At the expiration of five minutes the compositions were read. The prize went to a lad of nine years. The following is his essay:
“Well, sir, habit is hard to overcome. If you take off the first letter, it does not change ‘a bit.’ If you take off another, you still have a ‘bit’ left. If you take off still another the whole of ‘it’ remains. If you take off another, it is wholly used up; all of which goes to show that if you want to get rid of habit you must throw it off altogether.”
(1333)
HABIT IN WORK
All his life Mark Twain was an inveterate smoker, and one of the most leisurely men in the world. An old pressman, who was once printer’s devil in an office where Mark was editorial writer, tells this anecdote of his habits of work. “One of my duties was to sweep the room where editors worked. Every day Mark would give me a nickel to get away from him. He would rather die in the dust than uncross his legs. One day he gave me a nickel to dot an ‘i’ in his copy for him. He certainly did enjoy life, that man did.”—New York Evening Post.
(1334)
HABIT, PHYSIOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF
The following bit of information is from La Nature:
Men of a singular race have been discovered in New Guinea, and the governor, it seems, has promised to send some specimens to London. Living as they do in the marshes, these men have no need to walk. On the other hand, the marshes are covered with a growth that prevents navigation in canoes. The men have built huts in trees, and as organs of prehension alone are useful to them, their lower limbs have almost atrophied. These natives have only feeble and withered legs and feet, while the chest and arms are of normal development. They can scarcely stand upright, and they walk like large apes. They thus give the impression of cripples who have been deprived of the use of their lower extremities.
(1335)