New Britain herald., 1917-11-03

lieve in bad omens than the stronger sex.
 Halloween has come and gone and there are but few broken windows, hardly any broken fences or gates, no overturned chicken-coops, and com paratively few cabbage and tomato bespattered front doors to testify to its annual visit Compare Halloween of 1917 to the Hallowe'ens of a decade ago. They are no more similar than are the nights before the Fourth of July of the present similar to the nights before" ten years ago. With the advance of the safe-and sane Fourth idea, there also came quiet and peaceful Halloween idea. Today most of the Halloween activities are confined to conventional parties, mas querading with faces blackened, and the occasional ringing of doorbell, then a hurried scamper lest one Of the plain clothes policemen appre- hend the perpetrator of the act. But
 almost everybody remembers the &C.,
 tivities of only 8 few years ago. Ring
 ing doorbells and masquerading was
 altogether too calm for the blood of
 Young America who craved excite
 ment. In those days it was great
 sport to take a section of a fence or a
 fence gate and carry it to some other section of the city. It was equally enjoyable to overturn the neighbors' chicken-coops, to ring the doorbells and then pelt the man of the house with over-ripe tomatoes and cabbage stumps when he responded. But the change is one for the better. This Is one instance when the people cannot honestly yearn for the good old days
 If the Pledge Card campaign for promises to assist in conserving food does nothing else, 1t will give to the radical Germans and others with pro- German tendencies. The women who are conducting this house-to- house canvass report, in some districts. a surprising number of obvious pro- Germans, and, in numerous instances, they have reported frank hostility to the United States. One young woman, canvassing in the southern part of the city, called at one house where the housewife received her coldly and ob- jected to signing the pledge card.
 'I should think you'd like to sign the card if for no other reason than to have this placard in your window" explained the canvasser, showing the pledge certificate with the United States emblem thereon.
 1T wouldn't put that flag in my win dow, anyway" was the curt reply.
 Such people have no place among real Americans. Their room is better than their country Send all of their ilk back to Germany, via Belgium. that they may see and glory in the barbarism of their Fatherland.
 In the appointment of Fred Smith as lieutenant in the fire department the board of fire commissioners made a selection that is meeting with pop ular approval. Tn fact all of the were first class men and the selection of MT. Smith Is no re- flection upon them, but rather an ap- preciation of his past work and his years of service. Although one of the slightest men in the department in physique, Lieutenant Smith is an muscular man and Is able to hold his own with any otfer Her cules in the department either as man to man or in prowess As a fire fighter he knows no fear and as 8 leader of men he has had consider able experience. Lieutenant Smith IS a veteran of the Spanish-American war, enlisting in 1898 when he was but a boy in his teens. His ability was recognized in army life and be- fore he was eventually given his hon. orable discharge from the army he had risen to the rank of first ser eeant of Company I, position that must be filled by a man of ability as we'll as proved leadership as any mill ! i+arv man knows One particularly pleasing fact about this latest contest for promotion within the department . was the absolute absence of any at-