Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/585



the immortality of the soul, and at twelve years of age wrote an original paper on the habits of the flying-spider.

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Of Mrs. Wesley's father it is gravely recorded that "when about five or six years old he began a practise, which he afterward continued, of reading twenty chapters every day in the Bible." The phenomenon of a child not six years old who solemnly forms, in the cells of his infantile brain, the plan of reading twenty chapters of the Bible every day—and sticks to it through a long life—would in these modern days be reckoned nothing less than astonishing. Of Hetty Wesley, the sister of John, it is on record that at eight years of age she could read the Greek Testament. Do any such wonderful children exist in these days?—, "Wesley and His Century.

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See.

PREDICTION, FALSE

Mr. James A. Briggs cites a paragraph from the Boston Courier of June 27, 1827, then edited by Joseph T. Buckingham, one of the ablest and most liberal of New England editors. It was but sixty-two years ago that he thus spoke of the projected railroad from Boston to Albany:  Alcibiades, or some other great man of antiquity, it is said, cut off his dog's tail that quidnuncs might not become extinct from want of excitement. Some such motive, we doubt not, moves one or two of our natural and experimental philosophers to get up a project for a railroad from Boston to Albany—a project which every one knows, who knows the simplest rule in arithmetic, to be impracticable and at an expense little less than the market value of the whole territory of Massachusetts; and which, if practicable, every person of common sense knows would be as useless as a railroad from Boston to the moon. The road was built, and there is no more prosperous road in the country.—Harper's Weekly.

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Preferences—See.

PREFERRED CREDITOR

An Israelite without guile, doing business down in Chatham Street, New York, called his creditors together, and offered them in settlement his note for ten per cent on their claims, payable in four months. His brother, one of the largest creditors, rather "kicked"; but the debtor took him aside and said, "Do not make any objections, and I will make you a preferred creditor." So the proposal was accepted by all. Presently, the preferred brother said, "Well, I should like what is coming to me." "Oh," was the reply, "you won't get anything; they won't any of them get anything." "But I thought I was a preferred creditor." "So you are. These notes will not be paid when they come due; but it will take them four months to find out that they are not going to get anything. But you know it now; you see you are preferred."—

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PREHISTORIC WOMAN

In the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons lies a famous skull. Discovered at Gibraltar many years ago, it has been agreed to be that of a human being of prehistoric times. Professor A. Keith, curator of the museum, has compared the skull minutely with those of the people of all nations to-*day, and has set it side by side with all other available prehistoric relics. "The skull, I have little doubt, is that of a woman," he said. "From the size of her brain she must have been shrewd—probably a woman, too, of considerable spirit. One can reckon pretty accurately also the time at which she lived. It must have been at least 600,000 years ago. From the jaws and the fact that the muscles of mastication were remarkably strong it is possible to deduce what this prehistoric woman ate. Nuts and roots probably entered very largely into her diet. She was in the habit of eating things which required a great amount of mastication before much nourishment could be derived from them, hence the unusual development of the jaw muscles."

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PREJUDGMENT

It is not uncommon for men to judge a cause before they have heard the facts:

Lord Eldon said, "I remember Mr. Justice Gould trying a case at York, and when he had proceeded for about two hours, he observed, 'Here are only eleven jurymen; where is the twelfth?' 'Please you, my lord,' said one of the eleven, 'he is gone away about some business, but he has left his verdict with me.'"—, "Curiosities of Law and Lawyers."

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