The Decatur News (Decatur, Tex.), Vol. 50, No. 13, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 16, 1931 Page: 3 of 8
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THE DECATUR NEWS
When You
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"The Fruits of Temperance"
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Restless NIGHTS
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Tt Is a shameful thing to be weary
of inquiry when what we search for
is so excellent.—Cicero.
Sleepless Man
If man invents many more time-
raving contraptions it won't be ion*
before he'll have no time to go to
bed.—Heston Transcript.
Practically Wiped. Oat
The public health service says that
there has not been a case of yellow
fever since 1905.
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recovered and as far as la known la
still alive, in the 1916 mishap three
sandhogs were blown through the
heading where a soft spot in the riv-
er bed opened up and permitted the
air pressure to escape; one came out
alive, the second man was found
dead In the river, and the body of
the third man was never recovered.
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Harrowing Experiences
Men were blown through the top of
the tube and the bed of the river
and came out alive during the build-
ing of one of the tunnels under the
New York rivers. The first occur-
rence of the kind was In 1905 while
boring the tunnel from the Battery
to Joralemon street, Brool^yn, and
the other time tn 1910 while boring
the tunnel from Whitehall street at
the Battery to Montague street,
across the river In Brooklyn. In the
1005 incident the tunnel worker was
CAN'T
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Blinks—What does Conntan do for
a living?
Jinks—The easy marks.
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A beadache is often the sign of
fatigue. When temples throb it's
time to rest. If you can't stop work,
you can stop the pain. Bayer
Aspirin will do it, every time. Take
two or three tablets, a swallow of
water, and carry-on—in comfort.
Don’t work with nerves on edge
or try all day to forget a nagging
pain that aspirin could end in a
jiffy! Genuine aspirin can’t hatu
you; just be sure it’s Bayer.
In every package of Bayer
Aspirin are proven directions for
headaches, colds, sore throat,
neuralgia, neuritis, etc. Carry these
tablets with you, and be prepared.
To block a sudden cold on the
street-car; quiet a grumbling tooth
at the office; relieve a headache in
the theatre; spare you a sleepless
night when nerves are "jumping.**
And no modern girl needs “time
out” for the time of monthl Bayer
Aspirin is an absolute antidote for
periodic pain.
7ibe Tapper's Defense "Fire Fi$ht Fire" jj
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comfort Castoria is to mothers!
Get the genuine, with Chas. H.
Fletcher's signature on wrapper
and the name Castoria that always
appears like this:
]
Take Bayer Aspirin for any ache
or pain, and take enough to end it.
It can't depress the heart. That is
medical opinion. That is why it is
only sensible to insist on the genuine
tablets that .bear the Bayer cross.
The pocket tin is a convenient size.
The bottle of 100 tablets is most
economical to buy.
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During Childhood Lay
the Foundation for
a Healthy Skin
By Regular Use of
VUTICURA
Soap and Ointment
Teach your children the
Cntleara habit
Fretful DAYS
♦
Distant Pa«t Recalled
Diner—Waiter, do you remember
that order 1 gave you?
Walter—Yes, sir. Mutton chops
and mashed potatoes.
“By Jove, you've got a marvelous
memory !”—Stray Stories.
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The Fruits of Intemperance"
ns,a recent writer has aptly named them, and
discovered that they were becoming increasingly
rare, the ancient law of supply and demand be-
gan to operate. So prices for Currier and Ives
prints, as for any other commodity which some
one has to sell and which some one else is
willing to buy, began to go up.
Exactly the same thing happened when it was
discovered that the old yellow-back dime novels
were “Americana.'' It is axiomatic among col-
lectors that “what is cheap today may be dear
tomorrow” and one commentator on the aston-
ishing increase in the value of Currier and Ives
prints seriously suggests that, “It might pay
some provident reader to begin collecting comic
strips, for posterity may want them—who
knows?”
Which leads to the real reason for the value
of Currier and Ives prints, the value which set
collectors, hot on their trail. For, beginning a
hundred years ago, and continuing for more than
half a century, they mirrored contemporary
American life. They were the “news reels” of
a day when newspapers contained little or no
pictorial material except for occasional fashion
prints. They supplied a definite need for pic-
tured news before Frank Leslie's Illustrated
Weekly and Harper's Weekly appeared on the
scene with their woodcuts to do that.
