vantage of the Christmas holiday to
mow their lawns. The grass has been getting longer and longer,
owing to the spring weather, until it just had to be cut.

Players on the Dunwoodie Country Club course, also at Yonkers,
had to keep moving to keep warm yesterday, but they played on
greens which had been mowed only a few days ago, and those who
were fond of flowers stopped now and then to pick a buttercup.

The greens keeper at Dunwoodie says that the greens have been
mowed four times since the latter part of September, when in
ordinary seasons the grass is mowed for the last time until
spring. The condition of the course is about the same as in May,
according to the greens keeper.

Up in Bronx Park the grass has not been mowed recently, but it
is unusually long for the time of year, and so it is in the
other city parks. The same condition prevails in the nearby
cemeteries. Out in New Jersey a fine crop of grass is in
evidence.

Farmers in the vicinity of New York are saving on their usual
bills for winter fodder, for with the spring weather and the
long grass the animals can pick up a living out of doors.

III

NEW YORK, Dec. 31.--An order for $2,000,000 worth of shrapnel,
to be used in the war in Europe, has been rejected by the
Commonwealth Steel Company of Granite City, Ill., it was learned
to-day, because Clarence H. Howard, president of the
organization, believes warfare should not be recognized.

Mr. Howard, who lives in St. Louis, is known all over the
country as the "Golden rule steel man," because he tries to run
his plant in accordance with the Golden Rule by sharing profits
with the employes.

He is stopping at the Biltmore Hotel. Although he talked freely
of the trouble in Europe, he frowned at the report about the
$2,000,000 shrapnel order, and then said with blazing eyes:

"Why, our company would not accept an order for $15,000,000
worth of shrapnel! The war itself is a bitter shame. It is
something that does not belong in the general scheme of
enlightened humanity. If men would only think in unison, and
think purely and strongly for the abolition of war, it would
stop. There should be a general movement in the United States in
this direction.

"When I was a youngster I left my home in Centralia, Ill., to
win my own way in the worl