The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing

J >> Joseph Triemens >> The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing

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WORKINGMEN EASILY GULLED.

Who fought for King George in 1776? Working people.

What interest did they have in being ruled by him? None.

Why, then, did they risk their lives for him? Because he hired them.

Where did the king get the money to pay them? By taxing them.

Then they really paid themselves for fighting? Certainly.

In every war ever fought the working people paid the expenses.

"WHAT constitutes a state?
Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and, knowing,
Dare maintain."
--Jones.

JEFFERSON'S POLITICAL POLICY.

1. Legal equality of all human beings.

2. The people the only source of power.

3. No hereditary offices, nor order of "nobility," nor title.

4. No unnecessary taxation.

5. No national banks or bonds.

6. No costly splendor of administration.

7. Freedom of thought and discussion.

8. Civil authority superior to the military.

9. No favored classes; no special privileges; no monopolies.

10. Free and fair elections; universal suffrage.

11. No public money spent without warrant of law.

12. No mysteries in government hidden from the public eye.

13. Representatives bound by the instructions of their constituents.

14. The Constitution of the United States a special grant of powers
limited and definite.

15. Freedom, sovereignty and independence of the respective States.

16. Absolute severance of Church and State.

17. The Union a compact--not a consolidation nor a centralization.

18. Moderate salaries, economy and strict accountability.

19. Gold and silver currency--supplemented by treasury notes bearing no
interest and bottomed on taxes.

20. No State banks of issue.

21. No expensive navy or diplomatic establishment.

22. A progressive or graduated tax laid upon wealth.

23. No internal revenue system. A complete separation of public moneys
from bank funds.

PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES.

Declaration of Independence July 4th, 1776

General Washington, first President. 1789 and 1793

John Adams 1797

Thomas Jefferson 1801 and 1805

James Madison 1809 and 1813

James Monroe 1817 and 1821

John Quincy Adams 1825

General Andrew Jackson 1829 and 1833

Martin Van Buren 1837

General William Henry Harrison (died 4th April) 1841

John Tyler (elected as Vice-President). 1841

James Knox Polk 1845

General Zachary Taylor (died 9th July, 1850) 1849

Millard Fillmore (elected as Vice-President) 1850

General Franklin Pierce 1853

James Buchanan 1857

Abraham Lincoln (assassinated 14th April, 1865) 1861 and 1865

Andrew Johnson (elected as Vice-President) 1865

General Ulysses S. Grant 1869 and 1873

Rutherford B. Hayes 1877

General J. Abram Garfield (died 19th September, 1881) 1881

General Chester A. Arthur (elected as V. Pres.) 1881

Grover Cleveland 1885

Benjamin H. Harrison 1889

Grover Cleveland 1893

William McKinley (elected) 1897

(Re-elected) 1901

(Assassinated September 14, 1901)

Theodore Roosevelt (elected Vice-President) 1901

(Became President September 14) 1901

Theodore Roosevelt (elected) 1905

Wm. H. Taft 1909

FACTS ABOUT THE LIBERTY BELL.

Cast by Thomas Lester, Whitechapel, London.

Arrived in Philadelphia in August, 1752.

First used in statehouse, Philadelphia, Aug. 27, 1752.

Twice recast by Pass & Snow, Philadelphia, to repair crack, September,
1752.

Muffled and tolled Oct. 5, 1765, on arrival of ship Royal Charlotte with
stamps.

Muffled and tolled Oct. 31, 1765, when stamp act was put in operation.

Summoned meeting to prevent landing of cargo of tea from the ship Polly
Dec. 27, 1774.

Summoned meeting of patriots April 25, 1775, after battle of Lexington.

Proclaimed declaration of independence and the birth of a new nation at
great ratification meeting July 8, 1776.

First journey from Philadelphia made in September, 1777, to Allentown,
Pa., to escape capture by the British; returned June 27, 1778.

Proclaimed treaty of peace April 16, 1783.

Tolled for the death of Washington Dec. 26, 1799.

Rung on the fiftieth anniversary of the declaration of independence July
4, 1826.

Last used in tolling for the death of John Marshall July 8, 1835,

Principal tours: To New Orleans in 1885; Chicago, 1893; Atlanta, 1895;
Boston, 1902; St Louis, 1904.

HOW THE PRESIDENTS DIED.

George Washington's death was the result of a severe cold contracted
while riding around his farm in a rain and sleet storm on Dec. 10, 1799.
The cold increased and was followed by a chill, which brought on acute
laryngitis. He died at the age of 68, on Dec. 14, 1799.

