The patriot. (Indiana, Pa.) 1914-1955, August 23, 1919, Image 7

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    BROKE OFF BAD HABIT
WOMAN TELLS HOW SHE OVER
CAME PROCRASTINATION,
Strict Mental Drill Enabled Her to i
Learn Promptness and Intelligently
Work to Accomplish Her
Daily Tasks.
Of all my many bad habits, I think
procrastination was the very worst.
I used to put things off and quiet my
conscience with the easy excuse that
another time would answer every pur
pose, or that, if circumstances had
been easier, I would have done it in
time enough. I had a startling realiza
tion of the strength of this bad habit
one day when serious consequences
had resulted; so I determined then
and there with all the force of my will
that 1 would break it up and rout my
enemy, foot and horse. Little did I
dream of what was before me. I
tried —God knows how I tried! —but
the habit was victor more often than
I, till at last one night after I had
gone to bed almost in despair over my
many defeats, like a flash came back
to me the psychologic basis of habit
making: that our habits are paths
running through our brain. With that
thought in mind I began intelligently
t© combat my foe.
The rules I worked out for break
ing my bad habits are these: Since
good habits are as powerful as bad »
ones, I determined to replace my bad 1
habit of procrastination by the good ;
one of promptness. Ih fact, to let the \
old pathway disappear for lack of use i
and to develop a new one. That this
new pathway might soon become
strongly marked by much use, I
made important engagemtmts that
must be carried out on the minute or
not at all, plans in whieh an instant
of delay would result so disastrously
that 1 shuddered at the thought. I
never allowed an exception. T . set
every ounce of will pewer I possesed
against hue slU>baok. If I said at
night, that I would get up the momeuL
my watch said seven o'clock, I got
up, even though the town clock had
not yet struck the hour.
After a time, as I gained my victor
ies, I devised all kinds of things as a
test of my growing power of prompt
ness; things that were not at all nec
essary, such as completing a book in j
a certain time, arriving on a specified ,
corner at a definite moment, or \
reaching an appointment one minute
before the appointed hour. Thus I
practiced my new habit every possible
opportunity. After many trials I
observed my will was having an
easier time than before, until, in the
course of a year and a half, prompt
ness was so much second nature to
me that I never thought of procrasti
nation. —Lucia Bosley, in the Ameri
can Magazine.
Scljool Seats Deform Youth?
Dr. J. W. Sever, an English surgeon,
urges that school desks should leave
room enough for the knees, and
should be low enough so that the el
bow and forearm may rest comfort
ably on them without bending the i
back.
The slope of the desk theoretically '
should be about 30 degrees, but as
that is too steep an angle to allow
books and papers to rest on it, with
out sliding off, a compromise angle of
from 12 degrees to 15 degrees' has
been selected.
The seat should be no wider than
the width of the hip, for wider seats
predispose to slouchy attitudes. It
should be about two-thirds the length
of the thigh. It may or may not
slope very slightly backward, but this
is of no great importance. Any great
slope is distinctly bad.
The height from the floor should be
such as to allow the feet to rest
equally and comfortably on the floor,
A seat of too great breadth, as well
as one of too great depth, compels
bad postures. The seat should have a
back which supports the lumbar spine
when sitting, at work, as well as at
rest.
Smile Means Much.
"The smile is one of the greatest
assets of the successful salesman or
saleswoman," says the manager of a
dspartment store linen department.
"It makes friends for the store as
readily as do moderate prices and
good goods.
"The ability to smile for eight hours
a day is a trait hard to acquire and
possessed by few store help. Yet it
can be gained by constant practice—-
the watching of oneself and not per
mitting at any time the slightest indi
cation of a frown.
"I recall my first purchase in a New
York department store. I was direct
ed to the counter where I could find
the special article of my choice. I
was met by a gruff 'What is it?* from
the salesman. I recall I said, 'Noth
ing,' and I haven't been in that store
since."
Too Good to Lose.
"Your husband is willing to allow
you the custody of the automobile,
the poodle, and the rubber plant, with
liberal alimony, while he takes the
children and the graphophone."
