The National tribune., 1908-06-25

homestead and the tomb of Washing
ton, and added: n N
IF may be allowed to draw les
son from Mount Vernon 1 should like
to say to the American People that
the alarming increase in the number
of divorces in the United States is a
great and crying evil, full of danger.
The greatness of any country must be
measured by the strength and purity
of the home. Divorce disrupts the
home and desecrates its sanctity."
Every time a person licks a United
States postage stamp he gets taste
of sweet potato. The gum with which
the stamps are backed is made from
that succulent vegetable because Uncle
Sans lieutenants consider IL the most
harmless preparation of the sort.
All of the gum used on American
postage stamps is mixed by the Gov
eminent at the Bureau of Engraving
and Printing, where the stamps are
made. 1t is spread on the sheets after
the stamps have been printed.
The gum in a liquid form is forced
up thru pipes from the basement where
it is made. These pipes lead to Sc
ries of machines consisting of rollers,
between which the sheets of stamps are
fed one at a time
A continuous fine stream of the Ii
quid gum falls upon one of these roll
eTS- Inc SneeC WITH us wei coating
of sweet potato mucilage passes from
the rollers into a long horizontal fiue
filled with hot air. When it energies
at the other end of the fiue the gum is
dry.
The Government makes two kinds of
postage stamp mucilage. If one could
see the packages of stamps as they
come to the postoffice ready to be sold
one would find them labelled, accord
ing to season. Summer Gum" or
Winter Gum" The former is much
the harder of the two and was devised
some years ago to keep the stamps
from getting sticky in warm, moist
weather.
While Uncle Sam tries to make the
lot of the stamp ticker as innocuous
as possible he does not advise making
a meal off his sweet potato gum, The
whole process of gum making and ap-
plying is made as clean as possible, but
there is yet another item to be con-
sidered
A sheet of postage stamps is handled
good many times before it even
leaves the bureau where 1t is made
If you must lick any of your stamps
pick out those from the middle of the
sheet. The corner ones have gone thru
the fingers of half a dozen or more
counters, not to mention the perfor-
ators and the separators and the rest.
1t was wrongly reported that Mrs
Taft had gone to Chicago to see heu
husband nominated for the Presidency.
Mrs. Taft has not been out of the city
at all. She sat in the officer of the
Secretary of War and heard all the dis
patches read as each came over the
wire,
United States National Museum has
just completed mounting for exhibit
ton skeleton of a rare and interest
ing whale known as Bairfs beaked
whale (berardius bairdiif 81; 1t is a kind
of gigantic porpoise. about 40 feet long,
but does not belong in the same family
of the ordinary porpoises, being more
nearly allied to the sperm whales. a..
Baird's whale. which was named in
honor of Prof. Baird, second Secretary
of the Smithsonian Institution. was first
made known about 25 years ago by DIR.
Leonhard Stejneger. of the National
Museum, who found skull on Boring
Island. off the Siberian coast. while
engaged in collecting birds sfor the in
stitution. The expedition of the Vega
under Nordenskiold found a portion of
skull on the same island a little earli-
err but no account of IT was published
at that time. 81 fe
Nothing more was heard. of Baird's
whale until 1903, when two other speci-
mems were found on the shore of st.
George Island. one of the American fur
seal islands in Bering Sea. a few
months later the Ferndale whale was
obtained.
Prior to DIR. Stejneger's discovery the
beaked whales Of the genus to which
Baird'S whale belongs had been known
only from New Zealand. and their oc-
currence near the Arctic circle, thou
sands OF miles away, was most uneX-
pected. 1t now appears probable that
they range extensively in the Pacific
Ocean. but they are unknown in the
Atlantic.
Little is known of the habits OF
Baird's whale or of Arnoux's whale,
the New Zealand species. 1t is prob
able, however, that they go in pairs. 4
instead of schools, and that they feed
on cuttlefish like the other smaller
beaked whales. They have no teeth
in the upper jam, and only four in the
lower jaw.
The battleship New Hampshire will
leave New York. June 80. for Quebec,
to be present at the tercentenary cele-
bration of the founding of that city
Lieut.. Commander David +. Sellers
of the Bureau of Navigation, has been
assigned as Aid to Rear-AdmiralI
Cowles, who goes on the New Hamp-
shore to Quebec as representing the
United States Navy. 1t will be Ad-
miral Cowles's first and last service as
a Flag Officer, inasmuch as he retires
in August.
Vice President Fairbanks will be
aboard the vessel as the Presidents
representative.
We are soon to have Madame WI
with us. Madame Wa is a dainty bit
of bric-a-brac, known as the wife of
the Chinese ambassador, WI Ting
Fang. (but WI is the proper name by
which to call him) Madame WI
looks just exactly like A Chinese pict-
ure of a woman cut out and stood UP
in corner" She does not look like
a real woman, you know, and as she
lacks animation, it makes the ''pict-
ure" idea stand out even stronger than
1t would otherwise Madame WuI
doesn't enamel artistically. like Queen
Alexandria does; she simply paints
Calcimines herself would probably be
a better expression, because she uses
kind of white powder which is posi-
lively spread on like putty is put on
a. window glass. On her cheeks she
puts blotch- of red powder about the
size of silver dollar; there is no at
tempt TO make the two blend at all
AT short distance the red disk looks
as though 1t had been cut from paper
and pasted on. Then her eyebrows are
painted with a black paste, and her
ups are treated to the reddest of red
liquid dye. Madame WI has tiny ears
and the tiniest of hands. and both are
hiled with jewels. { Her earrings are
usually of fabulous emeralds hung in
great hoops, and from the emerald.
which is pierced through to hold the
gold wire, are huge pear-shaped pearls
and few diamonds. Her tiny hands
are loaded down with the most won
derful gems of enormous size at all
times. Her hair, which is let black is