ENGLISH AND FOREIGN CLIPPINGS.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXVI, Issue 4003, 21 June 1870, Page 4

ENGLISH AND FOREIGN CLIPPINGS.

TROUBLES OF AN "ENGAGED" YOUNG MAN. "Mercotio," in a letter to the Pall Mall Gazette, says he is what is called an "engaged man," and' he refers to the vexations and annoyances which belong to that condition. Bfe says : — ' 'Poets and novelists havewritten so much about the season of courtship that it would be strangd if acknowledge of its pleasures were not "generally diffused. I was as happy as it was possible for a young gentleman of our day to be in making love. I found the pastime not alone delicious, but economical. My respect as well as my affection kept me from several amusements and extravagances in which bachelors indulge without much reflection on the score of propriety. A.n evening at Westbournia. with music and small talk°was better spent than in the scalls of a theatre, or in dropping shillings at pool in the club billiard-room. At this time I had not declared. I was, therefor-, constantly an object of interesting speculation. L has two sisters, who were then in short dresses, but their mother was only waiting upon my temper to lengthen out their skirts to womanly dimensions. These young Misses, I suppose with a view to the sort of promotion I refer to, were never in the way wlienL ■ or I wished them out of it. So things went on evenly and smoothly. I might have continued a welcome guest at all times at that Westbournian villa. Inan evil hour I listened to the advice of a friend He pointed out to me that my conduct was unfair to the girl (so he put it); bhatit was cowardly to play with her feelings ; in short, he said so much that I had it out with L , was formally accepted by her and the family — although her father looked more grim then gracious when I informed him that I could not well ! marry his daughter before a twelve-month. The friend who promoted me to tho step was, I learned, ' engaged ' himself. As I presumed he was acquainted with the courtesies of the situation, 1 applied to hiui for information on that head. ' You must make her a lot of presents, you know, to start with,' suggested he ; 'I had to do it. If your affair breaks off, they are &ure to send you back your trinkets ; and if it doesn't, what's your wife's will be yours.' This was unsentimental, even coarse. However, I paid a visit to Bond-street, and, after being made to feel despicably poor by the I splendour of the articles flung down on the counter for my inspection, I purchased a bracelet. It seems mean to dwell on the topic ; so I hasten at once to say that my visits to Bond-street have been of late more frequent than I can afford, and that the products of them are worn after a fashion which I cannot admire. Sir, lam in tha secret, and I can tell you that engaged girls play games of brag in presence of each other with the tributes of their respected lovers. The warfare is carried on at evening parties under cover of the most cordial smiles and greetings Now this sort of thing would be, I should imagine, bad enough in a wife, but in a girl it is both premature and startling. If it be done in the green wood, what shall be done in the dry ? "A. few months ago, I experienced no sense of obligation m visiting that house at Westbournia The very fact of not being bound to go there, save by the instigation of a tender seutiment, gave a zest to the journey. Now lam expected never to bo long absent, and I do not count for much on my arrival. I noted a gradual deterioration in the refreshments of which I partook. At the Sunday dinners, to which I always came, it used to be soup, fish, joint, and sweets, with champagne and honest claret to drink. The very first Sunday of my engagement the soup was cut off, and since then the dinners have been getting worse and worse. The only exceptional times are when-a young man is invited who is to M or E ■ what I was to L -. In short, I am supposed to be co nplimentecl by being regarded in the light of one of the family. To speak the truth, this is not so pleasant as being regarded out of the family. ; The girls dre<?s carelessly in my presence ; my future mother-in-law thinks potato sherry j good, enough for me, and will oven venture j to give me a quiet admonition on occasions. "

METHOD OF PRESERVING WOOD A lecent patent granted to Sigismund Beer, of New York city, for preserving wood, is as follows: "In a tank of wood or iron, I prepare a saturated, or nearly saturated, solution of borax in water, sufficient to cover the wood. I then raise the temperature, bysteam 01 otherwise, to the boiling point, and keep it there from two to twelve hours, according to the porosity and thickness of the wood. I then repeat this operation in a freshly concentrated solution of borax in water, but immersing the wood only half as long as before. The wood is then taken out, i and, as soon as dry, it is ready for use, if its hardness and discolour are not objectionable ; or it may be several times washed in boiling water, which will extract the absorbed borax in connection with the coloured matter, and restore its former colour and appearance, more or less, a,t will. It is not necessary to use a very strong solution, but I prefer it on account of the facility for re-using it. Simple as my process is, it may be advantageously altered in some cases. When, thick lumbers are to be treated, it is | well to steam them thoroughly in the ordinary way, and place them in the tank while still warm and Avet. The denser and heavier liquid of borax solution will more quickly peneti ate the pores of the wood, and shorten the operation considerably. If it be desirable to impregnate the wood with tar, coa,l oil, or like substances, they are easily applied, aftei the wood has been thoroughly diied. If it ba desirable to make the wood pei feebly water-tight, shellac, or other gum, or rosin, or any subitance soluble in a boiling solution o? 'borax, and insoluble, ciftor drying, in cold water, may be added to the liciuid of the second operation."

