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| General View of Horseshoe Falls. |
Cortland Evening Standard, Friday, Oct. 25, 1901.
WENT OVER THE FALLS.
Mrs. Taylor Made the Trip In a Barrel and Lived.
ORDEAL LASTED HALF AN HOUR.
Plunge Was Made Over Horseshoe Cataract—Daring Woman Had Head Gashed and Is Suffering From Shock—First Human Being to Survive the Leap.
NIAGARA FALLS, N. Y., Oct. 25.—Mrs. Anna Edson Taylor, the Bay City, Mich., woman, successfully went over the Horseshoe Falls in a barrel yesterday, thus accomplishing the greatest and most daring feat of any ever attempted in this locality. She is the first and only human being who has made this fearful leap over the falls and lived to describe it.
Mrs. Taylor, who says she is 42 years old, arrived here with her manager Frank M. Russell 10 days ago and brought her barrel along. It was built under Mrs. Taylor's direction, heavily padded with cushions and a harness arrangement with arm straps inside to hold the occupant from contact with the ends or sides.
Mrs. Taylor got into the barrel at the head of Grass island and was towed over into the Canadian channel. She was cast loose at 4:05 p. m., and the current immediately caught the barrel, carrying it down, slowly at first, then more rapidly, until it was caught in the rush before the first cascade of the rapids.
There is a stretch of almost a mile of wild, tempestuous rapids between Grass island and the brink of the Horseshoe Falls and it took the barrel nearly 20 minutes to make the trip to the verge of the falls.
The barrel plunged over at 4:23 p. m. It went over just a little west of the center of the Horseshoe and reappeared in the river below within a minute. After being dashed about for 17 minutes it was picked up in an eddy by a party of men who removed the manhole and found Mrs. Taylor alive, but greatly distressed.
Blood was flowing from a gash in her head and she was buffering from shock. A larger hole was sawed in the top of the barrel and she was taken out, brought to the Maid of the Mist landing and taken in a carriage to her lodging place.
Mrs. Taylor rested easy last night and is somewhat recovered but it will be several days before she will be able to leave her bed.
She is a widow and has been teaching for a livelihood. She was born at Auburn, N. Y. Her husband died over 20 years ago. Yesterday was her birthday, and she said she knew she would come out all right.
Empress Dowagaer Cixi.
MAKING UP WITH RUSSIA.
Empress Dowager Anxious to Enter Into Friendly Relation For Safety.
SHANGHAI, Oct. 25.—It is reported here, that General Yung Lu, in a secret dispatch to Li Hung Chang, asserts that the empress dowager is anxious to enter into friendly relations with Russia, which power has promised to prevent all foreign aggression and to protect the empress dowager at Pekin.
It is said also that the dispatch adds that Li Hung Chang must promptly conclude the Manchurian treaty, relying on Yung Lu to support him against the opposition of the southern viceroys.
PAGE FOUR—EDITORIALS.
Three Years in a Palace Car.
A romantic and unusual episode in the married life of Mr. and Mrs. Allen Dudley has come to a close. Hereafter instead of dwelling in a palace on nothing a year they will have to live like common folks.
The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle tells the story as follows: Three or four years ago the American Palace Car company built a palace car which is said to be as to all other palace cars as a diamond tiara to a Rhine-stone side comb. The car was put in service and Allen Dudley, colored, was appointed to the proud position of porter. But financial difficulties overtook the company and the glorious car was involved in the meshes of the law and run on a side track at Springfield, Mass., to await the outcome of the litigation.
Allen Dudley stuck to his post. No wages came to him, but still he stuck. By and by he had to make the car his home because it was all the home he had. He sent for his wife and together they lived amid the most luxurious surroundings, probably in direst poverty much of the time. They had the finest linen, the costliest porcelain, the solidest of silver to deck their table, and nothing to speak of to eat. But they got along somehow and guarded and cared for zealously the magnificent car and its luxurious appointments. After a couple of years or so their story was spread abroad by the papers, they became in a small way celebrities, and life became easier for them. Dudley conceived the idea of making a living by turning the car into a very select restaurant. It became quite a fad to dine in the Dudley car with its sumptuous furnishings and table service. Mr. and Mrs. Dudley must have begun to regard the arrangement as permanent and to settle down to pass the remainder of their days in side-tracked splendor.
