Hog Fasts 100 Days

Alabama, 1912

Mobile, Alabama — Pinned under the ruins of a church near Evergreen, Ala., which had blown down on February 21st, a hog was found yesterday alive, and, while weakened from the long imprisonment, was able to eat and drink. The animal was more than 100 days without food and water, perhaps a record for fasts.

—The Syracuse Herald, Syracuse, NY, June 10, 1912, p. 16.

Groom's Brother Marries Bride's Sister

New York, 1912

Following the example of their brother and sister, Miss Beatrice Loope and Harold Warner, both of Liverpool were quietly married Saturday night at the home of the Rev. S. R. Ball, pastor of the Liverpool Methodist church. The bride's sister, Miss Nina Loope, and the groom's brother, Fred Warner, were married a year ago by the Rev. Mr. Ball. There was opposition to both marriages on the part of the parents of both couples.

—The Syracuse Herald, Syracuse, NY, June 10, 1912, p. 16.

Flames Put Out by Hand Extinguishers

Syracuse, NY, 1912

In an awning fire at the Snowdon apartment house Saturday evening hand extinguishers used in the building put out the flames before the arrival of the Fire department. The blaze was started by a lighted cigarette thrown from a window. The damage was slight.

--The Syracuse Herald, Syracuse, NY, June 10, 1912, p. 7.

Keep Time By The Sundial

1912

In Beautifying Its Forest Park This Kansas Town Has Added a Utility

Ottawa, Kan. — The big city has no corner on civic beauty. Nor are pretty parks and ingenious decorative schemes confined to estates of landed gentry. A country town can, and often does, furnish excellent examples of artistic treatment of bits of woodland.

Ottawa has no copyrighted system of boulevards other than its well paved streets, but the folks who make their homes here pride themselves upon their parks — there are two of them — City Park and Forest Park.

In Forest Park there are samples of the ordinary park embellishments, such as a fountain, cemented fish pond, lettered flower beds and sanitary drinking fountains. But the newest addition is a floral sundial. It is the town's latest civic pride.

J. H. Eason, park keeper for Ottawa, planned and constructed the natural timepiece this summer, it being an excellent summer for the use of sundials. He fashioned it according to he minutest directions of chronometer and sundial experts. As a result the dial is accurate to the minute when the sun's changes are figured — and Mr. Eason has provided a card with printed directions for each day of the year. The number of minutes the sun is "slow" or "fast," in comparison with the standard meridian, is placed in plain View Of park visitors. Anyone may read the card and set his watch the exact time.

The dial is fourteen feet in diameter and the indicator, a pointed post, is eight feet above the ground. Numerals of cement number the hours upon which the shadow of the indicator falls in turn from sunup to sundown. Lines of foliage mark the half-hours and the quarter-hours. Pigmy hedge forms a decorative design in front of the figures.

Twins Puzzle Father; He Makes New Will

1912

Unable to Distinguish Sons Apart, He Finds He Had Put Error Into Document

Fort Worth, Tex. — John Cobb Harris, a wealthy Mansfield farmer, came to Fort Worth to make a new will because he was unable to tell his twin sons apart. The will he destroyed gave John Harris certain property and Cobb, the other twin, property just opposite to his own desires.

Harris's sons are 22 years of age, and among the most remarkable twins in the country. Both are six feet six inches tall and muscular. With their hats on their father cannot tell one from the other.

The twins keep a common bank account, and always speak of "our money," "our horse," and even "our girl," as they frequently play a joke on their sweethearts by exchanging them.

John Smith Everywhere

1912

The good old name of John Smith does not suggest in English any great degree of aristocracy, but transferred to other languages it seems to climb the ladder, so to speak.

Thus, in Latin it is Johannes Smithus, the Italian smoothes it off into Giovanni Smithi, the Spaniards render it Juan Smithus, the Dutchman adopts it as Hans Schmidt, the French flatten it out into Jean Smeet and the Russian says Jonloff Smittowski.

When John Smith gets into the tea trade in Canton he becomes Jovan Shimmit; if he clambers about Mount Hecla the Icelanders refer to him as Jahne Smithson; if he trades among the Tuscaroras he becomes Ton Qa Smittla; in Poland he is known as Ivan Schmittiwelski; should be wander among the Welsh mountains they talk of Jihon Schmidd; when he goes to Mexico he is called Jontli Smitti; if of classic turn he lingers among Greek ruins he turns to Ion Smikton, and in Turkey he is utterly disguised as Yoe Seef.

