The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-06-06
SOME TEETH FOR OLD SAWS.
POSSIBLE ORIGIN OF MANY An
GENT PROVERBS AND SAYINGS.


Have the Boers Dutch Courases'
"ORce In IA Blue Moon"
From the New York Times.
Putting the cart before the morse"
When was that first said? The cart must
have been invented after the horse was
tanned. Archaeologists have raised the
question whether the horse was not first
put in harness before he was mounted. but
archaeologists generally. Capt. Bourke OF
the United States Cavalry excepted. not
knowing much about the horse. insist.
because The horse as "a domesticated ami
NAL is first sAen in "a picture and hitched
TO a chariot. that that was the initial
step toward the using Of him. This con-
clusion. We believe. cannot be the natural
one. To turn then. to the old proverb.
The early groom, say. belonging TO one
of the Pharoahs-b undered. and his aug
ust master scolded him in the choicest
Egyptian OF the day and said. you are
putting the chariot before the horse" He
only changed the common expression Of
the agricultural class. who may have
said: You are putting the cart before
the oxen" There is Rabelals. who uses
the time-honored proverb. III msttoyt Ia
charctte devant les boefuz." and the jolly
Cure Of Meudon was repeating a peas
ants express. on about his cart and oxen
In all Old Proverbs IL is the cart. or the
wagon, which Is I'm use. yet with as often
as not another meaning, as "a creaklug
cart lasts the longest or ITO make
a cart go You must grease the wheels"
"A living dog Is better than dead Hon.
That saying, too, Is of the most remote
antiquity. one variation in Latin reads
"Leoni mortuo ethan lepores insultant,"
TO be freely translated as "hares insult
dead lions 1t exists In good form In a
French manuscript of the fourteenth cen
tury-' MieuX Walt un CHEN sein fort qe
un leoun fried mort" or "A sound and
strong dog IS worth more than cold
and dead lion"
Everybody ought to know by this time
the origin of the expression 'by hook or
by crook, and yet people viii refer 10 IL
the pastor and his flock and crozier
What the saying recalls Is the fcudal
rights of the mobiles I'm regard to the for
ests. A serf If he used "a hook" which
was bill with sharp edge, and SO cut
down the growing branches Of the tree,
might have mad his ears Topped of or his
nose slit by the forest keepers. But the
poor man might, by means of a crook
or curved stick, pull down the dead wood
and suffer no punishment. Probably the
people in the forests helped themselves
freely TO wood, and got 1t by hook or
by crook"
What a profound brain that must have
been which worked with that simplest OF
expressions las sure as eggs are eggs!"
says some one with a domelike ead-that
phrase could only have come from some
mathematician He was absorved IN a
problem fraught with difficulties, and he
remarked las sure as \ is N There
was a countryman going to market with
basket Of eggs who overheard the phil
osopher, and was so taken aback that
he dropped his eggs. and when they were
smashed exclaimed, satisfied as 10 the
fragile character Of his eggs, las sure as
eggs are eggs" This brings back Dean
SWifts fancy as to the name Of AleXan-
der, the Great. which. he said, only meant
"all eggs under the crate.'
Cleanliness is next to godliness." is
the most beautiful and the truest Of all
proverbs. Among the old Greeks at least,
from their fonduess for water, cleanliness
had all TO do with their religious ccremo-
MES. The Jews followed up the idea dur
ing the Passover festival There Is a
whole history of religion in this proverb.
When aceticism and dirt followed, Il be-
came sinful to be sweet and clean Queen
Isabella, for vow. II Is said, wore her
undertaking unwashed until she con
dirty tinge, still bears to-day the name
of Isabel color" In Aristotle there Is
this phrase. Cleanliness is a half vir-
tue" and that embodies the true Greek
idea So far as has been discovered, the
sayng is due TO the great and good John
Wesley. lie recommended neatness in
dress and plenty of water. He did not like
slovenly people. Here Is something from
"a sermon of his: Cleanliness is. indeed,
next to goodness" The expression may
have originated long before the time OF
Wesley, but he certainly gave II the stamp
Of authority. We know there is a SEN
teuce of George Herbert's which reads
His 0he elergymans) apparel is plain
but revered and clean, without spots or
dGst, the purity OF his mind breaking out
ana dilaung itself, even to his body
clothes and habitation" Say what
we may, II was Wesley who boiled all
this down, and gave the elixir Of 1t in
There has been an endless amount Of
pother and lost erudition over Ito pluck
a crow A most ingenious person dived
into French for it. Grow" so he said,
was the French "Croc,' which when pro-
nounced loses its final &C." When the
French dandy wears moustachios he twists
the ends of them-and his moustachios are
zen croc." Therefore, If you wanted to
find fault with a Frenchman, you threat
ened to pull his mustache or his beard.
Let us stick to our old crow, cOrVus, be-
cause he Is not a nice bird to pick,
and there is something nasty in the idea
Of after having plucked him, the eating
of him. To "eat dirt" is bad but hardly
worse than 10 eat crow, for we say; I'VE
don't banker after crow"
Whether Beaconsfieid ever did invent
that famous phrase "All wise men are
OF the same religion" and when asked
what 1t was replied, And wise men do not
tell" we do not know. 1t sounds like Dis
"a eli, and was exactly suited to his own
belief. Probably the saying VIII always be
attributed to him. But John Toland, in his
"CUdophorus." writes that a clever man
when asked the same question by an in
quisitiVe woman gave the Identical Dsraeli
answer. men, plQued, Ene wanted TOO, to
have the dots put over the rs. Then she
had for reply: Madame, wise men never
tel" And John Toland was an author of
the close of the seventeenth century and
the beginning Of the last century.
Why should a man racking his brain get
into "a brown study Why not a blue
or a red study? Despair Is black and color
sensitiveness accounts for that. We have
COngreVe's lines:
"Inventlon flags, his brain grows muddy,
And black despair succeeds brown study"
and still brown" remains enigmaticaL
'To call a spade a spade" has a COM
nonsense ring about It. II is very old In
1.-THE Garden Of Wysdonue" O53) you may
read: 1.-THE Macedonians call a
Mattock nothing else but a Mattock and
a Spade q Spade" The Hotel mbouillet
which really invented the ephuism, did
not call a spade a spade, and to-day the
elegant Castilian shirks certain very good
and common words. The story runs that
ONLY CURE