But now, after three years, the trouble is settled, the palace car will roll the tracks once more, Dudley is to get his back salary and to remain the porter of the gorgeous "Boston." He and his wife will have to hunt up an ordinary home devoid of wheels and with no more splendor about it than a palace car porter's income can pay for. Possibly they will be homesick for the plate glass and rich upholstery and rare woodwork and solid silver trimmings and fine linen and French china and all the other luxuries of their former residence. It is easy to get into the habit of that sort of thing, and Mr. and Mrs. Dudley had three years of it. Probably, though, they will be glad of the change. Imagine living for three solid years in a palace car!
Commercial Education.
The old system of college education which gave the student a smattering of all branches of knowledge from Greek to calculus is giving way to the new system which trains him for a definite position in the business world. The merits of the different systems are still matters of academic discussion, but that so many of our universities are extending their technical courses shows that the trend of public opinion is toward the practical in education.
The University of Chicago has added to its regular curriculum a "college of commerce and administration." Already the University of Wisconsin has added and established a valuable department of this kind. Simultaneously with the announcement of the new plans of the University of Chicago comes news of a similar undertaking in England. The London chamber of commerce is interested in a project to establish a great commercial school with a special view of fitting young men for a business career. Banking, foreign exchange, insurance and all branches of finance and mercantile systems will be taught.
More and more the graduates of the older institutions, which still cling to the traditional curriculum, are going into commercial life on leaving college, and their influence may be expected to so shape the course of their alma maters that those who come after them may enter the strenuous life with a more solid foundation under their feet.
BOARD HAS NO OPTION.
It Cannot Refuse School Privileges to Non-Resident Pupils.
The [Cortland] board of education has been criticized in certain quarters for admitting to the public schools of this city non-resident pupils when the schools are already so crowded, and it has been said that if the board would only turn these non-resident children out of school there would be plenty of room for the city children.
As a matter of fact, the board of education has no discretion in this matter. Section 157, and subdivision 12 of the charter of the city of Cortland says:
157. General Powers of the board of education—Subject to the provisions of this act and of the general consolidated school laws, the board of education of the city of Cortland shall have power and it shall be its duty:
12. To allow the children or persons non-resident within the city to attend any of the schools therein under the control of the said board, upon such terms as said board may, by resolution, prescribe.
This section has been submitted to City Attorney Miller for his opinion and he has decided that this portion of the charter is mandatory upon the board of education; that the board has no option, but that it must admit all such non-resident pupils as apply for admission and who pay a fair rate of tuition as prescribed by the board; and that if the board refused to admit them there would be a sufficient ground for action against the board.
This is perfectly fair and reasonable. The non-resident pupils, almost without exception, who are now in attendance upon the city schools, are children of parents who live just outside the city lines. Cortland is the place to which they would naturally come to go to school. There is no other place near by [sic] where they could attend school and live at home except at the district schools in their own school districts, and they have completed the work as taught in these district schools. They, therefore, come naturally to the city schools here, and they pay their way. They do their part in supporting and maintaining those schools, really paying more, in all probability, per person per term for their education than do the children of residents of the city per person, per term, who pay no tuition but who pay taxes for the general support of the schools. There is no ground for complaint here at the board of education. It is only doing its duty. If greater facilities are required, they must be provided.
Furthermore, the excess of children over the capacity of the schools is greater than the number of non-resident pupils, so that even if they were in the same grades and could be replaced child by child by turning out the non-residents, which, however, is not true and therefore not possible, there would still be a great excess of children above the school capacity. And the schoolchildren of the city are increasing in numbers term by term, while the seating capacity does not increase a bit, so that the situation is term by term growing worse.
Taught in Three Rooms.
