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Love Conquers All

<h1 class="tei tei-head">XXVI—WHEN NOT IN ROME, WHY DO AS THE ROMANS DID?</h1> There is a growing sentiment among sign painters that when a sign or notice is to be put up in a public place it should be written in characters that are at least legible, so that, to quote "The Manchester Guardian" (as every one seems to do) "He who runs may read." This does not strike one as being an unseemly pandering to popular favor. The supposition is that the sign is put there to be read, otherwise it would have been turned over to an inmate of the Odd Fellows Home to be engraved on the head of a pin. And what could be a more fair requirement than that it should be readable? Advertising, with its billboard message of rustless screens and co-educational turkish-baths, has done much to further the good cause, and a glance through the files of newspapers of seventy-five years ago, when the big news story of the day was played up in diamond type easily deciphered in a strong light with the naked eye, shows that news printing has not, to use a slang phrase, stood still. But in the midst of this uniform progress we find a stagnant spot. Surrounded by legends that are patent and easy to read and understand, we find the stone-cutter and the architect still putting up tablets and cornerstones, monuments and cornices, with dates disguised in Roman numerals. It is as if it were a game, in which they were saying, "The number we are thinking of is even; it begins with M; it has five digits and when they are spread out, end to end, they occupy three feet of space. You have until we count to one hundred to guess what it is." Roman numerals are all right for a rainy Sunday afternoon or to take a convalescent's mind from his illness, but to put them in a public place, where the reader stands a good chance of being run over by a dray if he spends more than fifty seconds in their perusal, is not in keeping with the efficiency of the age. If for no other reason than the extra space they take, involving more marble, more of the cutter's time and wear and tear on his instruments, not to mention the big overhead, you would think that Roman numerals would have been abolished long ago. Of course, they can be figured out if you're good at that sort of thing. By working on your cuff and backs of envelopes, you can translate them in no time at all compared to the time taken by a cocoon to change into a butterfly, for instance. All you have to do is remember that "M" stands for either "millium," meaning thousand, or for "million." By referring to the context you can tell which is more probable. If, for example, it is a date, you can tell right away that it doesn't mean "million," for there isn't any "million" in our dates. And there is one-seventh or eighth of your number deciphered already. Then "C," of course, stands for "centum," which you can translate by working backwards at it, taking such a word as "century" or "per cent," and looking up what they come from, and there you have it! By this time it is hardly the middle of the afternoon, and all you have before you is a combination of X's, I's and an L, the latter standing for "Elevated Railway," and "Licorice," or, if you cross it with two little horizontal lines, it stands for the English pound, which is equivalent to about four dollars and eighty-odd cents in real money. Simple as sawing through a log. But it takes time. That's the big trouble with it. You can't do the right thing by the office and go in for Roman numerals, too. And since most of the people who pass such inscriptions are dependent on their own earnings, why not cater to them a bit and let them in on the secret? Probably the only reason that the people haven't risen up and demanded a reform along these lines is because so few of them really give a hang what the inscription says. If the American Antiquarian Turn-Verein doesn't care about stating in understandable figures the date on which the cornerstone of their building was laid, the average citizen is perfectly willing to let the matter drop right there. But it would never do to revert to Roman numerals in, say, the arrangement of time-tables. How long would the commuter stand it if he had to mumble to himself for twenty minutes and use up the margins of his newspaper before he could figure out what was the next train after the 5:18? Or this, over the telephone between wife and husband: "Hello, dear! I think I'll come in town for lunch. What trains can I get?" "Just a minute—I'll look them up. Hold the wire.... Let's see, here's one at XII:LVIII, that's twelve, and L is a thousand and V is five and three I's are three; that makes 12:one thousand.... that can't be right.... now XII certainly is twelve, and L ... what does L stand for?... I say; what—does—L—stand—for?... Well, ask Heima.... What does she say?... Fifty?... Sure, that makes it come out all right.... 