Oriental Politeness — 'Your Arrival Drives Away Somber Night'

1888

Some curious notes on the etiquette of the East are published in a recent issue of the Gazette de France. For instance a Turkish Effendi, when speaking to another about himself, always says: "your servant," "your valet," or "your slave;" and to the other he says "your high" or "your eminent personality." Instead of saying "I saw you at the theater the other night," he would always say: "At the theater the other night I saw the dust of your shoes;" after all, a rather doubtful sort of compliment.

But here is the Turkish form of an invitation to dinner: "My Generous Master, My Respected Lord: This evening if it pleases Allah, when the great king of the army of stars, the sun of worlds, approaching the kingdom of shades, shall put his foot into the stirrup of speed, you are invited to enlighten us with the luminous rays of your face, which rivals the sun. Your arrival, like the zephyr of spring, will drive away from us the somber night of solitude and isolation."



Personal and Literary

1888

—A granddaughter of Charles Dickens is now a type-writer, and copies MSS. for a living.

—Rev. Dr. Bartol says of the late A. Bronson Alcott: "Were it possible, he was courteous to excess. He would have been polite to Satan."

—Of the literary men who died during 1887, the ages of one hundred and twenty are recorded in the Literary World. Taking them as a basis the average age of literary men is found to be seventy years.

—The youngest woman in the newspaper business heard from up to date is Miss Agnes McMellan, the local editor of the Seward Democrat of Nebraska. She is but fifteen years old, and an excellent news gatherer.

—D. W. C. Throop, editor of the Mount Pleasant (Iowa) Free Press, was writing a few days ago an article on the lesson of Tom Potter's death from overwork. Suddenly he paused, put his hand to his heart, and fell to the floor a corpse.

—"Buffalo Bill" is to try his luck as an author. He will write a book which treats of the reclamation from the Indians of the vast domain which lies west of the Alleghenies. The volume will recount the exploits of many famous frontiersmen.

Picked Personals — "Oscar Wilde Has Grown Thin"

1888

PICKED PERSONALS

The Pope is a careful reader of the daily papers.

Bronson Alcott left a diary that fills fifty-seven large bound volumes.

According to a report the Presbyterian scruples of Mrs. Cleveland prevent her visiting any theatrical entertainment save the opera.

Oscar Wilde has grown thin since he began to edit a woman's magazine. His contributors are all women, and so are his subscribers.

—St. Joseph Herald, St. Joseph, MI, April 14, 1888, p. 4.


Preserving Live Fish

1888

A Discovery of Great Use to Shippers and Sportsmen

A new method of preserving live fish, which seems to depend upon some phenomenon that it is at present difficult to explain, has been patented in America. The discoverer is Mr. W. G. Murphy, of New York City, who found, from numerous experiments, that fish can be kept alive for a long time without either change of air or water, by placing them in a vessel partly filled with water, but hermetically sealed.

Fish so placed in a closed jar were found alive and apparently in good health at the end of three weeks' confinement; while fish placed at the same time in an open jar of water all died within forty-eight hours. It was also found that when the air in the jar containing the fish and water was compressed, their life was still further prolonged. It has been suggested that the reason for these strange results lies in the fact that the water in the jar which is hermetically sealed does not undergo such rapid changes as water left in an open vessel.

The discovery is one which will be of very great use in the carriage and transportation of fish. Sportsmen, too, will appreciate a method which will permit them to carry live bait for an indefinite period. — Chambers' Journal.

Smuggling in Bustles

1888

It will soon be unsafe for a lady to go on board a steamboat adorned with the dorsal embellishment of the bustle.

From its first appearance the smuggler seems to have marked the dress-improver for his own, and in particular he has been struck by its advantages as a receptacle for contraband tobacco. Hitherto, however, this abuse of beauty's weapons has been confined to ports which the nobility and gentry do not frequent in large numbers.

But on Monday two aristocratic looking damsels, landing at Queenstown, were discovered (by the courteous instrumentality of a female searcher) to owe their "improvement" solely to Cavendish tobacco. It is a sad state of things when an American belle, in full panoply, can not land on our shores without an inhospitable summons to show "what she has got there."

For your general profit and instruction, ladies, mark what happened to the above adventurous maidens. Amidst the great bustle of the custom-house they left the garments of that name behind, as well as the tobacco and its treble value in current coin. — London Life.

