smithclay/nortonstories huggingface dataset:
Year: 1875

We always think of great men as in the
act of performing deeds which give them
renown, or else in stately repose, grand, 81
lent, and majestic. And yet this is hardly


fair, because the most gracious and magni-
ficent of human beings have to bother them
selves with the little things of life which en-
gage the attention of US smaller people. No
doubt Moses snarled and got angry when he
had severe cold in his head, and if a f1v
bit his leg while he was in the Desert, why
should we suppose he did not jump and use
violent language and rub the sore place?
And Casar-isn't it tolerable certain he
used to become furious, when he went up
stairs to get his slippers in the dark and
found that Calphurnia hak showed them un-
der the bed so that he had to sweep around
them wildly with broom-handIe And
when Solomon cracked his crazy bone, is it
unreasonable to suppose that he ran around
the room, and felt as if he wanted to cry?
Imagine George Washington sitting on the
edge of the bed and putting on clean
shirt, and growing at Martha because the
buttons were off; or st. Augustine with an
apron around his neck having his hair cut;
or oan of Arc holding her front hair in
her mouth, as women do, while she fixed up
her back hair; Napoleon Jumping out of
bed in frenzy to chase mosquito around
the room with pillow; or Martin Luther
in night shirt. trying to put the baby to
sleep at two O clock in the morning; or Alex
ander the Great with the hiccoughs; or
Thomas Jefferson getting suddenly over a
fence to avoid a dog; or the Duke of Well
ington with the mumps; or Daniel Webster
abnsing his wife because she hadn't tucked
the covers at the foot of the bed; Or Benja-
min franklin pairing his corns with razor;
or Jonathan Edwards, at the dinner table,
wanting to sneeze just as he got his mouth
full of hot beef; or Noah standing at his
window at night throwing bricks at cat.
Year: 1875

| precision the boats position in the river
when that quarter twain was uttered,
aud give you such lot of head-marks,
stern-marks and side-marks to guide you


that you ought to be able to take the


boat there and put her in that same spot
again yourselfl The cry of quarter
twain did not really take his mind from
his talk, but his trained faculties in
stantly photographed the bearings, noted
the change of depth and laid up the i'm
D0rtant details for future reference with
out requiring any assistance from HIM in
the matter. If you were walking and
talking with friend, and another friend
at your side kept up a monotonous repe-
tition of the vowel sound A for a couple
of blocks and then in the midst inter-
jected an r, thus: A, A, A, A, A, r, A,
a, A, etc., and gave the r. no emphasis,
you would not be able to state, two or
three weeks afterward, that the r. had
been put in nor be able to tell what OBJ
lects you were passing at the moment it
was done. But you could if your men,
ory had been patiently and laboriously
trained to do that sort of thing mechan-
ically.


Give man a tolerable fair memory
to start with, and plotting will develop
III into very colossus OF capaDlllty. buI
only IN the matters at as daily drilled sa. A
time would come when the mans facul-
ties could not help noticing landmarks
and soundings, and his memory could
not help holding on to them with the
grip of a wise; but if you ask that same
man at noon what he had had for break
fast, it would be ten chances to one that
he could not tell you. Astonishing things
can be done with the human memory if
you will devote it faithfully to one par
ticular line of business.


At the time that wages scared so high
on the Missouri River, my chief, MIR.
b, went up there and learned more
than thousand miles of that stream with
an ease and rapidity that were astonish-
ing. When he had seen each division
once in the daytime and once at night his
education was so nearly complete that
he took out a daylight license; few
trips later he took out full license, and
went to plotting day and night and he
ranked A 1, too.-Mdrk 7aoatn, IN Atlantsc
Monthly.
Year: 1875

THE little spot of land rising in THE
South Seas called Ysabel Isle is divided
among several savage tribes that are con
tinually at war with each other. A. ter
rible massacre occurring in portion of
the island named Malaga, the sufferers
adopted as means of defense against
future surprises of a similarly unpleas-
ant nature the custom of sleeping in
houses built in high trees, though living
by day in the ordinary open bamboo
huts. When the Rev. Coleridge Patteson,
Bishop of the Melanesian Islands, Wis
tied Malaga he was very curious to in
spect these human nests in the SUBMITS
of the loftiest palms. They were situ-
ated in swamp that for greater safety
was surrounded by strong wall. The
lower boughs of the trees selected for
habitation had been Topped off, leaving
only the highest as a platform for the
houses. A plumb-line let down from
the veranda of one of these houses to the
ground showed the distance to be ninety
four feet.


