davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-25

have big competition with human mus cle All along the way from Tokio to Shimineseki I saw men. women and boys hauling great loads in carts from town to town. They were harnessed up like horses and they bent half double as they pulled their vehicles onward. There were carts drawn by bulls or bullocks, and not few by stocky ponies. I saw an old man and a young woman, the latter with a baby on her back, dragging load of wood, and passed hundreds of women car rying great burdens. I am told that 600 700 pounds is average cartload for two persons, and that F miles is a fair days march. Bullock carts are usually drawn by only one animal, and horse carts likewise In such cases the driver walks by the animals head, instead of sitting on the load, as our people do The freight bullocl1s and horses are shod with straw, and in the interior these straw shoes cost about cent apiece.
 Here in Corea, where the railroads are only few years old, the transportation methods are even more crude. For thou sands of years these people have carried all their goods from place to place, on the backs of men or pack animals, and they do so today. There are bullock carts in the cities, but the country roads are little more than bridle paths, and about everything is packed from one place to another The porters have regular trade. and they have one of the strongest guilds or unions of the country. They carry their loads on framework made of forked sticks which is fastened to the back in such way that the burden some- times rises above the head This frame is called the jiggy," and it is in common use all over Corea.
 l found jggy men at the wharf at Fusan ready to take my trunks on their backs. They rested their jiggies on the ground, propping each with a forlked stock while they put on the load. They then l1nelt down and thrust their arms through the two padded loops which fas- tened them to their shoulders. and rose, carrying the weights with them I am told that the average porter can get up with POO or 300 pounds his back, and that he can carry 500 pounds at a pinch. The average load for long journey is 100 pounds and porter will take that weight 30 miles a day and not kick. A great deal of goods is carried on pack ponies and not a little on the backs of bulls which are trained for the purpose. Such bulls are shod with iron, and they are common sight everywhere.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-25
HEART TO HEART TALKS-By Edwin A. Nye

smile-because E-g Bill usually rides in a carriage.
 But he Is not slothful.
 He is stout without being obese, and he is anything but lazy He is neither slow on his feet nor sluggish in his mind.
 Taft can do a days work along with any lean and hungry cassius.
 He has a suave smile, but-he saws wood. Just because he doesn't wrinlSle his brow and enshroud his soul In gloom is no sign the man is lacking In will power or able decision.
 Somebody is going to be fooled by that smile.
 For behind the glossy and jellied sur- face of the mans exterior, over which no wave of trouble seems to roll; be- hind the easy laugh and the hearty man. ner, behind the sleek badges of good fell lowship, is a sense of justice as keen as an edged tool, an incisive judgment, an obstinacy that is like stone wall.
 Besides
 Taft has what Theodore Roosevelt lacked-diplomacy.
 All fat men are diplomats.
 Taft knows how to handle men so as to get things done, which Is a rare trait.
 He has proved that faculty, whether 1t has been in an interview with bolo- man or a South American minister of state whether he has matched his wits with a smooth contractor or the empe- TOT of Japan. He knows how to get re- suits.
 Beneath the rule of men entirely great will the oleaginous way be mightier than "the big stick?'
 That remains to be seen. But, how ever that might be, with the coming of Taft the fat man comes into his own
 And the cartoonist revels in the wrin- kles of the presidential chin.
 The ragtime ditty persists in the state ment that there's hole in the bottom of the sea"
 There may be or not, but
 Some day there may be a hole into the very heart of the earth.
 England, you know, is asking the ques- ton: What shall we do for coal when nature's supply is exhausted?" That IS
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-25

