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Maryland State Archives Jeffersonian, Towson, Maryland mdsa_sc3410_1_81-0871 Enlarge and print image (3M) |
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Maryland State Archives Jeffersonian, Towson, Maryland mdsa_sc3410_1_81-0871 Enlarge and print image (3M) |
| ION SELF-DE UCTIVE. ued from Page 10) come civilized? I can t^Lnswer this question in e words of Prof. Karl Pear- n, who said to the British edical Association: 'You are aabling the deformed to live, he blind to see, the weakling o survive. In our institutions we provide for the deaf-mute, the blind, the cripple, and render it relatively easy for the degenerate to mate and leave their like. In the old days, the Tiand of nature fell heavily on the unfit. There were no doctors to enable them to limp through life, no charities to take their offspring or provide for their own necessities. . "To the honor of the medical profession, to the credit of our social instincts, be it said, we have largely stopped all this. We have held out a helping hand to the weak, but at the same time we have, to a large extent, suspended the automatic action whereby a race progressed mentally and physically. "What will happen if, by increased medical skill and by increased State support and private charity, we enable the weaklings to survive and propagate their kind? Why, undoubtedly, we shall have a weaker race." "We are anti-Burbanking the human race at every point. Burbank selects his best specimens for parents. There is no mystery about it. Farmers have done this ever since Eden. '"But in the human family, when civilized, we select our worst. "As evidence that the human race is weakening by these processes designed to relieve human suffering, nothing is more serious than the enormous number of women who can not bear offspring without the aid of surgery. Power to give birth easily to their offspring is a characteristic of barbarian women. But by artificial methods We enable the thinly built, the narrowly developed woman to produce children as well as the woman who is born to be the mother of healthy children. "If space permitted, I should <»like to go on and show other agencies at work tending to weaken the race through civilization. It is commonly believed that luxury in itself weakens the race. This is not true. It was not the luxurious soil which weakened the farmer's potatoes in any direct way. It was solely because the luxury of the fine soil enabled the little potatoes to survive and he foolishly saved all alike for seed. We do the same thing. But luxury works a further disaster in the human" family which it does not work upon plants and animals. It sets iy> among the successful >families—the ones who create the wealth and luxury, the inventions and institutions—social and political ambitions which they can not satisfy and, at the same ti-"ie: rear their re of the nation's childr^ • In this way the race dies con-* stantly at the top and breeds constantly from the bottom." At every point, Mr. Wiggam «ays, civilization defies nature. Polygamy becomes abhorrent to our moral senses. On the other hand, we set up high rewards for ambition, and thus serilize our strongest and ablest men and women. Few can have their selfish desires gratified and have enough money left to raise children. Still further, we not only provide for, but encourage, the multiplication of the unfit. ^These three processes are at - war with the stamina and virility of the race. He goes on: "The question comes, finally. Can man remain civilized? Must he merely take a brief joy-ride and then revert to barbarism? The biologist answers emphatically, No. All he needs - to do is to learn the lesson of the farmer, who selected his seed and found that rich soil and good environment gave incalculable rewards. "Man must learn this simple but immense lesson from Mother Nature. We can not select pareirts as the farmer selects his plants and animals. But we can absolutely prevent the criminalistic, pauperistic, fee- ble-minded, insane and epileptic stocks from reproducing their kind. We can also bring about those customs, those ideals of home-building, marriage, family life, and social morality which will encourage our good, sound* middle classes to marry early and produce families of healthy children." ----------o-------— PUTTING OUT A FIRE WITH A STEAM SHOVEL.. An underground fire in the Pittsburgh seam of coal near Charleroi, Pennsylvania, bids fair to be extinguished after almost a year of effort. The area of the fire is approximately six acres, and all known means had been tried without success to extinguish it, when finally cutting the fire off by means of an open trench was resorted to. This cut is approximately 1,000 feet long, averaging 45 feet deep at the ends, and running up to sixty-five feet at the center of the cut. It will average sixty-five feet wide on top and twenty-five to thirty feet in width at the top of the coal when completed. "Drilling was handled with jack-hammers and well-drills, but the greater bulk with well-drill holes, using 40 per cent, dynamite. Cuts were made in very low lifts due mostly to cave-ins to old workings, as the