Show in this way 88 by LYLE SPENCER 0 western weste m New siper piper union I 1 I 1 I 1 how did Bo bonus nuil originate nate HE bonus checks paid out i recently T THE to our veterans of the world war gladdened the heart of many an ex soldier while this bonus was undoubtedly the biggest given by a any ny country in the history of the world worl d it was by no means tile the first the word bonus comes from latin and meins means good it has always been used in english in the sense of gift in great britain it was first applied to dividends dis tributes tri trl buted from the surplus of life in aurance companies in america it was used in the industrial and corn com mercial world to designate apay a payment above that expected whether I 1 an extra dividend to stockholders or an extra pay check to wage waga earners later the term was applied to sums of money given to men as an inducement to join thearty th the earmy army and only since the world war has it been T given to compensation for army or naval service the original veterans adjustment compensation granted to all world war veterans by congress in 1924 was a bonus in the form of a paid up endo endowment w insurance policy while never called that before the practice of giving bonuses for mill military taij se service arvi ii isan Is an aldone old one even george washington received a parcel of land and a sum of money from th the estate state of virginia virgin for his part in the french and ind indian war and abraham Lin tioW was given a piece of land in iowa for his services in the die blackhawk war except for his home in springfield illinois it was about the only real estate lie he ever owned I 1 i the first envelopes I 1 HUNDRED years ago the busta L ness of posting letters was arl an e expensive and difficult job in the first place there was no such thing as an adhesive postage stamp and even worse there was no such thing a as a modem amodea envelope in those days when travel was slow and hazardous relatively few people ever had bad occasion to write letters the few who did wrote their mess messages ageson on one side of f the note paper only and carefully wrapped it up so that none of the writing showed then they either paid the postmen postman directly or sent it postage collect the reason envelopes were so seldom used was because an extra cha charge rie was ride made for any paper no matter how small when wrapped up in another A few wrappers that might be ba called envelopes had been used in franco france early in the devent seventeenth benth centar century V and a few were wera eisold sold in in england as early as 1830 but the first american to manti tat ue envelopes was named Pl Pier erbon sun who in 1839 began to sell theman them in his fulton street stationers stationery Station ers shop jin in new york city the united states mall service ervice has come a long way since tho those s se early times the pony express which numbered buffalo bill among its brave brace riders w was as a thrilling if brief interlude the first time mall mail was carried on a railroad train marked the beginning of a new era in communication and the way that our modernized unde uncle sam am delivers literally billions of pieces of mall mail annually with efficiency and speed is a tribute attribute to our unexcelled form of government origin of chinese laundrymen THE HE chinese are admittedly the best hand laundrymen in the world no american town would be complete without its chink and his hole in the wall laundry the chinese arst first got into the clothes washing business through i a queer set of circumstances ba back c k in the sears around the california gold rush of 1849 miners on the west coast found they ther were unable to I 1 hire people to do menial labor tor for love or money everyone had come to california to dig tor for gold and nothing else so desperate did their straits beco become m e that many sent their clothes all the way to hawaii and even td to china to tb have them wi washed shied this was chinas cainas original contact with the american laundry business when the first transcontinental railway line waw wa being built many years later whole shiploads ship loads of chi nese were imported importe d because i e of their cheapness and industry d u try t to work on 60 the road bed after the line was finished many chinese wanted to remain and ind make their fortu fortune neIn in the new land of opportunity but they quickly found that due to temperamental and language barriers the doors of most businesses were closed to them rn they had to find a bu business requiring airing little hule capital or education and n d where they would be their own wn masters an and d have few c contacts with kith westerners th the el laundry aundry busin business ess vas one of the few which met these requirements many mani 0 of f the original chinese and their de descendants cendan ts have become well to do irl in it |