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  ["The Nest-Builder"] = "outbound from liverpool the lusitania bucked down the irish sea against a september gale aft in her secondclass quarters each shouldering from the waves brought a sickening vibration as one or another of the ships great propellers raced out of water the gong had sounded for the second sitting and trails of hungry and weary travelers trooping down the companionway met files of still more uneasy diners emerging from the saloon the grinding jar of the vessel the heavy smell of food and the pound of ragtime combined to produce an effect as of some sordid and demoniac orgyan effect derided by the smug respectability of the saloons furnishings stefan byrd taking in the scene as he balanced a precarious way to his seat felt every hypercritical sense rising in revolt even the prosaic but admirably efficient table utensils repelled him they are so useful so abominably enduring he thought the mahogany trimmings of doors and columns seemed to announce from every overpolished surface a pompous selfsufficiency each table proclaimed the aesthetic level of the second class through the lifeless leaves of a rubber plant and two imitation cutglass dishes of tough fruit the stewards casually hovering lacked the democracy which might have humanized the steerage as much as the civility which would have oiled the workings of the first cabin byrd resented their ministrations as he did the heavy english dishes of the bill of fare there were no continental passengers near him he had left the dear french tongue behind and his ears homesick already shrank equally from the seesaw lancashire of the stewards and the monotonous rasp of returning americans byrds left hand neighbor a clergyman of uncertain denomination had tried vainly for several minutes to attract his attention by clearing his throat passing the salt and making measured requests for water bread and the like i presume sir he at last inquired loudly that you are an american and as glad as i am to be returning to our country no sir retorted byrd favoring his questioner with a withering stare i am a bohemian and damnably sorry that i ever have to see america again the man of god turned away pale to the temples with offensea highbosomed matron opposite emitted a shocked ohthe faces of the surrounding listeners assumed expressions either dismayed or deprecating budding conversationalists were temporarily frostbitten and the watery helpings of fish were eaten in a constrained silence but with the inevitable roast beef a scot of unshakeable manner decorated with a yellow foreheadlock as erect as a striking cobra turned to follow up what he apparently conceived to be an opportunity for discussion im not so strongly partial to the states mysel ye ken but ill confess its a grand place to mak money ye would be going there perhaps to improve your fortunes byrd was silent also continued the scot quite unrebuffed it would be interesting to know what exactly ye mean when ye call yoursel a bohemian would ye be referring to your tastes now or to your nationality his hand trembling with nervous temper byrd laid down his napkin and rose with an attempt at dignity somewhat marred by the viselike clutch of the swivel chair upon his emerging legs my mother was a bohemian my father an american neither happily was scotch said he almost stammering in his attempt to control his extreme distaste of his surroundingsand hurried out of the saloon leaving a table of dropped jaws behind him the young man is nairvous contentedly boomed the scot im thinking hell be feeling the sea already what kind of a place would bohemia be dye think to have a mother from turning to the clergyman a place of evil life seemingly answered that worthy in his highpitched carrying voice i shall certainly ask to have my seat changed i cannot subject myself for the voyage to the neighborhood of a man of profane speech the table nodded approval a traitor to his country too said a pursy little man opposite snapping his jaws shut like a turtle a bony new england spinster turned deprecating eyes to him my she whispered shrilly he was just terrible wasnt he but so handsome i cant help but think it was more seasickness with him than an evil nature meanwhile the subject of discussion who would have writhed far more at the spinsters palliation of his offense than at the mens disdain lay in his tiny cabin a prey to an attack of that nervous misery which overtakes an artist out of his element as surely and speedily as air suffocates a fish stefan byrds table companions were guilty in his eyes of the one unforgivable sinthey were ugly ugly alike in feature dress and bearing they had for him absolutely no excuse for existence he felt no bond of common humanity with them in his lexicon what was not beautiful was not human and he recognized no more obligation of good fellowship toward them than he would have done toward a company of groundhogs he lay back one fine and nervous hand across his eyes trying to obliterate the image of the saloon and all its inmates by conjuring up a vision of the world he had left the winsome young cosmopolitan paris of the art student the streets the cafés the studios his few men his many women friendsadolph jensen the kindly swede who loved him louise nanette the little polish yanina who had said they loved him the slantingglanced turkish students the grave syrians the democratic unbritish londonersthe smell the glamour of paris returned to him with the nostalgia of despair these he had left to what did he go",
