4o6 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
May 27 
From Day to Day. 
“There! little girl; don’t cry! 
They have broken your doll, I know; 
And j our tea-set blue, 
And your play-house, too, 
Are things of the long ago; 
But childish troubles will soon pass by— 
There! little girl; don’t cry! 
There! little girl; don’t cry! 
They have broken your slate, I know; 
And the glad, wild ways 
Of your schoolgirl days 
Are things of the long ago; 
But life and love will soon come by— 
There! little girl; don’t cry! 
There! little girl; don’t cry! 
They have broken your heart, I know; 
And the rainbow gleams 
Of your youthful dreams 
Are things of the long ago; 
But Heaven holds all for which you sigh— 
There! little girl; don’t cry!” 
—James Whitcomb Riley. 
* 
Hull House, Chicago, that beneficent 
guide and helper for the poor, has a 
public kitchen, where good wholesome 
food may be obtained at small cost. One 
poor woman, however, strongly objected 
to eating the food supplied there. Said 
she, “ I don’t want to eat nutritious food. 
I want to eat what I’d ruther.” She took 
the same view as a small girl of our ac¬ 
quaintance who, after a sickness, was 
told she must have plenty of nourish¬ 
ment. “ I know what you mean by 
nourishment,” said she, “ you mean all 
the things I don’t like to eat! ” 
* 
A writer in a Chicago paper states 
that Kansas women in country districts 
wear calico gowns and sunbonnets when 
riding the bicycle, but explains that this 
costume, strange to eastern eyes, is evi¬ 
dence of their good sense. The roads 
are extremely dusty, as a rule, and the 
costume described is the most suitable, 
under these circumstances. The wheel 
has proved a wonderful benefit to women 
on western farms ; they are no longer 
dependent on the horses, and even when 
the roads are bad, they can get to town 
quicker than a man and team. 
# 
THE^following quaint notice was re¬ 
cently posted on a church door in White- 
church, England: 
Missing: Last Sunday, some families from 
church. Stolen: Several hours from the Lord’s 
Day, by a number of people of different ages 
dress v d in their Sunday clothes. Strayed: Half 
a score of lambs, believed to have gone in the 
direction of “No Sunday School.” Mislaid: A 
quantity of silver and copper coins on the counter 
of a public house, the owner being in a state of 
great excitement. Wanted: Several young peo¬ 
ple. When last seen, were walking in pairs up 
Sabbath Breakers’ Lane, which leads to the city 
of No Good. Lost: A lad, carefully reared, not 
long from home, and for a time very promising. 
Supposed to have gone with one or two older 
companions to Prodigal Town, Husk Lane. 
Any person assisting in the recovery of the 
above shall in no wise lose his reward. 
• 
A number of Illinois men have formed 
a widows’ club, the members taking a 
pledge that they will marry none but 
widows. They say that their object is 
a worthy one, since eligible girls find no 
difficulty in securing husbands, while a 
widow is handicapped, especially if 
she be left with children. Unmarried 
women, however, do not take the same 
view, asserting that the widow has 10 
per cent more chances of matrimony 
than the girl, and the formation of clubs 
to help widows in this way is an attack 
upon the rights of all maids. They 
reiterate the advice of the immortal Mr. 
Weller, and urge these misguided men 
to beware of widows. We can’t help 
thinking that this widows’ club is meant 
as a retaliatory measure, to get even 
with the bachelor girls’ association 
which recently set up a standard of per¬ 
fection by which to judge would - be 
husbands. 
A cigar store in an Indiana town re¬ 
cently had an alluring sign offering to 
sell pennies for 10 cents a dozen. This 
offer was not the result of pure philan- 
throphy, for the store containing a num¬ 
ber of penny-in-the-slot machines, most 
of the cut-rate pennies sold remained on 
the premises. Persons who, upon ordi¬ 
nary occasions, would pay no attention 
to the slot machines, were drawn in by 
this bait. 
* 
The corset is in trouble again ! This 
time it is the minister of education of 
Saxony, who has forbidden girls and 
young women attending the public 
schools to wear corsets. We have always 
regarded such prohibitions as amusing, 
but there is a serious principle involved. 
If any government is permitted to regul¬ 
ate dress, we cannot be sure how far it 
may interfere with the liberty of citizens. 
Such encroachment upon individual 
rights might lead to sumptuary regula¬ 
tions a6 arbitrary as those of the Middle 
Ages, when the wife of a farmer was not 
permitted to wear garments similar to 
those worn by a dame of higher degree. 
Even though the corset, as worn by some 
women, is actually harmful, no govern¬ 
ment has the right to prohibit women 
from wearing it. No anti-corset law 
ever enacted has accomplished its pur¬ 
pose ; such laws have been ignored by 
the women, and laughed at by the men. 
* 
The town of Beattie, Kan., passed 
under petticoat government this Spring. 
As noted before in The R. N.-Y., Beattie 
has a woman mayor, a council composed 
of five women, and a woman clerk. Pre¬ 
vious to the present administration, 
Beattie was ruled by men, and the ad¬ 
ministration was very unsatisfactory. 
The “Mamma ticket,” as it was called, 
had the support of all the respectable 
men in town. The mayor is a gray-haired 
farmer’s wife, with a serious, resolute, 
but kindly face, and the town is looking 
forward to a strong and capable adminis¬ 
tration of its affairs. 
* 
For the first time in history, a small 
boy’s cipher dispatch is to receive public 
recognition. Kansas is preparing to give 
a tremendous reception to those volun¬ 
teers in the Philippines who swam a 
river and drove the rebels out of Calum- 
pit, and a meeting was held to decide 
upon an appropriate sign of recognition 
with which to greet them on their re¬ 
turn. Gov. Stanley asks that, as soon as 
the regiment arrives, the welcomers lift 
up the right arm, with the first two 
fingers open. “ Every schoolboy who 
has attended a country school in the 
Summer knows what this means”, says 
the Governor. “ It simply means 1 Let’s 
go swimming.’ The Twentieth Kansas 
has proved to the world that it can 
swim.” 
* 
Testifying before the Senatorial Food 
Investigation Committee, one expert said 
some very uncomplimentary things about 
baking powders. He divided these into 
two classes—cream of tartar and alum or 
phosphate. In order to neutralize the 
effect of the 25 to 30 per cent of bicar¬ 
bonate of soda used by many manufac¬ 
turers, it is necessary to utilize nearly 60 
per cent of cream of tartar, and when 
this combination is used in food, a large 
percentage of Rochelle salts is the re¬ 
sult. Apparently, the only thing left 
for us to do, is to resist the blandish¬ 
ments of those manufacturers who make 
cheapness the strongest point of their 
baking powders, and then leaven our 
biscuits with fear and trembling. 
The Memory of 
Our Fighting Men 
By Joseph Wheeler 
Major-General Volunteers , U. S. A. 
JOSEPH WHEELER 
“American Kings ” Series 
William A. Clark 
The Copp er King 
WILLIAM A. CLARK 
Editorials on The New Memorial Day 
By BRIGADIER-GENERAL J. P. S. GOBIN, Past Commander-in-Chief G. A. R. 
The Streets are the People's 
By CARTER H. HARRISON, Mayor of Chicago 
THE FALLEN OF THE FIGHT, a Decoration-Day Poem, by Frank L. Stanton. 
Stories by JOHN HABBERTON, VANCE THOMPSON, BARRY PAIN. 
Dated Saturday, May 27. 
5 
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