Judge — August 25, 1906 — page 10: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Beware of talking hot air, for if you have to eat your own words you will have a rather windy diet. I have sent you the following query four times and do not get a reply. What is the matter with your experts? If I hear nothing from you this time I shall go elsewhere with my questions hereafter. Sreta, Leonia, N. J. Dear Stella, you are mad. We can tell by the scornful, impatient tone of your letter, And that isn’t the only evidence. We know you are mad, Stella, because, in the effort to restrain your indignation, you forgot to ask your question. Now, if we could only imagine what it is you want to know we'd inform and instruct you by the hour. We are just that generous and reckless of our time that, for the mere fun of it, we'd become an endowed university for your sole sake and just load ourself down with the job of filling your ample mind with knowl- edge. As it is, we don't know where to begin. Just cool off, Stella, and then fire your question at us. Dear Sir—Can you tell me what the trouble is with the East River tunnel? I understand it is finished, but there is some mystery about the business. Very little is said in the papers, and I write to you for light on the subject. E. A. Jacay, Sheboygan, Wis. The policy of silence with reference to the East River tunnel is due to a very natural and regrettable mistake which has brought deep chagrin to the engineers of the undertaking and to the whole popula- tion of the metropolis. We have been a party to this policy of reti- cence out of a desire to shield those immediately responsible, and also to avert the oceans of ridicule that would be sure to sweep our city ; but since the question is put point blank, we must tell the truth. The plan called for the digging of the tunnel from the two sides of the river simultaneously, In order to have the two bores meet a nice calcula- tion was necessary, and the difficulty of working to the mechanical and mathematical specifications was very great. The work was begun and maintained at high tension for several years, and then the engineers began to show an anxiety that was not long in communicating itself to the public. Little by little it leaked out that the workmen were trav- cling long distances to their work after entering the tunnel. Then it became known that those who came out at evening were not the same who went in at morning. Wives of the ++ sand-hogs,” as the tunnelers are called, began to complain that their husbands were gone weeks ata time. By this time the engineers began to go over plans and to make investigations, and, to the amazement and embarrass- ment of everybody concerned, it was discovered either that one set of tunnelers had missed the cal- culated grade, or else that there had been an error in the surveys. At all events, the borers from the Man- hattan end dipped some twenty feet below the tube that was being pushed from the Brook- lyn side, and kept right on until they heard the beat and pound of the ocean somewhere (0- ward the middle of the Atlantic, The westward borers at the same time went right on, and had got to a point about eighty feet beneath Pea- pack, N. J., before the mistake came to light. Every effort has been made to keep these facts ou reassured him."* A VERY RAPID YOUNG MAN. Doris—"' Father sald you were a very fast young man.” i I did. I told him not to worry—you were too speedy for me to catch."” A. girl may be perfectly well and yet not holding She may be carry- her own. ing her sis- ter’s baby. from the public, and not without success, until now. We would not divulge the secret to anybody near home, but there can be no harm in letting the Sheboygan folks know about it—only please do not tell it to anybody who has friends in the east, for we wouldn't have that story get back here for the world. My! wouldn't Boston have the laugh on us! The New York Sun recently had a head-line which read, ‘Little Boys To Be Cooped.” Will you kindly explain just what this means? j.o. Certainly. Mr. Upton Jungle Sinclair has proposed to found a colony out near Princeton, N. J., where poor people may live so they won't feel it, and where All Shall Be as it Should be. Children are te be brought up in the colony on shares—that is, instead of each mother ing her valuable time to a mess of children, the Pore Little Things will be bunched together under a Competent Person who will treat them right without talking baby-talk. Also no servant shall enter therein except such as have been to college and got Big Ideas. Thus, by avoiding the corrupting influences of their mothers and servants, children will for once get a Square Deal and a Fair Show. This is the meaning of the line you mention, ** Little boys to be co-oped.” I saw recently some wonderful calculations beginning with the amount of money saved annually by women at Friday bargain-sales. Can you give me the rest of the article? I thought the statistics were so interesting and showed such careful study. Bepewta. You probably refer to the following, which has appeared in many quarters of late: ++If all the money saved annually by the women of the United States at the Friday bargain-sales were to be divided among the 24,737 turpentine farmers and laborers in the United States each would receive $518,882, or $2 more than the value of the vote of Ver- mont at $10 a vote, and there would be a balance of $78.12, which would be enough to buy each of the 1,953 camels in Western Australia a nose-ring worth four cents, If all the stogies made in Wheeling, W. Va., in April and May, 1904, were rolled into one stogie it would be 97,341.10 inches long, 6,344 inches thick>and weigh 283,876 ounces, troy weight. A man would have to have a jaw 8,166 feet from ear to ear, measured through his mouth, to get it between his teeth; and if he smoked it up he would be so sick that it would require the services of 823 physicians, 1,200 nurses, and 343 attendants rs, 11 months, 18 days, 22 minutes and 51 seconds to get his stomach in order again. The smoke from the sto- gie would form a cloud 221 miles long by 47% wide, obscuring the sun from Maysville to Mo- nessen, Pa, If the cold feet of the men ahead of the game in all of the poker seances in Chicago on an average night were to be collected it would give a frigidity equal to that of 91,715,400 pounds of artificial ice manufac- tured annually in St. Louis; and if a percent- age of this ice equal to the duty on candles into that part of the Gold Coast of Africa west of the river Volta were to be used in high-balls it would cool 36,686, 160 of these drinks.”” comicbooks.com