Antique Clocks

1901

A common trick of clock makers and repairers of years ago, when the craze for antique "grandfather" clocks first showed itself, was to alter the names and dates of the original makers on such of these clocks as came to them. This trick has made it difficult to prove the exact age of an old clock now, even by experts, and still more difficult to learn the name of the real maker. Reputable repairers do not follow the practice in these days, having realized that it results in the end in injury to the business. — Jewelers' Circular-Weekly.


Lions and Tigers

There is nothing odd or peculiar about the sleep of the lions and tigers. In captivity they show the same indifference to danger that they manifest in the jungles and by day or night will slumber through an unusual tumult, unmindful or unconscious of the noise. Their sleep is commonly heavy and peaceful.

Note: Interesting for the eye, the combination of u's, m's, n's together: "an unusual tumult, unmindful or unconscious."

You Have A Beautiful Face (1916 Advertisement)

1916

(Click graphic for bigger view)

But Your Nose?

In this day and age attention to your appearance is an absolute necessity if you expect to make the most out of life. Not only should you wish to appear as attractive as possible, for your own self-satisfaction, which is alone well worth your efforts, but you will find the world in general judging you greatly, if not wholly, by your "looks," therefore it pays to "look your best" at all times.

Permit no one to see you looking otherwise; it will injure your welfare! Upon the impression you constantly make rests the failure or success of your life. Which is to be your ultimate destiny? My new Nose-Shaper, "Trados" (Model 22) corrects now ill-shaped noses without operation, quickly, safely and permanently. Is pleasant and does not interfere with one's daily occupation, being worn at night.

M. Trilety, Face Specialist.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 7.

Note: I doubt if Trilety is still in business, so please save your stamp.


Women and Love

Love is a candle which all women hope to light with a match.

Gems of 1900 B.C. Exhibited in U.S.

1919

ARE BRIGHT AS NEW, THO 3800 YEARS OF AGE.

Were Worn by Egyptian Princess and Found in 1914 by English Scientist.

NEW YORK, N. Y. — Jewelry worn by an Egyptian princess of the twelfth dynasty, nineteen hundred years before the Christian era, was displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

It is declared to be the finest collection of personal adornment ever brought out of Egypt.

When marauders entered the tomb of Princess Sathathoriunut at some odd moment in the last 3,800 years they took away her mummy and even the elaborate funeral trappings, but overlooked a niche containing the wonderfully wrought ornaments she wore when attending the ancient equivalent for a first night at the opera.

Prof. W. M. Flinders Petrie, head of an English archaeological society, dug the collection out in 1914, and today it looks as bright as if it had just come from the makers.

It consists of a gold necklace inlaid with carnelian lapis lazuli and green feldspar and another pectoral similarly made of King Senusert II., father of the princess.

There is also a gold collar of double lion heads, a girdle of gold with rhombic jeweled heads, a necklace of amethyst with gold lion claw pendants, armlets and bracelets with gold bars and beads of gold, carnelian and turquoise; and parts of the princess' jewel box, made of ebony with gold and carved ivory panels.

The jewels are identified as belonging to the princess by her name and the name of her father in cartouches on the larger pieces. According to custom, the Cairo museum retained the choice of the collection, a diadem.

Since its purchase by the museum the collection has been in a vault in London, stipulation having been made that it should remain there until six months after hostilities closed.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 12.

Owns Two Wonderful Pigs

1915

Pair of Jersey Reds That People Come Miles to See

GOSHEN, Ind., Dec. 16 — Two pigs, thought to be the most curious specimens of their kind ever born, altho dead are being preserved in alcohol by their owner, Frank Baker, of West Goshen. Scores of people have come miles to see the freak pigs, which were born with a litter of fifteen.

One has two bodies, but only one head; also has eight legs, two tails, four ears, one having a horn growing from it. The other pig has a trunk similar to that of a baby elephant; has one large eye in the center of its forehead, with a three-inch tail just above the eye, also a long tail at the natural place. The pigs are Jersey Reds.



Dinner Dish 167 Years Old

Owner Has Traced Meat Platter Back That Far

LEWISTOWN, Pa., Dec. 16. — Mrs. B. Ballentine, of this place, has in her possession a large steak platter that is over 167 years old. She can trace its existence back that many years.

A Poet's Treasures – What Was Found in Eugene Field's Room

1896

A Poet's Treasures

Eugene Field's Queer Room and Its Strange Contents

Before we go upstairs to Eugene Field's room, the one which holds his choicest treasures, it is necessary to remind you again that he has a child's love of grotesque toys and of barbaric colors and effects. He was especially fond of red. The room in which he died is papered with a fantastic, swirling pattern on a red ground, which is absolutely exasperating to those people who prefer soft browns and dull reds. Few persons understand what his idea was in selecting this red paper with its grotesque yet conventional swirl. In Henry B. Fuller's "With the Procession" that author tells about a Chicago woman named Susan Bates, who furnished her whole house magnificently except one little room.

