The Two Leagues of To-day.
At the end of the season of 1900 the American League announced that it would no longer be a party to the National Agreement, and that it would place clubs in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Cleveland, with a twenty-five-cent tariff. Then began an effort that brought to the American League many of the star players of the country. Contract-jumping was frequent, and the players were practically able to dictate their own terms.
The liberal policy of the Americans enabled them thus to secure seventy-seven of the National's best and most popular players, and the success of the young organization was assured.
At the beginning of the playing season of 1902 the Milwaukee team was transferred to St. Louis, many of the National League team of the latter city swinging over to the American. New York was added to the circuit at the beginning of 1903, replacing Baltimore.
The seasons of 1904 and 1905 were the most prosperous in the entire history of the national game. The attendance figures surpassed those of any previous year by more than 1,000,000.
The official figures of the American and National Leagues for 1905 give a total paid attendance of 5,855,062, as against 5,769,260 in 1904. It is difficult to even estimate the attendance at minor league, semi-professional, and other games; but it can easily be set at 15,000,000 more.
This fact alone establishes the strong hold the game has on the American people. It has gained a foothold in our Far Eastern possessions, and in the Philippines there are several leagues playing regularly scheduled games.
The same is true of Hawaii and Cuba. Even in Japan the game has advanced to a point where a splendid organization has been formed on the lines of our parent bodies. The visit of the Japanese team to the Pacific coast a year ago showed the progress baseball has made among the "Yankees of the East." In Australia there are various leagues, while in England there is an eight-club organization playing regularly for an annual championship trophy.
Just how much money is invested in baseball it is impossible to estimate, even approximately. The major leagues alone have playing plants valued at millions of dollars. So have the minor bodies, the amateurs, and the independent teams in the country towns.
In the matter of salaries paid to the players of the larger leagues, it is estimated that they amounted last year to $2,577,000. Besides this item, $2,500,000 is spent on other salaries and the maintenance of grounds. Railroad fares cost another $800,000, training expenses $125,000, and there is required possibly $500,000 additional for incidentals.
When it is remembered that there are upward of thirty-five other leagues working under the National Agreement, as well as many independent organizations, and that the figures given are for the major leagues alone, it will be seen that baseball in America is a tremendous institution.
ALL KINDS OF THINGS.
A New Side-Light on the Problem of Flight—The Legal Aspect of a Woman's Tongue—A Town That is Chess-Mad—Revolutionary Heroes in the Scales—Daredevil Days of Steamboating on the Mississippi—Whittier's First and Last Love-Affair—With Other Interesting Items Drawn From Various Sources.
Compiled and edited for The Scrap Book.
STUDYING FLIGHT LAWS IN THE LABORATORY.
DR. ZAHM'S EXPERIMENTAL TUNNEL
Method Employed in Washington to Discover
Effects of Air Friction on
Flying Models.
Scientific study of flight has been conducted with gratifying success at the Catholic University, Washington, District of Columbia. Dr. Albert F. Zahm has for two years been experimenting with a tunnel six feet square and forty feet long, through which air can be forced by a five-foot fan at one end. Models placed in this air-current encounter the same conditions as if they were flying in the free air, and they can be advantageously observed at leisure. The air resistance of different models is accurately determined.
B.R. Winslow tells in the Technical World of a revolutionary discovery made in this tunnel:
One of the first things that the experiments in the tunnel did was to upset a long-cherished belief among aeronauts that skin friction of the air on a body passing through it was practically a negligible quantity. As a matter of fact, the action of air was proved to be almost identical with that of water, roughly speaking, being in direct proportion to the density of the two elements.
The current theory had been that the sharper the cylinder the easier it would cut through the air, and nothing was thought of the skin friction. It was found by experiment in the wind tunnel that as the sphere was reduced to a sharp-pointed cylinder, the air resistance rapidly diminished to a certain point. Then it rose again as the length of the cylinder was increased. Twelve to one as the proportion between length and diameter was found to be the shape of least resistance.
By shortening the forward section of the cylinder about one-half, and consequently making the end blunter, the air resistance was largely reduced; and, by turning the cylinder around and running its sharp end forward, the air resistance was almost doubled instead of being diminished. This discovery came as a surprise, and completely upset all preconceived ideas about the resistance of the air.
LAW SUCCUMBS TO WOMAN'S TONGUE.
ANOTHER TRIUMPH FOR THE SEX.
Curious Virginia Act Prescribed Ducking
for Loquacious Females, But Modern
Jurist Gives Up the Fight.
Are men less chivalrous to-day than they were two hundred years ago?
This is a question that is often asked nowadays, but the mass of evidence submitted is so conflicting that it is not likely to be answered until long after the present generation has passed away.
