davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12

A little salt water a couple of degrees be-
low blood Fahrenheit isn't going 10 kill
you, you know.
Now. that's 1t, come on out here and
I'll try and see what | can do toward
giving you a little tip or two about the
swimming thing. How's that? You want
me to come i'm there and take a-hOld of
YOU SOS you won't be swept off your feet?
Ha, ha. Behave that fooling, won't you?
you don't call these little whipping
wavelets sure-enough waves. do you?
You've as much chance Of being swept
off your feet here as you have of being
cast away on a chicken coop in the In
dian ocean from the gun deck Of a Swiss
man Owar.
Now here, what are you digging your
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12

to put 1t on. You take it off the hook
in the closet, your mind away off, dream
ing about how you're going to snag the
coin to hit the Boardwalk at least one
good wallop by August, and you pull the
nightie on without looking to see whether
you've got hold of it the right way or
not. You're wrong, as above stated, just
90 per cents worth. You pick it up from
the back of the bed, or from the rocking
chair, where you've temporarily tossed 1t
after getting it out, and you pick 1t up
and pull 1t on. Even clutching 1t that
way. you only win once in one hundred
times.
Answer again: Innate depravity of, ETC.,
etc.
Additionally: You're travelling on a
train. For a long, long stretch the view
out of the window is perfectly uninter-
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12

siding or something. By the time the
train gets past those freight cars dur
ing which time you're breathing things
through your cenched teeth about
freight cars that no family journal pos
sibly could print even with asteriskO
you're just exactly two miles and Sin
furlongs beyond that meadow where the
pretty girl in Bingham was; and the next
time you see female figure walking or
standing on a meadow. why, she's one
hundred and nineteen years of age. and
there isn't airy freight car within thirty
miles to shut off your view of her.
What for? The innate. etc, etc.
Oh, yes. to get back TO the eating part
of it: Take oysters, raw oyters on the
half shell. A layout of seven of 'em are
put before you. They all look exactly
alike There isn't a human being in the
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12

into your head. you know, If you ever
expect to learn how to keep still In the
water much less to swim, is confidence.
C-o-n-f-i-d-e-n-c-e, confidence.
You're not lacking in that when you're
at home, believe me. That goes as a mat
ter of course. But this isn't home. This
is about seven and two-sevenths OF At
lantic ocean water. and what you need
when you're in any kind of water 10 con-
fidence. Get that?
Well, il you get 1t. what are you
clawing at my neck for? Now, as a
starter We'll take the idea of floating.
That's what I'm going to teach you first
how to float. You lie on your back in the
will YOU, till I show you? Howm ! go
ing to illustrate the floating idea to you
il YOU hang onto me that way?
NOV just turn me loose for a second
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12

that there are fifty peanuts in the bag.
Why should you go through life getting
beat every time by a fifty-to-one shot In
peanuts?
Only one answer: The innate deprav-
ity of inanmate things
Again This is going to be about
mems nighties, and SO the lady reader
can turn over to the Anacostia news If
she's a-skeerat
When you go to slip on your nightie
after a long and prosperous day, why
should it, in at least ninety-nine cases
out of a hundred, be turned the wrong
way? Why shouldn't it be a least an
even thing that you'd catch hold of 1t in
such a way that you could pull it on and
have it on ght-side-foremost?
1t doesn't make any difference what
ever how you catch hold of the nigl1tie
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12

