The National tribune., 1910-04-21

pearl ring which has an exciting history
attached. Altogether her presents rep
resent many millions of dollars, so they
say. The bridesmaids are to wear frocks
made of combination of blue and
pink in satin and chiffon, and the skirts
will be three inches from the floor,
which is pretty short, and gives an op-
portunity for pretty stockings and
shoes. These gowns will have very
bouffant overskirt of the chiffon, which
suggests the pretty Dolly Warden cos
tune worn many years ago. With these
costumes will be worn blue straw toques
trimmed with pink tulle and pink
plume. The wedding will be pretty
sight, no doubt.
We sometimes wonder if the Chinese
and japanese girls who are forced to
live under, the same roof with their
mothers-in-law and are absolutely SUBJ
servient to them are any happier than
our girls when obliged to<live with the
mother of their husbands. For some
reason a menage composed of wife, hus-
band and mother-in-law does not often
make for happiness. The mother-in-
law may be good woman, prepared TO
love her new daughter, and firmly re-
solved that she will not meddle the
least little bit; but unconsciously, per-
haps, she does, and trouble begins. A
Pennsylvania Judge has decided that
same roof with her mother-in-law. She
can return to her own home after mar
riage if she wishes to, and remain apart
from her husband until he provides a
separate home for her, and he cannot
divorce her on account of desertion, or
compel her to return to live under the
same roof with his mother.
More unique even than Rostand's
"Chantecler'' will be the play soon to
be produced at the State University of
Wisconsin, in which the actors are to
portray various germs. The play is
called "In Germland," and the princi-
pal characters will be the bacilli of
pneumonia, tuberculosis, tetanus, etc.
1t depicts the war which goes on be-
tween the dwellers of germland in the
human race, and interviewer with it is
the weirdest kind of a love story. Like
'tChantecler," there is no human being
in it, and as far as can be seen from
the little that is at present known of
the play it has no serious purpose what
ever, but depends entirely upon the
novelty of the idea for its merits. The
idea is certainly distinctly unpleasant,
tho undeniably novel, and unless it in
some way serves to benefit science
would seem to have little excuse for
being.
Those men all over the country who
are living on clerks salary and maxi
ing no attempt to save anything out of
it, regarding any such attempt as ut
terly preposterous and impossible, may,
perhaps, be spurred to the effort by the
remarkable success of the millionaire
clerk who died a year ago, tho the
knowledge of his wealth has just come
to light. Charles Hoffman was a clerk
for over 55 years in the banking con-
cern of Brown Bros, starting in as
office boy in the New Orleans branch
of this well-known firm. His one idea
was to save money, and he began at
once with his pennies. By adding one
to one he soon had his dollar, his dol
lars grew to hundred, and after years
of this careful accumulation he found
himself the possessor of $4,000, which
he invested wisely. From this time on
ward it was all easy enough, and at the
time of his death he was worth $1,000
900. OF course, Hoffman was nothing
more nor less than a miser. He never
married-matrimony was far too ex-
pensive an experiment to appeal to
nim-and when he came to New York
with his firm it is said he went over to
Brooklyn to live, hunting up cheap
boarding house in which he installed
himself. For over 20 years he went to
his work every morning by the South
Ferry, which cost him one cent, and
when the price was increased to two
cents walked over the Brooklyn Bridge
to prevent paying the extra penny. He
never spent anything on amusements
of any sort whatever, remaining in his
stuffy little room on bright, beautiful
Sundays rather than to part with the
five cents necessary for a car ride, and
for his reading depended on the finan-
cial reports which he brought home
from the office. Coney Island was no
siren to him, and the pretty girl never
lived who could coax a soda or ice
cream from his securely fastened pock-
etbook. He was a very efficient clerk,
and as he attended strictly to business
was liked by his employers and well
enough by the people around him. He
went along SO quietly piling up his dol
lars that no one suspected the truth,
which only goes to prove that if one
minds ones own business other people
will mind theirs generally. Even his
young niece, who came on to look after
him when he was taken i'll, supposed
her uncle to be poor man, and took
position in a publishing house to pay
her own board while living in the same
house with him. OF course, she and the
other relatives fall heir to the $1,000
600, and it Is to be hoped that they will
get the fun out Of them that Hoffman
missed. Any boy starting out in life, no
matter how humbly, especially one with
only himself to look after, can be rich
In time If he is willing to make the sac
rifice. 1t Is only question of that.
Saving the pennies makes the dollars,
and after the first $1,000 has been ac-
cumulated ii becomes comparatively
easy work. All the rich men who start
ed poor tell us this. But 1t means a
hard youth, and too frequently the loss
of the power of enjoyment when the
hour for leisure and enjoyment is felt
at last to have arrived. 1t is better TO
take a medium course-save some and
have little fun in spending some.
This question of the first children of
a union being the poorest has raised
another which has stirred old England
to her depths. For centuries it has been
an unwritten law among the nobility
that the eldest son shall inherit the title
and estate upon the death of his faith
er. This has frequently been pretty
hard on the other sons, and upon the
daughters, too, when the nobleman has
not happened to be very wealthy, but
so deep-rooted is the custom that no
Englishman has ever thought of seri-
ously rebelling against it. Apropos of
the trouble between the Commans and
House of Lords, Sir Francis Galton, the
founder of the science of Eugenics,
which means the improvement of the
race, has suggested that the House of
Lords would be a much stronger body
If this ancient custom of the eldest born
inheriting the title were abolished, and
the plan of selecting the most fit for the
honor and responsibility from all the
sons of noble family adopted. He then
goes on to state, what We have said