Miscellaneous.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXI, Issue 1042, 13 July 1894, Page 7

Miscellaneous.

» Insanity in every country is more prevalent among unmarried men than married men. Marriage, it would appear, brings people to their senses. Tn the island of Reunion is a plant known as the wild orange, which produces a fruit green at first, afterwards l)lnish, and verging into purple as is ripens. This has V>een tested, and is said to make a beverage in ovcry way equal to coffee, and at a lriuch lower pricp. The product is called 'mutsapnda,' and it can be used alone or mixed with pure coffee. It is announced that about twenty-four thousand acres of this plant are now being cultivated. These curious riddles, which all have one answer and are familiar to the people of various parts of France, are quoted in the Revue des Traditions Populaires. ' What goes from Paris to Lyons without moving or taking a step 1 What goes to Paris without pausing 1 lam very long. If I rose up straight I could touch 'the sky ;If I had arms and legs, I could catch the thief ; if I had eyes and mouth, I could tell everything. White, very white — it encircles the earth. If 1 ware not crooked I could not exist. The queen's carpet, always spread, npver folded. What looks very long in the sunshine and has no shadow 1 What nrrires first at the market and first, reaches home % Answer, The road.' At a salon in Paris. some years ago the Sieur d'Aimorie, amid a group of guests, was giving a vivid account of his pedigree, which he claimed dated back to the Pharaohs of Egypt, Just then the late Baron de Rothschildapproached, when one of the group called out, ' Baron, come and let me make von acquainted wbh the Sieur d'Aimerie. He comes of Pharaonic stock, and you ought to know each other.' 'Yes,' said the baron, bowing gravely and addressing D'Aimerie, 'I believe our families had some transactions in time past.' ' Yes,' rejoined D'Aimerie, l we have a record that your people, when leaving the country, borrowed a considerable amount of jewelry of my people, for which I should now like to be repaid with interest.' ' I remember the transaction,' said Rothschild, 'but the account was settled at due date. Your fathers received a check on the banks of the Red Sea.' A story is told by a Philadelphia paper of a preacher who used the phonograph to aid him in his pastoral duties. It happened that the unfortunate clergyman was overworked, having charge of two parishes — one in a lai'ge city and one in a suburban town. It ocetired to him that, by preaching his discourse into the phonograph on Saturday, it would be ' ground out ' by an assistant on Sunday afternoon to the suburban congregation, and then he would be relived of the obligation to deliver two discourse.?. The scheme was given a trial, and proved satisfactory to all parties concerned, especially to the pastor, as he was left free to spend his Sunday afternoon with his family. One Saturday morning, as the clergyman was delivering his discource for the following day into the funnel of the phonograph, he was interrupted in the middle of the sentence, ' And what did Moses say to the children of Israel V by his wife calling out that two gentlemen were waiting to see him. Without shutting off the current, so to speak, the clergyman said, ' Tell the gentlemen to call again —I'm out,' and continued his address to the instrument. Everything went on smoothly at the suburban service the. next afternoon, the congregation becoming very much interested in the discourse of Moses, until the phonograph repeatsd the pastor's words in, a loud voice — ' And what did Moses say. to the children of Israel V A short silence served only to make the congregation the more eager to catch the Biblical answer to this question, when, to the intense surprise of all assembled, the beloved voice of their pastor chimed forth, ' Tell the gentlemen to call again — I'm out.' The suburban parish now has a pastor of its own. ]m , limm , m