Chapter IV: Part 4

Dickens, in “All the Year Round,” objects to the “softening of ruffian into _rough_, which has lately become popular.” Yet the use of the noun rough as applied to a coarse, violent, riotous fellow, a bully, instead of being a recent creation, dates back to the Elizabethan period. In Motley’s “History of the United Netherlands” in the description of the death of Queen Elizabeth (iv. 183), we are told:

“The great queen, moody, despairing, dying, wrapt in profoundest thought, with eyes fixed upon the ground or already gazing into infinity, was besought by the counsellors around her to name the man to whom she chose that the crown should devolve. ‘Not to a Rough,’ said Elizabeth, sententiously and grimly.”

_Either and Neither_

Richard Grant White, in his “Words and Their Uses,” says, “The pronunciation of _either_ and _neither_ has been much disputed, but, it would seem, needlessly. The best usage is even more controlling in pronunciation than in other departments of language; but usage itself is guided, although not constrained, by analogy. The analogically correct pronunciation of these words is what is called the Irish one, _ayther_ and _nayther_; the diphthong having the sound it has in a large family of words in which the diphthong _ei_ is the emphasized vowel sound—_weight_, _freight_, _deign_, _vein_, _obeisance_, etc. This sound, too, has come down from Anglo-Saxon times, the word in that language being _aegper_; and there can be no doubt that in this, as in some other respects, the language of the educated Irish Englishman is analogically correct, and in conformity to ancient custom. His pronunciation of certain syllables in _ei_ which have acquired in English usage the sound of _e_ long, as, for example, _conceit_, _receive_, and which he pronounces _consayt_, _resayve_, is analogically and historically correct. _E_ had of old the sound of _a_ long and _i_ the sound of _e_, particularly in words which came to us from or through the Norman French. But _ayther_ and _nayther_, being antiquated and Irish, analogy and the best usage require the common pronunciation _eether_ and _neether_. For the pronunciation _i-ther_ and _ni-ther_, with the i long, which is sometimes heard, there is no authority either of analogy or of the best speakers. It is an affectation, and in this country, a copy of a second-rate British affectation. Persons of the best education and the highest social position in England generally say _eether_ and _neether_.”

_If_

When Philip of Macedon wrote to the Spartan ephors, “If I enter Laconia I will level Lacedæmon to the ground,” he received for answer the single but significant “If.” This is, perhaps, the finest example of laconic utterance on record, and was, indeed, worthy of the people who gave not only a local habitation but name to pithy and sententious speech.

_Words that will not be put Down_

Allusions to the introductions and changes of words meet us constantly in our reading. Thus “banter,” “mob,” “bully,” “bubble,” “sham,” “shuffling,” and “palming” were new words in the _Tatler’s_ day, who writes: “I have done my utmost for some years past to stop the progress of ‘mob’ and ‘banter,’ but have been plainly borne down by numbers, and betrayed by those who promised to assist me.” _Reconnoitre_, and other French terms of war, are ridiculed as innovations in the _Spectator_. _Skate_ was a new word in Swift’s day. “_To skate_, if you know what that means,” he writes to Stella. “There is a new word coined within a few months,” says Fuller, “called _fanatics_.” Locke was accused of affectation in using _idea_ instead of notion. “We have been obliged,” says the _World_, “to adopt the word _police_ from the French.” We read in another number, “I assisted at the birth of that most significant word _flirtation_, which dropped from the most beautiful mouth in the world, and which has since received the sanction of our most accurate Laureate in one of his comedies.” _Ignore_ was once sacred to grand juries. “In the _interest_ of” has been quoted in our time as a slang phrase just coming into meaning. _Bore_ has wormed itself into polite use within the memory of man. _Wrinkle_ is quietly growing into use in its secondary slang sense. _Muff_ may be read from the pen of a grave lady, writing on a grave subject, to express her serious scorn.

_Changes in Pronunciation_

Tea was pronounced _tay_. In Pope’s “Rape of the Lock,” we have:

“And thou, great Anna, whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take and sometimes tea” (_tay_).

Also, in the same poem:

“Soft yielding minds to water glide away,
And sip, with myths, their elemental tea (_tay_);”

a rhyme which cannot be accounted for by negligence in Pope, for Pope was never negligent in his rhymes.

A hundred and fifty years ago, _are_ was pronounced _air_. Note, for example, the following couplet of George Withers:

“Shall my cheeks grow wan with care
’Cause another’s rosy are?” (_air_).

_Pronunciation of Proper Names_

The Mexican Indians pronounce the name of their country with the accent on the second syllable (the penult), Mex-i´co. The Dakotas pronounce their name Dak´o-ta. The accent on Wy-o´ming is on the second syllable, though Campbell places it on the first:

“On Susquehanna’s side, fair Wy´oming.”

Goldsmith, in _The Traveller_, accents the penult in Niagara:

“Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,
And Niaga´ra stuns with thundering sound.”

Moore, in “The Fudge Family,” conforms to the modern pronunciation:

“Taking instead of rope, pistol, or dagger, a
Desperate dash down the Falls of Niagara.”

In Braham’s song, “The Death of Nelson,” the second syllable is accented:

“’Twas in Trafalgar Bay
We saw the foemen lay.”

But Byron, in “Childe Harold,” lays stress on the last syllable:

“Alike the Armada’s pride and spoils of Trafalgar.”

Repeated in “Don Juan,” i. 4; also in the Prologue to Scott’s _Marmion_.

In the “Lay of the Last Minstrel,” Carlisle is accented on the first syllable:

“The sun shines far on Carlisle wall.”

Pope, in his translation of the “Iliad,” says,—

“Then called by thee, the monster Titan came,
Whom gods Briar´eus, men Ægeon name.”