Woman from "Restricted District" Commits Suicide

Reno, 1912

YOUNG WOMAN TIRES OF LIFE

After Filing Suit for Divorce She Takes Poison and Passes Away

At Time of Death Was Leading Miserable Life in This City

Bertha Manhart, a young woman who for some months past has been in a house in the restricted district, died in a local hospital last night from the effects of bichloride of mercury poisoning taken Saturday evening in the house in which she lived, and yesterday afternoon a woman of the same name filed a suit for divorce in the district court against Elmer L. Manhart. The attorneys for the woman who filed the suit state that they do not know whether their client is the same person who died last night or not, but friends of the dead woman state that she is the woman who filed the suit and that her husband resides in Salt Lake City or Chicago. They also state that she had a little daughter in Chicago living with her mother and that her sister, who is said to be a vaudeville artist, is on her way from Salt Lake City to Reno to take charge of the remains and to attend to the administration of her estate.

The woman came to this city about eight months ago and entered a house in the restricted district and it is said that she had two bank accounts in the city and that she also sent considerable money to the east. It has been stated that she is a native of Florida, but acquaintances who claim to know something of her life, state that she came to Reno from Salt Lake city and that prior to that time she was a resident of Chicago.

One of her friends stated this morning that the woman took mercury tablets Saturday evening and was taken to a local hospital and last evening death claimed her.

This morning the county physicians performed an autopsy on the body and tomorrow morning Coroner Lee J. Davis will hold an inquest when more facts concerning the unfortunate woman's life may become known. She was known in the tenderloin district as Margaret.

—Reno Evening Gazette, Reno, June 19, 1912, p. 1.

Friday the 13th and 12-12-12

1912

TODAY WAS LAST OF THE HOODOO DATES

Friday the Thirteenth Will Not Come Again Until June 1913 a Genuine Jonah Day.

. .B-e-w-a-r-e! This is Friday the 13th! But, thank goodness, it is the last "hoodoo" day we will have this year. Next year only one Friday falls on the unlucky number. It is June 13, 1912.

Yesterday was Dec. 12, — or, written in business form, 12-12-12. No triple set of numerals will be seen again until Jan. 1, 2001, which may be written 1-1-1.

Christmas shoppers took warning and kept their clutches tightened on handbags and pocketbooks.

The superstitious dread of the number 13 seems to have spread over the earth. It is said Italians never use it in making up the numbers for their lotteries; that the thirteenth card in one of their games bears the figure of Death, and that no house in Paris is No. 13. The Quatorziemes are persons known in Parisian society who hold themselves in readiness to go to any dinner which otherwise would have the fatal 13 at the table.

—Janesville Daily Gazette, Janesville, Wisconsin, Dec. 13, 1912, p. 14.


Today Friday, Thirteenth and Yesterday, 12-12-12

Today is Friday the thirteenth, the last unlucky day of its kind until the second week of June, which the superstitious believe will be especially unlucky on account of the year being 1913. Yesterday the date could be Written "12-12-12," and it will be 88 years before the similarity is duplicated. January 1, 2001, can be written "1-1-1."

—Colorado Springs Gazette, Colorado Springs, CO, Dec. 13, 1912.


THURSDAY WILL BE 12-12-12

Making the Last of Such Combinations for 88 Years.

Thursday, when the "tired business man" and the busy stenographer dash off a letter headed by 12-12-12 on the date line, few will recognize the fact that it is a calendar peculiarity, the last of a series of twelve such which will not recur again for 88 years, or until the dawning of a new century.

The superstitious may draw satisfaction from the fact that the following Friday is the last that will occur in his lifetime falling upon the thirteenth and having the sum of the numerals of the year likewise make the fateful thirteen.

—The Mansfield News, Mansfield, Ohio, Dec. 10, 1912, p. 8.

Old Age The Best

1912

There is only one thing we have to do, and that is to grow old. That is the due business of life; it is for that we are put in this world.

The art of living is nothing but the art of growing old.

Instead of looking upon old age as a wreck of youth, the pitiful remains of a once valuable life, we should regard it as the masterpiece of life, that for which all preceding stages were but trial essays and preparation.

