The Greenville journal. [volume] (Greenville, Ohio) 1850-1918, 1911-06-01
PEOPLE YOU KNOW
They May Not Be Quite So Nu-
merouS as You Imagine.
GUESS AS TO THEIR NUMBER.

Then Do Some Thinking and Figuring
and See How Far From Your Guess
You Come and incidentally Learn
How Many Folks You Don't Know.
Did you ever have the experience Of
walking down Main street with man
who is running for office? All the time
he is bowling right and left to people
you meet. Several times in block he
will stop to shake hands with an ac-
quaintance.
You seem to know every one," you
say to him almost enviOusly.
That's right" he replies, not with
out some pride. Il guess | do know
everybody worth knowing"
Yet how many people does he know2
How many people do you know your
self? Did you ever try to figure it out2
What proportion of the people in the
United States do you know? Certainly
you don't know the one-hundreth part
of them. Even the president of the
United States doesn't and couldn't If
he kept travelling all the time, making
host of new acquaintances every day.
To know the One-hundredth part OF
the people in this country would be to
know in the neighbOrhOOd of million
persons. No; it is perfectly safe to say
that there is no person in the whole
world that knows a million other per-
sons well enough to call each of them
by name Think what million means!
Suppose you said the names of all the
people you know as fast as you could.
If you could enunciate twenty names
a minute you would be doing marvel
ously well. Even at that rate, working
steadily eight hours a day, it would
take you nearly four months just to
name the people you know There isn't
a memory in existence that would hold
million names.
Well, do you suppose you know
hundred thousand? Let's see; that
would be about one-fifth of the popu-
| lation of Rhode Island. Imagine your
self sitting in the railroad station at
Providence watching the people come
| through No; that is hardly a fair
test, for unless you live in Providence
you do not know as many people there
as in the city in which you live. Sit
in your own railway station and count
the people coming through. No matter
how we'll known you are or how many
| people you know, you cannot help but
be impressed with the fact of how
many people there are that you do not
| know. If you know one in hundred
persons you know far more than the
average.
Let us try to get at it in another
way. You make on the average, say,
two new acquaintance week. VI
course there are weeks and weeks that
you make no new acquaintances at all,
and then there are times, such as pic
mic week and vacation week and
church fair week, when you meet a
lot of people, so that two a week is q
fair average. You have been meeting
people, say. for twenty-five years
That's $500, isn't it?
Is it possible that you know only
$500 people? You thought the mum
Der would be far more than that
But hold on. You don't know nearly
that many. There are lots and lots
of people whom you knew twenty
years ago that you don't know now
You cannot even remember theil
names or what they looked like.
Just sit down and try to remember
the names of all the boys and girls
that were in the same room In tht
public school with you. You canno
remember half of them or a third o.
them or a fifth of them. 1t is safe Il
say that of every two persons yol
met in all your life you have forgotten
one. The chances are that the mum
ber of people you know by name Il
nearer 1000 than it is 1000.
Of course a preacher with a thou
sand members in his church is expect
ed to know them all by name. Blu
all the same you will find him sayinI
to his wife:
"My DEAR who was that young lad
who spoke to us just knowy
1t is business, too, for merchant t
remember all of his thousand custom
ers, but very few merchants are able
do it. Possibly some of the politician
and public lecturers may know col
: pie of thousand persons by name, bu
= very few other persons know tha
many.
If this estimate seems too low 1t
> easily disproved. All you have to d
| is to take pencil and paper and begi
putting down the names Of your al
! quaintances. Start with your ow
$ family and then put down your cousin
s and your second cousins and you
wires relations. Then put down tt
! names Of the people you know in tn
town you used to live in and the PEI
l. pie you know socially. Follow that u
: with the people you know in bushes
y then
b But you can't dispute these figure
l. It is too much trouble to think OF o
n the people you know, You'll never do
IS New York World.