cut is undermined with old workings and quite dangerous. Only a shovel mounted on continuous treads could be used. Effective drilling was difficult, because of many holes going through to old working, the location of which could not be determined in advance, and the consequent loss of these holes for blasting purposes. The work has been in progress since February 10, 1923, Hi which time about 70 per cent, of the total 80,000 cubic yards have been handled. The equipment consists of a continuous-tread revolving shovel, two four-car trains of three-yard cars, and two twelve-ton dinkies of 36 inch gauge. Work is carried on in two shifts of nine hours each, and yardage runs as high as 800 yards per day, the shovel handling material that often is too bulky to pass through the dipper. Large rocks are either chaned to the dipper and loaded on the car or are cast back of the shovel to be jackham-mered into sizes that will pass through the shovel dipper. The upper twelve feet of clay was cast over the sides, and the remainder hauled to waste at either end of the cut by two dinky trains. The remaining 3 0 per cent, of material is solid rock and hard slate, and progress is slow and difficult because of cave-ins and mine gas and gaseous fumes leaking from the fire. Some of the material being loaded is too hot to handle with the bare hands. It is believed that this is the first piece of work of this nature to be undertaken by a contractor, and also the first on which a small revolving shovel was used. The shovel has proven its worth because of its flexibility of movement, and being able to go from place to place as the condition of fire warranted, moving, hauling or blasting. To date the work has been carried on without accident, but the hazard is greater as excavation comes closer to the coal. It is hoped that the work will be completed in a few weeks without accident and in time to load out the coal so as to form an effective cut-off to the fire. THE SCHICK TEST. For many years it has been known that a ""certain proportion, of children and adults in any community are immune to diphtheria because of the possession of natural anti-toxin. Doctor Schick, of Vienna, discovered a very simple method of finding out which children are susceptible to diphtheria and which are not. This method is called the Schick test. He found that if a tiny amount of diphtheria toxin were inserted by means -of a fine needle into the skin of a susceptible child, the toxin would meet no natural anti-toxin and would act as an irritant, causing a red spot the size of a dime to appear. If no spot developed within three days, it was proof that the child was immune. The Schick test is able to give us much interesting and valuable information -about immunity at different ages and under different conditions. For instance, about fifty per cent, of adults living in the country are immune and about eighty-five per cent, of those living in the cities. If a mother is immune, her infant is immune at hirth and for some six or twelve months after birth. The presence of this transferred antitoxin and the comparative isolation of babies are the reasons why so few of them develop diphtheria. Between the ages of one and three years nearly all babies are shown by the Schick test to have no antitoxin. That is the most dangerous period of their lives in regard to diphtheria. Year by year as they grow older a greater percentage of them develop their own antitoxin and diphtheria becomes gradually less of a menace. Nevertheless, one-half at least of the children remain susceptible and need protection. -------------0-—--------- SHOULD YOU ANSWER CHILDREN'S QUESTIONS? A child comes into the world a questioner, a searcher after) knowledge. He is in himself a question. Why is he here? Where is he going? Trying to know himself, he questions all who come his way. Perhaps among them all there is one who has the answer for him. The hunger to know drives him on and he searches in the darkness and in the light. He asks of the wise and the foolish. The young and the old. He asks because he must. Questioning is thinking, and so long as a mind questions it grows. Is the child's mind, then, to be allowed to grow, or is it to plod along the old roads deep in the rut worn by the million feet gone before—the comfortable rut that makes the circle, bringing him back at evening where he started at dawn? That is the fate of the child whose questions remain unanswered. For him there is no thrill of discovery, no glimpse of the promised land. He knows nothing of such things. His spirit dulled, his vision limited, he has lost his great gift. One must think in order to create, and thinking feeds on questions. So long as a question prods him on, the child will strive to get his answer and in the answering loose his creative power and take his place among men. Then patiently answer the questions until he is satisfied, always with the candor of one talking to his friend and equal. Often his mind is keener than the one he is questioning. It ought to be for his is the flower of all that have gone before. ----------o---------- BETTER HOMES IN AMERICA. The second year of the Better Homes in America