Miscellaneous Extracts.

Bruce Herald, Volume IX, Issue 801, 9 May 1876, Page 3

Miscellaneous Extracts.

The author of "London Town Talk," in the Melbourne 'Argus,' says :— " A well-known German florist, who is not naturally irritable, has this to say about the unreasonableness of his lady purchasers:—l have so much drouble mit the ladies yen dey comes to buy mine rose ; dey vants him hardy, dey vants him double, dey vants him montly, dey vants him ebery ding in one rose. I sometimes say to dat ladies, ' Madame, I never often sees dat ladies dat vas rich, dat vas good temper, dat vas youngs, dat vas clever, dat vas perfection, in one ladies. I see her much not. 1 " The celebrated Dr Johnson was once consulted by a lady as to the degree of her son's turpitude in robbing an orchard. " Madam," said the Doctor, "it all depends on the weight of the boy. I remember that my schoolmate, David Garrick, who was a little fellow, robbed a dozen orchards with impunity ; but I always was a heavy boy, and the first time I climbed up an apple tree the bough broke, and it was called judgment. I suppose that is why Justice is represented with a pair of scales." It would appear, says John Perrybingle in the ' Melbourne Weekly Times,' that the restraint which Good Templars pride themselves upon in regard to the cheery glass does not extend to other exhilarating diversions. A young lady writes to a Melbourne newspaper complaining that several he Good Templars, enticed, no doubt, by her good looks, forcibly snatched numerous kisses from her lips, and otherwise conducted themselves after the manner of teetotal satyrs. She complained to the lodge; but the lodge informed her that kissing and rude gestures were but fun, and that as they were all brothers and sistere, you know, she must not take offence at such small matters. The young woman, however, did nob accept this view of matters, and retired from the amorous ground of Good Templarism, and, as I have said, wrote to a newspaper and " split " upon the immaculates. Kiss-in-the-ring was put down in Templar lodges some time ago, and for the sake of the order there must be no kissing the " sentinels." " Against the regulations," as "Wanda says in the play. "The 'Prairie "Farmer' gives us as a fact not generally known, that there is a firm doing business in San Francisco who purchase the thousands of dogs slaughtered by the poundmaster of that city, or that may have been otherwise killed, for which they pay 40 cents each. The carcasses are conveyed to their manufacory at South San Francisco, where the skins are removed and sold to the tanneries, the hair taken off and resold to plasterers, the hide tanned, made into gloves, and sold in the market. The denuded carcass is then thrown into a huge cbaldron and boiled until the bones are easily separated from the flesh, when they are ground to a fine powder and used to clarify sugar. The oil that rises to the surface of the boiling mass is skimmed off and manufactured into cod liver oil, and the remainder is used for the purpose of fattening hogs. Experiments lately made with various kinds of English, American and Australian woods, have proved that some species of the eucalyptus (ironbark and red gum especially), are of a strength superior to English oak, the former stood a breaking weight of ll.loSlbs, and a crushing weight of 13,3491b5, while the latter only held out against 42561bs in one instance, and 42801bs in the other. The trial was in every respect a fair one, as the specimens of wood were all of one length and diameter — two inches square by sixteen long. From the report of the chief officer of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade (Captain Shaw) on the state of the brigade and the fires in London during the year 1875, made to the Metropolitan Board of Works, we learn that the number of calls for fires or supposed fires during the year has been 1668. Of these 90 were false alarms, 49 proved to be only chimney alarms, and 1529 were calls for fires, of which 163 resulted in serious damage, and 1366 in alight damage. These figures refer only to the regular calls for fires, or supposed fires, involving the turning out, of firemen, fire-engines, horsep, and coachmen ; they do not include trifling damages by fire which were not sufficiently important to require the attendance of firemen ; neither do they include the ordinary calls for chimneys on fire, which are separately accounted for. The fires of 1875, compared with those of 1874, show a decrease of 44 ; and compared with the average of the last ten years there is a decrease of 59. The proportion of serious to slight losses in 1575— 163 to 1366— is about aa favorable as the brigade has hitherto succeeded in making it. The storm produced by the settlement of accounts after the O'Connell Centenary having blown over, says the ' Pall Mall Budget,' a new tempest has arisen in the same region of disturbance. As concisely put by Mr Michael Angelo Hayes, it was the question of " Cloak or no cloak " — that is to say, whether the forthcoming statue of the Liberator is to be cloaked or frock- coated. A dispute on such a question could hardly fail to be a warm one. The principal anti-cloak advocate was the Eev. John O'Eorke, P.P., who said he hsuj. often seen O'Connell with a loose overcoat and a boa ; and why not as well have the figure with the boa around the neck? Mr Foley was misled as to O'Connell's dress. The committee should seek to have a monument of the man who shouldered his umbrella like a pike, and kicked as if be were kicking Prdtestant ! ascendancy before him, and not that ot