When Fontanelle was asked what period of life he considered the most fortunate, he replied: "From sixty to eighty. At that age one's place is fixed. Ambition and desires have ceased to torment, and one reaps what he has sown. It is harvest time."

Whether you believe this or not depends upon the point of view you take as to the purpose of human life. If you think a human being is an animal, put in this world to get all the pleasure he can, then naturally you conceive old age to be a calamity. But if you hold that he is a soul, put here in a body in order to perfect and beautify his character, then you must see that old age, when the bodily fires have gone down, and nothing is left but the fine gold of the spirit, is best of all. — Dr. Frank Crane in Woman's World for November.

This optimistic view of mature age suggests the thought that the harvest time of life may be crowned with fruitage, and that the valley of the shadow may be entered without dread or regret.

Live For Today, Look Forward, Not Back to Past

1912

Heart to Heart Talks
By EDWIN A. NYE

LOOKING BACKWARD.

Do you remember the legend about that ancient Greek from whom Apollo took "the backward looking mind?"

All things became new.

The world was transformed to that Greek. For the first time he saw how beautiful was the world. Flowers he had not yet seen bloomed under his feet, new stars shone over his head and the changing moods of nature filled him with delight.

Why?

The change was not in the world but in the Greek. His mind had been turned backward to the happiness and the grief of the past. Now he looked outward and forward to the beauty and the joy all about him.

In our day is no Apollo to take away the backward looking mind, more's the pity.

But the symbolism holds.

Many of us need to have our mind reversed.

I know a woman who persists in looking backward and who always tells of a day when her people were rich and accustomed to many luxuries she is now denied. She is constantly deploring a situation she cannot help. She does not live save in a former day.

Worse than Lot's wife, who took a single look over her shoulder, she always faces backward.

I know a man whose constant theme of regret is the fact that he ever changed his business. He did well, he says, at the old place and was a fool to change. Certainly he is doing little good at his new place, largely for the reason that he is forever harking backward to the old.

He needs an Apollo.

Older persons are apt to foster the backward looking habit. Says grandpa from his chimney corner: "There are no days like the good old days. Now, when I was young" —

Poor grandpa!

He magnifies the past, minimizes the present and omits the future. He is dying, like some trees, at the top.

You cannot change the past, but you can discount the present and spoil the future by refusing to live in the one and to face the other.

To be successful, to stay young, to find happiness, cultivate the outward looking, forward looking mind.

Face the sun.

When you stand with your back to it the shadow is in front of you. When you face the sun the shadow is behind.

—The Janesville Daily Gazette, Janesville, WI, July 22, 1912, page 4.

Hooray, Butcherin' Hez Cum! (poetry)

1912

HOORAY, BUTCHERIN' HEZ CUM!

Murder, hear them hogs a-squealin'!
Butcherin' at last hez cum.
Oh, jist watch the folks a-hustlin'
An' the sassage grinder hum!

There the hog goes in the scald trough.
Off his bristles quickly fly.
Now they're cuttin' him to pieces
As he hangs on stretcher high.

Zip -- the sassage grinder's goin',
Hiss -- the lard's a-billin' too.
Puddin's cookin' in the kittle,
Oh, smell that hog liver stew!

Let's go run the sassage stuffer.
O you sassage ten foot long,
Slick as grease an', oh, so bully,
Spiced with garlic middlin' strong!

See the purty hams an' bacon
An' the lard as white as snow --
But, hello, they're callin' dinner!
Hurry up: we've got to go!

Fur they're havin' sassage, puddin',
Ponhos, pig tongue an pig feet,
An' the folks at the fust table
Allus git the most to eat.

C. M. BARNITZ.

—Bedford Gazette, Bedford, Pennsylvania, January 12, 1912, page 6.

The Evil Eye

1912

It is probably that the "evil eye," for which many hapless old women were harried to their death on the suspicion of witchcraft in "the good old days," was no more than a common squint, a "cast" in the eye, or "bossing," as it is called in many parts of the country to this day, writes Dr. N. Bishop Harman in the British Journal of Children's Diseases. Not only was the squint though to be of evil significance, but the defect itself was considered to be the work of evil spirits. In "King Lear" we find the following in the scene on the heath at night:

"This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet. He begins at curfew and walks till the first cock; he gives the web and the pin, squints the eye and makes the harelip, mildews the white meat and hurts the poor creature of earth."