Mother Love (poetry)

1888

Mother Love

Ah, babe, with feet so soft and pink,
How oft does mother sadly think
That you will walk, perchance may fall
On life's rough path, and to your call
Among the crowd — but mother's hand
Will raise you, soothe and help you stand.

Those baby feet, those little toes,
To tread a path that no one knows;
If mother only could — and knew,
She'd tread the path ahead of you,
And smooth it to the very end,
Till Heav'n and earth together blend.

Ah, babe, with feet now held and press'd,
To think that you have never guessed
That when your feet are aching sore,
A mother's heart is hurt much more,
And when the path's so rough to trod,
A mother knows they lead to God.

Ah, babe, with feet now soft and warm,
Full soon to meet life's calm and storm,
And 'mid the struggle not to know
That mother never'll let you go
From out her heart — until the call,
Then yields to God her child — her all.

—Alice S. Webber, in Good Housekeeping.

Embalmer's Knife Flashing, Mom Insists Son "Alive"; He is!

Rhode Island, 1888

COFFINED, BUT ALIVE

Story of a Man Who had a Narrow Escape from Premature Burial

Mauly Z. Corwin, of Providence, R. I., has enjoyed the sensation of being coffined and prepared for burial, says the Boston Globe. But for an accident he would have been embalmed. He lives on Smith's hill, and is a carpenter by trade. Some years ago he was at work on the roof of a three-story house, and had a sun-stroke. Falling at his work, he rolled down the sloping roof and fell, an inert mass, to the street below. He was picked up and conveyed to the office of the nearest medical man, who pronounced him dead. An undertaker was sent for, and soon his assistants were measuring the corpse and making preparations for the embalming process, which was considered necessary for preserving the body for the funeral.

That evening a casket arrived with the name of the deceased, age and manner of death engraved on a silver plate.

After the body had been coffined and the room cleared, Mrs. Corwin, the mother, arrived, and, while laying her head upon his breast, she fancied she detected a motion of the heart. Another doctor was sent for, who, after making a stethoscopic examination, confirmed the opinion of the other physician, and declared life to be extinct.

The weeping mother was led from the apartment, and the watchers awaited the coming of the embalmer. The man was delayed so long that when he arrived the family requested him to postpone making the incision until the following morning.

The morning found the loving and disconsolate mother at her son's bier again, and again did the maternal instinct within her tell her that her boy was not dead, but sleeping. The embalmer came and displayed his instruments for opening the veins and for eviscerating the deceased. Then the mother refused to allow the operation. In vain they urged her to accept the verdict of medical science, but she refused to budge, and, throwing her body across that of her son, she declared she would not leave his presence until all doubt was ended. The weather was fearfully hot, and it was expected that the condition of the corpse would be unendurable by the next night, but it was not, nor the next night, and then some weight was attached to the old lady's belief. More doctors came, other examinations were made, and at the end of the sixth day a slight pulsation was felt.

The man was alive beyond all doubt.

The house swarmed with physicians after that. They came from New York, from Boston and from Philadelphia, and all agreed that the vital spark had not left the body, although how to fan it into a life-sustaining flame was a question not so easily settled. Various expedients were resorted to, and on the fifteenth day the "corpse" opened an eye. After that the man's recovery was but a question of time. To-day he is at work, a better and stronger man than he ever was, and the silver plate on his coffin, framed in crimson plush, adorns his parlor.

—St. Joseph Herald, Saint Joseph, Michigan, April 28, 1888, p. 5.

Safeguards Against Thieves

1888

A Reformed Burglar Tells Householders How to Protect Their Property

First of all, I may say that the householder, especially if his house is situated in the suburbs, should count as next to nothing the protection afforded by the night policeman on his beat. I don't mean to insinuate that the night policeman neglects his duty. I believe that, as a rule, he performs it as well as he is able to, and it may be pretty safely relied on that at each time he passes a row of villas he will cast the light of his bull's eye over the front garden, if there is one, and over the house front, and the lower windows and street door. If there is no front garden, he will see that all is right and tight in the area as well. But his beat is a long one, and it is probable he will not pass that way again for an hour, or perhaps longer. So that if there is a job afoot all that those engaged in it have to do is to hide and see the policeman off and they then know exactly how much time they have to get through their work before he can make his appearance again.