John Adams died from old age, having reached his ninety-first milestone.
Though active mentally, he was nearly blind and unable to hold a pen
steadily enough to write. He passed away without pain on July 4, 1826.

Thomas Jefferson died at the age of eighty-three, a few hours before
Adams, on July 4, 1826. His disease was chronic diarrhoea, superinduced
by old age, and his physician said the too free use of the waters of the
white sulphur springs.

James Madison also died of old age, and peacefully, on June 28, 1836.
His faculties were undimmed to the last. He was eighty-five.

James Monroe's demise, which occurred in the seventy-third year of his
age, on July 4, 1831, was assigned to enfeebled health.

John Quincy Adams was stricken with paralysis on Feb. 21, 1848, while
addressing the Speaker of the House of Representatives, being at the
time a member of Congress. He died in the rotunda of the Capitol. He was
eighty-one years of age.

Andrew Jackson died on June 8, 1845, seventy-eight years old. He
suffered from consumption and finally dropsy, which made its appearance
about six months before his death.

Martin Van Buren died on July 24, 1862, from a violent attack of asthma,
followed by catarrhal affections of the throat and lungs. He was eighty
years of age.

William Henry Harrison's death was caused by pleurisy, the result of a
cold, which he caught on the day of his inauguration. This was
accompanied with severe diarrhoea, which would not yield to medical
treatment. He died on April 4, 1841, a month after his inauguration. He
was sixty-eight years of age.

John Tyler died on Jan. 17, 1862, at the age of seventy-two. Cause of
death, bilious colic.

James K. Polk was stricken with a slight attack of cholera in the spring
of 1849, while on a boat going up the Mississippi River. Though
temporarily relieved, he had a relapse on his return home and died on
June 15, 1849, aged fifty-four years.

Zachary Taylor was the second President to die in office. He is said to
have partaken immoderately of ice water and iced milk, and then later of
a large quantity of cherries. The result was an attack of cholera
morbus. He was sixty-six years old.

Millard Fillmore died from a stroke of paralysis on March 8, 1874, in
his seventy-fourth year.

Franklin Pierce's death was due to abdominal dropsy, and occurred on
Oct. 8, l869, in the sixty-fifth year of his age.

James Buchanan's death occurred on June 1, 1868, and was caused by
rheumatic gout. He was seventy-seven years of age.

Abraham Lincoln was shot by J. Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater,
Washington, D. C., on April 14, 1865, and died the following day, aged
fifty-six.

Andrew Johnson died from a stroke of paralysis July 31, 1875, aged
sixty-seven.

U. S. Grant died of cancer of the tongue, at Mt. McGregor, N. Y., July
3, 1885.

James A. Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau on July 2. 1881. Died
Sept. 19, 1881.

Chester A. Arthur, who succeeded Garfield, died suddenly of apoplexy in
New York City, Nov. 18, 1886.

Rutherford B. Hayes died Jan. 17, 1803, the result of a severe cold
contracted in Cleveland, Ohio.

Benjamin Harrison died March 13, 1901. Cause of death, pneumonia.

William McKinley was assassinated Sept. 14, 1901.

Grover Cleveland died on June 24, 1908, of debility, aged 71.

WHO IS THE AUTHOR?

The following literary curiosity found its way recently into the query
column of a Boston newspaper. Nobody seems to know who wrote it:

O I wish I was in eden
Where all the beastes is feedin,
the Pigs an cows an osses.
And the long tale Bull wot tosses
the Bulldog and the Rabbit,
acaus it is his habbit;
Where Lions, Tigurs, monkees,
And them long-ear'd things call'd Donkeys,
Meat all together daylee
With Crockedyles all Skaley,
Where sparros on the bushis
Sings to there mates, the thrushis,
an Hawks and Littel Rens
Wawks about like Cocks and Ens,
One looking at the tuther
for all the World like a Bruther.
Where no quarlin is or Phytin,
its tru wot ime aritin.
O for a wauk at even,
somewhere abowt 6 or 7,
When the Son be gwain to bed,
with his fase all fyree red.
O for the grapes and resins
Wot ripens at all seesins;
the appels and the Plumbs
As Big as my 2 thums;
the hayprecocks an peechis,
Wot all within our reech is,
An we mought pick an heat,
paying nothing for the treat.
O for the pooty flouers
A bloomin at all ours,
So that a large Bokay
Yew may gether any day
Of ev'ry flour that blose
from Colleflour to rose.

THE ART OF NOT FORGETTING.

A Brief but Comprehensive Treatise Based on Loisette's Famous System of
Memory Culture.

So much has been said about Loisette's memory system, the art has been
so widely advertised, and so carefully guarded from all the profane who
do not send five or many dollars to the Professor, that a few pages,
showing how man may be his own Loisette, may be both interesting and
valuable.

