golf-sticks going out to some country club grounds. They may have their thousands and live in the best houses on the avenue, but they are moral culls. These things are blemishes which show the character. (Text.)
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Watchfulness—See Asleep; Disguised Danger. WATCHFULNESS AGAINST ENEMIES The conscience and will ought to guard character against its destructive enemies as the Brazilians guard their houses, according to the following account: Rats have multiplied to such a degree in Brazil that the inhabitants rear a certain kind of snake for destroying them. The Brazilian domestic serpent is the giboia, a small species of boa about twelve feet in length and of the diameter of a man's arm. This snake, which is entirely harmless and sluggish in its movements, passes the entire day asleep at the foot of the staircase of the house, scarcely deigning to raise its head at the approach of a visitor, or when a strange noise is heard in the vestibule. At nightfall the giboia begins to hunt, crawling along here and there, and even penetrating the space above the ceiling and beneath the flooring. Springing swiftly forward, it seizes the rat by the nape and crushes its cervical vertebrae. As serpents rarely eat, even when at liberty, the giboia kills only for the pleasure of killing. It becomes so accustomed to its master's house that if carried to a distance it escapes and finds its way back home. Every house in the warmest provinces where rats abound owns its giboia, a fixture by destination, and the owner of which praises its qualities when he wishes to sell or let his house. (Text.)—Scientific American.
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WATCHING THE KETTLE
There is a bit of proverbial philosophy
afloat to the effect that "a watched kettle
never boils." False philosophy this, whether
taken literally or figuratively. In the one
case it is an idiotic superstition; in the other,
a stupid mistake; in either, a humbug and a
cheat. Cease to watch your business kettle,
and what comes of leaving it to take care of
itself? It either becomes stone-cold or
blows up. You don't want your enterprise
over-done, and you don't want it under-done.
Your object is to strike the golden
mean between lukewarmness and the explosive
point, represented, we will say, by
212 of Fahrenheit. How are you to stimulate
the contents of your kettle up to the
right mark—to make them ebullient without
turning them into a dangerous element—unless
you regulate the upward tendency judiciously?
It is only the neglected business
kettle that never boils to a good purpose.
Suppose Lord Worcester, Marquis of Somerset,
had not watched his kettle, and so had
not observed the phenomenon of the flapping
lid, forced into motion by the pressure
of the escaping steam? If the marquis had
not received that hint from his watched
kettle as to the latent force of steam, who
can tell what deprivation of motive power
mankind would have undergone? Your
moral kettle must be looked after, too, or it
is more likely to freeze than boil. Morality
without the warmth of feeling necessary to
make it active, is not of much use. In fact,
all the figurative kettles, individual and social,
included within the range of human
hopes and duties, require to be closely
watched. The world is paved, as one may
say, with the wrecks of kettles which would
have been of incalculable utility if they had
been properly managed—reformatory kettles,
for example, which only require the fire of
zeal to keep them going, and the guardianship
of practical common sense to regulate
them, in order to become valuable utensils in
the kitchen of progress. To watch your
kettle till it boils, and all the time that it is
boiling, is the only sure way to provide
against accidents.—New York Ledger.
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Water and Natives—See Miracles, Evidential Value of.
WATER OF LIFE
The briny waters of Great Salt Lake have
been tried by the Southern Pacific Railway
for a novel purpose and with remarkable
success. Stored in tanks the fluid has been
hauled over the line by water-trains and
sprinkled upon the right of way. Under this
treatment the weeds, the bane of the section-hands,
have withered and died. After an experiment
of sixteen months the scheme has
now been permanently adopted. This briny
water is a water which brings death to those
things it touches.
There is a water we are told
which brings life, higher than any material
life, the water of life. It was
