Why Some Men Don't Get Insurance

1895

Men who make application for insurance in considerable amounts, say for upward of $10,000, are not only very carefully examined by physicians appointed by the insurance companies, but during the period while their application is being examined are kept under surveillance by a well organized detective service.

Some of the reports which are made of a man's habits and mode of life, with perhaps some of his pet secrets, as made to the detective bureaus of the different companies, would prove mighty interesting reading. Of course such matters can never become public property, and, in fact, the records are destroyed as soon as the application is passed upon. This fact, which is not generally known, may explain much to solid citizens who, for some unknown reason, have had their applications postponed indefinitely.

The insurance companies are entirely justified in employing such an instrument to learn the facts about their risk. Men who live rationally, like men who fill positions of trust honestly, have nothing to fear from being watched. — New York Press.

Signals To Mars

1901

What a British Scientist Thinks of Their Possibility

In a London newspaper Sir Robert S. Ball writes of the futility of human endeavor to attract the attention of possible inhabitants of Mars. He says: "If the whole extent of Lake Superior was covered with petroleum and if that petroleum was set on fire, then I think we may admit that an inhabitant of Mars who was furnished with a telescope as good as that which Mr. Percival Lowell uses at Flagstaff might be able to see that something had happened. But we must not suppose that the mighty conflagration would appear to the Martian as a very conspicuous object.

"It would rather be a very small feature, but still I think it would not be beyond reach of a practical observer in that planet. On the other hand, if an area the size of Lake Superior on Mars was to be flooded with petroleum and that petroleum was to be kindled we should expect to witness the event from here not as a great and striking conflagration, but as a tiny little point of just discernible light. The disk of Mars is not a large object, and the conflagration would not extend over the three-hundredth part of that disk.

"It is sufficient to state these facts to show that the possibility of signaling to Mars is entirely beyond the power of human resources."

Jesse Pomeroy Ends 40th Year in Prison

1916

Notorious Prisoner Longer in "Solitary" Than Any Other "Lifer" in Country.

BOSTON, Massachusetts — Jesse Pomeroy, serving a life sentence for murder, has just completed his fortieth year in solitary confinement at the state prison in Charlestown. Pomeroy is said to have served in solitary longer than any other prisoner in this country, and, unless the commitment order is changed, he will have to be kept in that manner until he dies.

He began his sentence at the age of 16, after having been convicted of diabolical attacks on several small children. In recent years numerous efforts have been made to secure for him the privileges of a "trusty," but all of these have been unavailing.

Numerous attempts at escape have been made by the notorious prisoner, and these, together with his known predilection for taking human life, have influenced the authorities in strictly adhering to the conditions of the original sentence which prescribed solitary imprisonment.

While "solitary imprisonment" is the name given to the punishment Pomeroy is undergoing, it does not mean that he never leaves his cell. He goes out in the yard every day in charge of a guard and spends an hour there. But that is while the other prisoners are at work in the shops. During the forty years that he has been confined Pomeroy has seldom seen the face of a human being other than those of his keepers and of his aged mother, who died several years ago.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 5.

He Gets No Pie or Custard

1919

Such Is Hubby's Plea in Cross-bill for Divorce.

FINDLAY, Ohio — It was all right for the wife of Larson L. Brown to take hubby's pay envelope every Saturday and out of the contents pay a premium on the life insurance of her former husband, but when Mrs. Brown fed Larson side meat and boiled potatoes about 365 meals each year then he balked. This was learned when Brown's cross petition to his wife's petition for a divorce was filed. Brown intimated that a little pie and cup custard would have appeased things.

Unlucky Men

1901

"The unlucky men are all kin; they all have certain qualities alike," says An American Mother in The Ladies' Home Journal. "They have eyes keen to look into the root of things, but which also dream dreams and see visions; they have hot human blood, they love or hate in no half way measure. To each of them, too, comes at times — no matter what the business or pursuit may be by which they strive to push their way among men and to grow rich — a sudden disgust of it, heartfelt and real, a contempt for the work and for its successes. They dream of something before them better than money or office, and they try to clutch at it. So they go through life groping for success with one hand and for their dream with the other, and they lose both. We must choose either God or Mammon as master and keep faith with him if we mean to succeed."

The Life Insurance Cure

1900

Result of a Dying Bachelor's Plan For a Novel Funeral

"I don't know that life insurance is a cure for disease," said the retired life insurance solicitor, "but I know of an instance which makes it look that way. In the town where I first began business was a bachelor of about 50 years, who was quite alone in the world and had some years before taken out a $5,000 policy on himself for the benefit of a maiden sister, who had died a year before the events of this story. He kept his policy going, however, because it was a good way to save money, and one day he was taken down with some kind of fever. He grew worse day after day, until one day the doctor told him that he would in all likelihood be dead within the next 24 hours.

"This suggested his life insurance money, all he had to leave, and he immediately began to talk with the doctor on the subject of a proper disposal of it. He concluded after some thought that the best thing to do with it was to blow it on a tremendous big funeral for himself, including a banquet for all the people he knew. This was an entirely new idea for a funeral, and when the doctor left him that night to the care of his nurse his mind was entirely occupied with his funeral. He talked to the nurse about it, and when the nurse made him stop he lay and thought about it. In fact, he became so much interested in the details of his funeral that he quite forgot about having to die to make it possible.

"In the morning when the doctor came he found his patient in a wild perspiration and his pulse beating in much better fashion than it had been doing for some days. He also found the general condition of the patient much improved. He was greatly astonished and at once began to ask questions. The patient told him with eager interest of a lot of new things he had thought of for the funeral and some that bothered him a good deal and said he had been thinking of it all night. Then the doctor laughed and told him he guessed the funeral would have to be postponed, for he wasn't going to die just then anyhow. Nor did he, and he isn't dead yet, but he is married and has his policy paid up for his wife's benefit." - Chicago Inter Ocean.

Greeley's Thoughts on Home Life

1915

Horace Greeley, the noted editor, once wrote, "I think we all, as we grow old, love to feel and know that some spot on earth is peculiarly our own — ours to possess and to enjoy — ours to improve and to transmit to our children. As we realize the steady march of years in the thinning of our blanched locks, the deepening of our wrinkles, we more and more incline to shun travel and crowds and novelties, and concentrate our affections on the few who are infolded by the dear hut, our home."

"The ax is the healthiest implement that man ever handled, and is especially so for habitual writers and other sedentary workers, whose shoulders it throws back, expanding their chests and opening their lungs," Horace Greeley wrote. "If every youth and man, from 15 to 50 years old, could wield an ax two hours a day, dyspepsia would vanish from the earth and rheumatism become decidedly scarce. I am a poor chopper, yet the ax is my doctor and delight."

Horace Greeley said: "I should have been a farmer. All my riper tastes incline to that blessed calling whereby the human family and its humbler auxiliaries are fed. Its quiet, its segregation from strife and brawls and heated rivalries, attract and delight me. I hate to earn my bread in any calling which complicates my prosperity in some sort with others' adversity — my success with others' defeat. The farmer's floors may groan with the weight of his crops, yet no one else deems himself the poorer therefor. He may grow 100 bushels of corn or forty of wheat to every arable acre without arousing jealousy or inciting to detraction."

No Soda Fountain on U.P. Trains

1911

Recently a story was printed in a number of newspapers to the effect that the Union Pacific would install soda fountains on its passenger trains this summer. Gerrit Fort, Passenger Traffic Manager, has sent out the following slip to all agents denying the story:

"Dear Sir: In response to your inquiry concerning the alleged arrangement to place soda fountains on our trains:

"The story in question is absolutely without foundation, and had its origin in the fertile brain of an Omaha reporter who was short of news on the day in which the story was printed. Yours truly, Gerrit Fort."


Important Things of Life

Holiness is an infinite compassion for others. Greatness is to take the common things of life and walk truly among them. Happiness is a great love and much serving. — Olive Schreiner.


Wifely Devotion

"A man must have so much on his mind," is the belief by which a wife often supports a cheerful face under rough answers and unfeeling words. — George Elliot.


A Cracker Dainty

A friend in the Walton News tells of a visit to Wilkes county, where he was treated to a new dish, "rabbit sausage," which he declared was "simply fine." — Macon Telegraph.

The Luckless Procrastinator

1914

The procrastinator is always liable to be luckless. To postpone a duty that should be discharged at once is to invite trouble for all concerned.

Many a man who is well disposed toward life insurance is still deferring the purchase of a policy which would be a boon to his family in the event of his death. The would be insurant is in good health today, but tomorrow he may be stricken with a disease that may bar him from the ranks of the insurable.

His reason for putting off securing a policy may he that it is inconvenient at present to pay the premium. But he should consider carefully the fact that life insurance will never be cheaper for him than it is today. His yearly premium on a policy taken out now would be appreciably less than would be the premium on a policy of the same amount taken out when he is a year older. Delay, therefore, will add somewhat to the yearly burden he would have to carry. The best thing for any uninsured man to do is to insure at once. — Leslie's Weekly.