In the first place, the system is a good one, and well worth the labor
of mastering, and if the directions are implicitly followed there can be
no doubt that the memory will be greatly strengthened and improved, and
that the mnemonic feats otherwise impossible may be easily performed.
Loisette, however, is not an inventor, but an introducer. He stands in
the same relation to Dr. Pick that the retail dealer holds to the
manufacturer: the one produced the article, the other brings it to the
public. Even this statement is not quite fair to Loisette, for he has
brought much practical common sense to bear upon Pick's system, and, in
preparing the new art of mnemonics for the market, in many ways he has
made it his own.

If each man would reflect upon the method by which he himself remembers
things, he would find his hand upon the key of the whole mystery. For
instance, I was once trying to remember the word "Blythe." There
occurred to my mind the words "Bellman," "Belle," and the verse:

"---- the peasant upward climbing
Hears the bells of Buloss chiming."

"Barcarole," "Barrack," and so on, until finally the word "Blythe"
presented itself with a strange insistence, long after I had ceased
trying to recall it.

On another occasion, when trying to recall the name "Richardson," I got
the words "hay-rick," "Robertson," "Randallstown," and finally
"wealthy," from which, naturally, I got "rich" and "Richardson" almost
in a breath.

Still another example: Trying to recall the name of an old schoolmate,
"Grady," I got "Brady," "grave," "gaseous," "gastronome," "gracious,"
and I finally abandoned the attempt, simply saying to myself that it
began with a "G," and there was an "a" sound after it. The next morning
when thinking of something entirely different, this name "Grady" came up
in my mind with as much distinctness as though someone had whispered it
in my ear. This remembering was done without any conscious effort on my
part, and was evidently the result of the exertion made the day before
when the mnemonic processes were put to work. Every reader must have had
a similar experience which he can recall, and which will fall in line
with the examples given.

It follows, then, that when we endeavor, without the aid of any system,
to recall a forgotten fact or name, our memory presents to us words of
similar sound or meaning in its journey toward the goal to which we have
started it. This goes to show that our ideas are arranged in groups in
whatever secret cavity or recess of the brain they occupy, and that the
arrangement is not an alphabetical one exactly, and not entirely by
meaning, but after some fashion partaking of both.

If you are looking for the word "meadow" you may reach "middle" before
you come to it, or "Mexico," or many, words beginning with the "m"
sound, or containing the "dow", as window, or "dough," or you may get
"field" or "farm"--but you are on the right track, and if you do not
interfere with your intellectual process you will finally come to the
idea which you are seeking.

How often have you heard people say, "I forget his name, it is something
like Beadle or Beagle--at any rate it begins with a B." Each and all of
these were unconscious Loisettians, and they were practicing blindly,
and without proper method or direction, the excellent system which he
teaches. The thing, then, to do--and it is the final and simple truth
which Loisette teaches--is to travel over this ground in the other
direction--to cement the fact which you wish to remember to some other
fact or word which you know will be brought out by the implied
conditions--and thus you will always be able to travel from your given
starting-point to the thing which you wish to call to mind.

It seems as though a channel were cut in our mind-stuff along which the
memory flows. How to construct an easy channel for any event or series
of events or facts which one wishes to remember, along which the mind
will ever afterward travel, is the secret of mnemonics.

Loisette, in common with all the mnemonic teachers, uses the old device
of representing numbers by letters--and as this is the first and easiest
step in the art, this seems to be the most logical place to introduce
the accepted equivalents of the Arabic numerals:

0 is always represented by s, z or c soft.

1 is always represented by t, th or d.

2 is always represented by n.

3 is always represented by m.

4 is always represented by r.

5 is always represented by l.

6 is always represented by sh, j, ch soft or g soft.

7 is always represented by g hard, k, c hard, q or final ng.

8 is always represented by f or v.

9 is always represented by p or b.

All the other letters are used simply to fill up. Double letters in a
word count only as one. In fact, the system goes by sound, not by
spelling, For instance, "this" or "dizzy" would stand for ten; "catch"
or "gush" would stand for 76, and the only difficulty is to make some
word or phrase which will contain only the significant letters in the
proper order, filled out with non-significants into some guise of
meaning or intelligibility.

You can remember the equivalents given above by noting that z is the
first letter of "zero," and c of "cipher," t has but one stroke, n has
two, m three; the script f is very like 8; the script p like 9; r is the
last letter of "four;" l is the Roman numeral for 50, which suggests 5.
The others may be retained by memorizing these nonsense lines:

Six shy Jewesses chase George.
Seven great kings came quarreling.

