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The subscription price of THE ARGOSY is $4.00 fer year, payable
tn advance. Single copies Ten Cents each, D1SCONTINUANCES—7he
publishers must be notified by letter when a subscriber wishes his paper
stopped. The number (whole number) with which the subscription
expires appears on the printed slip with the name. The courts have
decided that all subscribers to newspapers are held responsible until
arrearages are paid and their papers are ordered to be discontinued,
FRANK A, MUNSEY & COMPANY, Publishers,
81 Warren Street, New York.
THE ARGOSY IS COPYRIGHTED.
E AVE our readers chanced to notice the fact that
nearly all the centenarians of whom accounts are
given in the newspapers, are either inmates of the poor
house or else dependent upon the charity of their friends
and neighbors? Indeed, Sir Moses Montefiore, the Eng-
lish philanthropist, is the only instance where a man of
wealth has attained to his hundredth year that we can
call to mind,
Are riches incompatible with longevity? It would cer-
tainly seem so, and herein is consolation for the “ poor
relation” who is inclined to look with envy upon his
wealthy connection.
Nevertheless, we do not imagine for a moment that the
pursuit after riches will be in any wise checked by this
apparent drawback.
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L4st week we had something to say about the man
who is always mistaking the editor for the publisher
and wce versa. Now we want to refer briefly to the cor-
respondent who sends a query with the request that it be
answered in “next week’s paper.”
Now, as, in the case of a periodical with such an ex-
tended circulation as THE ARGOSY enjoys, the numbers
are printed three weeks in advance of publication, it will
be seer at once that to comply with the writer’s wish is
an utter impossibility, as one if not two succeeding issues
of the magazine have already come from the binder’s
hands when the letter reaches us.
And in this connection we desire to remind our friends
that only questions of general interest can be answered in
our correspondence department, as we aim to make the
column not only useful to certain inquiring minds but en-
tertaining and instructive reading for all as well.
kK Ok Ox
ERHAPS in no way can the marvelous growth of the
city of New York be better realized that by compar-
ing the post office facilities of 1890 with those of 1623.
The extent of the service of today all know, but it will
doubtless be news to many that the first attempt at a
post office in New Amsterdam was merely a rack along
the wall of a coffee house on the river front, where the
letters brought from abroad by captains of the-ships that
came into port, were displayed till their owners called for
them. :
How true it is that we do not half appreciate our bless-
ings till they take their flight. We pay two cents fora
Sra tebe el a
THE ARGOSY
stamp and dropa letter in the lamp post box at the corner,
certain that it will go promptly to its destination, without
a thought of the privileges we enjoy above our ancestors.
Will these privileges, we wonder, some time be looked
back upon in turn by our descendants as absurdly primi- .
tive compared with theirs? None can tell, and few dare
predict. The world moves nowadays with giant strides.
* OK Ok
AMERICAN ‘mothers sometimes rent their babies out
to take part in theatrical performances, but in Ceylon
mothers of plump infants go a step further, and hire out
their offspring to hunters to be used as crocodile bait. No,
don’t shudder; the babies are not impaled on a hook and
swallowed by the thick skinned saurians. The duties re-
quired of them are the simplest in the world; merely to lie
on the bank of a stream, basking in the sun, till they are
espied by a hungry crocodile, who starts to crawl out after
the dainty morsel, only to meet the bullet of the hunter,
concealed near at hand. The baby is carried back to its
home none the worse for its experience, while the parents
are enriched by the sportsman’s fee.
This seems an easy way to make money, but if we were
a Ceylonese matron we should first require the crocodile
hunter who wanted our baby to give us a William Tell ex-
hibition of his skill with the gun before we consummated
the bargain.
* OK Ok *
N impetus to the Arbor Day observances throughout
the country should be given by the centenary exer-
cises that were held in New Haven, Connecticut, on April
17. On that day an elm tree, at the corner of two of the
prominent streets, attained its hundredth year, the record
of its planting having been religiously kept by Mr. Edward
C. Beecher. The tree was gayly decked out with flags,
and the mayor of the city was present at the exercises
which were held in commemoration of the event.
The year 1991 will doubtless witness many such unique
birthday parties both East and West.
x * kK Ox
OW may the luckless schoolboy at the foot of the
spelling class rejoice. A committee of prominent
men, including college professors and metropolitan clergy-
men, have gone before Congress with a petition that what
they style as a “common sense” method should be
adopted in the spelling of public documents, thus setting
the fashion for a reform in all branches of literature.
When such eminent scholars express themselves as
disgusted with the present manner of spelling English
words, our young friend at the foot of the class may fear-
lessly claim that he, too, is an advocate of “reform.”
* Ok Ok x
LT) OUBTLESS the most undervalued of all the virtues
is patience. It seems to bea quality of such nega-
tive properties that we are inclined to look upon it as one
of the non-essentials, not to be compared with push, enter-
prise, industry and perseverance. And yet, what do we
find in tracing up the history of big mercantile houses or
‘great inventions? In almost every instance success and
perfection came only as a steady growth, this growth the
result of persistent application. And the anchor of this
persistency, that which holds it down to work in spite of
the most adverse conditions, is patience.