Radio-activity and Life

1906

European Scientist Speculates on Some interesting Analogies

J. J. Laudin Chabot makes, in the Physikalische Zeitschrift, some striking speculations on certain analogies shown by the phenomena of radio-activity with ebullition on the one hand, and with the decomposition as accompanying, say, the life of albumen, on the other.

The atoms of radio-active substances are in a state of unstable equilibrium. Some of them every now and then pass abruptly into the next state. The passage amounts to an explosion, although it differs from ordinary explosions in not necessarily tending to the simultaneous explosion of all other atoms around. A somewhat similar phenomenon is presented by a boiling liquid.

Some striking analogies to the behavior of the emanations and the rare gases such as argon and helium are offered by nitrogen, which is a constituent of nearly every explosive substance. Among the compounds of nitrogen, cyanogen (carbon plus nitrogen) deserves special consideration on account of its importance in the decomposition of albumen. All the nitrogenous compounds resulting from the decomposition of albumen contain syanogen. This has a high internal energy, and it is therefore extremely unstable. Pflueger believes it to be a constituent of all living matter, and calls cyanic acid a "semi-living" molecule.

The presence of oxygen compounds increase the instability of the cyanogen compounds, so that, as in the case of the emanations, the least impulse suffices to make the living molecule explode and produce helium. The transformation of albumen takes place according to the same mathematical law as does the decay of radio-activity. Like the radio-active substances, albumen has a limited and predetermined life.

The phenomenon of life would thus become in principle identical with those of radio-activity, by an equally necessary result of known causes, but of a much wider scope in nature.

Old Style and New Style Calendars

1874

When the calendar of Julius Caesar was reformed under Pope Gregory XIII, in 1582, by a brief it was ordered that October 5th should be called October 15th. The adoption of the Gregorian calendar in England took place September, 1752, when the 3rd of the month was called the 14th. To change Old Style to New add 11 days. George Washington was born Feb. 11, 1732, O.S., but adding the 11 days, we celebrate the 22nd in honor of his birth. If the revolution of the earth around the sun occupied exactly 365¼ days, the calendar would never need correction. As that is about 11 minutes longer than the real period, we add a day every four years to February, omitting it in 1700, 1800, and 1900.


A Solemn Thought

Ten thousand human beings set forth together on their journey. After ten years one-third at least have disappeared. At the middle point of the common measure of life but half are still upon the road. Faster and faster, as the ranks grow thinner, they that remain till now become weary and lie down to rest no more. At threescore and ten a band of some four hundred still struggle on. At ninety these have been reduced to a handful of thirty trembling patriarchs. Year after year they fall in diminishing numbers. One lingers, perhaps, a lonely marvel, till the century is over. We look again and the work of death is finished.

To A Cow (poetry) – How Canst Thou Be So Satisfied!

1878

TO A COW.
Why, cow, how canst thou be so satisfied!
So well content with all things here below,
So unobtrusive and so sleepy-eyed,
So meek, so lazy, and so awful slow!
Dost though not know that everything is mixed,
That naught is as it should be on this earth,
That grievously the world needs to be fixed,
That nothing we can gain has any worth,
That times are hard, that life is lull of care,
Of sin and trouble, and untowardness.
That love is folly, friendship but a snare!
Pretty cow, this is no time for laziness!
The cud thou chewest is not what it seems!
Get up and moo! Tear round and quit thy dreams! — D. L. PROUDFIT.

—Daily Star, Marion, Ohio, Jan. 25, 1878, p. 1.


It is said that at three years old we love our mothers, at six our fathers, at ten our holidays, at sixteen dress, at twenty our sweethearts, at twenty-five our wives, at forty our children and at sixty ourselves.


The daughters of Jefferson Davis are at school in Germany.

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.

They Do Say

Massachusetts, 1916

That all the world loves to josh a lover.

That the lunch cart boys take their meals at all hours.

That the average messenger boy doesn't look like a runaway.

That taking all in all it is just as well dreams don't come true.

That a change of scene is the only thing to cure the vacation fever.

That some women show wonderful ingenuity in distributing an obese figure.

That some girls can be modest even though their skirts are short and full.

That sometimes 'tis love's young dream and other times it is a nightmare.

That while tenements are in great demand rents have been creeping upward.

That there's not much difference between taking a jitney and taking a chance.

