On New-year’s eve at one of the largest restaurants in New York,
a woman’s dress caught fire, and, altho surrounded by other
diners, the flame was not extinguished until she had received
burns from which she subsequently died.
It seems incredible, yet it is a fact. And while the woman
blazed, and shrieked in her agony, the men sought to extinguish
the flame with napkins and their hands!
As I journey through life in town or in the wilderness, the
quality I find most lacking in the human animal is presence of
mind; and that is one of the good reasons why I am so persistent
and outspoken an advocate of games for boys, especially games
where the action is quick and where the boy must needs think,
and quickly, under stress of combat, so to say.
Had there been any football players within reach of that poor
woman, one of them would probably have had the sense to take
off his coat and smother the flame.--CASPAR WHITNEY,
_Collier’s Weekly_.
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