an old man in his decline— his cloaked decline. Mr O'Eorke seems to havej peculiar ideas of the scope of sculpture. A man shouldering his umbrella like a pike might of course be managed ; but it is not easy to see how the act of kicking Protestant ascendancy could be effectively rendered in marble. Even the immortal Chiggle, who made Elijah Pog ram's statue such a terror to its enemies, would have hesitated to undertake so arduous a commission. Some feeling of this sorb perhaps influenced the majority of the committee, as the cloak was ultimately carried. But at the same time warnings were issued indicating a gale from another quarter ; for it would appear a question has been raised as to whether the cloaked statue was a design of Foley's at all, from the discussion of which stiff breezes may be anticipated. It is not for nothing that O'Connell has been called " the Great Agitator." Even after death hia mission clings to his memory. A young lady of Melbourne— Miss Blackham, the daughter of a gentleman connected with the press of the city for many years — has shown great vocal talent and was deemed on a late occasion worthy of singing on the same platform (in the Town Hall) with Mademoiselle deMurska. To complete her education, and fit her for the highest walks of J the lyric stage, her friends there have taken steps to provide funds to enable her to take lessons and study in the best schools of Europe for the next two or three years. The effort will probably be successful, and Australia will thus be able to take the credit of having given one more true artist to Europe — and music. The Chief Inspector of Sheep, Melbourne, writing on the subject of pleuropneumonia, says :— " As this disease has unfortunately been acclimatised here, but little need be said about it. The probable loss in Australia from this source is set down at £5,000,000 in the report of the conference of the chief inspectors of stock, held in Sydney in 1874. The following extract from an eminent authority will show that little confidence can be placed in the argument that because certain diseases have not yet reached us, therefore they never will:— ln this century (Bays Fleming, authority referred to, speaking of pleuro) its course has been pretty well determined. It invaded Prussia in 1802 and soon spread over Northern Germany. It was first described as existing in Eussia in 1526, it reached Belgium in 1827, Holland in 1833, Great Britain in 1841, Sweden in 1847, Denmark in IS4S, Finland in ISSO, Cape of Good Hope in 1554, the United States of America in 1843, Melbourne in 1858, New South Wales in 18(30, and New Zealand in 1864.' This disease is said to have been even more destructive than the cattle plague." The London ' Gazette ' of the 18th January last chronicles 39 outbreaks in England during the week. Martha Wyatt, a pupil in the Ohio normal school at Medina, has the largest head of any known sane woman, 24in in circumference, as big as Daniel Webster's, or 3in larger than the average male head. She is a good scholar, with marked literary tastes. The ' Jewish World ' says— Statistical researches in Germany show that suicides take place among the several religious denominations in the following proportions :— 1 in 9956 Protestants ; 1 in 13,350 Eoman Catholics ; 1 in 21,859 Greek Catholics ; and 1 in 29,987 Jews. The valuation lists for the City of London, which came into force on the 6th of April last, show a gross value of £3,577,752, and a rateable value of £2,952,227. The same values in 1871 were respectively £3,052,086 and £2,550,403, the new assessments showing an increase of £525,666 gross, and £425,524 rateable value. His Honor Mr Justice Molesworth lately granted a number of probates to the wills of deceased persons in Victoria (says the ' Telegraph'), among them being that of the late John Bell, a well-known capitalist and landed proprietor. His Victorian property warworn at £f 327,000, a tenth part of which will, under the new Succession Duties Act, go into the coffers of the State. The following incident in the life of that estimable lady, Madame M'Mahon, is going the rounds of the press. Her exertions in obtaining relief for the sufferers of the recent disastrous flood in France are well known : — ■ In the middle of the winter of IS6B a fire broke out in the female seminary at Limoges, France, and spread with such rapidity that it was feared all the inmates would perish. Suddenly there was a cry that one little girl had been left in the room. As the excited spectators were beginning to pray for the unfortunate child, a tall girl, with dishevelled blonde hair and flowing nightgown, cut through the crowd, and, with a shriek of " I'll save her ! " that rose above sound of crackling timbers and falling masonry, dashed into the doorway. A loud hurrah, that was prolonged to the echo only to be repeated again, attracted the attention of the devotees, and the pale-faced girl was seen skipping through the flames with the terrified child. A few days thereafter King Louis Phillippe sent the heroine a gold medal for her bravery, and a captain of the French army, who had witnessed the girl's pluck, begged an introduction. The captain is now President of France, and the brave girl Madame M'Mahon.