Dean Swift's Dinner

1895

A characteristic story is told of Dean Swift, who, after a series of expensive entertainments in London, invited six of his hosts to dinner. They arrived, expecting the usual costly surfeit of good things. They found the table laid with a piece of bread, a bottle of wine, a plate at each cover and a waiter behind each chair. They took their places.

"Mr. Dean," said the lord chancellor, "we fail to see the joke."

Swift lifted his plate. Underneath was the bill of fare of a neighboring cafe and a half crown. he turned to the waiter at his side and gave him the money. "Here," he said, "bring me the worth of that in goose and potatoes."

The guests each sent the money under his plate for whatever dish he chose, and the dinner was eaten and enjoyed.

Swift then laid upon the table £100, and deducting the three crowns which had been spent, said: "The remainder — the crumbs and fragments — are to go to the poor. We all have had enough money to satisfy hunger. You shall advise me how the rest is to be spent." — Youth's Companion.

Threw the Goods Into a Well

New York, 1895

On Friday night the store of Edward Baldwin at Bayville was broken into and goods worth $15 stolen. On Saturday some of the goods were found under a barn near by Monday morning Officer Monilaws arrived with a search warrant. He went to the house occupied by Harry West to look for the goods. West waited until the officer got inside the house when he threw a lot of goods out of a window and afterward tossed them into an old well. The officer saw him and fished the goods out. West was arrested, charged with burglary.


Poor Overseers in Debt

The town of Newtown met on Friday. Town Clerk Robinson offered a resolution requesting the board of supervisors to authorize the supervisor of Newtown to borrow $5,500 for the purpose of paying that amount of bills now due to grocers and others for the support of the poor. Over $1,100 is due the Temporary Home for Children.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, March 1, 1895, p. 2.

She Rustled

1901

A London paper says that C. T. Yerkes, the American street railway magnate, now in London, recently received the following letter from a young woman:

"Dear Mr. Yerkes — I have seen by the papers how rich you are, and also I have seen your picture, which looks kind. So I thought I would tell you that my parents are poor and depriving themselves of many comforts in order to give me a good education. Among my school friends there is a gymnastic club, of which I am a member, and all the girls wear silk skirts, and it gives me the horrors to feel I can't have one when I hear the fascinating rustle of their petticoats. Would you send me $5 to buy one? Yours," etc.

Mr. Yerkes received the unique epistle from his secretary and, to the latter's astonishment, exclaimed: "Send her the money. It will give more pleasure than if invested in any other way." The money was sent, and the acknowledgment was as follows: "Dear Mr. Yerkes — Thanks so much for the money. I invested it and can now rustle with the others."

Children and Sweet Stuffs

1901

It is necessary to make some kind of stand against the physical demoralization of the rising generation by the inordinate consumption of cheap confectionery.

Mrs. Creighton, the wife of the late bishop of London, has urged again and again the necessity for checking the wholesale consumption of sweet stuff by the children of the poorer classes, and it is admitted by the doctors in poor neighborhoods that it is to the continual eating of lollipops that the wretched digestions, frequent gastric troubles and enfeebled stamina of those who are to form the future backbone of the nation are due.

What the public house is to the father, the sweet stuff shop has become to the child.


Dancing as Exercise

Dancing has lost some of its vogue, but physicians have come to its rescue and are proscribing it as a useful exercise. It is said that dyspeptic and anemic patients, both men and women, have been advised to waltz at a moderate tempo at least 30 minutes a day.

Keeping His Word

1904

Sandy is the resident janitor of one of the smaller colleges. He is a bit of a character in his way, and makes an effort not to be outdone by the students. The success is sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other. Sandy owned a little mean-looking dog, of which he was fond. He was treated to much good-humored chaff about the dog, but always replied in kind, frequently asserting, "I widna tak twinty dulthers for ma wee doggy."

A few of the more waggish freshmen made up their minds to test Sandy's assertion. Between them they made up twenty dollars, and one of their number was authorized on the first favorable opportunity to make Sandy an offer.

As was quite common with him, Sandy happened into the cloak-room between lectures. The dog soon became a subject of debate, and out came Sandy's statement, "I widna tak twinty dulthers for ma wee doggy."

"Well, Sandy," said a young freshman, "I would like to have that dog, and here's twenty dollars if you'll sell him," He counted the money out on the table near Sandy.

Without a smile Sandy gravely put his hand in his pocket, drew out a fifty-cent piece, and laid it on the table, at the same time pocketing the twenty dollars. "I didna say I widna tak nineteen fufty. The wee doggy's yourn."


The Test
By John B. Tabb

The dead there are, who live;
The living, who are dead:
The poor, who still can give;
The rich, who lack for bread:
By Love it is, and Love alone,
That Life or Luxury is known.

Jazz Music Not a Nuisance

Feb. 1920

Los Angeles County Judge Refuses to Give Relief to Disturbed Nerves

Los Angeles, Cal. — Jazz music is not a nuisance, according to a decision by Judge Lewis R. Works, in the Los Angeles county superior court. The city of Pasadena had brought suit against a social club, whose neighbors complained its jazz music "jarred on their nerves."

