SOCIETY NOTES 
Hon. and Mrs. George von L. Meyer, who recently 
left their Hamilton home for Washington, where they 
were joined by Mr. and Mrs. von. L. Meyer, Jr., have 
since left for Aiken. Miss Julia Meyer is with them. 
‘There are a number of North Shore people including 
Amory Hodges of Beverly Farms, who figures promi- 
nently in golf, at Aiken this winter. Mr. Hodges played 
in the Palmetto Golf club tournament last week and 
his partner was Miss Mary Sherve Ames, who is spend- 
ing the season at her estate, ‘‘The Pillars.’’ 
rx) 
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The wedding of Miss Hester Chanler and Edward 
Motley Pickman at Washington was a very quiet af- 
NOR HES HO REAR REZ Eb 3 
fair, there being no attendants and invitations issued 
to a small company of relatives only. The ceremony 
was performed by Rey. Fr. Sigourney Fay at the home 
of the bride’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Winthrop Chan- 
ler. Mr. Chanler gave his daughter away and Dudley 
L. Pickman, Jr., the elder brother of the groom, was 
best man. One of the pleasant features of the wed- 
ding was the dinner which Mr. and Mrs. George How- 
ard gave at the Alibic club the previous evening in 
honor of the Boston guests, Mr. and Mrs. Dudley L. 
Pickman, Jr., and others. After the wedding Mr. and 
Mrs. Henry White gave a wedding breakfast at their 
home. Mr. White was formerly ambassador to France 
from this eountry. Mr. Pickman and his wife are to 
engage in relief work in France, it is said. 
: If things keep on as they have been going for the 
| past few years, it will be much easier for an American 
citizen to go to jail and stay there than it will be to 
keep out of jail. Every now and then some individual 
or some clique bobs up with a brand new plan for turn- 
‘ing some of us into criminals. The number of new 
ways for getting a man into jail is surprising. Wiscon- 
sin has its “‘eugenics law,’’ which makes it a felony for 
a couple to marry without undergoing a physical ex- 
amination. The Illinois legislature, at its present ses- 
sion, will gravely consider the passage of a similar 
criminal statute. Other states are being asked to pass 
laws making it a felony for a citizen to have any liquor 
in his home, even for medicinal purposes. One state has 
a law against dancing the tango. The Indiana anti-cig- 
arette law never has been repealed, and the state has, 
as a result, several hundred thousand perfectly good cit- 
izens who could be arrested and sent to jail any day. 
Perhaps the most striking development of our govern- 
ment is that the laws are not made by all the people nor 
by representatives of the people, but by small cliques, 
highly organized and tremendously energized over par- 
ticular questions. These cliques are determined to force 
their views upon the whole people, while at the same 
time other cliques are forcing views on other questions 
upon them. The question is never asked whether the 
supposed offenses against the community are as bad as 
the penalties inflicted. There seems to be in the air a 
mania to find new ways of imprisoning American cit- 
izens, and yet, is there anything that can be as bad for 
the individual or the nation as a man in jail who ean 
possibly be kept out? 
a i 
| National Capital 
|| Events of Interest from the Seat of 
Government 
By J. E. Jones 
The Breeze Bureau, 
Washington, Feb. 9, 1915. 
Protecting the Poor Inventor. 
The impression that the rich steal 
‘the poor men’s patents is not entire- 
ly correct; for while there is a lot 
of this sort of thing going on, yet 
a decision rendered by the Board of 
Examiners of the United States 
Patent Office a few days ago, shows 
that there is still redress for the 
poor and worthy. Albert S. Janin, a 
poor cabinet maker, living out 
trom New York City, perfected the 
_hydroplane in 1909, and a year later 
Glen H. Curtis startled the country 
by ‘‘discovering’’ the same thing. 
There is nothing to indicate, in 
this instance, that Curtis knew any- 
‘thing about the prior invention. In 
the contest before the Patent Office 
_Janin proved his case, and the prob- 
abilities are that he will receive 
Yoyalties from all the products of 
the big Curtis factory which pro- 
“duces fifty to seventy-five thousand 
~ dollars worth of goods a week. 
' 
i 
i 
The Wright Brothers fought for 
several years to substantiate their 
prior claims to patents, and they 
were finally sustained. The same 
was true of Alexander Graham 
Bell, in his experiences with the tel- 
ephone. It is related that when Bell 
found he had perfected his device he 
went to the Western Union Tele- 
graph Company, and offered to sell 
all the rights of the invention for 
$100,000. He and his fellow worker, 
James A. Watson, were greatly dis- 
eouraged. But both had _ great 
wealth and power forced upon them 
because no one would buy their 
little toy. 
A few days ago the correspon- 
dent of the Breeze was one of a 
party of 150 invited guests to wit- 
ness the opening of the transcon- 
tinental telephone lines, and the first 
message we listened to over the re- 
ceivers with which we had been sup- 
plied, was between Mr. Bell, who 
was in the room with us, and Mr. 
Watson, talking from San Fransisco. 
The President and other gentlemen, 
including your humble correspon- 
dent, talked on that first trial of the 
6800 mile circuit; and the great 
achievement of wire communication 
was pronounced by all as a complete 
success. Bell and Watson were 
among the poor inventors saved by 
the enforcement of the patent laws. 
Their voices, on the day we heard 
them, fairly rung with success, joy 
and pride. Uncle Sam stood by them 
to the end, notwithstanding that 
they were very poor young men 
when they gave their invention to 
humanity forty years ago. 
Carranza, the Troublesome 
When Huerta was President of 
Mexico, and President Wilson was 
giving him the ‘‘ice treatment,’’ the 
white hope, according to the Wash- 
ington understanding, was Carranza, 
So enthusiastic was the State De- 
partment, that one of the southern 
officials in that branch of the gov- 
ernment, likened Carranza to Robert 
K. Lee, and admired them both with 
equal ardor. Later events indicate 
that practically the only similarity 
between Lee and Carranza was that 
they both grew long whiskers, 
Tuerta proved a genteel diplomat as 
compared with Carranza, who has 
built most of his power by defying 
the American ‘‘gringoes.’’ His latest 
declaration to the effect that he 
would seize lands involving $300, 
000,000 in American and $500,000 
000 in British property has been his 
most serious affront. There are some 
things even a patient government 
like the United States cannot watch 