with one of the explosives commonly used
In mines. A wire connects this mortar
with q key from which it may be fired at
distance. and parallel with the big cylin-
der. but sixty feet away, is the "observa-
ton house"
A long peephole extends along the
rear wall Of this house. and row OF
miners line up inside with their faces
protects their eyes. and shield out
side the building is SO directed that
the vision OF the men is directly on
q line with the long cylinder stretched
along the ground.
Every eye being glued to this slit in
the observation house wall, button is
pressed, the mortar is fired and the
coal dust. or fire damp. in the gallery
explodes with loud report. There
are sixteen portfolios along the side of
the cylinder, and the miners are told
to note by these how the blaze of the
explosion progresses along the tube
from the mortar to that covered with
the paper drumhead. The explosion. OF
course. blows the paper out and at
the same time sixteen iron doors to a
row of openings along the top OF the
cylinder fly up on their hinges. These
doors and the drumhead, of course.
save the entire plant from being total
ly wrecked by the explosion. AS 1t Is,
smoke pours out of the tube and there
is loud defamation.
This test will give many miners their
first demonstration of the fact that coal
dust is highly explosive and will teach
them much that they ought to knoH
about the explosiveness of fire damp. AZ
the same time the apparatus will demon-
strate the comparative safety of different
explosives purposely used blasts in
mine regions, where dust and damp may
be found. Various charges of dynamite,
black powder and various safety ex-
plosiyes" will be fired off from the NOR
tar in the presence Of the coal dust and
fire damp, while the miner watches their
comparative effects and learns the
strength Of the charge Of each that can
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12

testing gallery where miners will he
taught that safety lamp" is too often
a mere misnomer and trade name.
long, square tube covers one side of the
wall and here and there are the trap
doors of little compartments into one
of which a lighted lamp is placed. Inc
door having been shut, current or gas
is blown through the tube and whether
the lamp explodes or not is test or its
efficiency. Below the tube proper is
sort of W-shaped box with compart-
ments in which lighted lamps are eX-
posed to currents of gas coming at them
from various angles
Development of a uniform code of
signals will be another function of the
new bureau. Many lives are annually
lost in the mines through mistakes IN
danger and hosting signals. Standard
fuses for explosives is another matter
to be taken up. Fuses now on the mar
ket have all sorts of speeds and the
miner never can tell how much time
new one will give him.
The effect of fire upon building ma
terials of the mineral category, and also
of subsequent uuenchings by the hre-
mans hose, will be noted by means OF an
elaborate series of tests conducted in
another laboratory of the bureau of
mines Sands, cements. bricks. terra
Gotta. tile and building stone of different
kinds will be made up into panels hung
from q track. upon which they VIII shoe
into a gas furnace, subJecting them 10
the heat Of our worst conhagrauohs.
Then they will be suddenly rolled out or
the furnace and drenched with hose.
Claws. lines and other building ma
terials mentioned will be studied also with
q view to learning how they can be used
most efficiently and how their waste as
we'll as that OF the fuels can best be pre-
vented This phase of the work will ben
eft not only the builder at large but the
government, which yearly spends 500
600 600 on mineral products. Twelve to
fifteen millions are being annually spent
on federal public buildings. and hereafter
the bureau of mines will examine all the
stone. sand, gravel, clay and other min
eral products to be used on those national
edifices. The supervising architect esti-
mates that these tests VIII save MIN sew
eral millions per year.
Conservation Of our mineral resources
viii, also occupy a goodly part OF the
bureaus attention if the ideas of the
fathers Of the recent bill creating the
institution are carried out. Prospectors
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12

H. regular summer
bathing sea son here
has not yet be-
gun, owing to the
extreme insalubri-
ty of the spring
and the conse-
uuent GOODNESS OF
the sea water.
Parties of bathers,
struggling along
the wide strand,
are seen every
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12

o help make our
most dangerous oC.
cupation a safe
means of livelihood;
to help reduce our
prodigai mineral
waste including
a quarter billion
tons of coal a
year, 10 employ
trained specialists
who will keep
small individual
mine owners as
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12
TESTING .R0WE12 OF; 5zPnOarzE3

