Dental Safeguards
Quite recently, a Boston philanthropist provided a fund by means of which the school children of that city were insured the proper care of their teeth. Dental statistics show that this act must be considered as far more worthy than any gift of a like nature in the field of philanthropy for many years; it cannot be doubted that the state of the health depends to a very large degree on the condition of the teeth, and actual figures show that only one child in thirty-five has sound teeth, and much of the sickness of the country can be thus accounted for in this impairment of one of nature’s equipments.
What Commodore Vanderbilt said
When Commodore Vanderbilt was on his death-bed, he was visited by his nephew, Samuel Barton. “Sammy,” he said, “I’ve been thinking all day about Alexander Stewart’s will. I can’t explain it. I can’t understand how the greatest merchant in this country, who began with nothing and made a fortune of millions, who was always clear-headed in business matters—how was it possible for a man of that kind to make such an utter damn fool of himself when he came to write his will?”
“One Clover Blossom”
A poetic nature and a love for clover blossoms are at once shown by a Michigan testator who devised land to his native village for park purposes; the only rental being “one clover blossom per annum,” which is to be picked on the premises and delivered to his heirs or descendants. No provision seems to have been made for substitute rental in the event of a failure of the clover crop.
“One Red Rose in the Month of June”
Baron Heinrich Wilhelm Stiegel was born in Germany near Manheim, Baden, of a noble and wealthy family, in 1730. Before he was twenty years of age, he ventured into the New World with a fortune of $200,000: he located in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, after having built a home in Philadelphia. He was a man of great note, establishing iron and glass works and other industries, and built an elegant mansion at Manheim, in Lancaster County; the old Lutheran Church in Manheim, built in 1770, was located on ground now occupied by a modern church of the same denomination, built in 1891. Stiegel, by will or an instrument of kindred nature, gave the lot on which the church stands, for a consideration of five shillings and “the annual rental of one red rose in the month of June forever.” The payment of the rose occurs on the first Sunday in June, and is an annual ceremony of great interest; the church officers bear the rose to the altar on a costly tray, and a descendant of the testator comes forward at the request of the minister to receive it. An extended account of Stiegel appears in the proceedings of the Lancaster County Historical Association for September 4th, 1896.
Desired Burial on Mountains
Robert Louis Stevenson, in his directions for his burial, selected the apex of a mountain in the Samoan Islands; it was necessary to employ a great many natives to clear the way to the mountain top. There, in the midst of singing birds, the blooming of flowers, and the tonic of the sea breeze, one may read his epitaph, written by himself, but for another: