Heard On the City Streets July 14,1913

These warm days small attempt is made to enforce the "Keep-of-the-grass" command posted conspicuously on the court house lawn and in consequence the lawn is made a lounging place for hundreds of people every day. Late in the afternoon women and children have possession of the lawn. Then after dark the grown people - mostly working men and their families and young men with girls - begin to appear on the scene, and pretty soon the lawn is covered with people; grown folks lying down on the cool grass and children running and tumbling. Of course a few undesirables also get into the innocent picture. The other evening a couple of county officials were standing on the court house steps, commenting on the scene when a party of six negro girls, ranging in age from fourteen to twenty years appeared on the scene and began tumbling around on the grass to attract attention and the youngest girl in the party used considerable profanity. A respectable negro man who was passing, stopped and after observing the negro girls for a short time turned to the county officials and said: "The presence of those shameless girls on this lawn prevents decent colored women and children from coming here. They are a disgrace to their race and I wish the authorities would bar them from all public parks and lawns. They shame our wives and daughters and disgust everybody else. I do no think that women of their character - black or white - should be allowed in public parks where they go simply to ply their trade."

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"Don't you think this is the hottest summer we have ever had?" has been a familiar query during the past week," says Hope Smith, "and it is a query we hear every summer just as we hear every winter the declaration that this is the coldest winter we have ever had in El Paso. But there is nothing to it. The records in the weather clerk's office will show that El Paso did not have last year and is not having this year anything new in the weather line. Last year we had our hot weather in June and the only real warm weather we have had this year, we have experienced during the last six or eight days, and the porch sleepers will tell you we have not yet had a night warm enough to interfere with the comfort of sleeping. Last winter there was much complaint about the severity of the cold; and yet we had only one cold spell last winter and it lasted about twenty days; during the rest of the winter the weather was very moderate. I admit that the days have been pretty warm the past week. But I am not kicking, for the warm days help me, the iceman and the soda fountains and ice cream parlors. The hot weather has even done the beer man a good turn."

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I was sitting right behind her at the ball game yesterday and though she was quite pretty she didn't know a thing about baseball; but her young man was trying his best to enlighten her. The umpire called a strike on Ducky Gowan when he really didn't strike and the admirers of Ducky in grand stand began shouting "robber!" During the melee two of the White Sox stole bases on Weeks and great about of exultation went up from the grand stand. "What happened then?" asked the girl, and her escort explained that two of the runners had stolen a base each. "The horrid things; why don't the officers arrest them?" Knowing that this remark had given birth to a broad grin all around him, the young man began talking to a friend several seats back of him and tried by actions to say as plainly as possible that the girl didn't belong to him.

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We are trying to get up a marching team of twenty-five or thirty men," says Delegate Gunther Lessing, "to represent the El Paso lodge of Moose at the annual conclave of the order, to be held in Cincinnati on the 27th of the current month. If we succeed in our plans the El Paso Moose will appear in the parade at Cincinnati wearing the jaunty and romantic costume of the cavalier of Mexico. The Moose lodge of El Paso has about 800 members and should be able to send a crackerjack marching team to Cincinnati. As soon as our local lodge gets strong enough and in good shape financially we are going to put in a strong bid for the annual conclave; and we should be able to do that next year."

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W.W. Bridgers, who has been attending the Elk's annual convention at Rochester,New York, writes to a friend in El Paso: "Rochester did not appeal to the Elks and and the meeting here had the smallest attendance seen at the Elks' annual in many years. The people of Rochester, however, entertained us royally. But the heat is almost unbearable and is no doubt responsible for the small attendance. I will be glad when I get back to cool El Paso."