THE TOPEKA DAILY CAPITAL

Topeka, Kansas, U.S.A.

20 March 1912

(page 7)

HAIL!  GENTLE SPRING! SHE IS DUE TONIGHT.

The vernal equinox, which marks the beginning of the gladsome season of Spring, is due tonight. She is scheduled to arrive at Washington at 6:21 this evening. The equinox, in astronomy, is either one of two points at which the sun, in its annual apparent course among the stars, crosses the equator, and is so called because the days and nights are nearly equal when the sun is at these points. The vernal or Spring equinox, beginning tonight, is always meant when but one equinox is referred to. The season of Spring, astronomically speaking, continues to the Summer solstice, which this year will begin on the afternoon of June 21. The Autumnal equinox will usher in the Autumn season on the morning of Sept. 23, while the Winter solstice will commence shortly after midnight on Dec. 21. It takes the sun seven or eight days longer to go from vernal to autumnal equinox than from autumnal to vernal. The equinoctial gales, which often rage at about the time of the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, are declared by the meteorological wise men to have nothing to do with the equinoxes and to be merely coincidences. No old tar, however, will believe this.

Tonight, the sun enters the sign Aries, or the Ram, which governs the period from March 20 to April 19. According to astrologers, persons born under this sign have executive ability and a faculty for commanding, and are at the same time capable of blind obedience, when necessary. They are also of an inventive turn of mind, original and determined, and "sot in their ways." Aries subjects are also said to be charming conversationalists agreeable and entertaining unless aroused to wrath, when they make enemies greatly to be feared. The Aries person is usually well built and physically strong. Their principal faults are anger, selfishness, extreme aggressiveness and impatience. An Aries subject, according to astrologers, should marry a person born under the sign of Sagittarius, which rules from Nov. 21 to Dec. 20. Such a couple, the soothsayers say, will live a happy and contented domestic life and their offspring will be physically and mentally of a high order.

One of the queerest magazines in the world is The Equinox, which is published in Paris and London twice a year, at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. The Spring number, to be issued today, will have a new editor, Mrs. Solomon Sturges [Mary d'Este-Sturges], the wife of a Chicago banker, who now resides in the French capital. She recently accepted the editorial post, in collaboration with the English poet Alister [sic] Crowley. Mrs. Sturges recently gained some notoriety through the attempt of a landlord to evict her from her residence, on the ground that she wore costumes that were too scanty. Mrs. Sturges is a convert to Raymond Duncan's Hellenistic sartorial creed, and wears only sandals and a Greek tunic held on her shoulders by a safety pin.

Today marks the beginning of the Mohammedan month of Rabia II, in the year 1330. It is the birthday anniversary of Neal Dow, American temperance reformer, in 1804, and of Chas. W. Eliot, educator, in 1834.