  ["The Boy Scouts of Woodcraft Camp"] = "in the semidarkness of daybreak a boy of fourteen jumped from a pullman sleeper and slipped a quarter into the hand of the dusky porter who handed down his luggage you are sure this is upper chain he inquired spects it is boss but i aint no ways sho aint never been up this way afore replied the porter yawning sleepily the boy vainly strove to pierce the night mist which shrouded everything in ghostly gray hoping to see the conductor or a brakeman but he could see barely half the length of the next pullman a warning rumble at the head of the long train admonished him that he must act at once he must make up his mind to stay or he must climb aboard again and that quickly the long night ride had been a momentous event to him he had slept little partly from the novelty of his first experience in a sleeping car and partly from the excitement of actually being on his way into the big north woods the mecca of all his desires and daydreams consequently he had kept a fairly close record of the trains running time dozing off between stations but waking instantly whenever the train came to a stop according to his reckoning he should now be at upper chain he had given the porter strict orders to call him twenty minutes before reaching his destination but to his supreme disgust he had had to perform that service for the darkey that worthy had then been sent forward to find the conductor and make sure of their whereabouts unsuccessful he had returned just in time to hand down the lads duffle now as the preliminary jerk ran down the heavy train the boy once more looked at his watch and made up his mind if the train was on time and he felt sure that it was this was upper chain the junction where he was to change for the final stage of his journey he would stay the dark heavy sleepers slowly crept past as the train gathered way till suddenly he found himself staring for a moment at the red and green tail lights then they grew dim and blinked out in the enveloping fog he shivered a bit for the first time realizing how cold it was at this altitude before daybreak and to be quite honest there was just a little feeling of loneliness as he made out the dim black wall of evergreens on one side and the long string of empty freight cars shutting him in on the other the whistle of the laboring locomotive shrieked out of the darkness ahead reverberating with an eery hollowness from mountain to mountain involuntarily he shivered again then with a boyish laugh at his momentary loss of nerve he shouldered his duffle bag and picked up his fishingrod must be a depot here somewhere and its up to me to find it he said aloud wonder what i tipped that stupid porter for anyway dad would say im easy guess i am all right brrrr who says this is july trudging along the ties he soon came to the end of the string of empties and a little way to his right made out the dim outlines of a building this proved to be the depot a moment later he was in the bare stuffy little waitingroom in the middle of which a big stove was radiating a welcome warmth on a bench at one side sat two roughlydressed men who glanced up as the boy entered one was in the prime of vigorous manhood broad of shoulder large of frame he was spare with the leanness of the professional woodsman who lives up to the rule that takes nothing useless on the trail and therefore cannot afford to carry superfluous flesh the gray flannel shirt falling open at the neck exposed a throat which like his face was roughened and bronzed by the weather the boy caught the quick glance of the keen blue eyes which for all their kindly twinkle bored straight through him instinctively he felt that here was one of the very men his imagination had so often pictured a man skilled in woodcraft accustomed to meeting danger clearheaded resourcefulin fact just such a man as was deerslayer whose rifle had so often roused the echoes in these very woods the man beside him was short thickset blackhaired and marebrowed his skin was swarthy with just a tinge of color to hint at indian ancestry among his french forebears he wore the large check mackinaw of the french canadian lumberman against the bench beside him rested a doublebladed axe a pair of beady black eyes burned their way into the boys consciousness they were not good eyes they seemed to carry a hint of hate and evil an unspoken threat the man taking in the new khaki suit of the boy and the unsoiled case of the fishingrod grunted contemptuously and spat a mouthful of tobacco juice into the box of sawdust beside the stove the boy flushed and turned to meet the kindly luminous eyes of the other man if you please is this upper chain he inquired",
  ["True Stories of the Great War"] = "other whisperings there were of the storm that was so soon to burst on the world in the ominous silence there were rumours of a certain change that was coming over the spirit of the kaiser for long years he had been credited with a sincere love of peace and a ceaseless desire to restrain the forces about him that were making for war although constantly occupied with the making of a big army and inspiring it with great ideals he was thought to have as little desire for actual warfare as his ancestor frederick william had shown while gathering up his giant guardsmen and refusing to allow them to fight particularly it was believed in berlin not altogether graciously that his affection for and even fear of his grandmother queen victoria would compel him to exhaust all efforts to preserve peace in the event of trouble with great britain but victoria was dead and king edward might perhaps be smiled atbehind his backand then a younger generation was knocking at the kaisers door in the person of his eldest son who represented forces which he might not long be able to hold in check how would he act now thousands of persons in this country had countless opportunities before the war of forming