Judge — April 5, 1913 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Dissipated Effort? DAILY happenings here and there re- ported in the press furnish food for P thought as well as mat- ter for amazement. One item the other day chronicled the ad- mission of a Massachu- setts man to the bar in that State. This par- ticular matriculation was unusual, because the man in the case had already qualified as a shoemaker, a dentist, a phy: and an oculist. Starting in a shoe factory at an early age, he had by stages mastered enough of the detail preliminary to the callings named to secure his diplomas. It was not said in the news that he was now satisfied to practice one or another or all of his professions, or that, still spurred by ambition, he purposed to ac- quire certificates of ability in other voca- tions. At any rate, he seems to be well equipped against any emergency of em- ployment and may look with equanimity upon dullness or stagnation in any one or more of the fields in which he is author- ized to practice. It is not meant here to belittle the achievements of such a man asthis. His hunger for new fields to conquer and the persistent study necessary to qualify in any one of those for which he has reputa- tion or a certificate afford a lesson to the indolent or those who regard as beyond their powers the qualifying for any se- rious part in life’s work. What this many-sided man might achieve in any of his fields is, of course, a question which practice alone can answer. Yet there is another lesson embodied in his diversified application. There is an old saying that one with a smattering of various trades is master of no trade, and it is a question whether an ambitious man may not ac- complish more by steady application to one dignified calling than he could by dis- sipating his time among so many. Brief Decisions ADVERTISING is a powerful incentive, but there are successful men who do business on pneumatic tires. Even the clever chap who can pull rab- bits out of an empty hat has to work to get the money. The fair flirt believes in being fair to everybody. If you want to make a woman nervous, tell her a secret. Checker playing, on its merits, seems to be a waste of time; yet such mental discipline sometimes makes a good horse trader. Exceptions IN THE, news the other day it was told that Nell, a bull terrier owned in Bayonne, N. J., had adopted a brood of little chickens left motherless by the death of the hen that hatched them. Nell, it was said, scratches up worms and otherwise forages for the chickens, while they follow her to the dog .- house as a refuge, where all spend the night in harmony. Everybody will read of this case with interest, but no one will experiment with a dog and chickens on the strength of it, assuming that all at once Nature has changed the instincts of the dog and chicken, It is the nature of chickens to flee from a dog and the nature of a dog to pursue. From such paradoxes of Nature, per- haps, came the aphorism that the excep- tion proves the rule. Incidents of the fellowship of animals naturally antagon- istic repeatedly occur, but their meaning should not be misinterpreted. The lion does not usually lie down with the lamb until the lion has partaken of the lamb, and the display by men or women of traits strange to them as they are known should not mislead others as to their instincts and impulses Sly creatures, like the fox, cloak their real purposes, and men and women, like ani- mals to which they have been likened, are prone to use subterfuge to gain their ends. Nell, the bull terrier, may win a repu- tation for charity, love and all the vir- tues by her treatment of a brood of motherless chicks; but dogs are dogs and chickens are chickens just the same the world over. comicbooks.com