Norwich bulletin., 1922-07-22
THE MAN WHO TALKS

Just glance at one Of the provinces of this kingdom and then decide whether or not 1t has been rightly named simply refer to the woodlands Of the United States. One gets faint idea of this kingdom if he stands on the top of one of our higher eastarn mountains and glances at the surrounding desert of burned timber land all about hina !" Very few people. comparatively care enough about burned forest land to climb a mountain to see it. But 1t isn't neces- sary to climb up any mountain. high or low toysee 1t, because at certain seasons 1t is thrust upon our attention whether we are interested os not. The chief of the forest service has told US that there are S1 ,eeo, 900 acres of idle. unpreductfve forest lland in the United States, made so by fires This is equal in area to the combined state Of New York and Pennsyl- vanfa, or to the whole of England, Scot land and Wales-olir kingdom of neglect.
 Whatever opinions one may have. in regard to the league of nations-and Of
 course, being human document, it is open to great variety of views, 1t has.
 however, one feature that ought to be universally commended. and that Is the
 provision 1t makes for waging warfare
 against the deadly typ1als fever We are
 apt to think Of this league as an agency
 designed solely to prevent war. i. e. war
 between nations. But that is only one of
 the matters that come to the leagues at
 tention. The league has been irstru- mental in calling Into existence agencies among it's signatories whereby they can
 work together for the suppression of any
 deadly epidemic that may be raging among any of them. Nowhere has this
 been SO conspicuously successful as in the field of typhus It is not extravagant to say that it has saved whole districts of Poland and Russia from utter extinc- tlon. In 1920 cases in Poland decreased about 400 per cent; last year in Russia they dropped from 100000 to 100000. This alone justified the league of nations An .urgens demand for the reassessnent of property is appealing to the sober sense of the citizens of Norwich. The question that is being asked on all sideg l in the city and out of 1t. is this : Is the startling advance of the price of real es- tate fictitious, or does it represent an l actual advance in valuation? Is there ] anything visible in present business con ditions that would seem to warrant such a jump? If a man offers ten thousand { dollars for property that is not worth more than six, has he any right to com plain if the board of assessors tax that property at his own voluntary estimate? Strange things sometimes boom real es- tate, and sometimes give 1t an awful tumble. A man suddenly becomes rich i and he or other members of his family, have burning desire for social recogni- l tion. Of course he must live in a better neighborhood. and to do it he is willing l to pay an exorbitant price for the desired l property. In so doing he upsets the val l ulation of property on the entire street !, This leads to the inquiry: What is the basis of valuation?
 Vices thnt ars allowed to grip up al all are. very apt to grip us hard. bu; 1 none quite SO hard as gambling. The out l standing feature of gambling is it's l selfishness: it is not vice in which we l are willing to share with others. The I party who is opposed to US ls a gamh- I ling scheme is the one who suffers by 5 us if we win and we are the ones wht I suffer in he wins. It is pleasure one \ person enjoys by making somebody else lI suffer Of course the losing party is nol I entitled to any sympathy, because 1t hal ,i been in his heart to do the one who beai 4 him. There is little to be said in favol Il of drinking, but it is not so mean a. II gambling, because 1t is convivial; some thing in which the other fellow joins Dr ! Gladden, speaking of the gamblers pleas rre in getting the other fellows fnonel for which he has paid nothing, says That spectacle always fills .Ine witt S an1azement. There is something so es [ sentially sordid about it, that 1t seems t j me beneath contempt Have we sunk il Il our miserable money y-grubbing. to sucl a depth as this,-that we are forced t ]. turn our pastimes into schemes of gain 9 ,l There is a certain intrinsic value il solitude, provided one doesn't have to- : much of it. Given in Homeopathic dose
 Fit is good for us. Like icewater it i better to sip it occasionally than to gull : it down by the glassfuI. The man wln 7 lives all the time in solitude, like tn eI hermit, is apt to Nbe not only long-haire T and dirty, but rnorose and eccentric
 never knew hermit who was not unbal
 anced in mind and degenerate in char
 acter Living all alone by himself i some dilapidated shack, with no huma, 5 habitation in sight does not make fo t manliness. He is usually the man wh s has wrecked nome by his bad habits -I He goes down and down until the en ell is the hovel which his fellows shun a al they would pest house. Once a wee oI he shambles into the village store t
 iget his weekly rations At length the
 begin to miss-the long haired man wit
 the burlap bag slung across his shoulder
 The storekeeper notifies the selectme a who find him in abject squalor. dead on z pallet of straw. Then a pine box, a hol
 in the ground and-eternity
 What I have said above Is not in COT v demnation of solitude as thing in itsel s but of men whose bad habits make sol
 tude sort of solitary confinement as ia
 as they are personally concerned. Bt
 l if we take solitude in two-grain tablets 2 ,sl Week<endS, on vacations for huutin, l. fishing and camping, in the wilds { nI Maine or Voluntown, we strike altogethe
 another proposition. The ! lure of tI
 | tent, the scent of the pine, the swish {
 the steel rod and the distant jingle T the cow-ben are needed substitutes f. oi the tarif, the grating of machine polite ltl miners strikes. and coal shortages Go
 have mercy on the boy and girl, man an
 woman who have the ''fgits'' if le ,el alone five minutes who depend on ou VI side frOth for entertainment such z parties. picnics, peanuts and merry-g, rounds 1.-the source of entertainme1
 is within us we shall be as contented
 the wooded mountain as in the packe lof movies. Thoreau once said: T have l. great deal of company in my house e r-l pecially in the morning, when nobo6 ,fi calls"-- He was big enough to create h
 own society.
 Usually when midsummer arrives ' < have much to say and do relative " keeping cool-although it has not bes IS conspiciuously so thus far this seaso df1 But do WE consider that it is equally il ld3 pcrtant, and possibly more so, to consid
 the necessity of keeping sufficiently war
 for the purpose of human life? From u : thermal standpont we take a bad tur z ble when we allow ourselves to. gro sr too cold bodily. mentally, or morall tol When this precious 140 pounds of ave ri dupois of mine gets too cold there a
 two general RaYs of warming if III, ;.