Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader by Bathroom Readers’ Institute Page A

the United States.”
    “Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.”
    “Criticism is prejudice made plausible.”
    “A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.”
    “Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage.”
    “On one issue, at least, men and women agree: they both distrust women.”
    “Every man is thoroughly happy twice in his life: just after he has met his first love, and just after he has left his last one.”
    “Wife: a former sweetheart.”
    “To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!”
    “An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.”
    Mike Wallace, investigative reporter on “60 Minutes,” was once a game show host.

FAMILIAR NAMES
    Some people achieve immortality because their names become commonly associated with an item or activity. You already know the names—now here are the people.
    A lfredo di Lellio. A Roman restaurateur. His fettucine with butter, cream, and Parmesan cheese became famous in the 1920s after Hollywood stars Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks ate in his restaurant every day during their honeymoon.
    John Langon-Down. An English doctor of the late 19th century. He was the first doctor to describe, in medical literature, the genetic defect now known as Down’s Syndrome. Down called it “mongolism,” because physical characteristics related to the condition reminded him of the features of people of Mongolia.
    Queen Mary I of England and Ireland. A fanatical Catholic, she brutally repressed Protestants in her realm. Her reputation earned her the nickname “Bloody Mary,” and inspired a cocktail made with vodka and tomato juice.
    Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov. Soviet foreign minister, 1939-1949 and 1953-1956, and rabid Stalinist. Finnish resistance fighters battling Russian tanks in the 1940s named their primitive gasoline-filled bottle bombs “Molotov cocktails” in his “honor.”
    Sir George Everest. The surveyor-general of India from 1830 to 1843, he named the world’s tallest mountain after himself.
    Dr. A. M. Latan. A quack dentist and peddler of health tonics in Paris during the 1840s. He traveled the city in an opulent coach—usually with a man marching in front, blowing a horn to attract attention—selling his wares as he went. Parisians shouted “Voila, le char (car) de Latan”—later shortened to “charlatan.”
    Mickey Finn. A 19th-century saloon keeper who ran Chicago’s Lone Star and Palm Saloons. When customers got too rowdy, he slipped drugs into their drinks to knock them out. Today, giving someone a knockout drink is called “Slipping them a Mickey.”
    The London Bridge has never fallen down.
    Sam Ellis. A tavern keeper on what was later called Ellis Island.
    Edward Stanley, 12th Earl of Derby. A British nobleman of the late 1700s and early 1800s. An avid horse lover, he hosted a 1.5-mile horse race in 1780 that he called the “Derby Stakes.” Today the term “derby” is used to represent any horse race or other sporting event that has a strong local following.
    Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit. German scientist of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Invented a new thermometer that used mercury instead of alcohol. Its new scale—which marks water’s freezing point at 32° and its boiling point at 212°—was named Fahrenheit after him and became popular in English-speaking countries.
    Anders Dahl. In 1789 Alexander von Humboldt, a German explorer, discovered a new species of flower while on an expedition to Mexico. He sent some of the plant’s seeds to the Botanic Garden in Madrid, where the curator promptly named the plants Dahlias— after his close friend Anders Dahl, a famous Swedish botanist who had died earlier that year.
    George Nicholas Papanicolaou. Pioneered the use of cervical tissue smear samples in detecting