"Once jazz music might have been construed as a nuisance," Judge Works said. "It is no longer so construed. If the music disturbed the residents of the neighborhood, I am sorry, but this court cannot give them relief."


Wealthy Pauper

In a cheap lodging house in William street, New York, an aged man died, leaving a will showing that he was wealthy enough to live in a brownstone mansion in Fifth avenue. He was Edward Campion, aged sixty-five. Why he chose the habitat of the "down-and-outer" may remain a mystery. The house is one of those where the unfortunate can get "bath and bed" for 15 or 25 cents.

In his will, Campion disposes of several valuable parcels of Manhattan property, as well as real estate in other sections, in addition to considerable cash, to two daughters and three sons.

To Open 5-Cent Hotel

1914

Bed and Bath For That Sum is Philanthropy of Rufus F. Dawes

Chicago, Jan. 2. — Hope for the man with a few nickels will take a tangible form when the Rufus F. Dawes hotel opens.

A bed and a bath for a nickel, soup for two cents, coffee at the same price, rolls for one cent each and pie for three cents are the features which promise to make the Dawes hotel popular from its start.

Patrons are required to take a bath. They are furnished with clean clothes. Beds and all other appliances are of the most sanitary pattern.

For the particular guest who can afford the extra expense there are private rooms. These cost ten cents a night. A compulsory free bath is attached to the rental of these rooms.

Pearls of Thought — "Telling a Woman You Love Her"

1906

The most fun that people have is in planning it.

Music lessons for a girl make more noise, but cooking lessons keep the peace.

If you tell a woman you love her she believes you even when she knows you don't.

People can afford to wear plenty of mourning for a relative if they were remembered in the will.

People seem to think nowadays that a man's son is a wonder to be able to make his own living.

A nice thing about being poor is you don't make enemies for refusing to found public institutions.

When a man kisses a girl on a dark piazza, she would scream if she weren't afraid of scaring her mother.

A girl knows an awful lot to be able to make men think that her knowing nothing is better than if she did.

Once in a while a man doesn't have to lie about what kept him out so late, but it's because his wife isn't home to ask him.

If a man ever got up early enough to eat his breakfast without swallowing it all at once, he might think the cook earned her wages.

No woman is ever so sympathetic with a widow over her loss as to forget to examine carefully the kind of mourning she is wearing.

There's hardly anything makes a humorist madder than to read a joke somewhere and have you get it off on him before he can on you.

A man never seems to think he is doing his duty to his country unless he goes around before election yelling his views into everybody's ears.

When a girl is so anxious for a man to ask her to marry him that she can't wait for him to finish before saying yes, she will pretend she doesn't understand him. — From "Reflections of a Bachelor," in the New York Press.

The Growing Passion for Music

1906

By Rupert Hughes

Whatever the percentage of American musical illiteracy may have been a few years ago, it is beyond denial that there is a tremendous change at work. The whole nation is feeling a musical uplift like a sea that swells above a submarine earthquake.

The trouble hitherto has not been that Americans were of a fibre that was dead to musical thrill. Our hearts are not of flannel, and we are not a nation of soft pedals. We have simply been too busy hacking down trees and making bricks without straw, to go to music school. But now, the sewing machine, the telephone, the typewriter and the trolley car are sufficiently installed to give us leisure to take up music and see what there is in it.

We are beginning to learn that, while The Arkansas Traveler, Money Musk, and Nellie Was a Lady are all very well in their way, there are higher and more interesting things in music. There is an expression which musicians hear every day: "I am passionately fond of music but I don't understand it. I know what I like, but I can't tell why."

This speech has become a byword among trained musicians, but it indicates a widespread condition that is at once full of pathos and of hope. America as a nation is "passionately fond of music." It needs only an education in the means of expression. — Good Housekeeping.



Much Against Being Rich

1906

Bishop Gore was the preacher at the opening of the English Church Congress. "The late master of Balliol," he told the great congregation, "used often to say, in his detached way, that he was afraid there was much more in the New Testament against being rich and in favor of being poor than we liked to recognize."

San Francisco Almshouse Burns, A Few Patients Lost

1908

FIRE IN ALMSHOUSE

Two Patients Frightened to Death and Another Dies Later

San Francisco, March 10 — One of the buildings of the city and county almshouse was burned this morning. In it when the fire broke out were 141 persons, mostly patients recently removed from the city and county hospital. So far as known all were removed in safety, though five are reported to have been injured. The almshouse is located near the Lake Honda reservoir of the Spring Valley Water company.

The fire broke out on the second floor at 9 o'clock this morning and is supposed to have been caused by a defective fuse. It quickly spread to the roof and the whole building was soon a mass of flames. Good work was done in removing the inmates to places of safety.

Three patients lost their lives. Two of these were old men, whose names are not known, who died from fright. Edward Korn, who had just undergone an operation, died soon after being taken from the burning building.

It was only by the most strenuous work that the aged people were saved. The nurses and attendants formed brigades and carried most of the old people from the building, as many of them, on account of their extreme age and their minds being dulled, refused to leave their rooms.

But one building was burned. The fire was caused by a defective chimney.