Small Alarm Clock — Ouch!

1903

A novelty in the way of an alarm clock has been perfected by an American jeweler. It is about the size of a hazel nut. It is made to wear on the finger. The alarm is not a bell, but a sharp pin, which pricks the finger at the time the wearer wishes to rise.


Electricity Saves Windmill

In Germany electricity, among other curious results, has rehabilitated the discarded windmill. At Neresheim a windmill applies power for thirty-six incandescent lamps that light a large paint factory. Another in Schleswig-Holstein keeps a steady current of thirty volts. At Dusseldorf a windmill winds up a heavy weight of which the descent works a powerful dynamo.

Memorizing Poetry

1903

To economize time in memorizing a poem it should be read as a whole; that is, entirely through each time. Tests made in psychological laboratories show that to memorize one verse at a time takes one-fourth longer.


Down of a Thistle

In China the down of the thistle is gathered and mixed with raw silk so ingeniously that even experts are deceived when the fabric is woven. It is also used to stuff cushions as a substitute for eiderdown, and a very good substitute it makes.

Memory Lost After Fall on Ice

1903

As the-result of falling on the icy sidewalk, Samuel A. Chapman, of Boston, a student at Annandale College, is suffering from a peculiar malady.

On the evening of January 20 Chapman, in company with two other students, called on friends near the college. On their return Chapman slipped on the icy path and, falling backward, struck the base of his spine. He suffered no immediate effects, and being helped up by his companions, walked on to the college. Next day he was unconscious, remaining so for two days. Upon regaining consciousness his memory was a blank. In about two weeks he made some progress, looking to the improvement of his memory. He is nineteen years old.


Cats' Eyes

Cats and other beasts of prey reflect fifty times us much light from their eyes as human beings.

A Delightful Prison

1903

It is very doubtful if there is anywhere a more delightful prison than that of Tobel, in Switzerland. There are very few guards, not more than one to every 25 prisoners, and they never think of carrying arms. The prisoners' cells are constantly open, so that the inmates can easily communicate with each other and can tell at any time what the guards are doing.

Moreover, the prisoners are allowed to have paper, ink, newspapers, cider and various dainties from the kitchen, including fried eggs, of which they are very fond. One would suppose that prisoners would not desire to leave such an earthly paradise as this, yet three notorious murderers — Lohrer, Schmid and Hess — quietly strolled away from it recently, and, it is said, have not as yet shown any inclination to return.


Bygone London Customs

In Edward Longshank's days persons living in the city were allowed to keep swine "within their houses." But these Plantagenet pigs were not to occupy sites that encroached on the streets. At a later day the permission to keep them even within one's house would seem to have been limited to master bakers.

Treasures of the Sea

1903

The sea around the shores of Greece is full of treasures. A little time ago the divers were bringing up the statues lost when the ship which was taking them to Rome was wrecked over 2000 years ago. Now the relics of the battle of Navarino, which was fought in 1827, are being fished up, and a number of old bronze cannon, swords, guns and pistols have been recovered from the Turkish and Egyptian ships. — Tit-Bits.


Household Sermons

The best sermons that ever were written to make men good husbands were written to recipes. — New York Press.

England's Boundarymaker

1903

Sir Thomas Holdich leaves England on his mission to lay down the new frontier between Chile and the Argentine Republic. It is not a light task, but Sir Thomas already knows something of the Andes, and he has probably had more experience in mapping out boundaries than any man living.

Much of his work has been on the frontiers of India, which he knows as intimately as we know our London streets. He has written a book called the "Indian Borderland," and if ever he gives us his reminiscences they should be full of agreeable accounts of travel. He was serving in India nearly forty years ago as a young officer of the Royal Engineers.

The Abyssinian campaign took him to another continent, but the Afghan war took him back to the regions which he has done so much to make plain on maps. Sir Thomas is within sight of sixty, but a grand tour of mountainous South America has no terrors for him. He and his staff of engineers expect to be away several months. — London Chronicle.

Navajo Blankets

1903

How They Won Their National Reputation

Though Navajo blankets as rugs, portieres, couch coverings and a dozen other things, have held their own in American homes for a season and more, there are many interesting details of their manufacture which are not known to the casual customer.

The impress of the Spanish cross, recalling the invasions of the Coronado expedition of 1540 is still paramount in this industry of the tribe. This marked the Navajo's first knowledge of the white race, and the later influence of Mexican art can be traced in the zigzagging diamond.

