CLIPPINGS.

"William," said a teacher to one of Ilia pupils, '• can yon tell me why tho sun rises in the east ?"' " Don't know," replied William, " eept it be that the east makes everything lisc." Teacher fainted. 11 Wry do yon set your cup of cofle3 on the chair, Mr Jones?" asked a worthy landlady at breakfast one morning. " It's so very weak, ma'am," replied Jones, "I thought I would let it rest." Mr SnOßTiiousK's very beautiful story, "The Little Schoolmaster Mark, a Spiritual Romance," which appears in the new number of the English Illustrated Magazine, is sure to be widely read and discussed. We understind that it is shortly to bo published in hook form at a popular price. The crops have never been known to be better thaw they are tins yeav on The Tables. On every side the eye 3 of the pedestrian or equestrain are gladdened ■with a wonderful wealth of grain, and all through this there is hardly ti.icoable the slightest speck of rust or blight. Messrs Coulan, Hutchinson, Taylor, Thompson, and others have crops of w heat that are reckoned by competent judges to yield from 45 to GO bushels per acre. This is an extraordinarily heavy yield tor wheat, but tho Tables are famed for their fertility^ ; though thus far they ha\e exceeded their previously acquired leputation altogether. Only a few ot tho giain growers on The Tables are mentioned, but it is not because the yield is large only on their properties, for there are man}' others who also have splendid crops. A st.ut was made seveial days ago with the harvest, and owing to the line weather experienced good progiess has been made. — Oamaru Times. It is time that the cruel prejudice against stepmothers should die out. Novels do much towards fostering this feeling ; but surely writers should not be wiser in this respect. Cold-heartedness and oppression towards the children of one who has preceded her in heart and home are no doubt at times to be met with ; but cannot many households tell another tale — a t.ile ot lo\ c and gentleness, and mutual affection and peace ! And cannot, too, some homes tell a thiid story, where the sufferer is the one who is looked upon as an interloper ? Aic there not cases where a man whose hearth has been early desolated, and who is left with little ones whom he cannot look after, with a heart still yearning for affection, brings homo some warm-hearted girl, ready to pour out no stinted mcasute of love on the motheiless ones ? And what do lie and she find on settling down to their daily life ? That foolish lelatives have already poisoned the baby minds against their second mother, and that her ellbi ts to win their affection and trust are blighted by the influence that has been wielded. And when other little childien come, too often, instead of being welcomed with brotherly or sistuily love, they aic greeted with feelings of bitterness and jealousy. And yet many homes are held together by the stepmother alone. We might tell of sick beds watched with all a mother's devotion ; of dying houra soothed w ith all a motliei 's sel f-forgetf illness ; of the young .spiiit sinking to the giave, clinging with fond affection to the lepie&entdtive of that real parent whom it was soon to greet in the spuit land; and we turn with just anger from picfcuies laid before us as false as they aio ill judged. Let us hope that this gioundless pi ejudicc may &oon be unfelt amongst us. Tiir beautiful and highly cultured daughter of one of the proud old Roman nobles, the Duke of Gallese, was introduced to tho Italian poet, Siguor D'Annunzio. Her kinsfolk never dreamed that a lady of such great expectations and high butli could run any lisk by an intimate acquaintance with a nidn lisen fiom the lower ranks. The two walked and chatted together, but while the young lady's friends supposed that she was talking of intellectual matter, it turned out that the convocation of the interesting couple turned in a veiy different direction. The Duke learned, to his horror and anger, that his daughtei dared to betroth herself to the poet. As a matter of couise, he refused to give his sanction to their mainage, wheicupon the loveis took the train to Florence, where they weie made man and wife. This fast step made the Duke so indignant that he had a legal document drawn up, by w Inch he dibinbeiited his daughter ; but the father and the man afterwards so far oveieame the aristocrat in him that lie settled upon her for life a ycaily income of 0000 lire. The story has since obtained an almost tiagical completeness by the sepaiation of the Duke fi om his own wife. He accused her of ha\ing secietly favoured the cdii&e of D'Annunzio, and of allow ing the lovers to hold interviews after the father had prohibited all fiuMier mtei course between the two. Ho has consequently broken up hi& household in Rome, made a settlement upon his Duchess, and declared that he will henceforth live and die as if he had neither wife nor child. — London Echo. The announcement that Laid Falmouth intends to retire fioin the Tuif has taken the whole spotting world by sm prise, and the idea that has giown since the announcement, that only a l eduction of the stud was contemplated, is unfortunately uoutiadicted by an adveitise)»ent in his week's Racing Calendar to the effect that Messrs Tatteisall have received instructions from Lord Falmonth to sell, dining or before the Yivit Spiing Meeting at Newmaiket, the whole of Lord Falmouth's houses intiainiug, while the stallions, brood maies, and foals making up the breeding stud « 111 be disposed of dining the summer. Since Lord George Bentinck retired from the Turf in IS4(>, no event has caused such a sensation and such geneial ie»ret, as at this moment the Turf can ill afford to lose such a patt on as Loul Falmouith — in connection with whose sale, too, history may repeat itself ; for as Lord George Bentinck on his retirement disposed of a future Derby winner in Surplice, theie are many more unlikely things than that Harvester's name will be handed down to posterity as the Dei by winner of 18S4 In Lord George Benthick's case the lesult was the moie annoying that he would have given yeais of his life to have capped his Turf carper by winning the Derby, which made it doubly galling to find that when the object of his ambition was about to be fulfilled he had thrown the chance away. Lord Falmouth ha<«, however, already tasted twice the sweets of a Derby viotoiy, as Kingcraft and Silvio both took honours for him In fact, during the lost ten years Loid Falmouth must have been almost satiated with the sweets of victoiy, as, in addition to winning the Deiby, Atlantic and Cliaribert carried off the Two Thousand ; Cecilia, Spinaway, and Wheel of Fortune the One Thousand ; Silvio, .lannette, and Dutch Oven the St. Leger ; while his successes in important races, though relatively of less importance than those mentioned, have been too numerous to record, so that ample amends have been made for the ill-fortune that dogged Lord Falmouth's turf pin suits for 30 yeais. During the greater part of this time, as Lord George Bentinck adopted the assumed name of Mr Bowe during the early years of his racing, so Lord Falmouth ran his hor-es as Mr T. Valentine, but generally with ill-luck. Although John Scott won the Oaks for him with Queen Bertha in 1863, it was not until the horses in training were removed to Matthew Dawson's care at Newmarket that fortune smiled upon Lord Falmouth's colours ; since that time to write his career would be but to record one longcontinued chronicle of success. With Lord Falmouth's retirement from the Turf we shall find Matthew Dawson ceasing from active participation in the profession of a trainer, while Fred Archer as decided to have no more to do with a bnsiness of which he knows little and cares less. Heath House will doubtless fiqd another maeteiwThe Field,