WELLINGTON'S CARE FOR THE BOY'S TOAD
THE Duke of Wellington was one of the most famous soldiers who ever
lived. It is said that he never lost a battle. He was called the "Iron
Duke" because it seemed as if nothing could make him afraid, no matter
what dangers surrounded him.
It was the great life purpose of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Emperor of
France, to cross the narrow channel which separates France from England,
and to invade England with his armies and to conquer it. But the Duke of
Wellington defeated Napoleon in the battle of Waterloo, in the year
1815, and so the French Emperor, instead of conquering England, was sent
as a prisoner to the lonely island of St. Helena to spend the rest of
his life in exile.
This great Duke was out walking one day when he met a little boy
crying bitterly. He stopped and asked him what was the trouble. The boy
said he was going to be sent away to school the next day, and that there
would be no one to take care of his pet toad.
The great Duke told the little fellow to dry his tears, for he would
take care of the toad. Sure enough, the boy took the toad to the Duke's
grand residence, and it was carefully looked after. The Duke even wrote
letters to the little boy, telling him about the toad, and how it was
getting along.
Such was the kindness of heart of this great man that he could not
only take the time and trouble to comfort the heart of the little boy,
but he could also show kindness to a despised toad.
"Little deeds of kindness, little words of love, Make our earth an
Eden, like the heaven above."
BEWARE OF THE VENOMOUS SNAKE
VENOMOUS snakes are as poisonous and are to be feared as much now as
ever.
While the hooded cobra, whose bite means certain death, is the
dreaded snake of India, the rattlesnake is one of the most common
venomous snakes of America. Dark in color, and highly mottled, he coils
and strikes suddenly and with deadly aim if molested or disturbed.
"Though five doctors fought desperately against the rattlesnake
poison in his blood, Jimmie Bissell, fourteen-year-old son of Harvey S.
Bissell, La Crescenta millionaire, died in the Glendale Research
Hospital." Thus ran a news item sent out from Los Angeles, California,
May 31, 1926.
Jimmie had been bitten by a rattlesnake while playing in a rock pile
on the Bissell "High Up Ranch." The snake struck several times. Mr.
Bissell is a member of the prominent Bissell family, manufacturers of
the well-known carpet sweepers of this name in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
But rattlesnakes know no favorites. They strike at the rich as well
as the poor, and neither money nor medical skill can save life after the
poison from their fangs has taken effect. The ominous rapid rattle of
the rattlers attached to y their tails is nature's warning to give these
snakes a wide berth, or to prepare for deadly conflict.
BIG SNAKES AND THEIR VICTIMS
THE largest snakes in the world are the boa constrictors and
anacondas of South America, and the pythons of the tropical regions of
the Old World, including the Philippine Islands.
Some of the snakes grow to immense size, a full-grown python
sometimes measuring thirty feet in length, fifteen inches in diameter,
and four feet around the largest part of its body.
Some live on the land, and can climb big trees; others, like the
anaconda, live mostly in the water or in damp places.
Some are strikingly and beautifully mottled with irregular figures or
patterns all over the ' body. The python is one of the most brilliant
species of the whole snake family, its entire body being covered not
only with beautiful markings, but with a gay lacing of gold and black.
All are muscular and very powerful, and are capable of making quick,
lightning-like movements too fast for the eye to follow. All move about
in the crooked serpentine fashion.
While not poisonous and venomous like the rattlesnake, blacksnake,
copperhead, moccasin, death-adder, and the deadly cobra, they are
nevertheless dangerous. They do not, like the venomous snakes, strike
their victims with deadly, poisonous fangs and kill them in this way,
but coil themselves about them, and squeeze the life out of them. In
other words, they get a "strangle-hold" on them, and crush them to
death.
Secreted up in some tree, or hanging down from it, they suddenly
throw themselves around the bodies of their victims, often with a double
twist or coil, and then, perhaps with their tails still clinging to the
tree or to some branch of the tree to give them greater anchorage,
tighten their deadly, viselike grip, and squeeze their victims to death.
In this way also they break their bones and prepare them to be swallowed
whole.
While the giant pythons are capable of killing almost any large
animal, so great is their strength, they do not usually attack animals
larger than the goat, as their mouths, though capable of marvelous
distension, have a limit.
Such snakes do not eat often, but when they do eat they eat a whole
animal at a time. Unlike the beasts of prey, they do not tear their
victims to pieces before they eat them, but swallow them j whole,
usually beginning at the head.
Most pythons are rather ill-tempered, differing in this respect from
the boa-constrictors, which are capable of being tamed and domesticated
to a degree, the natives in some places keeping them around their
reed-thatched huts to hunt rats during the night.
A lesson for all: Beware of drink and of all bad and injurious
habits. Shun them, and flee from them as you would the great snakes,
before they get a " strangle-hold " on you, and squeeze the life out of
you.
Down through the ages the admonitions have come: "Flee youthful
lusts" Keep thyself pure "; " Be not drunk with wine, wherein is
excess"; "Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its
color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At last it biteth like a
serpent, and stingeth like an adder."
