Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/248

 from the North contracted this fever, and seventy-five per cent of them died.

The experts of the Department of Agriculture, working with the professors of the University of Missouri and of the Agricultural College of Texas, discovered that this fever was transmitted solely through the cattle-tick, which carried the germs from sick cattle and implanted them in well cattle when sucking their blood. An economical method of ridding cattle of ticks before shipping, by a process of dipping, removed all danger to Northern cattle from Southern shipments, and the costly quarantine handicap was removed or greatly mitigated.

In the past three years a practical and economical method of entirely exterminating these ticks has been worked out and tested by our scientists, and the ticks have already been exterminated over nearly 64,000 square miles, an area larger than the State of Georgia, and it is only a matter of a few years and wider diffusion of education when the cattle-tick will be entirely exterminated. When we consider that the losses of all kinds from cattle-ticks in the South and Southwest were estimated at $40,000,000 per year, we can see what these scientific discoveries mean for us.—New York Evening Post.

(1004)

EXTRAVAGANCE, CENSURABLE

A newspaper writer gives this picture of an occurrence in New York:

On what proved to be the coldest night of the year, a man, said to represent a brand of wine he is anxious to export, engaged the largest stage in the world from midnight until the next noon and gave an entertainment in honor of an elephant, to which were bidden the men and women whose lights shine mostly on the Great White Way.

These people were requested to come drest as "rubes," in the hope of making themselves as ridiculous as possible. But that was unnecessary, as the report of their antics while the wine, represented by their host, flowed with increasing freedom, did for them what no amount of caricature in dress could accomplish.

Out in the cold of this same freezing night there is a bread-line. Stationed at various places in this city are municipal free lodging-houses. To these flocked the army of the hungry and homeless, seeking for food and shelter from the bitter cold.

On the one hand, wanton extravagance; on the other, biting poverty. It ought to be the province of Christianity to abolish both of these for their mutual good. (Text.)

(1005)

EXTRAVAGANCE, MODERN

Two hundred and sixty dollars were paid this season for a hat! I know this to be true, because I saw the hat and the woman who bought it, and I was told the price. What was it? A handful of straw, a wisp of tulle, and a spray of feather. Two hundred and sixty dollars!

Of course, this is not to be taken as an average price, even among the very rich. But the averages, as well as the single, instances of modern extravagance are startling. Fifteen years ago twenty-five dollars—thirty at the outside—would have bought the most elaborate bonnet in the most expensive shopping center of the world, New York. Today the Fifth Avenue shops are asking thirty dollars for the plainest domestic toque or shade hat, and have shelves full of French importations at prices ranging from $100 to $175. The ten-dollar "trimmed" sailor hat used to be worn with serge dresses; the mull hats costing five dollars; the big rough garden hats at about the same price; the leg-*horns that used to run as high as fifteen, even twenty dollars, to-day have been replaced by thirty-dollar round hats, fifty-dollar picture hats, fifty-dollar lingerie hats, and hand-made straws running into the three numerals.—, Everybody's Magazine.

(1006)

EXTREMITY, GOD IN

In the far, forgotten lands, By the world's last gulf of night, Gasps a naked human soul, Writhing up and falling back, Screaming for a God who cares.

In the far, forgotten lands, By the world's last gulf of night, Batlike creatures vex the gloom And whimper as they shudder by: "Is there any God who cares?"

In the far, forgotten lands, By the world's last gulf of night, Walks the cross-stained Nazarene, Searching ever for his own On the crumbling edge of hell.