Taking out his book and pencil, he wrote the following:
"Dead dog at Delaware Avenue and Dick" and stopt.
Picking up the dog by its tail, the policeman carried it to Tasker Street, where he dropt it. Here he took his pencil and book out again and wrote:
"Dead dog at Delaware Avenue and Tasker Street."
A passer-by asked the policeman what made him carry the dog to Tasker Street, to which he replied:
"Well, I couldn't spell Dickinson, so I took the cur a square down to an easier street."
(1503)
ILL-FORTUNE BECOMING GOOD-FORTUNE
An Australian miner had reached the very
last of his resources without finding a speck
of gold, and there was nothing for him to
do but to turn back on the morrow, while a
mouthful of food was left, and retrace his
steps as best he might do to the nearest port.
He flung down his tools in despair that last
night, and staggered over the two or three
miles of desert to the camp-fire. Next
morning, early, after a great deal of sleep
and very little food, he braced himself up
to go back for his tools, knowing that they
might bring the price of a meal or two when
it came to the last. As he stumbled back
that hot morning the way seemed very long,
for his heart was too heavy to carry. At
last he saw his wheelbarrow and pick standing
upon the flat plain a little way off, and
was wearily dragging on toward them, when
he caught his toe against a stone deeply
embedded in the sand, and fell down. This
was the last straw that broke the camel's
back. He lay there and curst his luck bitterly,
to think that he should nearly break
his toe against the only stone in the whole
district after all his failure to find gold. He
felt like a passionate child who kicks and
breaks the thing which has hurt him, and
he had to beat that stone before he could
feel quiet. It was too firm in the sand for
his hands to get it up; so in his rage he dug
it up with his pick, intending to smash it;
but it would not smash, for it was solid
gold, and nearly as big as a baby's head.
(Text.)—Louis Albert Banks.
(1504)
ILL LUCK
There was a man during the reign of Kaiser Otho, who wore puffed breeches. Puffed breeches then were filled with flour, and when the wearer of the breeches sat down on a seat he sat down on a nail, and the nail tore the breeches and the rent emitted three pecks of flour. Why he should have sat down at that particular time, and in that particular place, is a mystery; and why there should have been a nail there, is to me an inscrutable mystery; but there is the fact, and the sufferer I consider an ill-used man.—George Dawson.
(1505)
ILL-PAID WORK
Generally, good, useful work, whether of
the hand or head, is either ill-paid, or not
paid at all. I don't say it should be so, but
it always is so. People, as a rule, only pay
for being amused or being cheated, not for
being served. Five thousand a year to your
talker, and a shilling a day to your fighter,
digger, and thinker, is the rule. None of the
best head work in art, literature, or science
is ever paid for. How much do you think
Homer got for his "Iliad?" or Dante for his
"Paradise?" Only bitter bread and salt,
and going up and down other people's stairs.
In science, the man who discovered the
telescope, and first saw heaven, was paid
with a dungeon; the man who invented the
microscope, and first saw earth, died of
starvation, driven from his home. Baruch,
the scribe, did not get a penny a line for
writing Jeremiah's second roll for him, I
fancy; and St. Stephen did not get bishop's
pay for that long sermon of his to the
Pharisees; nothing but stones. For, indeed,
that is the world-father's proper payment.—John
Ruskin.
(1506)
ILLUMINATION
The Railway and Locomotive Engineering says:
Some of the principal requirements of a
locomotive headlight are that the light from
it shall be powerful enough to illuminate the
track far enough ahead to permit of an
emergency stop; that the light shall not be
so brilliant as to cause temporary blindness
or bewilderment in those upon whom it
falls; that in the matter of signal observance
it must not alter or modify the colors of the
lesser lights which come into its field, and
that it shall be as effective a form of light
as can be devised for foggy or snowy
weather.
(1507)
