1/11/2006 – Editorials

By Richard Peterson

We’ve printed something similar to this in the past. This one seems to have some different statistics. Anyway, you don’t remember the first one we ran, so take a look at this one I received by e-mail last week.
Turn the clock back to the year 1905, a little more than one hundred years ago. What a difference a century makes! Here are some of the US statistics for the year 1905:
The average life expectancy in the US was 47 years.
Only 14 percent of homes in the US had a bathtub.
Only eight percent of the homes had a telephone.
A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost $11.
There were only 8,000 cars in the US and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California. With a mere 1.4 million people, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.
The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.
The average wage in the US was 22 cents per hour.
The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
A competent accountant could expect to earn $2,000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
More than 95 percent of all births in the US took place at home.
Ninety percent of all US doctors had no college education. Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as "substandard."
Sugar cost four cents a pound. Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen. Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.
Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into Canada for any reason.
The five leading causes of death in the US were: 1. Pneumonia and influenza 2. Tuberculosis 3. Diarrhea 4. Heart disease 5. Stroke.
The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii and Alaska hadn’t been admitted to the Union yet.
The population of Las Vegas, Nev. was only 30.
Crossword puzzles, canned beer and iced tea hadn’t been invented yet.
There was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.
Two out of every 10 US adults couldn’t read or write.
Only six percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.
Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at local corner drugstores. Back then a pharmacist said, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."
Eighteen percent of households in the US had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.
There were about 230 reported murders in the entire US.
—000—
And here is some vital information that you really need to know:
A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
A crocodile cannot stick out its tongue.
A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours.
A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
A snail can sleep for three years.
Al Capone’s business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill.
Almonds are a member of the peach family.
An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.
Babies are born without kneecaps. They don’t appear until the child reaches
2 to 6 years of age.
Butterflies taste with their feet.
Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds. Dogs only have about 10.
"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt."
February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would
never end because of the rate of reproduction.
If you are an average American, in your whole life, you will spend an average of six months waiting at red lights.
It’s impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.
Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple.
On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the parliament building is an American flag.
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
"Stewardesses" is the longest word typed with only the left hand and "lollipop" is the longest word that can be typed with your right hand.
The average person’s left hand does 56% of the typing.
The cruise liner, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel fuel it burns.
The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
The sentence: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter of the alphabet.
The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.
The words race car, kayak and level are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left (palindromes).
There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
There are more chickens than people in the world.
There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous:"
tremendous, horrendous, stupendous and hazardous.
There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in
order: abstemious and facetious.
There’s no Betty Rubble in the Flintstones Chewables Vitamins.
Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
Now you know everything.