The Portland daily press., 1899-05-30
MURDER IN HIS SOUL.
PitifuI Plant ofth Man who IL Bored
by Statistics.

| - don t.ii.Ia W.hi.a -
being hioodthirssy man. 'ailtlr l.
ct dealer fro;q New England. but q
| in my heIrt haze tho feeling that sh.
break loose some day and do murder
| Is a man who will be my vlcti,I | shun
break his neck or shoot him through til
head, but shall prolong his aconies f
| hours and get revenge Tor all | have SUI
| fcrcd You sec. 1t has been going on fur
| yaars-iny sui1erings-and no matter how
| patient a man is, he reaches the dead line
at last The man l refer to Is the mar.
| who is always chucking statistics at you.
| Ho is to be found on every train and
steamboat--in the office of every hotel
aye, even at the newly made grave Of a
| friend. l have been one of his victims for
| 20 years, but I can't last much longer.
Inside of the next ~ months you'll read
in the papers of some one being torn limb
from limb by IA wild eyed man who looked
| like hunted tiger, and that wild eyed
man will BIO me-
81 start from Springfield to run over to
| Boston, continued the leather man with
a touch Of pathos in his tones. 81 am
only comfortably seated with my newspa-
per or magazine when the man on the
seat in front turns and inquiries..at what
speed the train is travelling l can't tell
him, nor would If l could. He hopes
that can't, for he has little speech all
ready. He smiles in patronizing way
and says:
My dear man, we are travelling at the
rate Of AZ miles, rods, yards, foot and
inches per hour. Should this train,
travelling ut this rate, strike a stone wall
10 feet and ~ inches thick the force of
the impact would be exactly equal to the
force of wave II feet high and half a
mile long breaking on a sandy beach with
pitch of three inches to the foot
We'll, what can ! say TO that" asked
the New Englandcr 81 am as helpless
as a man on raft in midocean. l can't
dispute him, and your statistician is q
man who can be scowled down nor turn
ed aside. He has come to stay, and the
only way you can get rid of him is to leap
from the train l was going down to Fall
River one day, when an old tooth began
to growl and ache I was getting mad
and nervous about it, when along came
the statistician and began:
Ibid you ever figure up the amount of
arabic land occupied by the hills and
mountains Of the United States2 Well,
it's an interesting bit of knowledge. /
find that II all uncultivated hills and
mountains were leveled of we should be
the gamer by 81, 1914, 317 acres of produc-
tive soil. Our farming population could
be trebled. Our annual products would
amount to exactly S612, S2s, 243. II more
than at present.
HE was going on to tell me Just how
many more turnips potatoes and pump
kins could be raised and how many more
gimlets screwdrivers and cork screws
would be needed to supply the market,
when told him had the toothache and
didn't care to talk. He was bluffed for
half a minute, and then he came back at
me with:
1.-THE toothache, ehs Toothache is
caused by the cold air striking an exposed
nerve. You probably never gave thought
to it, but there are exactly $500 nerves
radiating from your gums, and the ex-
posture Of any one of these causes pain.
Speaking of teeth, do you know what the
strength Of the jaw isf 1t Is computed,
sir, that when full grown and healthy
man shuts his teeth down as hard as he
can on a pine board he is exercising a
force of one horsepower. Every time you
bite into sandwich you use force enough
to open door. Should you yell "Police!"
at the top of your voice the air pressure
VOuAu bc odAhSiCAu W Oue VI yOuE
shoes seven inches high. When you
turnip out of the ground, and the force of
a hearty laugh would drive a brad awl
half way through a raw potato
81 had to listen to that sort of talk for
an hour" said the leather man, land I
was mad all through when I got to Fall
River. was looking for tooth foundry
to have the old thing jerked out when I
met a benign looking old gentleman on
the street who asked me II had ever COM
puted the quantity Of tears shed in the
United States every year. 1 told him to
go to and be hanged, but he laid his hand
on my shoulder in a fatherly way and
asked me to remember that the quantity
was exactly "a barrels, 90 gallons, 3 quarts
and Pint. Before could get away from
him he added that this amount Of water
would run a ten horsepower engine II
hours and 10 minutes and that the energy
wasted in the weeping of the tears would
plant 81 acres of corn.
II have had statistics shot at me and
pumped into me and driven through me
until I have come to have murder in my
heart. never could see why I should be
selected out of all men in q car or q crowd,
but 1t is invariably the case. was in
New York a month ago. I was riding on
an elevated train and CHANGING over the
daily paper when a man walked the length
of the car to crowd in beside me and say:
My dear sir, has 1t entered your mind
that we are travelling at the rate of 16
miles an hour, and that II this train should
be suddenly stopped dead still each one of
us would be flung forward distance of SO
feet 94 inches?'
II got away from him by leaving the
train" said the New Highlander, land I
wanted to kill him as went. As said
in the beginning, the last straw has been
placed on the cancels back. For 40 long
years have had statistics hurled at me
almost daily and 1t is time that dabbled
my hands in blood. l start for Boston to-
day, and you just paste it in your hat that
the man who sits down beside me and be-
gins to tell me how many eyes and legs the
house fly has. how fast lightning travels
or why a mud turtle can't fly is going to
get six months in the hospital as fast as
can give it to him v'-Boston Herald.