he used without danger Of an explosion.
With these tests the bureau Of mines will
standardize mine explosives and recon-
mend as permissible those which act
with safety in the explosives gal
lery.'
To demonstrate how a mine may be
blown up by sparks from defective cleo
trio wiring in mines, there is a second
gallery" thirty feet long by ten in
diameter. The gas and dust pumped
into this tube are fired, not by a NOR
tar. but by a simple electric spark
flashing between two ends of wire.
An odd contrivanee is rugged up to
demonstrate that some of the safer ex-
plosives are also the most powerful This
is a pair of mortars placed mouth to
mouth. one mounted upon a little car
that runs upon a track. and the other
swung as a pendulum from a grea. beam
arranged to reduce friction. rests upon
a bar placed across two high pyramids
of concrete. When the mortars are fired
together the suspended one flies back
ward with a pendulum swing, whose
distance recorded by a scale. measures
the power of the explosive
How the miners will learn to rescue
their comrades in dread times of fire and
explosion is illustrated in the accom-
panying photograph. that shows miner
on a stretcher. s1nother PROSTATE upon
the floor and three others wearing the
oxygen helmets. There is apparatus for
filling this room with smoke. through
which the helmeted miners are taught
to climb over and crawl through all
sorts of distractions arranged in drifts
and headings. To the right Of the pic
ture is one of the distractions. sort
of bridge which goes over an end of the
structure in the center OF the space 1t
is inelosed in wire netting and the floor
ing is piled with disordered timbers.
while in some places steep steps several
feet high must be climbed. And else
where in the. picture are seen openings
through which the men must crawl some
of them admitting them only on hands
and knees The man lying upon the floor,
in the foreground of the picture. is being
used to demonstrate the oxygen treat
ment for those overcome by mine smoke
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12

for Won and when we get there we'll go
over This little matter, quick and proper
I can see now that your deliberate pur-
nose Was to show me up. and you made 1t
your business to trip me when you saw
that breaker coming didn you LEV ~
aratelv trimmed me SOS to get me the
laugh from all of these boneheads around
here. 1. ot
AN right. I know when I've got
enough You can't get your ciothes VI.
80 - ouick To suit me- I'll think out
o course of action on our way back TO
washington. and when I've thought 1t
out, why. you stand by and WatGh my
smoke that's ali!' =. L. -
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12

HERE'S a theory.
which no doubt
you've heard about.
called the innate
depravity Of inani-
mate things.
We believe in that
theory with all OF
the strength of our
blithe and other
wise p t / m i S t lc
young being.
One Of the few
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12

forenoon however; hardy ones VINO, their
stays here being limited are determined
to get few sea baths in despite the
chill OF the water.
Mr. GrumD of Washington took Mrs.
Grump in at a point between the two
big central piers yesterday morning. Mr..
Grump is only here for few days, and
he didn't intend to let the ieiness of
Neptune swerve him from his intention
TO take a sea bath. Mrs. Grump. nat
urally. was very reluctant TO go into SO
frigid an ocean. but Mr.. Grump insisted
and she Joined the shudderins bunch OF
bathing suited huddlers on the beach.
Mr.. Grump with wonderful aplomb
dashed right into the water, but Mrs.
Grump stood on the verge. looking rueful.
We'll. you're coming into the water
aren't your" said Mr. Grump. standing
shuddering. with blue lips. in the little
coInbers at the verge. Huh? Is the
water to be? The temperature of cam
brio tea? 1t isn't cold cents worth.
It's just invigorating, that's all. 1t might
be called slightly non-tepid by people
that make ii the business of their lives
TO Coddle themselves. but On, come
on in. Y don't expect 10 learn how TO
swim standing in about a quarter OF an
inch OF water and looking the game over,
do YOU?
III that was your idea. what did YOU
drag me down here for. anyhow? Why
didn't YOU hit up terms with one of these
correspondence schools and learn 10
swim by mail?
"Oh. come out here You don't have TO
be afraid TO get your feet little damp.
They're not going to melt And you're
hot worrying about moistenng that wall
entine OF d bathing suit. are you? Is
that the bathing suit you whipped off a
bargain counter the other day that
Mardi Gras mess of bathing toys? Well
If that wouldn't take prize No, at a
Bloodhelds ball. then the judges 'ud need
operations on their lamps for double
cataract. believe ME.
'How's that? Oh. no. / haven't said
YOU were a sight ! haven't said a word
except TO invite you TO stroll out here
into about four and quarter inches of
water SOS To get at least that much of
that joke bathing suit out of the public
view That's all I've said.
well. are you coming in? Don't stand
there trying To look coy and all that
stuff Just trudge out here to where
I'm standing. The waters nearly up to
my knees. as you can See and that
doesn't mean> that you're going TO be
swept to watery grave before you get
a chance TO find out il your puffs are
on straight, does 1t?
And nothing's going to bite you. There
are no crocodles appropriateness
mooching around at this exact spot. and
If any thirty-feet- over all woman eating
shark shows up where I'm standing be-
fore YOU get here-and thatH be next
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12