"Stop the divorce," sobbed the wife.
Til never get another husband like
that."
Ways of Women.
"Wimmen certainly ain't got no <jon
■istency."
"What's the matter, Mike?"
"Me wife chased me out wid a roll-
Jngpin this morning, and then cried
because I left home without kissing ■
her good-by."
MR. DOLBY IMPOSED ON
WHY HE BROKE A SELFISH RES
OLUTION.
Had Resolved to Play Part of Hog
on a Crowded Street Car, Until
Woman With Borrowed Baby
Appeared.
Dolby likes babies. That is why he
gave his seat to the good-looking
young woman in the triangular
brown hat. She carried a baby. If she
had not been so incumbered she would
have been condemned to strap hang
ing, so far as Dolby was concerned,
for he vowed at the beginning of
the trip that he was going to play the
hog.
"I'm dead tired," he said to Mr.
Bowler. "Thank heaven, I've found a
seat. I am going to stick to it, too.
Nothing short of an accident or a wo
man with a baby can rout me out till
I get home.'
Bowler said "Humph," as did sev
eral other passengers who overheard
Dolby's selfish resolution. The young
woman in the brown hat stood within
hearing distance as Dolby thus de
clared himself, but she did not say
"Humph." She merely thought it
Presently she edged down the car un
til she stood directly in front of Dol
by. About that time the baby began
to show off. He kicked at Dolby's
hat, first with the left foot and then
with the right, and then with both
feet simultaneously, and said, "00-00-00,"
00," very plaintively.
Dolby looked up and met the baby's
eye. The youngster's gaze embar
rassed his somewhat, so he allowed
his eyes to travel a litle higher. That
time he encountered an appealing
glance from the young woman. Dolby
became still more embarrassed; he
sat still a few seconds longer.
"Madam," he said, "will you have
this seat?"
"Thank you," sighed the young wo
man. "You are very kind."
It really was not worth while to tell
Dolby that. He already had an exag
gerated notion of his own magnani
mity, so, to even things up, he retired
to the back platform and picked a
quarrel with the conductor. When he
got tired of that he stepped inside the
car again. Directly in front- of him,
but under different guardianship, sat
the baby that had so ruthlessly as
saulted the rim of his hat a few min
utes before.
"00-00-oo," coed the baby.
"Hello," said Dolby. "Aren't you
the kid that took liberties with my
headgear a little while ago? How
did you get down to this end of the
car?"
The baby's reply was not eractly in
telligible, so his mother supplemented
it with a more lucid explanation.
"He belongs here," she said. "The
lady sent him back. She just bor
rowed him for a, few minutes."
With one quick glance Dolby re
treated to the platform, and there he
stayed.
World's Largest Index.
On Beacon Hill, in Boston, under the
golden dome of the statekouse, is one
I of the largest indexes in the
In fact, the Russian public index is
the only one known to be larger.
More than 9,000,000 names, births,
marriages and deaths in Massachu
i setts from 1943 make a complete ree
-1 ord, showing not only where people
were born and where they died, but
also statistics which are vital in mak
ing up calculations. Before this
time, says the National Magazine, the
records were kept in the different
towi?s, but now they are all concen
trated in the statehouse in Boston.
In a relatively small space all these
records are preserved, arid as births,
marriages and deaths come in, differ
ent forms of cards are used, and a
great variety of names, Grecian,
Assyrian, Italian and others now
mingle with good old New England
names that have been on the records
since the landing of the Mayflower.
Freezing an Easy Death.
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 tem
perature of 125 to 150 degrees below
zero, the breathing and heart beats
1 at first were quickened, the organic,
heat of the body actually rising above
normal.
This rising showed a sudden and anj
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.
High Price for Stralghtnesa.
One of the most difficult problems in
practical mechanics is to make a
straight edge. How difficult it is may
be judged from an incident that oc
curred in the shop of a celebrated as
tronomical instrument maker.
A patron asked what would be the
price of "a perfect straight edge of
glass 36 inches long."
cannot be made perfect," said
the instrument maker; "but it could
probably be made with a limit of error
amounting to only a fraction of a
wave length of light."
