And So It Is

1895

It was an old fashioned spelling class — that is, the little girls were standing in a row, spelling and "defining," and the visitor was looking on.
"Jewel," said the teacher, and one little pink cheeked maid spelled it correctly and then gave the definition, "Gem."
On that word it happened that the teacher departed from her usual custom.
"How does a gem look?" she asked. "What is a gem?"
The little girl did not know. The entire class looked puzzled. Finally one lassie brightened and raised her and triumphantly. When she was called on, she almost "sang out" in the excess of her zeal:
"A little cake baked in a gem pan" — Youth's Companion.


Amusement

The habit of dissipating every serious thought by a succession of agreeable sensations is as fatal to happiness as to virtue, for when amusement is uniformly substituted for objects of moral and mental interest we lose all that elevates our enjoyments above the scale of childish pleasures.


Trivia

The oldest known coin comes from China. It is brass or copper, is a block nearly cubical and weighs about a pound.

During the years immediately preceding the civil war $1,000 was a common price for a healthy young negro man.

The Boston brown bread is made of rye and cornmeal in the proportion one to two.

Keokuk, an Indian chief, furnished the name for an Iowa town. The word means sly fox. Rahway was once Rahwack, the name of an Indian chief.

Slave Girls in Korea

1895

Their Sale a Considerable Source of Revenue to the Royal Treasury.

There are slave girls innumerable around the royal palaces of the Hermit Kingdom of Korea. It is difficult to find out how many there are. One official will say hundreds, another thousands. A consul who has had opportunity to learn the facts in the case says there are about 1,500.

It is equally difficult to learn where they come from. Their appearance shows that they are not from any one stock. Some are Koreans, and some are Tonghaks from Guing-Shang-do, in the south of the kingdom; some show Japanese blood, others Chinese and still others Mantachurian. They are of all sorts and types. All speak Korean, and nearly all have a smattering of Chinese. They are all well brought up and quiet, polite and industrious. They begin their career as domestic servants when mere children and are seldom found in the royal establishment after they are 25 years old. A few who are unusually good looking become royal concubines, and a large number are taken for the same purpose by the princes and lords of the realm, and it is said for a very large price. The rest are sold as commodities to the highest bidder and the proceeds paid into the royal treasury.

The latest available blue book of Korea — 1884 — in summarizing the royal income, includes these entries: "9,917 stone of best rice; 41,484 stone of beans; 172,713 nyang in money; 24,000 nyang from sale of slave girls."

A nyang is a string of 100 copper coins whose value in American money ranges from 500 to 2,000 to the dollar. The market value of a girl in Korea varies from $10 to $40. Upon these figures the monarch must raise and sell in the public market every year from 30 to 480 young women.

This trade in human beings is considered perfectly legitimate and has come down from time immemorial. It is not confined to the royal palace, but is practiced to a certain extent all over Korea. The custom is followed likewise in China and seems to characterize nearly every Mongolian race. — Philadelphia Press.

Peculiar Quashie Dialect

1895

Odd Lingo That Is Spoken by the Natives of Jamaica.

A thing that fills you with amazement is the queer gibberish that is spoken here, writes Fannie B. Ward from Kingston, Jamaica. In this old English colony you expected to hear the English language, and they call it English and would feel greatly insulted if you intimated that it was not of the best.

We got a fair and easy sample of the "Quashie" dialect, as it is called, of the Jamaica negroes the moment we set foot on shore. Among the crowd clamoring to carry our things we singled out a big coal black fellow in a white linen suit, because he looked the most intelligent. In reply to the question how much he would charge to carry one trunk and two satchels to the custom house he yelled: "Hi Buckrah! I dat quick, quick fe quattie fe de lil tings an tanner fe tunk," which, as translated by our consul, who has grown familar with their murdering of the king's English, meant that he would do the job very quickly and would charge "quattie," or one quarter of an English sixpence (3 cents in our money), for each of the small packages and "tanner," a sixpence, for the trunk.

All the negro sentences appear to be constructed on the "baby talk" plan, and it rolls out in an oily stream from their thick lips, wholly unintelligible to the newcomer. The poorest of them are very polite to one another as well as to strangers, and it is amusing to hear a half naked wretch, hatless and shoeless, bowing low to another in the same condition and saying: "How do dis morn, marm? Hope um do be well, marm," and the response invariably is, "Quite well um dis morn, sar, thank um, sar." The use of "um" is not understood, but is constant, and it is always "sar" instead of "massa," as in slavery days.

Ask Aid For Removal of Turks' Slave Marks

1920

Armenian Girl Captives Are Disgraced by Tattooed Faces

PRINCETON, N. J., Jan. 1. — Many Armenian women and girls who were stolen by Turks, Kurds and Tartars were tattooed by their abductors on their cheeks and foreheads. These unhappy women must bear the signs of their disgrace to their graves unless a scientific method of removing the tattoo marks is furnished.

Dr. Wilfred M. Post, of Princeton, N. J., returned recently from Asia Minor, where he served with the Near East Relief. He says many of the women were driven into rivers to drown, the most beautiful girls were reserved for Turkish harems, from which some escaped and some were rescued.

The officials of the Near East Relief have asked physicians who specialize in affections of the skin to inform them of a safe way of removing tattoo marks. Several prominent scientists have offered their services, among them Dr. George H. Washburn of Harvard, who served in the Medical corps of the United States Army.


Weight Straightens His Neck

1920

Then Sight Is Restored to Youth Injured at Football

NORMAN, Okla., Jan. 1. — John H. Merkle, a student in the University of Oklahoma, is rapidly recovering from injury received in a football game here, which dislocated his cervical vertebra and temporarily blinded him, by carrying a 10-pound weight around his neck. Merkle's vision returned as soon as his neck became straightened by the weight. Merkle, who is now in a Shawnee hospital, lives at Maud, Oklahoma.

Harriet Tubman, "Moses of Her People," Now Inmate of Home

1911

NOTED NEGRESS PENNILESS

Harriet Tubman, "Moses of Her People," Now Inmate of Home.

Auburn, N. Y., June 3.—Harriet Tubman, the famous old negress who ran away out of slavery before the Civil war and became the most noted "conductor of the underground railroad," piloting over 300 slaves to freedom, was taken to the Harriet Tubman home in this city ill and penniless. She gave her all to establish the home for aged colored men and women of which she is now an inmate. She is as nearly as can be figured between 85 and 100 years old.

Known as the "Moses of her people," Harriet Tubman's achievement will never fully be chronicled. She was the friend of Garrison, Wendell Phillips, John Brown, Garrit Smith Seward and Lincoln.

—Indiana Evening Gazette, Indiana, Pennsylvania, June 2, 1911, page 2.