The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-11-29

er blaze away. Webster? Who was
Webster that he should be cited as
latter day authority? What did Noah
know about the phraseology OF tfe
farm it's terms technique? He was
Bostonese of the generation before
the Hub became the universal center or
cUlchah and knowing everythingness;
in its callow days when it was begin
ming to get away from Puritan slmpllc-
ity and put on airs that sat ungrace-
fully on it; when it began to aoft us
hat to the ladies and, deeming it I'M
petite to ask one of them to set
down, extended it's refinement to female
fowls and spoke of them as sitting
and being "sitters." It was the MISS
Paddles, lately from the wheel, who
began quite ladylike to feel, and talk
ed affectedly genteel," who, fearing
their recent removal from the farm
might be suspected if they spoke us
language, inoculated our language
with the corruption sit for "set," and
Webster weakly, probably ignorantly,
accepted their dictum as the proper
cult
But we prefer to go to the source or
things. When the broody hen, tanned,
domesticated, indicated to her Anglo
Saxon masters and mistresses her in
nate propensity to preserve the type
of her family by covering eggs during
the period of incubation, and it be
came necessary for our fOrefathers to
apply to this process some suitable word,
they took the terse word "sette," not
site" That they reserved for human
beings. Old Palladius, writing of Illus
bondrie" asks:
on broode
And bryng her BRIDES forth?"
And from that day to this, outside of
Boston and country villages with their
Miss Paddles and Tim Oxgoads, on the
farms everywhere, the housewife "sets"
her hens and warns the kids" against
Niold DiIl9 IlIC C9SSS uIiuCI Tic oCtLlilo
hen" and boasts to her neighbors OF
the motherly qualities of her settlers"
If Noah Webster himself were to have
gone in his day onto any New England
farm, or could go today onto any farm
anywhere in this good country and talk
to the danes about sitting hens, he
would be set down at once as a green
ey" from the city, and the very sheep
would be muzzled while he was there
to prevent them from mistaking him
for fit pasturage ground
Mater photographers than Noah have
learned from the farms the proper ter
minology of the processes of the farm.
The Century dictionary, to show
dt cent respect for it's predecessors, does
define sit" as "tO crouch, as a bird on
a nest; hence to brood, to incubate,"
and supports the definition with this
quotation from Jeremiah xvii, 2: THE
partridge stitch on eggs and hatch
eth" But that is from King James YER
sion and no one pays that any respect
nowadays since higher criticism has
demonstrated it's unreliability. 1t
quotes from the dilittante Addison to
sustain the application of sitting" to
brooding hens: whilst the hen is
covering her eggs the male amuses and
diverts her with his songs during the
whole period of her sitting" AS no
rooster was ever known to sing or to
amuse any member of his harem while
she was setting" Addison could not
have referred to the fowls of the barn
yard, and hence that support falls.
A gain the Century quotes from Morti-
mer's "Husbandry:" 1.-The oldest hens
are reckoned the best sitters,' but that
word ''reckoned' lets him out as an
authority. A husbandman would have
said that II cackleate the oldest hens
are the best settlers
But after thus paying a slight respect
to antecedents this latest and best au-
thOrity falls into line with the prevail
ing TECHNOLOGY OF agriculture IN TINS
particular, and defines this especial one
as follows, Set V, 8: specifically. (a)
To put "a domestic fowl when broody)
in position for incubating; place Ga
brC ody hen or 9Th fowl on nest con-
tanning eggs, for the purpose of hatch
ing Them" and quotes Palladius as au-
thority (b) ITO place eggs under
broody hen or other bird in a nest, or in
ali incubator for the purpose Of hatch
ing them" Let us preserve the nicer
distinctions of our language, those that
place animals and fowls apart from
humanity. Let us insist that human
beings sit and fowls set, that the for
mer are sitters and the latter settlers,
and not go to mixing up things in so
outrageous a fashion by speaking in
discriminatory of sitting women and
hens.
BATTLEDORE AND SHTTTLECOCK.
The policy of protection puts upon its