Oct. 27, 1907 (Sunday)

MISSIONARY RETURNS WITH BLEAK REPORT FROM THE CONGO: Despite official reports to the contrary, it appears that talk of reform in the CONGO is premature. The source of this is The Rev. W. Cassie Murdoch, a Baptist missionary. A report with a London dateline says Murdoch just finished a boots-on-the-ground trek through the Belgian Crown domain of the Congo Free State. His tale, in the words of The New York Times, "shows that the boasted reforms are a farce and were never intended for anything but European consumption."
His report flows with earlier horror stories -- such as those that say individuals who failed to meet rubber-collection quotas were punished severely or killed. Murdoch's report likely reminds readers of images that have circulated in recent years of Congo residents whose hands have been cut off (see photo). It seems that not much has changed in the horrible reign of Congo under King Leopold II of Belgium.
Murdoch is quoted:
"The system of the Government is a vast atrocity involving the people in a state of unimaginable misery. It is not slavery, as slavery was generally understood; it is not even the uncivilized African's idea of slavery; there never was slavery more absolute in its despotism or more fiendish in its tyranny."

GERMAN CHEF TURNS NOSE UP AT AMERICAN COOKING: Evidently, Alfred Neumann, the chef to the Imperial Highness the Prussian Crown Princess Cecile (shown) couldn't get back to Germany fast enough, following a culinary tour of America.
He came here with marching orders to find any food that was better than anything made in Germany. But he came up nearly empty-handed. According to a cable dispatch printed in today's New York Times, he considered American cooking to be BARBARIC. One of the great comments is summed up by the Times:
"He says the only good AMERICAN cooking is FRENCH."
He did have praise for one menu item: CLAM CHOWDER. He hopes to turn this into a favorite item on the Queen's table.
He was impressed by the equipment available for cooking in the nation's great hotel kitchens. The article continues:
The great New York hotels, he says, have kitchen arrangments which for extensiveness, cleanliness and completeness equal those of the finest royal palaces in Europe.

TIMES HOLDS LIMERICK CONTEST -- $30 IN PRIZE MONEY IS AT STAKE: Today's New York Times prints an unfinished limerick and wants readers to add a FINAL LINE.
Here are the first four lines:

Said a statesman called Teddy, "Shall I
At my job have a third and last try?"
On deciding this bent
He flipped up a cent
.......[fill in the final line]......

The Times gives readers until Oct. 31 to submit entries. Good luck. The winner will be printed on Nov. 2, 1907. Can't wait.

Oct. 26, 1907 (Saturday)

STOP THE PRESSES! J.P. HAS THE SNIFFLES: Mega-Financier J.P. Morgan (left) has been in the news a lot lately, doing what he can to avert what will become known as the Panic of 1907. He's back on the FRONT PAGE of the New York Times again today. In all seriousness, here's the entire headline:
J.P. Morgan Has a Cold
That's right.
The first sentence reads, "J. Pierpont Morgan has a slight cold resulting from exposure to the night air."
That exposure came through his attendance at a series of nighttime conferences designed to resolve the banking problem. Someone told the paper that Morgan wore "a handkerchief about his neck" when he left his offices late yesterday.
With this precedent, we wonder what the paper will do if Morgan gets the flu.
(Granted, Mr. Morgan is TOTALLY NEWSWORTHY at this time. A letter in today's Times comes from someone who is so impressed with Morgan's dealings that he wants J.P. to run for PRESIDENT.)

SHOPPER IS FOOLED BY A CLEVER SCAM IN BOSTON: Mrs. A.F. Wadsworth of 5 Louisburg Square (above) in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston went shopping yesterday afternoon. She bought a long black silk-lined coat and arranged to have it delivered to her home later in the day. The bundle, she later told police, was delivered fairly promptly. Then the trouble began. Shortly after the package was delivered, according to today's Boston Globe [CAPITAL LETTERS added],
"a young man appeared at the door wearing a UNIFORM and a CAP with the initials 'N.Y.B.E.' He told Mrs. Wadsworth that the WRONG PACKAGE had been delivered to her house."
He explained that she had received a package that was supposed to go to an address on a nearby street. She rewrapped the coat, handed it to the young man. He then handed her what he said was the correct package. He left. She opened the package. Inside, she found that the package consisted of nothing but RUBBISH.

Oct. 25, 1907 (Friday)

SEVENTEEN GLOUCESTER FISHERMAN VANISH IN A MINI PERFECT STORM: The schooner Clara G. Silva docked at the T Wharf in Boston about 3 p.m. yesterday, with its hold partially filled with fish and the mouths of the crew filled with a tale of dread. Ten of the schooner's crew are MISSING. The story, according to today's Boston Globe, is "the saddest that has been told this year among the fisherman. The captain, Manuel J. Silva, and the crew are all from Gloucester. The ship left Gloucester last Friday. As it left the bay, the captain picked up another man who was in a dory in the bay and wanted to join the crew on the trip. That man's name is Mariano Simmons. (He is one of the MISSING.)
The captain told the Globe what happened. Here's a summary:
They got to the Georges Bank (the light blue area to the east of Cape Cod in the map above) on Saturday and began laying trawls. He thinks they were about 200 miles east of Highland Light (right) on Cape Cod.
Everything seemed to go well until Monday. About 4 A.M. Monday, nearly the entire crew set out in dories to set more trawls.About a half hour later, a squall came out of the northeast. "Inside of five minutes, it was blowing like a hurricane," the captain recalled. "I never saw such seas." A couple of dories managed to make it back to the ship. The storm lasted about five hours and the sea remained high long after that.
The captain searched the area for his five dories. He found three that had been flipped over but said there was no way to tell whether or not they were his.
Many had recently come to the U.S. from Lisbon.
"The fellows I lost this time were the best men I had."
A reporter asked him about the catch he had in the hold. The captain said, "I didn't care to fish much. I wanted to find my men. I only brought in about 10,000 pounds of cod and halibut."