The ladders leading up to the houses
were planted upon the top of the wall.
They consisted of a bamboo pole in the
center to which cross-pieces about two
feet long were lashed by vines To
steady these and also to hold on by there
were double sets of plant vine stems
stretched along The whole length. One
ladder was found to measure sixty feet.
Another of fifty feet had forty-two
rounds or cross-pieces at unequal dis
tances apart Up and down these
dizzy ladders the native men, women
and children ran like monkeys,
never using their hands, but
trusting entirely to the sure planting OF
their feet. At first the Bishop dared not
attempt an ascent, and while he stood
wondering at the fearlessness of the
climbers he saw woman go up with
heavy burden on her back as if it was
the easiest thing in the world, and not
once staying herself with her hands. A
sailor in the company of the Bishop, who
was perfectly at home in the shrouds Of
a ship, ascended one of the ladders, and
when he came down confessed: was
afraid my legs shook. Going aloft is
nothing to it." At another time the
Bishop himself managed TO reach one OF
the arboreal huts. He found it in an in
expressible filthy condition. The floor
was made of matted bamboo, and meas
ured twenty-three feet by eleven feet,
and the roof and sides were OF palm. leaf
thatch. The roof was low, and there
were no apertures for air and light.
Everything was grimy with SCOT and dirt,
while the noise of squalling babies, the
singing and scolding of women and the
chatter of all the natives together made
the place very pandemonium. A brief
stay in the wonderful nest convinced the
Bishop that it was much more comfort
able to sleep in hut on the ground,
where during the night the singing and
sQualling of the women and babies above
him sounded as if they were in the
clouds.
Year: 1875

FIRST of all, there is one faculty which
a pilot must necessarily cultivate until
he has brought it to absolute perfection.
Nothing short of perfection will do.
That faculty is memory. He cannot stop
with merely thinking a thing is so and
so; he must k1a0oo it; for this is eminently
one of the "exact" sciences. With what
scorn pilot was looked upon in the old
times if he ever ventured to deal in that
feeble phrase "I think" instead of the
vigorous one "I know" Ore cannot
easily realize what a tremendous thing
1T is to know every trivial detail of | 200
miles of river and know it with absolute
exactness. If you will take the longest
street in New York and travel up and
down it, coming its features patiently
until you know every house and window
and door and lamp-post and big and
little sign by heart, and know them so
accurately that you can instantly name
the one you are abreast of when you are
set down at random in the street in the
middle of an inky black night, you will
then have tolerable notion of the
amount and the exactness of a pilots
knowledge who carries the Mississippi
River in his head. And then If you will
go on until you know every street cross.
ing, the character, size and position OF
the crossing g-stones, and the varying
depth of mud in each of those number
less places, you will have some idea OF
what the pilot must know in order to
keep Mississippi steamer out OF trouble.
Next, if you will take half of the signs in
til at long street and change their places
once month, and still manage to know
A., tQl W dark
nights, and keep up with these repeated
changes without making any mistakes
you will understand what is required OF
a pilots peerless memory by the tickle
Mississippi.


| think a pilots memory is about the
most wonderful thing in the world. To
know the Old and New Testaments by
heart and be able to recite them glibly,
forward or backward, or begin at random
anywhere in the book and reclte both
ways and never trip or make mistake,
is no eXtravagant mass OF knoWledge,
and no marvellous facility, compared to
a pilots massed knowledge OF the1lissls-
sippi and his marvellous facility In the
handling of it. / make this comparison
deliberately. and believe | am not ex-
panding the truth when do 1t. Many
will think my figure too strong Dut
pilots will not.


And how easily and comfortably the
nilot's memory does its work. how plac-
idly effortless is it's way! how a'acon-
sefouslu it laws up its vast stores, hour by
hour. day by day, and never loses or mis-
laws single valuable package of them
aIif Take an instance. Let leadsman
cry. Half twain! half twaini half twain!
half twain! half twainf' until it becomes
as monotonous as the ticking of clock; !;
let conversation he going on all the time
and the pilot be doing his share OF the
talking and no longer listening to tne
leadsman; and in the midst of this end


less string of half twains let single
sauarter fwainr' be interiected,. without
emphasis, and then the half twain cry go
on again just as before; two or three
weeks later that pilot can describe with
Year: 1875

The reason why that the 4th Of July is
so short, is because they signed the Decla-
ration of Independence all on one day. Ii
they only had went slow, and been three
or four DAYS about it, then we would have
had longer pull at the fireworks, and
plenty of time to make things lively most
all the week.


When your mother sends you to the
grocery with a basket for two dozen eggs
in hurry, and you get into a soft game
of marbles ON the way, and with good
many, and don't come home for two
hours, that's forgetfulness. But your
mother don't forget you when you come
back


When you slide down on the long
banisters of the front hall stairs, and go on
down to the bottom so fast that it burns
you clean through your uowsers, that's


riction.


Some Saturday when you are in the
kitchen and the hired girl has just shined
up the knives, when she turns her back
you mustn't dip them one at a time in the
vinegar jug, because if you do the chemis-
try will turn 'em black, and then you might
have to go careless down to the back fence
to get out of the way of some hot water or
something.