“They pictured news of immediate and pun-
gent interest," writes one commentator on this
subject. “It was not so much the actual dis-
covery of gold In California in 1849 that started
the gold rush across the plains as it was the
Currier and Ives Imaginary picture of the event
that Inspired the tremendous and arduous mi-
gration to the Pacific. The clipper ship prints
suggested a less perilous route. Then came the
railway pictures, the prints of the first trans-
continental trains running amidst Indians and
buffalo.” ■
These prints were on a great variety of sub-
jects. In addition to news pictures there were
various historical scenes, marine subjects, pic-
tures of horse racing and other sports, portraits
of famous men, political cartoons, and subjects
of a sentimental and highly moral nature. The
temperance crusade which began in the '40s is
reflected in a number of Currier and Ives prints,
of which the two, “The Fruits of Temperance”
and “The Fruits of Intemperance," shown above,
are typical. And the Currier and Ives prints
were also the first “comic strips," for they had
one series of caricatures of life among the
negroes, called “Darktown Comics,” which were
very popular.
All of these pictures have a historical value
to later generations of Americans which Is diffi-
cult to estimate. Made long before the day of
the camera they preserved for us details of cos-
tume and other seemingly unimportant facts
which are of the highest value In that they
reveal things about our forefathers which the
formal historians overlook and even the most
skillful word painter could not make understand-
able to us bow people of those times looked and
acted as vividly as can a Currier and Ives print.
So Currier and Ives, “pictorial historians,” sell-
ing their mints for prices ranging from six
cents to $3. (depending upon their also) sup-
plying peddlers who hawked their wares along
the streets and through the countryside, con-
ducting one of the earliest “mall order" trades
and building up a business which flourished for
snore than half a century, not only enriched •
Punishing Autoists
Old-fashioned punishments for
careless motorists are being advo-
cated by farmers, according to
Country Home. They urge that per-
sons who violate traffic laws are
mostly Just like a lot of thoughtless
schoolboys. Adopting their plan, »
Detroit judge has penalized many
autoists by making them stay for an
hour in the police pen until they’ve
written “I .passed a traffic light,” or
“I passed a standing street car” so
many hundreds of times. Most of
them admit they’d rather be spanked.
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themselves but enriched our national tradition
as well.
It was in 1830 that- young Nathaniel Currier,
working as an apprentice In Boston to John
Pendleton, who bad returned from Europe with
the new art of lithography, began to think of
embarking in his own business. So he went to
New York and began his career as a lithographer
in partnership with a man named Stoddard.
This lasted only a year, but in 1835 Currier
began again.
In 1850 James A. Ives joined bis fortunes to
Currier’s ami the famous firm was on its way to
success. Two years later a young Herman who
had been drawing political cartoons in Germany
came to this country and set himself up as a
lithographer. Louis Maurer was his name and
In time he became one of the Currier and Ives
“aces.” And it is tn this man that there Is pro-
vided an additional link between the Currier and
Ives era and the present. For Louis Maurer is
still living in New York and recently celebrated
his ninety-ninth birthday!
Maurer can tel) interesting stories of how he
went to work for the lithographers for $10 a
week, how his salary was raised to $13 a week
when he made a big hit with his drawing of
the race beteen two famous horses of the day,
Flora Temple and Highland Maid, and how when
he left them In 1860 he was getting all of $15
a week. This, for the services of a man whose
pictures are now selling for hundreds of dol-
lars! Incidentally' Louis Maurer doesn't own
one of his own prints.
For thirty years Currier and Ives were “print-
makers to the American people” nnd then in
1880 Currier retired with a comfortable fortune.
The firm, however, continued with a son of the
founder in his place. In 1888 machine color
printing, which had been started in this coun-
try in 1850, was applied to the Currier and Ives
product and even greater numbers of their pic-
tures flooded tiiO country. But by 1901 cheaper
methods of color printing forced them out of
business and It took another thirty years to
bring them back into the limelight again—only
this time It was the limelight which plays upon
the historic past.
So 1931 finds Americans ransacking old gar-
rets and out-of-the-way places for examples of
the art of Louis Maurer and others who made
the name of Currier and Ives famous. For it Is
their work which Is commanding the high prices
today and those who have these prints should
look for the name of the artist who drew the
picture before getting excited over the possi-
bility of its having great value. The Currier
and Ives “aces" were Maurer, who did western
scenes and the firemen series; Thomas Worth,
who did horse prints and the Darktown Comics;
A. F. Tait, who did western scenes, camping,
outdoor prints and field sports; Fanny Palmer,
who did American scenes and farm acenes; and
Barony, Butterworth and Charles Parsons who
did ships and marine scenes.
In general, the transportation prints—rail-
roads, emigrant trains, etc.—the ship pictures
and the hunting scenes are most valued by col-
lectors. A print of “The American Express,”
shown above, recently sold for $MO, but Tait’s
“The Life of a Hunter,” so far has the record.