MINER as Well as Farmer
lv1 Now to Be Looked After
at Washington-His Bureau
Under Interior Department
Will Be on a Par With
Patent and Pension Offices
1t Concerns All of the People
of the Country-Will Main
tain School for Teaching
Miners to Avoid Dangers
Now Due to Ignorance-Will
Also Study Means of Cutting
Down the Coal Bill and of
Stopping Our Prodigal Waste
of Minerals - Will Be the
Free Consulting Engineer of
the Small Prospector and
Mine Owner.
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12

ankle-deep ice water and permit you to
get away with a
well, then. if you had no such an idea,
and really want TO learn how to swim,
what in the dickens is your idea In per-
sistently refusing to let me
Flows that? Undertow here? Tush!
Balderdash. There's no current or I'M
dertow here at all. It's like millpond
Now all you've got to do is to relax.
Just relax every muscle and trust 10
me and lie fiat on your back on top Of the
water and I'll have hold of you every
instant of the time, see? I just want to
show you that
HUH We're getting out farther all
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12

the timeo Nothing of the sort! 1 can t
support you in floating position IL
there's not water enough to
Right at this point comber slapped
Mr. Grump in the back and turned him
over as if he'd been waffle. Mrs. Grump,
having seen the big one coming, was able
to disentangle herself from Mr.. Grump
and hold to her feet and wade out to
the sand.
Picking himself up and joining Mrs.
ed her with a baleful glare, and con-
Guided his swimming lesson as follows:
..All right, madam. That settles It. Get
yolr buds on. It's back to washington
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12
MkER!WI1I
>OWEN HELrEy

or gas The figures carrying the stretch
er wear the oxygen helmet. an apparatus
connected with two metal cylinders and
three cans worn upon the rescuer's back.
The course to be taught at the new
rescue school will include the proper use
of these devices. The efficiency of new
inventions for sustaining life in mines
will be continuously made in this same
smoke chamber.
Another interesting room is the lamp
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12

much abreast of the times as wealthy
mining corporations; to help protect ad-
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12

pecial Correspondence of The Star
ATLANTIC CITY, June 10. 1910.
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12
TESTING FIRE.FROOF MATERIAL

and miners of small means are constantly
opening up ores containing considerable
amounts of the precious metals which
cannot be separated upon the ground and
which are yet of too low a grade to war
rant transportation to the nearest smelt.
ing point. The bureau will develop some
cheap process which in these cases viii
extract the precious metals right at these
little mines And in many other ways
will il act as mining engineer for the
small prospector and miner who cannot
afford to employ mining engineers anr
metallurgists. Uses for low grade Goals
now unfit for fuels will be studied ano
the problem To why non-coking Goals
do not coke will be pried into
For every ton of coal now brought &c
the surface another ton Is abandoned t.
the mine. and in 1907 alone half BIZ
lion tons were thus left in the ground.
never to be recovered. because II was
dangerous 10 take out the pillars and
layers of coal which support the roofs
Of mines This condition. which helps q
lengthen the coal bill of the people. f.
another that the bureau of mines VII
strive to relieve. And 1t will seek means
Of saving more Of our supply of iron ore,
which will be exhausted before the mid
die OF the next century unless some re-
lief ia brought by science. And means
will also be sought for preventing the
present waste. in milling. of a third or
more of our zinc and of a further waists
of thousands of tons of cooper daily
carried away in the toilings OF reduction
plants; also of the present waste. In
milling of third to a half of our gold,
especially in ores carrying lead and zinc
and those of low grade from which our
future supply of the yellow metal must
come, now that bonanza mining is
thing of the past.
Our water supply seems to be perpet.
ual while the farm crops follow one an
other. from year to year and even the
forests can be reDlenished. But our min.
eral resources, whose conservation the
bureau of mines will study, can be neither
increased nor reproduced, SO far man
knows
But while giving advice on all these
matters and cooperating with local au.
thOrities who strive to make the reforms
suggested. the new bureau will not pre-
sumo to force its ideas upon the states.
Its functions will be limited t, making
inquiries and giving advice.
JOHN ELFRETH WATkINR
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12

