Spray.

Golden Bay Argus, Volume VI, Issue 155, 18 May 1899, Page 3

Spray.

Parliament of Ladies.

Of all the substitutes suggested for the House of Lords, in case that august obstruction to rash legislation is abolished, the most original is that which the English women suffragists propose to inaugurate. It is to be known as the Parliament of Ladies. Let'it not be. supposed that this is a jest. It is taken—by the ladies themselves—most seriously. No less a person than Mrs. Sarah Grand, of " Heavenly Twins" fame, has allowed herself to be interviewed on the subject. She is an advocate of the project ; but she is not so positive about the way In which the change is to be brought about. She says : " The method of abolishing the House of Lords, and inaugurating the Parliament of Lauies, I leave to the wiseacres." Perhaps we had better leave it to them, too. A Nautical Lay. " Now write me instanter a nautical lay !" The editor said to the poet one day. " A nautical lay !" thought the poet, aghast. " 1 feel ' all at sea' when I think of a mast !" He went home, amUgot out pen, paper, and ink, And tapped at his forehead until it grew pink ; And then, after pouring some rum down his throat, This is the nautical lay that he wrote : " The good ship Miranda her anchor did weigh : The pullets on board didn't look very gay, But one of them laid a big egg ev'ry day !" And that was the end of his " nautical lay !" A Broken Ideal. Mamma: "And so he complained of your biscuits, did he ? Well, I wouldn't mind ; you will soon learn to make better ones, and then you will please him." New Wife : " But it is not that, mamma ; I don't mind his finding fault with my cooking. But to think that love, which I supposed was a sentiment of the heart, is only an affair of the stomach !" The Brunette Type. The brunette type is becoming more numerous in England and on the Continent generally. Mr. Gladstone, who observes most things, said some years ago that light-haired people were far less numerous than in his youth. As a result of an interesting calculation, a scientist has learned that 78.5 per cent of the brunettes have husbands, while only 68 per cent of the blondes are married. From this it appears that a brunette has ten chances of being wedded to the nine chances of the blonde. The scientist goes on to argue that " the English are becoming darker, because 'the men persist In selecting 4he dark-haired women as wives." The same thing is happening in Germany, in France, in Switzerland, and elsewhere on Che Continent. The Active "Marm." In a certain church, within the environs of Sheffield, worships a schoolmistress, whose authority is often called into activity during divine service. A few Sundays ago she was horrified at seeing a grandfather, who had brought an unruly grandchild to church, extend a long and bony finger at her, and saying in a very audible whisper, " Hist : Hist ! There's tha' missus." Last Sunday, from another parent, came the very audible whisper, " Miss , please look at May, she is a naughty girl." A Clever Device. A Bristol doctor has devised a clever way of dealing with a patient who won't take enough exercise. He gives him a pair of spectacles which he bids him put on when about to commence his daily walk. The patient sees, as he thinks, a couple of pretty girls in front of him, and gives chase, but he can never come up with them. This goes on until the patient walks all his fat off and is cured. Of course the pretty girls are painted on the spectacles. The Danger of Ambiguity. * Said the old fish to the young fish : " There is a man on the bank with an artificial fly ; now take care of It." " Oh, that's all right," said the young fish. " I have told you already," said his mother, " that you had better not stay here. Come, take your- hook." " Unfortunately I have done so already," replied the youngster, while he wao being landed. The Old Way. My dead Love came to me, and said — " God gives me one hour's rest To spend upon the earth with thee ; How shall we spend it best ?" " Why, as of old," I said, and so We quarrelled as of old. But when I turned to make my peace, Tha>t one short hour was told. —Stephen Phillips. Pedantry. There are many ways of saying " It's getting late, I must go to bed," but only Sir Thomas Browne could thus express it : " But the quincunx of heaven runs low, and 'tis 'time to close the five ports of knowledge. ... To keep our eyes open longer were but to act our antipodes. The huntsmen are up in America, and they are already past their first sleep in Persia." Unfortunately, Browne was a pedant, and the fine flame of his imagination was often, so to say, smothered and smoked by the fuel of learning heaped upon it. Quite Clear. On tl.j M 's plantation in Mississippi lives an old " before the war" darky, too old to do- any work harder than throwing feed to the poultry. She has known no other home, and is a character. Visitors to the plantation always go to her cabin, and to their question, " How are you this morning, Aunt Chris ?" never fail to receive the following reply : " Well, honey, I'm kinder oncomplicated. De superfluity ob de mornin' done taken de vivosity outen de air and left me de consequence ob comprehension." The House Fly. Sir John Lubbock says that the house fly, which produces the sound F, vibrates its wings 20,100 times a minute or 335 a second ; and the bee, which makes the sound of A, as many as 26,000. or over 430 a second. On the contrary, a tired bee hums on E, and vibrates its wings only 300 times a second. Marey has succeeded in confirming these numbers. He fixed a fly so that the tip of the wing just touched a cylinder covered with smoked paper moved by clockwork. Each stroke of ithe wing caused a perceptible mark, and there were actually 336 strokes in a second, agreeing almost exactly with the number inferred from the note produced. Too Confident. When Mr. Gladstone was a young student, he met with an amusing disaster in the examination-room. It was when he went in for his " Smalls" at Oxford.

" What books do you take up ?" the examiner asked of him. " It is immaterial to me," replied Mr. Gladstone. " Pray examine me in any book you like." Then the examiner grinned an ugly and malicious grin, and produced a corrupt and crabbed chorus from one of the less read plays of Aristophanes, and invited Mr. Gladstone to translate it. He could not do so. No one could have done so Who had not seen it before, and the result was that Mr. Gladstone was ploughed for " Smalls," and was more careful when he tried a second time.