12:58.... What time is it now?... 1 o'clock?... Well, the next one leaves Oakam at I:XLIV.... that's ..." etc. Batting averages and the standing of teams in the leagues are another department where the introduction of Roman numerals would be suicide for the political party in power at the time. For of all things that are essential to the day's work of the voter, an early enlightenment in the matter of the home team's standing and the numerical progress of the favorite batsman are of primary importance. This information has to be gleaned on the way to work in the morning, and, except for those who come in to work each day from North Philadelphia or the Croton Reservoir, it would be a physical impossibility to figure the tables out and get any of the day's news besides. <table cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table"><colgroup span="8"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row"> <td class="tei tei-cell">CLVB BATTING RECORDS</td> </tr><tr class="tei tei-row"> <td class="tei tei-cell"></td> <td class="tei tei-cell">Games</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">At Bat</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">Runs</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">B.H.</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">S.B.</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">S.H.</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">Aver.</td> </tr><tr class="tei tei-row"> <td class="tei tei-cell">Detroit</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CLII</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">MMMMMXXCIX</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">DCLIII</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">MCCCXXXIII</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CLXVIII</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CC</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CCLXII</td> </tr><tr class="tei tei-row"> <td class="tei tei-cell">Chicago</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CLI</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">MMMMCMXL</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">DLXXI</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">MCCXLVI</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CLXXIX</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CCXXI</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CCLII</td> </tr><tr class="tei tei-row"> <td class="tei tei-cell">Cleveland</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CLII</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">MMMMCMXXXVII</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">DCXIX</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">MCCXXXI</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CL</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CCXXI</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CCXLIX</td> </tr><tr class="tei tei-row"> <td class="tei tei-cell">Boston</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CLI</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">MMMMDCCCLXXIV</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">DXXXIV</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">MCXCI</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CXXXVI</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CCXXV</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CCXLV</td> </tr><tr class="tei tei-row"> <td class="tei tei-cell">New York</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CL</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">MMMMCMLXXXVII</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">DLIV</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">MCCXXX</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CLXXV</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CLXV</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CXLVII</td> </tr><tr class="tei tei-row"> <td class="tei tei-cell">Washington</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CLIII</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">MMMMCMXXVIII</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">DV</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">MCXC</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CLXIII</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CLXV</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CCXDI</td> </tr><tr class="tei tei-row"> <td class="tei tei-cell">St. Louis</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CLV</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">MMMMMLXV</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">DLXXIV</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">MCCXXI</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CCVII</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CLXII</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CCXLI</td> </tr><tr class="tei tei-row"> <td class="tei tei-cell">Philadelphia</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CXLIX</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">MMMMDCCCXXVI</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CCCCXVI</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">MCXLIII</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CXLIII</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CLV</td> <td class="tei tei-cell">CCXXXVII</td> </tr></tbody></table> YOU CAN'T DO RIGHT BY THE OFFICE AND GO IN FOR ROMAN