Speaking from my experience, and from that of others with whom I have been acquainted, I should say that at least a fourth part of the number of private house burglaries that are successfully committed are assisted by servants. But speaking of ordinary work it is the female servants who are made useful and that quite innocently on their part. Masters and mistresses have no idea what easy simpletons many girls in service are, or how easily they are induced to betray the secrets of the house. And not only girls, but women, cooks and housemaids, who are old enough to know better. A smart chap, with plenty to say and with money to spend, has but to scrape acquaintance with the kind of servants I am alluding to when they are out for church on Sunday and meet them a few times afterward, and he can learn all he wants to know respecting the valuable stuff in the house and where it is kept, and the ways and habits of their employers and when they are at home and when away.

It is not often the burglar himself who in this way goes a-fishing for useful information. Generally speaking, he is not what may be called a "ladies' man." He is very well in his own line, but he hasn't got the good looks or the insinuating ways that go down with the fair sex. That part of the programme is intrusted to the "sweetstuff man." He is an affable, well spoken young fellow, very respectably dressed, and so respectable in his manner that even if he was caught in the kitchen with the servants at houses where followers are strictly prohibited his appearance would disarm suspicion.

It should not be forgotten that the burglar has no particular desire in the pursuit of his calling to run his head into more danger than is necessary, and there is nothing that is so much to his liking as parapet work — getting in at attic windows that are screened by the roof parapet. Not one householder in a score gives a thought as to the security of the attic window. He will have the street door iron plated, with a patent lock on it, and a chain strong enough to hold an elephant, but a catch that can be put back with a bradawl is good enough for the attic window, and all the time it is quite as easy to enter by one way as the other — if the houses stand in a row and one of them happens to be empty. This is one of the opportunities the fraternity are always on the lookout for.

Nothing can be easier than to enter an unoccupied house at the basement, and once within all a man has to do is to walk upstairs and go out on to the parapet, and there, well screened from view by the coping, he can creep on his hands and knees, and by means of the attic windows get into any house he has a fancy for. If it is winter time, and after dark, he will have no difficulty in taking stock of the front windows before he makes the accent, and so ascertaining which of the front rooms are occupied or if the family is at dinner. If the latter he can be pretty sure that the servants are all down stairs, and he can explore the upper rooms without much fear of interruption. This wouldn't be called in the profession tip top work, but it is a means by which householders lose a considerable amount of portable property, and it very rarely happens that the robber is caught in the act.

As regards house fastenings there is, in my opinion, nothing safer for windows than a long thumb screw in a socket, going right through the frame and deep into the sash on both sides of the window. I don't know if there have been any wonderful inventions in that way since I took an interest in such things, but I never saw a door fastener except the thumb screw that should give a workman a minute's trouble. For the street door there is nothing so good as a flat bar fastened to a pivot to the center, so that it will extend across the jambs and drop into slots made on the plan of a watch and chain swivel. For window shutters the cheapest and best protection is a lightly hung bell on a coil spring. But better than locks, bolts and bars is a wiry little dog that, roaming loose, will open his pipes and let all the house know it the moment he hears a suspicious noise at door or window. — London Telegraph.

The Fourteen Mistakes of Life

1888

Somebody has condensed the mistakes of life, and arrived at the conclusion that there are fourteen of them. Most people would say, if they told the truth, that there was no limit to the mistakes of life; that they were like the drops in the ocean or the sands on the shore in number; but it is well to be accurate.

Here, then, are fourteen great mistakes:

It is a great mistake to set up our own standard of right and wrong, and judge people accordingly;

to measure the enjoyment of others by our own;

to expect uniformity of opinion in this world;

to look for judgment and experience in youth;

to endeavor to mold all dispositions alike;

not to yield to immaterial trifles;

to look for perfection in our actions;

to worry ourselves and others with what can not be remedied;

not to alleviate all that needs alleviation as far as lies in one's power;

not to make allowances for the infirmities of others;

to consider every thing impossible that we cannot perform;

to believe only what our finite minds can grasp;

to expect to be able to understand every thing.

The greatest of mistakes is to live for time alone, which any moment may launch into eternity. –from Wives and Daughters.