an estimate of the kaisers character i had only one and it was not of the best for years the english traveller abroad felt as if he were always following in the track of a grandiose personality who was playing on the scene of the world as on a stage fond as an actor of dressing up in fine uniforms of making pictures scenes and impressions and leaving his visible mark behind himas in the case of the huge gap in the thick walls of jerusalem torn down it was said with his consent to let his equipage pass through in rome i saw a man who was a true son of his ancestors never had the laws of heredity better justified themselves frederick william frederick the great william the firstthe hohenzollerns were all there the glittering eyes the withered arm the features that gave signs of frightful periodical pain the immense energy the gigantic egotism the ravenous vanity the fanaticism amounting to frenzy the dominating power the dictatorial temper the indifference to suffering whether his own or other peoples the overbearing suppression of opposing opinions the determination to control everybodys interest everybodys worki thought all this was written in the kaisers masterful face then came stories one of my friends in rome was an american doctor who had been called to attend a lady of the emperors household well doctor whats she suffering from said the kaiser the doctor told him nothing of the kindyoure entirely wrong shes suffering from so and so said the majesty of germany stamping up and down the room at length the american doctor lost control sir he said in my country we have a saying that one bad practitioner is worth twenty good amateursyoure the amateur the doctor lived through it frederick william would have dragged him to the window and tried to fling him out of it william ii put his arm round the doctors shoulder and said i didnt mean to hurt you old fellow let us sit down and talk a soldier came with another story after a sham fight conducted by the kaiser the generals of the german army had been summoned to say what they thought of the royal manœuvers all had formed an unfavourable opinion yet one after another with some insincere compliment had wriggled out of the difficulty of candid criticism but at length came an officer who said sir if it had been real warfare today there wouldnt be enough wood in germany to make coffins for the men who would be dead the general lived through it tooat first in a certain disfavour but afterwards in recovered honour such was the kaiser who a year ago had to meet the mighty wind of war he was in norway for his usual summer holiday in july 1914 when affairs were reaching their crisis rumour has it that he was not satisfied with the measure of the information that was reaching him therefore he returned to berlin somewhat to the discomfiture of his ministers intending it is said for various reasons not necessarily humanitarian to stop or at least postpone the war if so he arrived too late he was told that matters had gone too far they must go on now very well if they must they must he is reported to have said and there is the familiar story that after he had signed his name on the first of august to the document that plunged europe into the conflict that has since shaken it to its foundations he flung down his pen and cried youll live to regret this gentlemen",
  ["The Food Question"] = "from the days of ancient egypt when joseph who stood at the head of the great food conservation movement of the time called the attention of the world to the need of food economy down through history to the present time the human race has passed through numerous crises when the questions of food production and food economy have been vital that hebrew promoted to the first place in the egyptian empire because of his wonderful grasp of a world problem and his executive ability enabled that kingdom to feed the world america today as egypt of old is an international granary and is asked to feed the nations and her populationevery man woman and childmust coöperate with americas joseph today in meeting the situation by proper production proper conservation and strict economy this war is a food war even more than it is a gun war let us fight to save lives that is the battle to be won through food economy pg 8 it was when the roman world was running riot that on the shores of the sea of galilee christ gave his wonderful lesson on the subject of food conservation we call it a miracle when with five thousand men besides the women and the children seated about him he fed the multitudes that same power is today and always has been feeding the men of earth from a basket of seed each recurring harvest puts thousands of loaves of bread into the hands of the worlds hungry the two small fishes continue to multiply rich and poor alike are fed by the great provider and now as then after human wants are met the mandate goes forth gather up the fragments that remain that nothing be lost economy is again being preached as it was once taught on the shores of galilee there has been started a great educational movement for increased food production but that is only a part of the message gather up the fragments prevent waste utilize the scraps the gospel of a clean platethese are all familiar phrases in the great conservation movement of today by many food conservation and food economy are deemed not only national problems but a part of the divine message taught by christ and his disciples the great world war which began in 1914 has compelled every nation to halt and consider its national habits undoubtedly the united states is the most prodigal of nations approximately sixty per cent of its population is now urban simple rural life is practically gone and those artificial