Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1907-06-07

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Now Intent Upon Study of Irish Safas-
StranGe Epidemic Amid Quails and Grous
Women Score Success as Rural Mai
Carriers Uncle 10" Says There Will
Be No Tariff legislature Next Winter.
tFrom our Regular Correspondent
WASHINGTON, d. c., May %, 1907.
The President returned to Washing
ton this week from a short outing al
Mrs. Roosevelt lodge at Pine Knot,
Va. He was away from the CITY
about week, shot a little and walked
and rode great deal. He is looking
much better for the outing and will
put in the time working till the start
is made for the long outing of the
family at Osyter Bay, where they
will spend the summer. Secretary
Loeb has already shipped most of the
Office furniture for the temporary
executive Office that the President
occupies over one of the stores in
Oyster Bay, and the home of the
family at Sycamore Hill will be kept
as free as possible from visitors in
the rather vain hope of giving the
President a real rest. His way of
resting is rather q joke and amounts
to what would be a good days work
for most men. There is about as
much business carried on in the sum-
mer at Oyster Bay as there is at the
White House in the winter, but the
President has told some of his friends
laughingly that he intends to be good
this summer and will merely get off
some reams OF literary work as recre-
alton.
1t is understood that this will in
clude some more reviews of Irish
folklore. This was a comparatively
recent line of research by Mr.. ROOse-
welt. He is said to have been intro
duced to it last winter by DIR. Maui
rice Francis Egan, the professor of
the Catholic University who has just
been offered his choice between the
mission to Denmark and that to
Portugal. DR.. Egan is himself an
Irishman, as might be suspected from
his name, and is an authority on
Gaelic literature. He got the Pres
ident interested in the subject which
he promptly devOured, and when
Douglas Hyde, the President of the
Gaelic League was here in the winter
he was surprised to find that the
President apparently had no recrea-
tion except studying the Irish clas-
sizes. Then when the row come on
with Tillman, Chandler and Bailey,
over the rate bill, the President de-
cided that he would divert himself a
little and forget what the papers were
saying about him. He started work
on his magazine article THE Irish
Sagas," promptly forgot all about
politics outside of Office hours, and
by the time the partizan papers had
gotten through dissecting the rate
bill row, the magazine article was
finished and the President had missed
the bulk of the newspaper criticism.
1t will be bad news to spOrtsmen
all over the country but according to
the Department of Agriculture there
has an epidemic broken out among
the quail and grouse that promises
to be as severe as the deadly grouse
disease" that periodically sweeps the
English shooting coverts and the
Scotch mOOrs. 1t was almost year
ago that the first indications of the
disease were found by the Depart
ment in some birds that had died of
q mysterious malady in the hands of
q Washington dealer. More birds
died in the same way in the hands Of
the same man and his healthy stock
was infected on the premises. 1t was
found that the disease came in ship
ments of birds from point in Ala
bama. Then there were similar re-
ports from Kansas and up to date
areas of infections have been de-
termined in Kansas, Alabama, In
dian Territory, Massachusetts and
Nova Scotia. The disease attacks
quail and grouse and is something
like infectious pneumonia. The germ
of the disease has been isolated ahd
it appears closely allied to. if not
identical with, the dreadful English
grouse disease. The spread is seri-
Gus enough to cause alarm, and the
Department has sent out circulars
asking for reports wherever there
seems to be an outbreak of infectious
disease among the quail and grouse.
It is hoped that the infected areas
can be defined and quarantined and
the spread of the disease checked.
The Department will be grateful for
any specimens of birds having died a
suspicious death. The specimens can
be wrapped in carbolated cotton and
shipped promptly to the Bureau OF
Animal Industry in Washington.
The general cooperation of the bird
loving public will help to check the
ravages of the disease.
Reports have been coming in to
the Rural Free Delivery section Ol
Pos toffice Department as to the per-
formances of the women rural car
riers on the Departments staff.
There are not prOportionately very
many women carriers, there being
| only 253 women out of q total force
of 80, ,666. Attention was first called
to the work during the past winter
of Miss Ella Banks, q carrier on one
of the New England routes. She
had route of 25 miles and had kept
it up regularly through the worst
snowstorms of the winter, times
when everone else was storm-bOund
On one occasion she even had to
abandon her horse and wagon ant
make the trip on foot, but she did II
and was the first passenger OF any
sort over the trail.
Since then there have been a mum
ber of similar cases brought to the
attention of the Department in Indl
ana, Idaho and Alabama. Some o.
the women have been nearly drowned
| in flooded streams and forced to g
afOot over almost impossible roads
] hut thev have kept up to their wOrE