The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-08-06
SCRAP BOOK FOR TO-DAY

> OUI1HI DOUN l UT AU-UAI >~-~~---~~-~-~~- The first murderer executed by cleo trOcutfon was William Kemmler, who passed through the little green door" that leads from Sing Sings death house to 'the chair on August 6, 1890, twenty-thre years ago today. The law substituting electrocution for hanging in New York State was passed twenty five years ago. Kemmler'S attorneys fought it as 'tcrueI and unusual pun ishment,'' and so unconstitutional and for two years saved the condemned man from his fate. In 1890 the law was upheld by the courts, and the doomed man was strapped into the death chair and thousands of volts of electricity sent through his body. Med ical men declared the execution a com plete success. A number of other States have since followed New York's example, including Kentucky, Massa- chusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, N North Car olina, South Carolina and Virginia. ''The chair has shorn death of some of it's horrors, but death itself, by whatever means, is always terrible enough. The condemned man is strap ped to the chair, the electrodes are ap- piled to the calves through s1ashed trousers and to the -shaven skull, then the signal is given, and for one in it is the end of all things.
 
 Throughout the Christian world there will be observances today of the fes- tica1 of the Transhguration, one of the twelve great feasts which come next
 after Easter in dignity. It was insti- tuted by Pope Calixtus TIL, in the if teenth century, and cofnmemorates the visit of Jesus to ian high mountain
 apart,'' where Saints Peter, John and James witnessed the Transf1guration, when His face was altered and shone as the sun, and His garments became as white as snow '
 Nowhere is the Transfiguration more f1ttingly observed than Mount Her mon and Mount Tabor, where a few of the faithful gather annually in the hope of seeing their Lord, and often go away firm in the belief that such a wis., ion has been vouchsafed to them. Ira
 dition attributes to both Hermon and l Tabor, in Syria, the glory of having been the mountain chosen by Jesus for his Transf1guratfon, and eastern Chris
 tians still squabb1e over this point. Western scholarship favors Mount Hernon, the modern Jebe1lish Sheilzh, since Caesarea Phi1ippi, to which Je- sus and His disciples descended, as at its base, while Tabor is fifty miles away.
 The modern tourist, going down to : Damascus on the railroad from Beirut may see from the car window Her II1OH 5 SI1OW GIe1S1 IlS1Sht6 F CW "Co lOA II Christians dare the Cyriansummer to visit the mountain on the festival of the Transdguration, although the trip can now be made largely by rail, and
 without 8 tenth part of the hardships that fell to Mark Twain and his fellow 'Innocents Abroad during their sum ner journey overland through PaIes- tine It was on that hazardous trip that one Of the party became i'll, and his comrades voted to leave him to the tender mercies of the Moslens of a Syrian village-all but Mark Twain, the profant pagan who was "d-d if he would do it, and stayed with the sick man until he was well enough to travel
 Today is independence day in Bo- Iivia, that hermit republic which is stiu a terra incognita even to those globe trotters who claim to know their South America The highest country in the world, and, until recent years,
 the most remote of qUasi-civilfzed na- tions. has already been penetrated by railroads. and will soon be traversed
 by a trans-continentaI line extending from Lima on the Pacific to Buenos Ayres on the Atlantic.
 The principal part of Bolivia Is a vast plateau, at an average altitude of
 12,OOO feet above sea level Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable body
 of water in the world, has a fleet of steambaots, every part of which was
 brought up from the coast on the
 backs of Indians. Bolivta's popula- ton is nine -tenths aboriginal, and the various tribes range from the meek est and most servile people in the world" to the hardest and most war like. The latter are stalwart race, as may be judged from the fact that in Sucre, the de jure capital, there are many grand pianos which' were carried 500 miles, and over vast noun tain ranges, by these human burden carriers. The local piano mover who is inclined to complain of his hard lot should be thankful that he was not
 born in Bolivia. ~ Bolivia became in
 dependent on August G. 1925, and the country was named in honor of Simon Bolivar, the 1ibrator, while the capi- tai, Sucre, was given the name of his principal lieutenant. The province
 of Antofogasta, bordering on the Pa
 cific and rich in nftrates, was lost to Bolivia in 1884, a result of the
 unfortunate war with Chile.
 There is complaint that tips are not
 as lavish as they used to bel Pity the poor hotel keeper!