NUMERALS TOO. On matters such as these the proletariat would have protested the Roman numeral long ago. If they are willing to let its reactionary use on tablets and monuments stand it is because of their indifference to influences which do not directly affect their pocketbooks. But if it could be put up to them in a powerful cartoon, showing the Architect and the Stone-Cutter dressed in frock coats and silk hats, with their pockets full of money, stepping on the Common People so that he cannot see what is written on the tablet behind them, then perhaps the public would realize how they are being imposed on. For that there is an organized movement among architects and stone-cutters to keep these things from the citizenry there can no longer be any doubt. It is not only a matter of the Roman numerals. How about the use of the "V" when "U" should be used? You will always see it in inscriptions. "SVMNER BVILDING" is one of the least offensive. Perhaps the excuse is that "V" is more adapted to stone-lettering. Then why not carry this principle out further? Why not use the letter H when S is meant? Or substitute K for B? If the idea is to deceive, and to make it easier for the stone-cutter, a pleasing effect could be got from the inscription, "Erected in 1897 by the Society of Arts and Grafts", by making it read: "EKEATEW IZ MXIXLXIXLXXII LY THE XNLIEZY OF AEXA ZNL ELAFTX." There you have letters that are all adapted to stone-cutting; they look well together, and they are, in toto, as intelligible as most inscriptions. <hr class="page" /> <h1 class="tei tei-head">XXVII—THE TOOTH, THE WHOLE TOOTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TOOTH</h1> Some well-known saying (it doesn't make much difference what) is proved by the fact that everyone likes to talk about his experiences at the dentist's. For years and years little articles like this have been written on the subject, little jokes like some that I shall presently make have been made, and people in general have been telling other people just what emotions they experience when they crawl into the old red plush guillotine. They like to explain to each other how they feel when the dentist puts "that buzzer thing" against their bicuspids, and, if sufficiently pressed, they will describe their sensations on mouthing a rubber dam. "I'll tell you what I hate," they will say with great relish, "when he takes that little nut-pick and begins to scrape. Ugh!" "Oh, I'll tell you what's worse than that," says the friend, not to be outdone, "when he is poking around careless-like, and strikes a nerve. Wow!" And if there are more than two people at the experience-meeting, everyone will chip in and tell what he or she considers to be the worst phase of the dentist's work, all present enjoying the narration hugely and none so much as the narrator who has suffered so. This sort of thing has been going on ever since the first mammoth gold tooth was hung out as a bait to folks in search of a good time. (By the way, when did the present obnoxious system of dentistry begin? It can't be so very long ago that the electric auger was invented, and where would a dentist be without an electric auger? Yet you never hear of Amalgam Filling Day, or any other anniversary in the dental year). There must be a conspiracy of silence on the part of the trade to keep hidden the names of the men who are responsible for all this. However many years it may be that dentists have been plying their trade, in all that time people have never tired of talking about their teeth. This is probably due to the inscrutable workings of Nature who is always supplying new teeth to talk about. As a matter of fact, the actual time and suffering in the chair is only a fraction of the gross expenditure connected with the affair. The preliminary period, about which nobody talks, is much the worse. This dates from the discovery of the wayward tooth and extends to the moment when the dentist places his foot on the automatic hoist which jacks you up into range. Giving gas for tooth-extraction is all very humane in its way, but the time for anaesthetics is when the patient first decides that he must go to the dentist. From then on, until the first excavation is started, should be shrouded in oblivion. There is probably no moment more appalling than that in which the tongue, running idly over the teeth in a moment of care-free play, comes suddenly upon the ragged edge of a space from which the old familiar filling has disappeared. The world stops and you look meditatively up to the corner of the ceiling. Then quickly you draw your tongue away, and try to laugh the affair off, saying to yourself: "Stuff and nonsense, my good fellow! There is nothing the matter with your tooth. Your nerves are upset after a hard day's work, that's all." Having decided this to your satisfaction, you slyly, and with a poor attempt at being casual, slide the tongue back along the line of adjacent teeth, hoping against hope that it will reach the end without mishap. But there it is! There can be no doubt about it this time. The tooth simply has got to be filled by someone, and the only person who can fill it with anything permanent is a dentist. You wonder