Talk — The Manner of It

1916

The high schools and colleges of the day ought to do something more to teach students how to talk. The young men would be better off for some instruction of the kind, but in the case of the young women it is little less than a necessity. Their voices, to be candid, are by no means as pleasing as they might easily be were their possessors even reminded occasionally of the value of modulation, variation, softness and correct and fairly precise pronunciation.

As it is, however, the sweet girl graduate has anything but a voice and a manner of speaking consistent with the refreshing charms with which she is otherwise so generously blessed. In one university in the state — typical of others — a visitor recently observed that nearly every young woman in the senior class was woefully addicted to habits of mispronunciation. "And their voices," he added, "were most distressing. What they said was well enough, but the manner of their saying it was — agonizing."

The indictment, it must be admitted, is well founded. It is one, however, that should never be brought — for which there should be no support. And there would be none of it, either, if no more than casual attention were paid to the matter in our schools and colleges. Singing is taught — to be only rarely used. Why not teach talking? — Indianapolis News.

Blade and Ledger Agents

1920

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 13.

Note: I checked at Social Security Death Index and there are a few Arthur Grahams, of course, but none from Kansas who would seem to be an exact match for this one. Just by memory, it seems like there was one born in 1914, but is this boy only 5-6 years old? And I believe there was one born in 1894, so he'd be too old. Maybe he's still alive, as of 2008, or maybe he didn't stay in Kansas, or maybe he didn't live long enough to register for Social Security. As for Julius Dragunski, there weren't very many at all, just one, and from Pennsylvania, too. Born Oct. 20, 1908, so that's the right age, and died Sept. 1984, last residence Allegheny, PA. I'm assuming that's our Julius.

Trappers Laugh at "H. C. L."

1919

POINT A LA HACHE, La. — The high cost of living isn't worrying trappers along the lower coast. They are earning as much as $150 a week, because furs are bringing the highest prices ever known here. Muskrat pelts bring 90 cents each, and raccoon pelts $4. School boys who look after traps during their leisure hours are making about $3 a day.

An Important Point

1916

It always seems unfortunate for a boy to have to wear spectacles. It holds him back from the rough and tumble of boy life. If the other boys pick on him, he can hardly retaliate until he has put his glasses away. By that time he may be sent spinning in the dirt, his glasses broken and perhaps an unreasonable punishment is awaiting him at home. But lifelong trouble may result from failure to wear them. Teachers and parents should look carefully for early indications of such defects, and get good advice about them. — East St. Louis Journal.

Cat Caused Much Trouble

1916

Family Pet Has Been Formally Cautioned that "The Cave" is Not Public Property

Out in Woodruff place a number of small boys have banded together and done what most boys have done if they were real-for-sure boys — built a cave, says the Indianapolis News. Approaching this cave is a long underground tunnel about two feet square. What there is in this tunnel in the way of side chambers and the like, the fathers and mothers never will know, but at the inside end of the tunnel is the den, about five feet square, built in a side hill and as dark as the most cavernous depths of a Wyandotte cave.

One of the youngsters belonging to the band of cave dwellers hurried home from school the other afternoon, donned his cave outfit, and made for the tunnel. Crawling in flat on the ground, he made his way toward the den. Arriving there, he heard a scrambling noise just ahead and two fiery spots loomed up in the darkness. His teeth chattered with fright. He couldn't back away, he was too frightened to go forward, and there was no chance of escape at either side. The fiery spots became active and the boy became panicky.

Just what happened in there the outside world will never know, but when the cat — it was the family cat — came out of the tunnel it was going some. No cat ever moved faster, and it didn't stop until it had reached a barn three lots away.

And the boy — when he emerged his face was as white as the arctic snow and he was moving rapidly for the open. The next afternoon the boy painted a sign on which were the words: "The Cave" in white paint, on a blazing yellow background. Gazing proudly at the sign he explained: "Now, if that fool cat can read, he'll keep out of there."

—The Edwardsville Intelligencer, Edwardsville, IL, Sept. 19, 1916, p. 4.

Messengers That Hurry

1910

"Messenger boys who have had experience in the Wall Street district are asked for so frequently that it looks as if we will soon be obliged to insist upon that as a qualification for our boys," said the manager of an up-town messenger agency.

"Customers claim that boys with a Wall Street training execute errands much more expeditiously than the common variety of messenger. I am inclined to think that they are right. Nobody is allowed to loiter down there and even after the boys go away the habit of hurrying sticks for a little while." — New York Times.


