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Show ( A bird on a hat is worth two in the bush. ; I I The groundhog is extended our most distin- I guished consideration. t Considering the price of food products, every - l body is agreed they should be pure. . - i ; . No, gentle reader, a matinee idol on a limiting ; trip may not be referred to as a shooting star. ! Problem: If it keej).s a man rustling to make a . I living, why do some men attempt to 'live two lives?" - , . j ' Spring fever is nature's sign that the baekyard j needs a few energetic licks from the rake and shovel. . j It is peculiar that the more hands there are to I . handle legislative business the slower the business is handled. 1 ho way to be a Christian is to be as good as you can and then improve yourself along with I yur opportunities. When a greenhorn comes to town and blows himself he may properly be said to be on a toot. I The air he plays is usually hot, too. I f Jul American beer at Panama costs two-bits a gla53 I I in American money. Xo wonder resignations from I f the canal commission are so frequent. Spring may not be here, but the small boy has I . got out his marbles and may even be seen on the j I l vacant lots with his baseball and bat. n I I ' n The red nose, white face and blue hands of the j inebriate were not intended to be immortalized by i . j the author of the "Red, White and Blue." ! Packing houses, Standard Oil and life insurance companies have all tripped out of the limelight to make room for the railroad investigation. ! The "block"' system on railroads seems to be quite as successful in keeping the population down 1 1 as when, in the olden days, an ox went with it. I Aerial navigation would be assured if we could ( attach ourselves to the wings of the morning or could hang on to the almighty dollar as it takes its flight. Ordinary people have been told so often to save' their pennies that the theme is threadbare, espe- cially in view of the spendthrift habits of several of our billionaires. "With Rockefeller and Carnegie vying with each other in making donations to educational objects, college professors and teachers may have hopes for an increase in pay. "Purple will be Uie fashionable color for men's wear this summer," says a London tailor's magazine. maga-zine. Too bad! Heathenish Americans never did look well in purple knickerbockers. STlial all of the recent seismic disturbances have been at seaport towns is noteworthy. One or two more disasters will result in Ihc people harking back to a study of the ancient prophecies. A rigidly enforced law punishing people who don't pay their debts would soon put collection ajrenoies out of business. The existence of these Institutions dependsiiipon dishonesty among the people, ond their nee.Vi recognized by nearly every i ?nan doing a credit business. But Jibuti within the ill.- I i agencies is no less reprehensible, and should be dealt with in the same manner as dishonesty without. with-out. Jail both. Spelling reform for sign painters would be welcomed wel-comed by almost everybody. "Xo hunting aloud" is a greeting on a farm south of town. Prosperity for the prosperous seems to be the kind the nation is enjoying, with the wage earners scrambling for a slice of the pie. and getting a bite incidentally here and there, too. The people of Washington are demanding 7.")-cent 7.")-cent gas. Obviously the brand furnished by senators sen-ators has no real illuminating properties, and it seems to heat up nobody but the senators themselves. The odorous cigarette is having a light for life ju.-t now in ihe legislature, and the bill prohibiting its sale should be passed, with a cheap perfumery, vile cigar and chewing gum prohibition added to the measure. Cienius is as rare as sunflower in the desert j almost. The world is looking for it, and when one possessing any predominant ability is discovered, j he is immediately dragged forth and made the lion J of the hour. Let's be a genius. In commenting on the English channel tunnel scheme the Manchester (England) Guardian says the British nary cannot protect the country against raids. Britons need protection against themselves rather than from any foreign enemy. Ohio courts will have to get busy if they want to collect that $00,000,000 fine against Standard Oil. for if John D. continues giving his money away they will discover that there really is no blood to be squeezed out of a turnip. .Some individuals bent on reform are again patiently pa-tiently awaiting the arrival of a new year to put ' their good resolutions into effect. If a man can't quit anything in February or March it's a cinch he won't quit on January 1. Lent is a good time to renew good resolutions. Two peculiar features are noted in newspapers coming from Mexico and Manitoba. Subscriptions to the Mexican paper are $12 a year in Mexico, and $7 a year in the United States. The Canadian paper pa-per speaks of 13. 14 and on up to 24 o'clock, which latter is the midnight hour.. Dealing in futures has been declared illegal in Illinois. Still, we see daily quotations on future deliveries of wheat, corn, oats, pork and lard, in the press reports of the Chicago markets. Perhaps the decision of the supreme court affects only the future life of the citizens of the state. t When the United States senate recognizes next month, there will be a dozen new members who will take their seats. The Republicans will have one more than two-thirds of the membership fit votes to the Democrats' 29 enough to raify any treaty or carry any partisan measure into effect. The senate of the Utah legislature has passed the bill providing for a commisison to run the city government of Salt Lake. If the house concurs and the measure is enacted into law, our city fathers fath-ers should urge a broadening of the principle to include in-clude the state, and thus do away with the legislature. legisla-ture. War is a hideous thing, and it never, did and never will prove anything beyond the relative strength of the warriors. The country has many laws against prize fights, cock fighting and dog fights, to say nothing of bull fights and street fights. But when nations go to war, it