The National tribune., 1909-08-19

! Col. Bixby, Of the Engineer Corps. and
Herbert Knox Smith. of the Bureau OF
lCorporations. Other members will join
the party later abroad.
Uncle Sans Lottery.
Your Uncle Samuel has had his eagle
teye on the Cuban Lottery Company,
which has been trying to do business IN
the United States. and has given in
lstructions for the Post Office authorities
| to open all suspicious mail sent to that
island. But your same Uncle Is man
who doesn't let his right hand know
what his left hand does. He conducted
a little lottery of his own last week,
when the Coeur dA,ene Indian Reser-
vation was opened 10 the public The
| l500 homesteads and timber claims
were distributed in the following man
ncr:
The simplest methods were chosen
for the drawing. Litt.e Helen Hamil-
ton. aged IL years. was carefully blind
folded and placed in front OF ete mass
of letters. Picking up an envelope at
random. she handed it to Miss Bernice
! NJ. Griffe. of Des Moines, member of
| Supt Witten's staff. The paper was
handed TO Supt Witten. who promptly
announced the name of the lucky occu-
pant. The 20 cans of applications,
weighing half ton, were transferred
from Judge Witten's office to large
platform on the lake shore, where they
were strewn. scattered and then mixed
on four pieces of canvas cut to cover
the Platforms surface. Swarming
around a great, net-covered cage, hun
dreds of eager men and women watched
little Helen Hamilton plunge her hands
into great heap of 10000 yellow en-
velopes and draw out the name of isa-
dore Selig, of Myrtle Creek. Ore, who
had won the right to the first choice of
all claims. John Hedmark, of Spokane,
| drew No. 2; Charles G.. Cornwell OF
Spokane, No. 3, and Herman Neubauer.
| of Tacoma, Wash, No. 4. Altho the
crowds of land-seekers We're not so
large as they had been during the past
three weeks, when filing applications
| for registration on the Occur d'Alene,
tSpokane and Flathead Reservations.
| several thousand people eagerly await
| ed the hour of 10 o'clock when the
drawing for the Coeur d'Alene land be-
gan Many had remained after mailing
their applications and others. who went
! on to visit the Exposition at Seattle,
had returned in the hope that they
might hear their names announced
among the fortunate few to draw prizes.
AS soon as the drawing was concluded
| the remaining applications were hauled
back to Judge Witten's office, opened
and arranged alphabetically, then placed
| in specially made boxes and shipped to
| Washington, d. c.. for comparison. Any
winner who has placed q. duplicate list
will be detected and will lose his rights
Some one who is fond of figuring has
put his pencil to paper, and shows that
to enact the new tariff law it has cost
the American people the tidy sum of
| half million dollars. Chief among
the items is, of course. the mileage
which each member of the two Houses
| of Congress gets, whether he travels
one mile or 5000. They draw 20 cents
for each mile between their residence
and the Capitol by the nearest practic-
able route. The Houses expenses on
this account aggregated $154,000 and
the Senate's $4,000. Extra pay for
to about $150,000. AS is usual. each
employe gets a months extra pay. so
that every employe on the regular roll
will have three nice little prizes of this
sort this year. Besides these items of
expenses large number of special en-
ployes are engaged in compiling in
formation for Congress and the COM
mittee relative to the tariff AS rule,
they are class of experts and receive
large salaries. The Government Print
ing Offices expenses for printing the
reports, etc, bring the total up to the
100000 mark.
Uncle Sam is about to let a contract
for $500, ,000. 900 postal cards to be sold
during the next four years, or about
900, 5000 a year. These will cost the
Government about 100000 and the
people who use them 36,000,000. But
this does not mean the entire number
of cards that will go thru the mails in
the United States in the next four years
a h,,t-
700, 600, 600 post cards year, and from
France and other European Nations
comes many million more. These i'm
ported cards are, of course, the pictured
post cards so familiar to us nowadays
and American publishers have found it
more profitable to export these cards
than to print them at home. However,
the new tariff bill now comes along, and
puts tax of quarter of a cent on the
cheaper cards and a higher rate on the
more artistic ones. which will no doubt
reduce the importation very materially.
1t would be surprising to know how
many people one meets on the streets
nowadays wear the new-fangled ceIlu-
loid collar. 1t is said that Col. Roose-
welt in his hunting expedition in Africa
uses them altogether. These new-style
collars are made of linen, treated with
waterproof preparation, and are en-
tireiy devoid or the CLASSY appearance
so commonly seen in this kind of neck
band. The later style have a grain of
linen, and can hardly be detected from
the real thing, and Washington people
are said to take to them as ducks to
water.
For the first time in its history the
private parlors of the White House,
as well as the East Room, are open
this Summer to the public. President
Taft gave orders before he left that
the building should not be closed dur
ing his absence, and that the public