if you might not be able to patch it up yourself for the time being,—a year or so—perhaps with a little spruce-gum and a coating of new-skin. It is fairly far back, and wouldn't have to be a very sightly job. But this has an impracticable sound, even to you. You might want to eat some peanut-brittle (you never can tell when someone might offer you peanut-brittle these days), and the new-skin, while serviceable enough in the case of cream soups and custards, couldn't be expected to stand up under heavy crunching. So you admit that, since the thing has got to be filled, it might as well be a dentist who does the job. This much decided, all that is necessary is to call him up and make an appointment. Let us say that this resolve is made on Tuesday. That afternoon you start to look up the dentist's number in the telephone-book. A great wave of relief sweeps over you when you discover that it isn't there. How can you be expected to make an appointment with a man who hasn't got a telephone? And how can you have a tooth filled without making an appointment? The whole thing is impossible, and that's all there is to it. God knows you did your best. On Wednesday there is a slightly more insistent twinge, owing to bad management of a sip of ice water. You decide that you simply must get in touch with that dentist when you get back from lunch. But you know how those things are. First one thing and then another came up, and a man came in from Providence who had to be shown around the office, and by the time you had a minute to yourself it was five o'clock. And, anyway, the tooth didn't bother you again. You wouldn't be surprised if, by being careful, you could get along with it as it is until the end of the week when you will have more time. A man has to think of his business, after all, and what is a little personal discomfort in the shape of an unfilled tooth to the satisfaction of work well done in the office? By Saturday morning you are fairly reconciled to going ahead, but it is only a half day and probably he has no appointments left, anyway. Monday is really the time. You can begin the week afresh. After all, Monday is really the logical day to start in going to the dentist. Bright and early Monday morning you make another try at the telephone-book, and find, to your horror, that some time between now and last Tuesday the dentist's name and number have been inserted into the directory. There it is. There is no getting around it: "Burgess, Jas. Kendal, DDS.... Courtland—2654". There is really nothing left to do but to call him up. Fortunately the line is busy, which gives you a perfectly good excuse for putting it over until Tuesday. But on Tuesday luck is against you and you get a clear connection with the doctor himself. An appointment is arranged for Thursday afternoon at 3:30. Thursday afternoon, and here it is only Tuesday morning! Almost anything may happen between now and then. We might declare war on Mexico, and off you'd have to go, dentist appointment or no dentist appointment. Surely a man couldn't let a date to have a tooth filled stand in the way of his doing his duty to his country. Or the social revolution might start on Wednesday, and by Thursday the whole town might be in ashes. You can picture yourself standing, Thursday afternoon at 3.30 on the ruins of the City Hall, fighting off marauding bands of reds, and saying to yourself, with a sigh of relief: "Only to think! At this time I was to have been climbing into the dentist's chair!" You never can tell when your luck will turn in a thing like that. But Wednesday goes by and nothing happens. And Thursday morning dawns without even a word from the dentist saying that he has been called suddenly out of town to lecture before the Incisor Club. Apparently, everything is working against you. By this time, your tongue has taken up a permanent resting-place in the vacant tooth, and is causing you to talk indistinctly and incoherently. Somehow you feel that if the dentist opens your mouth and finds the tip of your tongue in the tooth, he will be deceived and go away without doing anything. The only thing left is for you to call him up and say that you have just killed a man and are being arrested and can't possibly keep your appointment. But any dentist would see through that. He would laugh right into his transmitter at you. There is probably no excuse which it would be possible to invent which a dentist has not already heard eighty or ninety times. No, you might as well see the thing through now. Luncheon is a ghastly rite. The whole left side of your jaw has suddenly developed an acute sensitiveness and the disaffection has spread to the four teeth on either side of the original one. You doubt if it will be possible for him to touch it at all. Perhaps all he intends to do this time is to look at it anyway. You might even suggest that to him. You could very easily come in again soon and have him do the actual work. Three-thirty draws near. A horrible time of day at best. Just when a man's vitality is lowest. Before stepping in out of the sunlight into the building in which the dental parlor is, you take one look about you at the happy people scurrying by in the street. Carefree