shows that their morality is really only skin deep. j George Washington was a great sleeper. The hostelries at which tho father of his country ''once slept'' are great in number even at this late day. One such in Philadelphia was sold recently, but everybody in Philadelphia is supposed to be asleep, and the wonder is that Washington ever woke up to go to Yorktown to receive Cornwallis' sword. It is much easier to keep an account of the disasters dis-asters than of the direful predictions of modern propheciers. When a prophet guesses anything near right he rises up In his might and says. "I told you so," but his wrong guesses he, like the rest of humanity, forgets. And it is a poor prophet who can't strike it right these days if he confines himself him-self to earthquake perdictions. The man of figures down at Washington says America's wealth is increasing at the rate of $10,- 000,000 a day. In a year this amounts to $3,050,- 000,000; in an hour, to $410,006.66; in a second but why go on i The nation's wealth increases at the rate of $4 an hour for each individual in it, estimating population at 100,000,000, or $!)G a day. Very interesting. Our prosperity is great! The Society for the Prevention of L'nneeessary Xoises in Xew York has started a movement toward to-ward the abolition of bell ringing. Whatever may bo the result in that city, and no doubt the church bells do rouse from their slumbers some whose work keeps them up at night, it is safe to say that the church bell in rural centers will continue to call the good people together for divine worship. People Peo-ple born and raised in cities have no appreciation of the bell. Out in the country, far from the uproar up-roar of the city, where the clang of gongs, the shriek of whistles, the clatter of hoofs on the paved streets and the htousand and one noises of manufacturing manu-facturing and commercial centers never penetrate, the church bell's chiming as it floats over hill and vale calls thvpeople together like. the voice of the unseen God to worship. The sound of the bell is an inspiration even to those who do not attend the services. It is a call to every one for miles around to lay aside the work and give one day to the Creator Crea-tor of all. yaT from being a disturbing noise, it is music to eager listening ears. And the dismal tolling toll-ing of the bells, first announcement that death has visited the community, what words could tell so gently the sad message to all the neighborhood? AJi the things that touch the hearts of men and brmg him nearer to his God are borne upon the message of the bells as the gentle breezes waft the sound across the fields and over the hills to every home for miles around. The country church bell will continue-to ring even after Gotham has forgotten for-gotten the sound ,even if Gotham forget there is a God. When a great state like Wisconsin can run il state government without any general taxation for its support, it seems that something is wrong in Utah when an amendment to the constitution providing pro-viding for an increased rate is recommended. A recommendation for a commission to investigate Wisconsin's, methods of taxation with the purpose of adoption in Utah would appeal more strongly to the people than a recommendation to increase the levy. ' A good workman usually cams all he is paid for his services, and sometimes more. When you get your wages, just figure out for yourself how much time you lost standing around or being told how to do your work, and what proportion of the foreman's fore-man's wages were paid to him to see that you did your work and did it right. The man that is paid : big money is the man who can plan and execute and whose work requires no supervision. When you have to be told how and why to do a certain task, the man who instructs you is being paid money mon-ey that would go into your pocket if his services were not required. Deserve more by earning more, and you will get it. The great railroads of the country have so much water in their stocks ,nnd Are so vulgarly prosperous prosper-ous that they haven't enough money to improve their equipment. When 'the traffic of a railroad produces pro-duces sufficient revenue to pay more than interest on the cost of the road, it is evident that the business bus-iness of the road is good enough to warrant improvements im-provements with the excess earnings or that the rates of transportation should be reduced, that the general public may be benefited. Efforts to nay dividends on watered stocks instead of increasing the facilities for transporting freight and passengers passen-gers with the excess earnings of the roads is the prime cause for conges and lack of aeobmmo- dati'on of. which the p'V'"mvl','v si- the reant. time. Railroads make money by carrying freight.' They are in business to make money, business busi-ness has grown by leaps and bounds during the last few years. The increase has run away from the ability of the road's to handle it. On those road where business has not overleaped the facilities, the profits may justly be distributed among the stockholders, stock-holders, but on congested roads, due to lack of cars or motive power, or inadequacy of trackage, the public has a right to demand, and does demand, that the business be taken care of, and that they should nto be tampered by any disingenuous plea for dividends. The railroads must expand in mileage mile-age to meet the ever-expanding growth of the country; coun-try; must provide more equipment in congested centers; must see and make preparation for unusual un-usual demands made upon them. With it all they must be conservative, lest their very efforts to accommodate ac-commodate the public result in a real menace to the prosperity now so abundant. In comparison with the growth of the country and of their business, the expansion of mileage and equipment of the railroads has been ridiculously small, while new stock issues have been ridiculously large. The reversal re-versal of this condition is what the people want, and their wishes in the matter will be satisfied, if not by the roads through their own initiative, then through a supervision by the government. |