The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-08-07
Individual Opinion
and
Personal Point of View.

"A
IMPROVEMENT. city, and to see l.
costs a dime of law
full and legal coin, which is fun tor INC
car line but hard. on poor folks
Still We'll not grumble at that; per-
haps it were not well were it otherwise.
But our point is this: There are other
public parks-two of them in the nearI
of the city, either of them as pleasant oh
a hot summer evening as Pullen farh
and both of them may easily be reacheu
by those who have no dime to spend Oh
street car fare.
Why are they not improved? 1t can
not be pleaded there is no money, Wheh
the bear alone draws fifty dollars from
the treasury. And yet in Nash Square
and Moore Square there are hardly seats
enough for a dozen people. Time anu
time again the board has been asked 1or
seats that the women and chlldreh
might go out there in thesevening Tor
breath of fresh air and get it without
| having to stand or sit on the ground
mo money" was always the aldermanlc
reply that met them.
But for the ZOO it was only necessary
to ask and the golden stream flowed out
There was no scaling down OF amount
asked for; not even a discussion as 10
the items for which it was to be spent
Are bears more to be considered than
women and monkeys than children?
Not so many months ago these parks
Nash and Moore-were in darkness, and
it was with the greatest difficulty that
even lights were secured for them. Ihen
the flowers in Nash Square were neg
tot in
was allowed to fall into disuse and finally
was taken away altogether. But at Pui-
len Park Improvements, like Iennysoh
brook, "go on forever"
And this latter is well. That park
should be improved, but it should not be
done at the expense of the two more ac-
cessibe parks in the city.
Seats at least ought to be provided in
Nash and Moore Squares, the fountains
restored and the fiowerbeds cultivated.
Probably nothing would add so much
to the beauty and pleasure of either OF
them as fountains
FOUNTAINS in the centre--after
IN THE seats have been
PUBLIC SQUARES. provided on which
to sit. The foun-
tains need not be spectacular or costly;
they are always refreshing and pleasant,
to the sight and imagination, however
humble they may be.
A writer in a recent number of Scrib-
ner's Magazine discusses this very ques-
tion of fountains in modern cities, point
ing out that the new type of commercial
city has lost in nothing so much as IN
the suppression of those multitudinouS
water-j jets, falling into shallow basins,
which were common in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries:
Fountains are altogether,t to the public
life of cities, what the open hearth is to
the private life of homes. An open fire
draws the gaze continually, brings all
the room about it as if it were magnet;
and this not half so much because of the
physical reason of the warmth 1T gives
as because of the escape that it provides
for the imagination. To pause and watch
the silver spray moment is to feel the
lure of watching it indefinitely. The play
of the changeful water speaks OF spon-
taneity, of spiritual freedom; it is &C.
static: it is neither to hold nor to bind;
is pure soaring inspiration. 1t is every
thing precisely that the life of the busy
man or the plodder of either sex is not
and can't be.
"Just because of this is it so greatly
matter of regret that fountains enter SO
little nowadays into our plans of NUM-
cipal Improvement Their practical util-
ity NAV be at an end, but their aesthetic
influence, should not on that account be
foregone 1t is strangely short-sighted
to ignore that influence.
"Then why go on building miles OF
stony thoroughfares in our great towns
without so much as a spray of water, in
any part of them, to make rainbows IN
the sun, and to cause our spirits TO take
wings little at the sght?' he asks.
1--WE build under conditions which smut
out inexorably the pleasantness OF gar
den and other verdure; and we lament the
fact: but fountains demand so little
space that we could have them where
traffic most presses. Our forefathers
placed them as often as possible down
| in the street ITSELF
"The result of the machinists' strike
on the Seaboard is an instance of how
men may throw
MACHINISTS away a victory al
HAD ALMOST most in the hour
WON OUT. of their triumph,
said an engineer
Yesterday. THE machinists had their
| fight won, but not realizing it they sur
rendered and now very few of them
| have a job at any price. Had they but
| held out a week or two longer the result
| would have been quite different. The en-
gines on the road were getting into such
condition that they were not safe, and
soon the engineers would have refused to
run them. This would have tied up the
road and the strikers could have die
| tated terms
| The use of long staple cotton is in
creasng among North Carolina mills, as
they go more and
| LONG STAPLE more into the manu-
COTTON facture OF the finer
| ON TRIAL. fabrics. With the
growth OF this local
demand, farmers are beginning to eX-
pertinent i'm the cultivation of the lone
| staple cotton.
Last year" said Mr.. E. V. Denton, Il
| obtained some of the seed from Tennes-
see, for which l paid 80 cents a bushel
| no iC