Waste of Time

"A girl called up yesterday over the telephone and asked what a kiss was."
"Just so. And what did the sporting editor say?"
"He told her he couldn't show her over the telephone."

Nerviest Little Man in Nebraska

1907

Raymond Weber, Aged 4

He didn't cry, although his father did when the latter found him alive at bottom of a well.

NEBRASKA CITY, Neb., March 9 — Raymond Weber, of this city, is only 4 years old, but he has won distinction of being the nerviest little man in Nebraska. Raymond is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Weber. He was playing in the yard with his 7-year-old brother, and the two went to the well and looked down.

There they saw a silver speck, and they wondered if it were really water and if there were gnomes and fairies and things down there. Raymond leaned way over to see. Suddenly he lost his hold and down he went. His brother ran screaming away, but soon the neighbors for a mile around were on the scene.

It was twenty-five feet to the bottom, and a windlass had to be rigged. Soon the father was going down with a load on his heart as heavy as lead, but hoping also. At the bottom he found his boy, standing in a foot of water, cool and with not a tear. "Me wet, papa," he said, as the sobbing man gathered him up.

Bruin as a Fisherman

May 1902

Old hunters say that the black bear does a good deal of fishing at this season. It is said that carefully studying the sun and approaching so that his shadow will not be cast upon the waters, bruin creeps cautiously to where he sees the telltale fins, and dexterously throws the fish out of the water with a sweep of his paw.

A couple of lads came across a different kind of bear at St. Mary's Lake, near Hull, Canada.

This one preferred having some one else do the fish catching for him.

The boys had got a good sackful of pike, which they had left near a stump while they amused themselves on a raft they had thrown together. They looked ashore after a time to see a big bear walking off with the bag of fish over his shoulder.

He paid not the least attention to their shoutings, having, as it transpired, taken the precaution of breaking the stock of their gun across at the grip before carrying off the fish.


Lovers' Thrilling Experience

Fred Tieman and Miss Rosie Beard, living a few miles below Evansville, Ind., in trying to reach a preacher's house to be married, were forced to cross a long streak of bottomland covered with about ten feet of water. The buggy was upset and the occupants thrown out. Tieman held his sweetheart in his left arm while he cut the harness, freeing the horses from the buggy. The lovers then held on to the horse's tail until the shore was reached, a distance of nearly a mile. The wedding ceremony was postponed for a day. — St. Louis Republic.

A Sugar Barrel

1900

"A sugar barrel, boys!" What a scampering that announcement used to cause among the boys in the vicinity of a country store, a few years ago, when much soft brown sugar was used. The emptied hogsheads, with a luscious coat of sweetness adhering to the rough staves, were cast out in the back yard, much to the boys' delight. John B. Grozier, who spent his youth in Canada, recalls these "sugar-barrel" scenes from his own experience.

One of the boys was always on the watch as informal scout, to give notice to the rest of anything interesting and available in the way of fun. The empty sugar hogshead used to appear with considerable regularity. The scout would see it, and after a liberal taste himself, would rush to the mill-pond, where he would probably find the rest of us bathing.

"A sugar barrel, boys!" was his greeting. It was enough. Putting on half of our clothes as we went, we would dash off after our guide, like a scattered train of camp-followers.

It must have been comical to see a dozen urchins straggling along, picking their way barefooted over the rocks and rough ground; struggling to put on a ragged vest or a coat, while maintaining a sort of Indian jog-trot for fear of losing a share in the feast.

Then, lo, the hogshead; and into it the first comers rushed pell-mell. Those who came after contented themselves with hoping there would be enough for all; or possibly they obtained a morsel or two by clever reaching from the outside. — Youth's Companion.

Servants in South Africa

1900

Only rich people can afford to keep white servants in South Africa. All ordinary folk, says a contributor to the London Mail, have to be content with the well-meant, if casual, ministrations of the native "house-boy."

The best of all servants is a Zulu, especially if he is raw, that is, fresh from his native kraal and totally unspoiled by the wiles of civilization. Such a boy is honest, sober, quick, clean, and anxious to learn the ways of the "umlungu," or white man.

He soon becomes as deft as an English butler, and as handy as the ideal housemaid. He does everything, from cooking to answering the door, and after a little practice he does it well. His knowledge of English at first is scanty, but he soon picks up a few words and mixes up Kaffir, Dutch and English in a quaint polyglot dialect.

When they are new to their work the boys make funny mistakes. A lady once had a good but raw boy who did not understand the etiquette of visiting-cards. Three visitors called. Two of them gave the boy their cards; the third did not happen to have one with her. The boy ushered the first two into the drawing-room, but kept the third waiting in the hall, saying, "Two misses got ticket. You no got ticket, you wait outside."