children that they are! What do they know of Life? Probably that man in the silly-looking hat never had trouble with so much as his baby-teeth. There they go, pushing and jostling each other, just as if within ten feet of them there was not a man who stands on the brink of the Great Misadventure. Ah well! Life is like that! Into the elevator. The last hope is gone. The door clangs and you look hopelessly about you at the stupid faces of your fellow passengers. How can people be so clownish? Of course, there is always the chance that the elevator will fall and that you will all be terribly hurt. But that is too much to expect. You dismiss it from your thoughts as too impractical, too visionary. Things don't work out as happily as that in real life. You feel a certain glow of heroic pride when you tell the operator the right floor number. You might just as easily have told him a floor too high or too low, and that would, at least, have caused delay. But after all, a man must prove himself a man and the least you can do is to meet Fate with an unflinching eye and give the right floor number. Too often has the scene in the dentist's waiting-room been described for me to try to do it again here. They are all alike. The antiseptic smell, the ominous hum from the operating-rooms, the 1921 "Literary Digests," and the silent, sullen, group of waiting patients, each trying to look unconcerned and cordially disliking everyone else in the room,—all these have been sung by poets of far greater lyric powers than mine. (Not that I really think that they are greater than mine, but that's the customary form of excuse for not writing something you haven't got time or space to do. As a matter of fact, I think I could do it much better than it has ever been done before). I can only say that, as you sit looking, with unseeing eyes, through a large book entitled, "The Great War in Pictures," you would gladly change places with the most lowly of God's creatures. It is inconceivable that there should be anyone worse off than you, unless perhaps it is some of the poor wretches who are waiting with you. That one over in the arm-chair, nervously tearing to shreds a copy of "The Dental Review and Practical Inlay Worker." She may have something frightful the trouble with her. She couldn't possibly look more worried. Perhaps it is very, very painful. This thought cheers you up considerably. What cowards women are in times like these! And then there comes the sound of voices from the next room. "All right, Doctor, and if it gives me any more pain shall I call you up?... Do you think that it will bleed much more?... Saturday morning, then, at eleven.... Good bye, Doctor." And a middle-aged woman emerges (all women are middle-aged when emerging from the dentist's office) looking as if she were playing the big emotional scene in "John Ferguson." A wisp of hair waves dissolutely across her forehead between her eyes. Her face is pale, except for a slight inflammation at the corners of her mouth, and in her eyes is that far-away look of one who has been face to face with Life. But she is through. She should care how she looks. <ANTIMG src="images/image10.png" alt="You would gladly change places with the most lawless of God's creatures." class="tei tei-figure" /> You would gladly change places with the most lawless of God's creatures. The nurse appears, and looks inquiringly at each one in the room. Each one in the room evades the nurse's glance in one last, futile attempt to fool someone and get away without seeing the dentist. But she spots you and nods pleasantly. God, how pleasantly she nods! There ought to be a law against people being as pleasant as that. "The doctor will see you now," she says. The English language may hold a more disagreeable combination of words than "The doctor will see you now." I am willing to concede something to the phrase "Have you anything to say before the current is turned on." That may be worse for the moment, but it doesn't last so long. For continued, unmitigating depression, I know nothing to equal "The doctor will see you now." But I'm not narrow-minded about it. I'm willing to consider other possibilities. Smiling feebly, you trip over the extended feet of the man next to you, and stagger into the delivery-room, where, amid a ghastly array of death-masks of teeth, blue flames waving eerily from Bunsen burners, and the drowning sound of perpetually running water which chokes and gurgles at intervals, you sink into the chair and close your eyes. * * * * * But now let us consider the spiritual exaltation that comes when you are at last let down and turned loose. It is all over, and what did it amount to? Why, nothing at all. A-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Nothing at all. You suddenly develop a particular friendship for the dentist. A splendid fellow, really. You ask him questions about his instruments. What does he use this thing for, for instance? Well, well, to think, of a little thing like that making all that trouble. A-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!... And the dentist's family, how are they? Isn't that fine! Gaily you shake hands with him and straighten your tie. Forgotten is the