and extravagant standards of the city which destroy body mind and soul have taken its place fullness of bread and abundance of idleness two of the reasons assigned by the scriptures for the downfall of sodom are conditions which today are ruining american civilization no other nation has ever indulged such extravagance and prodigality as has the united statespg 9 we search the world over for table delicacies american inventive genius has made it possible to have foods from all parts of the world both in season and out of season the arts of canning and preserving and the making of factory foods have loaded our cupboard shelves with eatables of which our fathers never dreamed while this interchange has its advantages and we should appreciate the privilege of eating the wholesome products of other countries yet when easy methods of transportation lead people to limit their productions to money crops forsaking the raising of their own food a wrong principle has been introduced the benefit to be derived from this variety of imported food is neutralized by the extravagant habits and tastes thus cultivated",
  ["Principles of Decorative Design"] = "there are many handicrafts in which a knowledge of the true principles of ornamentation is almost essential to success and there are few in which a knowledge of decorative laws cannot be utilised the man who can form a bowl or a vase well is an artist and so is the man who can make a beautiful chair or table these are truths but the converse of these facts is also true for if a man be not an artist he cannot form an elegant bowl nor make a beautiful chair at the very outset we must recognise the fact that the beautiful has a commercial or money value we may even say that art can lend to an object a value greater than that of the material of which it consists even when the object be formed of precious matter as of rare marbles scarce woods or silver or gold this being the case it follows that the workman who can endow his productions with those qualities or beauties which give value to his works must be more useful to his employer than the man who produces objects devoid of such beauty and his time must be of higher value than that of his less skilful companion if a man who has been born and brought up as a son of toil has that laudable ambition which causes him to seek to rise above his fellows by fairly becoming their superior i would say to him that i know of no means of his so readily doing so as by his acquainting himself with the laws of beauty and studying till he learns to perceive the difference between the beautiful and the ugly the graceful and the deformed the refined and the coarse to perceive delicate beauties is not by any means an easy task to those who have not devoted themselves to the consideration of the beautiful for a long period of time and of this be assured that what now appears to you to be beautiful you may shortly regard as less so and what now fails to attract you may ultimately become charming to your eye in your study of the beautiful do not be led away by the false judgment of ignorant persons who may suppose themselves possessed of good taste it is common to assume that women have better taste than men and some women seem to consider themselves the possessors of even authoritative taste from which there can be no appeal they may be right only we must be pardoned for not accepting such authority for should there be any overestimation2 of the accuracy of this good taste serious loss of progress in artjudgment might result it may be taken as an invariable truth that knowledge and knowledge alone can enable us to form an accurate judgment respecting the beauty or want of beauty of an object and he who has the greater knowledge of art can judge best of the ornamental qualities of an object he who would judge rightly of artworks must have knowledge let him who would judge of beauty apply himself then to earnest study for thereby he shall have wisdom and by his wise reasonings he will be led to perceive beauty and thus have opened to him a new source of pleasure artknowledge is of value to the individual and to the country at large to the individual it is riches and wealth and to the nation it saves impoverishment take for example clay as a natural material in the hands of one man this material becomes flowerpots worth eighteenpence a cast a number varying from sixty to twelve according to size in the hands of another it becomes a tazza or a vase worth five pounds or perhaps fifty it is the art which gives the value and not the material to the nation it saves impoverishment a wise policy induces a country to draw to itself all the wealth that it can without parting with more of its natural material than is absolutely necessary if for every pound of clay that a nation parts with it can draw to itself that amount of gold which we value at five pounds sterling it is obviously better thus to part with but little material and yet secure wealth than it is to part with the material at a low rate either in its native condition or worked into coarse vessels thereby rendering a great impoverishment of the native resources of the country necessary in order to its wealth men of the lowest degree of intelligence can dig clay iron or copper or quarry stone but these materials if bearing the impress of mind are ennobled and rendered valuable and the more strongly the material is marked with this ennobling impress the more valuable it becomes i must qualify my last statement for there are possible cases in which the impress of mind may degrade rather than exalt and take from rather than enhance the value of a material to ennoble the mind must be noble if debased it can only debase let the mind be refined and pure and the