| Summary: | Newsletter of the North Dakota School for the Deaf. THE NORTH DAKOTA BANNER counts in which they laid aside regularly a part of their earnings. Mutual banks are in a sense altruistic. They are not formed for proft, but to encourage thrift and savings. There are six hundred and thirty of such mutual savings banks in the United States, and some of them are more than a hundred years old. Their aggregate deposits are more than four billions of dollars—nearly two thirds of the savings deposits of the country— and represent the accounts of eight and a half million depositors. Millions of these accounts belong to boys and girls. The savings bank serves more than its depositors; it serves the community arid the country. Scattered dollars can accomplish little, but if gathered into a common fund they grow in powor. It is like the organization of a city lire departrhent: if every man had a water tank in his dwelling' for fire protection, he might be able to put out' a small fire in his house; but if the water in all the tanks is collected in one great reservior, cheaper and better protection can be given to the whole city. So the. constructive force of the people’s savings, gathered into the savings banks as the waters of little streams are gathered in a . mighty reservior, and poured out again through many channels to earn for the depositors by building the houses, factories, railways and steamships that are the visible evidences of a country's wealth, is beyond comprehension. That force has been our mightest weapon of offense and defense in the war. Millions of the savings of our boys and girls bought thrift stamps and Liberty bonds. The savings account is a living, working force iri the community and the nation. It works vnot only for. its owner but for the multitude; but its firs, aim is .its most beneficient one—to protect the individual and the family as a business house is protected by its surplus, its reserve, its sinking fund. The habit of thrift that the savings account encourages is one of the first and highest virtues, the foundation of character, the beginning of a successful career. The advice that Benjamin Franklin gave the young men of his generation comes down to, us through more than a hundred years with added force to-day, when a distressed and war-wasted world has special need to husband its resources: Save, young man, and become respectable and respected. It'is the surest way If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as of getting. .The way to wealth is as plain as the way to market;- it chiefly depends on two words—industry and frugality. The Youth’s Companion. Our Neighbor in Black. Ever since the first cave man discovered a Corvus brachyrhynchus in his garden, pulling up the newly sprouted corn, the crow has been hated and hunted by farm-' ers. Wherever men plant.grain he is looked upon as a creature of low morals and lepiehensible character, to be pursued relentlessly in life, and after to be hanged in chains, like murderers of old, as a warning to others of his kind. And yet, as is often the case with human outcasts, there is good in him, so that he has his champions as well as his enemies, nor are they diffident in their praise. Because those two irreconcilable opinions have been maintained so long and defended so ardently, the government determined to make, through the Bureau of Biological Survey, a careful investigation of the life and character of the crow. The. work is now completed and the result is. before ,us, in a, bulletin of the Department of Agriculture. No other North American bird offers so many difficulties in the way of food study as the crow. His larder is the whole continent, from the mouth of the Mackenzie River and the Province of Quebec to Texas and Florida, and as far west as Wyoming, Montana and central Nebraska, and his diet is as varied as the climate and the seasons. Six hundred and fifty-six articles appear on his bill of fare, divided about in the ratio of two thirds vegetable food and one third animal. Just half his diet is corn. The other vegetable part of it is made up of other grain, a little cultivated fruit, a considerable quantity of wild fruit and small amounts of weed seeds and rubbish. The one third of his. diet that is animal matter consists of May bettles, grasshoppers, ground bettles, caterpillars, miscellaneous insects, carrion and “other animal matter.” It would be easy to conclude that, since at least one half of the crow’s diet consists of corn and other grain, he is an enemy to the farmer rather than a helper, but that conclusion would be illogical; for although the quantity of grain that he eats may be much greater than the quantity of noxious insects that he destroys, the worth of the grain may be less than the value of immunity from the insect pests. It is to be observed, too, that the months in which he eats the most corn are not the months when the newly sprouted kernels have just pushed their green shoots through the ground, but October,- November, December, January, February and March. In other words, it is not new but-old corn that he eats. An Inhospitable Editor. In traveling through western Canada several years ago Mr. Frank Carrel stopped at a small settlement where in one of the houses he noticed a sign, Rainy River Herald. In Canada’s West and Farther West he tells of entering the establishment and of what followed: We found an old man setting type. There was a table and a chair, and of course a few exchanges lay about. We asked for the proprietor or editor, but to all our questions we received a blank look from the compositor. - Beyond the old man, who sat at a rickety case engaged in the slow process of hand composition, there was a crazy press that appeared to be about to fall to pieces. We moved near him, and when we attempted to read his copy he got up from . his ;stool,. walked slowly to the table and wrote upon a piece of paper that he handed to us. It. read: “I ani the proprietor, editor, reporter, compositor and pressman. I also deliver, all my papers, but regret to say that I am deaf and dumb. Very sorry. Good-by.” We were sorry, and left our cards after bidding him adieu, and often recalled to mind this sad incident until, later on, we learned that the old man was no more deaf and dumb than we were, but that he had an aversion to visitors.—The Youth’s Companion. The Wilsons and the Gamins. The President and Mrs. Wilson stole off by themselves one day in Paris to do a little shopping. On foot they thought they would not be recognized. They lost their way. Wishing to remain unknown, they inquired of two ragged little “gamins” or street boys if .they could tell where the Rue de.Rivoli was. Instantly the two small specimens came to the position of military salute and answered, “Oui, oui, Monsieur le President!" After giving the information the boys politely inquired, in French, “Might one shake hands?” The President and Mrs. Wilson laughingly shook hands with them and wished them, a happy New Year.—Currents Events. The impartial jury of -men of science, after having made an examination of the contents of the stomachs of more than two thousand crows, seem to have reached the old verdict of “Not-guilty, but don’t do it again.”' They find" that the accused does good as well as hand, and that one just abiut counter-balances the other. In their opinion it would be a mistake to pass laws tnat would result in exterminating him, and equally mischievous to protect him. He is not so black as he is painted, but he is also'no saint. ‘The safest course seems therfore to be that which most communities pursue: to let the' small boy’s rifle and the farmer’s giiri deal With him whenever he can be caught flagrante delico, and for the rest to get what amusement we can from his enemy wisdom, his bilious temper and his sardonic humor—The Youth’s Companion. Origin of “Salary.” “Not worth his salt” is an expression originating in the Roman army when the legionaries were given a portion of salt as part of their pay. As you know, “sal” is the Latin word for. salt, and when in the course of time salt gave place to money, the amount was called “salarium” or salt money. This is the origin of' our word “salary” and the expression, “Not worth his salt.”—The American Boy. iTie greyhound is the. fastest dog in matter of running, it is .said. His maximum speed is 75 feet per second: the fastest horse has run 63 feet in a second. The foxhound is the next fastest of the dogs: one recently covering 4 miles, in 614 minutes. The ordinary domestic dog, it is stated, runs 40 feet a second.—Selected.
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