movement, launched by the Delineator in 1921, triumphed id every State last June. President Coolidge wrote to one of the prize-winning Better Homes committees of 1923: "There can be no nobler aim than the improvement of the American home. To have aided in any respect in this work is in itself a sufficient reward, and to have aided this work with conspicuous success is a high distinction." More than ten thousand American women won this high distinction in 1923. Better Homes Week was opened officially by the late President Warren G. Harding when he dedicated the "Home, Sweet Home" house in the park behind the White House; at Washington—his last official function in the national capital. When President Harding, in 1921, promised the Editor of The Delineator to support a nation-wide Better Homes movement if The Delineator would finance it, she asked the country's foremost specialists in housing, home-making and economics to set up a standard for better homes in America. President Coolidge, four members of the Cabinet, thirty-four Governors of States, the General Federation of Women's Clubs, the National Federation of Business and Professional Women, the United States Chamber of Commerce and many other important organizations worked actively to raise the standard of living in-America through the Better Homes movement. Better Homes Week was observed in five hundred and twenty-one cities in 1922 and in more than one thousand in 1923. The work was chiefly done by women's clubs, departments of education chambers of commerce. -o- HOW TO CHOOSE SHOES. • The average adult spends sixteen hours a day wearing shoes, and it is obvious that any footwear that is not correct inflicts discomfort or actual pain throughout that period. Bear in mind that improper shoes not only work injury to the feet, but to the entire body. They absolutely preclude proper pasture and proper walking and impose strains on the body that are bound to be injurious. Headaches, irritability and nervousness can often be traced to one's slavish devotion to the shoes that are believed to be fashionable. Correct .posture begins with correct shoes and is impossible without it. There are four principal points to be remembered in, choosing your footwear: 1. There should be a straight inside line so that the big toe is not bent toward the outside border of the feet. This prevents enlargement of the big-toe joint. 2. The curve on the inside borders of the toe of the shoe should be gradual, to prevent crowding of the smaller toes. 3. There should be a flexible shank (that part under the arch between the heel of the shoe and the ball of the foot). This allows the muscles of the foot to have freedom of movement, resulting in stronger muscles and therefore stronger arches. 4. v Select a moderately low heel. The bottom of the heel should be as broad as the top, to give a broad basis for support, thereby preventing unsteadiness. ----------o---------- THE POST OFFICE HOSPITAL. In the New York post office there is what is known as a "Hospital Table," and there is similar equipment in every large office. Here parcels that have succumbed to the strains Of transmission are repaired. One such table I have in mind is presided over by a grizzled old employee, a veritable Santa Claus in appearance. He matches together the torn fragments of the addresses with the utmost care, possibly supplying a missing part from some clue on the cards or inscription en the articles themselves, and finally pasting all the parts of the address on a new wrapper. Many of the patients are too far gone for emergency treatment, vital parts of the addresses having been lost, and all these are sent to the dead-letter section, where they are letained pending possible inquiry by the owner. It should always be remembered that articles fdund loose in the mails arc carefully preserved, and if it ever happens that some one you send a gift to fails to receive it, write to your postmaster about it and everything will be done that can be done to trace it. ----------o---------- AN AGED SINNER. congregation of the dreadful fate of those who remained unsaved. He concluded, "And the wicked shall be cast into outer darkness; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." Old Sam Jackson rose from his seat demanding: "What about me, Mr. Johnson? I ain't got no teeth." Leaning far over the pulpit and shaking a long, bony forefinger at the aged sinner, Bro. Johnson said tensely: "Never you mind, Mr. Jackson! Never you mind! Teeth will be provided!" Our operators are experts in Marcel Waving which will give your hair a natural look. CALVERT 3133 Celeritie 410 Park Bank Bldg., Baltimore Liberty and Lexington Streets ???»?»???? ??»??????'»?«»¦ G. EDGAR HARR Artesian Well Drillet COCKEYSVILLE. MD. Agent for High Grade Pumps Estimates Furnished Phone. Towson 42-R [JAMES A. HUDGINS Decorator ' HOUSE PAINTING PAPER HANGING North Point Road Near Eastern Ave. Phone, Back River 10 Brother Johnson had labored through a long, perspiring evening to convince his colored Buy Your GROCERIES at CORBIN'S York Road Next to Bngtne House TOWSON, MD. And be assured of the Best at the Lowest Possible Prices ELMER W. CORBIN Proprietor V |