more fully it impresses itself upon a material the more lovely does the material become for thereby it has received the impress of refinement and purity but if the mind be debased and impure the more does the matter to which its nature is transmitted become degraded let me have a simple mass of clay as a candleholder rather than the earthen candlestick which only presents such a form as is the natural outgoing of a degraded mind there is another reason why the material of which beautiful objects are formed should be of little intrinsic value besides that arising out of a consideration of the3 exhaustion of the country and this will lead us to see that it is desirable in all cases to form beautiful objects as far as possible of an inexpensive material clay wood iron stone are materials which may be fashioned into beautiful forms but beware of silver and of gold and of precious stones the most fragile material often endures for a long period of time while the almost incorrosible silver and gold rarely escape the ruthless hand of the destroyer beautiful though gold and silver are and worthy even though they were the commonest of things to be fashioned into the most exquisite devices their money value makes them a perilous material for works of art how many of the choicest relics of antiquity are lost to us because they tempted the thief to steal them and then to hide his theft by melting them how many unique designs in gold and silver have the vicissitudes of war reduced in fierce haste into moneychangers nuggets where are benvenuto cellinis vases lorenzo ghibertis cups or the silver lamps of ghirlandajo gone almost as completely as aarons golden pot of manna of which for another reason than that which kept st paul silent we cannot now speak particularly nor is it only because this is a world where thieves break through and steal that the fine gold becomes dim and the silver perishes this too is a world where love is strong as death and what has not lovelove of family love of brother love of child love of loverprompted man and woman to do with the costliest things when they could be exchanged as mere bullion for the lives of those who were beloved1 workmen it is fortunate for us that the best vehicles for art are the least costly materials",
  ["The Adventures of Danny Meadow Mouse"] = "danny meadow mouse sat on his doorstep with his chin in his hands and it was very plain to see that danny had something on his mind he had only a nod for jimmy skunk and even peter rabbit could get no more than a grumpy good morning it wasnt that he had been caught napping the day before by reddy fox and nearly made an end of no it wasnt that danny had learned his lesson and reddy would never catch him again2 it wasnt that he was all alone with no one to play with danny was rather glad that he was alone the fact is danny meadow mouse was worried now worry is one of the worst things in the world and it didnt seem as if there was anything that danny meadow mouse need worry about but you know it is the easiest thing in the world to find something to worry over and make yourself uncomfortable about and when you make yourself uncomfortable you are almost sure to make every one around you equally uncomfortable it was so with danny meadow mouse striped chipmunk had twice called him cross patch that morning and johnny chuck who had fought reddy fox for him the day before had called him grumpy and what do you think was the matter with danny meadow mouse why he was worrying because3 his tail is short yes sir that is all that ailed danny meadow mouse that bright morning you know some people let their looks make them miserable they worry because they are homely or freckled or short or tall or thin or stout all of which is very foolish and danny meadow mouse was just as foolish in worrying because his tail is short it is short it certainly is all of that danny never had realized how short until he chanced to meet his cousin whitefoot who lives in the green forest he was very elegantly dressed but the most imposing thing about him was his long slim beautiful tail danny had at once become conscious of his own stubby little tail and he had hardly had pride enough to hold his head up as became an honest meadow mouse ever since he had been thinking and thinking4 and wondering how his family came to have such short tails then he grew envious and began to wish and wish and wish that he could have a long tail like his cousin whitefoot he was so busy wishing that he had a long tail that he quite forgot to take care of the tail he did have and he pretty nearly lost it and his life with it old whitetail the marsh hawk spied danny sitting there moping on his doorstep and came sailing over the tops of the meadow grasses so softly that he all but caught danny if it hadnt been for one of the merry little breezes danny would have been caught and all because he was envious its a bad bad habit",
