CLIPPINGS.

Press, Volume L, Issue 8581, 7 September 1893, Page 4

CLIPPINGS.

A good story is told in connection with the recent examinations at Edinburgh University. A certain student was being examined in physiology. His knowledge of the subject wa3 soon gauged by the professor, who rather surprised the young man by asking if he had his card. The professor in question is one of the most genial men in the University, and the young " mcd.," fancying that " Bilirubin," as he is familiarly styled, proposed to take some personal interest in him, replied that he had, and at once presented it. " Thauks," said the professor, blandly; " now will you kindly write on that all you know about physiology ?" Among men of letters who have not found marriage a failure is M. Alphonae Daudet. His menage is described in the Idler for July, and his love for aud pride in his wite is refened to. " I often think of my first meeting with her," he will say. "I was quite a young fellow, and had a great prejudice against literary women, and especially against poetesses; but I came, saw, and was conquered, aud," he Will conolude, smiling, " I have remained under the charm ever since. ... . . People sometimes ask mc whether I approve ot' women writing; how should I not when my own wife has always written, and when all that is best in my literary work is owing to her influence and suggestion. There are whole .realms of humau nature which we men cannot explore. We have not eyes to see nor hearts to understand certain subtle things j which a woman perceives at once; yes, women have a mission to fulfil in the literature of to-day. The Daily News correspondent in Siberia ! travelled by road a thousand miles from Irkoutsk to Tomsk, and found the roads "fairly good." There can be few large towns in the world where provisions are so cheap as at Tomsk. In that city and the surrounding villages, writes the correspondent, new milk sells at about a halfpenny a j quart, eggs at threepence a dozen, and i butter at about fivepence a pound. A fourpound loaf of good white bread costs threepence ; of black bread, which the Siberians prefer, the cost of the same quantity would be about a penny. Of vegetable produce, cucumbers sell at twopence per hundred, and potatoes at fourteen pounds far a penny. Beef and mutton of good quality are a penny per pound, inferior qualities less. A goodsized fowl costs three-halfpence, a duck about twopence-halfpenny, and a goose sixpence. You may purchase a nice calf alive for eighteenpence, a cow in her prime for about a sovereign, and for three sovereigns a horse equal to the best of those which form the Imperial post-teams of Siberia. An inquest on the body of William Henry Scotton, the Nottingham professional cricketer, was held at the Marylebone Coroner's Court, by Dr. Daniord Thomas. It appeared from the evidence that Scotton came up to town in April to take up an engagement at Lord's. Ellen Lansdowne, of St. John'B-wodd-terrace, stated that until the close of the previous week the deceased enjoyed good health. He then became very depressed, and appeared to be troubled about some mistake he said he had made in the cricket field. On Saturday he did not leave his bed, and rambled very much, and on Sunday morning she found him lying in a pool of blood and a razor was by his side. He was quite dead. The doctor having given evidence, a letter was read from a j friend to Scotton, idling him to " pull himJ (self together," and not to "be a fool." G. F. Hearne, another well-known professional cricketer, who had known the deceased for eighteen years, was the last witness. He said that no professional cricketer had ever seen Scotton the worse for liquor, but witness had found out that he had been drinkon the sly. The fact that he had been left out of his county team had preyed upon his mind.. Scotton was a very senaitive man, and had been known at times to cry when unfortunate in the cricket held. A verdict of suicide whilst of unsound mind was returned. The Indian Post Office, not without some opposition from the trading and mercantile classes, have determined to forbid- the old practice of defacing stamps on letters before posting. The common practice of running an ink line or writing a date or initials across a stamp is a survival from the early Anglo-Indian days, when Post Offices were established only at a few central points, and it was Often necessary to send native servants long distances to post letters." In these days, however, the temptation to. steal stamps and the consequent, destruction of the letters that bore tiiem is greatly reduced, and the opportunities for disposing of stolen stamps are much fewer than they were. On the other hand, it is said to be a familiar expedient among mean-minded people and thriftily disposed natives to place an old stamp on an envelope and write an elaborate defacementaeross paper and stamp, the latter being then removed, and a smear of gum perhaps affixed in its place for the sake of artistic verisimilitude. Such are the reasons that have influenced the Indian postal authorities. Ghosts, or to call them by their new scientific name, " spooks," are not exempt from injustice any more than other people who hove not yet attained to that digoity. The new number of the " Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research " contains a very glaring instance of spookical theft. Ou Sunday morning two psychicists noticed in church a spook making signs that he wished to communicate with them in the evening, so after an early .dinner the jpsychicists sat down at half-past six oxlock to the rapping-table, and had an interview with him. He said he had been injured in a railway accident at Loughborough Junction, and was lying in St. Thomas's Hospital unconscious. Afterwards the, apparently, same Shade appeared to them in a state of some excitement, and partly by raps and partly viva voce told them a tale of unparalleled villainy, "lam the real man who was injured," ne cried ; "this is mc, and not the other one. My body was entered into by another. I am now bodiless. Do you not understand ? " In other words, the spook explained that a second spook had stolen his body while he lay unconscious in the hospital, and that now when he, the real Simon, had recovered and wished to regain possession of his usual' corporeal habitation, he found himself coolly evicted. He must either remain without a body, or consent to accept the position of a co-lodger with the other—a contingency which he seemed to think a great injustice. The Psychical Researchists were unable to help in the matter. It seems from the evidence of impartial rappists that many spooks are irreclaimable liars, and often say exactly the opposite of what they mean. Perhaps the Loughborough accident man belonged to that class.