Shakespeare employs the name as a dissyllable:

“He is a gouty Briareus; many hands,
And of no use.”—_Troilus and Cressida._

Lady M. Wortley Montagu following Spenser’s “Then came hot Ju´ly boiling like to fire,” accented July on the first syllable:

“The day when hungry friar wishes
He might eat other food than fishes,
Or to explain the date more fully,
The twenty-second instant July.”

_Bryant’s Index Expurgatorious_

During William C. Bryant’s editorial management of the New York _Evening Post_, he attached to the walls of the rooms of the sub-editors and reporters a list of prohibited words. It would be a substantial benefit to “English undefiled” if a similar list were adopted and insisted upon by every American newspaper. For our newspapers have a manifest influence in determining the growth and character of our language, and it behooves them to do their best to preserve its purity. But this is a far less easy thing to do than most persons would imagine; and, if forbidden words do occasionally slip into the columns of the newspaper, it must be a blemish such as, in some shape and degree, is supposed to be inseparable from all human productions. Most of the writing on the modern daily newspaper is necessarily the work of that enterprising, wide-a-wake class known as reporters. They “shoot on the wing,” look more to present effect than to classic correctness in their writing, and are, none of them, purists in literary style.

The English language has never had any well defined and universally recognized laws of its own. In its literature it began with the time when every writer was a law unto himself, and it has never fully outgrown that condition. Nor can all the Trenches and Goulds and Grant Whites in existence mould it into any arbitrarily correct shape. It is a mixture of various tongues, and is drawing to itself, every year, a considerable number of additional words from the most diverse and curious sources, and especially from the other leading languages. It may in time—who knows?—become the universal language, the one which is to be the lingual Moses to lead the world out of the wilderness of the curse of Babel, and give to all people a common vehicle of communication. In this view of the case, the liberties taken by the ingenious and inventive newspaper reporter may be regarded as important and useful. The dictionaries wait upon the newspapers, and slowly accept and take to themselves, as English words, the intruders which a year or two before looked so strange in the newspapers, but which custom has rendered not only familiar, but seemingly necessary.

Here is Mr. Bryant’s list of forbidden words:

Aspirant. Authoress. “Being” done, built, etc. Bogus. Bagging, for “capturing.” Balance, for “remainder.” Banquet, for “dinner.” Collided. Commenced, for “begun.” Couple, for “two.” Debut. Donate and donation. Employee. “Esq.” Indorse, for “approve.” Gents, for “gentlemen.” “Hon.” Inaugurated, for “begun.” Initiated, for “begun.” In our midst. Ignore. Jeopardize. Juvenile, for “boy.” Jubilant, for “rejoicing.” Lady, for “wife.” Lengthy. Loafer. Loan or loaned, for “lend” or “lent.” Located. Measurable, for “in a measure.” Ovation. Obituary, for “death.” Parties, for “persons.” Posted for “informed.” Poetess. Portion, for “part.” Predicate. Progressing. Pants, for “pantaloons.” Quite, prefixed to “good,” “large,” etc. Raid, for “attack.” Realized, for “obtained.” Reliable for “trustworthy.” Repudiate, for “reject” or “disown.” Retire, for “withdraw.” Rôle, for “part.” Rowdies. Roughs. A success, for “successful.” States, for “says.” Taboo. Transpire, for “occur.” To progress. Tapis. Talented. The deceased. Vicinity, for “neighborhood.” Wall Street slang generally: “Bulls, bears, long, short, flat, corner, tight, etc.”

To this list might be added _without_ as the synonym of unless,—_e. g._, “I would not proceed without he agreed;” _directly_ for as soon as,—_e. g._, “I gave him the letter directly I saw him;” _apprehend_ for think, fancy, believe, imagine; _from hence_, _from thence_, _from whence_; _mutual_ applied to persons (“our mutual friend”) instead of limiting it to actions, sentiments, affections; _try and_ for try to; _but that_,—_e. g._, “he never doubts but that he knows their intentions;” _widow-lady_ or _widow-woman_, though those who use these expressions never say widower-gentleman or widower-man. To the phrase in Mr. Bryant’s list _in our midst_, which is no better than _in our middle_, and very different from “in the midst of,” etc., may be added the never ending, still beginning _in this connection_, instead of “in connection with the foregoing,” etc. Even more careless and more thoughtless on the part of our best writers and speakers—not the vulgarians who use _like_ in place of as—is the constant misuse of the phrase _of all others_. As Mr. Gould remarks, “How one thing can be _of other_ things, is the question. One thing can be _above_ other things, but it cannot be _of_ them. A thing can be _of all things, the most_; or of all things, the richest, etc., or, of a class, the best; but the introduction of ‘others’ into the phrases in question excludes from the ‘class’ or from the ‘all,’ the very thing named.” A common blunder is the use of the past for the present tense when the writer or speaker wishes to express an _existing_ fact,—_e. g._, “the truth _was_ that A struck the first blow,” instead of the truth _is_. What is the more remarkable is the use of a verb in the past tense with an infinitive in the past tense, which is frequently met with in English literature. For example, Dr. Johnson says, “Had this been the fate of Tasso, he _would have been able to have celebrated_ the condescension of your majesty in noble language.” Alison says, “It was expected that his first act _would have been to have sent_ for Lords Grey and Grenville.” How much more simple as well as more correct to say _to celebrate_ and _to send_.

