“ADVICE TO UNMARRIED LADIES

If you have blue eyes, languish.

If black eyes, leer.

If you have pretty feet, wear short petticoats.

If you are the least doubtful as to that point, let them be rather long.

If you have good teeth, don’t forget to laugh now and then.

If you have bad ones, you must only simper.

While you are young sit with your face to the light.

When you are a little advanced, sit with your back to the window.

If you have a bad voice, always speak in a low tone.

If it is acknowledged that you have a fine voice, never speak in a high one.

If you dance well, dance but seldom.

If you dance ill, never dance at all.

If you sing well, make no previous excuses.

If you sing indifferently, hesitate not a moment when you are asked, for few persons are competent judges of singing, but everyone is sensible of a desire to please.

If in conversation you think a person wrong, rather hint of a difference of opinion than offer a contradiction.

If you find a person telling an absolute falsehood, let it pass in silence, for it is not worth your while to make anyone your enemy by proving him a liar.

It is always in your power to make, a friend by smiles — what a folly to make enemies by frowns.

When you have an opportunity to praise, do it with all your heart.

When you are forced to blame, appear at least, to do it with reluctance.

If you are envious of another woman, never show it but by allowing her every good quality and perfection except those which she really possesses.

If you wish to let the world know that you are in love with a particular man, treat him with formality and every one else with ease and freedom.

If you are disposed to be pettish or insolent, it is better to exercise your ill-humour on your dog, your cat, or your servant than on your friends.

If you would preserve your beauty, rise early.

If you would preserve esteem, be gentle.

If you would obtain power, be condescending.

If you would live happy, endeavour to promote the happiness of others.”

Source: Bathurst Free Press (NSW:1849-1851), Sat 10 Nov 1849

dENTAL ASSETS

“The ideal boy must have charm, money and clean teeth, but above all, character, according to a Streatham Youth Centre survey. The boys think a girl’s chief asset is personality, but they also look for a good figure, cleanliness and good cooking.”

Source: The Canberra Times ACT: ( 1926-1995) Friday 26 March 1965

PEARL JAM

A judge in California was eating fried oysters, when his teeth met on something hard, which he found to be a pearl. He showed it to a jeweller, who said that it had been ruined by frying. Otherwise, it would have been worth £600!

Source: The Sun (Sydney, NSW: 1910-1954), Sun 24 Aug 1913

All’s well that ends well

A farmer was working a pump over the well at his farm, when the handle sprang from his grasp and knocked him into the well. He fell 20 feet, and his arm was fractured. There was a ladder running up the side of the well, and by hanging on to the rungs with his teeth, dragged himself by a superhuman effort to the top!

Source: Daily Examiner (Grafton, NSW: 1915-1954), Tues, 6 Apr 1926

putting his money where his mouth is

A masked bandit, using ordinary pliers, pulled four upper teeth from the mouth of a Greenville, Ohio, businessman, in a vain effort to force him to disclose where his money was hidden!

Source: The Argus (Melbourne, Vic: 1848-1954), Thu 18 Nov 1948

the cost of a kiss

A dentist lost two teeth, when he kissed a woman patient, before extracting an aching tooth in the town of Tran Bang, west of Saigon. The woman’s husband, sitting in the waiting room, heard his wife cry out. He dashed into the surgery and knocked out two of the dentist’s front teeth with a cane!

Source: The Canberra Times (ACT: 1926-1995), Tues, 28 Jul 1964

War, what is it good for?

Young ex-servicemen, who had never worried about their teeth before, became dental conscious, following the care and routine treatment received, while members of the services during World War II. These men continued their routine checks after discharge. In pre-war days, people only thought about the dentist when their teeth started to ache.

Source: The Daily News, (Perth, WA: 1882-1950), Sat 29 Oct 1949

Marriage musings

According to an American exchange, matrimony is like the signs that read, “Teeth extracted here without pain.” We encourage our friends to enter and try it, and sympathize with them after they have done it!

Source: Great Southern Advocate, (Korumburra, Vic:1889-1906), Wed, 1 Jan 1919

musical notes

Music came to the aid of a dentist in Buffalo, U.S.A. He would tap the teeth to trace infection, and the tone that responded guided him. Each tooth had a sound, which formed part of a musical scale with the other teeth, and only infected or diseased teeth sounded off pitch. Once he heard a false note, the dentist placed the ball of his fingers on the gums, above the ‘discordant’ tooth, and tapped again. Thus he traced the precise spot affected.

black beauty

Dentists in the capital city of Northern Vietnam, were offering black false teeth for sale. Traditionally, the peasants of the Red River delta believed black teeth were much more beautiful than white. A girl with a brilliant white smile here had little chance of finding a husband. So most peasants in the delta still went to great pains to stain their teeth black. For rich clients, dentists offered black dentures with gold fillings.

Source: The Evening Advocate (Innisfail, QLD: 1941-1954), Frid 2 Apr 1954