Newark post., 1920-02-04
MODERN
IMPROVEMENTS
Many an Overworked Soul
Longs for the Things
His Grandfather
Enioved

of our modern improvements. No
telephones, no elevators, no hot and
cold water, no monographs, no self
sharpening lead pencils. no hot-air
furnaces, no propaganda or i'm
propaganda, no electric curling
irons, no tin-liZzieS, no prohibition,
no strikes, no germs, no appendi-
citis.
Say, those old birds must have
had a perfectly miserable time,
come to think about it. All they
had to do was to sit back and en-
JOY themselves and not worry.
When granpa went home at
night and took off his shoes and
put his feet in the oven Of the cook
stove and settled down for the
evening to read Doctor HoStetter's
almanac before taking his hot rum
and beating it for the hay, nobody
could call him up on the phone and
ask him to shoe a horse for per-
Sonal friend or go and carry in
few armfulS of wood for a sick
lodge brother. He didn't even
have to spend his evening hours
trying to coax a balky furnace.
He never had a microbe, for
those things had not been added to
the list of improvements. The
whole village drank out of tin
cup at the town pump, and in those
days the old boys used to swap
pipes down at the grocery store.
Occasionally they lived to be a hun
dred. In fact some of them are
living vet.
Nowadays a man is a poor fish
if he doesn t go through life weigh
ed down with enough modern i'm
prOvementS to swamp a Seagoing
elephant.
His principal old-man-of-the-sea
is the telephone. In the old days
they never called anybody up be-
cause they had no phones. Now
adayS we call them up. but don I
get them. which shows that. al
though we have progressed a long
way. we haven't got very far.
Modern improvements are the
order of the day. The average man
carries several pounds of excess
junk on his person and several
thousand dollars worth in his
house.
The average mans pockets will
assay patent cigar lighter that
won't work when he wants it to
but goes off when he doesn't want
it to and sets fire TO his trousers
a fountain pen that doesn't leal
when there is no ink in it. buncf
of keys that won't fit anything tha,
he remembers, an address bool
with lot of stuff in it that ht
can I read. bank book that he ha,
had no use for since the war start
ed. nail clipper that will do any
thing but clip. a gold watch chair
with gold knife on it that won ;,
cut butter in the middle of July
and forty other modern improve
mentS that do everything but i'm
prove.
His office is 50 cluttered with
modern improvements that h
spends all his time running tht
improvements and buying new
ones.
Among these is a patent lead
pencil Sharpener that peels tht
wood away from the lead and ther
breaks the lead off up TO the peel
ing point. The average man car
manage 10 chew up eight or min,
pencils in this way during the day
and when he wants 10 write h
gets out the old iacknife and sharp
ems one.
In his filing cabinet he files ava,
the stuff that he expects never :,
find again. When he has an i'm
portant document that he ma,
want 10 refer 10 in the future h
ShoveS il in his hip pocket.
BY the time he gets through
monkeying with the modern i'm
prOvementS il Is too late 10 do an,
business and he haStenS 10 cate
the 5:15 for home. where he ca,
spend the evening doctoring up tn
myriad of modern Improvement
there: fixing those that he can f
himself. and sending for the plum
Der, the electrician. the earpente,
the furnace worker. the plan
player man. the washing machine
expert and the efficiency expert :
fix those that are beyond him.
Many poor. overworked sol
who is on the verge of nervoJ
proStration from looking after b
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