Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1895 — A Nation of Whistlers. [ARTICLE]

A Nation of Whistlers.

We Americans are probably the greatest whistlers in the world. There are apparently two reasons for this. One is that we are the most nervous of people—we have got to be doing something, we can’t go down stolidly at our work like Europeans or sit silent and contemplative, so we work off our fidgets with whistling. The other reason is that we are really a cheerful and expressive people, In spite of all that has ever been said to the contrary. The national whistling habit has resulted In the production of a great number of really skillful and musical whistlers. With one consideration and another, there is a tremendous amount of whistling. It seems cheerful, and sometimes, to the whistler, it Is. really cheerful; but only to the whistler; that’s the trouble; a man may work off his own nervousness in this way, but he inflicts it on all who hear him; for an ordinary whistler’s performance gives absolutely no pleasure to any one but himself.