That postal cards from El Paso, Texas, show that there are many fine buildings in that city.

That the fellow who hangs around looking for a political job ought to get life at hard labor.

That a few of our school teachers might with advantage have stayed in school a little longer.

That the fellow with the right kind of civic pride will not throw papers in the streets or parks.

That the price of meat is practically prohibitive for the poor man with a large family of small children.

That life is full of annoyances, including the man who comes in and presents a letter of introduction.

That some widows' soon wish they could take back all the mournful things they said after the funeral.

That the reason a woman always loves the sweetheart she didn't marry Is because she didn't marry him.

That there should be a statute compelling the gossipy man to wear petticoats.

That frequently the man who thinks. he knows it all doesn't know enough to keep still.

That while we wouldn't give our kingdom for a Ford, we'd consider one at a bargain.

That every time a fellow sees a girl driving an automobile he gets out of the way.

That Joe says there isn't any use of washing the windows when it looks like rain.

That the hens are beginning to get that independent look they wear when eggs are going up.

That Jack and Jill went up the hill to feed the little deer, and when they fed the little dear he acted very queer.

That there is a certain contradiction between downcast eyes and striped stockings — when they belong to the same girl.

That sick babies will gain more by one day in the woods than by taking any amount of medicine in the stifling heat of the city.

That a great many people who try to raise vegetables in their gardens show a woeful lack of skill in handling corn, potatoes, tomatoes and lettuce.

—The Lowell Sun, Lowell, Massachusetts, July 15, 1916, p. 4.

Insurance Collected, "Dead" Man is Alive

1922

CLARION, Pa. — A. W. Weed, formerly an "oil shooter" of Oklahoma, today told how he wandered about the country for nearly two years, his mind a temporary blank, following an explosion of a magazine of the Osage Torpedo company at Pawhuska, Okla., where he was employed. Weed, whose wife collected $6,000 insurance in the belief that he was blown to atoms, related his experiences from the time he found himself lying beside a small stream following the explosion, until he was arrested and lodged in jail here for driving an automobile without a license.

—The Lima News, Lima, Ohio, Aug. 26, 1922, p. 2.

Grafting In a New Root — Renew Your Old Life, Do Something New

1921

By DR. WM. E. BARTON

IF THE top of a tree dies down, or does not bear a satisfactory kind of fruit, new branches can be grafted in. But what if it be the root that dies? Is there any way of grafting in a new root?

In Riverside, California, stand the two parent navel orange trees. If I have the information correctly, the entire navel orange industry on the Pacific coast began with the successful propagation of that kind of orange from these two trees.

One of them stands on Magnolia avenue, and the other was transplanted by President Theodore Roosevelt, and stands in front of the Mission Inn.

Both these trees are very old and manifestly dying. But they are trying the experiment of creating a new root for one of them. If that succeeds, I presume they will do the same for the other.

They take a vigorous young tree, cut off its top, plant it as close to the old tree as possible and at an angle, and graft the top into the side of the old tree a little above the root.

They have grafted in several such young roots, and they appear to be growing and to be saving the life of the old tree.

Such an undertaking lends itself to reflection. There are men who are dying at the top because they have not sufficient root. Why not dig down near the root, and put in a new one?

You can learn Greek at forty, or study Browning at fifty, or become an expert on psychoanalysis at sixty, or make yourself either a learned man or a fool at seventy.

Maybe you do not care for those particular studies — in that case there are others.

Why should not a man who lacked opportunities, in his youth for higher education, set about it in middle life, and pursue a course of good reading? Why not study astronomy, or botany, or literature?

Many men die a good many years before the undertaker carts them away. A man begins to die when he ceases to grow. Why not graft in a new root?

Words of Wise Men

1921

Diffused knowledge immortalizes itself.

A little commendation goes a long way.

Ambition to merit praise fortifies our virtue.

He who does what he can has done what he ought.

The strength of will is the test of a young man's possibilities.

Truth is a mighty instrument, whatsoever hand may wield it.

All the best men have been best because they possessed "ideals."

The thought that conquers the world not contemplative but active.

Some doubts are as generous and passionate as the very noblest conditions.

Every noble life leaves the fiber of it interwoven with the work of the world.

To strive with difficulties and to conquer them is the highest human triumph.