Knew His Man

George Bubb, better known as Bubb Doddington, one of the wits of the eighteenth century, always dined well and always liked to doze after the repast. Falling asleep one day after dinner with Sir Richard Temple and Lord Cobham, the latter reproached Doddington with his drowsiness. Doddington denied having been asleep and to prove he had not offered to repeat all Lord Cobham had been saying. Cobham challenged him to do so. Doddington repeated a story, and Lord Cobham owned he had been telling it. "Well," said Doddington, "and yet I did not hear a word of it, but I went to sleep because I knew that about this time of the day you would tell that story."

—The Kingston Daily Freeman, Kingston, New York, June 30, 1916, page 5.

Pupils of Miss Wood's School Enjoy Christmas Frolic

Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, 1912

CHILDREN HAVE CHRISTMAS FROLIC

Pupils of Miss Wood's School Hold Closing Exercises

A SILVER GIFT FOR TEACHER

"Necklace" of Unique Design Presented Miss Wood by Her Scholars — Examinations Held.

Examinations and closing exercises for the fall term of Miss Wood's school were held Thursday afternoon at the Parish house, and were enjoyed by many of the parents and friends of the little people most concerned.

The children and their visitors assembled in the school room at 1 o'clock. Each scholar was first called upon for a Christmas quotation, and responded readily, giving a series of motto verses with delightfully clear enunciation and natural intonation. Then a brief review of the various studies was taken up, both with the idea of quizzing the pupils and demonstrating to the parents the scope of the work covered during the term. Problems were worked out on the blackboard, word studies were conducted and a class in oral geography held, the results in all branches surprising and delighting the parents.

At intervals the work was varied by music, Mrs. L. A. Bishop presiding at the piano. The pretty Christmas songs were given with vim and in a manner which indicated that this branch of the children's education is as carefully looked to as are the three R's, and that a firm foundation for a musical education is being laid in Miss Wood's school.

After the examinations Were concluded the company adjourned to the parlor. Here the center of attraction was the table, about which the children were soon gathered while their teacher, assisted by Mrs. George Justin, Mrs. William Cochrane, Mrs. J. Gerhard and Mrs. L. A. Bishop, served them with refreshments.

The table, which was as pleasing to the eye as the ices and fancy cakes were to the palate, was arranged by Mrs. C. A. Galloway. A miniature Christmas tree, bright with glistening ornaments formed the center piece, and from the top to the corners of the table festoons of pine were draped.

After the refreshments were discussed the children were presented with various tempting bundles, gifts to her pupils from the teacher, and then, in a few appropriate words Rev. John Lloyd presented to Miss Wood, in behalf of her scholars, a "necklace" of unique design. This was a series of pendants on scarlet ribbons, each pendant being a gaily wrapped piece of silver. The combined "jewels" totaled $8, and an accompanying verse asked Miss Wood to buy herself a Christmas gift from her school.

The visitors were asked to remain and have refreshments, and after this the pleasant afternoon was brought to a close. Miss Wood's school reopens Monday, Jan. 6.

—The Daily Commonwealth, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, December 20, 1912, page 6.

A Poem in Memory of Mrs. E. Calvey, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin

1912

IN MEMORIAM

Lines in Memory of Mrs. E. Calvey.

Grandma's chair is vacant
In the old familiar place
Where the children sat and listened,
To her tales of childhood days.

We children loved her dearly
Our grandma, good and kind,
Whose tender voice and loving hands
Now cold in death, they'd ever soothing find.

We will grieve for her and call her,
But we will call in vain:
She has gone to her eternal rest,
To no care or pain.

Her old arm chair is vacant,
But we will hold her memory dear,
And we'll keep the old chair sacred,
Though she'll never more be here.

MARIE FITZGERALD.

—The Daily Commonwealth, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, December 20, 1912, page 5.

Avoid Chronic Grumblers, Discontented and Gloomy

1912

AVOID SPREADERS OF GLOOM

Chronic Grumblers and Avowed Discontented Persons Are Never the Best of Companions in Life

The chronic grumbler is not a good companion nor in any way an admirable person. We fly from her as from a contagious disease. Nothing so certainly affects one's spirits as being in the constant company of a person who has a grievance.

The cherishing of discontent with our circumstances, business, dress, or any other thing in life soon robs us of beauty and marks the countenance with the lines of worry and ill temper that tell their own unhappy story.

Why anybody who is young should indulge in grumbling as a pastime is one of the puzzles that never is solved, yet such people there are, and we meet them to our sorrow almost every day.

If they happen to be passengers on a railway train they pile their bags and bundles on an extra seat for which they have not paid, are conveniently blind to the weariness of other passengers who are standing, and assume the aspect of martyrs when the conductor courteously but peremptorily informs them that they must make room.

They object to having the windows open, although the air may be loaded with impurities from the congestion of the crowd; they scold and fret at the throng or the conductor and rail at providence in general because everything in life is not arranged with a view to their comfort.

—The Daily Commonwealth, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, December 20, 1912, page 3.

Why We Lower the Head in Deep Thinking

1912

WHY HEAD IS LOWERED

GENERALLY THE ACCOMPANIMENT OF DEEP THOUGHT

However, One May Take His Choice of Various Scientific Reasons Assigned for This Practically Universal Habit.

It is a regular part of the education of a Mussulman to learn how to balance his head in order to aid his memory, an exchange says. Although the natives of other countries do not make this a matter of training, it is noticeable that the habit of bowing the head when in deep thought is customary with all humans, even when they do not know why they do it. Closing the eyes can readily be explained by the desire to shut out the sight of objects that might otherwise confuse the brain activities, but the simple act of bending the neck seems to have special significance whether the eyes are closed or not.

Lessening one blood supply and increasing another appears to bring into contact and use an impression on the brain which has not been used frequently or not for a long time.

The innumerable individual mannerisms count for but little, for the habit of contracting the jugulars and carotids and then letting loose the whirlpool seems to be universal and important. The physicians cannot tell us why, for the actual workings of man's brains are still a mystery to a large extent, but men do contract the arteries mentioned and loosen the others instinctively in an effort at concentrated thought.

Bowing the head to conceal thought is also common, although we know of no country where that is a part of one's education. This is doubtless due to a desire not to look a person directly in the eye.

The honest man, searching his brain for truth, thus makes the same obeisance to his instinct as the clever rascal seeking to hide a trick too dangerous for human observation.

Ask the ordinary cheat his price for produce and almost invariably he makes the sign of humility. His head drops forward and frequently his eyelids follow. Intelligent rogues, who do not wish to be found out, avoid thinking of their crimes in the presence of certain people. Instead, they endeavor to concentrate their thoughts upon something distant from the facts, as if they feared a too plain mental picture might be observed by other than their own individual egos.

This fear may be justified in that experience which we all have at some time when a person ransacking his memory for a forgotten thing hears it spoken of by one who has made no effort to think it up, but has merely read it from the brain of the thinker before the thinker himself has put it into words.

—The Daily Commonwealth, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, December 19, 1912, page 3.

The Present Butterfly Decoration Craze

1912

The Butterfly Craze

There is at present a craze for butterfly effects. The design flutters on parasol tops, on smart veilings, and is worked in wonderful, iridescent effects on the new trimmings. The winged favorite is used also as shoe buckles, brooches, coiffure ornaments and beautiful designs are seen in enamels and simuli diamonds. Black satin and velvet butterfly bows edged with brilliants or colored stones are lively. The material is slipped into a frame, and thus any color can be added to the diamond's rimmed bow.


Men's Defects Sized Up

The ten chief defects of men, as decided by the votes of the women readers of Femina, one of the most popular women's weeklies in France, are egotism, easily first with 2,387 votes; then comes jealousy, 1,968; infidelity, 1,783; intemperance, 1,417; cowardice (or rather base mean-spiritedness), 1,350; immorality. 1,070; despotism, 1,057; anger, 1,051; conceit, 1,000; and idleness, 935.


Ideal School Described

M. Augustin Rey, a Parisian architect, has described his ideal school in a recent paper. He said that the beneficial effects of the violet rays were so well known that it was criminal to build in such a way that they could not penetrate to every part of a room; it was doubly important that this should be possible in schoolrooms. If there was a choice between heat, ventilation, and sunshine we should see that we had the sunshine first. His building was so arranged that the classes should meet in the east rooms in the afternoon after the morning sun had thoroughly disinfected them and in the west in the morning, since the afternoon sun would have disinfected the western rooms on the previous day. There should be plenty of ground and plenty of sand about school houses. It is better to economize in decorations than in sunlight and ventilation. He said that while this was his ideal school, he preferred the open air school.


