Good Fortune Saves Child

1916

Taken From Cistern Apparently Dead — Doctor Passing.

GUELPH, Ontario, Canada. — While playing around the yard the 2-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Bruce McPhail of Rockwood fell into a deep cistern in which there was about four feet of water. Other children gave the alarm, and help was soon at hand.

Fred Hamilton went down in the cistern and got hold of the child, but efforts to get them both out failed, with the result that the little fellow fell back into the water. E. Carton descended to the bottom of the cistern, and finding the child, managed to hold it above the water until those above were able to pull it to the surface. When taken out the little one was black in the face and apparently dead.

With rare good fortune a doctor was seen passing the house, and he lost no time in starting measures for resuscitation. It was some time before his efforts were successful, but eventually the child was restored.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 5.

Early Calculator — Lifesaver for Schoolboys?

1900

In one of the statistical divisions of the Department of Agriculture in Washington may be seen a machine resembling a typewriter, which multiplies and divides with unerring accuracy and with great rapidity.

Give its operator a multiplicand of six figures and a multiplier as large, and he will write them out as upon a typewriter; then he turns a handle a few times, and before the onlooker knows what is going on, the product is written out before him. The machine performs examples in division with equal ease.

Does any one of our young readers fancy that he sees in this invention an emancipation of boys of the twentieth century from the vexation of the multiplication table? Alas! that is too much for him to hope. Nobody seems to have devised a machine for adding common fractions of different denominators, although many a young schoolboy has concluded that this is one of the "long-felt wants" of the day.


Intemperance in France

Those who assert that wine-growing countries are largely exempt from the evils of intemperance need not point to France in proof of their assertion. The habitual use of wine often creates the craving which seeks for such stronger stimulants as absinthe or vermouth.

Of about three thousand prisoners in the department of the Seine, in which Paris is situated, it is officially stated, more than two thousand were drunkards. The number of suicides induced by habits of intemperance is said to have more than doubled in recent years. Alcoholism is also largely responsible for the fact that thirty-four per cent of the young men conscripted for the army are sent back as unfit; and in the cities of Normandy, where hard cider is the common beverage, the proportion rejected is much larger. It rises in Caen to fifty per cent; and in Havre three-fourths of the conscripts are rejected.


Vested Interest in Getting It Right

Senator Vest recently sent a newspaper item to be read to the House. The secretary had the wrong side of the clipping, and instead of an editorial on the money question, began: "Ridiculous! We are giving away these goods at half price!" "The other side!" cried Mr. Vest.

That the much vaunted common sense of the American people has another side is forcibly illustrated by recent sales of a good-luck box. This precious humbug is a little wooden case, containing a worthless three-starred ring, worth in all about five cents. But within the past three months many thousands of persons have paid ninety-nine cents apiece for it, expecting it to bring good luck. In this and similar instances the notice might appropriately made: "Ridiculous! We are giving ourselves away for nothing!"

—Youth's Companion.

"Bread Upon the Waters"

1900

The reward of a generous deed seldom comes more opportunely than it did in an instance reported by the Cleveland Leader. It appears that a prominent Clevelander named Cole, who has recently died, was forced to leave Cornell University at the close of his sophomore year, for lack of funds.

He went to New York, and began a canvass of mercantile houses and offices, in search of a position. Among many others, he visited the office of a produce merchant, who seemed greatly taken with his personality. The result of the interview was that the merchant said to Mr. Cole:

"Young man, go back and finish your college course, and I will foot the bill."

Mr. Cole accepted the offer, completed his course with credit to himself and his strangely found friend, and at once entered upon a business career. It was not long before he prospered in a business venture, and found himself able to repay the sum advanced for his education. He went to New York, sought out the office of his friend, and stepping up to his desk, laid down seven hundred dollars.

"Mr. Cole," said the old merchant, "if it were not for this money my credit would have been dishonored to-day. Maturing obligations would have gone to protest. You have saved me!" — Youth's Companion.

Daddy's Bedtime Story — "Where the Bad Boy Found His Manners"

1911

The Bad Boy in the Ditch

"He was really a naughty, ill mannered boy," began daddy. "His parents were wealthy, and they left him to the care of servants, who did not know how to make a good boy of him. The result was that he was impudent to the servants and cruel to dogs and cats and insisted on having his own way always. I shall tell you how he learned a good lesson.