  ["History of the Australian Bushrangers"] = "the species of brigandage known in australia as bushranging was without doubt evolved more or less directly from the convict system established as the basis of the earlier settlements in the island continent the first bushrangers were simply men who took to the bush to escape work and enjoy freedom of action under the harsh laws of the georgian era the greater criminals were hung and not transported and the convicts sent to botany bay in the eighteenth and the earlier years of the nineteenth centuries were generally men to whom the trammels of the civilisation of their day were irksome many of them were political agitators industrial rioters and machinebreakers the others were poachers and similarly comparatively mild offenders against the laws who under the present laws of great britain would be sufficiently punished with a few months imprisonment many of these men when they were removed to a new land where the social conditions did not press so heavily on them became honest and reputable citizens and perhaps but for the harsh treatment they were subjected to numbers of others who were driven to continue their fight against authority might also have lived quiet and useful lives this subject is a very delicate one and it is not my intention to pursue it further here but if it could be fullypg 2 treated without giving offence to numbers of worthy and in some cases justly honoured residents of australia some very valuable lessons might be learned from the histories of some of those families whose founders could not live in england without offending against the laws but who could and did earn the respect of their fellow colonists in australia who were not sent out the student of history in australia is reminded perhaps more forcibly than his fellow in england that the humanitarian spirit now so distinguishing a trait in the anglosaxon character is of very recent growth under the operation of this new force the criminal law of england was rapidly softened and ameliorated and with every advance in this direction the character of the convicts sent out to australia steadily deteriorated if i may so describe the process with every alteration in the law a fresh class of criminal was transported and these with few exceptions would a few months before have been hung at first pickpockets then sheep and horsestealers forgers and others who had previously only escaped the gallows in rare instances when they could find some influential friend to take sufficient interest in them to plead their cause were now transported as a matter of course this process continued until transportation ceased and as the last batch of prisoners sent out was presumably the worst having been guilty of more heinous crimes than their predecessors we are too apt to judge the earlier convicts harshly from our knowledge of the later ones the general effect was that while with the amelioration of the laws crime steadily decreased in england it just as steadily increased in australia and no doubt the worst criminals were transported to van diemens land after transportation had ceased to new south wales in 1842 the laws of england previously to the great changes made during the past sixty years seem to me to have operated whether designedly or not to clear the country of the disaffected and the discontented rather than the criminal how far the introduction of large numbers of this class into the country may have paved the way for modern advances in liberal government in australia is a question which it might be profitable to study but it only relates to the bushrangers so far as itpg 3 enables us to account for the large number of men who took to the bush the earlier bushrangers seem to have been idle and dissolute rather than criminal characters they watched for an opportunity to escape into a patch of scrub whenever the eye of the sentry in charge of them was turned away and the nature of the country was so favourable to this method of evasion that it constituted a continuous challenge to them to run away and almost incredible as it may appear now numbers of men started northward or westward in hopes of reaching the dutch or english settlements at batavia singapore hong kong or some other place in that direction it must be remembered that the majority of the working classes at the beginning of the century could not read and had no knowledge of geography they had heard sailors speak of these settlements and had no idea that hundreds of miles of sea flowed between them and australia how many of these poor ignorant men lost their lives in the attempt to achieve the impossible cannot be said but some terrible stories of cannibalism have been related in connection with this phase of bushranging the majority of the runaways however had no such definite ideas as these erroneous as they may have been they hoped to be able to live in freedom in the bush and to subsist on fruits roots or other native growths some few joined a tribe of blacks and stayed longer or shorter times with them others simply wandered about until hunger drove them back while very many remained at large until they were captured and these lived by stealing from farmers and other settlers any articles which could be eaten or sold when one of these early bushrangers grew tired of his freedom he gave himself up at the nearest police station and received fifty lashes the penalty for a second offence was twelve months in a chain gang there was no adequate system of classifying the convicts it was the custom in advertising runaways to give the name of the man and that of the ship in which he was transported then followed the personal description and that was all it was admitted to be inconvenient but no attempt appears to have been made to improve it besides this for administration purposes convicts were divided into three classespg 4 according to their sentences thus there were men who had been transported for seven years for fourteen years or for life they were also classified as young middleaged and old and usually the crime for which they had been transported was specified but such a description gave no indication of the character of the man finally they were divided into town thieves rural labourers and gentlemen this was a step in the right direction but it was too vague to be of much use the educated convicts were all classified as gentlemen whether they came from the towns or the rural districts1 it is worthy of note that the proportion of skilled labourers or tradesmen as they are called was very small very few men who had been apprenticed to a trade were among the convicts sent to australia at any time there were no regulations as to hours of work and the severe taskmaster might work his assigned servants as many hours as he pleased it was generally understood that sunday was to be a holiday or day of rest but excuses were readily found for making the convicts work on this day and this was a fruitful source of discontent very frequently men absconded on saturday night remained in the bush on sunday and returned on monday to take the customary fifty lashes and resume work",
