Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1895 — Ready Made Penholders. [ARTICLE]

Ready Made Penholders.

The use of potatoes as penholders is becoming general in hotels. The mixture of starch, glucose and water in the potato seems well adapted to take up the impurities of ink, and to keep the pen point clear and bright, while the alkaloid of the potato known as solanine, doubtless has something to do with it in the same line. These elements readily take up the tannate of iron, which is the body substance of ink. Chemically speaking, starch is the first base of a potato, and sugar or glucose is its second base. Thus is the humble potato finding another way In which to serve the uses of mankind.

Some men do the “devoted slave” act before they are married, and then make their wives do It forever after.