There is always one blanket weaver in a Navajo family, generally a woman, though sometimes a man, and the blanket frame which is erected outside the "hogan," or hut, is part of its architecture. This frame is of upright posts or rude poles. Kneeling or squatting in front of it is the patient weaver from morning till night.

The blankets are considered a medium of barter, as current as any coin among the neighboring tribes, for the Navajo's country is the finest for flock raising, and their wool far famed. The dyes used, too, are practically indelible, and their manufacture is a tribe secret.

The blanket is the banner garment of the squaws with 'dressy" aspirations, and the choicest of wigwam decorations. The care taken in the making of these blankets may be realized when one knows that two or three months are given to the manufacture of some of the more elaborate. No two of these are ever exactly alike, and for certain tribal ceremonies especial patterns are introduced. The choicest designs are reserved for enshrouding the dead, as the journey to the "Happy Hunting Ground" is considered much enhanced by the richness of the traveler's wrapping.

It is the Navajo blanket, too, that oftenest forms the charmed square of the snake dancing Mokis, and the sun dancers of the Shoshones and Arapahoes carpet their sacred enclosures with these same weaves that American bachelors and den devotees pay such round prices for. No wonder, with its history, its wealth of association, with its richness of color and originality of design, the Navajo blanket has attained a National reputation.

Luck In the Clover

1903

Any one who carries about a four leaved clover will be lucky and will have the power of discovering ghosts or evil spirits. With it under the pillow the lover may insure dreams of the beloved one. A fragment in the shoe of a traveler insures a safe journey. Of the five leaved clover it is declared that if it be worn on the left side of a maiden's dress or fastened behind the hall door the Christian name of the first man who enters will be the same as that of the future husband.

The power of the four leaved shamrock for good is familiar to all, from Lover's once popular and pretty song, the speaker in which pictures what she would do should she find the magic plant:

"I would play the enchanter's part and scatter bliss around,
And not a tear or aching heart should in the world be found."


Centenarian Chances

Taking a million as a basis of calculation, statistics show that at the end of seventy years there will still survive 212,000 out of 1,000,000 persons. At the expiration of eighty years there will be 107,000 survivors of the original million. When it comes to ninety years of existence only 8,841 out of the 1,000,000, or one in 115, will be living. Of the original 1,000,000 only fifty-four will live to see ninety-nine years, or about one person out of 18,500. The century mark will be reached by only twenty-three out of the 1,000,000.

Animals Board Ship, Seasick

1903

They Get Seasick, Though Not Just the Way Human Beings Do

"Speaking of animals getting sick at sea," said a man who has had some experience with the dumb brutes on the briny deep, "I can tell you that they do get sick, and sometimes they get very sick too. Of course, they do not manifest the sickness in the way that human beings show it and for reasons which will suggest themselves on a moment's reflection. But they nevertheless get quite as sick as members of the human family. Seasickness in human beings will manifest itself in violent vomiting. A seasick person cannot retain anything in the stomach. The old rule that whatever goes up must come down is in the case of pronounced seasickness reversed. Whatever goes down must come up. But when we come to reckon with horses and cows we find a different condition to deal with. Horses and cows never vomit. They cannot. So here right at the beginning of the matter we find a reason for difference in the way this peculiar sickness shows itself in man and beast.

"I have had more experience with horses than with any other kind of dumb animal and consequently know more about the way the horse suffers during seasickness. It is a rather curious and rather interesting fact that the horse is more violently attacked in the feet than in any other portion of the body. I have seen the feet of horses at sea swell until they could scarcely stand on them. Of course, the stomach of the animal is affected to some extent, but this is not so serious a matter as the attack in the feet. The effect of these attacks is sometimes of a lasting kind, and the usefulness of horses is seriously impaired.

"The fact that seasickness attacks the horse in the feet is mainly due to the peculiar influence a vessel's motion has on the kidneys of the animal. At any rate, this is the generally accepted view of the matter. We cannot say definitely just why horses get knotty feet at sea, but the popular view of horsemen who have studied the matter is as stated. As to cows, I do not know a great deal about them, but I understand the chief trouble with them at sea is that they lose their taste for food and quit eating." — New Orleans Times-Democrat.

