drive, etc. There is a community nothing more than devices to tickle flavor to such events. All this means a tremendous boom to New Hampshire prosperity. It means that the state, which for years has been New England's most popular summer resort, has become an all-theyear-round vacation land. The advertising value of the carnival idea is being exploited to the fullest extent by our boards of trade, our chambers of commerce, our newspapers, our hotels, our stores, by the railroads, by the manufacturers of sports equipment, even by the designers of styles, though Collier in a in the Boston Herald is moved to question whether knickers. were made popular by carnivals or vice versa. cartoon the fancy and open the purses of our friends from out of the state, is it after all worth the candle? A passing fad, a brilliant publicity idea,—but is it anything more? For your answer you have only to go to a New Hampshire town-almost any town will do on a Saturday afternoon. You will have to go outside the main streets of the town to find the people; the central square will be almost deserted. But at a convenient meeting-place on the outskirts of the town you will probably find a group with snowshoes. and skis, a good-natured group of assorted ages and sizes-and costumes. These are Community Hikers, ready to start off across the fields for a tramp of about five miles. In Concord, where the idea has been tried out for several years now, that group sometimes includes one hundred or more. Walking a few rods further you will come upon an open field with a ski THERE IS EXHILARATION IN THE WOODS IN WINTER jump and a toboggan chute and a crowd of rapid-motion enthusiasts swarming up and down the hillside. You will see entertaining exhibitions if you stop to watch-more entertaining by far than those which are featured in carnivals. The equipment of the field, in nine cases out of ten, belongs to the community, is kept in order by the commuity, and is at the disposal of any one who uses it without abusing the privilege. Tilton boasts a toboggan chute on which the speed is slightly more than a mile a minute. Laconia has one which is which is nearly half a mile long. It is not difficult to imagine how incessantly those chutes are in use while the snow lasts. In such community activity, sponsored by the community and maintained for the community, is to be found the best development of the popularity of winter sports. Out on the ski runs and toboggan chutes, the skating ponds and the snow-covered meadows is being stored up energy and health which are more truly community assets than the receipts which directly or indirectly accrue from carnivals, however brilliant they may be. Whenever the people of a community get together in any wholesome activity the morale of the community is strengthened. We discovered that in war times, we tried more or less successfully to carry the idea over into peace times through organized "community play" and by "community singing," and we have found in winter sports the best possible form of community activity. This is true for one very simple reason winter sports allow no onlookers. Baseball and football are out of the question as community games because they enlist the active brain and muscle of a very few players; the rest of us sit on the grandstand and shout instructions. Most of us rather like to get our exercise by proxy, and during the summer months we can do so comfortably. But the enthusiast who gets pleasure out of standing on the ice in a biting north wind watching an ice hockey game, or who will shiver in a snowdrift in admiring attention while a ski-jumping exhibition is in process is rare. That sort of thing is fun for a few minutes and then the cold begins to get in its work. No one can enjoy skiing or skating or coasting or snowshoeing or any other form of winter sports from the sidelines; he has to get into the game to feel the tingle and zest of it. It takes effort sometimes to make a start. Assuredly no spectacle was ever so ridiculous as a novice on skis or skates or even snowshoes. And the novice is painfully conscious of that fact when he starts. But he gathers his courage in both hands. He decides to try the ski run. He starts. It is not so bad as he thought. He is getting on famously. He hopes that people are watching his progress to see how successful he is. Some F thing happens. One ski starts exploring on its own responsibility. . . . As he digs himself out of the smothering snow he looks around sheepishly for the crowds of derisive spectators. There are none. They are having too many troubles of their own to watch the tumbles of a beginner. His selfconsciousness vanishes. He is fully initiated into the army of Winter Sports Enthusiasts. Taken as a single incident that is trivial enough, but repeated as it has been thousands of times this winter it has a social significance which might furnish the subject for a Doctor's thesis in Psychology. America is a self-conscious country, hampered and handicapped by the fear of being spontaneous. Is it not possible that, by helping to lift this self-consciousness, our winter sports are building the mental health of the nation as well as its physical well-being? FILLED MILK ILLED milk is a name that the majority of citizens have become familiar with during the past few months. It refers to a certain substance made up of a compound of skimmilk and cocoanut oil. It is manufactured by separating the butter fat from the whole milk and substituting in its place, cocoanut or vegetable oil. This is a very profitable business for the manufacturer; butter fat, worth approximately fifty cents per pound, is replaced by cocoanut oil, worth from six to ten cents per pound. The business has been growing by tremendous bounds until a yearly production of 86,000,000 pounds has been reached. Filled Milk is very injurious to health. Such an authority as Dr. E. V. McCollum of Johns Hopkins University, testified before Congress that an infant fed a few weeks on this product would develop the rickets. The son for this lies in the fact that when rea you remove butter fat from whole milk, it takes 90% of a particular class of vitamines which are very essential to the health and growth of infants and growing children. House Bill No. 94 in the New Hampshire legislature, if passed, would prohibit the sale and manufacture in this state of filled milk. It is essential that this bill should pass for both health and economic reasons. A bill similar to this has been enacted in eleven states and the constitutionality of the law upheld in three of these States. This legislation is endorsed by organizations representing the great majority of citizens in New Hampshire. These organizations are the New Hampshire Farm Bureau Federation, the Grange, the Federation of Labor, the League of Women Voters, the Dairymen's Association and many other organizations of local, state and national character.-H. S. B. LEGISLATORS RAYMOND B. STEVENS (D) LANDAFF Committee on Ways and Means Committee on Labor AT the beginning of each week, donning his shaggy coat and piling bag and baggage on his boy's toboggan, he catapults down from his snowy mountain fastness into political New Hampshire. A similar vigor, directness, and force characterize his motions after he reaches the Capital. In the New Hampshire House and in the National Congress, as vice-chairman of the U. S. Shipping Board, and in his recent independent stand for a fact-finding commission, Mr. Stevens has shown himself a statesman who puts public welfare above personal advancement. Chadbourne ROBERT P. BASS (R) Committee on Ways and Means GEORGE H. DUNCAN (D) JAFFREY Committee on National Affairs Committee on Railroads Committee on Ways and Means YOU have seen those picture puzzles of seemingly orthodox landscapes labeled...."Find the cat." Once found the concealed outlines are so clear one wonders at the blindness of those who look at the picture without seeing them. The "cat" in Mr. Duncan's landscape is the Single Tax. He traces its principle back to Moses and forward to the millenium. No wonder he watches the struggles of the legislature with a slight air of amusement. A student of men and affairs, it is safe to say that he knows more about more bills before the House than any other person in the Legislature or out. GEORGE A. WOOD (R) Committee on Labor Committee on Ways and Means You may use my photograph if you wish, but the really important pictures in our family are these" and Mr. Wood pulled from his pocket a set of pictures of the two-year-old girl who is probably better known in New Hampshire legislative circles than any other young woman of her age in the state. Mr. Wood is variously known as "Betty Jean's grandfather," "Mary I. Wood's husband" and as one of the most fair-mindied of our legislators. He has made his third term notable by his able support of the 48-hour law. |