BUSINESS OWNERS OBEY MAN'S WILL -- THEY MADE A MILLION DOLLARS, SO NOW IT'S TIME TO TURN THE PLACE OVER TO THE EMPLOYEES: The president and secretary/treasurer of the Odell Stock Company in Cincinnati, Ohio, formally retired from the business yesterday. In doing this they also turned the business over to the employees. Crazy? No. They were following the wishes of the company's founder, the late William J. Odell.
In his will, Odell said that whoever took over the business after his death should QUIT when they had made a million dollars and GIVE THE BUSINESS to the employees.
Both John M. Gorman and William C. Dudley say they have each made their million. Now it's time for others to make some money from Odell's business. Both started out at the firm as messengers. The business is worth about $500,000. And the pair turned over about $500,000 in cash. Neither profits from the transfer of the firm.

Oct. 24, 1907 (Thursday)

AN IMMIGRATION TALE -- COULD A 17-YEAR-OLD SCOTTISH LASS BE THE PRETTIEST GIRL IN BOSTON? Recently a Boston paper published a picture of Annie McGrogain, 17, a Scottish girl who is being held for deportation at the immigration detention center at Long Wharf. (Above, there's an undated picture of the Boston waterfront.) The picture (a "wash drawing," not a photograph) smote 40-year-old William I. Driscoll of Newburyport. Driscoll, who makes about $12 a week, proposed to her -- sight unseen. She is not sure what to do. She and a companion named Lizzie Rocks had come to the U.S. to work in a mill in North Grafton, Mass. But immigration officials determined that they were hired in violation of the contract labor clause of the immigration laws. Even if she accepts his proposal, she must be on the next Allen Line steamer to Glasgow. She would be allowed to return later as the "bride-elect" of Driscoll if she so wishes. In the meantime, she has to leave.
I was curious to see what might have happened, so I peeked ahead in the Boston Globe. LO AND BEHOLD, I found a notice of Annie's MARRIAGE -- in 1910. But it was not to the infatuated William Driscoll. Rather, she married a man named Archibald T. McDonald. The notice is in the Globe in April of 1910, under the heading "Romance of Long Wharf." It so happens that Archibald was the NIGHT WATCHMAN at Long Wharf in 1907, when Annie was held there. It turns out she never was sent back to Scotland. She was released when someone with the St. Vincent de Paul Society promised to find work for Annie and Lizzie that did not violate the immigration laws. During the negotiations, Archibald came in contact with Annie through his work as a night watchman. The Globe in 1910 says, "It was a case of love at first sight, and after the release of the girls McDonald called occasionally on Miss McGrogain." That led to the marriage.
There's no mention of the eager Mr. Driscoll of Newburyport.

ANOTHER IMMIGRATION TALE -- THE STEAMER ROMANIC TAKES ON A ROMANTIC AIR: The White Star Line's Romanic (above) arrived in Boston late Tuesday. A review of the passengers indicates that the steamer brought a record number of brides, for a single ship. There were 17 brides-in-waiting among the passengers. Most came from Naples; a few came from Palermo. Their husbands had preceded them to Boston. The landing caused quite a scene, according to the Globe, which said
Several of the couples were married on the steamship dock by priests from the Sacred Heart church, North Sq. while others were paroled in the custody of relatives who promised to see that there would be no delay in the marriage ceremonies.
They made good on those promises. All were married off by Wednesday.

AFTER A ROUGH CROSSING, THE CAPTAIN OF THE LINER KAISER WILHELM II AND A REPORTER HAVE A TOUGH TIME COMMUNICATING -- Or SEEING EYE to "I": The speedy Kaiser Wilhelm II ended its latest trans-Atlantic trip at 4:30 Wednesday morning, when it passed Sandy Hook. It took 6 days, 15 hours and 18 minutes to make its voyage to New York -- one of the slowest trips in the ship's history. The entire time, from the moment it left the Cherbourg breakwater until it was about 100 miles from Nantucket, the ship was battered by fierce wind and waves. The ship suffered some damage. It led to this humorous exchange between a New York reporter and the ship's Capt. Cueppers, beginning with the statement by the reporter -- as presented in today's New York Times:
"I see the Kaiser's eye is knocked out."
"What? His Majesty's eye knocked out? How on earth did such an awful thing happen?" gasped the skipper, who prizes above all other personal friendships that of the Kaiser.
"The eye was not knocked clear out, but it was badly twisted," the reporter went on.
"Horrible! Horrible!," sighed Capt. Cueppers. "I do hope he will not lose the eye."
"I don't mean the Emperor," said the reporter. "I mean one of the big brass 'I's' in the words 'Kaiser Wilhelm II' on your port bow."
"Oh," answered Capt. Cueppers, as if greatly relieved. "That's different. I guess a wave did that."