The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1910-08-21

men VINO never put away chiIulsh
things They are the men who rip open
the head Of the drum to see where the
watch to find out what makes the
wheels go round, and can never put It
together again They touch the buzz
saw to see # it is going. They touch
it again TO show how they lost the first
finger. These are the people who bend
your cane till it breaks to see how elias
tic it IS. They break the blade of your
pocket knife to test its temper
These are the people who tinker old
hymns and old poems that have won
their way into the love and the admira
ton of the people. They add stanza
to "America because it seems to them
it left out a part of the country. By
the time tinker in every State of the
Union has soldered on the stanZa per-
tanning to his particular State, bring
ing ont its special feature, our national
hymn viii contain fifty stanZas, and
will celebrate not only rocks and rills
and woods and tempted hills. but gold
and silver mines, extensive coal fields,
the gopher, the badger, the gr1zz.y bear,
the steamboat. the cactus, the oil der
rick, natural gas, borax deserts. baron
lal breweries, tobacco warehouses. blue
grass distilleries, and the Woman s
Christian Temperance Union. a mile
long tail for tiny dot of a kite 1t
Is comforting to think that in these
days of science the best, and indeed the
only kites, have no tails Indeed, tails
would be impediments to the loftiest
and most successful flights
Kites with tails, for that matter are
the inventions of puerile civilization.
L he Chinese. who were expert kite fv-
ers, fly only the tailless kites. We have
but very recently caught up with the
| Chinese.
In every generation there is one in
ventor. Sometimes two. Rarely three
occasionally four. And rarely dozen
| Possibly more.
People who were born about seventy
years ago can recall the first steamship
the hfst railway train, the first line of
| telegraph wires, stretched upon the
| everlasting poles; the first telephone
the first photograph, the first aeroplane
the first automobile, the first tvpevrit
er, the first linotype, the first wireless
telegraph apparatus. There are a few
other firsts, but these are prominent. 4
score OF inventors in a generation.
But the thinkers of that time. They
outnumber the sands of the seashore
The improvers. The men who duickl,
catch hold of an idea, once clearly de
veloped, and add to it here and there
once an egg was stood on end Onlr
once. Because the idea was so perfect
ly wrought out in the first experiment
that nothing could possibly be added t
it, and all the novelty of the thing wa
exhausted forever in that one success
! full trial. Once in many ages thing
! done so well that it forever remains III
tinkered and unimproved
Over in the State of Illinois Their
dwells a tinker, pastor of a church. VIII
has got out his soldering iron and blo'
pipe. with the intention of improvn
the textbook of his calling. He prt
poses to popularize the Bible. And h
idea is to improve the old Book b
making it ''more like the newspapers
What do you know about that'
He is quoted as saying elf the Bib
were breezier it would be more read.
1t would also be yellower, parson. .
, heap sight
are now repealed by the style of tn
| r To-, j
paperBible with interest and plea
ure. - Why not with edifcation an
benefit also,
This high compliment to reportoris
English must be very gratifying to a
newspaper men. That the translatio
of the Bible, which crystallized tn
!, English language, is inferior in il
"style' to the racy police court repor
s tales of woe and the sporting ed
> tors stories of the diamond is ''news,
even in the sanctums where news is til
only religion. Had the newspaper
made such claim for their literary e,
ceIlence, the audacious editors woul
have been fayed alive in all the pulpit
of the land. But as the complimer
comes from the pulpit, the new scribe
are entitled to bow low, and declal
that they are over-fattered. "Not {
all. -
\ revision of the Bible by well-know
- "breezy' writers would undoubtedl
find readers where the old King JAIME
n version does not in favor. Say, con
, bination of Petroleum vs.. Nasty, to pl
:, in the funny spelling; ''Wot' tell, ,Jir
my Fadden,' for up-to-date ''phra
ing the Arizona Kicker, for vigorol
i expression, the sporting page, for ter
{. English. Say, an account of the cruc
fixion in the style of modern electr
cution story; pharaphrase Of the Sc
= mon on the Mount after the style of
y burlesque lecture in vaudeyil
~ sketch: funny transcription Of Il
Fifty-frs Psalm; gushy -mushy reno
10 ton of the Thirteenth Chapter Of
d Corinthians-that wonderful clbpter
o love A clever writer could make a pc
fectly killing summer-girly skit Of tn
chapter Oh, there s no question tn
y the Bible would attract great deal
u attention in some Indifferent quartz
:. where it is now neglected, II it we
u made "'breezier.' But whether t
~ breezy Bible would be read by SO ma
poop1a aC is tho old version is omen