A Printer's Apprentice Who Can't Spell

Humor, 1874

A printer in Glasgow was sadly bothered with an apprentice who could not, or would not, be initiated into that portion of grammar which treats of the proper disposition of letters in words. One day he presented such a shockingly inaccurate proof as made his master, after starting with amazement, take the spectacles from off his nose, and give the ill-disposed "devil" the following recipe:
"My man, just gang hame the night, and tell your mither to boil Fulton & Knight's Dictionary in milk, and take it for your supper, as that seems the only way you'll ever get spelling put into ye."



Complimentary

A lumbering old stage-coach, that plies between two inland towns, is called Noah's Ark. The other morning a pompous traveler yelled at the driver, who had got under way, to "hold on."
"Do you want to get into the Ark?" asked the driver.
"Yes," said the traveler.
"Hurry up, then," was the response, "for we've all the animals aboard already except the donkey."



What does man love more than life,
Hate more than death or mortal strife;
That which contented men desire,
Which poor men have, and rich require?
The miser spends, the spendthrift saves,
And all men carry to their graves?
Nothing.



A young couple were sitting together in a romantic spot, with birds and flowers about them, when the following dialogue ensued:
"My dear, if the sacrifice of my life would please thee, most gladly would I lay it at thy feet."
"Oh, sir, you are too kind! But it just reminds me that I wish you'd leave off using tobacco."
"Can't think of it. It's a habit to which I am wedded."
"Very well, sir; since this is the way you lay down your life for me, and as you are already wedded to tobacco, I'll take good care you are never wedded to me, as it would be bigamy."



Don't quarrel with a spiritualist. He can always turn the tables on you!


What fish is most valued by a loving wife? Her-ring.

Who Loves Not The Star? (poetry)

1878

WHO LOVES NOT THE STAR?

Who loves not the Star-light,
Which gladdens the night
And makes the world happy
With heaven's bright rays?

Oh, who shuns the Star-light
Which God freely sends,
To bless and to prosper
His foes and his friends?

Is there a poor mortal
Self prisoned somewhere,
Far from the warm Star-light
And heaven's pure air?

Where glitters the purple,
With gold spangled o'er,
And rich colored carpets
Bedizen the floor.

Where gas rays alone
Flicker dim, like the lights
Oft seen in a church-yard
On foul murky nights.

And curtains hang over
The windows, like clouds
Which blacken the heavens,
Or like ghastly shrouds

That covers the forms
Of the dead and decayed,
Oh such, while they live,
Are in graves ready-made!

Oh then, the bright Star-light
To me freely give,
With beams all celestial
As long as I live.

Yes, when I am buried,
'Twill be time enough quite,
To draw the tomb's curtain
And shut off the light.

—Daily Star, Marion, Ohio, Jan. 10, 1878, p. 1.

Words of Wisdom — The Shortest Answer is Doing

1878

Words of Wisdom

Little wealth little care.

The offender never pardons.

The shortest answer is doing.

He is rich that wants nothing.

Praise the sea but keep on land.

Bear with all evil and expect good.

Sometimes the best gain is to lose.

Mental gifts often hide bodily defects.

A gift much expected, is paid not given.

One bad example soils many good precepts.

A wise man makes more opportunities than he finds.

He that hath love in his heart hath spurs in his sides.

Send a wise man on an errand and say nothing unto him.

Pardon and pleasantness are great revengers of slander.

Indolence is the rust of the mind and the inlet of every vice.

Life becomes useless and insipid when we have no longer friends or enemies.

It is always safe to learn even of our enemies — seldom safe to venture to instruct even our friends.

Make no more vows to perform this or that; it shows no great strength, and makes thee ride behind thyself.

Man wastes his mornings in anticipating his afternoons, and wastes his afternoons in regretting his mornings,

When the heart is pure, there is hardly anything which can mislead the understanding in matters of immediate personal concernment.

Try to combine beauty and utility. A flower is none the less sweet because it has a germ in its heart that will fructify after the fall of its petals.

Is it just to forget all the kindness done us by those with whom we live for little pain, which, after all, may have been given unintentionally?

Life is itself neither good nor evil. It the scene of good or evil, as you make it; and if you have lived a day, you have seen all. One day is equal to and like all other days; there is no other light, no other shade; this very sun, this moon, these very stars, this very order and revolution of things, are the same your ancestors enjoyed, and that shall also entertain your posterity.

Leisure, the highest happiness on earth, is seldom enjoyed with perfect satisfaction except in solitude. Indolence and indifference do not always afford leisure, for true leisure is frequently found in that interval of relaxation which divides a painful duty from an agreeable relax — recreation; a toilsome business from the more agreeable occupations of literature and philosophy.