Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/178



Every one who ever wore it died—Mercedes, Queen Christina, Infanta del Pillar, and others. It is known as "The Ring of Death." (Text.)
 * son is that a tragic story hangs about it.

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DEATH, UNTIMELY

Louis Albert Banks tells this story of a young girl cut off just after her graduation from school:

And there is her diploma, lying just as she threw it there, when she came home from college, but a few days before she was taken ill. I came up with her to the room, and she flung the diploma in there with a sort of girlish glee, and it stuck at an angle across the compartment of the bookcase. She closed the door on it and said, "Well, I'm glad I've got you anyhow!" and it has never been touched since. Two weeks later, we went with her over to the cemetery and laid her beside her father; and there lies her unused diploma that cost her so much hard work and that she was so proud to obtain. (Text.)

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DEATH USUALLY PAINLESS

Sudden and violent death, shocking to the senses, may not be, probably is not, painful to the victim. Drowning, hanging, freezing, shooting, falling from a height, poisoning of many kinds, beget stupor or numbness of the nerves which is incompatible with sensation. Persons who have met with such accidents, and survived them, testify to this. Records to this effect are numberless. Death from fire dismays us; we can scarcely conceive aught more distressing. In all likelihood, however, it appears far worse than it is. Fire probably causes suffocation from smoke, or insensibility from inhaling flame, so that the agony we imagine is not felt. They who have been near their end have experienced more pain on returning, so to speak, from their grave, than if they had gone to it. They have endured all the pangs, corporeal and mental, of death, without actually dying. It is an error, therefore, to suppose that men may not have tasted the bitterness of death, and yet be alive and in good health.—, The Forum. (696)   Death Valley Conquered—See. DEATH WITH SAVAGES  H. M. Stanley relates that an African king, as a delicate compliment, presented him with the heads of a dozen of his own subjects whom he had just killed in his guest's honor; and these twelve unfortunates accepted death as stolidly as a matter of course, and the incident made no sensation whatever.—, Chautauquan. (697)  DEBAUCH, FATAL  A twisted auto on a dead man's chest—   Ye ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done their best—  Ye ho! and a bottle of rum! The roadhouse bar and the "lady friend"—  Ye ho! and a bottle of rum! And at eighty miles they took the bend—  Ye ho! and a bottle of rum! A swerve that mocked their drunken wills, A crash and a shriek through the darkness thrills; "Joy riding" is the pace that kills—  Ye ho! and a bottle of rum! —New York World. (698)   Debt Paid—See. Debt-paying Converts—See. Debts, Payment of—See. Debtors to All—See. Decadence, National—See. DECAY  Old ships lying at anchor may have the appearance of soundness and the outward evidence of strength, usefulness, and seagoing qualities, but, when carefully examined for a sea voyage, are often found to be covered with barnacles and to be affected with dry rot. When such a vessel, no matter what good it has done or what use it has been in the traffic and carrying trade, is condemned, it is at once replaced by a new or more modern one that is in perfect order and fully seaworthy. What is true of vessels is often true of men also.—American Artisan.

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See.

Deceit—See ;.

Deceit Discovered—See.

DECEIT WITH GOD

Rev. F. W. Hinton, of Allahabad, relates this story in the C. M. S. Gazette: