Faithful Shepherd Dogs

1901

A cold spell in Montana killed a sheep herder in the Great Falls district. Two feet of snow covered the range in places, and the thermometer indicated 40 degrees below zero. The herder was frozen to death on the prairies while caring for the sheep, and it was three days before his fate was known to his employers.

Two shepherd dogs were with him when he died, and one of these stayed with his body while the other attended to the sheep, just as though the herder had been with him. The dog drove them out on the range in the morning and back again at night, guarding them from wolves and preventing them from straying off.

Neither dog had anything to eat during the three days' vigil, so far as could be ascertained, but the 2,500 sheep thrived as well apparently as though directed by human agency. The singular fact about the matter is that these faithful creatures would have starved to death rather than harm one of the sheep left in their charge. — Portland Oregonian.

The Money In His Pocket

1901

A young Pittsburger arose from his bed one morning and, dressing, went down stairs to breakfast. As he sat at the table he carelessly put his right hand into his trousers pocket and was surprised to find $7.25. He knew that when he retired for the night he had just 25 cents and had fallen asleep while wondering where he could borrow money the next morning. He was highly elated over the discovery, for, although he thought long and hard, he could not remember how he had come into the possession of the money. After work that day he took a friend to the opera and later to supper. When he returned home about midnight, a brother stopped into his room and said, "Harry, did you pay that bill for me today?"

The young man was almost dumbfounded. It all came to him at once. Shortly after he had retired the previous night his brother had entered the room and, placing the money in his trousers pocket, said: "Say, old man. when you go down town tomorrow, I wish you would pay Mr. — that bill I owe him. I promised to let him have it by tomorrow."

The young man was dozing at the time, and that accounts for his failure to remember what his brother had said to him. He was kept busy borrowing from friends to make up the amount the next day, and he declares that hereafter his brother will have to pay his own bills. — Pittsburgh Chronicle.

Notice

1902

I hereby give notice that I will not be responsible for any debts contracted in the future by my wife, Mrs. Mamie Samueles. — JAMES SAMUELES.

—Waterloo Daily Reporter, Waterloo, Iowa, March 6, 1902, p. 3.

The Self Reliance of Americans

1900

Above all the American is personal. He is responsible to himself. He is ready to declare at any time, "My deeds upon my head."

Some of us go to church. We read in our service books, "From all evil and mischief, from sin, from the crafts and assaults of the devil, good Lord, deliver us." We know that this is only a form of words. We rely upon nothing intangible. We have the words and the habit of repeating them by inheritance. We trip over them while we accept nothing Dei gratia, nor do we shirk our own responsibility in affairs by pleading a special order of Providence.

The child is taught that if he walks into mischief and is caught at it the excuse that he was unduly persuaded into evil doing will not save him from the retributive slipper. The school and college boy and girl pay the piper personally for all unlawful dancing. The man behind the plow, the man behind the counter and the man behind the gun know that results depend. — Self Culture.

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.

Animals as Criminals

1896

Instances in Which They Were Tried in Civil and Ecclesiastical Courts

During the middle ages, and even as late as the time of Shakespeare, animals were considered legally responsible for their acts. They were tried for various offenses, and if found guilty were convicted and punished. Mules were occasionally deprived of their ears for wrongdoing, and this altered the appearance of the animals, whether it improved their morals or not. There was another punishment inflicted on mules which suggests that there was method in the madness of the authorities. A mule which was particularly wicked was made forfeit to the crown, and the king had a corral of asses which could not be equaled for depravity in the world.

Occasionally the animals were tried before an ecclesiastical tribunal. Swarms of flies, bees, leeches and other insect pests were often condemned to vacate within a certain time under penalty of "malediction." As a rule certain sections of the country were set aside to which the condemned animals might retire and live in peace and quiet.

A horde of flies that bothered the residents of Mavence, France, were tried once, and escaped punishment because of their small size and extreme youth. Rats one time began eating the barley of France and were tried in court. They were defended by an eminent lawyer named Chasseneux, and he actually won the suit and the rats escaped punishment. In Naples an ass was tried — by a jury of his peers, no doubt — and sentenced to die at the stake. The sentence was carried out, and that ass never committed murder again. About the year 1700 the practice died out, and some time after the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was organized, and since then domestic animals have been better treated.

Too Late — People Who Are Never On Time

1874

Some people are always too late, and therefore accomplish through life nothing worth naming. If they promise to meet you at such an hour, they are never present until thirty minutes after. No matter how important the business is to either yourself or to him, he is just as tardy. If he takes a passage in the steamboat, he arrives just as the boat has left the wharf, and the train has started a few minutes before he arrives. His dinner has been waiting for him so long that the cook is out of patience. This course the character we have described always pursues. He is never in season at a church, at a place of business, at his meals, or in his bed. Persons of such habits we cannot but despise. Always speak in season, and be ready at the appointed hour. We would not give a fig for a man who is not punctual to his engagements, and who never makes up his mind to a certain course till the time is lost. Those who hang back, hesitate and tremble — who are never at hand for a journey, a trading, a sweetheart or anything else — are poor sloths, and are ill-calculated to get a living in this stirring world.

Comment (2007): Yes, that is exactly true. It's not that I "despise" people who are always late, like the article says, but I don't care for the habit. A few minutes, maybe. But if you have an appointment, try to make it. I was in school and there was a classmate who was always late. Then it was his responsibility to take a few of us to a class outing. Since I'm a clock watcher and usually early, I probably would've been the first one there. But this nitwit, late as always, doesn't show up until way past the time he was supposed to be there to pick us up. So naturally we get to the class outing, a field trip kind of thing where people were actually going to meet us for a tour, way late. It's embarrassing. I actually knew then something of this guy's post graduate life and work, but only by hearsay. And what was it that I heard the people he worked with complaining about? Always late!

Women Cannot Collect Damages If They Wear Long Skirts

Chicago, 1903

Law Hitched to the Skirt

Women must hold up their skirts and protect their gowns from threatening nails and sharp corners while shopping or marketing, says the Chicago Tribune.

Justice Hurley yesterday refused the protection of the law to those who neglect such simple precautions. It also appeared that the woman who goes marketing in a silk skirt with a flowing train, made for Derby day, has little standing in his court.

On these points Mrs. Lucy O'Donnell, 1010 Garfield boulevard, lost her suit for damages against John R. Thompson. Mrs. O'Donnell's skirt, in an unhappy moment, caught on a nail on an orange box in Mr. Thompson's store at 38 State street and a large hole was torn in the garment. She said the gown had cost $15 and she wanted that amount of money from Mr. Thompson.

"You were in a great hurry when you entered the store?" asked Adolph Raphael, Mr. Thompson's attorney.

"Of course I was in a hurry. I had been to meet some friends at the depot and I wanted to do my marketing and get home. I rushed in and hastened to the rear to the meat counter. Suddenly I heard something tear. I was walking so fast I had to take two more steps before I could stop to investigate. Then I found my fine silk skirt torn to pieces.

Mrs. O'Donnell proceeded to tell how the garment had been made to wear on Derby day and what its value was.

"Was not that an expensive gown to go shopping in?" suggested the attorney.

"That doesn't make any difference," retorted the witness.

"And did you hold the train up?" asked the court, taking a hand in the questioning.

"No, I did not. If I had, the tear would have been much worse."

"Those orange boxes were securely stowed under the counter," Justice Hurley said. "The fault was with Mrs. O'Donnell, she should have held up her skirt. Let women carry their skirts and not trail them over the floors and furnishings."