world that could look at those seven
oysters on the half shell and pronounce
any essential difference between them.
Very well. You pick up your oyster
fork and go through with 'em. Six are
fine; oystery, fresh redolent of the bamy
Chesapeake. right up To the standard
But the last one, the seventh is the
worst kind of a punkerho. It's awful
1t tastes if il had been plucked back
about the time when they were using
wooden paving blocks in this town. It's
a bear cat for badness It's like Giles
boro point used to be as you meanderej
by there on a steamboat
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12

Copyright 1910, by John Elrreth watkins)
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12


a bear cat for badness. It's like Giles
boro point used to be as you meanderej
by there on a steamboat.
Queer, isn't it? Works out that way
every time. Why couldn't that orful one
have come earlier? But it doesn't. Sam
with strawberries. You dig into a bis
heaping dish of Strawberries and you
smack your lips over EN-, and you say
to the little woman beaming at the other
end of the table, "Where'd you ever man.
age to grab such luscious birds these?
and the world swims in rose-till you GET
to the very last strawberry in the heap.
ing dish. The very last strawberry IL
what We chastely term fiiv. 1t taste.
like the aroma of a stranded and de-
ceased dogfish. 1t leaves horrible i'm
preston upon your palate, and all OF
sudden your sky is overcast and you're
kind o. sorry that we didn't have Hal.
lev earthquake Or two. after all.
Wherefore? Why, nothing in the worlo
but the innate depravity OF inanimate
A fellow believer in this theory gave II
a workout test not so long ago.
He was eXpatiating, as We have been
doing here. upon the innate depravity OF
inanimate things theory, unto the spouse
of his bosom.
OF course, she flouted him and his the.
DRY. (Marvelous. isn't 1t, what determined
and persistent little nouterS or our the'
cries some of 'em are0 She didn't take
any stock in it at all Told him he ought
to be 'shamed OF himself for INDUCING In
such pessimistic speculations, and all
that
"All right, little wan" said he. TIT
show you
OF course. she didn't want to be shown.
They hardly ever do.
Now, listen" he went on. "D'ye see
that stack of Dickens works over there"
Over on a sort OF side table In the
library. where they were at the time,
was a complete set Of the works OF Dick
ems for which there was no room In the
various bookcases The works or Dick
ems were piled high in one stack. the
stack resting against the wall. The books
hadn't been touched by anybody for
year.
Yes, she saw EN-. said she, SHINING un-
believingly
.s1-.;ry uraiI doll heart" said the man
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12

Yes. she saw EN-. said she, shining un-
believngly
VARY we'll, doll heart" said the man
with the theory about the innate de-
pravity of inanimate things. Now II
select one of Dickens books David Cop
perfield,' we'll say. That's the book !
want I'll bet YOU two perfectly good
gumdrops that il you walk over there &c
that stack OF Dickens to get me David
Copperfeld you'll find that it's way down
near the bottom"
Tossing her lovely head. the missus OF
this man walked over to the heap OF
Dickens works. and the very first book
she picked off the stack was David Cop
perfield.
..A-a-a-a-a-a! Smarty!" said she, ~
course to her man. "Now where's your
theory?
NV theory baby-dream, is perfectly
illustrated said he, with entire correct
ness. Il wanted. the worst way. 10.
David Copperfield to be down near the
bottom Of the stack, SOS to illustrate nv
theory Uh-huh. VARY we'll. David
Copperfield was the very first book or
top, wasn't it? The thing went againS
me, as a simple matter of course, thus
Illustrating with marvellous depravity
the innate depravity of inanimat
things"
.Oh. fiiddlesticks" said she, OF coursa
his line of reasoning being too kapoo foi
her.
But the innate. etc. is proven fact al
the same. Keep tab ont and you'll see
for yourself. CLARENCE l.. CULLEN.
Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-12

Tuesday week-rll ease them kick In
the teeth and chase them back to their
deep-Water lair.