And yet this man was himself an ac- complished political trimmerl Comment here Is superfuous.
 What MT. Mill means by his religion of Humanity" we learn on page ITO. It is ''the sense of unity with mankind. deep feeling for the general good; and this, he continues, may be cultivated into a sentiment and a principle capable of full filling every important function of relig- ion, and itself entitled to the name"
 Now historically speaking, this idea of the unity of mankind-the universal broth erhood of the race-and its necessary consequence, the duty of all men to do good to all men--"the deep feeling for the general good'-is a distinctly Biblical idea The Greeks. with all their philoso- phy and culture, counted the rest of the world as "barbarians," The Romans counted all strangers as "enemies." MT Mill himself expresses great surprise at the fact that the great Hebrew 1awgiver enjoined upon the people the duty, Love thy neighbor as myself" h attempting
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-25

country for the system and more are wanted.
 All of these roads are operated with American locomotives. There are now more than 100 in use, the most of them Baldwins, made at the Philadelphia works. There are 49 Baldwin locomo- tives of 50 tons each on the line between Seoul and Antung, and some of the cars came from the United States The roll ing stock now employed here is more than half American, and 1t includes 107 loco- motives, 90 passenger cars and something like 600 freight cars.
 The Japanese find our standard gauge far better for their traffic than the mar row gauge, which now prevails through out Japan proper. There are over 5000 island empire of the MilSado, and they are by no means sufficient to carry the traffic. In an interview which 1 had with Baron Goto, the imperial minister of com. munications, he told me that the roads would have to be standardized and that eventually they would have the same gauge as ours. The government is very anxious to do away with the bad strip between the Yalu and Mukden, so that through SlceplDB CUTS can go IFO1n fuSdn to Moscow, St. Petersburg and Paris Such cars would travel 600 miles over the Corean peninsula and hundreds of miles further before they reached Russian ter ritory. As it is now, the accommoda- tions are so bad from Corea to the Trans Siberian system that passengers come down to Dalny and there take ship for Japan; or go out to Vladivostok and get steamers there which, In the course of few days land them at Nagasald.
 With the new road there will be only the ferry at the Corean straits to cross and this is done in a night with no more trouble than the voyage from Bos- ton to New York or from Buenos Ayres to Montevideo. In coming here my train reached Shimoneseki at o'clock in the evening. By daybreak the next morning we were in sight of the thirsty mountains of Corea, and an hour or so later were landed on the pier of Fusan.
 The railroad fares in this part of the world are lower than ours. On all trains there are first, second and third class cars, and the rates are under cents per mile. Over here in Corea, a frontier country just opening up for trade, the third-class fares are far below those of our immigrant traffic Up to 50 miles such passengers pay 11a cents a mile and from that distance to 100 miles, A cent less. The rate for a trip of from 100 to 200 miles is only 1 cent, and for one of 300 miles or
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-25

to construct a religion outside of tke Bible, and better than the Bible, MT. Mill has quietly helped himself to a principle for which we are indebted to the Bible. and a principle which human philosophy never discovered In leaving Us, to set up for himself, he has stolen our gods. and hid them in his tent among his stuff. This he had no logical right to do.
 But he further maintained that this new @ religion is better than any form whatever of supernaturalism, and that it is "a better religion than any of those which are ordinarily called by that title. For in the first place it Is disinterested. It carries the thoughts and feelings out of self, and fixes them on an unselhsh object, loved and pursued as an end for its own sake" Now, when our author casts about him to find something like a his torical instance of a people who have really had some such object as this to inspire their lives. whom does he select but the Romans? The glory of Rome was something of this sort to the Romans Granted; but who believes that the feeling
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-25