"It happened in the summer time. One day this naughty boy, whose name was Dick, was standing at the gate of his father's house when another boy came there. He was a poor boy — you could tell that by his old clothing — but his shirt waist and his knickerbockers were clean and neat, and his face shone with good nature as well as soap and water. You could tell by looking at him that he was a jolly fellow. He carried in his hand a tin can full of ripe, juicy blackberries, and he asked Dick to buy them.

" 'Go away from here,' said Dick, with a frown, 'or I shall set the dog on you. We don't need your berries. We have everything we want!'

" 'If you have, please give me a drink of water,' said the poor boy. But Dick threatened again to set the dog on him, so he went away whistling.

"Then Dick said to himself: 'Those blackberries looked good. I think I will go and get some for myself.' He went out of the gate and down the road to a place where he knew the blackberries grew. The bushes were on the far side of a wide ditch, which was filled with mud. Dick was too lazy to find a good place to cross, so he tried to jump the ditch.

"He landed right in the middle in mud up to his waist When he tried to get out he found that he was stuck fast and could not free himself. Then he called for help. But it was a lonely spot, and for a long time he heard no answer. Then he heard a voice saying, 'Who's there?'

"Then Dick called again as loudly as he could, and soon he saw at the side of the ditch the poor boy whom he had treated so rudely. 'Hello!' said the boy. 'How did you get in there?'

" 'I fell in,' said Dick. 'Please help me out?'

" 'All right,' said the other boy. And he lay down at the side of the ditch, not minding the mud on his clothing, and reached out his hand to Dick. He was a strong boy, so he soon was able to get Dick out. Dick thanked him and went home to be cleaned off.

"The next day when the poor boy came around again to try to sell his berries Dick was very nice to him. 'Where did you find your manners?' asked the boy. 'In the ditch,' said Dick."

Snapshots by Barbara Boyd - Thoughtless Good Intentions

1913

Snapshots by Barbara Boyd
Thoughtless Good Intentions

Do not think the good intentions that pave the lower region are any worse than the good intentions which are put into execution, but which have no thought back of them," said the clubwoman.

"They are not half so bad," replied her friend, "for they don't worry anybody or do any damage. They never really live, and so, not having life, they can do neither good or ill. But good intentions that are full of life, and on their job, often work quite as much harm as good."

"That's what I think," responded the clubwoman. "They are often what I call thoughtless good intentions. With the very best of intentions, a person will rush to do something for you without even stopping to think whether you may want that thing done or not; and so precipitate upon your defenseless head an avalanche of trouble and annoyance.

"I got to thinking about this," went on the clubwoman, "because of something Mrs. Smith, a neighbor of mine, did the other day. I wasn't feeling very well, and I thought if I could lie down undisturbed and get a little sleep, I would be all right. The only one likely to come was the ice boy; so I hung out a little sign telling him what I wanted, and then went upstairs and crawled into bed. I was just dozing off, when the bell rang so furiously, and kept on ringing so persistently, that I thought the house must be on fire, or there was a dire telegram, or my husband had been run over by an auto, and I scrambled out and ran down. And who do you think it was?"

"Give it up," said her friend.

"This same Mrs. Smith, to ask me excitedly if I knew there was a sign pinned to the porch post. She said she was going by and saw it fluttering there, and thought maybe I didn't know it and ought to be told. Honestly, I could have choked her with right good will. I don't wonder murders are committed. I felt like asking her didn't she suppose I had eyes in my head, and would I be likely to hang up a sign and not know it was there, and a few more pointed questions like that. But being a supposedly civilized being, I only smiled feebly and said, 'Yes, I knew it was there as I had put it there myself,' whereat she apologized, and said she thought maybe it might be something I would like to know about. You see her intention was all right, but there was no thought back of it."

"There are plenty of such people," agreed her friend. "It's my private opinion that good intentions are a sort of cloak that lots of people use, to throw over thoughtlessness and selfishness and various others of the cardinal sins. The person who effervesces with good intentions, I avoid as I would the plague."

—The Newark Advocate, Newark, Ohio, April 8, 1913, page 5.