News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1915-11-24
BY FIRESIDE AND WAYSIDE
On Reading a Newspaper Headline
John Elliott Bowman

The attention of our people is drawn
for moment from the battling nations
of Europe by a message fro m the north.
Only few days ago communication to
the civilized world came from the Scan
| dinavian explorer Stephenson, who, with
his crew. has been a sef-appointed pris-
oner in the frozen North. From Nome
in Alaska came word that Stephans on's
| messenger had reached there with news
of the safety of the exploring party and
| with hopeful promises for the successful
pursuit of the object of the expedition.
When that messenger shall once more
| reach the place where the adventures
are encamped among the ice foes, il will
be with startling tidings from the out
side world. The messenger has equalled
any explorer of the past who has gone
forth and discovered new world. The
Europe concerning which he will tell his
companions is as different from that
which they knew when they went into
Voluntary exile as the shores of the Car
ibbean island on which Columbus land
ed were from those Of Spain.
Stephenson and his company left Eu-
rope that was in seeming peace abiding
in cities that had stood through centur-
les. that were old when Columbus was
boy on the wharves of Genoa. The mes
senger who returns to the north will bear
word that some of these cities have dis |
appeared almost as completely as did |
Martinique before the Inferno blast from |
Mount Pelee.
The Europe of the autumn of 1915 is as |
different in many respects from that of
the spring of 1914 as the wind swept and |
stormed tossed Atlantic could possibly be
different from that tabled empire Allan
tbs, which, in legend, stretched far west
beyond the pillars of Hercules.
The contrast between the world which
the explorer left and that of which he
will be told by his messenger is more
dramatic, perhaps, than would be mag
iDed or set forlh in work of fiction. If
a year ago the story would have been
rated as the sheerest melodrama. Today
it gives but AN inadequate statement of
appalling fact.
plorers as they hear the news from with
out is in some ways no different from
hat of other brave men who have done
the worlds work ignorant of what was
going on elsewhere.
There were two men three centuries
ago who would seem by all the laws of
environment to differ in their lot one
rom the other. One grew up as sailor
he royal power of Spain. His little fleet
If vessels having encountered and con-
luered the dangers. already known of
he Atlantic, passed the strait which re-
aims their commanders name at the
southern point of the South American
continent and entered the southern sea
If which they knew nothing save that it
night be part of that same ocean, dis
severed few years before by the gazers
rom the mountain peak in Darien.
"lTheyl were the first that ever burst
Iuto that silent sea-"
Under the control of their leader they
the we'll nigh impossible task
# crossing the painless ocean. Starving
nd reduced to the last extremity of suf- I
ering they came to those islands off the |
Asiatic coast that are now under the gov
rnment of the United States. There the
eader persisted, slain in a raid against
ertain islanders to whose enemies he
7as recklessIy giving assistance. Magel-
IN died. He could not know that his
York would be completed and his name {
brewer associated with the circumnavi-
alton of the globe. Far less could he s
now, and, if he had known, how little
g might have cared concerning the labor Z
another man of his generation who in
mother field was as much pioneer and I
onqueror as he.
(Concluded next week.