The newsboy told me that a tourist from Philadelphia once tried to wipe his nose on the Alpine tunnel, while the train was in motion, and when they got through into daylight, and his companions told him to take in his head, he couldn't do it--because it was half a mile behind examining the formation of the tunnel. Later, it was found that the man was dead. The passengers said that they noticed a kind of crunching noise while going through the tunnel that sounded like the smashing of false teeth, but they paid no attention to it. Mr. Wilbur afterward told me that there had never been a passenger killed on the road, so I may have been misled by this newsboy. Still, he didn't look like a boy who would trifle with a man's feelings in that way. However, I will leave the remainder of the Gunnison trip for another letter, as this is already too long. TABLE MANNERS OF CHILDREN. |YOUNG children who have to wait till older people have eaten all there is in the house, should not open the dining-room door during the meal and ask the host if he is going to eat all day. It makes the company feel ill at ease, and lays up wrath in the parents' heart. Children should not appear displeased with the regular courses at dinner, and then fill up on pie. Eat the less expensive food first, and then organize a picnic in the preserves afterward. Do not close out the last of your soup by taking the plate in your mouth and pouring the liquid down your childish neck. You might spill it on your bosom, and it enlarges and distorts the mouth unnecessarily. When asked what part of the fowl you prefer, do not say you will take the part that goes over the fence last. This remark is very humorous, but the rising generation ought to originate some new table jokes that will be worthy of the age in which we live. Children should early learn the use of the fork, and how to handle it. This knowledge can be acquired by allowing them to pry up the carpet tacks with this instrument, and other little exercises, such as the parent mind may suggest. The child should be taught at once not to wave his bread around over the table, while in conversation, or to fill his mouth full of potatoes, and then converse in a rich tone of voice with some one out in the yard. He might get his dinner down his trochea and cause his parents great anxiety. In picking up a plate or saucer filled with soup or with moist food, the child should be taught not to parboil his thumb in the contents of the dish, and to avoid swallowing soup bones or other indigestible debris.