Dangerous Picks

1895

"Stop chewing toothpicks, young man, if you value your life," said a physician to one of his patients. "You unconsciously swallow little shreds of the wood, which are not digestible, and which become compact in the stomach. Finally you are annoyed by a hacking cough and the spitting of blood, and you do not know what is the matter with you. You imagine you have consumption or some similar affliction when it is only the foreign substance in your stomach that makes the strongest protest against your carelessness or ignorance in allowing it to accumulate there. Stop chewing wooden toothpicks and swallowing quack nostrums, and by taking ordinary care of yourself you will live out the alloted threescore and ten years." — Exchange.


His Natural Error

"What do you think of the new woman, Mr. Marley?"
"I detest the bold, shrieking creature, Miss Stubbs. How much sweeter and more lovable is the gentle and retiring old woman like you, whose" —
"Sir!"
"Whose — eh? Oh, Lord!" — New York Recorder.