MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS

Bruce Herald, Volume XX, Issue 2113, 5 November 1889, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS

. Doctor—'* Well, Giles, lias my medicine done your wife any good?" Q-il e g__«No, zur ! I don't rackon it *aye! I don't 'old wi' they wliite stuffs! .Gi' me.summat blaack,. as stinks, I- says V" '; A Frenchman in conversation with &n Englishman says : — I am going to leave my hotel. I paid my bill yesterday, and I said to the landlord, ' Do I owe anything else?' He said, 'Tou are square.' ' What am I?' He said again, 'Tou are square.' 'That's Straiige,' said I; ' I lived so long that I never knew I was square before. Then, as I was going away, he shook me by the hand, saying, 'I hope you'll be round soon.' I said, 'I thought you said I was square. Now you hope I'll be round.' He laughed, and said, •When I tell you you'll be round, I mean! you won't be long.' I did not know how many forms he wished me to 'assume; however, I was glad be did ribVcali me flat. "■ Chance threw me in the way (says the London correspondent of the ■' Manchester Courier ') of a Russian officer -of the highest rank who is at present visiting this country, and who attended the reviews at Portsmouth and Aldershqt. . He spoke on political subjects, and amongst other things said (I quote his words as nearly as possible) ; " Tou may rest assured on one thing, and that is that a war will break out much sooner than is imagined between Russia and Austria. I believe that Bismarck will shuffle out of the Triple Alliance on this occasion, and that possibly Italy will come to grief. England, I do not think, will be dragged into it — unless, indeed, it is for the protection of her Indian dominions. But these wili stand little or no danger in the conflict. Of course France will be allied with Russia." Until very lately there lived as an inmate of the asylum at Liverpool, N.S.W., a very old man, who used to relate how, one fine morning, maddened by hunger, he and eleven other prisoners of the Crown broke into the commissariat stores at Liverpool and stole a small quantity of oatmeal. They were all tried by court-martial, and he alone of the dozen escaped conviction. The other eleven were hanged one morning on the green in front of Brewer's Hotel. A writer in the 'European Mail' says :r- Why is not more done, I woncler, with New Zealand honey ? The other day 23 tubs of fine honey were bought in at 42s per cwt. I have spoken to many people on the subject of honey, and find that the most astounding apathy and ignorance prevails on the subject of honey dietetically. If only means were taken to educate the public as to the wholesomeness and very great value of h!oney as a food staple, we might loois for the development of a large trade iii New Zealand varieties. It may nqt be generally known that, according to a Greek classic, the inhabitants of ancient Sardinia, lived on little else than . honey, and were famous fori their longevity. The gaand jury of Jersey city — across the Hudson River from New Tork — caused a sensation by indicting Mrs Mary Brady as a ' common scold.' Astonished lawyers hunted up their old books and discovered that scolding is still an indictable offence in New Jersey, and that the ducking-stool is still available as a punishment for it, not having been abolished when the revised statutes were adopted. In Delaware, the state next to, the South of New Jersey, the. whippingrpost is an institution, and prisoners are sentenced to auffer-at it every week. The Common Scold, La w was brought from Englar dto Connecticut by the Puritans, and settlers from Connecticut carried it with them into New Jersey. A curious exploration is now being undertaken in a vast region of Scandan- . ayia which has practically run wild for nearly, a hundred years. Towards the latter end of the last century an epidemic —locally called "the plague "—broke out in this region, and whole villages, as well as homesteads and farms were deserved. At the present time their names live only in tradition, and old roads are covered with brushwood and vegetation, and the country is given up to game and wild animals. Recently the tract has been .bought by a London syndicate for. sporting, and it may be ultimately mining purposes. They have commissioned Sir Henry Pottinger, who was one of the pioneers of Norwegian V.avel, and Mr John Sargent, thei wellknown Oxford' "coach" of Hertford, tq visit' and report upon this almost forgotten territory. An interesting account of their travels may therefore be expected before the winter! The curious i idea, shared at different .times, by Jews, Christians, and Mahommefjans, alike, that Jerusalem is the centre-of .the world is about to be made an ..astronomical reality. The 'World' writes .v-The necessity of a world meridian, has long been felt, and an effort is tobe made to supply it to Jerusalem. jit is imagined , that . the sacred claims bf the' Holy City will be found more binding than! v i4tipßai.^P l FJ?j^.'ce 8 > au °h as, for example, the preference shown by England for Greenwich, by Spain foi* 'the Island of Eerrpe, by France for Soulon, and by Sweden for Upsala. The project of a universal meridian of Jerusalem wiji!be discussed ;at the Astronomical, Cqngrpss next year. [ s?he proposal is, to ruhit through the site of the , Holy of Holiesr-a'spot which Mahbinmedan superstitiqh^ has long regarded as* the " naVel of the earth." ~ '

An exchange learns from a large importer that the recent labour strikes in England are having considerable influ- J ence on prices in New Zealand. Manufacturers have reduced discounts, and shipping companies have increased freights, till at length in some lines there is an advance of 50 per cent on the prices of a year ago. The lines which were quoted to us were those of an every day, bread-md-butter character, and if these have been so greatly influenced, we may be sure that things less frequently asked for are also subject to tbe increase. The gentlemen who "do " the weddings for the country papers are distinguished for ohe thing — they always keep the poetry of the occasion conspicuously before their readers. Here is a striking example: — "After the ceremony they returned to her father's house (the bride's, of course), where a bounteous spread of all the good things which a prosperous farmer knows so well how to lay before his friends dissipated those feelings and agitations inseparable from such an occasion, and ushered them full, hopeful, and happy upon the first stae,e of what, it is bope3, will be a prospeious, if eventful, future." "Full, hopeful, and happy !" The sentence is a poem in itself. The following is taken from the 'Akaroa Mail': — On Saturday Mr William Curvy brought us a sample of underground butter. On Friday he buried some 41b9 of cream 10 inches under the surface, and on Saturday — 24 hours later — dug up the same. When brought to light a lump was found, which, on washing yielded over 31b of excellent butter, of which we cm testify the excellence from personal experie.ice. The 4lb of cream was first, put into a calico bag and allowed to drip, then put in'o an ordinary suck to keep it clean, and buried as bef.ire stated, in clean soil 6ome 10 inches under the surface." A business man of a certain town, who values his time at so much a second, has a little dog in his office, of which he is very fond. One day recently, while holding the door for the dog to go out, it struck him that half the time was lost iv waiting for the tail to escape. He then sat down to figures, with the following result : He opened that door at least ten times a day to let the dog in or out ; it took him one minute each time, and, with 300 working days in the year, he fouud that he had been standing with that door-knob in his hand for 50 hours each year, and nothing to show for ib. He immediately chopped off the dog's tail, and be now opens the door and slams it in a jiffy, without any danger of hurting bhe dog, and with very little loss of time to himself.