"How much would that cost?"
"About forty thousand dollars."
It turned out that the customer
wanted the straight edge for a scraper
and that an error of one sixty-fourtk of
an inch would not bother him.
SOME FAMOUS BEST SELLERS
Often, Like "Innocents Abroad," They
Have Been the First Books of
the Authors.
Many best sellers have been th€
first books of their authors. Mark
Twain, then an impecunious newspa
per man with little more than a local
reputation for journalistic practical
jokes, persuaded the publishers of a
western paper to pay his expenses on
the widely exploited excursion of the
Quaker City. The letters which were
the result this journey grew into
the book "The Innocents Abroad'' and
the name of Mark Twain became an
American household word.
Archibald Clavering Guuter, who had
been a mining and civil engineer and
a broker on the San Francisco ex
change-, possessed a manuscript that
no established publisher could be in
ducod to touch. So he issued it at
his own expense and in a very short
time the question of the hour became
"Have you read 'Mr. Barnes of New
York?' "
The pastor of a church in a small
town on the Hudson river visited Chi
cago just after the great fire, saw in
the catastrophe the background of a
novel with a strong religious appeal,
and in the course of a few months
awoke to find himself famous as the
author of "Barriers Burned Away."
An impetuous southern woman, the
author of one or two books that had
been lost-in the turmoil of the great
civil struggle, went to New York at
the close of the war witiv the manu
script of a novel and a year or two
later the traveler in southern statei
was progressing on land by St. Elmo
coaches, on water by St. Elmo steam
boats, staying in St. Elmo hotels,
smoking St. Elmo cigars and drinking
St. Elmo punch.
It was a very different matter with
Frances Hodgson Burnett's "Little
Lord Fauntleroy," says the Bookman.
That book was the work, not of a
novice, but of a writer who knew her
metier, who had years before won a
reputation for imagination and good
workmanship and who had already
produced eight books of conceded
quality.
French Youth to Learn Chess.
A quaint petition Las just been pre
sented to the French Minister of Pub
lic Instruction. At the famous cafe
ie la Regence there meet daily and
nightly groups of chess players who
have formed themselves into an as
sociation known as the Chess Federa
tion of the Cafe de la Regence. Here
the most important class champion
ships in Paris are decided. The com
mittee of the association have just
approached the minister with the re
quest that a series of chess manuals,
which they themselvves have select
ed, shall be distributed with other
books as prizes at the end of the
school term to the pupils of the va- >
rious lycees. The chess players are
anxious that a knowledge of their fa
vorite game should penetrate among
the younger generation, conscious as
they are of the importance of chess
in building up fharacter and forming
the mind. The minister has grant
ed the request, and France may ex
pect to see grow up among them a
generation of chess devotees, just as
it is now nurturing a generation of
football players.—Paris Correspond
ent London Globe.
Cracker Lunches.
!
New York city alone has nearly
750,000 children attending the public
schools. What a splendid opportunity
to provide this vast army of healthy
youngsters with a wholesome and ap
petizing cracker lunch, done up in a
neat package and still cheap enough
to be within the reach of even the
poorer parents. .
We once saw one of these cracker
lunches as got up by a large biscuit
concern in Germany. The paper box
contained six delicious crackers with
a marmalade filling, and there was an
empty compartment for a nice red
apple or a couple of plums, which of
course were added by the mother of
the child. These school lunches, ex
clusive of the fruit, were sold at 5
pfennings, or about I*4 cents.—Ba
ker's Weekly.
The Air-Sacs of Pigeons.
The air-sacs of the pigeon constitute
a system of interstices the value of
which lies in their absence of weight
and resistance.
Flying is possible only to a body of :
high mechanical efficiency divested
of all superfluous material. The orig
inal reptiles, which by evolution be
came birds, were divested of super
fluous material, and the body spaces
thus obtained were filled with air
sacs. The body wall, adapting itself
to the mechanical requirements, be
came a hollow cylinder serving as a
support for the organs of movement
the mobility of whose parts was as
sured by the surrounding air-sacs. The
air cavities in the bones of other birds
are similarly explained.—Harper's
Weekly.