fact that you have another appointment with him for Monday. There is no such thing as Monday. You are through for today, and all's right with the world. As you pass out through the waiting-room, you leer at the others unpleasantly. The poor fishes! Why can't they take their medicine like grown people and not sit there moping as if they were going to be shot? Heigh-ho! Here's the elevator-man! A charming fellow! You wonder if he knows that you have just had a tooth filled. You feel tempted to tell him and slap him on the back. You feel tempted to tell everyone out in the bright, cheery street. And what a wonderful street it is too! All full of nice, black snow and water. After all, Life is sweet! And then you go and find the first person whom you can accost without being arrested and explain to him just what it was that the dentist did to you, and how you felt, and what you have got to have done next time. Which brings us right back to where we were in the beginning, and perhaps accounts for everyone's liking to divulge their dental secrets to others. It may be a sort of hysterical relief that, for the time being, it is all over with. <hr class="page" /> <h1 class="tei tei-head">XXVIII—MALIGNANT MIRRORS</h1> As a rule, I try not to look into mirrors any more than is absolutely necessary. Things are depressing enough as they are without my going out of my way to make myself miserable. But every once in a while it is unavoidable. There are certain mirrors in town with which I am brought face to face on occasion and there is nothing to do but make the best of it. I have come to classify them according to the harshness with which they fling the truth into my face. I am unquestionably at my worst in the mirror before which I try on hats. I may have been going along all winter thinking of other things, dwelling on what people tell me is really a splendid spiritual side to my nature, thinking of myself as rather a fine sort of person, not dashing perhaps, but one from whose countenance shines a great light of honesty and courage which is even more to be desired than physical beauty. I rather imagine that little children on the street and grizzled Supreme Court justices out for a walk turn as I pass and say "A fine face. Plain, but fine." Then I go in to buy a hat. The mirror in the hat store is triplicate, so that you see yourself not only head-on but from each side. The appearance that I present to myself in this mirror is that of three police-department photographs showing all possible approaches to the face of Harry DuChamps, alias Harry Duval, alias Harry Duffy, wanted in Rochester for the murder of Nettie Lubitch, age 5. All that is missing is the longitudinal scar across the right cheek. I have never seen a meaner face than mine is in the hat-store mirror. I could stand its not being handsome. I could even stand looking weak in an attractive, man-about-town sort of way. But in the right hand mirror there confronts me a hang-dog face, the face of a yellow craven, while at the left leers an even more repulsive type, sensual and cruel. Furthermore, even though I have had a hair-cut that very day, there is an unkempt fringe showing over my collar in back and the collar itself, (a Wimpet, 14-1/2, which looked so well on the young man in the car-card) seems to be something that would be worn by a Maine guide when he goes into Portland for the day. My suit needs pressing and there is a general air of its having been given to me, with ten dollars, by the State on my departure from Sing Sing the day before. But for an unfavorable full-length view, nothing can compare with the one that I get of myself as I pass the shoe-store on the corner. They have a mirror in the window, so set that it catches the reflection of people as they step up on the curb. When there are other forms in the picture it is not always easy to identify yourself at first, especially at a distance, and every morning on my way to work, unless I deliberately avert my face, I am mortified to discover that the unpleasant-looking man, with the rather effeminate, swinging gait, whom I see mincing along through the crowd, is none other than myself. <ANTIMG src="images/image11.png" alt="I am mortified to discover that the unpleasant looking man is none other than myself." class="tei tei-figure" /> I am mortified to discover that the unpleasant looking man is none other than myself. The only good mirror in the list is the one in the elevator of my clothing-store. There is a subdued light in the car, a sort of golden glow which softens and idealizes, and the mirror shows only a two-thirds length, making it impossible to see how badly the cuffs on my trousers bag over the tops of my shoes. Here I become myself again. I have even thought that I might be handsome if I paid as much attention to my looks as some men do. In this mirror, my clothes look (for the last time) as similar clothes look on well-dressed men. A hat which is in every respect perfect when seen here, immediately becomes a senatorial sombrero when I step out into the street, but for the brief space of time while I am in that elevator, I am the distingué, clean-cut, splendid figure of a man that the original blue-prints