_Stilted Scientific Phraseology_

The “big words” of science are often necessary and useful, expressing what cannot be made clear to the student in any other way, but they are sometimes mere verbiage and mean no more than their common equivalents. It goes without saying that in this latter case the true scholar uses the short, plain word. He who writes in six-syllabled words for the mere pleasure of astounding the multitude is not apt to have very much solid thought to express. Some good advice on this subject, which is worthy the serious attention of other scientific men than students of medicine, was given to the students of the Chicago Medical College by Dr. Edmund Andrews, in an introductory address, from which the following paragraphs are taken:

It is amusing and yet vexatious to see a worthy medical gentleman, whose ordinary conversation is in a simple and good style, suddenly swell up when he writes a medical article. He changes his whole dialect and fills his pages with a jangle of harsh technical terms, not one-third of which are necessary to express his meaning. He tries to be solemn and imposing. For instance, a physician recently devised a new instrument, and wrote it up for a medical journal under the title, “A New Apparatus for the Armamentarium of the Clinician,” by which heading he doubtless hopes to make the fame of his invention “go thundering down the ages,” as Guiteau said.

Another writer wanted to say that cancer is an unnatural growth of epithelium. He took a big breath and spouted the following: “Carcinoma arises from any subepithelial proliferation by which epithelial cells are isolated and made to grow abnormally.” Now, then, you know all about cancer.

A writer on insanity illuminates the subject as follows: “The prodromic delirium is a quasi-paranoiac psychosis in a degenerate subject. A psychosis of exhaustion being practically a condition of syncope.”

The following is an effort to say that certain microbes produce the poison of erysipelas: “The streptococcus erysipelatosus proliferating in the interspaces of the connective tissue is the etiologic factor in the secretion of the erysipelatous toxins.”

A large cancer of the liver was found at a postmortem examination and reported about as follows: “A colossal carcinomatous degeneration of the hepatic mechanism.”

Still, the man of big swelling words is not always up in the clouds. If called to a case of accident, he examines the injury, and may inform the family in quite a simple and dignified manner that their father was thrown sidewise from his carriage breaking his leg and putting his ankle out of joint, but if he writes out the case for his medical journal, he gets up straightway on his stilts and says, “The patient was projected transversely from his vehicle, fracturing the tibia and fibula and luxating the tibio-tarsal articulation.”

Your man of solemn speech is peculiar. He does not keep a set of instruments—not he—he has an armamentarium. His catheters never have a hole or an eye in them, but always a fenestrum. In gunshot injuries a bullet never makes a hole in his patient, but only a perforation. He does not disinfect his armamentarium by boiling, but by submerging it in water elevated to the temperature of ebullition. He never distinguishes one disease from another, but always differentiates or diagnosticates it. His patient’s mouth is an oral cavity. His jaw is a maxilla. His brain is a cerebrum, his hip-joint is a coxo-femoral articulation. If his eyelids are adherent, it is a case of ankylosymblepharon. If he discovers wrinkles on the skin, they are corrugations or else rugosities. He never sees any bleeding, but only hemorrhage or sanguineous effusion. He does not examine a limb by touch or by handling—he palpates or manipulates it. If he finds it hopelessly diseased he does not cut it off—that is undignified. He gets out his armamentarium and amputates it.

_Metaphorical Conceits_

A Chicago critic addicted to figurative fancies was very much affected by the play of _Arrah na Pogue_. “There are passages in it,” he writes, “which thunder at the heart like the booming of the Atlantic tide, and drown it in floods of bitter tears.” This idea of being drowned in floods of tears, by the way, has been always very popular with struggling muses who long to launch into bolder strains. Lee describes a young lady with an exuberance of tears:

“I found her on the floor
In all the storm of grief, yet beautiful;
Pouring forth tears at such a lavish rate
That, were the world on fire, they might have drowned
The wrath of heaven, and quenched the mighty ruin.”

Cowley makes a sighing lover sigh in an excessively gusty manner:

“By every wind that comes this way,
Send me at least a sigh or two,
Such and so many I’ll repay
As shall themselves make winds to get to you.”

But Shakespeare, who always surpasses, unites the tears and sighs, and makes a perfect rain tempest:

“Aumerle, thou weepest, my tender-hearted cousin!
We’ll make foul-weather with despised tears;
Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn,
And make a dearth in this revolting land.”

The play mentioned by a Chicago critic could hardly have been as affecting as the oratory of a preacher who is described by an admiring editor. “I have,” he says, “repeatedly heard the most famous men in America, but there are times when the flame of his pathos licks the everlasting hills with a roar that moves your soul to depths fathomed by few other men.” Evidently this preacher should go to Congress; he is imbued with the spirit of oratory, and would be an antidote, on the principle of “_similia similibus curantur_,” for a politician who, in announcing himself a candidate for Congress, remarked in his card: “I am an orator, and yearn to roar in the capitol, and clap my wings like Shakespeare’s rooster, or the eagle on his celestial cliff, gazing at the prey my arrows did slay.”

An excellent specimen of hyperbole is mentioned by a Houston (Maine) paper, which says, on the question of a new town-hall, that one gentleman urged the measure in order, as he expressed it, “that the young men of our town may have a suitable place to assemble, and be so imbued with the spirit of liberty and patriotism that every hair of their head will be a liberty-pole with the star-spangled banner floating from it.”

A Leavenworth paper thus confusedly mixed things animate and inanimate: “The fall of corruption has been dispelled, and the wheels of the State government will no longer be trammelled by sharks that have beset the public prosperity like locusts.” And a Nebraska paper, in a fervent article upon the report of a legislative committee, said, “The apple of discord is now fairly in our midst, and if not nipped in the bud it will burst forth in a conflagration which will deluge society in an earthquake of bloody apprehension.”

In the words of an English poet is this rather too exaggerated hyperbole:

“Those overwhelming armies whose command
Said to one empire, ‘Fall,’ another, ‘Stand,’
Whose rear lay wrapped in night while breaking dawn
Roused the broad front and called the battle on.”

