Montour American. (Danville, Pa.) 1866-1920, 1901-05-23

THE ASTONISHING RESULT OF ONLY
ONE DAY OF COUNTING.
An InVestiGatOR's Discovery of What
an Enormous Bouquet of the Flow
ers of Fable Adorns the Daily
Speech OF the Average Mortal.

Speech OF the Average Mortal.
'Do you know that the average Amer
lean is a hopeless and incorrigible and
unmitigated liar?" said an amateur
cynic of Baronne street IL don't mean
he lies viciously, but suave mendacity
glides off the end of his tongue as cas-
lily as molasSes flows from a spigot on
a warm day in summer. He does it I'M
consciously. habitually, automatically
just as his lungs expand and his
heart palpitates and his hair grows,
without any special attention from the
rest of his system. He does it because
he can't help it. The thing has become
a second nature.
81 had all this brought home to me-"
continued the amateur cynic, by
very simple little experiment which
tried on myself and a few others no
longer ago than yesterday morning.
Did you ever see q pocket counting ma
chine? Well, it's little device shaped
like Il watch. Whenever you press the
stem the needle on the dial jumps
point. and it registers in that way up
to several thousand on the principle OF
a cyclometer They are used by any.
body making long counts and are very
handy, because they never forget where
they leave off.
But, to come to the point, some
thing happened to remind me Of our
national vice Of untruthfulness as l
was getting up yesterday, and | deter
mined to keep tab on myself and as
certain, if possible, how many actual,
out and out lies | put into circulation
in the course of the day. l CHANGED to
have one of the little counting ma
chimes | have just mentioned, so slip
ped it into my pocket and started out.
"The first lie | told was right at the
door. SmithsOn was passing and stop
ped to shake hands. Hello, old man.
said l. Delighted to see you,' when as
n matter of fact | was deuced sorry to
see him, because | owe him ten. !
gave the counter a squeeze and hur-
ried on, but before l got to the office
had logged it nine times.
"What did l jog it for, did you ask
Oh, trivialities, mere trivialities, but at
the same time point blank lies, every
one of 'em. Whenever | opened my
mouth out dropped some confounded
hyperbole. l told Jones the joke he In
sisted in springing on me was the best
| ever heard and then made double
tally in assuring his wife she was look
ing remarkably well when she was
looking exactly like n scarecrow.
told another friend I never laughed SO
much in my life as l had at something
or other. | don't remember now what
and still another that | hadn't slept
wink for three nights when | had neu-
ralgia lately-all lies, bald lies, In spite
of their harmlessness.
"When l reached the office and look
ed at the dial, l was Mortified. Good
heavensr l said to myself. 1T seems
to be physically impossible for me to
speak the plain truth in the paltriest
matters. I'll just remain perfectly
quiet for half an hour and keep check
on Boggs.'
"Boggs is our head bookkeeper and
q pillar in one of the suburban church
es," continued the amateur cynic. He
wears rubber overshOes in wet wealth
er, cultivates sandy side whiskers, car
ries a gingham umbrella, belongs to
building and loan association and has
quintessence of cast iron veracity, but
when l sat down in cold blood to put
him on record | was astounded at the
blase fashion with which he frivoled
with the truth. l pushed the button
on him 10 times in 81 minutes; then he
got into whispered conversation with
a caller, and l lost the thread Of his
remarks. But | am certain il | had
been in earshot the counter would have
had hard work keeping up with the
procession.
THAT relieved my mind somewhat,
and later on, when | made a quiet test
of several of the other fellows in the
office, | came to the conclusion that !
was no worse than the average, but the
average was pretty tough. AS far as
my investigations went, the invoice
clerk held the record. He is a guileless
sort Of chap, with modest manners and
a freckled nose, and | never supposed
he bad any imagination concealed In
his peg topped Uranium, but he forced
me to push the indicator up exactly 90
times in - minutes. During the last
part Of the stretch, however, he was
trying to trade off a secondhand bicy-
Gle, and that naturally swelled the re-
turns.
"Of course l soon realized that the
idea Of keeping count on my own men,
dacity was entirely impractical and
abandoned the effort, but the other
data has furnished me with abundant
food for thought. My brother-in-law,
by the way, insists that we would
make a great mistake in trying to
weed these flowers of fable out of our
daily speech. He says we lie continu-
ally and Systematically because every
body else lies, and a man who would
start out to tell the plain, cold, raw,
rectangular truth about everything In
life would be little better than an an
archist. He would upset all establish
ed standards of value and make 1t nee.
essary almost to recast the language
Besides, nobody would believe him.
But my brother-in-law is a DOCTOR"
added the amateur cynic thoughtfully,
"and maybe that makes q difference"
New Orleans Times Democrat
Chinese Era.