Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1876 — Adam Smith. [ARTICLE]

Adam Smith.

The founder of the science of business was one of the most unbusinesslike of mankind. He was an awkward Scotch professor, apparently choked with books and absorbed in abstractions. He was never engaged in any sort of trade, and would probably never have made sixpence by any if he had been. His absence of mind was amazing. On one occasion, having to sign his name to an official document, he produced not his own signature, but an elaborate imitation of the sig nature of the person who signed befort him; on another, a sentinel on duty hating saluted him ihjmilitary fashion, heaibranded and offended the man by a<knowledging it with a copy —a very clumsy copy, no doubt—of the same gesture!. And Lord Brougham preserves other similar traditions. “It is related,” he sayi, “ by old people in Edinburgh, that while he moved through the fish market in his accustomed attitude—that is, with his hands behind his back and his head in the air—a female of trade exclaimed, taking him for an idiot broken loose, * Hech, sirs, to see the like o’ him to be aboot. And yet he is weel enough put on’ (dressed). It was often so, too, in society. Once, during a dinner at Dalkeith, he broke out In a long lecture on some political matters of the day, and was bestowing a variety of severe epithets on a statesman, when he suddenly perceived his nearest relative sitting opposite, and stopped; but he was heard to go on muttering, ‘Deil care, Deil care, it’s all true.’ ” And these are only specimens of a crowd o* anecdotes.—W alter Bagshot, in Fortnightly Review. -

Sometimes a wick becomes too short to carry up the kerosene, and the lamp goes out. If you have not time to put in a new wick, ah exchange say 9, a piece of cotton rag pinned on below will answer every purpose, and become a good feeder, if a hole should become broken in the glass chimney, paste on a piece of paper, which may often be done in a moment, and it will answer its purpose well f«r a long time; or until you get a new chimiey. Sometimes the burners of lamps become gummy, and prevent Uie wisks moving freely. Boil them in suds over the fre a short time, and they will become entirely clean, and work well.