One thing is certain, however. In the present day man-made laws vouchsafe unto women far better opportunities for the speaking of their minds than they enjoyed two centuries ago. Here are two cases in point:
A law passed by the Grand Assembly held at James City, Virginia, in March, 1662, was designed for the purpose of trying to prevent women from talking to excess. The law read:
"Whereas many babbling women slander and scandalize their neighbors, for which their poor husbands are often involved in chargeable and vexatious suits, and cast in great damages: Be it therefore enacted that in actions of slander, occasioned by the wife, after judgment passed for the damages, the woman shall be punished by ducking; and if the slander be so enormous as to be adjudged at greater damages than five hundred pounds of tobacco, then the woman to suffer a ducking for each five hundred pounds of tobacco adjudged against the husband, if he refuses to pay the tobacco."
In contrast with this is a solemn admission made by Vice-Chancellor Stevenson, in Jersey City, last December. The case was that of a man who besought the court to have his wife restrained from going to his place of business during business hours and demanding that he give her money. The New Jersey jurist said:
"This man seeks to enjoin his wife's tongue. From time immemorial men have tried to restrain woman's tongue, and have failed."
The suit was dismissed.
CHESS KING RULES IN QUAINT GERMAN TOWN.
CHILDREN TAKE BOARDS TO SCHOOL
In No Other Part of the World Is the
Game Taken So Seriously as It
Is in Strohbeck.
The German town of Ströhbeck is ruled by two kings—one red and one white. Each has his queen and his attendant knights and bishops, his castles, and his—pawns. In other words, the game of chess is master in Ströhbeck.
It appears that in the year 1011 a.d. a certain Count Gunnelin was shut up in the tower prison at Ströhbeck, and, as there was nothing else to do, he chalked out a chess-board on the floor and made some rough pieces.
In time the jailer became interested in the count's maneuvers on the checkered field, and the two played together. The jailer ultimately taught the game to others, and it won a popularity which it has never lost in Ströhbeck. To quote the Penny Magazine:
Young and old, men and women, boys, girls, and almost infants in arms play chess with a keenness and assiduity that is something more than remarkable. Tiny tots learn the moves upon the chess-boards and are taught the intricacies of the game just as much as a matter of course as they are taught their A B C, and some of them can play a game of chess well enough to beat many an ordinary exponent of the game before they can read.
Chess is taught in the schools, to which the pupils carry chess-boards as the English school-child would carry his satchel of books; and the pupils take a much deeper interest in their chess lessons than any schoolboy in this country has ever been known to take in any subject that was taught him.
But it is not merely in school that chess is played in Ströhbeck. Visit any local shop, and the shopman will lay aside his chess-board in order to attend to your wants and pick it up again the moment these are satisfied, to renew his attentions to some problem or continue an exciting game with his assistant. Even at the public-houses and places of refreshment chess-boards and chess-men are provided, and these are used by all and sundry.
Every home has its chess-board at which Darby and Joan while away the winter evenings before the fire, or place it upon a table in the garden in summer-time. In fact, chess is familiar to every inhabitant from the time they leave the cradle. Every one talks chess and thinks chess.
Chess-boards are everywhere. You may rest your elbow on one while you sip your beer at an old-fashioned inn, which is itself called "The Chess-Board," and there, if your quiet and subdued manner makes you appear worthy of the honor, the landlord will show you the set of chess-men presented to the inhabitants in 1650.
Two princes played upon this board, and with these very chess-men, he will tell you, and an inscription on the chess-board itself confirms all the town's privileges, so that one may say the very charter of the town is engrossed upon a chess-board.
Every year a great chess tournament is held, for which every one may enter. A large number of heats must first be played off, the winners of which are entitled to enter for the tournament. The competitors seek the distinction which will be conferred upon them if they are adjudged the winner, and do not set so much value on the prize itself, which invariably takes the shape of a magnificent chess-board, upon which are inscribed the words: "A reward for application." This is presented by the municipality.
Chess enthusiasts in the United States have urged that the game be introduced into the public schools. Certainly it does afford an excellent mental discipline, though whether useful languages and sciences should be discarded in its favor may well be questioned.
STOUT STRATEGISTS OF THE REVOLUTION.
TAFTS AND SHAFTERS WERE MANY.
Washington Himself No Small Man, but
Several of His Officers Outweighed
Him by Scores of Pounds.
Great men were the officers who led the colonial forces during the War of the Revolution—great in patriotism, great in courage, great in patience, and great in size.