But these metaphorical rhapsodies were eclipsed soon after our Civil War by _The Crescent Monthly_ in an article on Lee’s surrender. The writer thus laughs to scorn all competitors:

“The supreme hour has now come when, from across Fame’s burning ecliptic, where it had traced in flaming sheen its luminous path of glory, the proud Aldebaran of Southern hope, in all the splendors of its express, Hyades brightness, should sink to rest behind lurid war-clouds, in the fateful western heaven, there to bring out on death’s dark canopy the immortal lights of immortal deeds, and spirits great and glorious shining forever down upon a cause in darkness, like the glittering hosts upon a world in night.”

This gushing sentence comes from a novel called “Heart or Head:”

“And she, leaning on his strong mind, and giving up her whole soul to him, was so happy in this spoiling of herself, so glad to be thus robbed, offering him the rich milk of love in a full udder of trust, and lowing for him to come and take it!”

A grotesque simile is sometimes very expressive. We may mention those of Daniel Webster, who likened the word “would,” in Rufus Choate’s handwriting, to a small gridiron struck by lightning; of a sailor, who likened a gentleman whose face was covered with whiskers up to his very eyes, to a rat peeping out of a bunch of oakum; of a Western reporter who, in a weather item on a cold day, said that the sun’s rays in the effort to thaw the ice were as futile as the dull reflex of a painted yellow dog; and of a conductor who, in a discussion as to speed, said that the last time he ran his engine from Syracuse the telegraph poles on the side looked like a fine-tooth comb.

Similes of a like character are often heard among the common people, and are supposed to be the peculiar property of Western orators. Instances: As sharp as the little end of nothing; big as all out-doors; it strikes me like a thousand of bricks; slick as grease, or as greased lightning; melancholy as a Quaker meeting by moonlight; flat as a flounder; quick as a wink; not enough to make gruel for a sick grasshopper; not clothes enough to wad a gun; as limp and limber as an india-rubber stove-pipe; uneasy as a cat in a strange garret; not strong enough to haul a broiled codfish off a gridiron; after you like a rat-terrier after a chipmunk squirrel; useless as whistling psalms to a dead horse; no more than a grasshopper wants knee-buckles; no more than a frog wants an apron; don’t make the difference of the shake of a frog’s tail; soul bobbing up and down in the bosom like a crazy porpoise in a pond of red-hot grease; enthusiasm boils over like a bottle of ginger-pop; as impossible to penetrate his head as to bore through Mont Blanc with a boiled carrot; as impossible as to ladle the ocean dry with a clam-shell, or suck the Gulf of Mexico through a goose-quill; or to stuff butter in a wild-cat with a hot awl; or for a shad to swim up a shad-pole with a fresh mackerel under each arm; or for a cat to run up a stove-pipe with a teasel tied to his tail; or for a man to lift himself over a fence by the strap of his boots. A simile resembling these was used by Lady Montague when, getting impatient in a discussion with Fox, she told him she did not care three skips of a louse for him, to which he replied in a few minutes with the following:

“Lady Montague told me, and in her own house,
‘I do not care for you three skips of a louse.’
I forgive her, for women, however well-bred,
Will still talk of that which runs most in their head.”

There is another class of similes scarcely as pertinent, as, for instance: straight as a ram’s horn; it will melt in your mouth like a red-hot brickbat; talk to him like a Dutch uncle; smiling as a basket of chips; odd as Dick’s hatband; happy as a clam at high water; quicker than you can say Jack Robinson; like all possessed; like fury; like blazes; like all natur’; like all sixty; as quick as anything; mad as hops; mad as Halifax; sleep like a top; run like thunder; deader than a door-nail. Thunder is a very accommodating word. A person may be told to go to thunder, or may be thundering proud, or thundering sensible, or thundering good-looking, or thundering smart, or thundering mean, or thundering anything; and anything may be likened to thunder. The epitaph quoted from a tombstone in Vermont over a man’s two wives was quite proper, but was rendered ludicrous by this common use of the word:

“This double call is loud to all,
Let none surprise or wonder;
But to the youth it speaks a truth
In accents loud as thunder.”

“Dead as a door-nail” would not seem to be very expressive, and yet it has long been used. In “Henry IV.” we read the following dialogue:

“_Falstaff._—What! is the old king dead?

_Pistol._—As nail in door.”

Dickens, in his “Christmas Carol,” wonders why Scrooge should be dead as a door-nail rather than any other kind of nail. Probably the explanation is in the fact that proverbs are often pointed by alliteration, and that door-nail gratifies this conceit while any other nail would not.

_Guess_

The word guess, popularly supposed to be a Yankeeism, is as old as the English language, not only in its true and specified sense, but in use for “think” or “believe.” Wycliffe, in his translation of the Bible, says, “To whom shall I gesse this generacion lyk?” Chaucer frequently uses it in the modern sense, as, for example, in describing Emelie in “The Knighte’s Tale:”

“Hire yelwe here was broided in a tresse
Behind hire back, a yerde long, I gesse.”

Spenser uses it in a similar way in the “Fairie Queene.” Bishop Jewell, Bishop Hale, John Locke, and other sixteenth century writers, left well known passages in which it occurs. Shakespeare, as every student of the great dramatist knows, used it repeatedly. Examples of such use may also be found in some modern English novels.

_A Message from England_

Beyond the vague Atlantic deep,
Far as the farthest prairies sweep,
Where mountain wastes the sense appal,
Where burns the radiant Western Fall,
One duty lies on old and young—
With filial piety to guard,
As on its greenest native sward,
The glory of the English tongue!

That ample speech, that subtle speech,
Apt for the needs of all and each,
Strong to endure, yet prompt to bend,
Wherever human feelings tend,
Preserve its force, expand its powers,
And through the maze of civil life,
In letters, commerce, e’en in strife,
Remember, it is yours and ours!
—RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES.

