Freezing an Easy Death

1914

Freezing to death, writes a medical authority, is preceded by a drowsiness which makes the end painless — the body actually feels warm and goes comfortably to sleep. Experiments have been made with animals to show just how freezing to death proceeds.

In one of these experiments, in which the animal was placed in a temperature of 125 to 150 degrees below zero, the breathing and heart beats at first were quickened, the organic heat of the body actually rising above normal.

This rising showed a sudden and an intense effort on the part of functions to preserve the body's temperature. Then the violent heart action gave out suddenly and death came when the temperature of the body dropped to 71 degrees.


In a "Higher" Grade

That juvenile human nature remains pretty much the same always would seem freshly indicated by the quaint incident related in a famous author's recent reminiscences of his childhood. The said author had an older brother whom he admired hugely, and whose society he desired to enjoy as much as might be. There came a time, however, when the older boy revolted against the too frequent companionship of the younger, and thus gravely explained the grounds of his superiority:

"I play with boys who curse and swear."

Women's Oaths

1895

The Fair Sex Swore More in Old Times Than Nowadays

Dr. Barker Newhall, of Brown University, in his paper on "Women's Speech in Classic Literature," said: "Disconnected thought and inconsequent expression are characteristic of the female mind, and are exhibited, e.g., in oration 32 of Lysias, by the lack of connection between the sentences in one place and by the excess of it in another; while in Terence the insertion of a parenthesis often breaks the continuity. Again, we notice the prolixity of style, as shown by useless repetitions or such diffuseness and garrulity as are familiar in Chaucer's 'Wife of Bath.' Plato and Cicero tell us that women are conservative and keep many antiquated phrases. Such are found in Corndia's letter and elsewhere, while proverbs abound in Theocritus's fifteenth idyll. Women also show their emotion by pathetic repetitions and exaggeration, as in the speeches ascribed by historians to certain Roman matrons and in Alciphron's love letters. Swearing was once quite common among English women, so Juliet's nurse and Dame Quickly swear very freely, while Hotspur reproaches Kate for using the weak oaths of women. In classic antiquity the weaker sex swore the more frequently and matrons most of all. In Greece, as men swore by no goddess save Demeter, so the women by no god but Zeus, while oaths by Aphrodite were especially characteristic. In the best period Roman men never called Castor to witness, nor the women Hercules. Similarly certain interjections were the exclusive property of the women, as among some savage tribes they have peculiar names for many objects."

Woman Has Personal Invitation to Anti-Suffrage Meeting

Pennsylvania, 1915

ANTI-SUFFRAGE MEETING

Mrs. O'Neal to Attend Session in Philadelphia on Saturday.

Mrs. Walter H. O'Neal left for Philadelphia on Thursday to attend, by a personal invitation from Mrs. Horace Brock, State Chairman, a conference of women, opposed to the granting of suffrage to women. The meeting will be at the home of Mrs. Brock, 1920 Spruce street, on Friday morning. Mrs. A. J. George, of Boston, will be one of the speakers. After the meeting Mrs. Brock will serve a luncheon to the guests.

—Adams County News, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, January 16, 1915, page 5.


Folly of Profanity

Although the use of some expletives decently and in order may often be justified, it is something we should all try to avoid. Thoroughly well balanced men and women never let their nerves become wrought up to a pitch where swearing is necessary. They appreciate that no matter how good scientific reasons there may be for expletives their use is a confession of weakness.


Certainly Suggestive

Perhaps the old fellow who first pointed out that a man's home is his castle had in mind the way it's almost constantly beleaguered by persons wishing to sell you brooms, potatoes and other commodities that you don't want any more of than you already have. — Columbus (Ohio) Journal.


Amended the Author

Little Lola had been given a short poem to commit to memory by her teacher. In it these lines occurred: "Sail on, ye mariners, the night is gone." Later when requested to repeat the poem, she rendered the lines thus: "Sail on, ye married men, the light is gone."

Curious Forms of Taking Oaths Around the World

1903

Customs Followed by Chinese, Hindus, Persians, and Other Peoples

The bill to repeal the law providing for extra judicial oaths in all civil courts calls attention to the variety of oaths that might be brought into practice in a court of world-wide cosmopolitanism, says the Milwaukee Sentinel.

The section of the law which it is sought to repeal has been on the statute book for many years, but has rarely been invoked by either of the parties to an action. It's existence has, however, sometimes been prejudiced to the impartial administration of justice.