A few years ago before the addition to the Schermerhorn-st. school was built the board of education had to hire a house on John-st. to take care of some of the children. No one room in the house was large enough to accommodate them, but the pupils were seated in what had been the kitchen, an adjoining bedroom and a pantry and the teacher standing in the center of the kitchen floor taught in all three rooms. If the appropriation for schools is defeated this year at the special election, we shall probably have to come again to such a state of affairs, as term by term the number of school children continues to more and more exceed our present facilities.
BOUGHT THE OLD STATIONS.
And to Fit These Up For Purposes Not Yet Stated.
Mr. J. A. Jayne, who for many years conducted a boot and shoe store in this city, has purchased the old Lackawanna passenger station, freight house and baggage house now in use by that company, but which will be vacated as soon as the new stations, which are being built for the railroad company, shall be completed.
Mr. Jayne has purchased of the widow and heirs of A. G. Newton the vacant lot at 107 and 109 Railroad-at., just below the vacant lot belonging to the Cortland Wagon company, and he is already preparing the lot for the buildings. A cellar, 7 feet in depth, is being dug and will underlie all the buildings. The passenger station will be placed in front, with its length facing on the street. The freight building will be set back of the passenger building, with its end touching the front building and forming an L with it. The east side of the freight house will be on a line with the east end of the passenger station. The baggage room building will be set in the rear, adjoining the other buildings.
Mr. Jayne has not given out as yet the purpose for which the buildings will be used. He says that various reports and conjectures have gone out in reference to what would be done with them, which vary from vague ideas of a Rainea law hotel to the chilling thoughts of a cold storage building. The reports, he says, have had the buildings arranged in every way except with a steeple on it.
The lot has a frontage of 81 feet, and is 150 feet deep. The building will be 66 feet long as to its front measurements, and 106 feet from front to back. In all probability the building will be leased by Mr. Jayne to parties for manufacturing purposes.
A New Alderman.
There is a new alderman in the First ward of this city. He arrived today and is making headquarters at the home of Alderman E. M. Yager, whose term of office expires on Dec. 31 of this year. Alderman Yager has been re-nominated to succeed himself and thought he had a very fine show for a re-election, but this new fellow who has appeared today, what about him? Has he come to bolster up "the old man" in his electoral contest, or is he trying to run him out. It is said that the alderman's wife has a very tender feeling for the new arrival and the alderman himself is not indifferent to him. At any rate they have received him cordially. They know he is a Republican and are confident that he will support the ticket right loyally. He already seems to be quite vociferous in support of something, but they believe he will hold his own political aspirations in check for a while and make no contest whatever over the re-election of the present incumbent and take his chances later for a nomination and election of his own. He is not a very weighty fellow yet, only about 10 pounds, but he will grow all right.
BREVITIES.
—The City clock was set in motion today after a rest of a week or more.
—Polls for special election will be open from 8 o'clock in the morning till 10 o'clock at night on Wednesday, Nov. 6.
—New display advertisements today are—Warren, Tanner & Co., Special sale of laces, page 8; M. A. Case, Dry goods, page 6.
—The Saturday afternoon dancing class meets tomorrow at 2 o'clock. Select orchestra with Mr. Emmet Kane as leader will furnish music for after dance.
—A principal in one of the state training schools for teachers, says The School Bulletin, has told the girls that the less jewelry they wear the more they will be respected.
—Mrs. G. T. Chatterton, at the corner of Elm and Pendleton-sts., has a rose bush out of doors in full bloom, notwithstanding the chilly air. They probably will not last long now.
—The brick for the repairs to the Railroad-st. paving arrived last night and the repairs will begin next Monday, weather permitting, under the direction of Superintendent of Streets Becker.
—All members of the First Baptist church are requested by the pastor to take with them to the service next Sunday morning, Oct. 27, their copies of the Church Manual for the responsive reading of the church covenant.
—The very dark red of the pressed brick for the exterior of the new Lackawanna passenger station makes a very pretty contrast with the gray limestone foundation. The bricklaying is now well under way and is being pushed hard.
—The Erie & Central New York Railway company has purchased another engine for use on its road in hauling freight. It is a 50-ton machine and will be very serviceable in helping to haul the largely increased business of the company.
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