Suppose you wished to get some phrase or word that would express the
number 3,685, you arrange the letters this way:

3 .. 6 .. 8 .. 5
a m a sh a f a 1
e e j e v e
i i ch i i
o o g o o
u u u u
h h h h
w w w w
x x x x
y y y y

You can make out "image of law," "my shuffle," "matchville," etc., etc.,
as far as you like to work it out.

Now, suppose you wished to memorize the fact that $1,000,000 in gold
weighs 3,685 pounds, you go about it in this way, and here is the kernel
and crux of Loisette's system: "How much does $1,000,000 in gold weigh?"

"Weigh-scales."

"Scales--statue of justice."

"Statue of Justice--image of law."

The process is simplicity itself. The thing you wish to recall, and that
you fear to forget, is the weight; consequently you cement your chain of
suggestion to the idea which is most prominent in your mental question.
What do you weigh with? Scales. What does the mental picture of scales
suggest? The statue of Justice, blindfolded and weighing out award and
punishment to man. Finally, what is this statue of Justice but the image
of law? And the words "image of law," translated back from the
significant letters m, g soft, f and 1, give you 3--6--8--5, the number
of pounds in $1,000,000 in gold. You bind together in your mind each
separate step in the journey, the one suggests the other, and you will
find a year from now that the fact will be as fresh in your memory as it
is today. You cannot lose it. It is chained to you by an unbreakable
mnemonic tie. Mark that it is not claimed that "weight" will of itself
suggest "scales," and "scales" "statue of Justice," etc., but that,
having once passed your attention up and down that ladder of ideas, your
mental tendency will be to take the same route, and get to the same goal
again and again. Indeed, beginning with the weight of $1,000,000, "image
of law" will turn up in your mind without your consciousness of any
intermediate station on the way, after some iteration and reiteration of
the original chain.

Again, so as to fasten the process in the reader's mind even more
firmly, suppose that it were desired to fix the date of the battle of
Hastings (A. D. 1066) in the memory; 1066 may be represented by the
words "the wise judge" (th--1, s--0, j--6, dg--6; the others are
non-significants); a chain might be made thus:

Battle of Hastings--arbitrament of war.

Arbitrament of war--arbitration.

Arbitration--judgment.

Judgment--the wise judge.

Make mental pictures, connect ideas, repeat words and sounds, go about
it any way you please, so that you will form a mental habit of
connecting the "battle of Hastings" with the idea of "arbitrament of
war," and so on for the other links in the chain, and the work is done.

Loisette makes the beginning of his system unnecessarily difficult, to
say nothing of his illogical arrangement in the grammar of the art of
memory, which he makes the first of his lessons. He analyzes suggestion
into--

1. Inclusion.

2. Exclusion.

3. Concurrence.

All of which looks very scientific and orderly, but is really misleading
and badly named. The truth is that one idea will suggest another:

1. By likeness or opposition of meaning, as "house" suggests "room" or
"door," etc.; or, "white" suggests "black"; "cruel," "kind," etc.

2. By likeness of sound, as "harrow" and "barrow"; "Henry" and
"Hennepin."

3. By mental juxtaposition, a peculiarity different in each person, and
depending upon each one's own experiences. Thus, "St. Charles" suggests
"railway bridge" to me, because I was vividly impressed by the breaking
of the Wabash bridge at that point. "Stable" and "broken leg" come near
each other in my experience, as do "cow" and "shot-gun" and "licking."

Out of these three sorts of suggestion it is possible to get from anyone
fact to another in a chain certain and safe, along which the mind may be
depended upon afterwards always to follow.

The chain is, of course, by no means all. Its making and its binding
must be accompanied by a vivid, methodically directed attention, which
turns all the mental light gettable in a focus upon the subject passing
across the mind's screen. Before Loisette was thought of this was known.
In the old times in England, in order to impress upon the mind of the
rising generation the parish boundaries in the rural districts, the boys
were taken to each of the landmarks in succession, the position and
bearing of each pointed out carefully, and, in order to deepen the
impression, the young people were then and there vigorously thrashed--a
mechanical method of attracting the attention which was said never to
have failed. This system has had its supporters in many of the
old-fashioned schools, and there are men who will read these lines who
can recall, with an itching sense of vivid impression, the 144 lickings
which were said to go with the multiplication table.