Wagner As a Humorist

1903

How the Master Responded to a London Critic's Suggestion

Richard Wagner was not a man to whom one would naturally ascribe the faculty of ready joking. It is not from the creator of the serious, somber "Flying Dutchman" or the composer of the half mystical, half religious, opera "Parsifal" that one would expect cheerful pranks at the expense of other people. Nevertheless an instance is on record of how the great tone painter of Baireuth played a very funny trick on a newspaper and probably a good many of the readers accustomed to relying on what it said. It was in the fifties. Wagner, then still climbing the ladder of fame, was conducting the Philharmonic concerts in the British metropolis for a season.

Being, as he remained to the end, a very ardent admirer of Beethoven and, in fact, knowing that master's nine symphonies by heart, he selected several of them for performance in the said series of concerts. The first time, then, that Wagner conducted a Beethoven symphony in London the public received the rendition kindly enough, but the next morning a certain newspaper with a very large circulation came out with a rather severe criticism. The author of "Lohengrin" was in cold print but in unreserved terms scolded for directing a symphony by the immortal Beethoven without the score in front of him. Such a proceeding, to which London was unaccustomed, was sheer presumption, so ran the criticism, and, after further uncomplimentary remarks, the great and influential journal advised young Heir Wagner to use a score when he conducted a Beethoven symphony again.

Well, soon Herr Wagner did, this time with a book of music before him on the desk. He was seen to turn over the leaves with a certain amount of regularity too. His reward came the next day in the form of a commendatory article in the aforesaid newspaper which praised him for a very much better interpretation of Beethoven than his last, due, of course, to the suggested use of the score, whereupon Wagner announced the fact that the score in front of him the previous evening was that of Rossini's opera, "The Barber of Seville," turned upside down. — Collier's Weekly.

Mail Carrier Gets Annual One Cent Check from Government

1903

Gets Checks for One Cent

Maurice Proctor of Mineral Point is said to receive the smallest checks drawn by the national government. The slip of paper with the seal of Uncle Sam on it calls for one cent, and it is paid annually.

It is in remuneration in full for carrying the mails from Mineral Point to Dodgeville. A twelve month ago, when the bids were made for the contract there was a deal of rivalry between a dozen or more of those who wished to serve the government in this capacity, and Proctor, who is wealthy and does not need the money, offered in due form, faithfully and promptly to perform the task for a penny a year.

Government officials investigated, found he was financially responsible should it become necessary to sue for the penalty and awarded him the contract. Proctor received the first check a short time ago and sold it for $36, and he now has an offer of $25 for the next one when it comes to hand.

Employees of Proctor carry the mails twice a day between the two points rain or shine, and the government is getting fine service for what would appear to the ordinary workman to be very poor compensation. — Tribune-Telegraph.

Doctor Resuscitates Girl at Her Funeral, Sits Up in Coffin

Wisconsin, 1883

Sitting Up in Her Coffin

At Black River Falls, Wis., the sensation of the day is the return to life of a young lady who to all appearance had been dead three days.

Miss Lina Richmann, the daughter of a wealthy German, had been very sick for some weeks and died, as was supposed. Her body was prepared for burial, when it was suggested by some one that the appearance of the young lady's face did not indicate death; but on the fourth day the funeral services were held.

While the ceremony was in progress Dr. Baxter, of Milwaukee, looking at the face of the supposed corpse asked that the services be interrupted long enough for him to attempt resuscitation. This was done, and he succeeded so well that the woman arose in her coffin with a terrible shriek. The scene was highly exciting. Men turned pale with horror, women fainted, and it was a long time before anything like quiet was restored.

Friends are continually calling to see and congratulate one whom they never thought to see again in this world. She says that while in a trance-like condition, she realized with unspeakable horror that she was being prepared for the services but could not speak or make any motion.

—The Hopewell Herald, Hopewell, New Jersey, Nov. 7, 1884.

The Germ Theory — Daniel Defoe, Journal of the Plague Year

1903

Defoe Gave a Hint of It In the Early Eighteenth Century

Defoe's "Journal of the Plague Year," published in 1722, contains two passages which grope toward bacteriology. Defoe himself pretends to disbelieve the theories. But his way is to seem to doubt what he is really eager to advance.

Having shown that contagion was almost certain in the case of people living in the same house, but often avoidable by segregation and precaution against physical contact, Defoe says:

"This put it out of question to me that the calamity was spread by infection — that is to say, by some certain steams or fumes, which the physicians call effluvia, which effluvia affected the sound who came within certain distances of the sick. Others talk of infection being carried on by the air only by carrying with it vast numbers of insects and invisible creatures, who enter into the body with the breath or even at the pores with the air and there generate or emit most acute poisons or poisonous ova or eggs, which mingle themselves with the blood and so infect the body."

