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THEIMNWlUnS
By the Way He Does It He Gives
an Index to His Character.
THE POTENCY OF LAUGHTER.
Shown by th# Effective Way In Which
Cervantes Smiled Spain’s Vain and
Foolish Chivalry Away—Men Who
Never Laughed and Rarely Smiled.
What an Index to character is man’s
laugh! What surer clew can we have
to both his intellect and his temper un¬
less it be that he seldom or never
laughs? “Nothing,” says Goethe, “is
more significant of men’s character
than what they find laughable.” “You
know no man,” says Tieck, “till you
have heard him laugh—till you know
when and how he will laugh.” “The
perception of the ludicrous,” says Em
erson, “is a pledge of sanity. A rogue
alive to the ludicrous is still converti¬
ble. If that sense is lost his fellow
men can do little for him.”
Lavater, the great physiognomist,
lays his great stress on the very un¬
equivocal and derisive nature of a
laugh as an index of character. If it
be free and hearty and occasion u gen¬
eral and light movement in all the
features and dimple the cheek and
chin, it is an almost infallible evi¬
dence of the absence of any great ma¬
terial wickedness of disposition. Cae¬
sar mistrusted Cassius because that
lean and hungry conspirator rarely, if
ever, indulged in laughter. When Hor¬
ace Walpole was in Paris in 17G5 he
found that laughing was out of fash¬
ion in that gay capital. “Good folks,”
he writes, “they have no time to laugh.
There are God and the king to be
pulled down first, and men and wom¬
en, one and all, are devoutly employed
in the demolition.”
How often a man fails to betray the
tiger that lurks within him until he
laughs! Is there nothing significant
in the fact recorded by Plutarch of
Cato the younger that nothing could
make him laugh, that his countenance
was scarcely softened even by a
smile? Is it not a characteristic trait
of the gloomy tyrant, Philip II. of
Spain, that he rarely smiled and that
he laughed but once in his entire life,
and that when he heard of the massa¬
cre on St. Bartholomew’s day? Is it
not a suggestive fact regarding the
gloomy, taciturn Wallenstein, the ter¬
ror of the people, at the sight of w hom
as he paced through his camp with his
lofty figure enveloped in a scarlet
mantle and with a red feather in his
cap a strange horror took possession
of the soldiers, that he was never
seen to smile? Can we wonder that
the poor little dwarf, Alexander Pope,
the cynical satirist, afflicted with asth¬
ma and dropsy, tortured with rheuma¬
tism, racked with headaches and
threatened with cataract, should never
have laughed, but only smiled?
It has been said of the greatest of
English dramatists, who united with
his intense humor an equally intense,
pierciug insight into the darkest and
most fearful depths of human nature,
that no heart would have been strong
enough to hold the woe of Lear and
Othello except that which had the un¬
quenchable elasticity of Falstaff and
the “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
Might not a similar remark be made
of that “pendulum betwixt a smile and
a fear,” Abraham Lincoln, in whom
sadness and a keen sense of the comic
were so strikingly combined? How
exuberant was his mirth, sparkling in
jest, comic story and anecdote, and yet
how- often the very next moment those
sad, pathetic, melancholy eyes showed
a man familiar with “sorrows and ac¬
quainted with grief!”
Who can doubt that but for the
merriment in which he indulged—the
contagious laughter which welled up
from his soul as naturally as do bub¬
bles in the springs of Saratoga—he
w-ould have sunk under his weary
weight of care long before he fell by
the pistol of Booth?
It is indeed statesmen, students and
thinkers generally who most need the
relaxation afforded by occasional mer¬
riment, Some centuries ago it was the
fashion in Europe for men of rank to
keep a buffoon, and a banquet was
considered incomplete where a privi¬
leged jester was not an attendant.
This was perhaps for those days a
wise custom. It is surprising how
much a few minutes’ sleep will refresii
the body and a few- minutes’ laughter
the mind, and many a useful life might
be prolonged by the substitution of
these remedies for “earking care” and
weariness in place of the usual treach¬
erous tonics ana stimulants.
What a dismal deduction would be
made from the happiness of our homes
if they were robbed of their merri¬
ment! What pictures of innocent
mirth has Goldsmith given in the
“Vicar of Wakefield,” and how artless
the remark of the good Dr. Primrose.
“If he had little wit we had plenty
of laughter!”
