Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-09-25
= PROGRESO, San Juan.-It Is
impossible to measure the de-
gree Of improvement which may
have occurred since the Ameri-

IL have occurred since the Ameri-
can occupation Of Porto Rico
began in 1893. Wage and price data
are not Of . character to permit any
careful statistical or cumulative meas
urement Of the change. Certain broad
direct observation of the people then
and now. The country folk one now
meets on the highways and byways, on
the whole, are better clothed than for
merly; many Of them wear shoes where
formerly practically all went barefoot,
and several times as many neatly clad
children as before are to be seen in
the public schools. Wooden houses
with floors and corrugated iron roofs
are met with in districts where a
large part Of the population formerly
dwelt in matched huts with the bare
ground for a floor. These observations
compel the conclusion that average in
comes must have increased since the
turn Of the century yet even this ia
vorable picture gives picture Of life on
the island that is drab indeed.
A daily wage of 20 cents, with en-
ployment of four days out of the seven,
represents approximately the earnings
of the larger part of the daily laboring
population. It is doubtful If the aver
age income Of the rural workers in
Porto Rico exceeds $3.50 a year. The
earnings of wife and children, together
with supplemental income from the
cultivation of small parcels of land and
from the raising Of poultry and live
stock, increase the income of the aver
age rural family to something like $3.50
or $275 a year The earnings of the
towr laborer, taking into consideration
the higher cost OF living in the city, are
not greatly in excess of those of the
country laborer. But life is no worse
than in other densely populated trop-
ical countries, though it should be bet
ter, as Porto Rico has a right to share
In the economic advantages of the
United States
Nature May Have
Purpose In Crazy Contests.
The Evening Post, Welllngton.-It is
impossible TO glance at the papers now
adays without discovering that some
new pinnacle of faulty has been
stormed. Here somebody Is pushing a
pea up a mountain with his nose; there
somebody has delivered a nonstop
grafton of 48 hours while standing on
one leg, and throwing up and catching
three tennis balls. And this, of course,
is a record. Previous orators who stood
on one leg and juggled tennis balls
broke down at the pitiable achievement
usually called Marathons, which Is O
trifie hard on the purposeful and
prodigious gallop of the runner who
took the great news to Athens.
America even has its splitting
Marathons, and we read not long ago
of an American Sunday school which
knocked the Baltimore pole-sitters
right of their topmost perch Of lunacy.
This Sunday school organized a COM
petition to discover which of its heaven
aspiring scholars could display the
greatest number Of warts!
Marie Lloyd. impersonating poor,
penniIess wretch, deserted by her hus-
band, and thrown down the stairs by
the landlord, a woman without so much
hope in the world as the price Of a
beer, used to say, well, suppose all
these things are sent TO try uSl" No
doubt for the same high ethical pur-
pose do certain bridge partners exist,
for in that category of temper-testers
we are all certainly placed by our COM
panions.
And yet, perhaps, nature may have
q purpose in these idiocieS. Such per-
formances are not only amusing 10 va.
cant minds, but they serve TO remove
a dreadful preoccupation with life In all
its grim earneStness, which might,
without these absurd distractions
drive us prematurely to the tomb.
y X y
Suggests Change In
School Vacation Time.
Fl Diario, La PaZ-A modification of
the scholastic year has been suggested
by Prof. Hugo Schneider, director of
the Colegio Aleman German College,
in q note sent to the ministry of public
instruction. Prof. Schneider's idea is
that all the public schools. whether