The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1894-12-05
uusrY oLo LIES.
Some That Are Well Known and Yet Seem
to re IraysrishabIs,

Some Tfsat Arc Well Known and Yet Seem
to ne IaysrishsbIs.
There is that we'll fixed old legend
about the injurious property Of
night air. What lot of people are
dying Of consumption because they
will not let air into the house after.
dark 1t is night air, you know, and
that is--well, it is night air, and
somebody told your grsndfather's
second cousins wife's sister-in-law
that night air was unwholesome. So
they shut all the windows and
breathe all the breaths of an entire
family and the exhalations Of
closets and the gas Of furnaces and
stoves all night and get up with
headache, bat with congratulations
that nolas Of thas dreadful air from
the hills, and the woods, and the
Aolds has got into the house. Ask
them how tie cattle that arc out all
night breathing nieht air keep so
healthy. Ask them what makes sol
diers and shilsra and prospectors
and .Lnnters SO big chcsted and
hearty, living, as tboy do, in the
air all night as we'll as in the day
time. But you can't break up an old
lie with a regiment Of troops or a
herd of cattle. Why, there used to
be a lie, and it was even in the
magazines, to tho effect that the
moon mGda people crazy, and that il
you slept out in the moonlight you
would wake up in the morning a
roaring lunatic. The man who called
a crazy person q lunatic, borrowing
the innocent moon 20 coin word
from, was perhaps responsible for
that. He never thought to look at
the effect of pnoonlit slumber on an
army or watchman.
Every now and tben we read re.
ports Of n shower OF frogs or toads
or snakes or lizards or young alliga.
tors. But these showers never occur
near whore anybody lives.
The wheat grown from seeds pre-.
served for 8, 600 years and more In
mummy cases covers square miles
of ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS the frogs that
have becn imprisoned in granite or
coal, deep down in the hearts OF
mountains, for billions and billions
of years-a couple of billion before
frogs were created--would be mar.
shaled into respectable army.
When he got into the granite, the
granite was presumably white hot,
but the frog got himself crystarized
in, just tbs saTne, ard when this
chunk is blasted hs hopa and starts
for tho nearest pond Rs brisk as if he
had only been locked up overnight.
Once in awhile he eets into the
stomach Of n citagen, this frog does.
and sometimes his place in that
stronghold Is taken by a snake,
which, resiating gastric acid and
Needless Of the lack Of air, plays
around for months, now and then
coming up into the throat of his
host to suggest that it is dinner time
Ordinarily a snake eats only live
food, but perhaps he accustoms him.
self TO oysters IL his keeper will con.
sidorately eat them.
Tho rustic occasionally looks at a
cloudy sky pierced by rays of the
sun that spread into a visible fan Of
light and gays: TITS goin to rain.
Tho suns drewin wator." And he
really thinks IL is water going up in.
stead Of light coming down. n IL
rains, IL is because the clouds are
there. and 10 In about time TO rain,
not because the sun IS working as
hard as usual for the evaporstion oi
water on tho surface of the earth.
One might al somc columns about
the divining rod that can find gold
and silver and hasn't brought any
Of tho countless millions of the lsts
unlamcnted Kidd TO light and sbout
honor among thieves, aud about the
evils that befsll posscssors Of The
opal, nnd about the Maplctcn and
some other ghosts, ana about raising
umbrellas on the stage and st,out ~
people ~ Tho tabic, and whcss lct Of
other things, but it wouldn't DO any
GOOD d--T2roooldyn EaGla