Miscellaneous

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 1141, 24 July 1918, Page 2

Miscellaneous

BITS BY THE WAY. Flowers turn towards a lighted electric lamp just as they turn towards the sun. European red ants attack other kinds of ants, carry off the workers to their own nests and detain them there as slaves. Eagles usually hunt in pairs, one bird frightening the prey from its hiding place, and the other pouncing on it as it tries to escape. Sixty years ago aluminium was worth £1 an ounce. It is now worth in normal times, about 3s. a pound. During the five months' siege of Paris, in 1870-71, three million letters wore sent out of the city by balloons. HOW DAVID GARRICK MADE HiS FORTUNE. If David Garrick had had no more than his salary a* an actor "he would have had little to leave, at his death. He made his fortune as joint proprietor, and for a time as sole proprietor, of Drury Lane Theatre, so that the amount set down to himself as salary was practically nominal. When ho retired from the stage in 1776 he sold half his share in the theatre for £35,000. He was probably the only actor who consistently made Shakespeare pay, and like Shakespeare he was actor, author, and proprietor. It may be recalled that Garrick, who had no enemies outside his own : profession, was the grandson of ai Frenchman exiled at the revocation of j the Edict of Nantes, and that his fa- j ther was a captain in the Army. ?

LORD MAYOR'S RESIDENCE. Some interesting facts about the Mansion House were revealed at a recent meeting of the City Livery Club. It appears that where the Lord Mayor's official residence now stands there was founded in 1282 the Stock Market, used by fishmongers and butchers. In 1739 the Corporation determined to build a suitable permanent ' residence for the Lord Mayor, and at the cost of £71,000 erected the present building which was finished in 1753. The state bed cost 3,000 guineas. Built over the bed of the Walbrook considerable difficulty was encountered in finding adequate foundations, and as a result the mansion was built largely on piles. Even in recent times difficulty with the foundations had occurred.

! Originally the service of plate cost £11,500, but this had been added to, ■ it being the custom of every outgoing i Lord Mayor to present a piece of plate to commemorate his year of office. COURTSHIPS BEGUN IN STRANGE PLACES. Cemeteries and courtship seem difficult to think of in conjunction, yet a Baltimore burial ground proved a most attractive trvsting place to a bereaved widow and widower of the Maryland city, whose acqimintance, begun while visiting the resting place of their departed partners, ripened into an affection which ended at the altar. A young railway engineer, named Charles Ogle, lost his wife, and frequently visited the spot, where she lay buried", in order to meditate and put a few flowers on her grave. Mrs. Katharine Elder, who lost her husband, spent much of her time in the cemetery with the same object as Mr. Ogle. , , The two mourners soon began to notice one another, and one day Mr. Ugle offered the weeping widow his sympathv, which was ? rate J fully accepted. A few clays later the , two' mourners met once more, and nav-

i.ng laid their floral offerings on tin* graves, strolled out of the cemetery together. Almost unconsciously their steps led .them iu the direction of the parsonage of the Church of St. John where the Rev. Thomas Lowe, who seemed to expect them, speedily made them one. But stranger still would one deem a lunatic asylum as a place .in which a wooer should become a target for Cupid's darts. Yet an Englishman here found a successor to the mistress of his household after he had become a widower in pathetic circumstances. His first wife developed suicidal mama and was placed in an asylum in the West of England. Here she remained for nearly during which time she was placed in the special charge of a pretty imhaired nurse of twenty-four, who made a pleasant impression on the husband of her patient. . At the end of this time the patient died, and, of course, the widower had no further need to call at the asylum. But after a few weeks he bagan to miss seeing the pretty nurse, and when six months had passed he felt so strono- a desire to kAow if she were still in the same situation that one day he called and inquired for her. brx months later, when he considered his ! term of mourning had expired, he pro- • posed, and was accepted. i Nor is a prison a very pleasant - place in which to meet one's future - life partner, but several instances go > to prove that there are unhklier spots. I Early in the nineteenth century a 3 young man named Benjamin Slower t was imprisoned in Newgate for writing 3 a spirited defence of the French Rovoiilution. While there he was visited by s! Miss Eliza Gould, a woman of a puU1, anthropical turn of mind. , .-! Mr Flower was strongly attracted n l,v Miss Gould's goodness no less than n b'v her remarkable beauty, and when t, his term of imprisonment expired and ; i he gained his freedom the friendship e: beo-un in such romantic circumstances ! continued. Ultimately, finding that they. could not live apart they were ! married.