A NOVEL INSECT DESTROYER. A French paper describes an ingenious plan for utilising the old wooden shoes- worn by the "French peasantry. The watchman of a communal forest has exhibited at Colmar some roosting places for titmice, of his own invention, which are neither more nor less than old wooden shoes with a hole in them. The inoects made siich ravages on a property under tho chaise of the watchman in questi n that a 1 tho fruits were devoured. Since Hide artificial nests, winch have been placed about m q *ext naiabe»3, have been inhabited by the titmice, there h*v3 been a great improvement, and the crops gathered in have beeii abundant. The titmouse, it is stated, is one of the most active destroyers of insects to be found among birds.

A YANKEE ON CORNS. Coi'iis a.-c of tv/o kinds, vegetable and animal. Vegetable corns grow in rows, and animal corns grow on toes. There are several kiaila of corn; there is unicorn, Capricorn, field-corn, and ioa-corn, which is the corn that yon feel most. Corns have kernels, and many colonels have corns. Vegetable corn grows .m the ear, but animal corn grows on the feet, at the other end of the body. Another kind of corn is acorn; these grow on oaks, but there is no hoax about the crop. The acorn is corn with an indefinite article; and the toe-corn is a very definite article indeed. Try it and see. Many a man, when he has a corn, wishes it was an acorn. If a farmer manages well, he can get a good deal of corn on an acre; but I know a farmer that has cne corn, that makea the biggest acher on his farm. The bigger the crop of vegetable corn a man raises, the better he likes it; but the bigger the crop of animal corn he raises the better he don't like it. — American paper.

WHAT A WOMAN CAN DO. Aa a wife andmother,'woina]i can make the fortune and happiness of her children ; and even if she did nothing else, surely this would be sufficient destiny. By h6r thrift, prudence, and tact, she can secure to herself and her 'partner a competence in old age, no matter hoy small their beginning, or ho\v adverse a fate occasionally be theirs. By her cheerfulness, Bhe can restore her husband's spirits, shaken by the anxieties of business. By her tender care she can often restore him to health, if disease' has seized upon his overtasked powers. By her counsel

and, her loye.ghe pan win him from bad com* pany, if temptatfen in an evil hour has led him- astray. By her eSanrple and her j>recepts, and her sex's insight Into character, she can rnonld her" children, however diverse their dispositions, into good men andwomenj and, by leading in all things a true and healthful life, she can. refine, elevate, and spiritualise, all who come within reach, so that, others of her sex emulating and assisting her, she can do more to regenerate the world than all the statesmen or reformers that ever legislated. She can do a3 much, alas — perhaps, even more —to degrade man, if she chooses to do it. "Who can estimate the evil that a woman has the power to do 1 .As a wife, ahe can ruin her husband by extravagance, folly, or want of affection. She can make & devil and an outcast of a man, who might otherwise have become a good member of society. She can bring bickering, strife, and perpetual discord into what has been a happy home. She can change the innocent babes whom God has entrusted to her charge, into vile men and viler women, bhe can lower the moral tone of society itself, and thus pollute legislation at the springhead. She can in time become an instrument of evil instead of an angel of good. Instead of making - flowers of truth, purity, »nd spirituality spring up in her footsteps, till th.^ whole world smiles with loveliness that is almost celestial, she can transform it into a black and blasted desert, covered with the scorn of all evil passions, and Swept by the bitter blase of everlasting death. This is what a woman can do for the wrong m well as for the rij*ht. Is her mission a little one ? Has she no "worthy work," as has becomeI the cry of late ? Man may have a harder task to perform, a rougher path to travel, but he has none loftier or more influential than woman's. — Q men.

