At The North Pole

There has been ïnuch diseussion of the advantages to accrue to the world from polar exploration, and while thero is a general agreement among soientific men that the information to be gained by it is of snfflcient value to warrant the expense and loss of life incident to it I am not aware that any direct economie results have ever been claimed for it. Certain ideas have, however, reoently occurred to me, which point to very great economie advantages to be attained not ouly by polar exploration, but by literally reaching the pole, advantages so great that almos any expenditure of life and treasnre will be war ranted. 1 am sure that when these adI vantages have been poiuted out men and money will be forthcoming without Btint not only to reach the pole, but to make the path to it asy and plain to tread. Before going any further I wish to gay that I have no ax to grind. I have no desire to comraand au expedition or to accompany oue. My sole object in publishing these matters is to aid my fellow men. All of us have read accounts of the j Bearch made by the Spaniards centuries ago for the fountain of perpetual youth, for those waters whioh would oblitérate wrinkles and restore gray hair to its original hne, give back elasticity to the limbs and fire to the eye. Those hardy explorers pursned their search in the wrong quarter of the globe. We all know that if we travel around the earth in the direction in which the sun apparently moves on returning to the place of departure we find that we have saved a day; that we are a day younger than our friends who havo remained at home. To go aroxiud the earth on the forty-fifth parallel of latitude requires about 60 days. Therefoi-e it is possible in that latitude to save one day in 60, but as we go northward the circuniference of the earth diminishes, and it is possible, other things being equal, to make the journey in less time, but with each circuit of the globe, whatever the length of the journey, a day is saved. Near the pole, where the circumference of the earth becomes a mere trino, pernaps a quarter oí a mué, perhaps 100 yards, a day may be saved iu five minutes, iu one minute. Sixty days niay be saved iu au hour, a year oí' life in a day. A forenoou jaunt around the pole will do all that the fountaiu of eternal youth oí' the oíd Spanish explorers was expected to accornplish. But this result, the restoratiou of youth to the aged, is but one of the useful purposes to which the pole can be put. Not ouly the aged, but unmarried ladies who have passed the' first bloom of youth and have thus ceased to attract may here restore their comeliness, recover their blooming cheeks and rounded forms, and thus prepare for a second campaign against men's hearts. But this is not all. It is sometimes an advantage to grow oíd, and by taking the opposite course around tho pole we may add years to our lives in hours. The fashionable woman is encumbered by young ohildren. She sends them to the polo, and they grow up with exceeding rapidity. For an hour they are trundled against the sun in baby carriages, the next hour they speurt upon their feet, and before the day is passed they are grown to men's and woruen's estáte, and the mother is í'ree of their charge. The course of true love does not always run smooth, and íuany a young man and woman pledged to one another, are prevented by cruel parents from being joiued because of their extreme youth. A trip to the pole will quickly remove this difficulty. So I might go on and instance hundreds of different conditions which might be remedied were the pole easy of access. Many of them readily occur to onr readers, and we shall not burden them with any further information. Now let us picture what the resulta will be of this discovery. It goes without saying that the north pole will immediately become a resort second to none upon the globe. There will be a real estáte boom in that región beside which those of southern California, Florida and of the southern Appalachians will be flat, tame and insipid. The prices of town lots will not rise. They will shoot upward. In that wilder - ness of ice and snow there will be built within a fabulously short time a city of transiente the like of which the world has never seen a city of hotels, apartment and boarding houses of euormous proportions. Wheu we reflect that everybody who has reached the age of 60 and who can raise the uecessary funds for the journey will go there to take a walk, not to mention the spinsters, the sighing lovers and the superfiuous children, oue can easily imagine what au enormous business the pole will do. Imagino the lines of steamships whiöh wili bo supportert by this travel; imagine the value of the wheeled chair privileges; imagine, il' you can, the profits of the man who gets possessiou of a circle around the pole having a radias of half a milo and charges admissiou to this race course agaiust time. ín conclusión, I do not think that I esaggerate when I say that the considerations here set forth make the search for the pole the most important by far I of all the questions which are now ] agitating civilized man. - Henry ! nett in New York Sun. There are no known pretenders to Asiatic or African thrones, titles or authority for the very simple reason that in those continents it has been for long years customary to decapitate a pretender in testimony of the, better title of his Buecessful rival. I