The Sunday morning news. [volume] (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1886-1891, 1891-03-01
CHAPTER III.

MEANs.n
Il has been mentioned that Miss Lati-
mer had a scrap book. Now, one scrap
book differs from another scrap book as
the north star differs from an indistin-
guishable atom in the Milky Way, but
any scrap book is or may be valuable.
The man or woman who keeps a scrap
book as it may be kept becomes danger
Gus because powerful. If knowledge
really be power little bits of knowledge
rescued from among the fotsam and jet
sam Of the printing press and preservedin
fashion that enables the possessor to put
his finger upon them become like so
many dynamite cartridges stored away
for possible use and capable Of most ef-
fective explosion. 1t is not given to (
everybody TO realize this; but as for me
pray that mine enemy may never keep
a scrap book. If he should hope he
may never know how to keep it we'll.
Miss Latimer's scrap book, it may be
said, was nothing more than one of
those huge, misshspen volumes, into
which are pasted, without order, and
often without reason, such scraps"
properly so called) as may chance to
strike the owners fancy at the moment
they are perceived. These books become
in time stored, as many mems minds are
stored. with miscellaneous. unassorted
collection of general INSTRUMENTATION, Of
no posi- BILE use to the owner or to any OF
the rest of mankind, excepting on those
rare occasions when transformation ex-
plodes in the hand Of the holder and
skaters him in minute bits.
Even SO poor a thing as one of these
gaudily bound, rattle-te bang books,
however, may have its use The name
of Allah, as the pious Mussulman re-
members, may chance to be inscribed on
any piece of paper that blows a-down the
wind So it happened that Miss Lati-
mer came into possession of q piece Of
paper without which whole story
would have gone wrong. 1t came about
through curious development of mod
ern civilization. Partly also through
the economy of modern publishers,
which impels them to print on both sides
of the same piece of paper.
Inas1nuch as no human being has
time to read all that may be written
and printed in these later days on any
subject that may be of interest to him
or her a new industry has sprung up
within ten years. People read newspa-
pers for other people, sending to their
customers such clippings as may bear
upon any given topic at so much per
clipping. By employing such an agency
the student may be reasonably sure Of
seeing all that is said in thousand
newspapers on the subject that interests
him. whereas he could never search all
those thousand publications if he had
forty-eight hours of spare time every
day.
So it happened that Miss Latimer, af-
ter she had returned to her city home
and had taken up the particular line Of
studv that interested her for the time,
sept an order to one Of the bureaus
where such work is done, for all the
publications that might appear about
the cultivation of orchids.
To her presently then came various
CLIPPINGS about orchids; reports of hor-
ticulturists, alleged witticisms, descrip-
tions of collections of orchids, philosoph-
ical essays upon the luxury of millionaires
as exemplifed by orchids of fabulous
price. and untold varieties of comments,
for orchids were just then the fashion
able craze. And among all these scraps
came one from a Bloomington paper.
She wondered, as she sat with this last
in her hand, whether it were the paper
or the whole world that was upside
down, for on the opposite sidp of the
paper from that where the orchids were
she read an account by the local reporter
of stay of proceedings asked for By
Lawyer Playfair on behalf of John
CorIins, recently convicted of burglary,
the prisoner having asserted, in spite Of
the positive evidence adduced at his
trial. that he was not John Corkins at
all, but that he was Daniel Tanning, M.
D., of New York city. Itappeared that
the stay OF proceedings was sought for
as preliminary to a demand for new
trial. on which the prisoner promised to
introduce new testimony And she
further read that the court had denied
the stay and had censured the lawyer