The Vicious Circle.

Hutt News, Volume 1, Issue 14, 7 October 1927, Page 3

The Vicious Circle.

We recently read an amusing and highly interesting little story, in which was vividly portrayed the results that sometimes follow when conclusions are hastily made, without due investigation of all the facts bearing on the matter. Here is the story: A French artist, sitting in a cafe at his evening meal, was about to order his second bottle of wine, when he happened to glance at a newspaper which was lying on the table next to his and in which he saw in very large type the following discouraging headline: "Bad Times are Coming." At once he decided not to order the second bottle of wine. The anxious host asked him if anything was wrong. "No," said the artist, "except that bad times are coming and I must economise." "Bad times," mused the landlord. "Then my wife must not buy that new silk dress she wants so much." "Bad times," said the dressmaker when the order was cancelled. "Then this is no time to make those improvements in my shop." "Bad times," said the builder, when the dressmaker cancelled her building plans. "Then I cannot have my wife's portrait painted. So he wrote to the artiste—the same one whose acquaintance we made in the beginning of the story—and cancelled the order for the picture. Much dejected with the truth of the newspaper's prophecy, the artist went back to the cafe and ordered a small bottle of wine to soothe his spirits. On a nearby chair was the same newspaper in which he had read, two days previous, of the •'bad times" to come. Picking it up for more details, he discovered that it was two years old I