Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-07-23
AS YOU LIKE IT.
Some Stray Leaves From Reporters
 Note Book.

kNVk0 ApOVAAs
 The curfew bell will ring at o'clock tonight and as result every body will retire feeling happier than at any time since it was stopped. City Clerk Nettleton carried out the order of the board of aldermen and General Manager Sewell of the Con- Reticut Railway & Lighting Go call ell upon Mayor Elton ill connection with the matter tDis morning and his honor told him to let 'er 80. Mr Scwel said that he didn't know how long the company will continue to use steam, but he thought some ar engagement might be made to keep up the service if the public wants it, and there can be no question about the demand for it.
 Say" said a property owner on South Main street, between Union and Meadow streets, this morning, 'is 1t so that the whole street department is enjoying vacation? Look it up and see and if you find they are at the shore, let it go; if not. inquire if the board of public works has decided to abandon the cleaning of our street Come down and look at it. It is in the same shape the storm of last Fri day left it. There must be some thing wrong. I know they are not short of foremen and it cannot be pos sible that the big appropriation made for this kind of work last fall has been used up.' All the information that could be obtained on the matter was that the department is curtailing ex- penses.
 'Let me sing once more at the Peo- ple's Palace" said Mme de Navarro, when pressed to go back on the stage. On the night of June 24 she had her wish. and the same Mary Anderson we used to know twenty years ago sang to 2,O00 people, so that the poor lads and lasses of the teenling East End may have sweetness and light by the fur therance of the club settlements She wore no wreath of roses, only a simple gown of pure white. and her hair just simply done-its own ornament. Jnce during the evening she really ceased to be Mary Anderson. That was when she tread" the murder scene in Mac beth" She was both characters. She introduced the reading by sitting in a very large chair and quietly telling ths audience about her enthusiasm for Shakespeare strikingly new thing for an actress to do.
 A missionary who has travelled much says there Is more superstition right here at home than in all the cannfbal and other tribes he met. Take the Pennsylvania Pike county native, for instance. He believes. for rattlesnake bite, the thing to do is to cut live chicken in half and to lay the half containing the heart upon the wound. The lump of chicken will, he holds, ad here to the bite and suck out all the poison, turning, as the venom enters it a horrible green hue. There Is no truth in this claim. of course, but if a visitation of rattlesnakes should come upon Pike county, every chicken there would be cut in half And then take the Mississippian. He doses himself for impure blood with teas made Of helnlock leaves, Of plantafn. and of all manner of nauseOus weeds. These teas only give him stomach ache, but nev- ertheless he considers them as valua- ble to mankind as qulnine or opium.
 Human life continues to be swal- lowed up in the ponds about town and yet nobody dares sneeze regarding the advisabilty of taking steps to compel owners of large bodies of water to pro tect them. or establish public baths where the youth of the city may learn how to swim and be equipped to care for themseves when they strike deep water. Everybody should learn how to swim. but it would be a wise plan Go master all the curves under the eye of somebody who is able to lend a hand in case you should find yourself going to the bottom. The city could maintain public baths at small ex- pense and thus do away with all this worry over drowning accidents during the summer months. but nobody seems to have sufficient interest in such mat ters to take hold of the project. The loss Of a couple of pounds of copper from one of the factories creates a bigger fuss in police circles and in the public mind than the death by drown ing of a human being and while this ia so there Is little hope of precarl- 4ionary measures being used to save the little ones from rushing into the death traps tha4 await them in all sec tions of the city, 1t is wonder the safety board has not given this matter 6 little consideration but perhaps they are too busy noting whether the offl- cerB wear their gloves on all occasions and bow with becoming reverence tD their superiors, to devote any time to 8 small matter like drowning acci- dent.