In another place is this passage:

"I have heard it was the opinion of others that it (the disease) might be distinguished by the party's breathing upon a piece of glass, where, the breath condensing, there might living creatures be soon by a microscope of strange, monstrous and frightful shapes, such as dragons, snakes, serpents and devils, horrible to behold. But this I very much question the truth of, and we had no microscopes at the time, as I remember, to make the experiments with."

Man Deserts Wife: "I've Stood All I'm Going To"

Webster City, IA, 1903

SENDS WIFE A PARTING NOTE

Declares He "Has Stood All He Is Going To:" — Webster City Man Deserts Family.

Webster City, March 18.—After writing his wife a note bidding her and her child goodbye and telling her that they would never see him again, I. E. Ingerston, a tinner, residing in rooms in the Syndicate block, suddenly disappeared and no word has been heard from him since. Ingerston is a young man who has been employed in the F. R. Mason & Son hardware establishment as tinner for some time. He is industrious and has always borne a good reputation. He was married about three years ago to Miss Levenia White of this city. They have one child about two years of age. Last Saturday night Ingerston severed his connection with the F. R. Mason & Son store. He was away from home all day Sunday but his wife had no intimation of his intentions. This morning the postmaster brought Mrs. Ingerston a letter which read:

"I've stood all I am going to. You'll never hear from me again. Take the furniture and do what you please with it — sell it, I don't care. "IKE."

Nothing was missing from the house but a few clothes. Mrs. Ingerston has no idea where her husband went, nor does she knew whether he will return. Mr. Ingerston has many friends in this city who think that he would not have taken this step without some reason.

—Davenport Daily Republican, Davenport, IA, March 19, 1903, p. 2.

Hypnotist Team Mystifying, Amusing Audiences

Davenport, IA, 1903

THE FLINTS ARE MYSTIFYING AND PLEASING MANY

Their Performances At the Burtis Convulse Audiences With Laughter

Although the fight against hypnotism is at its height among the learned professors of the country, Prof. and Mrs. Herbert L. Flint are not so busily engaged in defending hypnotism as they are in presenting to the public some of the most laughable comedy performances by aid of hypnotic suggestions. There is nothing suggestive or degrading in their entertainments. Everything is on a high moral plane, and under the influence of Mrs. Herbert L. Flint, a bewitching, winsome woman, clad in the prettiest of gowns, which are themselves worthy of going to see, the subjects on the stage are carried from one amusing situation to another, each bringing out point after point of their natural humor until the youngest and oldest in the audience descend to one common plane of tearful laughter. The only thing that has marred the pleasure of Davenport audiences, who have seen the Flints this week, is their sympathy for Mrs. Flint, who is suffering from a badly wrenched ankle, an accident which befell her on her arrival in this city.

—Davenport Daily Republican, Davenport, IA, March 18, 1903, p. 7.

Tolstoy Now Writing "The Decembrists"

1903

NOVEL ON RUSSIAN HISTORY

Tolstoi Is Now Engaged Writing One To Be Called "The Decembrists."

St. Petersburg, March 16.—Tolstoi is about to realize the dream of his youth. He will bring out a historic romance called "The Decembrists."

The Decembrists were Russian officers, the flower of the nobility, who tried in December, 1825, to overthrow Nicholas I and put on the throne his elder brother, Constantine, who had renounced it, as a constitutional monarch. Tolstoi sketched the plan of the work before writing "War and Peace," and had even begun the story, but he found it hard to continue because he was so little known then and it was hard to get at the documents he needed to study. Now the great libraries of Russia will be open to him. "The Decembrists" will show the origin and causes of the movements.

Reflections of a Bachelor

1903

Not all men are bad, not all women good.

The greatest passion in the world is vanity; the most powerful weapon flattery.

There is no age at which a woman's heart will not melt to the man who smiles upon her.

Beware the man who approaches you with the promise that he has come to do you a favor.

It is the little things that tell. A man who is facing bankruptcy and dishonor with a courageous smile will fly into hysterics when he can't get his collar buttoned.

There will be some way of understanding women when some one can explain how a woman will think a matinee hero is like a god, and yet have her blood run cold at the thought of her son being like him.

Most people want to make money so as to spend it, but those who make money do it by not spending it.