A print of this picture topped the New York
Mie with a price of $3,000. But lest anyone
who happens to have one of these “Life of a
Hunter” pictures believe that he has aa unsus-
pected gold mine In his possession, let It be
added that there were two Currier and Ives
prints Issued under this title. One had the sub-
title “A>llAht Flat" and it was one of these
which brought the $3,000. The other, which has
the sub-thle of “Catching a Tartar" is worth
only $20 or so. But, as previously stated, a
Currier and Ives print is worth what you can
get for tt, and if you have one and don't need
the money which it will bring—whether $10 or
$50 or $200 or $700— Immediately, better hold on
, to it! For one thing you have a relic of an
Interesting period In American history and for
another you have something which will Increase
in value aa the years go on.
M WeMara Meweeaper Datewk
__J
Louis Maurer'^
Last of Currier and Iver.
Fussy, fretful, can’t sleep, won’t
eat.... It isn’t always easy to find
just where the trouble is with a
young child. It may be a stomach
upset; it may be sluggish bowels.
But when little tongues are
coated and there is even a slight
suspicion of bad breath—it's time
for Castoria!
Castoria, you know, is a pure
vegetable preparation especially
made for babies and children. When
Baby cries with colic or is fretful
because of constipation, Castoria
brings quick comfort, and, with
relief from pain, soothes him to
restful sleep. For older children—
up through all the school years,
Castoria is equally effective in
helping to right irregularities. Just
give it in larger doses. What a
“I Felt Fagged-Out
most of the time. I couldn’t make
up a bed without getting exhausted
and out-of-breath. I don’t know
what 1 would have done if it hadn't
been for G.F.P. This splendid tonic
built up my health and gave me all
the strength I needed for my house-
work.”
St. Joseph's
G.E]
Vhe ‘Woinan'A
1,7716 Lifc of a Fait
At •>»’ ' ' ’''' . , Mis
By ELMO SCOTT WATSON
k OME day when you’re rummaging
around in the attic of the old
homestead and you come across a
curious old colored picture in a
quaint old-fashioned frame, don’t
pass it up without further notice
as just another outdated item in
the collection of “junk" which
accumulates in attics. Better take
another look at it and see if there
appears at the bottom these words,
“Printed by Currier and Ives. 125
Nassau Street, New York." If so,
there's a chance that it's worth
several hundred times the price your grand-
father paid for it that day a “pack-peddler” came
around ond sold it to him. He may have charged
your relative two or three dollars for it, thereby
making a handsome profit, for the picture itself
cost him only six cents and your grandfather
djdn’t realize that he was paying a high price—
a much too-hlgh price—for a simple wooden
frame. Nor could either the “pack-peddler” or
your grandfather realize that years later that
six-cent picture might be worth anywhere from
$300 to $700, or if It happened to be some par-
ticular one, even up Into the thousands.
Yet such is the case, for Currier and Ives
prints have become “Americana,” eagerly sought
for by collectors and worth unheard-of prices—
not because they are examples of great art, but
because some of them are very rare. At an auc-
tion of Currier and Ives prints held in New
York city In 1928 a number of them aveihged
better than $500 and one brought $3,000! More
than that, a book about them, printed as late
as 1929 and containing reproductions of 32 of
the most famous prints, sold for $40 a copy.
True, it was a limited edition but that same
book today is selling for more than four times
its original cost.
And there's another item which reflects the
fact that if you happen to own a genuine Currier
and Ives print, you have a valuable possession:
taking advantage of desire of collectors for
these examples of art, French lithographers
within the last year have been reproducing them,
even going to the trouble to make them look old
and faded and fly-specked, and offering them
for sale as “genuine Currier and Ivee prints.”
However, It is not difficult for the expert to
detect these frauds. There is considerable dif-
ference between the appearance of a print made
by modern color printing processes and that of a
print in which the color was applied by the
Cufrier and Ives process of the hand brush.
80 before you become excited over the dis-
covery of a Currier and Ives print make sure
that it's an "original” and not a reproduction.
And even then don't have dreams of sudden
wealth. For there are only a few of these
prints which are worth a great deal of money
and some of them are worth only a few dol-
lars. In fact, there's no set price for a Currier
and Ives print. It's worth what you ean get for
it and that depends upon how badly some col-
lector wants it
Why all this sudden boom In the prices of a
form of art which was popular with one genera-
tion of Americans and scorned by the next as
"mid-Victorian” and "old-fashioned"! The an-
swer is, of course, that as soon as collectors
began seeking theM "Clnderellas of Ameefcana,”
WA . j
Mi
urrier and Jves,
[ [Jistorians
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Tyler, L. W. The Decatur News (Decatur, Tex.), Vol. 50, No. 13, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 16, 1931, newspaper, April 16, 1931; Decatur, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1277767/m1/3/: accessed June 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .