The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-07-23
Being Shown
Preiesser GFtsnwinter
% dc ll1lssesrl Gcnalticn.

and do you have to be shownP
This was the opening sentence OF lee
ture delivered last Wednesday evening at
Skyhigh, Sumner county. by Professor
Septimus Greenwinter, who continued as
follows:
''I hope, my friend, that you are not
from Missouri. for incredulity never burnt
a brick, mixed mortar or sliced boards
out Of a log. In all history the man
from Missouri has been sitting around
shining the seat of his pants till 1t glist-
ened like the dome Of the court house,
waiting to be shown. while the other fell
low was hustling around finding things
out for himself.
Take Archimedes, for instance.
Archimedes discovered that a body i'm
mersed in liquid sustains an upward
pressure equal to the weight OF the liquid
displaced. Most of you are trying to look
as though you understood what that
means, when you don't Archimedes was
not from Missouri. He didn't have any,
body to show him. He was Just simply
an old bowlegged ioafer who sat down on
the shady side OF the street and iariated
his mind out on the pastures Of the I'M
known. He lived In Syracuse two hun
dred years 3. c and Dave Leahy's
straw hat. The king in those days was
a man named Heiro. The people used to
go to him and try to get him to either
run Archimedes out OF town or appoint
him dog catcher, because he sat around
and disflgured the local scenery. The
king wouldn't do IL. One day a man who
ran Jewelry store made a crown for the
king. the king furnishing the gold. The
jeweler was toying with poker or faro or
something, and needed coin. When he
received the crown fresh from the jewell
er with a miliiner's tag for $157 charges
on 1t. the king took a toothbrush and
rubbed off the fiashy points and set the
crown down on his head, put on his
spring oyercoat and went of down the
street looking into every plate glass win
dow he passed, winking at the female
part Of the population and making his
wife's relatives look knowingly at each
other. He finally heard a man with
squint eye say that he would bet brass
band against a bull calf that the crown
was brass This awoke Heiro's suspicion.
Perhaps that jeweler had loaded that
crown with scrap iron and held out the
real gold. But how was ne to tell? He
saw the worthless Archimedes, whose
wife supported him making rag carpets.
sitting on the curb watching a frog
wrap his tongue around a fly. and he told
Archimedes to find out some way to dis
cover whether that crown was pure gold
or not. Archimedes said he would try to
find out. He didn't look up at the king
and say he was from Missouri. He didn't
wait to be shown. He went in to find out
for himself. One day ne filled up the
bath tub at his house, dropped in a
piece of bnrax and jumped in. He had
too much water in the tub and It rush.
ed out on the floor.
And when 1t did, Archimedes crawlei
out of that bath tub and shot of down
the street. plumb naked and yelling at
the top of his voice. Eureka! Eureka"
which means "I have found it." Wo-
men screamed and hid themselves in
mattresses and strong men wept. while
the police, seventeen boys. three bird
pups and the patrol wagon followed
Archimedes. lickety-spindle.
"Archimedes came up to the kings
door and pulled the door bell out by the
roots. and the hired girl of the king,
opening the door, gave one look at him.
screamed. and fell into the hat-rack,
while the king came out and seeing
Archimedes. said:
You've forgotten something. Archie,
haven't your
mot on your tin type said Archi-
modes, making an involuntary effort to
hitch up his trousers, which weren't
there. Eureka
Who took them from you, ARCHER
said the king in kind. charitable tone.
Eurekar yelled Archimedes.
"'You amt got It in your pocket. have
you? asked the king. sarcastically.
"Just then the police arrived and asked
the king If they should throw him in and
the king told 'em to go back to their
beats and go to sleep and leave honest
men alone. He then ordered the hired
girl to hide herself in the cellar and,
turning to Archimedes. said in a stern
voice like a man eating fricaseed sand
paper:
Archie, you're too decollette.'
'Eurekar yelled Archirnedes.
Then the king grabbed him by the
scrufr Of the neck and dragged him into
the library and said: you sway-backeI
old freckle. tell me this instant what has
come over you. or I'll swat you over the
snoot with a Jeffriesian right"
"And then Archimedes told him what
he had found. II ne would give him gold
equal TO the weight of the crown he
would take the gold and dip II in a bowl
of water. II that gold didn't displace as
much water as the crown. the crown was
adulterated.
He and the king tried II. and the crown
dashed out lot of water. That night
the jeweler was shy a head.
You might have waited ten billion
years for the Missouri gang to have
found that out. Take Euclid. While the
Missourians of his day were sitting on a
string OF poison ivy trying to get a bulge
eyed catfish to snap at a terra-cotta COL
ored fish worm. Euclid went away by
himself and found the centres Of gravity
In paraboiic segments. None OF you
knows. probably. what a parabolic seq
ment Is. although II was discovered 2.5O9
years ago. It is not a patent medicine.
II Will not cure warts or buy groceries,
but in the day when the universe from
star to star. with all its manifold mys-
teries of light and heat and sound lies
bare. an open book; when knowledge has
compassed the purpose OF the sky. and
from the hard hand OF inscrutable Ma
ture man has wrested the last. the proto-
plasnic secret: when before the blazing
eye OF science the mists OF doubt and
disbelief. sickness and pain, have van
ished altogether and left a world OF in
candescent purity. perfection and un-
stained happiness. The name OF Euclid
will still be found in the directory 81
Fameville. while the man who lived at
the other end of his street in Greece. and