vital problem in that country of deep mines. Sir William Ramsay says the way to get limitless supply of light. heat and power Is to tap the molten or semi-molten interior of the earth.
 Big thing!
 And the discussion of it has brought made some costly experiences in boring deep holes.
 For instance
 The German government has pierced the earth's crust in Silesia to the depth of about 10000 feet, nearly two miles.
 At La Chapelle France has made a bore of about the same depth for exper- mental purposes, and the Russian gov ernment has gone to about the same depth at Stavropol
 It costs money to probe into the earth 8 Vitals.
 "Turbine'' Parsons, the eminent engin- eer says that to drill hole ten miles deep into the crust of the earth would require an expenditure of s25, 100000.
 However
 That sum of money is small in com parison with the millions the United States will pay for the Panama canal.
 American ingenuity and capital could easily bore the ten-mile hole.
 Of course 1t is hot down that deep. and there would be danger in polking around in the hidden fires of old earth. The prODe might nldhe d NeHl lIldt WOulu develop an unwelcome volcano.
 However that might be, the discus sion of the big project raises some in terestlng reflections.
 The earth is big. Man Is bigger.
 That is to say, man has attributes of supremacy that earth can never have. Mind is ever lord of matter and must be- When man was given the earth to subdue 1t no limitations were imposed upon him. The whole realm of nature is his
 Man will ne-er be satisfied until he has explored both earth and sky.
 He will not rest until he has dug down to the furnace fires that are un- der his feet and Is able to navigate the upper air like a bird.
 And when he has done that he will go on Investigating the rest of the uni- verse
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-25
JOHN STUART MILL ON THE UTILITY OF REIIGONNo By Hden

"house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens?"
 Upon a calm, cautious and critical study of this essay of Mr. NH the reader may have some doubts whether it should not have been entitled .9The Uselessness of Religion" for 1t is evident that the author thinks that the world has little need of anything that is commonly known as religion. A religion that has hypo- thetical God. robbed of His omnipotence; a Christ who does not pretend to be Di- vine, and who cannot pardon sin; and a field of view, and of work, and of happi- ness hemmed in by the narrow span of this present life, is well nigh no religion at all; and yet this is the outcome of all the speculation and reasoning of one of the elearest and most powerful thinkers Of modern times. The fact is solemn and instructive. If mere negations can &C., eomplish anything, then surely this essay should teach us to hold fast to our Bible, for truly it is "a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-25

the section north of the Yalu Is a dinky narrow gauge with cars little better than omnibusses. The track is so poor that the rently reported that the trains stop two hours at noon to allow the employees and passengers time for siesta.
 Railroad building in Corea is far diff ferent from the same class of engineer ing in the United States. In the first place the rights of way offer strange complications. All the way from Fusan to Seoul we passed grave mounds, and the road here and there went through graveyards The road from Chemulpo to the capital necessitated the removal of more than 2000 graves, and the city lots of the dead cost more than our city lots of the living. The average grave did not cover more than a square yard, but the railroad company had to pay from $1 to S3 each for the cost of re- moval, and got at the same time the i'll will of the families of the deceased. The Coreans have a queer way of planting their graves anywhere. They have few fixed cemeteries, and they select such spots on the sides of the hills as the necrOmanCerS tell IneIn are luCky, ana there lay away their loved ones. Many families take care of their graves from generation to generation, and they deep ly resent any injury to them. It is the same in China. which is without many railroads today largely because of this sentiment
 The road from Seoul to Chemulpo was constructed by Corean labor under American engineers. That from Fusan to Seoul was built by Japanese and Co., reans, and the same is true of the road from here to the Yalu. All of these roads are of the standard American gauge and nearly all are equipped with American rails of To pounds each! The railway material imported last year amounted to more than s2000.000, and over one-third of this came from the United States. All the roads have American bridges or bridge material. The one on which I crossed the Han river consists of 10 spans of about 200 feet each. and 1t was made by the Carnegie Steel company. The most of the spikes of the roads north of here cams from the Illinois Steel com pany, and the ties are largely American On the northern route many of the bridges afe of wood, built on piles. They were constructed as military necessity, and will have to be replaced by better ma terial- The bridges between Seoul and Fusan are of steel. Last year 60 spans of iron gtrders were imported from our
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-25

