Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/405



"I will never forget my first experience in the hospital work," said Chief Surgeon Millar, of the Central Emergency Hospital, San Francisco. "There was a green nurse in the detention ward and we had a very violent case in there—a man in the worst stage of delirium tremens. I was awakened in the middle of the night by the head nurse, who requested me to come at once to the patient. When I got there I found him raving and very violent, with the new nurse scared out of her wits. I said:

"'Why did you let him go so far? I left you some medicine to give him as soon as he got delirious.'

"'Yes, doctor,' she replied; 'but you told me to give that to him if he saw any more snakes, and this time he was seeing blue dogs with pink tails.'"—San Francisco Call.

(1702)

JUDGMENTS, INDISCRIMINATE

It is to be feared that many verdicts against our fellow men are as indiscriminate as that of the juryman in the following extract:

A lawyer once asked a man who had at various times sat on several juries, "Who influenced you most—the lawyers, the witnesses, or the judge?" He expected to get some useful and interesting information from so experienced a juryman.

This was the man's reply: "I tell yer, sir, 'ow I makes up my mind. I'm a plain man, and a reasonin' man, and I ain't influenced by anything the lawyers say, nor by what the witnesses say—no, nor by what the judge says. I just looks at the man in the dock, and I says, 'If he ain't done nothing, why's he there?' And I brings 'em all in guilty."

(1703)

JUNK

The Rev. William Barnes Lower writes this telling illustration:

The dredging-machines at work deepening the channel of the Delaware River are bringing to the surface all kinds of junk and implements lost or thrown overboard from ships. All kinds of tools, brass and copper are being found and sold as junk.

Every life carries with it, some more, some less, a lot of worthless junk—old superstitions from which it is hard to break away, old prejudices that have hindered the progress of the soul and should have been thrown overboard long ago. Superstition is the greatest burden in the world. The imaginary, scarecrow superstitions of many homes is the worthless junk, that is a dead weight to its spiritual and intellectual progress. Superstition is the disturber of many homes. Very often superstition parades itself under the guise of religion. Superstition is the one swing of the pendulum, skepticism believes nothing. Prejudice always arises through inexperience of the world and ignorance of mankind. In any life it is as worthless as old junk.

(1704)

Just Punishment—See Boys Adjusting Their Troubles.

JUSTICE

Over on the further side, in the shallow eddy, the pool was troubled a second, then there rose from it a wee sunfish, not more than three inches long, rose from it tail first and began balancing across the pool surface toward me, on his head. His tail quivered in the air, and I could see his freckles growing in the yellow transparency of his skin; yet, tho I watched with wide eyes, he was two-thirds the way across the pool toward me before I noticed beneath him the tip of the nose and the wicked little dark eye of a water-snake. At sight of him the demoiselles should have shrieked and flown away, but they made no move. I, however, indignant, arose, and seizing broken fragments of rock was about to lacerate him, and lose his prey, when I quite suddenly thought better of it. Had not I a few days before come down stream to the deep pool above and carried off a string of perch, sunfish, pouts, and an eel? Had not the water-snake also a right to his dinner?—, "Wild Pastures."

(1705)

Some of the early settlers of this country bargained with the Indians that for each fish-hook given, they were to give as much land as a bullock's hide would cover. But the settlers cut the hide into thin strips, and made it cover a large area. William Penn, when he first came to Pennsylvania, bargained with the Indians that he would give a certain number of articles for as much land as a man could walk around in a certain time. The man covered so much more ground than the Indians believed he would, that they became dissatisfied and threatening. But Penn said to them, "You agreed to this way of measuring." His companions wished