The boys have all manner of strange names, usually chosen by themselves from some one or other of the words that they hear often used, such as Sixpence, "Tickey" (three-penny piece), Shilling, Breakfast, Kettle, Silly Fool, Ugly, Pint Pot, Scrubber, Chopper or Whiskey.

Of course they have their own tribal names, but they never use them in white men's houses, and if none of the aforementioned common objects serves to provide an appellation, the boy is usually Jim, Charley or John. — Youth's Companion.

Good-By to the Train Boy

1901

Good-by to the train boy. On January 1, 1901, on two important American railroad systems, the experiment, heretofore tried tentatively, of excluding from their cars all peddling of popcorn, peanuts, cigars, newspapers, games, caramels, matches and magazines, was inaugurated and the "train boy" summarily done away with.

Against this innovation serious and urgent opposition was expected, for the train boy, with his wares, had come to be regarded, if not as a cherished, certainly as an unavoidable, incident of American passenger travel by railroad.

In the evolution of modern travel to its present point of excellence, the uniformed conductor distinguishable only by his metal badge, the loud-shouting brakeman, and car coupler disappeared, but the "candy or train boy" with his stock of peanuts and confectionery had lingered on, a burden to the patience of many travelers and an unnecessary survival of archaic railroading.


The Time in Spain

When the clock struck twelve on the dawn of the new century Spain inaugurated a change in the methods of computing time. Hereafter the clocks of that kingdom will count the hours from 1 to 24, instead of going as far 12 and then beginning all over again as they did the day before. The Madrid or Barcelona business man will rise at 7; go to work at 8:30; lunch at 12; quit for the day at 17; dine at 18; go to the theater at 20; reach home at 21:30; lunch 22:42; and retire at 23:30. —Exchange.

Objects To Boys Sewing In School

Illinois, 1910

We received a very strong letter this week from a mother protesting against her boy being taught sewing in school when the time is needed to each branches more suitable for the scholars, at least the boys.

She says: "I think it's a shame. My son has to put two and three hours a week at sewing when they don't half know their arithmetic. John forgot to bring something to sew on this morning, so his teacher sent him home at 11:15 a.m. to get something to sew on, and as I was not at home he couldn't find anything, and when he went back to school again he forgot it. Well, his teacher got angry and shook him and sent him down to the principal. The principal sent him home, with a note and told him he couldn't come back to school again until his father came with him.

"I think it's an outrage in these civilized times to waste two and three hours a week at something they will never have any use for. I think every mother ought to sign a petition to have such nonsense stopped and to have that time devoted to the need of the times, which is business. I think it a shame taxpayers have to pay for such nonsense."

—Suburbanite Economist, Chicago, Oct. 28, 1910.


His Accent

An American-born girl was boasting of her English ancestry in public, and said: "Grandpa has lived in this country over 40 years, but he's just as English in his accent as when he went to Oxford; for instance," she added, "he still says horanges!" — Harper's Magazine.

Hungry Lad Is Shot While Seeking Food

Feb. 1920

Restaurant Owner's Bullets Halts Attempted Burglary

TOPEKA, Kansas — Hungry, cold and unable to sleep, John Ross, 10-year-old lad, who recently escaped from the Topeka Boys' Industrial school, got a bullet wound when at 2 o'clock a.m. he attempted to steal something to eat from a local restaurant.

The proprietor, hearing the noise, shot, and the boy made his escape. Making his way to the Rock Island roundhouse, before telling that he was shot, he asked the men to help him get something to eat.

Young Ross, who says his real name is John Guinness, beat his way to Topeka some time ago from Philadelphia. He says his home is in West Virginia, and that he ran away because he could not get along with his stepfather.

Physicians called to the lad's aid were unable to determine the seriousness of his wound.


Boy Swallows 50-Cent Coin

Nature Removes It After Hospital Surgeons Had Their Try

KANSAS CITY, Missouri — Old Mother Nature proved herself to be the best physician after all in the removing of the 50-cent piece swallowed by Francis Quinn, 14 years old.

The coin at first lodged itself behind the larnyx. An X-ray photograph was taken to determine how best to operate for its removal, but upon the development of the plate no trace of the coin was seen and physicians decided it had slipped down into the digestive tract.

The boy left the hospital with the silver half dollar tucked away in his deepest pocket.

Ways of the Popular Girl

1915

She Is Always Optimistic; Loyal to Her Friends and Finds World Good Place to Live In

She smiles when things go wrong, and does not consider every little disappointment a calamity.