Chinese witnesses must be sworn in several ways if they are to be bound to tell the truth. In some cases the witness breaks a plate and assents to the imprecation that his soul may be shattered in the same way if he strays from the paths of veracity.

With a large section of the Chinese the formula is for the person administering the oath to light a match or candle and. blowing it out, tell the witness that thus will his soul be extinguished if he does not speak the truth, to which he assents by giving a short nod.

Some tribes living on the Thibetan tableland can only be sworn in court by cutting off the head of a live gamecock. The Hindoo law says:

"Let a judge swear a Brahman by his veracity, a soldier by his horses, his elephants, his grain or his money, and a souder by all his crimes."

Quakers, in all civil cases, are allowed to give their evidence in affirmation, as also are the Moravians and Separatists.

A Galla of Abyssinia sits down over a pit covered with a hide, imprecating that he may fall into a pit if he break his word.

A Brazilian savage, to confirm his statement, raises his hand over his head and thrusts it into his hair or touches the point of his weapons.

Among the Aracans, an Asiatic tribe, the witness swearing to speak the truth takes in his hand a musket, a sword, a spear, a tiger's tusk, a crocodile's tooth or a stone celt. The hill tribes of India swear by a tiger's skin and the Ostraks by a bear's head.

The sacred oath in Persia is "by the holy grave," that is, the tomb of Shah Besade, who is buried in Cashmere.

Members of the Kirk of Scotland are sworn by lifting the hand while the book is laid open before them; Jews are sworn on the Pentateuch with their hats on; Mohammedans by placing the right hand flat on the Koran and the left on the forehead, and then bringing down the forehead to the book, and finally gazing a while at the book. The highest oath of the man who dwells by the Ganges, in India, is taken on the water of that river.

Flagrant Pension Fraud: She Married A Corpse

1895

One of the Most Flagrant Pension Frauds Ever Perpetrated

Fraudulent pension claimants receive a considerable share of the money obtained from the government in a dishonest manner. The pension office to protect itself employs men as examiners who ferret out these evildoers, find the weak spots in their claims and finally bring the offenders before the law.

"One of the strangest cases I ever handled," said an ex-examiner, "was that of a woman who married a corpse.

"It was while I was engaged in another matter that I got wind of this case, and it was sometime before it was concluded, but the story, as finally revealed was this:

"An old soldier, drawing a pension, lived in Maine, at the home of a gentleman who was a magistrate. One winter the old soldier fell ill and became so weak that the magistrate and his wife concluded that he must soon die. The thought of his death did not distress them, but they could not think of the loss of his pension with equanimity. They received his bounty as payment for board, and of course would lose it at his death. To obviate this they conspired with a young woman, a relative of the wife, to marry the old soldier. This was made possible by the fact that the veteran was not only debilitated physically, but mentally weak and completely under their control.

The programme then was for the soldier to die, his widow to draw his pension and, incidentally, divide it with the magistrate and wife. After some correspondence the bride-elect, who lived in a neighboring city, started to the magistrate's home. There was a heavy snowstorm and owing to this she was late in arriving, so late, in fact, that the intended groom had departed this life a short time before. They did not allow so small a matter to stand in the way, however, and the magistrate, by virtue of his office, performed the ceremony at the bedside of the corpse, and afterward swore that he had made them man and wife."

Another instance in which a dead man figured as performing the actions of a living one occurred in Kansas. It was about twenty years ago when the Pottawatomie Indians had been given lands in severalty, with the privilege of selling them. There was a class of white men then, as there always has been on the frontier, who took every advantage of the red man, often going so far as downright robbery.

One of these gentry appeared at St. Mary's one day with a deed to a parcel of land, formerly the property of White Horse. It was regularly drawn up and signed with White Horse's mark. As the Indian had been missing for some time, its authenticity was doubted, but as the document was regularly witnessed it seemed as if the deed would stand. But a traveler came to town the next morning, who said he had seen White Horse's body frozen in the river, with one hand protruding through the ice. It bore a scar which fully identified the body as that of the Indian. As the river had been frozen two weeks previous to the date of the deed, it proved that document fraudulent. But the white men said that what they swore to was literally true, and it was. The document read:

I hereunto, with my hand, place my mark,

his
WHITE X HORSE
mark

They had placed the pen in the frozen fingers and guided it in making the mark. — Washington Post.