Her Specialty.
"I thought you said George had
married a good manager."
"He did."
"I called on'her yesterday and the
house was in terrible disorder. It
looked as if everything had been left
to take care of itself."
"But you should »ee her managing
George."
Superior.
"They're very superior people,
aren't they?"
"Very. They play nothing but
grand opera records on their phono
graph."
Concerning Box Wood.
The manufacturing of boxes and
crates in the United States cou»um s
one-tenth of our output of lumber
every year. In some cases. sa>> the
American Forestry Magazine, the odor
of a wood adds to the value of the ar
ticle shipped in the package. Cigars
in Spanish cedar boxes furnish an ex
ample. It is widely believed that but
ter is better if it touches no wood ex
cept ash, and a similar belief prevails
regarding tea, which, it is said, should
be shipped and kept in the Chinese
wood in which the orientals pack it. The
notion in regard to the tea might lose
some of its popularity if it were gen
erally known that the wood of which
the tea boxes are made did not grow
nearer China than several thousand
miles. Some of it comes from Rus
sia. The Chinese paste paper over the
boxes, stamp them with Chinese char
acters, and fill them with tea for for
eign markets.
Human Good-Will.
With all your exuberant good-will
you haven't altogether got beyond the
theory that the first cave-dweller be
stowed on his neighbor the bone he ,
himself didn't need, and established
the pleasant relation of benefactor
,and beneficiary. It gave him such a
warm feeling in his heart that he nat
urally wanted to make the relation
permanent. First cave-dweller felt a
little disappointed next day when
second cave-dweller, instead of com
ing to him for another bone, preferred
to take his pointed stick and go hunt
ing on his own account. It seemed a
little ungrateful in him, and first
cave-dweller felt that it would be no
more than right to arrange legislation
in the cave so that it should not hap
pen again. Christian charity is a beau
tiful thing, but sometimes it gets mixed
up with those ideas of the cave-dwell
ers.—"Samuel M. Crothers.
Calling New Jersey "Spain.'*
Referring to New Jersey as "Spain"
came about in this way: Joseph
Bonaparte, the eldest brother of Na
poleon, came to America and occupied
the place called Point Breeze, at Bor
dentown, N. J. He was ex-king of
Spain, but, disclaiming his legal rank,
he lived there for several years under
the title of Comte de Survillierx, en
dearing himself to his neighbors by his
liberality and graeiousness of man
ners. He was chosen a member of
many learned and philanthropic insti
tutions, and in 1817. an act was passed
by the legislature enabling him as an
alien to hold real estate within the
state. Ardent Republicans, as well
as neighbors out of good-natured rail
lery, for this reason culled the state '
his kingdom of Spain.
Stranger Than Fiction.
Among the advertisements on the I
first page of an Austrian rural news
paper appears one tradesman's praise
of the "beautiful fresh bread" he dis
tributes, and another tradesman's ac
claim of the "beautiful Cavendish ba
nanas" he has for sale. After reading |
further and finding with relief that at
least one individual deals in "beauti
ful art" in this day of post-postism,
one is naturally led to wonder just
when Lewis Carroll was exercising his
imagination and when he merely
setting down faithfully what he had
heard when he penned such poems of
praise as that Alice in Wonderland
lyric which concludes:
Soup of the evening,
Beautiful soup. %
Machine Shapes Masts.
A machine has been built which will
shape masts up to 100 feet In length
and three feet in -diameter. The tim
ber is set up in the machine and de
volved at a speed of 50 revolutions a
minute, and it is shaped by a cutter
head which is electrically driven at the
rate of 700 revolutions a minute. This
cutter head is mounted on a carriage,
which is moved along the timber
against a rail set to give the proper
profile to the mast. Heretofore this
work has been done by hand and re
quired skilled workmen. At best it
has been a slow and laborious task.
Life Made Beautiful.
