Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1892-08-04
PERSONAL POINTS.

ais memoirs. What lot Of fellows there
are who think that the world is aching to
have them tell about affairs that were
worn threadbare in the papers years ago.
Rudyard Kipling will spend the summer
in Samoa with Robert Louis Stevenson,
and they will swap opinions on American
newspaper syndicates and their penuriou8
treatment of brilliant geniuses.
King Charles of Roumania, who is now
visiting Queen Victoria, is known to the
western world chiefly as the husband of
Carmen SYLVIA" the poet Queen Eliza
beth, but his fame in Europe rests on
much more substantial ground. He is a
very enlightened monarch, and during
the quarter of d century he has ruled
over Roumania he has brought that little
kingdom from chaos to perfect order. He
is ffty.two years old and ''every inch
king" as British statesman once said
Of him.
The heroine of the latest novel in which
England is interested, Miss KiTkorlian's
A Daughter of Mystery, is a gypsy girl
possessed of extraordinary mesmeric pow
It's just little more than a century,
Dy the way, since DR.. Mesmer, the German
deliver into the occult, gave novelty. loving
Paris lis first ex perience of the mysterious
mental force which now, under the
guise of hypnotism, il so much in
vougue. His seances were attended
by many of the fashionables whose
heads were soon to fall beneath DR.. Gull
lotin's dread machine until finally the
academy, for the public good, put a stop
to Mesmer's antics. 1t was just st that
time, too, that Paris was learning its
first lessons Of the balloon from the Mont,
golfers teachings, and duchesses were
not too proud to shake hands with the
daring aeronaut De Rozier after his first
ascent In one of the new hot-air bags.
The guests of the Fountain house, Wau-
kesha, were astounded Monday night on
learning that while the hop was in
progress Miss Lulu Kerr, daughter of
Alderman William r. Kerr, of Chicago,
had quietly gone with Rupert L. Calvert,
of st. Louis, to the residence cf Rev DR..
Blue. of the Presby terrain church, and,
with Mrs, Blue and N. T. Powell OF
Atlanta, Ga, as witnesses, had been
married. The bride is petite, pretty and
scarcely Is years Of age, while the groom
is handsome, % years old, vice president
of the Vane Calvert Paint company of st.
Louis, and worth $685. Mr.. Kerr
had left for Chicago early in the day, and
another gentleman to whom Miss Kerr
was said to be engaged had just arrived,
so that the whole affair resolves itself into
a romantic elopement. Mrs. Kerr was at
the springs, however, and was induced to
give her blessing, SO it is liz ely that Mr..
and Mrs Calvert will start in married life
as the hero and heroine of pretty and
successful romance.
Bar Harbor is full of romance. Big
Thunder, the king Indian of the village,
tell visitors that the spot where Mr..
Blaine residence now stands was the
home of the chief of the Mount Desert
tribe, and that there he lived and died.
There is an old Indian superstition that it
is bed luck to abide where a chief has
died. The Indian element at Bar
Harbor supplies any amount of
fun for the tourists. A few days ago
Miss Hattie Blaine went down t. the
camp to get basket for her mother, who
is very fond of Indian trinklets. As
every one knows, she is very darkroom
piexioned, being a pronounced brunette,
with deep, earnest Dlack eyes. She found
basket that just suited her, and looking
up at the Indian dealer, said: "How
much is this?" "Me moo charge you
anything, he answered, ''you handsome,
you like Indian girl" Miss Hattie went
home overioyed with her gift.
DIRECT TAX FOR ROADS
Among the foremost agitators for the
building of better country roads is ex-Gov
James A, Beaver, OF Pennsylvania, who
made this the subject of an executive
message during his term of office Gov
Beaver has written for the August num-
Der of the Forum an explanation why
most communities find it difficult to get
good roads. The school tax, he says, we
have become accustomed TO; SO we have
become accustomed to be taxed for chart
table institutions and for the relief of the
poor, but III most states the habit of gen.
eratlons so far as concerns the i'm
provement of roads, has been
the Ineffective system of working tie
roads, so that most men have not only
had it firmly fixed in their minds that
roads are not proper subjects for direct
taxation, but that the highways might be
made by small contribution of personal
labor.
1t is this long and deeprooted habit and
unwllllGgness to pay "a direct sufficient
road tax that is the primary cause of our
national disgrace in having so few good
highways; and the remedy lies In such
an agitation as is happily now going on
In most states for keeuer public appre-
citation OF the direct comm ercial benefits
of we'll built roads
ACCORDING to the Railway Age, of Chi
csgo, ID railroad companies representing