  ["Practical Basketry"] = "materials the materials used in making these baskets are rattan or reed raffia rush straw hemp rattan is a palm which grows wild in india japan china and east india islands the rattan seed is black and corresponds in size to a pea it is a notable fact that while growing the rattan always faces the sun the shoot of this seed grows four years it is then cut close the plant produces almost three hundred shoots which are cut annually these slender shoots attain a length of from three to five hundred feet they climb the highest trees and hang from them in graceful festoons it is interesting to see how like the selfish pumpkin vine they crowd out any other plant that should happen to be in the way by small fibres which spring from the joints they20 fasten themselves to the trees and they hold so tenaciously and have such grip or strength that it requires several men sometimes as many as a half dozen to separate and remove them the reed is manufactured from the rattan it has been manufactured in america for about sixty years there are a number of such manufacturing plants among which the wakefield rattan company and the new england company have made splendid reed germany and belgium give us the best reed while the least desirable quality comes from china the outer surface of the rattan is glazed it is cut in long narrow strips and is familiar to everyone under the name cane it is used in caning chairs from the pith or inside rattan we get the reed known as oval flat and round the latter being most extensively used the round reed varies in sizes from no 00 to no 17 no 00 being the finest is used in making the centers of baskets in finishing handles and in making very small baskets and trays sizes 1 to 5 are used in making ordinary size baskets and trays 5 and 6 for scrap baskets 8 and 10 for handle foundations the reed comes only in the natural color but21 may be dyed into many beautiful colors either before or after the article is made oval or split reed comes in sizes 5 and 7 this reed makes artistic hanging baskets the flat 38 inch wide is often used in making foundations for sweet grass baskets and it also makes durable scrap baskets raffia is the outside covering of the madagascar palm it is a light tough material imported in the natural or straw color but may be dyed in many beautiful colors it is sold in bundles or braids of from one to four pounds care should be exercised in using this material it is advisable to keep it in canvas bags or hang it in braids in the class room as careless handling may cause untidiness or tend to disorder in the class room rush flat or braided is imported and sold in the natural and dull green colors the flat rush is sold by the pound the braided by bundles or bunches the braided rush makes a strong scrap basket it must be soaked before using to prevent cracking the flat rush is used in making smaller baskets straw is used as a weaver and can be woven either wet or dry but it is better to dip it in water a few minutes before using round and oval scrap22 baskets may be made by combining different colors of the straw with the natural color hemp which is imported from the philippine islands may be used as a foundation for raffia and sweet grass baskets tools very few tools are necessary in basketry although to the basket maker who intends doing much work the following articles are essential pruning shears awl plier galvanized tub and bucket measuring stick or rule knife for splicing the reed rubber fingers may be used for the dyer rubber gloves and large earthen pots are necessary",
  ["Eight Lectures on Theoretical Physics"] = "the cordial invitation which the president of columbia university extended to me to deliver at this prominent center of american science some lectures in the domain of theoretical physics has inspired in me a sense of the high honor and distinction thus conferred upon me and in no less degree a consciousness of the special obligations which through its acceptance would be imposed upon me if i am to count upon meeting in some measure your just expectations i can succeed only through directing your attention to the branches of my science with which i myself have been specially and deeply concerned thus exposing myself to the danger that my report in certain respects shall thereby have somewhat too subjective a coloring from those points of view which appear to me the most striking it is my desire to depict for you in these lectures the present status of the system of theoretical physics i do not say the present status of theoretical physics for to cover this far broader subject even approximately the number of lecture hours at my disposal would by no means suffice time limitations forbid the extensive consideration of the details of this great field of learning but it will be quite possible to develop for you in bold outline a representation of the system as a whole that is to give a sketch of the fundamental laws which rule in the physics of today of the most important hypotheses employed and of the great ideas which have recently forced themselves into the subject i will often gladly endeavor to go into details but not in the sense