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Things Not Generally Known: Elbert

Uncle Sam. This term is said to be derived from some casks of provisions pur- A. E the name of the chased for the use of the Continental Army, which were marked U. S. some one asked inspector, Elbert Anderson, United States. On one occasion what U. S. meant (the United States being then little known), and was told the first letters meant Elbert Anderson, the two last Uncle Sam, Elbert Anderson's uncle, who was also an inspector. The joke took, and in the War of Independence the men carried it with them, till it became stereotyped. Utopia. A term invented by Sir Thomas More (1480-1535), and applied by him to an imaginary island, which he represents to have been discovered by a companion of Amerigo Vespucci, and as enjoying the utmost perfection in laws, politics, etc., in contradistinction to the defects of those which then existed elsewhere. name has now passed into all the languages of Europe, to signify a state of ideal perfection.

The What becomes of the Pins. Fifty-four millions of pins are made daily in England, twenty millions in France, other European countries contribute ten millions Pins are seldom worn out, they disappear entirely by loss, in the carpets, dust, etc. 84,000,000 pins are lost daily in Europe, valued at £1000, or $5,000. more.

Where the Shoe Pinches. This is found in Plutarch's "Life of Emilius Paulus," who relates the story of a Roman divorced from his wife. He was blamed by his friends, who demanded, "Was she not chaste?" "Was she not fair?" The husband replied by holding out his shoe, and asked whether it was not new and well made? "Yet," he added, "none of you can tell where it pinches me." Achates. A friend of Æneas, whose fidelity was so exemplary that Fidus Achates has become a proverb.