Jumbled English

1919

A school patron talking with a prominent educator the other day said that with all of the effort made in North Carolina schools to give the child a fair knowledge of the English language, he did not believe there was one child in a hundred in the schools of the State who could recite a sentence of twenty words in a clear, distinct and articulate tone of voice. The pity is that there is so much truth in the statement, comments the Raleigh News Observer.

Go into a classroom and hear the children read. Is it not the exception when a child knows how to pronounce its syllables distinctly? Syllables and letters both are too often wholly ignored. Words are jumbled together too frequently in incoherent fashion. Worst of all and at the bottom of the trouble is the fact that some of the teachers are less proficient than they should be in distinctness of speech, while others who are more precise themselves, pay insufficient attention to the pronunciation of the children.

The old-fashioned elocution class in which the children were taught to utter their syllables distinctly might very well come back in place of some of the things that are more pretentious, but have less value in the school.

She Teaches Correct Speech

1910

A woman of culture and travel has made a glorious success teaching correct speech. It is surprising how much incorrect speech there is among our educated people. They cling to provincialisms, incorrect pronunciations, wrong use of words and unmusical intonations. The southerner holds to the soft, r-less utterance of his "mammy" days; the middle westerner flattens all his vowels; the Bostonian throws his r's completely out of joint.

This woman undertook to correct such errors and teach a pure, perfect, English speech to a few young women. She became so successful that she was compelled to start a school of correct English which has grown to great proportions. This particularly promising field is open to every town in America. — Delineator


Good Advice

"And now, son," said the old rabbit, "here's a bit of advice. Always keep on the good side of a dog."

"But, pop," queried the youngster, who was about to go forth into the big world, "which is the good side of a dog?"

"The outside, son," answered the old rabbit, as he bit off another hunk of cabbage.


Tired

Some people are so tireless that they become positively tiresome.

Get 10,000 Pounds of Fish

1920

Two Men Using Seine Make Record Catch, Mostly Carp

ST. LOUIS, Missouri — Edward and Joseph Larbey, fishermen, caught 10,000 pounds of fish with a seine at Grafton, Illinois, thirteen miles above Alton on the Mississippi near the mouth of the Illinois River.

The fish, mostly carp, were driven out of the Illinois by the breaking up of the ice, it is believed, and took refuge behind a dyke, where the Larbeys placed their seine.

The haul is valued at $600, and is said to have been sold in the St. Louis market.


"Dead" Soldier Returns Home Finds Wife Remarried and Is Granted Divorce by Court

NEW YORK, N.Y. — John C. Ries, an American soldier, who had been officially listed as killed and who later turned from overseas to find his wife had married again, was granted a decree of divorce today in the Brooklyn Supreme Court.

Ries served with a machine gun company of the 27th Division. He was gassed, wounded and left for dead upon the battlefield, but later he was picked up and sent to a hospital.

Embalmer's Knife Flashing, Mom Insists Son "Alive"; He is!

Rhode Island, 1888

COFFINED, BUT ALIVE

Story of a Man Who had a Narrow Escape from Premature Burial

Mauly Z. Corwin, of Providence, R. I., has enjoyed the sensation of being coffined and prepared for burial, says the Boston Globe. But for an accident he would have been embalmed. He lives on Smith's hill, and is a carpenter by trade. Some years ago he was at work on the roof of a three-story house, and had a sun-stroke. Falling at his work, he rolled down the sloping roof and fell, an inert mass, to the street below. He was picked up and conveyed to the office of the nearest medical man, who pronounced him dead. An undertaker was sent for, and soon his assistants were measuring the corpse and making preparations for the embalming process, which was considered necessary for preserving the body for the funeral.

That evening a casket arrived with the name of the deceased, age and manner of death engraved on a silver plate.

After the body had been coffined and the room cleared, Mrs. Corwin, the mother, arrived, and, while laying her head upon his breast, she fancied she detected a motion of the heart. Another doctor was sent for, who, after making a stethoscopic examination, confirmed the opinion of the other physician, and declared life to be extinct.

The weeping mother was led from the apartment, and the watchers awaited the coming of the embalmer. The man was delayed so long that when he arrived the family requested him to postpone making the incision until the following morning.

The morning found the loving and disconsolate mother at her son's bier again, and again did the maternal instinct within her tell her that her boy was not dead, but sleeping. The embalmer came and displayed his instruments for opening the veins and for eviscerating the deceased. Then the mother refused to allow the operation. In vain they urged her to accept the verdict of medical science, but she refused to budge, and, throwing her body across that of her son, she declared she would not leave his presence until all doubt was ended. The weather was fearfully hot, and it was expected that the condition of the corpse would be unendurable by the next night, but it was not, nor the next night, and then some weight was attached to the old lady's belief. More doctors came, other examinations were made, and at the end of the sixth day a slight pulsation was felt.

The man was alive beyond all doubt.

The house swarmed with physicians after that. They came from New York, from Boston and from Philadelphia, and all agreed that the vital spark had not left the body, although how to fan it into a life-sustaining flame was a question not so easily settled. Various expedients were resorted to, and on the fifteenth day the "corpse" opened an eye. After that the man's recovery was but a question of time. To-day he is at work, a better and stronger man than he ever was, and the silver plate on his coffin, framed in crimson plush, adorns his parlor.

—St. Joseph Herald, Saint Joseph, Michigan, April 28, 1888, p. 5.