called for. I wonder if it takes much experience to run an elevator, for if it doesn't, I would like to make my life-work running that car with the magic mirror. <hr class="page" /> <h1 class="tei tei-head">XXIX—THE POWER OF THE PRESS</h1> The Police Commissioner of New York City explains the wave of crime in that city by blaming the newspapers. The newspapers, he says, are constantly printing accounts of robberies and murders, and these accounts simply encourage other criminals to come to New York and do the same. If the papers would stop giving all this publicity to crime, the crooks might forget that there was such a thing. As it is, they read about it in their newspapers every morning, and sooner or later have to go out and try it for themselves. This is a terrible thought, but suggests a convenient alibi for other errant citizens. Thus we may read the following NEWS NOTES: Benjamin W. Gleam, age forty-two, of 1946 Ruby Avenue, The Bronx, was arrested last night for appearing in the Late Byzantine Room of the Museum of Fine Arts clad only in a suit of medium-weight underwear. When questioned Gleam said that he had seen so many pictures in the newspaper advertisements of respectable men and women going about in their underwear, drinking tea, jumping hurdles and holding family reunions, that he simply couldn't stand it any longer, and had to try it for himself. "The newspapers did it," he is quoted as saying. Mrs. Leonia M. Eggcup, who was arrested yesterday on the charge of bigamy, issued a statement today through her attorneys, Wine, Women and Song. "I am charged with having eleven husbands, all living in various parts of the United States," reads the statement. "This charge is correct. But before I pay the extreme penalty, I want to have the public understand that I am not to blame. It is the fault of the press of this country. Day after day I read the list of marriages in my morning paper. Day after day I saw people after people getting married. Finally the thing got into my blood, and although I was married at the time, I felt that I simply had to be married again. Then, no sooner would I become settled in my new home, than the constant incitement to further matrimonial ventures would come through the columns of the daily press. I fell, it is true, but if there is any justice in this land, it will be the newspapers and not I who will suffer." <hr class="page" /> <h1 class="tei tei-head">XXX—HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS</h1> As a pretty tribute to that element of our population which is under twenty-two years of age, these are called "the Holidays." This is the only chance that the janitors of the schools and colleges have to soak the floors of the recitation halls with oil to catch the dust of the next semester, and while this is being done there is nothing to do with the students but to send them home for a week or two. Thus it happened that the term "holidays" is applied to that period of the year when everybody else is working just twice as hard and twice as long during the week to make up for that precious day which must be lost to the Sales Campaign or the Record Output on Christmas Day. For those who are home from school and college it is called, in the catalogues of their institutions, a "recess" or "vacation," and the general impression is allowed to get abroad among the parents that it is to be a period of rest and recuperation. Arthur and Alice have been working so hard at school or college that two weeks of good quiet home-life and home cooking will put them right on their feet again, ready to pitch into that chemistry course in which, owing to an incompetent instructor, they did not do very well last term. That the theory of rest during vacation is fallacious can be proved by hiding in the coat closet of the home of any college or school youth home for Christmas recess. Admission to the coat closet may be forced by making yourself out to be a government official or an inspector of gas meters. Once hidden among the overshoes, you will overhear the following little earnest drama, entitled "Home for the Holidays." There was a banging of the front door, and Edgar has arrived. A round of kisses, an exchange of health reports, and Edgar is bounding upstairs. "Dinner in half an hour," says Mother. "Sorry," shouts Edgar from the bath-tub, "but I've got to go out to the Whortleberry's to a dinner dance. Got the bid last week. Say, have I got any dress-studs at home here? Mine are in my trunk." Father's studs are requisitioned and the family cluster at Edgar's door to slide in a few conversational phrases while he is getting the best of his dress shirt. "How have you been?" (Three guesses as to who it is that asks this.) "Oh, all right. Say, have I got any pumps at home? Mine are in the trunk. Where are those old ones I had last summer?" "Don't you want me to tie your tie for you?" (Two guesses as to who it is that asks this.) "No, thanks. Can I get my laundry done by tomorrow night? I've got to go out to the Clamps' at Short Neck for over the week-end to a bob-sledding party, and when I get back from there Mrs. Dibble is giving a dinner and theatre party." "Don't you want to eat a little dinner