She shares her pleasures with others and keeps her troubles to herself.

She never makes the faults of her friends a subject of conversation; is slow to criticize, and can always find something kind to say about everyone.

She accepts favors gracefully and returns them gladly.

She does not shift her responsibilities on to others, but cheerfully lends a hand to lighten her neighbor's load; strives to keep on the sunny side, but is ever ready with helpful sympathy for those who walk in the shade.

She is loyal to her friends, tender and devoted to those she loves, and generous to all; and she finds the world a good place to live in.


The Second Stage

"Young Gadson and Miss Doppel have reached the second stage of their courtship."
"What is that?"
"They have stopped playing the Victrola and have started to reading poetry together."

Advantages of the Spanking Machine

1905

"I see," said the mother of five, "that out in Peoria, Ill., they've invented a machine for spanking children. She cast a meaning glance at her son Willie, who shifted uneasily in his chair, but said nothing.

"I was thinking," she went on, speaking to no one in particular, "that I would send on to the inventor and get one of the machines. It would come in handy for me, and I could rent it out among some neighbors I know and make money on it. That is, of course, if I didn't use it all the time, which I might." Willie squirmed again, and thanked his stars the machine wasn't there yet. His mother went on.

"I s'pose they have various sized hands for the machine, to be used in accordance with the gravity of the spankee's offense and the spanking area presented to the spanker. For instance, for such offenses as hanging to the tall end of ice carts, about a No. 2 hand, with spikes in it would do. For riding up in the dumbwaiter and scaring the life out of the cook so that she gives notice, a No. 9 hand, with explosive torpedoes in the palm, wouldn't be any too big or heavy. If the machine works with a crank, as I imagine it does, the rapidity of the stroke could be regulated, too, and the severity of the punishment thus graded according to what the young man ought to have coming to him. "Of course, I'm merely talking from hearsay, now, but I think one of those machines on every street corner would be a good thing. They could build a little booth around it and charge admission. Then when a small boy, out with his mother, insisted on running across a crowded street ahead of her, and giving her heart disease by nearly getting run over by cars and automobiles, she could just lead him into the corner spankorium and attend to him good and plentiful. I think the city ought to know about this and provide such places.

"It would be a great machine to act as a deterrent. If a boy was bad you could say to him: 'Be good, now, or I will put papa's hand with the cast-iron fingers on it into the spanker and turn it loose on you.' That would do some good, and I don't think the small boy would think it a bluff either."

—Oakland Tribune, Oakland, CA, Dec. 2, 1905, p. 7.

Daddy's Bedtime Story — "Where the Bad Boy Found His Manners"

1911

The Bad Boy in the Ditch

"He was really a naughty, ill mannered boy," began daddy. "His parents were wealthy, and they left him to the care of servants, who did not know how to make a good boy of him. The result was that he was impudent to the servants and cruel to dogs and cats and insisted on having his own way always. I shall tell you how he learned a good lesson.

"It happened in the summer time. One day this naughty boy, whose name was Dick, was standing at the gate of his father's house when another boy came there. He was a poor boy — you could tell that by his old clothing — but his shirt waist and his knickerbockers were clean and neat, and his face shone with good nature as well as soap and water. You could tell by looking at him that he was a jolly fellow. He carried in his hand a tin can full of ripe, juicy blackberries, and he asked Dick to buy them.

" 'Go away from here,' said Dick, with a frown, 'or I shall set the dog on you. We don't need your berries. We have everything we want!'

" 'If you have, please give me a drink of water,' said the poor boy. But Dick threatened again to set the dog on him, so he went away whistling.

"Then Dick said to himself: 'Those blackberries looked good. I think I will go and get some for myself.' He went out of the gate and down the road to a place where he knew the blackberries grew. The bushes were on the far side of a wide ditch, which was filled with mud. Dick was too lazy to find a good place to cross, so he tried to jump the ditch.

"He landed right in the middle in mud up to his waist When he tried to get out he found that he was stuck fast and could not free himself. Then he called for help. But it was a lonely spot, and for a long time he heard no answer. Then he heard a voice saying, 'Who's there?'

"Then Dick called again as loudly as he could, and soon he saw at the side of the ditch the poor boy whom he had treated so rudely. 'Hello!' said the boy. 'How did you get in there?'

" 'I fell in,' said Dick. 'Please help me out?'