What a power for good and evil is
the world’s “dread laugh, which scarce
the firm philosopher can scorn!” How
many men have been cowed by it who
eould have faced without flinching a
battery’s deadly fire! How many bad
customs and wicked practices, how
many quixotic schemes of philanthropy
or reform, how many absurd doctrines
In politics, theology and sociology,
which have defied the artillery of argu¬
ment have been “laughed off the pub¬
lic stage,” never to return! Did not
Cervantes “smile Spain’s vain and
foolish chivalry away?”—William Ma¬
thews in London Great Thoughts.
Ill gotton goods never prosper.—Ger¬
man Proverb.
DEATH OF THE WORLD*
When Watar Disappears and Air Gets
Too Thin to Breathe.
! The age of the earth is placed by
some at 500,000,000 years, by others
! 100,000,000 years, and still others of
later time place it at 10.000,000 years,
j None place it lower than 10 , 000 , 000 ,
i knowing what processes have been
gone through.
j Other planets go through the same
process. The reason that other planets
differ so much from the earth is that
they are in so much earlier or later
stages of existence. The earth must
become old.
Newton surmised, although be could
give no reason for it, that the earth
would lose all its water and become
perfectly dry. Since then it has been
found that Newton was correct.
As the earth keeps cooling it will be¬
come porous, and great cavities will
be formed in the interior, which will
take in the water. It is estimated
that this process is now in progress,
so far tha$ the water diminishes at the
rate of the thickness of a sheet of
paper each year.
At this rate in 6,000,000 years the
water will have sunk a mile, and in
15,000,000 the water will have disap¬
peared from the face of the globe.
The nitrogen and oxygen In the at¬
mosphere are also diminishing all the
time. It is in an inappreciable degree,
but the time w-ill come w-hen the air
will be so thin that no creature w-e
know could breathe it and live. The
time w-ill come when the world cannot
support life. That w-ill be the period
of old age, and then will come death.—
Richard A. Proctor.
“CREASING” A WILD HORSE.
For One Captured by That Method
Fifty Were Killed.
Will C. Barnes, writing in McClure’s
of the various methods of capturing
wild horses in the old days on the
plains, says:
“‘Creasing’ was one of their devices.
This consisted in shooting a bullet so
that it struck the animal on the top
of the neck Just In front of the with¬
ers and about an inch or so deep close
to the spinal column. The shock tem¬
porarily stunned the horse, and the
hunter ran up and tied the animal’s
feet together before he recovered. A
rope halter was slipped on his head.
A gentle horse or sometimes a work
ox was led up alongside the prostrate
beast, and he w-as securely necked up
to the gentle animal and thus could be
handled easily. Old mustangers say.
however, that for one horse caught
this way fifty w-ere killed and that as
a matter of fact the method was not
used very much except in an emer¬
gency, when a hunter, after days of
attempts to capture, finally took the
risk of successfully creasing an un¬
usually fine animal rather than see
him escape altogether.
“One of the best cow ponies 1 ever
owned I bought from a mustanger
who had creased him on the plains
east of the Pecos river In New Mex¬
ico. There was a hole in his neck
fuHy two inches deep and wide, where
the ball from the heavy buffalo gun
had plow-ed its way through the flesh
just high enough above the spine not
to kill and low enough to stun effectu¬
ally.”
India Ink.
In both India and China there are
thousands of people who manufacture
^ndia ink as a side line to their regu¬
lar business, working at it in the win¬
ter nt night and on days when they
are not otherwise employed. It is
made by burning some kind of oil in
a lamp with a very long chimney, usu¬
ally made In joints which can be tak¬
en apart for greater convenience in
cleaning out the soot which makes
the Ink. Almost any kind of vegeta¬
ble oil will answer, and in districts
where petroleum is found even coal oil
Is used in making the cheaper grades.
The best kind is made from sesame
oil.—Argonaut.
His Hand.
Tom Reed was playing whist on one
occasion In his club in Portland. One
of the party whom the “czar” did not
like extravagantly had a habit of car¬
rying a good deal of black realty un¬
der Ills finger nails, and the rest of his
hands never looked clean. But the fel¬
low had good luck, which nettled Tom.
Finally, almost unable to conceal his
Impatience, the giant speaker of the
house of representatives remarked In
his metallic nasal tone of voice, “Blank,
if dirt was trumps, what a hand you'd
have!”
A Terrible Threat.
