Bassett's Scrap Book, Vol 5, No 11
Articles in this issue
- Opening leader for the January 1908 issue, musing on the new leap year and on the antiquity of children's street games such as hopscotch, citing the Rev. T. Allen Moxon's account of its diagrams found from ancient Rome to Soho, London.
- A poem by J. A. Torrey in which the friends Malik and Hassan visit the sick Rabia, who rebukes their pious counsel by declaring he was not even conscious of being chastised.
- A question-and-answer miscellany explaining the origins of Santa Claus, Cromwell's Rump Parliament, Scott's Waverley Novels, the jewels in a watch, the Mermaid Club of Sir Walter Raleigh, and how Edward VII's line descended from a Guelph lottery.
- A poem (subtitled 'A Homily') by John G. Saxe drawing a moral from the card game Euchre, invoking Galileo and Kepler to argue that in life's struggle the victor is he who can 'go it alone.'
- Quotes Wendell Phillips's peroration ranking Phocion, Brutus, Hampden, Lafayette, Washington and John Brown and leaving the reader to name the final unnamed soldier-statesman-martyr; followed by a 'Grand Dinner' riddle puzzle.
- Lists the League of American Wheelmen's officers for 1908-09 (President Marriott C. Morris of Philadelphia; Secretary-Treasurer and Editor Abbot Bassett of Boston) and reports the Automobile and Wheel Pioneers' Chicago meeting, where A. G. Batchelder succeeded N. H. Van Sicklen as president and Abbot Bassett was made an honorary member, alongside plans for a Philadelphia Veterans' Association.
- A short poem by Nixon Waterman holding that love is the origin and end of man's toil, traced through all his prayers, dreams and deeds.