"The part of life which we really
live is short," said Seneca. "Exigua
pars est." Perhaps it is true, as this
wise old pagan has said. And yet it
ought not to be true. All of life should
and can be made beautiful. The best
that Is in us should not assert itself
infrequently, but at all times. The time
we spend in the effort to satisfy our
greed, the time spent In envy of our j
neighbors, in anger. In any unworthy
spirit whatever, is assuredly time spent
HI. It is that part of life in which
we really do not live at all.—Los An
geles Times.
Consequences.
Consequences are unpitylng. Onr
deeds carry their terrible conse
quences, quite apart from any fluctua
tions that are hardly ever confined to
ourselves. And it is best for us to fix
our minds on that certainty, instead
of thinking what may be the elements
of excuse for us. Sooner or later what
we really believe will work its way into
action, and what we think and what
we do will one day be in accord. That
is one great danger of unrestrained
thought.
Delivering the Nev; Suit
Customer (telephoning tailor) —"Yoa
send out the clothes and If they're
O. K. I will send you my check." Tailor
—"Won't do it. You send me the
check first and if it is O. K. I will tend
tho Alnthoa tf —Tndflra
ARROW COLLARS
LAUNDERED OR SOFT /£--■
(C THE BEST THAT YOU MSt" V
CAN BUY rAT THE IJjL J
PRICE YOU PAY
MONROE Cluett, Peabody <f Co., Inc., Troy, K Y. SOFT
"HOLD-TIGHT' HAIR NETS ENJOY AN ENVIABLE
JZ A\V* I //"V NATIONAL REPUTATION AND THE FRIENDSHIP
* - _Y. . \ OF MILLIONS OF WOMEN—
MA "HOLD-TIGHT* HAIR NETS ARE MADE OF THE
OCT FINEST REAL HUMAN HAIR. ALL SHADES.
PO R EVERY ••HOLD-TIGHT" HAIR NET GUARANTEED
. U u,T7n n /. D cAru OR MONEY REFUNDED. ORDER AT YOUR FAVO»
WHITE OR GRAY 25< EACH RITE STORE. IF THEY CANNOT SUPPLY YOU
CAP°"FRINGE SHAPE WRTEUS. STATE COLOR * I
M 21 ADOLPH KLAR
( • /■> '
J "\
OEM STUDIO
;j 730 Phila. Street, - - Indiana, Pa.
j! Opposite Moore Hotel
omaMtHiMMK a-,. 11l ■■■■ll mimmm ■■■ « i
Can't sleep! Can't eat! Can't even digest what little you rfo eat!
*
* _ One or two do.V'
ARMY & NAVY
DYSPEPSIA TABLETS
wHI make you teel ten years
younger. Best known remedy
■HiV for Constipation. Sour Stomach
and Dyspepsia.
"V
25 cents a patkage at all Druggists, or
sent to any address postpaid/ by the
U. S. ARMY & NAVY TABLET CO.
260 West Broadway. N. Y. *
| I
JEfiB&F KITTLE
jomr, givER
WHAT YOU SI"ELY NEED
ia a healthy, active, industrious Small doses of these pilla
taken regularly insure that. You may also need a purgative
sometimes. Then take one larger 6 ose. Keep that in "» ! nd;
it will pay you rich divide-:! ii Heahh and Happiness.
Genuine -7 Small Pill
a bears ... -■> Small Dosv
signature S „ '■ Small Price
- S
ROSY PHFFKS or Kr 1 C lron in the Blood. Fa-e cr
faces usually show it* absence." Ac« .. J 'TV f RON PILLtS 1
diuon which will be much helped by n' -«KmwvrmaMiWMMHPrvar*
VENITE DA NOI
Non andate iit _• irò con il '.o ro vestito sudicio
quando noi lo possiamo pulire per b»*ne e fr.rlo com
parire come nuovo; e meglio [ er la \os'ti*n salute, aiuta
il vostro aspetto e suscita maggior rispetto.
Noi facciamo inoltre nuovi vestiti, che vendono
fatti su misura, con buon materiale e costano tanto
come quelli che si comperano già manufatturati.
Venite a consultai ci.
Indiana Dye Works,
720 Phila. Street, . Indiana, Pa.