SOME YEARS AGO a young man by the name of O'Sullivan worked in a factory where there was much heavy machinery. The machines shook the building constantly. Since he had to stand on his feet all day, this constant jarring troubled him. One day he brought a piece of rubber matting to the factory and stood on it while he worked. This took away some of the jar. But some one took his mat. He thought it would be useless to bring another, for they would take that also. So he got two pieces of rubber and nailed them to the heels of his shoes. He was the inventor of rubber heels. He now has a factory and is perhaps the largest manufacturer of rubber heels in the world.
IN THE OLDEN DAYS girls who were planning to be married spent a great deal of their time spinning and weaving linens and cloth. From this cloth they made their wedding gowns and other articles which would be used in their new homes. And since all the girls were so busy spinning, they were called "spinsters." Thus unmarried women are still called by this name.
A MAN OF THE NAME OF MACINTOSH discovered that he could make coats out of thin sheets of rubber and that these coats would keep off the rain. People liked these new coats, and now almost every one has a raincoat. To this day they are called "mackintoshes."
DO YOU KNOW HOW RUBBER got its name? In the year 1779 a man from England discovered that a piece of this queer, soft, spongy material would erase or rub out pencil marks. And since it would rub out the marks, he called it "rubber," and it still carries the same name.
IT WAS IN THE YEAR 1622 that the first paper giving the happenings of the day appeared in England. On the top of this sheet were printed the points of the compass, to impress upon its readers the fact that the paper told of happenings in all parts of the world-the north, east, west, and south. Before long a wide-awake publisher arranged the first letters of these four words at the top of his sheet, and with them he formed the word "news." So these bulletins came to be called newspapers, and every publisher copied the idea.
ONE SUNDAY MORNING in the nineties a young clergyman stepped into a drug store, after his morning sermon, to eat a dish of ice cream. On this particular morning he decided to have something different than was his custom; so he asked the clerk to pour a little fruit syrup over his ice cream. He liked it so well that he asked for this same thing every Sunday morning, and called it his "Sunday." Thus ice cream with fruit syrup or chocolate poured over it came to be called "sundae."
WHY DO WE ALWAYS shake hands with our right hand ? This custom comes down to us from the time when almost every one carried a sword or knife. If a person met some one who he thought might not be a friend, he immediately grasped his sword with his right hand, ready to protect himself. But when he met a friend, he extended the right hand to show that he did not have a knife or sword in that hand. So we still follow the custom of shaking hands, though we have long ago ceased to carry swords.