1893 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



825 



OURSELVES AND OUR NEIGHBORS. 



The truth shall make you free.— John 8 : 33. 



There are so many grand lessons to be learn- 

 ed at the World's Fair that I shall never be able, 

 probably, to even speak of all of them; but I 

 am going to take them up from lime to time as 

 they occur to me. The first thing that met my 

 gaze and pleased me were the arrangements 

 for pure drinking-water on the grounds— first, 

 the free drinking-water. Large tanks were to 

 be met with all over the grounds and through- 

 out the buildings, labeled something like this: 

 "Sterilized filtered water:" and this water is 

 very fair — much better than we ordinarily find 

 in traveling through any city or country. It 

 •comes from the lake, eight miles from shore, if 

 I am correct. The great city of Chicago has 

 been at great expense to provide good water for 

 her people. But besides this were other stands 

 for drinking-water also, scattered everywhere, 

 so that one would scarcely be obliged to make 

 an inquiry. These booths were plainly letter- 

 ed, '■ \Vaukesha hygeia spring water — a penny 

 a glass." A good many may complain of being 

 obliged to pay for drinking-water; but I don't. 

 I find it a great privilege to get the most beau- 

 tiful spring water at any time I feel thirsty, for 

 only a penny a glass. Let me digress a little. 



In this big world of ours, it is a very hard 

 matter indeed to keep any sort of institution in 

 good running order without pay. One of my 

 hobbies has been for years to furnish the public 

 good drinking-water, free of charge or annoy- 

 ance, and I am at it yet. But let me tell you 

 some of the difficulties. If the water is to be 

 pumped, almost any pump that can be procured 

 will soon be out of order, and pi'ove to be a bill 

 of expense. To get rid of the pump, our big 

 windmill on the hill keeps the watei' so it runs 

 itself by opening the hydrant. Well, in this 

 case even the best hydrants are soon worn out. 

 You see, we have a liberal patronage here. 

 Another thing, the expense of drinking-cups is 

 ■quite an item. One might think the great 

 thirsty world would be so thankful that they 

 would not carry away the bright new tin cup. 

 Alas for human depravity! every little while 

 our cups are carried away. Tie them up with 

 a string? Yes, we tried that; but even the 

 stoutest string was broken and the cup gone. 

 A chain did some better; but it was an annoy- 

 ance by getting tangled up and hindering peo- 

 ple. Sometimes two or more vehicles would 

 stop at once near the hydrant. Ladies would 

 like a drink without the necessity of getting 

 out. If the cup were chained up they would be 

 bothered, and we should be bothered by their 

 coming into the store for a cup that was not 

 chained. 



Now, it is not altogether vicious people who 

 take away our cups. A few days ago a car- 

 riageful of ladies stopped for a drink. The cup 

 was passed from one to another without oblig- 

 ing them to get out. When they were gone the 

 cup was missiug. They seemed to be intelli- 

 gent, well-bred people, and I knew they did not 

 steal it. Let me tell you what they did do. In 

 the afternoon they came back laughing and 

 chatting. As they passed along, one of them 

 took our tin cup, and, to save getting out or 

 stopping the team, she threw it toward the hy- 

 drant. Then they had a good deal of merri- 

 ment and drove olt. Had I not seen it, and 

 picked it out of the dirt, the next, team would 

 have crushed it into the mud. People are 

 thoughtless; so 1 have decided to foot the bill 

 for tin cups and repairs to the hydrant, and get 

 my pay in seeing people refreshed and made 

 happy, and many times induced to drink water 



when they otherwise might be induced to drink 

 something else. 



Now, while there are vicious people and 

 thoughtless people in the world, there are also 

 thousands upon thousands of good people who 

 love humanity, and who came not into the 

 world to be ministered unto, but to minister to 

 others. It is these people who furnish drinking- 

 places and cups; and there are many of these 

 people who would be glad to help pay the ex- 

 pense of public drinking-places if they were 

 permitted. This enterprise on the grounds of 

 the World's Fair is the brightest invention in 

 this line that has ever come under my observa- 

 tion. The whole establishment, or little booth, 

 is neat and artistic. Then there is a lot of 

 drinking-glasses made of pure flint glass, and 

 so thin that, even in hot ueather, the drinking- 

 cup is not heavy enough to cool off perceptibly 

 the contents. A great heavy glass, or a heavy 

 dish of any kind, is not the thing for a drink, 

 unless, indeed, your heavy dish is deposited in 

 the spring under water when it is not in use. 

 Well, when you want a drink of Waukesha 

 spring water you put a penny in a slot. The 

 glass is all ready, right under the outlet. This 

 penny, by £\utomatlc machinery, lets out a little 

 more than a cupful of water. The surplus 

 rinses the tumbler all over — outside as well as 

 in; and as this pure spring water leaves no 

 residue, the sparkling glass, wet all over, as if it 

 had been dipped in a spring, glistening with its 

 contents, stands before you. For fear you may 

 not have a penny handy, a lady sits at the 

 counter, with heaps of pennies — heaps of five 

 and ten. She swaps the pennies for nickels or 

 dimes, sees that the glasses are put back ready 

 to be tilled, and looks after the machine so that 

 nobody steals the beautiful glass cups. The 

 pennies pay her for her supervision — pay for 

 the automatic machinery, and, I suppose, pay 

 for laying the pipes away up into Wisconsin, 

 more than a hundred miles, to the locality of 

 these beautiful springs. I for one feel glad to 

 think that it was my privilege to contribute 

 pennies to help pay for this wonderful enter- 

 prise. Why, if such an arrangement could be 

 started and kept going on the streets of our 

 towns and cities, furnishing water absolutely 

 pure, it seems to me it must be patronized tre- 

 mendously by a grateful public. During the 

 warm days, all these places for drinking-water 

 were patronized heavily; but by far the greater 

 part of the people seemed to prefer to pay the 

 penny rather than to go to the free places. The 

 fact is, everybody seemed to pronounce the 

 spring water the nicest and most beautiful 

 water they ever tasted. I am glad to see that 

 I am not alone in my decision that pure soft 

 water is more wholesome than the various hard 

 waters containing such a large amount of 

 chemicals. I want drinking-water so pure 

 that, when it evaporates on the surface of a 

 glass, no cloudiness, indicating the presence of 

 chemicals, is to be found. 



Of course, there were drinking-places for 

 other things than water. A great many of the 

 foreigners, and perhaps a good many who were 

 not so foreign either, patronized the beer-estab- 

 lishments. A glass of beer could be bought 

 anywhere for .5 cents, while a cup of colfee or 

 lemonade was always 10 cents. Let me say, to 

 the credit of the Fair people, however, that a 

 glass of milk was also 5 cents. But I want to 

 say a word about the beer. I do not know in 

 regard to its quality; but these friends of ours, 

 whom perhaps we do not know very well, seem- 

 ed to have a fashion of sitting down and sip- 

 ping their beer leisurely. Young America 

 would take a great big glassful at one swallow, 

 and perhaps another and still another. Our 

 German people sit down to a table, and sip 