“Y'ou say your titled son-in-law
holds threats over you?”
“Yes,” answered Mr. Cuinrox. “He
has us where we can’t give him any
argument at all. Mother and the girls
say we must yield for the sake of the
family honor.”
“Is there—er—a skeleton in the
closet?”
“Not at nil. He simply announces
that unless he has his own way he'll
get naturalized and be a plain Ameri¬
can citizen.”—Washington Star.
Highly Fsteemed.
“Do you think that most people
nowadays worship money?”
“No; I won’t go as far as that,”
answered the home grown philosopher,
“hut I will say that the love of money
Is seldom platonic.”—Washington Her¬
ald.
Limited Love.
“When your parents first refused me
your hand, I was so wretched that I
wanted to throw myself out of the
window.”
“And why didn't you?”
“It was so high!”—Lustige Blatter.
THE COVINGTON NEWS
SARDOU AND THE SPIRIT.
Ths Dramatist Wrote and Drew Pic¬
tures While "Under Control."
Before he made his reputation by
writing plays Victorien Sardou, the
French dramatist, who was deeply in¬
terested in spiritualism, had a remark¬
able experience in taking dictation.
He had been interested in occult phe
nomeua, and by chance he came into
communication with a spirit person¬
ality who signed himself “Bernard
Palissy.” M. Sardou told the story of
his experimeuts in an article entitled
“Only the Blindly Ignorant Scoff” in
the Delineator. He said:
One day in my room with two
friends I thought I would make the
little table where w-e had taken our
coffee run about the room, as 1 had
often done when alone. Without say¬
ing anything I put my hand on the
table, but it would not budge. I tried
in vain all the time they were there
to make it move, but to no avail. As
soon as they were gone I could make
it do what I pleased, even jump clear
off the floor. So I took up my pencil
and asked, “But why would you not
make the table move while my friends
were here?” The hand which held the
pencil wrote, “They were too stupid.”
Shortly after this I was sitting by
my table one day idling, dreaming, not
making any effort to do anything in
particular. All of a sudden my hand
began to work on the paper before me
with a rapidity and precision which
astonished me. And it kept this up
for close to two hours. The result was
a fantastic piece of work drawn in
delicate lines, tine almost as a spider’s
web, and at the bottom a signature—
“Bernard Palissy." “What is it?” I
asked.
And my automatic hand wrote, ‘The
house of Swedenborg, on the planet
Jupiter.” This was considered as most
curious by all my friends, who knew
that personally I had no aptitude for
drawing. A plate was prepared, and
I was given an etching tool. The re¬
sult, In the same order of design, was
a more elaborate piece of work, this
time curiously combined out of all
sorts of musical terms, clefs, notes,
bars, and so on, and the w hole was des¬
ignated as the house of Mozart, also
on Jupiter, and the whole was again
signed “Falissy.” In fact, Bernard
Palissy became my almost constant
companion from this on, like my sec¬
ond self.
AN UNWASHED PRINCE.
The Lesson That Ended His Kicks
About Morning Baths.
When Emperor William II. was a
small boy he had a strong objection to
being washed in the morning, and his
governess, having had some unpleas¬
ant experiences with him and being in
some doubt as to what she had better
do, appealed to his father, the then
Grown Prince Frederick. Frederick an¬
swered, “The next time he gives any
trouble on this score leave him alone
to his own pleasure and report to me.”
Naturally it was not long before the'
young prince refused to go through
the purification process, and the gov¬
erness followed the orders received.
Now, the boy had a little carriage
and was very fond of driving out in
the morning, and he generally ordered
the coachman to go by way of the
Brandenburg gate, as it amused and
flattered him to see the soldiers in the
barrack, just inside the gate, turn out
and present arms as the heir to the
empire passed their quarters. Accord¬
ingly on the morning of his disobe¬
dience the order was, as usual, “To
the Brandenburg gate,” and the car¬
riage rolled rapidly thither. But what
was the amazement and the rage of
the princeling on arriving there to see
no soldiers except those on guard, and
they took not the slightest notice of
him. In a towering passion he order¬
ed the coachman to return to the pal¬
ace, where, rushing into his father’s
room, he complained of the indecent
behavior of the guard and demanded
their condign punishment.
But his father only smiled and said
in the gentlest voice: “Fuer unge
waschener prinz wird niemals praesen
tirt” (“An unwashed prince is never
saluted”).—Harper’s Weekly.
