City Water, Portugal, and Woodpeckers
The immensity of the great city of New York can be better appreciated by a consideration of what it means to supply the city with water. The water system, which brings its supply from the Catskills to the city, is 121 miles. The city tunnel is from 11 to 15 feet in diameter, and is bored through solid rock at a depth of from 77 to 700 feet below the surface. It is 18 miles in length, and will be when completed the longest rock tunnel in existence. Its estimated cost is $18,000,000, and it will take four years to finish it. Would that men were as eager to supply the people of that city with the water of life! Little Portugal, we are told, has bargained for a navy and fortifications demanding an expenditure of $150,000,000. Her president makes the proposition to do away with ambassadorships, diplomatic corps, foreign ministers, etc. Portugal has no concern with international politics, and financial questions can be attended to by courts and consuls. Extraordinary matters may be met by plenipotentiaries appointed for the purpose. This would save great expense and a lot of red tape. Secretary of Agriculture Wilson says that the woodpecker is one of the greatest conservators of trees, "the greatest single aid man has in the conservation of lumber." It is estimated that insects destroy $100,000,000 worth of timber each year, and their greatest foes are the forty-five species of woodpeckers. In the examination of 3,450 stomachs of the birds, it was found that their food consists principally of the bodies and eggs of tree bugs and worms. A German paper, "Kladderadatsch," of Berlin, has a striking cartoon entitled "John and Jonathan." Two typical figures representing England and America are sitting on two battle-ships over the bow of each of which projects a huge gun. These twin ships are hauled through the water by a little baby-faced cupid, entitled "Peace," swimming bravely, and supported by a life-buoy. And that is about the comparative size of the peace and war movements. In 1901 Frank J. Gould, youngest son of the late Jay Gould, did not own a railway-car or spike in all Virginia. Now he practically controls, it is said, every traction line and every power franchise in the State, from the Potomac to the James and from Chesapeake Bay to the crest of the Blue Ridge. And this he declares is but the beginning. He is but thirty years old, and is worth nearly that number of millions. The "Western Watchman" chides some of its Eastern Catholic contemporaries for joining forces with the "Puritans" in a demand to have Sunday baseball stopped. Editor Phelan thinks that Sunday baseball "is the climax" in the political and social institutions of the country for "moral improvement among our boys." Thirteen Episcopal clergymen took a ride with the fire chief in an auto fire-apparatus which was being demonstrated in Ross Valley, near San Francisco, June 5. The result was one death, four seriously injured, and six so badly shaken up that they fainted. Socialism furnishes fairly good diagnoses of the ills of society, but she will fail in all her proposed remedies. The ills are inherent in the carnal, or fleshly, mind, and no remedy possessed by humanity can regenerate the heart. Mr. John W. Gates, the noted millionaire, declares that a profit of ten to fifteen per cent is made on the manufacture of common wire, and fifty per cent on woven wire. One of the latest inventions for war is said to be a dirigible fog, which can be moved or transported and used to cover an object from the sight of the enemy. The United States Steel Trust is one of the next big concerns with which the Government will deal under the Sherman act.