of the telescoping umbrella-rod when shut up. A small and light case is provided to contain the whole, which, as stated, goes easily into the pocket. If such a device can be made and sold for a reasonable price there is little to prevent the owner from making a fortune; there are few men who would not welcome an umbrella which could be always carried without inconvenience, and which could be put out of the way of the borrower-who-never-returns, when entering a public place, such as a restaurant. (Text.)
(863)
In the packing business nothing is lost but "the squeal of the pig." Every part of an animal is now valuable. Much of the profit of a packing-house now comes from by-*products, like hair, entrails and the like, that once were thrown away.
(864)
You do not see to-day as many of the old peach or pea or salmon or tomato cans emptied of their contents and thrown about in the vacant lot or in the rubbish heap of the private family or the general garbage-*pile of the community. It was a real nuisance to have so many of these useless "cast-offs" accumulating under eye and foot. And with the increased use of canned goods this was becoming more and more so. Loads of these refuse cans are now gathered every year and are made into shining sheets which are used as a covering and decoration of traveling trunks. Enough tin refuse is taken from the ash-heaps to keep several mills employed in turning this waste into products for the markets. Even the solder which is saved from these cast-away cans brings twelve cents per pound, and yields an income that pays well for the pains of gathering this rubbish. Window-sash weighs are made out of the tops and bottoms of these old cans, while the body of the can is cleaned and rolled anew, and made serviceable for trunk covering.—G. P. Perry, "Wealth from Waste."
(865)
Have you ever, in hours of illness or of great preoccupation, performed some piece of work; undertaken, for example, some long-drawn piece of needlework, and woven your thoughts into the leaves and flowers? Through force of association, your inner experience and your work were henceforth completely identified, and after many years you could still say to yourself: This flower recalls the day when I was expecting news of my sick and absent son. I wavered between fear and hope and my hand trembled. Something of his fever has remained in this frail stem. . . . Here is a swallow that I embroidered after I had received happy tidings that reassured me and announced his near return. Never shall I be able to look at it without thinking of all the joy of which a mother's heart is capable!
The labor involved in economy is like these patient toils. The little pennies also have their story. This story is made up of watchfulness, of cares, of tenderness, of sublime sacrifice. Never will the large sums of nameless money attain to the power of signification possest by these little pennies amassed one by one, put carefully away, to which one has said: Little penny, I keep you to-day in order that you may keep me to-*morrow; I give you a post of honor; the day when misery approaches my sill and threatens to cross it, you will cry out: you may not pass!—Charles Wagner, "The Gospel of Life."
(866)
See Waste, The Problem of.
Economy by Inventions—See Labor-*saving
Inventions.
ECONOMY, DIVINE
The autographs of musicians who in life
could not write a check for a crust of bread
have in death been sold for fabulous sums.
Not long ago at a sale in Berlin two of
Beethoven's letters sold for $187 and $200
each. A letter of Chopin brought $250, a
visiting-card of Haydn $20 and a letter $427,
two letters of Schubert $777, four letters of
Wagner $322, a scrap of writing of Mozart
sold for $276, while a Gluck manuscript
changed hands at $1,000. Some of these men
in life hardly received enough for their
services to keep their musical souls connected
with their emaciated bodies; but they wasted
themselves in pouring out their immortal
melodies, and this generation is putting down
its gold for mere scraps of paper that had
felt the touch of their dead hands! Of
course, their service and music are not lost;
but look! God does not even allow the
screeds of paper, which were once crumpled
by their perished fingers, to be lost, either!
While their music is filling the world with
its sweetness God is even picking up the tattered,
torn, broken fragments blown by cruel
winds up and down the desert of their lives,
that nothing be lost!—F. F. Shannon.
(867)