Your father would never pay twelve
dollars for big dictionary for you in a
hundred years, but if you was to win one
in hard spelling match he would make
you study it nights till you nearly went
crazy That's always the way.
When your mother is frying doughnuts,
and you're hungry, it don't make any
difference how her hair is combed, or if it
is combed at all or not; just only tell her
that you think she looks so handsome with
her hair done up in that way, and she will
feed you on hot doughnuts till you swell
up like toad


When sack of peanuts gets busted on
a dray and split out on the street, and your
pockets don't hold many, because they're
| nearly full of other things, then daily
| newspaper would be good thing to have,
and would be useful. Courier
| TOuT1,nI
Year: 1875

"A grocer in Ottawa, Canada, was
made the recipient of valuable present
one day recently. A young woman entered
his store offering butter for sale. He in
formed her that he had sufficient quanti-
ty and did not wish to buy any. The
woman asked permission to leave her
basket in the store while she went to see a
friend. She left, promising to return in
ten minutes for her property. She did not
return, and few minutes later sounds at
tracted his attention, and, on tracing them
to their source, he found that they came
from the basket of butter. He raised the
cloth which covered the basket and dis
covered baby. The woman did not re-
turn to claim her property.
Year: 1875

According TO the OIuC1al TotuIuS VI WIG
recent Connecticut State election, 1ngersoll
(Dem) for Governor, had majority OF 6,52l av-
erage majority of the rest of the Democratic
State ticket $500; Democratic majority on Con-
gressmen 1857.


According to a recent editorial in the
Philadelphia Press, all hopes of the recovery OF
Charlie Ross had been abandoned.


A British ship recently arrived in New
York with cargo of salt and arsenic. During
the voyage the two articles somehow became
mixed. Subsequently the salt was sold and most
OF it sent out of the city Some OF that which re-
mained was analyzed, and the presence OF the
poison was revealed. The salt sold was ordered
back to New York for examination.


A colored man named Reed recently
shot policeman at Nashville and was lodged in
iail On the night of the 30th ult large and
excited crowd attacked the Jail, overpowered the
keeper captured the prisoner and took him to the
suspension bridge, where they fastened rope to
his neck and to the railing and threw him over
board with the intention ofhanging him, but, the
rope breaking, he fell on the rocks ninety feet
below He was shot once as he was falling and
once at the bottom.


The Attorney General OF Louisiana
has filed petition in the Superior District Court
praying that John C. Moncure may be declared
Treasurer of the State in place of Antoine Du-
bueet


The Secretary of the Treasury has
directed the sale of $50OO,0o0 of Government
gold in New York during the month of May.


According to the computation OF the
Department of Agriculture published on the 3D.
the area of land sown to winter wheat this year
is per cent. above that of last year. Crops in
the South look better than last spring, and in the
North and West not so we'll.


Ida Greeley, the elder daughter OF the
late Horace Greeley, was recently married IN
New York TO Col. Nicholas Smith, of Covington,
KY The bridal party left Immediately for Eu-
rope.


The United States Supreme Court has
lately decided that the capitation tax provided
in railway charter to bepaid to State is
valid and cons titutional contract. The opinion
was expressed that State cannot impede COM
merce in it's efforts to regulate it, and that Con-
gress has the power to regulate interstate COM
merce; that commercially this is one country,
and that the progress of merchandise must not
be impeded. The rights of the State must also
be protected.
Year: 1875




We bear much OF the immense liquidation which
has been going on throughout the country during
the past fifteen months and there is No reasonable
doubt that something handsome has been done IN
this line ia the general commercial and trading
business Of the country but IL equally true thai
there is much more to be accomplished in the same
direction before we can say with truth that
we have returned TO healthy condition OF
bnsioess Where is the evidence of anything like
universal liq,idatiOn f-Shere tie evidence that
we hare got down to hard pam" Not in the state
ments - loans by the banks not in the steadily in
creasing issues of " consolidated bonds by rail-
roads, called consolidated first" or second
mortgage bonds. when IN reality the mortgage is
now. aud wlil for years TO come. be Olly a third,
fourth, or fifth lien upon the property IcOrtgaged
il Is true that some railroads, having defaued on
their interest liabilities, are in the pro-
cess Of liquidation through foreclosure and sale
a process very unsatisfactory TO the stock holders.
But 80 far rs EeInember with the single excep-
ion OF Michigan GENITAL where is there q railroad
company that during tlis period Of liquidation" |
'as reduced its liabilities one doari The reverse
of liquidation has been the rule to such an extent
tAat theIe are but few roads with any remaining
Year: 1875

