The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-24

An imperial edict issued in Pekin in the name of the infant Emperor as- sumes for him the supreme command of the army and appoints the Prince Regent generalissimo until the Emperor attains his majority.
 
 are the friends or enemies of farmers. Special agents in the field slay the birds by the hundreds and ship their stom- achs to Washington in alcohol. Then they are microscopicaly examined by the three scientists, who tabulate their find- ings.
 In the Treasury Department is a chem ist who tolls all day long amid samples of near-butter and fake whiskies. Tho samples are sent him by suspicious gov ernment agents. who thing certain but ter manufacturers and dstillers are evading the law against adulteration.
 At the Washington navy yard a naval contractor has a huge model tank in which he plays with toy battleships, cruisers and submarines. But he isn't exactly playing, he is making scientific demonstrations of the effect on vessel s speed, coal consumption etc, of changes in the outward formation of the hull.
 There are expert tea and coffee tasters in the Treasury Department, who tell the value and grade of these commodities by placing few grains on the tongue. And in the Department of Agriculture there is a squad of young men who eat drugged foods to determine just how poisonous they are.
 Secretary MacVeagh of the treasury, employs a man to sign his signature to various routine papers that must be signed each day. And Mrs. Mabel P. Leroy of the Interior Department does the same thing for President Taft, re- ceiving $1200 a year for doing so. 1t Is estimated that she signs his name to patents issued by the land office 6000 in single months.
 A man with a delft hand and an accu- rate eye receives the same annual salary in the Treasury Department for cutting up paper money. All day long he places under a mutiatng knife large stacks of paper money that comes to the treasury for redemption. He destroys on an aver age of $l,5O0,0O0 a day and over $400,000, 900 in year.
 Every September a Newton (N. J) man ships 50 pounds of rattlesnakes to the New York Geological Gardens. After catching them in their native heath he packs them in box with small screen wire netting nailed on tightly all around
 
 over to the express company.
 New York boasts the only repairer of cigar store Indians in the country, ar artist who spends the entire year in drawing caricatures used in the so-called comic valentines; a man who, day in and day out, takes several dime novels and pieces them together so as to form one continuous story for publication as a book; two women wireless operators. one on the top of Fifth avenue hotel and another in an ocean liner sailing from New York, and two coppers who have a monopoly on packing money into casks for shipment by New York banks to for eign countries.
 In New York women make a business of being discharged from the department store in which she is "employed' once or d dozen times a day if occasion demands. When a naughty, pompous customer complains of negligence or impertinence ol what-not on the part of a clerk. the woman in question is summoned to the front office as the one in charge of that particular department, given good dressing down before the angry customer and peremptorily discharged.