The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1895-01-16
LUSTY OLD LIES.
Some That Are Well Known and Yet
Seem Imperishable.

There is that well fixed old legend
about the injurious property of night
air. What lot of people-are dying Of
consumption because they viii not let
air in.0 ihe l,uie after dark. II j.
night air. son know, and that is-well,
il - night air, and somebody told your
grandfather second cousins wife's
sister-in-ih-law thai night air was uu-
wholesome. 30 they shut ali the win
dOws 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 head
ache, but with congratulations that
none Of that dreadful air from the hills
and the woods and the fields has got
into the house. Ask them how the eat
tie, that are out all night breathing
night air, keep 80 healthy. Ask them
what makes soldiers and sailors and
prOspectOrs and hunters 80 big-chest-
eel and hearty, living as they do in the
air all night, A. well a. i'm the daytime.
Bat you can't break up an old lie with
"A regiment of troops or herd of cattle.
Why there used to be lie, and it was
even IN the magazines, TO the effect
that the moon made people crazy, and
that if you slept out in the moonlight
you would wake up in the morning II
roaring lunatie. The man who called
"a crazy person lunatic, borrowing the
innocent moon to coin a word from,
was perhaps responsible for that. He
never thought To look at the effect of
moOnlit slumber on an army or a
watchman.
Every now and then we read reports
of u shower of frogs or ,toads or snakes
or lizards or young aligators. But
these showers never occur near where
anybody lives.
The wheat grows from seeds preseTv-
ed for three thousands years or more in
mummy cases covers square miles Of
imigration-and the frogs that have
been imprisoned in a granite or coal,
deep down in the hearts Of mountains,
for sbilliOns and billions of years-a
couple of billion before frogs were Great
ed-wOuld be marshalled into a respect
able army. When he got into the
granite the granite was presumably
white hot, but the frog got himself
crystallized in, just the same, and when
the chunk Is blasted he hops and starts
for the nearest pond as brisk as if he
had only been locked up over night.
Once in while he gets into the
stomach of a citizen, this frog does,
and sometimes his place in that strong
hold Is taken by snake which, resist
ing 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 il i
dinner time. Ordinarily snake eats
only live food, but perhaps he aeeus-
toms himself to oysters if his keeper
will occasionally eat them.
The rustic occasionally looks at
cloudy sky pierced by rays Of the sun
that spread into q visible fan Of light,
and says 'it's gOin' 10 rain. The suns
drawin' water And he really thinks
it Is water going up instead of light
coming down. If it rains it il because
the clouds are there and it il about
time to rain, not because the sun i
a. hard a. usual for the
of water on the surface Cf
the earth.
One might I'LL some columns about
the divining rod that can find gold and
silver and hasn't brought any out of
the countless millions Of the late unla-
Kidd to light, and about honor
among thieves, and about the evils that
befall poss-s~or, Of the opal, and about
the Mapletcn and some other ghosts,
and about raising umbrellas on the
stage, and about thirteen people at the
table and q whole lot Of other thing-,
but it wouldn't do any goOd--Brook-
nm EOlff