Why Flowers Bloom and Birds Sing

1901

The old comfortable belief of our forefathers that the flowers and fruits and all the good things of the earth were created for their benefit has been completely shattered by science. The shining gold of April celandine, the scent of white violets, are not for us at all, says science, not even for the insects that come to them for honey but just for the sake of the flowers themselves, which must get cross fertilized or die out. Self, self only, is the bedrock of it all. So the violets are not fragrant for us, and the thrush was not made to sing on our account but to charm his mate, and the stars do not shine so as to light our way through the wood and across the wild on moonless nights.

Fortunately this discovery need not take away our appetite for the feast which is spread out. We need have no more compunction in coming to it uninvited than has the bee or the moth in sipping the nectar of the blossom. It may even be that we, like they, do render unconsciously some return for benefits received. — Saturday Review.

The Kissing Cashier of Paris

1905

Ideas That Draw Custom

Proprietors of European Cafes Show Enterprise

In many of the European cafes of the cheaper order it is the invariable custom to print the daily menu on the napkin provided for the guest, so that when the latter desires to study the bill of fare he has to raise his serviette from his knee in order to do so.

But perhaps the most extraordinary custom in connection with restaurant life is that which obtains in a certain little cafe in the suburbs of Paris, where every customer whose bill amounts to 25 cents or over is entitled to receive a kiss from the very attractive young lady who acts as cashier to the establishment.

So used has the damsel become to the osculatory routine that she goes through it without the slightest reticence, looking upon it purely as a matter of business, and it is reported that the proprietor of the restaurant is more than satisfied with the result of his curious device for attracting patrons.

Another enterprising restauranteur has instituted the practice of making a present of a box of Havana cigars every New Year's day to those patrons who have been pretty regular in their attendance at his establishment during the preceding year.

The Quack — Fake Healthcare for Gullible Public

1915

"Every age has its quacks, its fakers, its fortune-tellers with their countless vicitms," says Leslie's Weekly.

"Newspapers expose the quacks, the postoffice department denounces the fakers and get-rich-quick schemers but the newspapers are filled with the advertisements of quack medicines and the postoffices with the prospectuses of the get-rich-quick schemers.

"The campaign of education goes on, however. The public is learning. Analyses of quack medicines show them, in many instances, to be made up of water, salt and other cheap ingredients. A bottle that costs a few cents sells for a dollar.

"The gullible public swallows the quack medicines and the manufacturers of the so-called 'remedies' revel in millions.

"The sick always want to get well. Anything that deadens pain, even for a moment, is promptly accepted as a remedy, though, in the end suffering is intensified and sickness prolonged.

"The last resort is the doctor, the practiced, experienced physician — the one who should have been consulted first. Often he comes too late. The quack medicine may have done its work, but the doctor must take the blame.

"It is not strange that the sick get impatient to recover their health, nor that they can be so easily imposed upon, but experience should teach its valuable lesson. Yet it doesn't, for if it did quacks would disappear, the fakers would fade away and the get-rich-quick schemers be heard of no more.

"But for the credulity of mankind — a credulity often based upon ignorance — we should have a healthier, wealthier and a happier people.

"As we have quack remedies for human ills, so we have quacks prescribing for all the ills of society and taking the places of elder statesmen who ought to be first.

"So the loud-mouthed demagogue, the persuasive pleader for the rights of 'the common people', the fakers of politics, the 'sockless Simpsons' and the 'Mother Joneses,' are knocking at the door of the White House, intruding upon the makers of party platforms and publishing their preposterous vaporings in the columns of a sensational press.

"The statesmen must take a back seat until the people have tried the quack remedies and witnessed the results. We are witnessing some of the natural results in the revival of the soup houses, the crowding of municipal lodging places and all the employment agencies, while engines are still and factories cutting down their payrolls.

"In our legislative halls the quacks and the fakers are pressing new and still newer remedies upon legislators. As a result we are having experimental legislation at the expense of the taxpayer. If one experiment fails, try another, just as one quack remedy is replaced by a worse one. The taxpayer foots the bills, until patience ceases to be a virtue and then, in their wrath, they will rise, cast out the quacks and beseech the elder statesmen to resume the reins of government.

"Experience still continues to the best schoolmaster."