The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-03-17
MYSTERIES OF EVERYDAY LIFE.


The ingenious and delightful author of the
''Miseries of Human Life" left his task but
half accomplished. They have multiplied
since in fresh and unlooked-for variety; and
pleasant chapter or two may be written on
the subject hereafter. At the present mo-
ment am desirous of acquiring information
upon certain everyday occurrences, rather
than of enlarging on the various forms of
so-called accident that are attached ap-
parently even to my very nomencla-
ture; for my name is Hassard, and might
much more properly be called Certainty, if at
all designed to symbolic the constaney of
Fortunes freaks with my social status.
There are few things that have not happened
to me; indeed, doubt if there are any more
odds and ends left in Natures curiosity-box
now to happen; of late, too, things have
rather given over happening, and the few
that have turned up we're old happens
slightly refurbished with fresh materials of
worriment.
Philosophers are proverbially skin-deep
only; as prominent instance of which may
remark, in relation to the present subject,
that the inquiring mind which, some time
since, led the writer of 1.-TWO o'clock in the
morning" to investigate the causes why, at
that particular hour, the clock ticked uu-
usually loud, the wardrobe creaked and the
bedroom door opened of itself, might have
still farther extended its researches
with advantage into the mysteries of
everyday life. I should like, for instance, to
have had chapter explaining what becomes
of all the pins; and calling attention to the
fact, that for one pin ever picked up by the
| thriftiest old maid, at the least thousand 90
the way of all pins, whatever that may be-
Talk of the source OF the Nile, or the dis
| tance of the fixed sters-here is a mystery
which comes home to us ALL yet at the pre-
sent moment is as far as ever from being
cleared up. inquire from the intelligent
gentleman who presides over the great pin
mandatory at Gloucester; he will tell you
nobody knows; and very glad he is nobody
does know where all the millions of pins an
nually turned out there go to, else they might
some day all turn up again, to the great detri-
ment of Messrs. Kerby, Beard, and Kerby
and'other partners in the prickly trade. It
| has indeed been suggested that inasmuch
as needles have been known to enter the
hand and come out of the foot of human
beings, so pins find their way from the sur
face to the centre of the earth; which, if SO,
must at the present time be pretty full of
them. Without entering on the merits of this
theory, it is one, though not a very satisfac-
tory, way of accounting for the disappear
ance, by hundreds of millions annually, of
objects which can neither melt nor wear out
l shall not stop now to inquire why bread al
ways falls on the buttered side, especially
where the carpet beneath is fluffy and well
adapted to adhere that is a clear case of
awkwardness having its own reward, and one
that follows much more quickly than is to be
found in the apocryphal case of virtue so
placed. But / should like to know why it
is that, on the few occasions in my life
when l have been obliged to breakfast in bed,
the mere introduction of harmless cup of tea
into the room should Immediately cause that
bed to be full of crumbs? Any one who
has had the gritty experience in question will
testify to the fact, as also to the desperate
efforts Immediately made to get rid of the in
truders, and to the inevitable result; viz,
that the clothes are all got rid of, the crumbs
alone remaining, to give lively sense of
night passed upon gravel l-walk
In like manner, should desire some hints
as to the origin of what may be called the
inevitable tack or small nail, with fiat head
which, by extreme deXterity, stands erect
thereon, point upwards, at my bedside, when
ever chance to get up to light candle at
night, and receives my foot as l descend? No
amount of previous sweeping will insure
against the intrusion of this piquant object
should be obliged too by having my scien-
tifc aspirations gratifed, as to why eclipses
of the sun or moon are always visible with
particular advantage in all the uninhabitable
parts of the earth, and rarely, if ever, in a
country where there is anybody to see them?
l put it to any person possessed of an alma
| nae and common sense, whether Central
Africa, Cochin China the Carpathian Noun
tains, and the South Pacific Ocean have not
for ages enjoyed an undisturbed monopoly of
astronomical phenomena, to the utter
exclusion of all parts of the world
where anybody dwells. Once more
coming to terrestrial subjects; as matter of
speculation, it would be interesting to ascsr-
tain the relations between dust-carts and
rain-whether the advent of dust-carts pro-
duces rain, or that of rain produces the dust
carts. 1t has been a subject of contention
in alpine regions whether the snow pro-
duces the cold, or the cold produces the snow;
and after severe rheumatic attacks by parties
in their zeal for discovery, much is found
to be said on both sides. am particularly
careful person; it is therefore very mysteri-
GUS to me by what means varieties of fluffy
substances get into the corners of nearly
everything possess-as, for instance, my
ink-bottle which appears to generate
small rags of its own accord; and the pockets
of my waistcoats, which seem to possess the
property of producing an unfailing supply
of soft cottony deposits, for the sole purpose
OF getting into my watch-key. / shall es-
teem it favor if any one will clear up to
me that lingual mystery concerning the un-
fortunate letter h as pronounced in the ver-
nacular by large portion of our FELLOWSHIP
iecis. / could indeed understand its being
! unDrOnounced. therefore AiWsva laft ont.