Evening journal., 1918-12-17
Staggering Y. M. c. A. Statistics

PARIS, Dec. 4. tBy Mail)-Fair warn
ing IS given here TO avoid reading this
articles II staggering statistics weary
the brain. Some Of the most staggering
statistics ever collected follow to the
immediate south and they VIII concern
chewing gum as INDUCED by the Amer
ican Expeditionary Force. The Y. NJ. c..
A. furnished most Of the soldiers gum
and for one months delivery recently 1t
ordered tn tons OF Americas favorlte
jaw developer.
When one speaks Of chewing gum in
tons, the human mind starts to miss
fire and skid, for 1t takes considerable
gum TO weight 1000 pounds. There are
i632O0OO sticks in 77h tons-or there
ought TO be. Perhaps anyone who took
the trouble 10 count IL package by pack
age would find i6,320,00i or possibly i6.-
3i9,999 sticks. For the purpose of this
Illuminating article round numbers will
serve
Figuring the length of a stick OF gum
as three inches, this means iS960.0 900
inches Of gum. Dividing by 70 we have
40S0,000 feet of the succulent sticks.
When you reduce this 10 miles you have
just plain T72 or tbs plus, If you insist
on splitting hairs. In other words, II
you laid the gum TO be chewed by the
A. r. F. in one month, end to end, start
ing In New York and following the New
York Central Line, you would have
enough 10 reach well beyond Detroit
But even more stupendous figures are
TO be had when you compute the num-
Der Of 'jaw-miles" that this much gum
represents.
Experiments conducted by the
author have enabled us to give to pub
lie Of jaw miles" in a ton Of gum Of
average ductility. Great labor and much
expense were involved in making these
calculations.
10 was found that the average man OF
phlegmatic temperament chews 10
times a minute, while an energetic,
hard-worklng, ambitious young man
will make 80 round trips with his Jaws
in the same length Of time. In order
TO keep our figures as conservative as
possible we will take the smaller num-
Der Of revolutions per minute as a basic
Of calculation, even though we do chew
much faster than that as already re-
marked.
Continuing the experiment, 10 was
found that the average life OF piece Of
gum Is five hours. In fact, they would
make II last forever except for the fact
that there is a certain percentage OF
loss incident 10 hiding the gum on the
bottom of chairs. To balance this con-
servatiin by few, there are the ex-
travagant chewers who Insist on using
two pieces for each load. Then there
are those sweet toothed individuals who
have % use a fresh stick every hour OF
so. Everything considered, the five hour
basis for computing seems thoroughly
reliable.
The average distance travelled by the
human adult jaws In ruminating a piece
Of gum is one inch, half an inch up and
half an inch down. Here again, Of
course, there Is a large variation In in
diyiduais. Some chewers are eXponents
Of the long-strOke school Of mastication
contendlng that they develop greater
horsepower by opening the jaws very
wide. Others say the short chOppy
"chaw" is the one that gets there.
Dlsregarding these extremists we have
tried to preserve the average.
II a man chaws 20 times a minute and
covers one inch with each round trip.
he will travel q 900 lncres or 1850 feet
in the five hours that may properly be
considered the average life OF a piece
OF gum. Multiplying this by the i6,-