Spray.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 3976, 23 March 1900, Page 4 (Supplement)

Spray.

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**I tiny be young," said the very young man, " but my love for your daughter is as strong and true as If I tvore whitened by the snows of innumerable winters." " Oli, I don't doubt your love," replied the stern father, " but have you ever had the measles or the whooping cough ? It wouldn't be fair, you kuo-w, for us to take you into the family and have to nurse you through those /complaints some time or other."—*' Indianapolis Journal." flew to Alia a Fame. Two well-known dramatic authors were recently walking down Oxford-street, when one observed the other's portrait in several photographers* windows, and expressed his astonishment at the notoriety which had evidently been won by his friend, whose "counterfeit presentment" was thus exhibited prominently for sale. " How is this ?" he remarked enviously. " Here are you as large as life, while I can't see my likeness anywhere T' " Let me explain to you how it's done," Baid his companion. " I send my secretary to buy a copy once a week at each of these shops, and the photographers, who do not know him by sight, keep the" photos In their windows in hopes of the * public' continuing to purchase." The eyes of Author Number One were opened, and he admired the ingenuity of his friend, though at the same time he thought the plan rather an expensive one. Haw Woman Dratr*. Mr. Fetio-son and Mr. Fowler, two friends, were converging in the parlour of the latter. " Is your wife going to leave town ?" asked Peterson. " No ; why do you ask ?" " You tool; such an affectionate leave of her whea she went out of the room just now that I supposed you were not going to see her again for some time." 41 Well, 1 don't expect to see her again for some time. She has gone upstairs to dress." Should flare Bern 'I bnnkfnl. " I ask for bread," exclaimed the mendicant bitterly, " and you give me a brickbat I" The man glanced apprehensively in the dlreetiott of his young bride, woo was bending eagerly over the cooking stove. " Hush !" he whispered. "That's nothing to what you'd have got if you had asked for custard." Bow II Fee's (o be IVenr Drnlb. Mr. Pre&ton King, in the "Medical Magazine," gives a very interesting account of a personal experience of pneumonia, in the course of which he tells how he felt when death seemed near. When we are well we think with a dread of death. . . . But when illness comes, and the end is very near, then all that dread seems gone; and though perfect consciousness remains, there is no fear of death ; none of that chill dread we used to know ; merely a peaceful, tired feeling. We long for rest ; we only want to sleep. We are sorry to be leaving those we love— not for any selfish reasons, though, but because we know that they will miss us, and will grieve when we are gone ; for ourselves we do not mind— we only want rest. What Stamped Her. We know a man who has a mania for collecting all sorts of queer facts in history, science, and so forth ; but his wife has no sympathy with him in this direction. The other evening he laid down ais paper. ■'That's odd," he said to her. " What ?" she inquired. "The statement that it would take 12,000,000 years to pump the sea dry at the rate of 1000 gallons a second." She thought over the statement profoundly for a full minute, and then innocently asked : •'Where would they put all the water ?" Some Stock Exchange Figures. Those to whom the name of the London Stock Exchange carries but a very vague significance must be somewhat astonished on studying the figures in connection with it. Take the gigantic amount of money dealt in. The capital quoted in the official list alone— and this must be for companies having a capital of £50,000 and over— amounts, in the case of companies which, after a very severe ordeal have been "mentioned" by the committee of the Stock Exchange, to the enormous sum of £7,609,753,766 sterling. Beyond this, the number of companies Whose stock or shares are dealt in, but which have no official quotation, amount to quite two-thirds of the above, making the grand totai of money dealt in something like £10,000,000,000. The official list is itself a wonderful production. It consists of eight pages, and is published twice daily, giving the latest market prices of more than 2800 different securities. Each issue is said to contain something like 102,000 figures, and most of these have to be changed every day, and in an astonishing number of cases twice daily. In addition to this list, and to the two or three columns of Stock Exchange figures to be seen in every dully paper, there are no fewer than twenty newspapers published which deal wholly with the Exchange. According to the Bankers' Clearinghouse returns, the Stock Exchange is responsible for about £600,000,000 sterling in every six months ; but it must be recollected that stock relating to Government loans, railways, waterworks, gasworks, mines, shipping, and every kind of industrial company in every country and colony v throughout the world is bought and sold In this one building. Many firms spend large fortunes in telegrams and cablegrams alone ; indeed, one firm of brokers averages the year round an expenditure of over £200 dally. Cablegrams to the most distant parts of the world are quite a common matter—a message costing tun, fifteen, or twenty pounds being considered a most ordinary Item of expenditure. The writer has known a single wire to cost nearly 1100. In the building itself are given full facilities for this amazing, despatch of messages, for there «Ire three pneumatic tubes, one post office, one telephone exchange, and one ouice which is -reserved for cables exclusively, there being altogether about seventy postal and telegraph officials employed in the building. We all know how dapper and uoat a figure the typical stockbroker is. and it is therefore no surprise to learn that the members of the Stock Exchange use 3120 towels in a week, the consumption of soap being a ton every ten weeks. In Wales it is believed that if any one kills a wren he will fall down and break a bone before the end of the year. There were two total eclipses of the sun in the year 1713 and two in 1889. This rare phenomenon will not happen again until the year 2057. Nearly everywhere service in a foreign army confers the rights of naturalisation upon the alien soldier. An Irishman fighting for France might, if he liked, Claim the status of a Frenchman. In France a boy born on French soil of parents one of whom may be English, but born In France, is regarded as French, and is liable to conscription. On< of the men who are attracting great attention in Vienna at the