St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1915-09-01

| himself a boor and a mucker. The
trainman should have been in charge
of that train. Railroad men some
times justify themselves for being
discourteous on the ground that
people ask them foolish questions.
The fact is that railroad men are
asked no more foolish questions than
other people in public places are ask
ed The difference is that in other
lines it is considered good policy to
treat patrons decently. On the Rut-
land and some other roads there has
been a change in recent years and
nearly all the men employed are
gentlemen in their treatment of pas
sengers. The old railroad policy of
"the public be damned is chiefly
responsible for the friendless situa-
ton in which the railroads find them
selves. The tradition still exists on
some roads injuring not only that
road but other roads who get classed
in the same category by a public so
often stung that it will not stop to
discriminate Banner.
Too Much Law Making.
Thinking men will receive with
satisfaction the announcement that
The Forum is to begin next month
the publication of a series of articles
by some of the most eminent men in
1.-THE country on one of the grave and
growing evils of the time, namely,
the tendency toward excessive legis-
lation and the consequent increase in
the army of officials who live at the
expense of the taxpayers, and many
OF whom render very small returns
for what they draw from the public
funds. Among those who will con-
| frihnfo arfi07nc To
United States Senator Lodge of Mas
sachusetts, President Butler of Co
lumbia University, President Emeri-
tus Eliot of Harvard University, ex-
Ambassador David Jayne Hall, and
others equally able and prominent
| The articles will be designed to
show that this country is gradually,
If not rapidly, approaching Europe
an conditions in the matter of main
tanning what may. be called a ruling
class. Laws and officials are multi
plying so rapidly and public expendi-
lures are increasing so fast that the
time is not far distant when the con-
ditions will be burdensome if the
drift continues. In fact, the burden
is already directly felt. But the
people do not seem to be aware of the
cause, and their clamor for laws to
regulate everything under the sun is
largely responsible for their increas-
| ing burden.
What we need is not more laws,
but better enforcement of the laws
we already have.-Brattleboro Re-
| former
Vermont Prodigy.
Outworn theology and the paro-
chial viewpoint which prevailed in
the earlier days of our common
wealth prompted an eminent divine
of that time to remark that Vermont
settlers were either Universalists or
infdels. Gainsaying it's intolerance,
| it was another way of saying that
the men who blazed the trail in the
Green Mountain state were indepen-
dent in thought and the ordering Of
their daily endeavors accountable to
no set of hard and fast rules. Rub
bling elbows with the unorthodox
brethren thus classified, the reverend
gentleman might have added, was a
race of geniuses destined to leave
their imprint on the history of the
nation. That the Green mountains
Graded men in whose fertile brains
originated the first ideas of a work
able electric motor and a steamboat
that was practical are matters of
common knowledge. Give a man an
ingenius turn of mind and the tools
to work with and some mighty mo-
mentous things are apt to happen in
a Vermont Yankees workshop on
rainy day. So it has been proven.
Genius of kind not wholly akin
to the inventive bent of Captain Nor
ey Of steamboat fame and Thomas
Davenport, originator of the electric
motor, both of them Vermonters, was
the heritage of Zerah Colburn, Yer
mont's famous mathematical prodigy,
whose birth occurred in Cabot Sept.
1, 1904. At the age of six years he
was described as being surprisingly
gifted as an arithmetical calculator"
Having been widely exhibited in Yer
mont, his precocity attracted atten-
ton elsewhere and he was taken on
an extended tour. Boston people
found he could answer problems
sooner, much sooner, than they
could be done on paper. On short
notice and without pencil or paper
he found the number of seconds in
1000 years. Observers said he COM
puted the number of seconds in IL
years in less than four seconds.
Square and cube roots he extracted
with unexplainable ease. Skeptics
failed to dumfound him and where
ever he went he found that his rep
utation had preceded him.
Carrying letters of introduction,
the boy went to England, Scotland
and Ireland. Learned professors re-
ceived him, with acclaim. When ask
ed to square 888,888, he gave the
correct result in II figures and then
multiplied the product by 40. Col
burn appears to have had a strange
hold on factoring. He could give all
the factors of many large numbers.
Prominent mathematicians, baffled
by his consistency in replying to
rapid fire questions in arithmetic,
gave him a certain number of 10
figures. Mentally and with little loss
of time he found the only two factors
which it had. 1t was said to him that
his marvellous powers combined rap
idity, remarkable accuracy and un-7
failing memory. Unconsciously,
sometimes, while doing his most diff
fcult tasks, he would go into bodily
Il. til,