Judge — April 1938 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

Sayings Tracked Down ROVERBS are very nice. So are old sayings, for that matter. But people who use them without knowing the in- teresting historical backgrounds that many of them have are losing a great deal of pleasure. My research has brought out a number of fascinating lit. tle stories about how these sayings origi- nated, which I pass on without further comment. (1) Carrying coals to Newcastle. Once upon a time a man was sitting on a fence on the road to Newcastle. A little boy came trudging by with some coals, “Just a minute, my lad,” said the “Now THIS IS THE man. “Where are you going with those coals?” “I'm carrying them to Newcastle, sir,” replied the boy. “All right, go ahead,” said the man. I am sure that the knowledge of how this expression came into being will thrill many of those who like to use it. (2) Many a mickle makes a muckle. Long, long ago, a bailiff sat on a curbstone counting mickles and putting them in a bag. A wise man who was passing by and happened to notice what was going on, said: “That's quite a lot of muckle you have there.” NURSERY . . . SHH-H-H-H!"” “This ain't muckle, sir,” explained the bailiff. “These is mickles.” “And are you going to carry them very far when you get them in the bag?” queried the wise man. “All the way to Bagdad, your honor,” [7 sighed the bailiff. “They'll make a very heavy bundle,” | said the wise man. “You will certainly | have a muckle by the time you get [7 there.” And he smiled and went on his way. Some people who have heard this story of its origin never use the saying | any more. I don’t blame them. : (3) Take care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves. In olden times there lived a great and wealthy king, who sent a cargo of pennies and dollars to the Indies on one of his ships. He wished to trade the pennies for gum. But a great storm arose and sank the ship, and the captain and crew had to escape in a lifeboat. When the storm had subsided, they no. ticed a great deal of the cargo floating on top of the water, and they tried to regain as much of it as they could. The captain, seeing that the pennies were sinking, while the dollars remained on the surface, said: “Take care of the pennies, and the dollars will take care of themselves.” That's all for now, but I intend to unearth a lot more of these gems. If you have any particular favorites, just drop me a line at the asylum and I'll see if I can get to them first. —Tuomas B. Locue. Milestones LL the average man wants today is a fairly easy job, a new auto. mobile, a beautiful wife—and a set of creditors who will listen to reason. The attitude of business is that Presi- dent Roosevelt delivers those fireside chats while he heats the branding irons. Another thing that needs a zipper badly these days is a package of aspirin tablets. Simple Celia’s old man went bank. rupt the other day. The only asset he could name was that he’s in his seventh week in a national puzzle contest. There's only one test of a practical politician. If he got elected—he is. The Judge comicbooks.com