" 'All right,' said the other boy. And he lay down at the side of the ditch, not minding the mud on his clothing, and reached out his hand to Dick. He was a strong boy, so he soon was able to get Dick out. Dick thanked him and went home to be cleaned off.

"The next day when the poor boy came around again to try to sell his berries Dick was very nice to him. 'Where did you find your manners?' asked the boy. 'In the ditch,' said Dick."

The Chaperon for Young Ladies

1906
Of course the chaperon question, as it is generally understood, is a middle class one, says the London World; but Father Vaughan perfectly understood what he was saying when he alluded to the lack of surveillance of a properly dignified and perfectly agreeable kind from which so many girls really suffer nowadays.

This is due partly to the fact that mothers do not seem to be want to be bothered to look after their girls, and partly to the fact that hostesses seem to resent much "mothering." But even allowing for the fact that the preacher has not spared his colors in order to make his picture sufficiently striking, one knows perfectly well that far too much latitude is given to girls not only in country houses but in town as well.

It would not be at all a bad thing for English society if we could go back to the days when people keep almost absurdly watchful eyes on the proprieties. Their vigilance may sometimes have been eluded, it is true; it may sometimes have provoked ridicule, but at least it conveyed the idea that mothers set high standard for their girls, and were at some pains to see that they came somewhere near it.

It was good for men to feel this, moreover, for it surely made women seem better worth the winning if they had been jealously guarded under the experienced eye of a duenna who knew man and his ways.

The Russian Dance "Circling," No Speaking, No Smiling

1878

A Russian Dance

They have a peculiar kind of dance, conducted on the greens of country villages in Russia.

The dancers stand apart, a knot of young men here, a knot of maidens there, each sex by itself, and silent as a crowd of mutes. A piper breaks into a tune, a youth pulls off his cap, and challenges his girl with a wave and a bow. If the girl is willing she waves her handkerchief in token of assent, the youth advances, takes the corner of his handkerchief in his hand, and leads his lady, round and round. No word is spoken and no laugh is heard. Stiff with cards and rich with braids, the girl moves heavily by herself, going round and round, never allowing her partner to touch her hand.

The pipes go droning on for hours in the same sad key and measure; and the prize of merit in this "circling," as this dance is called, is given by the spectators to the lassie who, in all that summer revelry, has never spoken and never smiled.

Scout Naturalist Advises Exploration, Discovery

1920

Scout Naturalist Advises Boys Not to Limit Walks to Roads and Beaten Paths

"Do not limit your winter walks to the roads and the beaten paths," advises Edward F. Bigelow, the scout naturalist, in Boys' Life.

"That may be necessary in the marshland of the summer, but when the freezing weather has been prolonged take to the swamps. But be careful. Even the coldest weather sometimes leaves treacherous places in the underbrush and in other sheltered spots. Sometimes the frost is only superficial even when ice on the open ponds is thick. A little good, plain common sense will discover the riches and avoid the danger.

"One never can see the best parts of a brook bank from the opposite bank. They must be seen from the middle of the stream. I never thoroughly realized that until I started out with camera and rubber boots so that I could safely go into water about a foot and a half or two feet in depth. The ice fringes, the ornate palaces, the wonderful recesses, the strings of jewels, the fairyland caves are all beyond our most vivid dreams. I cannot sufficiently emphasize this, because I know that there are scouts who will not believe, no matter how often I reiterate. I did not believe it myself until I tried it, and the trial was almost by chance.

"But when I discover this foreign fairyland, I hold it in my possession and frequently explore it. There are many puzzles in that icy region. One cannot even imagine how some of those formations could have been made, but some of them may be puzzled out, and solving the problem is always entertaining and more so than finding the answer to word riddles. Things are more interesting than words."

Girl Bride Takes Poison with a Smile

1901

Girl Bride Drains Cup in Presence of Husband

CHICAGO - Mrs. Belle Foran, a girl bride, kissed her husband, and sent him off smiling and happy to his work. Then she sent a neighbor's child after him, and when he returned she confronted him with a cup in her hand.

Her cheeks were flushed as if with pleasure and she smiled as she said: "Tom, I'm going take poison." The boy husband did not try to check her, because he thought she was jesting and held only a cup of water in her hand. Then she swallowed a draught of carbolic acid and sank to the ground in an agony of pain.

In two hours the bride was dead. Foran knelt at the side of the body and cried; then resolutely folded his arms and denied admittance to the relatives who had opposed his marriage. It is supposed the girl was despondent because her marriage had resulted in the estrangement of her husband from his family.

—Dubuque Daily Telegraph, Dubuque, IA, Sept. 6, 1901, p. 3.