In default of a thrashing, however, the student must cultivate as best
he can an intense fixity of perception upon every fact or word or date
that he wishes to make permanently his own. It is easy. It is a matter
of habit. If you will, you can photograph an idea upon your cerebral
gelatine so that neither years nor events will blot it out or overlay
it. You must be clearly and distinctly aware of the thing you are
putting into your mental treasure-house, and drastically certain of the
cord by which you have tied it to some other thing of which you are
sure. Unless it is worth your while to do this, you might as well
abandon any hope of mnemonic improvement, which will not come without
the hardest kind of hard work, although it is work that will grow
constantly easier with practice and reiteration. You need, then:

1. Methodic suggestion.

2. Methodic attention.

3. Methodic reiteration.

And this is all there is to Loisette, and a great deal it is. Two of
them will not do without the third. You do not know how many steps there
are from your hall door to your bedroom, though you have attended to and
often reiterated the journey. But if there are twenty of them, and you
have once bound the word "nice," or "nose," or "news" or "hyenas," to
the fact of the stairway, you can never forget it.

The Professor makes a point, and very wisely, of the importance of
working through some established chain, so that the whole may be carried
away in the mind--not alone for the value of the facts so bound
together, but for the mental discipline so afforded.

Here, then, is the "President Series," which contains the name and date
of inauguration of each President from Washington to Cleveland. The
manner in which it is to be mastered is this: Beginning at the top, try
to find in your mind some connection between each word and the one
following it. See how you can at some future time make one suggest the
next, either by suggestion of sound or sense, or by mental
juxtaposition. When you have found this dwell on it attentively for a
moment or two. Pass it backward and forward before you, and then go on
to the next step.

The chain runs thus, the names of the President being in capitals, the
date words or date phrases being inclosed in parentheses:

President Chosen for the first word as the one most apt to occur to the
mind of anyone wishing to repeat the names of the Presidents.

Dentist President and dentist.

Draw What does a dentist do?

(To give up) When something is drawn from one it is given up.
This is a date phrase meaning 1789.

WASHINGTON. Associate the quality of self-sacrifice with
Washington's character.

Morning wash Washington and wash.

Dew Early wetness and dew.

Flower beds Dew and flowers.

(Took a bouquet) Flowers and bouquet. Date phrase (1797),

Garden Bouquet and garden.

Eden The first garden.

Adam Juxtaposition of thought.

ADAMS Suggestion by sound.

Fall Juxtaposition of thought.

Failure Fall and failure.

(Deficit) Upon failure there is usually a deficit
Date word (1801).

Debt The consequence of a deficit.

Confederate bonds Suggestion by meaning.

Jefferson Davis Juxtaposition of thought.

JEFFERSON.

Now follow out the rest for yourself, taking about ten at a time, and
binding those you do last to those you have done before, each time,
before attacking the next bunch.

JEFFERSON
Judge Jeffreys
(bloody assize)
bereavement
(too heavy a sob)
parental grief
mad son
MADISON
Maderia
frustrating
first-rate wine
(defeating)
feet
toe the line
row
MONROE
row
boat
steamer
side-splitting
(divert)
annoy
harassing
HARRISON
Old Harry
the tempter
(the fraud)
painted clay
baked clay
tiles
TYLER
Wat Tyler
poll tax
compulsory
(free will)
free offering
burnt offering
poker
POLK
end of dance
termination "ly"
(adverb)
part of speech
part of a man
TAYLOR
measurer
theodoilte
(Theophilus)
fill us
FILLMORE
more fuel
the flame
flambeau
bow
arrow
PIERCE
hurt (feeling)
wound
soldier
cannon
BUCHANAN
rebuke
official censure
(to officiate)
wedding
linked
LINCOLN
civil service
ward politician
(stop 'em)
stop procession
(tough boy)
Little Ben
Harry
HARRISON
Tippecanoe
tariff too
knapsack
war-field
(the funnel)
windpipe
throat
quinzy
QUINCY ADAMS
quince
fine fruit
(the fine boy)
sailor boy
sailor
jack tar
JACKSON
stone wall
indomitable
(tough make)
oaken furniture
bureau
VAN BUREN
rent
link
stroll
seashore
take
give
GRANT
award
school premium
examination
cramming
(fagging)
laborer
hay field
HAYES
hazy
clear
(vivid)
brightly lighted
camp-fire
war-field
GARFIELD
Guiteau
murderer
prisoner
prison fare
(half fed)
well fed
well read
author
ARTHUR
round table
tea cup
(half full)
divide
cleave
CLEVELAND
City of Cleveland
two
twice
(the heavy shell)
mollusk
unfamiliar word
dictionary
Johnson's
JOHNSON
son
bad son
(thievish bay)
dishonest boy
(back)
Mac
McKINLEY
kill
Czolgosz
(zees)
seize
ruffian
rough rider
rouse
ROOSEVELT
size
heavy
fat
TAFT

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