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Show ... THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1938 Prune Tree- From France The first prune trees were brought to the United States from France by Louis Pellier in 1856 to what is now the Santa Clara valley in California. Cali-fornia. The French trees were first grafted on the wild plum root, and later on cultivated plum trees. Re-Strike Coins Re-strikes of coins are pieces ' made from the original dies, but at a later period than the date on the coin. Among the American coins are found re-strikes of the dollar of ' 1804, and of the half-cents of 1831, 1836, and 1840 to 1849. Larger Than Niagara Falls The Iguazu waterfalls, near the point where Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil meet, are two and a half times wider than Niagara falls and twice as high. Birds Once Had Teeth The old expression "As scarce as hen's teeth," wouldn't always have been true ... in ancient times certain cer-tain birds, now extinct, had teeth and plenty of them. IT i r ;n .At? if v" THE PARK RECORD Camphor Trees Flourish On Malaria-Ridden Land In medicine camphor is used externally ex-ternally as a counter-irritant in sprains, rheumatic affections, bronchitis bron-chitis and other inflammatory conditions. condi-tions. Internally it is used for its calming influence in hysteria, general gen-eral nervousness and neuralgia. And it is also used as a heart stimulant, especially during low fevers and in pneumonia, having a stimulating effect ef-fect on circulation. Camphor trees can grow in any tropical or subtropical country, but flourish best on the malaria-ridden, snake-infested slopes of Formosa, where it rains 240 days a year, and where to this day Japan has to send ' troops to clear out the headhunters who kill the camphor workers, relates re-lates an authority in the Philadelphia Philadel-phia Record. In the 1850s two American Amer-ican merchants made a deal with the officials of Formosa to take the entire output, which is more than 75 per cent of the world's supply. They dredged the port, put up a lighthouse. The trade became so profitable that Townsend Harris, first U. S. ambassador to Japan, urged this government to buy Formosa. For-mosa. But the Civil war was in the offing, and the. chance passed, and the English stepped in. In 1895 China ceded Formosa to Japan, which made the camphor industry a gov ernment monopoly. Japan sells cam phor to the world through one firm, in London. Synthetic camphor has been made since 1906, but whenever it threatened threat-ened inroads into the natural supply, Japan cut prices. American production pro-duction of the synthetic jumped enormously right after the World war, when the influenza epidemic created an enormous demand. 7 2SS3&t ' - V - u . . ITS LABEL STILL CARRIES THE SIXTY-EIGHT YEAR OLD , - ASSURANCE . . ffTHERE IS NOTHING BETTER IN THE MARKET" KENTUCKY STRAIGHT BOURBON WHISKY BOTTLED IN BOND UNDER U.S. GOVERNMENT SUPERVISION 100 PROOF INSTANTLY RECOGNIZED FOR PREMIUM QUALITY Route of Lincoln Highway The Lincoln highway, which is, 3,384 miles long, connecting New York and San Francisco, begins in the East at New York City, and passes through Jersey City, Newark, New-ark, and Trenton, N. J.; Philadelphia, Philadel-phia, Lancaster, York, Chambers-burg Chambers-burg and Pittsburgh, Pa.; East Liverpool, Liv-erpool, Canton, Mansfield and Lima, Ohio; Fort Wayne, Elkhart, South Bend and Valparaiso, Ind. ; Chicago Heights, Aurora, Geneva, Rochelle and Dixon, 111.; Clinton, Cedar Rapids, Rap-ids, Marshalltown, Jefferson and Council Bluffs, Iowa; Omaha, Columbus, Co-lumbus, Grand Island, Kearney and North Platte, Neb. ; Cheyenne, Laramie, Lara-mie, Medicine Bow, Rawlins, Rock Springs and Evanston, Wyo.; Salt Lake City, Garfield, Tooele and Iba-pah, Iba-pah, Utah; Ely, Eureka, Carson City and Reno, Nev. ; and Truckee, Plac-erville, Plac-erville, Sacramento, Stockton and Oakland, Calif.. The Lincoln highway high-way is marked with red, white and blue markers bearing a blue letter "L" on a white field. Clarinet Perfect Instrument The clarinet usually has 18 holes in its slender hardwood body. Half are controlled by the fingers, half by keys. Clarinet comes from a Latin word, clarus, meaning clear, and in fullness of tone. It's the most perfect of wind instruments. .ft jr.. 1 V 4 r. " :V" NWV'PW. .."W. ' l li'nf hot fiRounw k- Mj """"" , - 0 A.-'-fr-""-- '.J -..,--. 4c's;s.,.l-." -ft. . HULL, Agent Phone 1S9 " - - Christmas Around the World e' , - f TSJ.' V- 4 '0 Eaci ami as otrn Yuletidecustoms. Above, at New York' Rockefeller Rocke-feller Center, carolers sing nightly before Christmas. In the Italian Alps, risht, children pray before a wayside t shrine. . . .Jf - 5 . s ''t, V-.'' .' f-j!?r ,. . y (' ' , ' t i m rs. ' ; -tj.! Vl?r v4. .-' ; r ' All lt'l ' si - k v N Kl .in V Above, dressed in fancy cos- . - t j tumes, Polish children stage S V, ""V J-rfi ' scenes rom biblical lore and sing religious songs, serenading the homes of villagers. ii tropical Cairo, in Egypt, European visitors erect their Christmas tree in the shadow of the pyramids. Left: Stockholm, Stock-holm, Siceden, street decorations. I 111 T i , J, - ? ism Few; ceremonies are more colorful than those of Rumania, where villagers portray the three wise men, shepherds and an angel. i i i 4 : ft l Tromso, Norway, most northern part of Europe boasting a radio station, residents listen to the story of ChrisCs birth. 1 r f - i ' 1J k Christmas service in a Russian Orthodox church. PAGE NINE ADVENTURERS' CLUB HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELFI Murder Ship HELLO EVERYBODY: You know, boys and girls, there are two kinds of adventures ad-ventures the kind that hits you like a ton of bricks and is all over in about five seconds, and the kind that sneaks up on you slowly and subtly and sticks with you until you're worn down to the point of exhaustion. And it's the latter sort of tale you're going to hear today the story of how Charles Mahler of Brooklyn, N. Y., stepped onto a boat weighing a hundred and forty-five pounds on a bright day in the winter of 1921, to stagger off it five days later weighing weigh-ing a scant one hundred and ten. Not many reducing addicts would want to follow Charley Mahler's formula for growing grow-ing thin, though, for it was sheer unadulterated terror that took the pounds off his body. Five days and nights of the most helpless fear he had ever experienced in his life. The story starts in the Dominican Republic, down in the West Indies. Charley had been working there for a sugar concern in La Romana, for about six months. He was off on a week's vacation in Santo Domingo Do-mingo City when orders came transferring him to Barahona, in the same country, where a new project was being started. Books Passage on Sailing Vessel. At about that time a strike in the steamship industry had tied up all the boats. Charley was told that there wouldn't be a steamer steam-er sailing for Barahona for three weeks. There are darned few railroads or motor road,? in the Dominican Republic, and none of them went where Charley wanted to go. It was a boat or nothing. noth-ing. So Charley did the only other thing he could do. He strolled down to the waterfront and booked a passage on a sailing vessel which was leaving port that night. It was supposed to be an overnight trip. Charley had heard strange tales about these sailing packets, so he left his belongings behind to be shipped by freight. Willi two guns In his pockets and a round of ammunition under his shirt he walked aboard the vessel. It was pitch He saw two dark figures on the deck. dark. His bed the only accommodation the boat afforded was a common com-mon wooden box placed on deck. Charley sat down on the box and watched the boat glide out of the harbor. They had barely reached the ocean when a storm blew up. Dark shadows began rising from the deck. There were 40 Haitian natives, also bound for Earahona. ' It was then that Charley discovered he was the only white man on the boat and the natives of those parts have been known to kill a white man for his shoes. The storm was now knocking the little sailing craft around with all the fury of a tropic cyclone. "Scared?" says Charley. "I was ossified." The captain himself was jet black, but I slipped him ten dollars for protection. He offered me the hospitality of his cabin. The odor of it damned near killed me. It was crawling with bedbugs and roaches and alive with rats and mice. When I awoke next morning