The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1906-06-02
THE BIG LITTLE THINGS.
Little drops of water, little grains of sand
Make the mighty ocean and the beauteous land"

This child-day adage is easily for
gotten. Little things make big ones
and are worthy of attention, indeed
they must be watched. Perhaps a
few illustrations will help to remem-
Der this fact:
A cow kicks over lamp, taken into
a barn while the woman owner at
tempts to milk, and $500, 900, 900
worth of property is destroyed and
ffty-six insurance companies fail as a
result of the Chicago FIRE. A foolish
cigarette-smoking boy throws burn
ing stub into a shaving pile and
Portland, Me-, is burned to ashes.
The tiny acorn, given a dirt bed,
moisture, and breath becomes the
giant mast of the ocean steamer.
Tyndale says that the big SNOWFALL in
the arms of the playing boy has
enough force in it to send a village,
people, houses, soil and all, to the
sky. One grain of wheat produces
fifty each year. If every grain is
planted for twelve years there would
be enough to feed all the inhabitants
of the earth for centuries.
The Crimean War began by the
Greek and Roman churches fussing
over the key to the Holy Sepulcher.
The Sepoy Rebellion was precipitated
by the rumor that native soldiers
were to be polluted by the govern
ment placing lard on gun cartridges
which must be wet III the mouth be-
fore they would slip into the guns.
A clerk copying a tariff bill put a
comma instead of hyphen between
fruit and plants and both were admit
ted free, costing the government $2,-
900, 900 before Congress could correct
the error. A scientist brought a few
gypsy moth to this country for study.
One day three or four escaped. Mas
sachusetts has since spent hundreds Of
thousands of dollars trying to exter-
inmate them.
Hume in early youth was an ear
nest Christian, but was appointed to
defend the skeptic's position in de-
bate and was turned. Voltaire learn
ed an in6del poem in boyhood and
never lost its influence. West said,
IA kiss from my mother made me a
painter"
A tiny twig may show the winds
direction. A small piece of paper
used as gun wad found near the To-
cation of mysterious murder led the
detectives to locate the man by fitting
this piece into the torn news sheet
discovered in his room. An abscon-
der was intercepted by studying his
library card to find that he had been
reading books on South America, and
then watching the ships sailing in
that direction. A clerical-appearing
visitor in factory turning out rubber
according to valuable secret process,
was discovered by wetting his knife
as he prepared to cut sample. The
superintendent recognized that no
one but an expert would know that
this was necessary.
A few years ago small savings
bank in Kansas City was strained by
a run. A street car manager hauled
several sacks of money to the bank in
a wheelbarrow aud depositing them,
stopped the run. The sacks contain
ed $40 in pennies. That bank is now
the National Bank of Commerce, one
of the largest in the country. A wo-
man drug clerk suggested to the ap-
prentice chemist that pepsin put in
chewing gum might aid digestion.
He tried it and is now worth several
millions, while his name is on many
lips. Manhattan Island sold a few
hundred years ago for $24 worth OF
beans. This amount put on compound
interest for 365 years would purchase
the whole United States. An African
farmer sold a beautiful stone his child
played with, for 1900. Experts
christened it, as a diamond, 1.-The
Star of Africa" and it sold for $780,
900.
Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Gun
Gle Toms Cabin at odd moments
after her housewoTk was done. Dar-
win scribbled the matter for his books
on scant slips of paper at scattered
moments. Longfellow translated
Dante's Inferno through several
years by using ten minutes a day
while waiting for his coffee to boil.
The great institution guided by Rus
sell H. Conwell began with ffty-seven
pennies a little girl in an attic had
saved to build large Sunday School
room. Six years after her death
at six and a half years of age-the
little note found with her savings had
raised $25o,o
The Earl of Shaftesbury.wa was start
ed on his helpful career by faithful
Christian servant woman who led him
to Christ and trained him while his
mother neglected him for society.
Carnegie was inspired to build libra
ries, because as young man he was
shielded and broadened by the use of
a private collection of books opened
to him by kindness.
An ancient vizier shut in tower to
starve sent word to his wife to butter
beetles nose and tie silken cord to
its leg and place it at the tower S foun-
dation. Following the smell it came
to the top. With the silken thread
he drew stronger and each time a
stronger string until rope making
possible his escape was in his hands.
"Great oaks from little acorns
grow" Save the small, for they
start success. Faithful in that which
is least, we will be put over that
which is greater. Canova, when crit
icised for working so long on a SEEM
ingly completed statue, said: "The
touches which you ignorantly hold in
such small esteem are ethe very things
which make the difference between
the failure of bungler and the per-
fection of master" Even so it is
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