Slow Coach

A gentleman was one day, in the old coaching times, traveling by a coach, which moved at a very slow pace. "Pray," said he to the guard, "what is the name of this coach?" "The Regulator," was the reply. "And a very appropriate name, too," said the traveler, "for I see all the other coaches go by it."

—The Daily Commonwealth, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, December 18, 1912, page 3.

Mrs. Highbrow Speaks of Wolffang Armageddon Mozart

1912

MRS. HIGHBROW SPEAKS OUT

Her Little Dissertation on Music Something to Be Read and Enjoyed

"Yes, yes, indeed! I simply adore music!" Mrs. Wood B. Highbrow clasped her hands with enthusiasm. "You know my beloved Shakespeare says 'If music be the food of love, play on' — he doesn't say on what, but I'm sure he meant the piano — and he adds, 'The man that hath no music in himself or is not moved by conflict of sweet sounds, is fit for trees and stratagems, he spoils!' How true it is; and the same might be said of a woman.

"Oh, yes, Gwendolyn is very musical. She studies at the conservatory — there is such an air of culture about such an institution, you know. Wood wanted her to take lessons at home until she is older, and offered to move the piano into our own conservatory, as we have to keep it heated, anyway, for the plants.

"Poor Wood! he is so practical — a regular pomme-de-terre! He thinks that, what With pianolas and victrolas and violas, there is so much music turned out by machinery nowadays that it hardly pays to do it by hand, anyway. Perhaps he is not altogether wrong — unless one has talent, and Gwendolyn certainly has!

"You should hear her play Ruben's 'Melody in F!' Then she can rattle off any cantata that John Sebastian Cabot ever wrote — or was it Wolffang Armageddon Mozart? I declare, I always get those antique composers mixed. Well, at any rate, it was the wonderful organist who, if he couldn't reach all the notes he wanted with his fingers, used his nose to help out.

"Yes, yes, indeed! Gwendolyn is so talented that her teacher says when she grows up she is sure to be a dilettante!"

—The Daily Commonwealth, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, December 18, 1912, page 2.

Cattle Eat Man's Trousers, Other Things

1912

Cattle Ate Up the Washing

John Corr at Newton Butler sued Frank Beggan for ten dollars damages for the alleged destruction of some clothing. The defendant's cattle had a tremendous appetite, said M. E. Knight, the plaintiff's attorney. One day the plaintiff had a washing out and these cattle made a "meal of it. In his evidence the plaintiff said the washing had been left bleaching on the hedge. When he saw the cows dining off some sheets he pulled the remains out of their mouths. They had completely eaten a pair of trousers, a blouse and some other pieces. — London Globe.


Perfect Compliment

We please ourselves that in you we meet one whose temper was long since tried in the fire, and made equal to all events; a man so truly in love with the greatest future that he cannot be diverted to any less. — Ralph Waldo Emerson.


One of Them

Gerald—I came near losing my life today.
Geraldine—Well, mistakes will happen.


Well, Naturally

A man charged in an English court with disorderly conduct pleaded that, seeing a notice on a lamp post, he climbed up to read it, and the words "Wet paint" slightly annoyed him.

—The Daily Commonwealth, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, December 17, 1912, page 11 and 12.

Keeping Private Letters Private: Burn Them

1912

Wise Man

Once upon a time a wise man penned a letter full of confidential statements, and at the end he wrote a line, heavily underscored: "Burn this letter." Then, being a wise man, he took his own advice and burned the letter himself.


Gift That Is Divine

If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we could cast the gift of a lovely thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels must give — George MacDonald.


Jane Austen Unpopular

It has been pointed out with some surprise that the late W. S. Gilbert had a strong dislike for Jane Austen, but a correspondent of the New York Evening Post reminds us that Mark Twain had a similar antipathy. He said once that "a library that does not contain Jane Austen's works is a good library, even if it hasn't another book in it."


Have Enjoyed Long Life

Living in the Isle of Wight is a family of three brothers and two sisters who are all in receipt of the old age pension, and whose combined ages total 387 years. The veteran of the family is Mrs. Ann Harris of Cowes, aged eighty-four; the "baby" of the family is Mr. Robert Butt of Niton, who has seen only seventy-two summers.

—The Daily Commonwealth, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, December 17, 1912, page 11.