of a thorough treatment of the subject and only with the object of making the general laws more clear through appropriate specially chosen examples i shall select these examples from the most varied branches of physics if we wish to obtain a correct understanding of the achievements of theoretical physics we must guard in equal measure against the mistake of overestimating these achievements and on the other hand against the corresponding mistake of underestimating them that the second mistake is actually often made is shown by the circumstance that quite recently voices have been loudly raised maintaining the bankruptcy and d´ebˆacle of the whole of natural science but i think such assertions may easily be refuted by reference to the simple fact that with each decade the number and the significance of the means increase whereby mankind learns directly through the aid of theoretical physics to make nature useful for its own purposes the technology of today would be impossible without the aid of theoretical physics the development of the whole of electrotechnics from galvanoplasty to wireless telegraphy is a striking proof of this not to mention aerial navigation on the other hand the mistake of overestimating the achievements of theoretical physics appears to me to be much more dangerous and this danger is particularly threatened by those who have penetrated comparatively little into the heart of the subject they maintain that some time through a proper improvement of our science it will be possible not only to represent completely through physical formulae the inner constitution of the atoms but also the laws of mental life i think that there is nothing in the world entitling us to the one or the other of these expectations",
  ["Life in a Tank"] = "to the uninitiatedas were we in those days when we returned to the somme too late to see the tanks make their first dramatic entrancethe name conjures up a picture of an iron monster breathing fire and exhaling bullets and shells hurling itself against the enemy unassailable by man and impervious to the most deadly engines of war sublime indeed in its expression of indomitable power and resolution this picture was one of the two factors which attracted us toward the heavy branch machinegun corpsas the tank corps was known in the first year of its being on the somme we had seen a derelict tank wrecked despoiled of her guns and forsaken in no 2mans land we had swarmed around and over her wild with curiosity much as the lilliputians must have swarmed around the prostrate gulliver our imagination was fired the second factor was frankly that we were tired of going over the top as infantrymen the first time that a man goes into an attack he as a rule enjoys it he has no conception of its horrorsno not horrors for war possesses no horrorsbut rather he has no knowledge of the sudden realization of the sweetness of life that comes to a man when he is up against it the first time it is a splendid ennobling novelty and as for the show itself in actual practice it is more like a dream which only clarifies several days later after it is all over but to do the same thing a second and third and fourth time is to bring a man face to face with death in its fullest and most realistic uncertainty in soldier jargon he gets most awful wind up it is five minutes before zero hour all preparations are complete you are waiting for the signal to hop over the parapet very probably the boche knows that you are 3coming and is already skimming the sandbags with his machine guns and knocking little pieces of earth and stone into your face extraordinary how maddening is the sting of these harmless little pebbles and bits of dirt the bullets ricochet away with a peculiar singing hiss or crack overhead when they go too high the shells which burst on the other side of the parapet shake the ground with a dull thud and crash there are two minutes to wait before going over then is the time when a man feels a sinking sensation in his stomach when his hands tremble ever so slightly and when he offers up a pathetic little prayer to god that if hes a bit of a sportsman he may be spared from death should his getting through not violate the divine and fatalistic plans he has that unpleasant lack of knowledge of what comes beyond for after all with the most intense belief in the world it is hard to reconcile the comforting feeling of what one knows with that terrible dread of the unknown a man has no great and glorious ideas that nothing matters because he is ready to die for 4his country he is of course ready to die for her but he does not think about it he lights a cigarette and tries to be nonchalant for he knows that his men are watching him and it is his duty to keep up a front for their sake probably at the same time they are keeping up a front for him then the sergeant major comes along cool and smiling as if he were out for a stroll at home suddenly he is an immense comfort one forgets that sinking feeling in the stomach and thinks how easy and jolly he is what a splendid fellow immediately one begins unconsciously to imitate him then another thinks the same thing about one and begins to imitate too so it passes on down the line but there is nothing heroic or exalting in going over the top this then was our possible second reason for preferring to attack inside bulletproof steel not that death is less likely in a tank but there seems to be a more sporting chance with a shell than with a bullet the enemy infantryman looks along his sight and he has you for a certainty but the gunner cannot be so accurate 5and twenty yards may mean a world of difference above all the new monster had our imaginations in thrall here were novelty and wonderful developments",
}