neighbors go immediately to the relief of the sick or injured
 And when "central" gets the call for the physician one is called, and he starts immediately on his long, hard ride.
 It Is the call of humanity. We'll
 Let us say what is true-that you and are connected upon lifes long telephone line. In some places it Is weak line" We must help out by repeating the mes sages.
 The call to rescue comes over the line. It will die out if we do not take down the receiver and fling the urgent message down the wires. Let us listen especially for the three rings.
 Some one is wounded, helpless, sick in body or mind or heart. Send the call on to central for the Great Physician. But
 Let us, the neighbors, go.
 Let us keep in touch with the throbbing line that tells of the struggling, suffering world and heed the human call. You have noted how the village ne'er- do-well lounges and shambles about with his hands in his pockets. 4 When he walks he shuffles and moves in a listless way, usually with his eyes on the ground, advertising himself as an idler by every motion he makes
 Do not fall into his slouching habit.
 Hold yourself up.
 The manner in which you carry your self, the way you step off, your whole bearing, has much to do with what you try to do or to be.
 No can can hope to accomplish results in the guse of a wea\>ng or a coward.
 Men are quick to read men. A glance at your face and bearing will enable any observer to put you down for what you are.
 The man who has an alert look about him, an upright, self respectful bearing and a brisk manner will get an audience with men. He who shows a slovenly gait, laggard manner and a slouching
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-25

more benignant Being than the author of Nature.p If this be true, how can we meet the fact that Christ worshiped the Author of Nature and called Him My Father2H And how could Christ habitu- ally speak of the Author of Nature as ab- solutely perfect in wisdom and goodness2
 MT. Mill cannot but think that as the condition of mankind becomes improved, as they grow happier in their lives, and more capable of deriving happiness from unselfsh sources, they will care less and less for this fattering expectation of future life. Now, l do not hesitate to say that the happiest people I have ever known, and the people who derived the greatest happiness from unsefish sources, were precisely the people who held most tenaciously to the belief of a life after death They were earnest, active, de- vout Christians.
 Again, page 20: "9istory, so far as we know it, bears out the opinion that man. kind can perfectly well do without the belief in a heaven. The Greeks had any
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-25

Seoul, 1909.
 IVY steamer to come from Yoko- hama to Chemulpo and a day more by chair to make my way overland from the seaport to the capital. I have just arrived in Seoul, having covered the same distance in less than two days Japan has a railroad line which prac tically reaches from her capital to tn he capital of Corea. Her imperial railroads now take one in a day from Tokio to Ehimoneseki where there is a ferry across the Strait of Corea to Fusan. There the new Corean railroad begins and in about ten hours one Is carried in comfortable cars northward to Seoul. The whole railroad distance is just about as far from New York to Chicago and it Is now covered by fast express trains.
 In this letter write of the new rail- ways of Japan and Corea. The trunk lines of both countries are now under the control of tic Mikado. They have Japanese officials, conductors and train men and aie practically Japanese. All the railroads of Corea belong to the Japanese. The one urSl punt Was uH- Ger a concess;ol granted by tae for ner Emperor to an American syndicate headed by James k. Morse, but before it was completed it was turned ovef to the Japanese and they have owned it for the Last ten years. This Is the short line from Seoul 10 Chemulpo
 The road from f'nsan to Seoul was built by a private company, put rho government guarlltceG it's bonds and controls it. During the war with Russia tlis line was extended 300 milc3 north ward to the Yalu river and it now has . branch which connects that terminus with Mukden and tle TranssiL srian system.
 Another road has been begun from Seoul to Gensan on the eastern side of the peninsula. This will go right across Corea, connecting the west and east coasts The construction was started some time ago at each end of the line About three miles have been built out from Seoul, and also short strip west from Gensan. Just now, on account of the hard times, this work has temporarily stopped, but as the commercial prospects brighten 1t will be taken up again and pushed to it's completion. It is expected that the other roads will be relaid with new ties and rails. and that the whole system as far as Mukden will be made nrst-class in every respect. AS 1t is now,
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-25