General Washington would pass in these days as a large man, but many of his officers outweighed him. Read, for example, the following statement, showing the weight of a number of American officers, as recorded at West Point on August 10, 1778:
| General Washington | 209 | lbs. |
| General Lincoln | 224 | " |
| General Knox | 280 | " |
| General Huntingdon | 182 | " |
| General Greaton | 166 | " |
| Colonel Swift | 319 | " |
| Colonel Michael Jackson | 252 | " |
| Colonel Henry Jackson | 238 | " |
| Lieutenant-Colonel Huntingdon | 212 | " |
| Lieutenant-Colonel Cobb | 182 | " |
| Lieutenant-Colonel Humphreys | 221 | " |
One might think that the scales used were the property of a dishonest grocer were it not for the proportion between Colonel Swift, say, and General Greaton. Or, perhaps, these officers were weighed in heavy accouterments. Certainly it is hard to think of most of them as traveling on horseback about country at the head of small forces whose chief resource was mobility.
HOW THE LUCY WALKER WAS BLOWN TO PIECES.
CREW FED THE FLAMES WITH FAT.
Steamboats Racing on the Mississippi
Before the Civil War Provided Strenuous
Experiences for All on Board.
Joe Vann, Cherokee Indian, who lived many years ago near Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, possessed five hundred slaves and thousands of acres of land. Some of his horses were fine racing stock, and he owned the Lucy Walker, the fastest steamboat on the Arkansas River. Vann was good to his slaves—open-hearted, generous; but he was an inveterate gambler. He lost and won large sums at horse-racing, and, indeed, he would not take a dare. The Fort Gibson Post recalls as follows the tragic circumstances of this remarkable Cherokee's end:
While his steamboat had no rival for speed on the Arkansas River, from its mouth at the Mississippi to Little Rock and Fort Gibson, there were two or three rivals on the Mississippi River, between St. Louis and New Orleans. One of these boats, said to be the fastest on the river, attempted to pass the Lucy Walker one day on the way down.
Vann had a crew of thirty negroes, said to have no superiors on the river. He told the boys that the Lucy Walker must be kept ahead, no matter at what cost. An allowance of grog was given to each, and all promised to stand up to the work.
The rival boat was gaining on them; the usual fuel failed to give sufficient speed. Vann went around and told the hands to gather up everything that would burn. Tar and bacon were thrown into the furnace, and soon the Lucy Walker was forging ahead of her rival.
Timbers of the boat creaked and groaned; the furnace was red hot; the boilers were seething and foaming; the heat was terrific. The passengers, of whom there were about one hundred and fifty, became alarmed; but Vann was cool as a cucumber. He told his negro crew that they would beat the rival boat or all go to Hades together, and they promised to stand by him.
Then came an awful explosion, and nothing remained of the Lucy Walker but scattered fragments. Most of the negro crew were blown to atoms, about forty passengers were killed, and nearly all the rest more or less injured. Vann's body was found, horribly mangled.
YOUTHFUL ROMANCE OF THE QUAKER POET.
WHY WHITTIER NEVER MARRIED.
Story of His Affection for Miss Downing
and the Sudden and Unexplained
Break in Their Relations.
The article on "World-Famous Bachelors," in the April Scrap Book, has led a New Jersey reader to call our attention to the early romance of John G. Whittier's life. Why Whittier remained a bachelor was not generally known until the death, at the age of eighty-five, of the only sweetheart he ever had—Elizabeth Bray Downing, of West Newbury, Massachusetts.
Whittier met Miss Downing at East Haverhill, Massachusetts, when he was twenty years of age. They seem to have fallen in love with each other very quickly, but it was not long before they suddenly parted, for some reason never explained. One rumor had it that the coming poet decided that he could not marry because he had to provide for his mother. However that may be, they rarely met thereafter, and both remained unmarried.
About 1830 Whittier, then twenty-three years of age, contributed to the Courier of Northampton, Massachusetts, a poem which is not to be found in any of his published works. The verses, crude though they are, appear to throw light on his parting from Miss Downing. The title is: "To ----, by John G. Whittier." We append a few of the stanzas:
I know that I have knelt too lowly
For smiles so oft withdrawn;
That trusting love received too slowly
The lesson of thy scorn;
That thou hast had thy triumph hour
Unquestioned and complete,
When prompted by a spell of power
I knelt me at thy feet.
'Tis over now; the charm is broken,
The feverish dream is fled;
And pass away like thoughts unspoken
The vows that I have said.
I give thee back thy plighted word;
Its tones of love shall be
Like music by the slumberer heard,
A dreamer's melody.
Go now, the light of hope is on thee,
Thy love claims are o'er.
A thousand smiles thy charms have won thee—
They'll win a thousand more;
For beauty hath a charming spell
Upon the human will—
Though false the heart it veils so well,
It hath its homage still.
Go, heartless girl, thou'lt smile to-morrow,
As I had never been,
And spurn thy lover's words of sorrow
For those of happier men.
