Once when President Dwight was at the head of Yale he was asked to lead in prayer at some religious gathering in Boston. Among his hearers was President Eliot, of Harvard. President Dwight ended his supplication by repeating the Lord’s Prayer, and spoke a certain part of it as follows: “Thy will be done in heaven as it is on earth.” At the close of the meeting President Eliot, of Harvard, was greeted by a friend, who said, “Dwight seemed a little lame on the Lord’s Prayer. He put earth ahead of heaven. Did you notice it?” “Yes,” replied Eliot, “but I didn’t pay any attention to it. That’s the way they are taught to say it down at New Haven.”
Canard
A canard, meaning in French, a duck, has come to mean in English a hoax or fabricated newspaper story. Its origin is amusing. About fifty years ago a French journalist contributed to the French press an experiment, of which he declared himself to have been the author. Twenty ducks were placed together, and one of them, having been cut up into very small pieces, was gluttonously gobbled up by the other nineteen. Another bird was then sacrificed for the remainder, and so on, until one duck was left, which thus contained in its inside the other nineteen! This the journalist ate. The story caught on, and was copied into all the newspapers of Europe.
Sothern’s Practical Joke
A Dublin paper relates, as follows, one of the practical jokes of Edward A. Sothern, the comedian: He called upon an undertaker one day, and ordered, on a most elaborate scale, all that was necessary for a funeral. Before the preparations could have gone far, he reappeared with great solicitude to ask how they were progressing. Again, at a brief interval, he presented himself, with an anxious face, to inquire when he could count upon possession of the body—a question which naturally amazed the undertaker, who was at a loss to discover his meaning. “Of course, you provide the body,” said Sothern. “The body?” cried the undertaker. “Why, do you not say,” exclaimed the actor, exhibiting a card of the shop, “‘All things necessary for funerals promptly supplied?’ Is not a body the first necessity?”
High Art Advertising
That German tradesmen are rapidly rising to the higher flights of the advertising art is shown by the following ingenious paragraphs from the advertisements in the Berliner Tageblatt and the Wiener Vorstadt-Zeitung: “A German Knightly landowner wishes to find a female life-companion who resembles, externally as well as in character, the heroine of Sacher-Masoch’s novel, ‘Frau von Soldan,’ published in the April number of Auf der Höhe, by E. L. Morgenstern, Leipzig. Address Karl Egger, Beiderwiese, near Passau.” An enterprising Viennese tailor has hit upon this: “How to become a houseowner: Quite lately a gentleman made his fortune on the Weiden in an astonishing and absolutely original manner. At my shop he purchased a morning suit for ten florins, a dress suit for nineteen florins, a pair of summer trousers for three florins, and a complete costume for his little son at the low figure of three florins and a half. Having reflected that, had he bought these articles in any other shop, he would have been obliged to pay at least twenty florins more for them, he resolved to invest his savings to that amount in a ticket for the Crown Prince Rudolph Lottery. At the next drawing his number came out the first prize of twenty thousand florins, which sum this lucky person forthwith invested in a comfortable mansion. Thus, through dealing at my establishment, he became a houseowner and a wealthy man.”
An Admissible Explanation
The late Dr. Yandell was fond of telling the following joke: A lady patient one morning greeted him with the remark, “Doctor, I had such a singular dream about you last night.” “Indeed. What was it?” “Why, I dreamed that I died and went to heaven. I knocked at the Golden Gate, and was answered by Peter, who asked my name and address and told the recording angel to bring his book. He had considerable difficulty in finding my name, and hesitated so long over the entry when he did find it, that I was terribly afraid something was wrong; but he suddenly looked up and asked, ‘What did you say your name was?’ I told him again. ‘Why,’ said he, ‘you have no business here. You’re not due these ten or fifteen years yet.’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘Dr. Yandell said——’ ‘Oh, you’re one of Yandell’s patients, are you? That accounts for it. Come right in! Come right in! That man’s always upsetting our calculations in some way.’”