FIRST THINGS

_First Marriage in the American Colonies_

In 1609, at Jamestown, Virginia, the first Christian marriage ceremony was performed, according to English rites, when Anne Burras became Mrs. John Leyden. This was eleven years before Mary Chilton—as Mr. Winthrop relates—was the first person to set foot on Plymouth Rock.

_First Blood of the Revolution_

The “First Blood of the Revolution” has been commonly supposed to have been shed at Lexington, April 19, 1775, but Westminster, Vermont, files a prior claim in favor of one William French, who, it is asserted, was killed on the night of March 13, 1775, at the king’s court-house, in what is now Westminster. At that time Vermont was a part of New York, and the king’s court officers, together with a body of troops, were sent on to Westminster to hold the usual session of the court. The people, however, were exasperated, and assembled in the court-house to resist. A little before midnight the troops of George III. advanced and fired indiscriminately upon the crowd, instantly killing William French, whose head was pierced by a musket ball. He was buried in the church-yard, and a stone was erected to his memory, with this quaint inscription:

“In Memory of William French Who Was Shot at Westminster March ye 12th, 1775, by the hand of the Cruel Ministeral tools of Georg ye 3rd at the Courthouse at a 11 o’clock at Night in the 22d year of his age.”

_The Oldest Buildings in America_

An adobe structure is pointed out in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which is said to have sheltered Coronado in 1540.

The United States barracks at St. Augustine, Florida, are composed in part of an ancient Franciscan monastery, under the name of the Convent of St. Francis, which was completed in the latter part of the sixteenth century.

_First Duel Fought in New England_

The following account of the first duel in New England, and probably in this country, which occurred at Plymouth, June 18, 1621, is here given _verbatim et literatim_:

“The Second offence is the first Duel fought in New England, upon a Challenge at Single Combat with Sword and Dagger between Edward Dotey and Edward Leister, Servants of Mr. Hopkins: Both being wounded, the one in the Hand, the other in the Thigh; they are adjudg’d by the whole Company to have their Head and Feet tied together, and for to lie for 24 Hours, without Meat or Drink; which is begun to be inflicted, but within an Hour, because of their great Pains, at their own and their Master’s humble request, upon Promise of better Carriage, they are Released by the Governor.”

_First Person Cremated in America_

The first person cremated in the United States, according to wishes and desires expressed by himself, was Colonel Henry Laurens, one of the Revolutionary patriots. He was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in the year, 1724, and died on his plantation near that place on December 8, 1792. His will, which he had requested to be opened and read the next day after his death, was supplemented with the following:

“I solemnly enjoin it upon my son, as an indispensable duty, that, as soon as he conveniently can after my decease, he cause my body to be wrapped in twelve yards of tow cloth, and burned until it be entirely consumed.”

The request was carried out to the letter, and was the beginning of cremation in America.

_Old-Time Journalism_

Curious reading at the present day is the editorial in the first issue of _The Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences and Pennsylvania Gazette_, published by Keimer, in 1729:

“We have little News of Consequence at present, the English _Prints_ being generally stufft with Robberies, Cheats, Fires, Murders, Bankrupcies, Promotion of some, and Hanging of others; nor can we expect much better till Vessels arrive in the Spring when we hope to inform our Readers what has been doing in the Court and Cabinet, in the Parliament-House as well as the Sessions-House, so that we wish, in our _American_ World, it may be said, as Dr. _Wild_ wittily express’d it of the _European_, viz.,

‘_We all are seiz’d with the_ Athenian Itch
News _and_ New Things _do the whole world bewitch_.’

“In the mean Time we hope our Readers will be Content for the present, with what we can give ’em, which if it does ’em no Good, shall do ’em no Hurt. ’Tis the best we have, and so take it.”

_The First American Book_

The first book printed in the Anglo-American colonies was the Bay Psalm Book. It was printed at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1640. It is a thin volume, about the size of an ordinary 12mo of the present day. So rare is it that the compiler of a catalogue of scarce books remarks in a note that any comments on its importance “would be sheer impertinence.” The acquisition of a copy must always be “the crowning triumph to which every American collector aspires.” Another copy of the same work, printed several years later, supposed to be the second edition, and the only known copy of that date, went for $435.

_The Pioneer Furrier_

In a New York paper printed on the 10th of January, 1789, may be found the first piano-forte advertisement ever published in that city. It reads:

“John Jacob Astor, at No. 81 Queen st., next door but one to the Friends’ Meeting House, has for sale an assortment of Piano Fortes of the newest construction, made by the best makers in London, which he will sell on reasonable terms. He gives cash for all kinds of Furs, and has for sale a quantity of Canada Beaver, and Beaver Coating, Raccoon Skins, and Raccoon Blankets, Muskrat Skins, etc., etc.”

_College Papers_

The first college paper, says the _Harvard Crimson_, was not established by the oldest university, but by one of her younger sisters, Dartmouth. There appeared in 1800 at that institution a paper called the _Gazette_, which is chiefly famous for the reason that among its contributors was Dartmouth’s most distinguished son, Daniel Webster. A few years later Yale followed with the _Literary Cabinet_, which, however, did not live to celebrate its birthday. It was not until 1810 that Harvard made her first venture in journalism, and then Edward Everett, with seven associates, issued the _Harvard Lyceum_.

_Damnatus_

A St. Louis newspaper, relieved to find that it can say “tinker’s dam” without being guilty of profanity, shows its gratitude by proving the same innocence for the “continental dam.” At the close of the Revolutionary War, it says, the government called in all the continental money. With it were found a large number of counterfeits, on each of which, as received, was stamped the word “Dam,” a contraction of the Latin _damnatus_ (condemned). Hence the force of the expression, “not worth a continental dam,” for if a genuine continental note was worth but little, a continental “dam,” or counterfeit note, must have been utterly worthless.

