i6o 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



about the floor between us, and then 

 again at me— 'such a most uncommon 

 bolt as that!' 



"'Been bolting- his food, has he?' 

 cried my sister. 



" 'You know, old chap,' said |oe, 

 looking at me, and not at Airs. Joe! 

 with his bite still in his cheek, 'I Bolt- 

 ed, myself, when I was your age — fre- 

 quent — and as a boy I've been among 

 a many Bolters; but I never see your 

 bolting equal yet, Pip, and it's a m'crcy 

 you ain't Bolted dead.' 



"My sister made a dive at me, and 

 finished me up by the hair; saying 

 nothing more than the awful words, 

 'You come along and be dosed.' " 



The dose referred to was Tar-water 

 that Mrs. Joe always kept in the cup- 

 board and believed that its virtues 

 were correspondent with its nastiness. 

 On this particular occasion both Joe 

 and Pip were dosed. The incident de- 

 scribed in Dicken's inimitable style 

 makes an interesting classic story of 

 bolting. 



It is presumed that the advocates of 

 Fletcherism have held up this record 

 as an awful example. It is on many 

 occasions argued that cows and sheep 

 chew their food in a painstaking man- 

 ner. There is only one flaw in this ar- 

 gument and that is that the human be- 

 ing is neither a cow nor a sheep ! Pro- 

 fessor M. A. Bigelow in the book re- 

 ferred to nicely expresses this : 



"There are those who point to the 

 rumination of cows and sheep for evi- 

 dence that naturally animals masticate 

 food for a long time ; but this gives no 

 rule for human guidance. In the first 

 place, a cow's natural food is uncooked 

 and otherwise unprepared; second, her 

 digestive organs are quite unlike the 

 human ; and third, dogs more closely 

 resemble man in structure and in foods 

 and they never masticate. Obviouslv. 

 it cannot be concluded that man should 

 chew his food long because cows and 



sheep do Most people may safely 



forget their jaws while eating (i.e., 

 masticate instinctively) provided that 

 they do not eat too rapidly or in ex- 

 cess. However, it is well for each per- 

 son to experiment upon himself, and 

 thus determine how far special atten- 

 tion to mastication is important for 

 himself." 



In the words of the ancient philoso- 

 pher, "Let us hear the conclusion of 

 the whole matter," and what it is. It 

 is this. Do not catch a good idea or a 

 part of it and make it a hobby to the 

 annoyance of everybody else either in 

 preaching or in practice, in season and 

 out of season. One rather sympathizes 

 with Mrs. Joe in her application of 

 drastic remedies to Joe and Pip, if 

 they are going to swallow their food 

 whole ; but perhaps would sympathize 

 even more if similarly drastic remedies 

 should be applied to a person who in- 

 sisted on making himself either a cow 

 or a sheep when his internal anatomv 

 does not resemble that of either, nor 

 is the kind of food similar. There are 

 many bolters ; lots of those who chew 

 and chew and chew are bolters. Some- 

 times one gets hold of a really good 

 bite of bread and butter, or, in other 

 words, of a really good idea and swal- 

 lows it down at one gulp, thinking that 

 he can assimilate it. There are others 

 that catch on to an idea or a part of it 

 and they chew interminably for the rest 

 of their life to the great annoyance of 

 everybody. Bread and butter, and I 

 say this not only literally but figura- 

 tively of many forms of the staff of life, 

 should be assimilated after a reasonable 

 amount of chewing or practising. But 

 when it is swallowed whole or chewed 

 for twenty-four hours a day the neigh- 

 bors are apt to rise up and complain 

 and pray. "Oh. give us another Mrs. 

 Joe to dose that victim with Tar- 

 water." There is such a thing as sanity 

 in the middle srround. 



Fifty Years of Chewing. 



If you glance down the aisle when you 

 are again on a car. you will note that four 

 out of ten_ fellow passengers are moving 

 their jaws leisurely up and down, perhaps 

 keeping rhvthmic time with the sway of 

 the car. These are the chewing-gum en- 

 thusiasts, and they have been at it for 

 half a century. June l)rought the first 

 real anniversary of 1916. It is well 

 enough to speak of the Shakespearian ter- 

 centenary, but what are William's follow- 

 ers compared with the vast American 

 armv who could celebrate the birthday of 

 their pet habit? 



Strangely enoug'h, whatever Mexico 



