and an indictment for murder. The papers recalled the crime of almost a quarter of a century ago.

In 1892, Joseph Gantt and his brother Frank were ex-convicts. Both had served their time, reformed, gone to work, and were living with their parents in Pittsburgh.

On the day before the murder, just twenty-two years ago, Frank Gantt was picked up by the police on the strength of his former record.

At the dinner table the following night, Joseph accused Frank of returning to his old ways of crime and bringing more disgrace on their aged parents. The charge resulted in an argument. The table was upset as both men jumped to their feet. The lamp was dashed to the floor and the room was in darkness.

When lights were restored, Frank was dead on the floor from a knife wound and Joseph was gone.

The story was told at the coroner’s inquest. Sisters and brothers were brought before the grand jury, and an indictment was returned.

Then Fate smiled on the man who wished to reform, tucked the papers in an out-of-the-way corner of the district attorney’s desk, and left them a score of years until her smile faded.

When Assistant District Attorney John Dunn brought the papers to the office of the county detective department in Pittsburgh, Detective E. E. Clark was interrogating Miss Ethel Reese in regard to another case. The girl is not as old as the musty papers.

“Ever hear of Joe Gantt?” asked Dunn.

“Not that I remember,” replied the detective.

“I have,” spoke up the girl. “He’s my uncle. His name is Clark now, and he lives in Chicago. Why?”

“Oh, nothing,” said Dunn, as he walked out of the office, making notes on his cuff.

Dunn and Detective Edeburn came to Chicago. With the assistance of Captain Halpin, of the detective bureau, and two other Chicago detectives, they began to hunt for “Clark.” They located the man. His arrest followed. Then Miss Reese arrived in Chicago with Detective Clark.

“That’s Uncle Joe,” she said, when she confronted “Clark” in Captain Halpin’s office. “He came back to Pittsburgh to visit us last spring. Why is he arrested?”

“He is wanted for the murder of your Uncle Frank,” replied the captain. The girl fainted.

Meanwhile, the man—whether Clark, Gantt, or Ghent, as the Pittsburgh newspaper twenty-two years ago called him—is silent except to insist that he is Frank J. Clark and not Gantt. He refuses to recognize the girl.

During the last twenty-two years the man says he has lived “clean.” He worked all over the country. He served his country against Spain in ’98. He fought at Santiago as a member of the Fifth Mississippi Volunteers—known as “the Immunes,” because all the men in it were immune to tropical fevers.

Last of all, Gantt married and settled down in a little home at 2128 West Harrison Street. He has been working as a structural ironworker.

His wife is a deaf mute—the man himself is now approaching the sixty-year mark—and the smile of the kindly Fate has faded.

Ocean-to-ocean Auto Travel.

With the exception of such slight improvements as may be made during the winter months, the principal transcontinental routes are now in approximately the shape they will be at the beginning of the heavy travel to the Pacific Coast Exposition early next year.

Late reports to the American Automobile Association from all quarters indicate that the road improvements on the principal cross-country lines during 1914 have been underestimated. This is particularly the case on the western end of the “Northwest Trail.”

The cities, counties, and towns on the line of the Lincoln Highway in the Far West have also made very great improvements. The “All-Southern Route” as a whole has been greatly improved during 1914, and will not present very serious difficulties to tourists who decide to go leisurely across that way in 1915.

Maps and specific information can be had by addressing A. A. A. headquarters, Riggs Building, Washington, D. C.

Indian Waif-king to Assemble Tribe.

He is king of the remnant of a great race now scattered to the winds—David Seattle, of the Snohomish tribe. Lean as a wolf was the king, and footsore with far travels, when he entered the office of the Seattle Star, asking that paper to help him in locating his widely dispersed tribesfolk.

Until a few moons ago he did not know he was king, this stolid Indian lad, who had been placed in St. Joseph’s School, in Tacoma, when a baby. He did not remember when he came or who brought him there. On the register he is simply “David Seattle.” No hint of royal inheritance appeared to mar his democratic playing and boyish quarreling with school companions. Assertions of kinship would only have served to call down upon him the wrath of his playmates, and who were certain that royalty rode on magnificent chargers and was heralded with blaring trumpets.

Charlie David Seattle, only living son of Chief Seattle I., waits for death. He is very old, and his work is done.

There came to him not long ago in Snohomish an Indian of another tribe. “I met one of your people in Seattle,” he confided. “His name is like yours—David Seattle.”

The old man, strangely excited, came to the city and found David.

“Where,” he asked, “were you born? And who was your father?”

“I do not know,” said the young Indian. “I was put in St. Joseph’s School when a baby.” And he told the old patriarch all he knew, which was little enough, though it served.

“It was I who put you there,” said Charlie David Seattle. “Your father was dead some time before. I took you from your dead mother’s arms. You are the oldest son of the oldest son of Chief Seattle. You are the head of the Snohomish people.”

It was thus plain David Seattle learned he was a king.

Chief David Seattle has been visiting as many of his people as he has been able to locate. Sometimes he bought railroad tickets. At other times he stole rides on freight trains. And often he walked. He went to Oregon, wandering east of the Cascades, journeying to remote corners of the Olympic Peninsula. Finally he reached the northern end of British Columbia. Wherever he heard of Snohomish Indians there he went.

“There are,” he said, “two thousand three hundred of my people left. Of these I have visited two thousand. They were glad to see me.”

That is why he appealed to the white man’s newspaper—to help him find the other three hundred.