A correspondent writes from the Sa-
ratoga to the Philadelphia Press


A. L. Stewart is just now the big
gest lion, and a great sensation he is
creating here just at present among
the local merchants. You see, after
spending $1,000 on his big hotel,
the Grand Union, he found he had two
elegant stores to let. With character
lstic enterprise he fitted them up in
elegant style, and is moving in stock
of goods. Now the storekeerers here,
Notwithstanding that this very day
should remind them that ours is a free
country, declare that A. T. S. has no
business to come here to undersell
them and rule their trade, but the big
merchant does not see the thing in that
light, and laughs at the terribly exer-
cised merchants. Stewart is indeed a
remarkable man. He is little, thin,
wiry fellow, with pale, thoughtful
face, light blue, reflective eyes, reddish
gray short whiskers, and very quiet in
manner. He dresses in black, and
goes peering into every nook and cor
of the store in way that makes his
employees very nervous. When talk
ing he invariably twirls his eyoglass on
his finger or pats the palm of his hand
with black glove. When you speak
to him he looks at you searchingly for
a moment before he replies, as if to
read you through, habit that arises
from his wonderful faculty of reading
human nature. He is not so serious
as he has been painted on the con-
Year: 1875

fired. He kept loading and firing so
fast that the enemy suspecting there
was detachment in ambush in the
grove on that hilltop, around whose
base they would be compelled to wind,
and halted in doubt At length de
sachment of troops was sent up the
hill to ascertain what this solitary
firing meant. The doctor saw them.
but made no attempt to escape. On
the contrary, he kept loading and firing
as fast as he could compelling it to ad-
vance cautiously. At length, when
dashed into the cover, they found no
one but venerable man in black coolly
reloading his piece. The commanding
officer, amazed at the singular spectacle
of one man fighting whole army, ex-
claimed:


"You old fool, what are you doing
there firing on his Majesty's troops?"


"Exercising the rights of war"
cody replied the staunch old patriot


The extreme audity of the thing
seemed to amuse the officer, and he
said:


eff I let you go this time, you old
rascal, will you ever fire again on the
troops of his Majesty!'


''Nothing more ltkely," was the i'm
perturbable reply.


This exasperated the Briton, and he
ordered the soldiers to seize him.
They did so, and dragged him roughly
down the hill to the head of the column,
to act as a guide to the town They
would not allow him his horse, and he
was ordered to move along on foot.
The volunteers, in their retreat, had
torn up the planks of the bridge in
order to retard the enemy, and they
were compelled to march two miles
farther to the north before they could
cross the river. 1t was the fifth day
of July and the hottest one of the year.
DIR. Dagget, unused to such a long
march under such a burning sun at
noonday soon gave signs of exhaustion.
But the moment he halted, the soldiers
would prick him with their bayonets
and at the same time shower curses
and opproborious epithets on him.
Long before the four or five miles were
accomplished, the wearied professor
would be compelled, every now and
then, to stop and reel as if about tc
fall; but, caught on the points Of the
bayonets and pelted with oaths, he
would be forced onward, while the
blood flowed in streams down his
dress. At length the town was reach
ed, when the enemy began to shoot
such struggling citizens as had remain
ed behind. DR.. Dagget expected every
moment to share their fate, but, scorn-
ing to ask for mercy, he staggard on
and finally fell prone on the green in
front of his own college. A Tory,
passing by, recognized him as he lay,
faint and bleeding, on the grass, and
requested the officer to release him
He did so, and the good divine was
removed to house near by, more dead
than alive. His wounds were dressed,
but they, combined with his utter ex-
haustion, brought him to the verge of
the grave. He at length rallied and
was able part of the next year to
preach in the chapel, but his constitu-
tion never recovered from the shock it
had received, and in sixteen months he
was born to his grave. He was cheer
ed, however, in his last nom ents, by
the consciousness that the liberty OF
of the land for which he had died
would be secured.
Year: 1875

Building Stone-I am prepared
to furnish builders with any quantity
from one to five hundred cords of as
excellent building stone as can be fur
nished from any quarry in Wood Coun-
ty. Apply to


IF HENRY OsTERMAN.
Year: 1875

The Yokohama (Japan) Hera1d re- lates remarkable occurrence which shows that some of the Japanese have an extraordinary capacity for withstand ing the effects of fiery potations. An Osaka man offered a prize to any one who would drink one sho-one quart, one pint, and one-half gill-of certain native liquor about as strong as spirits of wine. A coolie performed the feat, but died the same day from the effects of it. They buried him in shallow grave, and about midnight the next day the earth absorbed the liquor from his we'll soaked body, and he woke up from his debauch. Pushing off the light soil that covered him, he rose from his grave in Q white shroud, and startled some robbers near by who were counting and dividing their money. They took the strange apparition for a ghost, and ran off in dismay. The coolie picked up the cash, and reported to his wife the same night, sadder but richer man than he was before the spree.