THE SUGAR MAPLE. A tree which, is useful, both for its wood and for its sugar, is the su -ar maple (acer saccharinuni). It is indigenous and peculiar to America ; and it abounds in the northern parts of the United States, aud iv Canada, where immense quantities of sugars are annually made from it ; and its wood is cut down and sent on rafts down the rivers to the manufacturing cities, in which is highly esteemed, and realises a high p ice. The timber of this speices has a peculiar silky appearance, and is often characterised by beautiful circular curls of fibre, which render it of especial value to cabinetmakers for inlaying. Thin slices of these curls, being cut out and placed iv combination with other woods, in the manufacture of superior kinds of furniture, add much to the value and beauty of such articles. Por carved work it is almost invaluable ; its firmness, closeness, mellowness of tone, and beautiful gyrations of fibre, rendering it, in the hands of a skilled and tasteful workman, susceptible of the most intricate modifications. Its height is from sixty to eighty feet, but its trunk is not so bulky as that Ox the Scotch plane tree or that of the Himalayan species. It is of very rapid growth, generally attaining twothirds of its height in ten yeats, and yielding sugar at a much earlier period in favourable situations. In the United States forests a party of two or three men often make four or five thousand pounds of sugar from the wild maple trees in a season of two months, and they usually realise from twopence to threepence per pound for it in the towns. By those accustomed to it, it is much preferred to the sugar made from the beet root and several other sugar-bearing products, and it is considered fully equal to that manufactured from the cane. It yields, however, to the cane in quantity of saccharine matter ; but, on the other hand, it will flourish where the cane would not thrive, namely, in comparatively cold situations, such as the mountain regions of New South Wales. Another advantage it holds out to the careful and intelligent husbandman in the simple and inexpensive manner in which sugar may be obtained from it. No expensive machineiy is required ; aiii the whole annual process of extracting the sap and manufacturing it into sugar may be performed by an intelligent housewife, assisted by one of her sons or daughters. If fact, the sugar maple might be called "the small farmer's friend," with much propriety j -and might be cultivated with advantage on those portions of the farm which are less adapted for the plough, and. which are usually kept for grass paddocks, Portions of land which are useless for any other conceivable purpose may be turned to profitable account by grabbing up the giiai'ledand unsightly gum-trees, and thro wing in a few of the maple nuts in their room. Precipitous and barren-looking hills may thus be converted, in the course of a few years, into smiling orchards, which, if not valuable for their fruit, are inestimably precious for their sap and timber. A single tree will yield ! annually about five or six pounds of good, wholesome, an 3 palatable sugar, besides ten or twelve pounds of maple honey, which is equal or superior to other honey or treacle for domestic consumption. The maple honey will answer as well as the crystalised sugar for sweetening tea or coffee, and it is commonly used in the United States on bread aud buckwheat cakes. A few dozen of these valuable trees, then, occupying a few acres of otherwise useless rocky hill, would yield sugar enough for the use of a farmer's family, and leave a surplus which would form no inconsiderable item in his annual profits The sap is drawn off in the early spring, when it is ascending. A carpenter's gouge is driveninanupward slanting direction into the bark for the depth of halfan inch, which is gradually and carefully deepened to perhaps two inches. Care, must bo taken, however, not to injure the wood. A small spout is then marked with the orifice.

EDUCATION" OF AGRICULTURISTS, Mr. J. Bailey Denton, of Stevenage, discussing the question of the technical education, of agriculturists, suggests that the appienticeship which should form part of the technical education of a farm lad, if he is to make his labour of more value, and thereby earn more money as wages, is simply the practical servitude in one or more branches of farm work which will make him perfect in those duties bsfore he goes to others. He adds : I have several young workmen under my control, who have risen by stages from earning ss. or 6s. a week to the gaining of 20s. and more. This has only been accomplished by close attention to special duties, and it wa's only last week that I was enabled to place a young man as a gardener at full wa<*es, whom a few years back I had taken from the National School and placed under my own gardener. Such a species of apprenticeship as this, however, should follow appropriate technical teaching at school, and this is not to be secured in our infant and National Schools as they are managed at present. A child who would be interested in hearing and reading of the common things of the farm, such as the habits of the hen, the cow, and the pig, the uses of the mole, the earth-worm, and the crow, and the properties of the thistle, the dock, and twitch-weed, is in a state of utter bewilderment when he is made to look at the absurd drawings of wild animals and out-of-the-way things which are to be seen every day on the walls of our parish schools, dignified with Latin names and grandiloquent descriptions. What does the ploughboy care for the hyaena vulgaria or ignis fatuua ? But try him with a story about the cackling hen and the season of egg-laying and hatching, or about the old dame'a cow and the butter and oheeae that were made from h«r by good treatment, and see if he will not prick up his ears and ask to hear it again and again. How-many of our rural schoolmasters could impart this very common information ? Is there one in a hundred who could have told his pupils that the ladybird, which children like to catea and destroy, is the enemy of the destructive fly, and the friend of every farmer ? .