here before you go to the Whortleberry's?" (One guess as to who it is that asks this.) But Edgar has bounded down the stairs and left the Family to comfort each other with such observations as "He looks tired," "I think that he has filled out a little," or "I wonder if he's studying too hard." You might stay in the coat-closet for the entire two weeks and not hear much more of Edgar than this. His parents don't. They catch him as he is going up and down stairs and while he is putting the studs into his shirt, and are thankful for that. They really get into closer touch with him while he is at college, for he writes them a weekly letter then. Nerve-racking as this sort of life is to the youth who is supposed to be resting during his vacation, it might be even more wearing if he were to stay within the Family precincts. Once in a while one of the parties for which he has been signed up falls through, and he is forced to spend the evening at home. At first it is somewhat embarrassing to be thrown in with strangers for a meal like that, but, as the evening wears on, the ice is broken and things assume a more easy swing. The Family begins to make remarks. "You must stand up straighter, my boy," says Father, placing his hand between Edgar's shoulder-blades. "You are slouching badly. I noticed it as you walked down the street this morning." "Do all the boys wear soft-collared shirts like that?" asks Mother. "Personally, I think that they look very untidy. They are all right for tennis and things like that, but I wish you'd put on a starched collar when you are in the house. You never see Elmer Quiggly wearing a collar like that. He always looks neat." "For heaven's sake, Eddie," says Sister, "take off that tie. You certainly do get the most terrific-looking things to put around your neck. It looks like a Masonic apron. Let me go with you when you buy your next batch." By this time Edgar has his back against the wall and is breathing hard. What do these folks know of what is being done? If it is not family heckling it may be that even more insidious trial, the third degree. This is usually inflicted by semi-relatives and neighbors. The formulæ are something like this: "Well, how do you like your school?" "I suppose you have plenty of time for pranks, eh?" "What a good time you boys must have! It isn't so much what you get out of books that will help you in after life, I have found, but the friendships made in college. Meeting so many boys from all parts of the country—why, it's a liberal education in itself." "What was the matter with the football team this season?" "Let's see, how many more years have you? What, only one more! Well, well, and I can remember you when you were that high, and used to come over to my house wearing a little green dress, with big mother-of-pearl buttons. You certainly were a cute little boy, and used to call our cook 'Sna-sna.' And here you are, almost a senior." <ANTIMG src="images/image12.png" alt=""I can remember you when you were that high."" class="tei tei-figure" /> "I can remember you when you were that high." "Oh, are you 1924? I wonder if you know a fellow named—er—Mellish—Spencer Mellish? I met him at the beach last summer. I am pretty sure that he is in your class—well, no, maybe it was 1918." After an hour or two of this Edgar is willing to go back to college and take an extra course in Blacksmithing, Chipping and Filing, given during the Christmas vacation, rather than run the risk of getting caught again. And, whichever way you look at it, whether he spends his time getting into and out of his evening clothes, or goes crazy answering questions and defending his mode of dress, it all adds up to the same in the end—fatigue and depletion and what the doctor would call "a general run-down nervous condition." The younger you are the more frayed you get. Little Wilbur comes home from school, where he has been put to bed at 8:30 every night with the rest of the fifth form boys: and has had to brush his hair in the presence of the head-master's wife, and dives into what might be called a veritable maelstrom of activity. From a diet of cereal and fruit-whips, he is turned loose in the butler's pantry among the maraschino cherries and given a free rein at the various children's parties, where individual pound-cake Santas and brandied walnuts are followed by an afternoon at "Treasure Island," with the result that he comes home and insists on tipping every one in the family the black spot and breaks the cheval glass when he is denied going to the six-day bicycle race at two in the morning. Little girls do practically the same, and, if they are over fourteen, go back to school with the added burden of an affaire de coeur contracted during the recess. In general, it takes about a month or two of good, hard schooling and overstudy to put the child back on its feet after the Christmas rest at home. Which leads us to the conclusion that our educational system is all wrong. It is obvious that the child should be kept at home for eight months out of the year and sent to school for the vacations. <hr class="page" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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