What makes me think that there is some animate principle behind such
clocks is that they are so like a good many people one meets. There are
persons who are packed with the most curiously inaccurate information on
the most abstruse subjects, and they insist on imparting it to you. I
have no ground to complain if I ask Jones what is the capital of
Illinois and he says Chicago. The initiative was mine, and taken at my
own peril, and it is fair that I should pay the penalty. But frequently
Jones will break in upon me in the middle of a column of figures and
tell me that the largest ranch in the world is situated in the State of
Sonora, Mexico. "Yes?" I say, hoping that he will go away. "Yes," he
assures me. "It is so large that the proprietor can ride 200 days on
horseback without leaving his own grounds. He has 2,000,000 men working
for him and he lives in a marble palace of 700 rooms. No one can be
elected President of Mexico against his will."
Now obviously it would have been better for me to remain altogether
unacquainted with Mexican conditions than to share Jones's distorted
view of affairs in that interesting republic.
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