Upon this room she spent a great deal of money, and visited many old-fashioned stores, in order to furnish it like a primitive one she had occupied when a girl in her father's house. Now this was partly Eugene Field's idea in furnishing his own room. He was fond of grotesque effects, he loved red passionately, and he wanted a reminder of the furnishings of a century ago. Where he found that gorgeous red paper, or the old-fashioned calico for the red curtain, would be difficult to tell, but he had a knack for discovering quaint things which other people pass by without notice. When it is added that the rugs on the floor are also red, perhaps it may be imagined that this room in hideous. But it is not. The long bookcase on one side, the white column in the middle around which are arranged shelves holding Mr. Field's treasures, and a gray screen repeating with a slight variation the same singular swirl that is upon the walls relieve the eye to such an extent that the effect is harmonious.

As you enter the room, you are confronted with two hideous figures. An outlandish Japanese figure is suspended from the wall by one arm. In the other it holds three Japanese gongs fastened together so as to make a loud sound when struck with the red stick. The other is the face of a hobgoblin attached to the headboard of his bedstead. Field pretended that he bought it to frighten away his babies when they insisted upon interrupting him while he was writing; but, like their father, they were so fond of the ludicrous that the strange faces the monster would make when certain strings were pulled only made them laugh; so the intended bugaboo but added to the attractions of the room.

On the shelves one may find a strange collection of quaint bottles of every conceivable shape and size, and Mr. Field hunted many shops for those candelabra which our grandmothers loved — those with glass pendants through which a child may distinguish the seven colors of the rainbow. He also had a queer collection of canes, candlesticks and baby shoes. Not alone the first shows of his own babies wore, with the toes and heels worn out, but wood shoes, and even glass shoes, reminding one of Cinderella's glass slipper. There are also two strange wooden horses, one used by Mr. Toole, the English actor, when he played "The Cricket on the Hearth," and the other, daubed with a few spots of paint, used by Mr. Jefferson in the same play. Neither must one forget Mrs. Hawthorne's ginger-jar, nor the ax Mr. Gladstone gave Eugene Field. The ax is suspended above the window. — St. Nicholas.

Fearfully Foxy (and other very lame antique jokes)

Fearfully Foxy

1916

"I work a foxy scheme on my boy. He'd rather wash the dishes than wash his hands, so I let him wash the dishes."
"What's the foxy part?"
"Why, he gets his hands clean." — Louisville Courier-Journal.


Very Promising

"Jones strikes me as a very promising young man."
"He strikes me that way too. But be never pays it back." — California Pelican


Talent is that which is in a man's power. Genius is that in whose power a man is. — Lowell.


Mutual Worry

Mrs. Call—"It's too bad of you. Ethel, to worry your mamma so." Ethel aged five, tearfully, "Oh, well, Mrs. Call. If you'd live with mamma as long as I have you'd know which of us was to blame." — St. Paul Pioneer Press


Poor Jack

Clara—Jack intends to have all his own way when we are married. Clara's Mamma—Then why do you want to marry him? Clara—To relieve his mind of a false impression.


Poor Man

"Is the man your sister is goin' to marry rich?" "Naw. Every time the marriage is mentioned pa says, 'Poor man!'" — Houston Post

—Stevens Point Daily Journal, Stevens Point, Wisconsin, July 29, 1916, page 3.

The Treacle Bible Goes Back At Least to 1701

1920

Interesting Old Bible

One of the original owners of the Treacle Bible, living in the eighteenth century, had made notations on the fly leaf concerning "John, who was born on Friday the 10th of February, 1769, at a quarter after eight at night, was baptized at Crossgate church on March 16 following, by the Reverend Mr. Wheeler, who died of smallpox, 12th Aprile, 1709, and was buried the next day at Crossgate church, aged eight weeks and five days." Other deaths, marriages and births were dated as far back as 1701-1702.


Progressing Rapidly

For the fourth time a new baby had arrived at the home of Robert's sister Nellie. When informed of the event one of his aunts told him in an impressive manner that he was now an uncle for the fourth time. Rather fussed, the little fellow answered: "Goodness me, if things keep on I'll soon be a grandpa."


Novelty Soon Wears Off

An experienced young woman told us the other day that there is a time in every engaged girl's life when about a day's growth of beard adds to her thrill, but that after the novelty wears off clean shaving is much preferred.- Ohio State Journal.

—Bedford Gazette, Bedford, Pennsylvania, January 9, 1920, page 10.