Some women with good figures understand how to dress so that a blind man would know it.

Even a man who knows enough to swap horses and get the best of it doesn't always know enough not to get married.

It is no use trying to make a woman understand that a man never knows why he loves a woman and never cares why.

If nobody else had the sense when a woman is pretty to tell her, she would have the sense to talk it in a phonograph and then listen to it. — New York Press.

Men Gloomy at Breakfast, Waiter Says

1903

"Our business wouldn't be so disagreeable if we didn't have to serve breakfast to men," said a waiter in one of the better cafes one morning last week. "See that fellow over there? Well, naturally he's one of the best fellows that eats here, and at dinner he is a prince and never growls at anything, but at breakfast he always has a kick coming.

"It's the same way with nearly all men. They act as if they had got out of bed backward. In the morning they are nearly all of them cross, hard to please.

"It isn't the same with women. The reverse is true of them. If they find fault at all it is generally at dinner. Most women are as sweet-tempered in the morning as in the evening. If the men were as consistent we would not have so hard a time of it."

Funeral Customs – Old Fashioned Woe Being Replaced

1903

Funeral Reforms Needed

Old Fashioned Parade of Woe Gives Way to Better Customs

It accorded with old beliefs, remarks the Brooklyn Eagle, that a funeral should be a scene and occasion of gloom — absolute, hopeless gloom. The front room, with its dismal ornament, its black hair cloth furniture chairs and "sofy," its framed wedding certificates, its wreaths of flowers preserved from other funerals, was reduced to darkness by the lowering of the shades and closing of the blinds, so that guests fell over one another's legs when they entered and fumbled their way to the chairs. The deceased was dressed in black, nailed into a black coffin that rested on a black bier, and all the company dressed in the blackest things they could dig up from their wardrobes. No light, no air, no color, and from the minister little comfort. His voice creaked for the occasion. Then the company went away in darkened carriages to a bleak burying ground where the last rites were as dismal as might be.

This was the Yankee way. Some other people did differently. The wakes held over the remains were comforting to the survivors and added much to the reputation of the departed for hospitality. And the German fashion of going to a hotel after a burial and ordering unlimited beer proved that there was still a few solaces left on earth. Americans reverence their dead too much to make a funeral a scene of festivity; but they are mitigating the gloom of these occasions to a degree. Flowers and music take the edge from grief, and it is no longer necessary to darken the windows. White is more and more used in place of black for dress and decoration, and in placing the body in the casket — or, better, on a couch — there is avoidance of the stiffness of attitude that suggests a pose before the old fashioned photographer.

Reform in these matters comes, in part, through the holding of funerals in other places than the home. Some undertakers have mortuary chapels as part of their establishments. Cemeteries have buildings for a similar purpose. Mount Auburn, in particular, has a beautiful little chapel, near the gate which replaces the gothic structure in the middle of the grounds, now become a crematory. In this chapel, with its organ, carved oak roof, stained windows and electroliers in the form of funeral torches, the bier is so easily movable that it can be turned by a single hand: hence much of the struggle to place and carry away the casket is foregone.

But what especially marks the difference between the funeral here and the home funeral, between the now fashion and the old, is the lack of mourning emblems and the presence of plants and palms. The chancel is a mass of green — kentias, rubber trees, oleanders, and smaller plants, in rows and groups, so that the casket, with its usual burden of flowers in the center, suggests a great bloom itself in a whorl of leaves than the depository of a dead body. The clergyman delivers his address from a pulpit at one side, and if he is a wise clergyman it is a hopeful and encouraging address; in preference to the old fashioned threnody. When that is over there is music form the organ — a fine instrument — and the company files out into the sunlight. It is far better than the old fashioned funeral — that type of absolute woe.

Horse Eats Eggs Fresh As They're Layed

1903

Horse Eats Eggs

"Our wife owns a horse and a dozen chickens. She has owned the chickens since last Christmas, but up to this week the hens apparently had not laid any eggs.

"The other day she discovered that when a hen cackled the old horse would immediately wake up, go to hunting for the egg, and eat it. Now she has a foot race with the horse every time a hen cackles in the barn lot. Sometimes the wife wins and sometimes the horse wins. But the funny part of it is, sometimes a neighbor's hen cackles, and when the wife rushes out to the barn lot the old horse stands demurely until she makes a futile search for the egg, then he gives her what is known as the horse laugh." — The Anthony Bulletin, Kansas.