THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



297 



The 



Curfew 



Law 



traditions: the princess must be young 1 

 and beautiful and the wicked fairy 

 wrinkled and hideous. The best of us 

 ic ill judges by appearances. "Cl thes do 

 not make th^ man" no, but they help 

 to make the woman, in a man's estimation. 

 A man rails at woman's folly in the line of 

 dress: he ridicules her high heeled, 

 narrow shoes, her small waist, her long 

 dress. But when he marries does he 

 choose the sensible girl who is dressed in 

 accordance with his views, whose skirts 

 are just short enough to display her broad, 

 common sense shoe, whose waist is uneon- 

 fined by lacing, who disdains the charms 

 of "frizzes"? 



Indeed he does not. His wife will be a 

 doll-like C'-eature whose feet are crowded 

 into shoes three sizes too small, who wears 

 a trail, a bustle and 'Tats" in her hair 

 And he is as proud of her 21 inch waist 

 and her number 3 shoe as she can jwssibly 

 be. 



Despite the joking and "josh- 

 ing"' concerning the curfew 

 law. its friends are working 

 industriously to see that the law is not 

 only passed, but enforced after it is passed, 

 and we hear every now and then of a city 

 or town added to the list of those that 

 have adopted it. Spokane. Wash., has 

 had a curfew law but it has been more 

 honored in the breach than in the ob- 

 servance, until recently, when Mayor 

 Olmsted decided after a thorough invest- 

 igation that the law is a worthy one 

 and deserving of being enforced. So 

 henceforth the little lads and lassies under 

 14 years, must keep off the street after 

 8 o'clock at night in winter and 9 in 

 summer. An effort was made to make 

 the age limit Ifi years instead of 14. the 

 fine is $5 or imprisonment in the city jail 

 until paid. 



While at first glance a law of this kind 

 strikes one as unjust and difficult to 

 enforce, a more thorough investigation of 

 it will reveal its merits. In small country 

 towns it is not so necessary to have the 

 curfew, as ''early to bed and early to rise'' 

 is the motto of the majority of the inhab- 

 itants, young and old. 



But in the city it is different. Parents 

 among the lower classes have so littlle 

 control over their children that it is quite 



useless for them to forbid the young 

 people going out on the street or in fact 

 anywhere else they choose, and in a great 

 many cases the parents do not try to keep 

 the children at hom j . as they are free 

 from the responsibility of looking after 

 them if they do not know where they are. 

 Ask many a Mother at 9. 10 or 1 1 P. M. 

 where her little girl of 12 or 13 years is 

 and she will say carelessly, "Oh. I don't 

 know, can't tell where she is. Most likely 

 out on the street playing." ''On the 

 street'" is as indefinite as a man's "Down 

 town'" is to his wife, which is saying a 

 very great deal, the latter may include 

 most any place. 



So for the child whose parent can not or 

 will not keep her children at home even- 

 ings the curfew bell may carry more 

 weight, as there will be before their 

 childish eyes a vision of themselves in 

 "durance vile,"' if caught on the street 

 later than the lawiul limit. 



Years ago and not so many of them 

 either mothers marched their young 

 hopefuls off to bed at 8:30 sharp, and no 

 curfew was necessary. It may seem hard 

 on the kids, but like most disagreeable 

 things it is for their good. Perhaps the 

 little girl who asked "why good things 

 were always so nasty and bad ones so 

 nice"' was a victim of the curfew 

 ordinance. 



We recently saw. in the Jour- 

 tSdiln. nolist, of New York city, a 



short biographical sketch of 

 Lodian Lodian, with portrait. We hope 

 later to be able to present in our pages 

 the portrait of this wonderful man. whose 

 life is so full of ai venture and incident. 



One often wonders, when pass- 

 Trees, ing a farm house, that stands 



exposed to the winter winds 

 and summer heat with never a tree near 

 to cast its protecting shade in summer and 

 break the force of winter's icy blasts, why 

 it is that the dwellers therein do not plant 

 a few trees of s-ome description. In the 

 western states where water is scarce and 

 economy has to be used regarding it. we 

 can understand, to some extent, why any- 

 thing that tends to take up moisture from 

 the soil unless a money-producing growth, 

 would be dispensed with. Still even there 