PECULIAR WEDDING PLACES. I Romantic Marriages Celebrated Under Strange Conditions. The romantic marriage of the Irish rebel leader, Joseph Plunkett, to Miss ' Grace Gifford, which was celebrated in prison, by special permission of the au- ' thorities,' a few hours before the bridegroom was executed on May 4th, adds one more to the number of weddings that have taken place under extraordinary conditions. Married, then executed, has been the fate of more than one unhappy bridegroom, and pathetic as all unions celebrated under such sad circumstances must inevitably be, the wedding a year or two ago, in the death chamber at the Trenton penitentiary, I New Jersey, of Rafael Longo, an Ital- ! ian, must ever rank as one of the - most poignantly painful on record. 5" Longo was executed in the electric chair/ after having been united in wedlock to a woman with whom ho had r been living for years, and who was o the mother of his three children-. 0 It appears that Longo and-■'Mb wife (for such lie believed her to always regarded themselves as genu-^ e inelv married, but it was discovered - at the last moment by the priest who [i attended the condemned man that their union was not legal according to the laws of the State of New Jersey. s In order that the woman might inherit 'a such property as Longo left, the marriage was decided upon, an hour or two before the prisoner was executed, f, the couple with the bars between them s joined hands while the priest read the marriage service over them, and pronounced them man and wife. Tiie couple plighted their vows in i the "death house" in the presencec of 5 their children and of the chief warder and his assistants. The man and woman each knelt on their respective sides of the bars, and were able to » clasp hands. Longo was not' allowed 1 to kiss his wife or his children. Thebravery of the pair, and the solemnity ' of the occasion, caused even the warders' eyes to be dim with tears._ 5 How would the average bride like to t be married in an undertaker's shop, with a corpse as a silent witness? That 1 however, is what actually occurred in • the case of William J. Frey and Miss r Henrietta Leavey. The latter's par- . onts strongly objected. to the _ match, . and so the young people decided to take matters' into their own hands. While searching for a magistrate to ' • tie the knot thev came across an un- [! dertakcr Justice of the Peace who m- •■ j vited them to go to his shop for the . oeremonv. The couple did not take I kindly to the idea at first, but it was i the only way out of the difficulty, so they agreed to the suggestion, and the j nuptial knot was safely and securely I Not very far removed from the nr- , iim line, ''somewhere in France," and within easy earshot of the guns, a young French soldier, a few months nco, was married to the girl of his -hoice. Tt was only the other week, coo, that a wounded Tommy, while lying in bed in a Scottish hospital, was ! united in the bonds of holy matrimony to a very charming young lady. In another hospital romance the bridegroom was in plaster of Paris, when the marriage vows were taken. Mr. A. Swan, the groom in question, was the son of a millionaire and had both less broken in a motor car accident. His marriage date had already boon fixed, and four hundred people had been invited. What was to be The doctor suggested that the young ladv should be brought to the hospital' She consented, the bridegroom was wheeled to an improvised altar, and the nuptial ceremony was performed Mrs. Swan afterwards lived in the hospital, and nursed her husband back to health. On v more recent date a marriage took place near Washington under similar circumstances. Captain Horace Brown and his fiancee, Miss Maud Vers llanna, were injured in a motor smash shortly before -they were to be married. They decided, however, that the event could not be postponed, and both wont through the ceremony in splints and plaster. ;, . To be "spliced" in a swinging trape/,e would'not be vet that was the scone selected on one occasion by two couples of circus performers. The contracting parties, gorgeously arrayed, climbed on to two aerial perches one on each side of the *5" while the officiating magistrate ood on a pyramid in the cent™ conducted the service: Another cpjf pie had the romantic idea of betfg mnrried inside the bead of the colossal figure of the. Goddess of Liberty. Sch stands in New York Harbour. The head being a hollow chamber the feat was made feasible, and was dulv rarried out after the bridal party had mounted the three hundred feet # ot narrow stairs to reach their destination.