I was really sick from sleeping there, but it was a safer bet than sleeping outside." That morning there wasn't a breath of air stirring. The captain had bad news for Charley when he awoke. The ship had been blown ten miles off its course and the steering gear was out of commission. The captain was depending entirely on the wind. If they waited long enough it WQuii eventually blow them to Barahona. Bara-hona. "That whole day," says Charley, "I sat staring at the natives and they sat looking at me. There was no food on the boat and the water had turned hot in the tropic heat. Toward evening I noticed several natives holding a conference and I felt trouble brewing. The blacks were getting hungry, and they'd take It out on me." And what was Charley going to do for sleep that night? He knew darned well he could never stand another night in the filthy, stuffy cabin. He spoke to the captain again and made another bargain. The captain stood the night watch at the wheel, and he agreed to watch over Charley while he slept near him on deck, his body lashed to the rail of the vessel. The Natives Become More Restless. But you don't get much sleep lashed to a railing. All night long Charley lay awake listening to the .snores of the natives around him and thinking of the comforts of home. The next day was hot and humid. Hunger gnawed at his innards, but he had to make the best of it. The natives were getting more and more restless. They eyed Charley's clothes with covetous looks that became be-came more and more insolent and apparent. And still there was no sign of the wind that would blow them into Barahona. That night, worn out by two days and nights of wakefulness, Charley fell asleep. Sometime in the dark hours he woke up suddenly, by sheer instinct In the dim light of a tropic moon he saw two dark figures creeping along the deck toward him two natives great, husky blacks with machetes in their mouths! "They didn't know my eyes were open," he says, "if they had known it I wouldn't be alive today. But their ignorance gave me an opportunity to draw my guns." Charley got those guns out just as the natives were taking their machetes from their mouths. He whipped up one gun and fired twice. In an instant, two men were dead on the deck and the whole snip was in an uproar. Dark figures came swarming toward him. The captain was a big, powerful fellow. Charley says he was built on the style of Harry Wills in his prime. He picked Charley up with one hand, threw him into his cabin head first, and then, with the aid of a revolver and his powerful physique, held that furious mob at bay. Captain Threatens to Sink the Ship. The next morning the captain held an inquiry, announced that j CharW had shot in self-defense, and threatened to sink the ship if a-y Ture attempts were made on his life. "Calm was restored 1 at las:," says Charley. "And in the meantime, for four solid days and s-'ghts we had nothing to eat and little to drink." On tve fifth day they sighted land but when they tied the boat up to sho're later on that day, Charley was too weak to walk the gangplank. They carried him up it, weighing a hundred and ten pounds all that was left of the hundred and forty-five pounds of good solid flesh he had carried when he got aboard that lugger at the waterfront of Santo Domingo Do-mingo Citj. Copyright. WNU Service. Meaning of Word Beccaficos The word beccaficos literally means fig-picker and is applied to a small, sparrowlike bird found in Cyprus. They arrive from Syria in enormous flocks to gorge on figs and become so fat they can scarcely fly. Their plump bodies ar salted and spiced and made into an excelnt pickie by a rare recipe handed dyvn from the Crusadrrs. In the process of pickling, the b- r "s are softened and the whole b'.r-- is eaten. Tusks Shipped to London Elephant tusks from the African and Indian jungles are shipped to London, says Pearson's London Weekly. Here an age-old trade, the cutting and selling of ivory to buyers buy-ers from all over the world, goes oa unchanged, much as it has for years. It takes 1,200 elephants to provide the market with ivory for one year. Few elephants are kHled for their tusks. Most of the ivory is collected by natives from dead elephants ele-phants found in the jungles. j |