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Show Drawing by Ray Waltors. -- . By ELMO SCOTT WATSON MMaHAT'lsfame! The dlctlon-.. dlctlon-.. ary, the court of last re-I re-I w sort in Questions of deflnl-t deflnl-t tlon, says It is "renown," &""!g" "celebrity," "that which I A A'vi'l causes one's name to be I jtOi' ' remembered." Arid in that 1 sV?(rl 'as': synonym'lies the Joker. IJ.Si'l For Fame Is a capricious B2!2Sf-i S00683 wno often loves I S2S3 t0 trick tliose whom she Im iimii i elevates to a position of distinction. Often she gives generously gen-erously with one hand and with the other suddenly takes her gift away. She promises that men's names will not be forgotten. So they, poor fools, burn out their lives to win "renown." And then they learn that the joke's on them. Their names are remembered but they themselves are forgotten 1 Scientists, Inventors and the like seem to be her favorite dupes. In this electrical age, and especially In these days of almost universal use of the radio, everyone uses the terms "watt," "volt," "ohm" and "ampere," but how many of us know anything about James Watt of" Scotland, Count Alas-sandro Alas-sandro Volta of Italy, George Simon Ohm of Germany or Andre Marie Ampere Am-pere of France? At least, their names survive In these common words even If they themselves are forgotten, but how about that modern Prometheus who made It possible for us to do away with the clumsy, old-fashioned method of starting a fire with flint and steel? How many persons can name the man who Invented the modern match? Very few, probably. Yet It was only ninety years ago that; Janos Irlnyl, a Hungarian analytical an-alytical chemist, was successful where his professor had failed and by using phosphorus Instead of sulphur, produced pro-duced a match that flared satisfactorily. satisfac-torily. He sold his Invention for about $30. In 1840 he founded a match factory fac-tory and seemed to be on the road to great wealth. Then the Hungarian revolution two years later stopped his work. He died In poverty In 1S95. We cherish the silhouettes of our ancestors as precious heirlooms because, be-cause, unless our forefathers were wealthy enough to have their portraits painted, these silhouettes are the only things which gie us any idea of how they looked. But we know nothing at all about Etiennne de Silhouette, a French minister of finance, except that somewhere we may have heard that he had a reputation for stinginess. We cherish also those old daguerreotypes of our grandparents or great-grand- parents, which tell us even better than does a silhouette how they looked. But do we ever think of M. Daguerre, the Frenchman, who In 1839 gave to the world this first form of modern photography as we now know It? Not much 1 When It raln3 we slip on a mackintosh, mackin-tosh, but we're not likely to stop even for a moment to be grateful to Charles Mackintosh of Manchester, England, whose invention of waterproof cloth makes It possible for us to keep dry. We motor smoothly over macadam roads with never a thought for John Loudon Macadam, who won fame (?) as a road engineer in Scotland. Along the way, we stop for a sandwich at some roadside stand, because like the Earl of Sandwich we want a light lunch which can be eaten with comfort com-fort as well as speed. If something goes wrong with the car, we open tho tool box and perhaps take out a still-son still-son wrench to fix It. (Yes, a man named Stlllson Invented this handy tool. But who was he, anyway?) And so It goes. On long railroad journeys we ride In comfort In pull-mau' pull-mau' cars and- it's doubtful If we ever give a thought to George Mortimer Pullman, the New York cabinetmaker who first transformed an old day coach into the first sleeping car. We may have a mansard roof on our house but we don't know that It's called that because a French architect named Mansard helped circumvent an old Paris law that tried to limit the height of houses by specifying the distance from the ground at which all roofs should begin. Nor Is the caprice of Fame confined to those to whom we should be most grateful because they have given us useful or Indispensable articles of every-day use. Did you ever say "I certainly am going to hand him a wallop wal-lop I" "Wallop" Is a perfectly good word In the English language and familiar fa-miliar to everyone. But who remembers remem-bers now a certain Sir John Wallop, a British general who Inflicted 60 many defeats upon the French that "Let's Wallop them !" became a by-word in England? If you ever have to "take a ride In the Black Maria" It may be some comfort com-fort to you to meditate upon the thought that you know why It's so-called so-called and that the policeman who arrested ar-rested you doesn't. So on the way to the station you might entertain him with the following historical facts: In the old colonial days, Maria Lee, a negress, kept a sailor's boarding house In Boston. A woman of great stature and strength, she not only had the whole lawless element of her part of town In awe of her, but she also helped the authorities keep the peac It 1 said that at one time she, unassisted, took three riotous sailors to the lockup lock-up and whenever a particularly troublesome person was to be subdued everybody Immediately said "send for Black Maria." So It appears that sh was not one to "let George do It!" In that respect she was different from Louis XII of France. Although himself him-self a strong ruler he was fortunate In having a prime minister who was a clever executive aud an able manager. Georges d'Ambolse was his name and as Louis learned more and more to depend upon him to perform disagreeable disagree-able tasks, more and more was the sovereign of France given to saying "Que Georges le fasse" (Let George do It!) Try this sentence on your neighbor: "When a man In defiance of the bone dry laws gets filled up with gin rlckeys he's likely to get reckless and let ,'er go gallagher." He probably will understand what you mean, all right. But ask hlra who was Bone and Rickey and Gallagher! If he can't answer, tell him this : John Bone was formerly sheriff of Chippewa Chippe-wa county, Mich., and through rigid enforcement of the early liquor laws In that state made his county extremely extreme-ly arid. So when the legislature passed the next nntl-llquor law It was named the Bone Dry bill. Col. Joseph K. Rickey of Fulton, Mo., Invented the drink called a gin rlckey. Gallagher (first name unknown) was city marshal of Harrodsburg, Ky. During a race meeting In Tipton county he was th5 driver of a fast trotting mare, entered In a race by Judge Beaver of Morgan county, which was looked upon as d certain winner. But some of the sporting sport-ing fraternity, hoping to catch tho Judgo unaware, Imported a famous fast trotter and entered the horse In the race. At the end of the first half mile, the two horses came down tho stretch, neck and neck, whereupon the Judge shouted "Let 'er go, Gallagher 1" Gallagher loosed the reins, the mare rushed forward and won the race by u dozen lengths. What is fame? Judging from all these examples fame Is a name and nothing more. Personified Fame is the goddess of caprice. She promises men that their names will not be forgotten and they think fche Is promising them that THEY will not bo forgotten. Or she may be the goddess of Jokes. Our children's children and their children after them may be riding rid-ing Hround In a ford and to them Henry will be Just a common nian'w name. For Fame loves her little joke even a Ford Joke. |