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?—W. H. Fitchett, "Wesley and His Century.
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See Prodigy, A.
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 Selection.
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."—Heman L. Wayland.
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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.'"—Croake James, "Curiosities
of Law and Lawyers."
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