_A Virginia Abolitionist_

Richard Randolph, brother of John Randolph, of Roanoke, died in 1790, leaving a will by which he left four hundred acres to his slaves, whom he freed. The will gave the reason for his act as follows:

“In the first place, to make restitution, as far as I am able to an unfortunate race of bondmen, over whom my ancestors have usurped and exercised the most lawless and monstrous tyranny, and in whom my countrymen by their iniquitous laws, in contradiction of rights, and in violation of every sacred law of Nature, of the inherent, inalienable, and imprescriptible rights of man, and of every principle of moral and political honesty, have vested me with absolute property. To express my abhorrence of theory, as well as infamous practice, of usurping the rights of our fellow-creatures, equally entitled with ourselves to the enjoyment of liberty and happiness. For the aforesaid purposes, and with an indignation too great for utterance at the tyrants of earth, from the throned despot of a whole nation to the more despicable, but not less petty tormentor of a single wretched slave whose torture constitutes his wealth and enjoyment, I do hereby declare that it is my will and desire, nay, most anxious wish, that my negroes, all of them, be liberated,” etc., etc.

_Suspension Bridge_

The first American suspension bridge was erected in 1801, by James Finley, across Jacob’s Creek, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. It had a span of seventy feet, and cost six thousand dollars. In 1809 a suspension bridge was built over the Merrimac River. It had a span of two hundred and forty-four feet, and cost twenty thousand dollars.

_Millions for Defence_

On one occasion in Charleston, South Carolina, Thomas S. Grimke, addressing himself to General C. Cotesworth Pinckney, asked permission to put a question to him. The old General replied, “Certainly, sir.”

“General,” said Grimke, “we would like to know if the French Directory ever actually proposed anything like tribute from the United States to you, when Minister?”

“They did, sir,” he answered; “the question was, What will the United States pay for certain political purposes, etc.?”

“What was your answer, General?” asked Grimke.

“Not a sixpence, sir,” answered General Pinckney.

“Did you say nothing else, General?”

“Not a word, sir.”

“Was there nothing about millions for defence, but not a cent for tribute?”

General Pinckney: “I never used any such expression, sir. Mr. Robert Goodloe Harper did at a public meeting. I never did.”

“Did you ever correct the report of Mr. Harper’s speech, General?”

“No, sir. The nation adopted the expression, and I always thought there would have been more ostentation in denying than in submitting to the report. The nation adopted it.”

_Machine Politics_

The term “machine politics” has been traced to Nathaniel Hawthorne, who said, in one of his notebooks, “One thing, if no more, I have gained by my custom-house experience—to know a politician. It is a knowledge which no previous thought or power of sympathy could have taught me; because the animal, or the _machine_ rather, is not in nature.”

_Anæsthesia_

Dr. Marion Sims summarized as follows the successive steps leading up to practical demonstration:

1. That since 1800 the inhalation of nitrous oxide gas produced a peculiar intoxication, and even allayed headache and other minor pains.

2. That Sir Humphrey Davy proposed it as an anæsthetic in surgical operations.

3. That for more than fifty years the inhalation of sulphuric ether has been practised by the students in our New England Colleges as an excitant, and that its exhilarating properties are similar to those of nitrous oxide gas.

4. That the inhalation of sulphuric ether, as an excitant, was common in some parts of Georgia forty-five years ago, though not practised in the colleges.

5. That Wilhite was the first man to produce profound anæsthesia, which was done accidentally with sulphuric ether in 1839.

6. That Long was the first man to intentionally produce anæsthesia for surgical operations, and that this was done with sulphuric ether in 1842.

7. That Long did not by accident hit upon it, but that he reasoned it out in a philosophic and logical manner.

8. That Wells, without any knowledge of Long’s labors, demonstrated in the same philosophic way the great principle of anæsthesia by the use of nitrous oxide gas (1844).

9. That Morton intended to follow Wells in using the gas as an anæsthetic in dentistry, and for this purpose asked Wells to show him how to make the gas (1846).

10. That Wells referred Morton to Jackson for this purpose, as Jackson was known to be a scientific man and an able chemist.

11. That Morton called on Jackson for information on the subject, and that Jackson told Morton to use sulphuric ether instead of nitrous oxide gas, as it was known to possess the same properties, was as safe, and easier to get.

12. That Morton, acting upon Jackson’s off-hand suggestion, used the ether successfully in the extraction of teeth (1846).

13. That Warren and Hayward and Bigelow performed important surgical operations in the Massachusetts General Hospital (October, 1846) on patients etherized by Morton, and that this introduced and popularized the practice throughout the world.

_Anthracite Coal_

Anthracite coal was first experimentally burned, and its value as a fuel and marketable commodity tested, in the old Fell House, Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, in February, 1808. The experiment was conducted in a very primitive sort of grate built for the purpose by Judge Jesse Fell, then one of the leading men in the community. He had written in letters to relatives describing the achievement, and for some time had contended that if properly ignited the “stone coal,” as it was then called, would burn, but his friends laughed at him. Nevertheless he studied the problem until he decided that it was necessary to have a draft to keep it burning. He then had the grate built of ten-inch bars, forming the front and bottom of a box that he set in brick, and in this he placed the stone coal, lighting it from below by means of splinters of wood and keeping up such a draft with a bellows that the coal soon glowed red hot. He found, too, that when red hot it quickly ignited other coal placed upon it, and, proud of his success, he told his neighbors. They would not believe him until they had, as he wrote, “ocular demonstration of the fact.” Day after day the old room in the tavern was crowded with the people of the little village and the travellers who passed through, and soon to all parts of the region where outcroppings of coal had been discovered the news was borne.

_Petroleum_

In the _Massachusetts Magazine_, published in 1789, occurs the following reference to the existence of oil-springs in Pennsylvania:

“In the northern part of Pennsylvania there is a creek called Oil Creek, which empties into the Allegheny River. It issues from a spring, on the top of which floats an oil, similar to that called Barbadoes tar, and from which one may gather several gallons a day. The troops sent to guard the western posts halted at the same spring, collected some of the oil, and bathed their joints with it. This gave them great relief from the rheumatism with which they were afflicted. The water, of which the troops drank freely, operated as a gentle purge.”

The curious book of Peter Kahm, entitled “Travels in North America,” and published in 1772, gives a map in which is set down the exact location of the oil-springs.

But there is still earlier reference to the oil supply in a letter written by a French missionary, Joseph de la Roche d’Allion, who had crossed the Niagara River into what is now New York State. In this letter, written in 1629, nearly a century and a half before Kahm’s book appeared, he mentions the oil-springs, and gives the Indian name of the place, which he explained to mean, “There is plenty there.” The letter was printed in Sagard’s “Historie du Canada,” in 1632.

_Photography_

M. Niepce, of Chalon-on-the-Saône, was the first to enjoy the satisfaction of producing permanent pictures by the influence of solar radiations. This was accomplished in 1815; and the name chosen to designate his process was heliography. Niepce afterwards learned that Daguerre had been conducting experiments of a similar character, and they formed a partnership. The former, however, died in 1833, and a new deed of partnership was signed between his son Isidore and M. Daguerre, which resulted in the publication, in July, 1839, of the process known as the daguerrotype. But this was not done until the French government had passed a bill securing to M. Daguerre a pension of six thousand francs, and to Isidore Niepce a pension of four thousand francs, both for life, and one-half in reversion to their widows. This action of the French government was based upon the argument that “the invention did not admit of being secured by patent, since, as soon as published, all might avail themselves of its advantages; it therefore chose to enjoy the glory of endowing the world of science and of art with one of the most surprising discoveries that honor their native land.”

Visitors to the exhibit of the University of the City of New York at the World’s Fair in Chicago will remember the faded daguerrotype of Miss Elizabeth Catherine Draper, a fair young woman in a huge poke bonnet, the inside of which was filled with roses.

Its history was thus given, at the time, by Chancellor MacCracken of the University:

“The daguerrotype is a picture of Miss Elizabeth Draper, and was taken by her brother, John Draper, in 1840, when he was a professor in our university. Previous to that time Daguerre had made experiments in photography, or sun pictures, as they were then called; but he never got beyond landscapes and pictures of still life.

“When Professor Draper first tried to photograph a person, his idea was that the face should be covered with flour, that the outlines might be more distinct. After many failures he decided to try one without anything on the face, and this picture of his sister was successful at the first trial. Delighted with his victory, Professor Draper sent the picture to Sir William Herschel, the great English scientist, that his achievement might be known on the other side of the water. Sir William acknowledged the gift and sent congratulations in a letter, which was fortunately preserved in Professor Draper’s family.”

_Old Hickory_

How General Andrew Jackson got this title is told by Captain William Allen, who was a near neighbor of the general, and who messed with him during the Creek War. During the campaign the soldiers were moving rapidly to surprise the Indians, and were without tents. A cold March rain came on, mingled with sleet, which lasted for several days. General Jackson got a severe cold, but did not complain, as he tried to sleep in a muddy bottom among his half-frozen soldiers. Captain Allen and his brother John cut down a stout hickory-tree, peeled off the bark, and made a covering for the general, who was with difficulty persuaded to crawl into it. The next morning a drunken citizen entered the camp, and, seeing the tent, kicked it over. As Jackson crawled from the ruins, the toper cried, “Hello, Old Hickory! come out of your bark, and jine us in a drink.”

_Eagle, the Emblematic_

The Etruscans were the first who adopted the eagle as the symbol of royal power, and bore its image as a standard at the head of their armies. From the time of Marius it was the principal emblem of the Roman Republic, and the only standard of the legions. It was represented with outspread wings, and was usually of silver, till the time of Hadrian, who made it of gold. The double-headed eagle was in use among the Byzantine emperors, to indicate, it is said, their claim to the empire both of the East and West. It was adopted in the fourteenth century by the German emperors, and afterwards appeared on the arms of Russia. The arms of Prussia are distinguished by the black eagle, and those of Poland bore the white. The white-headed eagle is the emblematic device of the United States of America, is the badge of the order of the Cincinnati, and is figured on coins. Napoleon adopted the eagle for the emblem of imperial France; it was not, however, represented in heraldic style, but in its natural form, with the thunderbolts of Jupiter. It was disused under the Bourbons, but was restored, by a decree of Louis Napoleon, January 1, 1852.

_John Bull_

Mrs. Markham, in her “History of England,” says, “I am told this name cannot be traced beyond Queen Anne’s time, when an ingenious satire, entitled the ‘History of John Bull,’ was written by the celebrated Dr. Arbuthnot, the friend of Swift. The object of this satire was to throw ridicule on the politics of the Spanish succession. John Bull is the Englishman, the frog is the Dutchman, and Charles II. of Spain and Louis XIV. are called Lord Strut and Louis Baboon.”

_The First Riddle_

The first recorded riddle was that propounded by Samson to the thirty companions who came to the marriage feast of his wife,—afterwards burned to death with her father by the Philistines,—and for the answer to which he promised to give them thirty sheets, and thirty changes of garments. “Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness.” For the outcome, see the Book of Judges, xiv. 12–20.