longs to the family. It is theirs. It was intended for them.
 You have reached out a helping hand and sustain your own whom you have loved and lost awhile.
 And the money you have provided is ready money.
 He gives twice who gives quickly"
 When you are dead, my friend, you will no longer be able to shield your wife from the rough corners of the world or to help your boy to an education or to save your daughter from hardships and temptations.
 writer tells about a rural telephone line out in Walloma, in interior Oregon, which reaches back some 50 miles into the scanty settlements of the country side.
 The line meanders through the canyons, over the foothills. Into the forests, along the isolated sheep ranches, farm and sawmills and on to the county seat.
 It Is cheap line, of course, and it Is almost impossible to carry on converse ton over the whole line.
 And so-
 Each family is sort of relay station. That is to say, the families living on the outmost edges of the settlement call up a family near to the town, and the mes sage is repeated to another family, and so on until the town is reached.
 It Is a fixed custom that the message or order to merchant, stock buyer or physician be repeated through the two or three relays so that every word may be understood.
 One signal, that for the physician, is three rings.
 It is the signal that every patron of the line is alert to answer. Whether it be morning, noon or midnight, when the call for the doctor comes every family on the line goes to the telephone to learn who is in need.
 The message for the doctor is speeded quickly on its way. Then the nearest
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-25

of a steak here is 10 cents and of roast beef 9. Roast chicken costs 10 cents and a slice of ham with salad 19. The DOT tions sold are much less in size than ours, but the steak and fish, and indeed al- most all of the eatabes are delicious. There is an extra charge for bread and butter, but this only 2k cents, and tea and coffee cost the same. The price of cake is 21z cents and fruit may be ordered from 11s cents upward The same price list prevails in Japan and the same menu Is used on the first-class diners of that country. One can also have meals table d hote. a breakfast of three courses with dessert and tea or coffee costing 35 cents, a luncheon of four courses 40 cents and dlnner of five courses 50 cents.
 On the fast express trains of Korea and Japan a pair of slippers io furnished each first-class passenger for use during the trip. The porter takes ones shoes and blacks them, whether he rides over night or not. and is well satisfied 1T he gets a 10-cent fee upon leaving. The porters are Japanese boys in blue uni forms and red caps. Their coats are dec orated with silver buttons, and both body and clothes are as clean as pin. They are very polite and keep the cars free from dust, rubbing off the furniture at every few stations.
 At all the Japanese railroad depots there are porters in red caps and blue clothes ready to buy ones ticket, carry the bag gage and show him into the cars A fee of D cents is always satisfactory. Jin rildshas for the various hotels can be had at the stations at from , to 15 cents a trip and the rates for baggage are low.
 The second-class sars of both Corea and Japan are about as comfortable as the first. Those of Japan are not unlike rur street cars in shape with long benches running under the windows the full length of the cars and an aisle in the middle These benches are cush- toned just as our cars at home. and are comfortable in that one can stretch himself out at full length when there are but few other passengers.
 The first-class cars are patronized chiefly by foreigners and high officials and the second class by well to do Jap anese. I often go second class and find 1t quite comfortable ones fellow pas sengers usually take off their shoes or shed their sandals and sit on their heels on. the seats.
 The third class cars are exceedingly rough. They have wooden benches and are used only by the poorer classes, most of whom are dressed in native costumes. In the Corean cars the men
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-25

was disinterested? Did more thoroughly selfish people ever exist upon the face of the earth2
 On page 1O2. MT. Mill, eehoing Lucre- tius tells us that Ut is impossible that any one who habitually thinks, and who Is unable to blunt his inquiring intellect by sophistry should be able, without misgiving. to go on ascribing absolute per lection to the author and ruler of so clumsily made and capricious1y governed a creation as this planet and the life of its inhabitants" Did Bishop Butler ''hab- itually think?" Was Isaac Newton thoughtless man? Jonathan Edwards, John Lock, Pascal, McCosh, Bledsoe- were they all frivolous, Iight-minded, thoughtless? And even if they were, what are we to say of Paul and Jesus? MT. Mill writes like a man who was angry at God Almighty for making a world without first getting MT. Milrs views as to the best way of making worlds.
 On the same page: "The author of the Sermon on the Mount is assuredly a far