Chicago eagle. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1889-19??, 1904-05-28


of plums and prunes were imported.
Instead of buying pruncs abroad we
are selling them. Last year the total
exports were Gj,W0OOO pounds. The
business has grown with surprising
rapidity. Ii was not till 1898 that the
exports of pruncs were entered as Il
separate item in government reports.
They had been 50 insignificant that
before that pruncs were included in
the item of "al other fruits" .\c.
cor,ling to the United States Consul
at Bordeaux. the French buy large
quantities of California pruncs. and re-
pack them and export them to other
countries with French labels Oh the
boxes.
~eA
The old fight over what music Is
proper for the church is on again. In
fact. 1t has never been entirely or.
Now and then some clergyman breaks
out III philippe, sometimes against
tile Kind of music. sometimes against
the kind of people who make 1t. and
not infrequently against both. Occa.
sionally the preachers say unreason.
able things, as did one who declared
that unless carefully guarded music
leads to Righteousness" Association,
propinquity. may sometimes lead to
1t. ana ~ the performance of music dc.
lnards association II may have u kind
Of secondary responsibility. but that
music as music 50 leads Is u charge no.
body can sustain. Not music alone dc.
mantls association. The same critic
maintains that church singers should
he Christians. Now and again Il has
been discovered that some preacher
was not just the right kind of u Chris.
tinn. but his preaching never had any
bad effects til after the discovery.
How can the singing of one OF the
wrong kind have any III effect so long
us the kind is not known One may
admit this contention ana agree that
the singers ought to be Christians. but
certainly they ought also to know how
to sing. There Is nothing more cXas.
perating than to be forced to listen TO
the nerve-racking noises made by one
who knows nothing of singing. unless
1t be the joint efforts OF two or more
of the same kind, and the more there
are of them the worse 1t Il. There Is
congregational singing that might be
suppressed as calculated to incite 10
disturbance of the peace. The same
critic strikes nearer the truth I'm the
remark that Emusic Is one of the great.
est factors for good or evil that exists
to-day" ana II this be true why give
II over exclusively to the service of
evil? Whether the church uses q,
| choir or the congregation sings. In
either case those who try to sing
should he taught how to sing. The
test Of all human things Is the use that
Is made of them.
~eA
With all the associations that cling
around the name of virginia. that
state seems TO furnish u strange set
ting for such u tragedy rs that Of
Edward l.. Wentz, whose body was r..
Gently found near big Stone Gap In
Wise County. And yet the mountain
| country In the western part of Viz
ginla Ii as full Of the mystery of
mOOiislliners ana feuis ana other law.
lessness rs the adjacent districts of
Kentucky and Tennessee. Wentz had
inherited an interest In great estnte
of mountain lands that had never been
| subdlvided for sale. There were many
| sIliatter Inhabitants, and all OF them
ragged against the young man who
came In to develop the country, as II
he We're some usurper or tyrant. Oct.
IA last year he disappeared, and though
his denth has long been assumed his
fate was not really known. For seven
months his body lying on open ground,
undiscovered. Searchers by the thOus.
anls had sought for weeks to lind him,
ana some Of them must have passed
within Il very short space OF his body.
Finally the place Of his death was
| found by accident within mile Of
where he was last seen alive. He had
evidently been killed by his squatter
enemies. This Is a tale of wilderness
and desolatiOn, filter for the early days
Of colonization than for the prime OF
the greatest of nations. filter for the
far West than for the hOary East. II
| gives us ut least a sense Of the long,
long time 1t will yet take before the
growing people will have occupied the
whole land for Its Own--befOre the
whole land will be really settled"
| ~a
II any writer of romance were to In.
vent for the hero of his story such a
career as that actually pursued by the
extraordinary man who has recently
died ut 63 and known to the world us
Henry NJ. Stanley nine critics in ten
would accuse him of incredible eXtrav'
agance. 1t covered the range from
wOrkhOuse to Parliament, and between
these passed through half n dozen
stages In any one of which was TO
nance enough for lifetime. In the
light of his rise to fame ana fortune
the old phrase that truth IL stranger
than fiction" becomes the merest tru
ism. 1t brings the conviction, too, tina,
they who declare that the age of rO
nance has gone forever are wholly
wrong. The romance of the age Of
lightning and steam does not go about
in armor nor sail under the black flag
but il Is none the less romance. Only
| here and there one recognizes IL rs n