_Boycott_

Captain Boycott was the agent of an estate in Ireland, and the tenants having become dissatisfied with his management asked the landlord to remove him. This he declined to do, and thereupon the tenants and their friends refused to work for Boycott, and made an agreement among themselves that none of them, their friends, or relatives should assist or work under him at harvest. His crops were thus endangered; but assistance arriving from Ulster, the harvest was gathered under the protection of troops. The tenantry then decided to still further extend their system of tabooing by including all persons who had any dealings with Boycott. All such were not only to be ignored and treated as total strangers, but no one was to sell to them or to buy of them.

_Vivisection_

Although cutting operations on living animals for the purpose of acquiring physiological knowledge were practised to a small extent as far back as the time of the Alexandrian school of medicine, William Harvey was the first to make any great and conclusive discoveries as the results of experiments on living animals. Harvey had a favorite dog named Lycisca, whose experience in vivisection was made the subject of a poem by a sympathizer, which is thus referred to by a recent English writer:

“This discovery of the circulation of the blood, in 1620, is attributable to our countryman Harvey, ascertained by experiments on a dog, whose name, Lycisca, and whose sufferings and whose usefulness to mankind, have been immortalized and handed down to posterity in some beautiful touching lines.”

_Auld Kirk_

If anyone will turn to the author of “Our Ain Folk,” he will learn why Scotch whiskey is called “Auld Kirk.” An old Glenesk minister used to speak of claret as puir washy stuff, fit for English Episcopawlians and the like; of brandy as het and fiery, like thae Methodists; sma’ beer was thin and meeserable, like thae Baptists; and so on through the whole gamut of drinks and sects; but invariably he would finish up by producing the whiskey bottle, and patting it would exclaim, “Ah, the rael Auld Kirk o’ Scotland, sir! There’s naething beats it.”

_Beer_

A recently published German work on the chemistry of beer, by M. Reischauer, states that the use of beer dates from very early times. Tacitus says, in his book on the manners of the ancient Germans, “Potus humor ex hordeo aut frumento, in quandam similitudinem vini corruptus;” and also that these Germans were indeed simple and moderate in their food, but less so in the use of this drink from barley or wheat. Diodorus Siculus (30 B.C.) affirms that Osiris even (1960 B.C.) introduced a beer made from malted grain into Egypt. Archilochus (720 B.C.) and Æschylus and Sophocles (400 B.C.) refer to a barley wine (vinum hordeaceum), and Herodotus (450 B.C.) relates that the Egyptians made wine from barley. The Spaniards knew beer, Pliny reports, as “celia” or “ceria;” the Gauls under the name “cerevisia.” In England and Flanders beer was commonly in use at the time of the birth of Christ; while old books represent Gambrinus, King of Brabant (A.D. 1200), as the inventor of beer. It is certain that beer was known to the Chinese from very early times. In the Middle Ages there was a celebrated brewery at Pelusium, a town on one of the mouths of the Nile.

_Honeymoon_

The word “honeymoon” is derived from the ancient Teutons, and means drinking for thirty days after marriage of metheglin, mead, or hydromel, a kind of wine made from honey. Attila, a celebrated king of the Huns, who boasted of the appellation, “The Scourge of God,” is said to have died on his nuptial night from an uncommon effusion of blood, brought on by indulging too freely in hydromel at his wedding-feast.

The term “honeymoon” now signifies the first month after marriage, or so much of it as is spent from home. John Tobin, in “The Honeymoon,” thus refers to it:

“This truth is manifest—a gentle wife
Is still the sterling comfort of man’s life;
To fools a torment, but a lasting boon
To those who wisely keep their honeymoon.”

_Gringo_

When the American army invaded Mexico a favorite song in the camps was Burns’s “Green grow the rushes, O.” The Mexicans heard it repeated over and over, and finally began to call the Americans by the first two words, which they pronounced “grin go.” Hence “Gringo.”

_Erasure_

One of the earliest references to the use of india-rubber for the removal of pencil marks occurs in a note to the introduction of a treatise on perspective by Dr. Priestley, published in 1770. The author remarks, at the conclusion of the preface, “Since this work was printed off I have seen a substance excellently adapted to the purpose of wiping from paper the marks of a black-lead pencil. It must, therefore, be of singular use to those who practise drawing. It is sold by Mr. Nairne, mathematical instrument maker, opposite the Royal Exchange. He sells a cubical piece of about half an inch for 3s., and he says it will last several years.”

_The Thimble_

There is a rich family of the name of Lofting, in England, whose fortune was founded by the thimble. The first ever seen in England was made in London less than 200 years ago by a metal worker named John Lofting. The usefulness of the article commended it at once to all who used the needle, and Lofting acquired a large fortune. The implement was then called the thumb-bell, it being worn on the thumb when in use, and its shape suggesting the rest of the name. This clumsy mode of utilizing it was soon changed, however, but the name, softened into “thimble,” remains.

_Bank Notes_

The oldest bank note probably in existence in Europe is one preserved in the Asiatic Museum at St. Petersburg. It dates from the year 1399 B.C., and was issued by the Chinese government. It can be proved from Chinese chroniclers that as early as 2697 B.C. bank notes were current in China under the name of “flying money.” The bank note preserved at St. Petersburg bears the name of the imperial bank, date, and number of issue, signature of a mandarin, and contains even a list of the punishments inflicted for forgery of notes. This relic of 4000 years ago is probably written, for printing from wooden tablets is said to have been introduced in China only in the year A.D. 160.

_Anno Domini_

The first sovereign who adopted the phrase, “In the year of our Lord,” was Charles the Third, Emperor of Germany, 879. It is now the accepted mode of designating the year in all Christian countries.

_The Oldest Declaration of Independence_