High Art.
“Are you blind, prisoner?” inquired
the magistrate.
“Yes, your worship.”
“You are charged with vagrancy.
How did you lose your sight?”
“By a fit of appleplexy, sir.”
“But there is a picture on your
breast representing an explosion in a
mine, through which, it is stated, you
became blind. How is this?”
“Please, your worship, I couldn’t af¬
ford to pay a hartist as could paint ap¬
pleplexy.”—London Answers.
Where the Trouble Was.
“Some mis’bul sinner took an’ rurned
off wid de collection hat las’ meetin’
day,” said Brother Dickey, “an’ I well
knows dat ef dar wus no sich place ez
hell de good Lawd would make one
for dat sinner.”
“Was there much money in the hat?”
“No, suh; day warn’t so much ez a
brass button in it.”
“Then why are you so mad about it?”
“Hit wuz my hat,” he sahj.—Atlanta
Constitution.
When to Hesitate.
“He who hesitates is lost,” quoted
the wise guy.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the simple
mug. “At an auction sale he who hes¬
itates may have his money.”—Philadel¬
phia Record.
The Change.
“So he has ceased to be her ideal?”
“He has,”
“What disgraceful thing did he do?”
“Married another girl.’’—Louisville
Courier Journal.
PAPUAN COIFFURES
Heads In New Guinea That Look Like
Rising Suns.
“One of the most interesting thing’s
that came under my observation was
the odd manner in which the people
wore their hair,” said a physician, de¬
scribing a visit to New Guinea and the
leading traits and characteristics of the
inhabitants, known as Papuans. “One
type wore the hair standing up from
the head at a length of seven Inches or
more. It was trliwned with wonderful
regularity and with mathematical ac¬
curacy. The hair was greased with
cocoanut oil and painted red. At a
distance It looked like a rising sun.”
Another type of the inhabitants who
wear their hair in an unusual fashion
was described.
“Starting from the forehead,” he said,
“the hair is brushed back over the
scalp and bangs down to the waist. It
is a perfect mass, an intricate jungle.
I am sure it was never combed, and it
was impossible to run the fingers
through it. At a distance it looks like
a cap with the visor turned downward.
“One other odd type of hairdressing
—coiffure, if you will—was observed on
this visit. The hair was gathered at
the front and back, then brought to¬
gether above the head, where it was
inclosed in a basket-like cylinder. The
' end spread out about two Inches. Ap¬
parently these caps are never removed
from the head.”—Baltimore Sun.
Two Straight Streets.
In viewing Manhattan from a point
of vantage on the Metropolitan tower,
nearly 700 feet from the sidewalk, one
Is chiefly Impressed by the rigid lines
which Park and Madison avenues cut
through the length of the island. A
tapeline drawn through a miniature
model city could not be stralghter. A
twelve inch rifle discharged at Twenty
third street would send its bullet
stralgnt into Harlem without touching
a building on either side.—New York
Post.
He Meant Dollars.
“Old Cush landed in this country in
his bare feet ten years ago. Now he’s
got millions.”
“You don’t say! Why, he’s got a
centiped sklned to death, hasn’t he?”
—Cleveland Leader.
The Other Half.
Royal Marine (engaged in coaling
ship)—When I Joined the corps the
sergeant ’e ses to me, “It’s ’arf sol
dler’n an’ ’arf yachtin',” ’e ses. I sup¬
pose this is the bloomin' yachtin’!—
London Punch.
* “What has become of the old fash¬
ioned mother who sat up to see at
what hour her boys got in?”
“I presume she has been superseded
by a time clock.”—Kansas City Jour¬
nal.
A common danger produces unanim¬
ity.—Latin Proverb.
PROFITS CUT ALL
TO PIECES ON
Ten or Fifteen Different Makes.
$10 Profit on Factory Prices.
See This Line Before You Make
Your Purchase.
It Means Money To you.
C. A. HARWELL,
Leader In
Furniture and Undertaking
Covington, Ga.
A 0. K . PRESSING CL UB
M. T. PERDUE, PROPRIETOR.
EIGHT SUITS ONE DOLLAR
A A Clsaning Pressing and Dyeing
A
ON SHORT NOTICE
Wook done by proprietor, a white man of 10 years experience. Give
me a trial. SWORDS BUILDING, Covington, Ga.
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