A darker destiny the page
Of coming years may tell.
God help thee in thy pilgrimage!
Loved being, fare thee well!
WHERE SANTA CLAUS HAS HIS WORKSHOP.
AN OLD VILLAGE OF TOYMAKERS.
For Many Generations the Inhabitants of
St. Ulrich Have Fashioned Playthings
for the Children of All Nations.
Tourists, wandering out of the beaten tracks of their kind, occasionally come to a little village in Austria which presents the aspect of a corner of toyland.
The name of the village is St. Ulrich, and nearly all of its inhabitants are toymakers. Each household, too, has its specialty. One old woman has done nothing but carve wooden cats, dogs, wolves, sheep, goats, and elephants.
She has made those six animals her whole life long, and she has no idea of how to cut anything else. She makes them in two sizes, and turns out as nearly as possible a thousand of them a year.
She has no model or drawing of any kind to work by, but goes on steadily, unerringly, using gages of different sizes and shaping out her cats, dogs, wolves, sheep, goats, and elephants with an ease and an amount of truth to nature that would be clever if it were not utterly mechanical.
This woman learned from her mother how to carve those six animals, and her mother had learned, in like manner, from her grandmother. She has taught the art to her own granddaughter, and so it may go on being transmitted for generations.
DID YOU EVER TRY TO COUNT A BILLION?
EVEN METHUSELAH HAD NOT TIME.
It Is So Tremendous a Sum That a Conception
of It Can Hardly Be Formed
by the Human Mind.
When Americans talk about "a billion dollars" or a "billionaire" they think of a "billion" as one thousand millions. The word "billion" was originally used in France to denote a million of millions—or one million raised to the second power. At that time figures were pointed off in series of six by the French, and when the custom of pointing off by threes came into existence the French transferred the meaning of billion to one thousand millions.
Ordinarily, to-day, the French do not use the word "billion" at all, but refer to the sum of one thousand millions as a "milliard." In England "billion" means a million of millions—the more consistent meaning, in view of the origin of the word.
In the following attempt to make the meaning of a billion more vivid, the English billion, of course, is referred to.
What is a billion, or, rather, what conception can we form of such a quantity? We may say that a billion is a million of millions, and can easily represent it thus: 1,000,000,000,000. But a schoolboy's calculation will show how entirely the mind is incapable of conceiving such numbers.
If a person were able to count at the rate of two hundred in a minute, and to work without intermission twelve hours in the day, he would take to count a billion 6,944,444 days, or 19,325 years 319 days.
There are living creatures so minute that a hundred millions of them might be comprehended in the space of a cubic inch. They are supplied with organs and tissues, nourished by circulating fluids, which must consist of parts or atoms, in reckoning the size of which we must speak, not of billions, but perchance of billions of billions.
And what is a billion of billions? The number is a quadrillion, and can be easily represented thus: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000; and the same schoolboy's calculation may be employed to show that to count a quadrillion at the rate of two hundred in the minute would require all the inhabitants of the globe, supposing them to be a thousand millions, to count incessantly for 19,025,875 years, or more than three thousand times the period during which the human race has been supposed to be in existence.
These statistics are quoted from an old article by Professor Law, in Jameson's Journal.
THE AVERAGE AGES OF VARIOUS BIRDS.
FOUR LIVE ONE HUNDRED YEARS.
Those That Feed on Flesh Live Longer
Than Those Which Subsist Only on
Grains and Insects.
The doctrines of vegetarianism appear to be slightly shaken by the result of an investigation that an English authority has made into the subject of the longevity of birds. With one notable exception—the swan—the meat-feeding birds are the longest-lived.
The average ages of some of the best known birds are given in the following table:
| Years | |
| Blackbird lives | 12 |
| Blackcap | 15 |
| Canary | 24 |
| Crane | 24 |
| Crow | 100 |
| Eagle | 100 |
| Fowl, common | 10 |
| Goldfinch | 15 |
| Goose | 50 |
| Heron | 59 |
| Lark | 13 |
| Linnet | 23 |
| Nightingale | 18 |
| Parrot | 60 |
| Partridge | 15 |
| Peacock | 24 |
| Pelican | 50 |
| Pheasant | 15 |
| Pigeon | 20 |
| Raven | 100 |
| Robin | 12 |
| Skylark | 30 |
| Sparrow Hawk | 40 |
| Swan | 100 |
| Thrush | 10 |
| Wren | 3 |
The average age of the boarding-house variety of chicken is still undetermined.
INDEPENDENCE DAY RHYMES.
Words of the Poets Explain Why Hats Go Off While Flags Are Passing, Why the
Eagle Screams on "The Fourth," and How Young America Became
Identified With Sky-Rockets and Fire-Crackers.