Miscellaneous Extracts.

Hastings Standard, Issue 196, 14 December 1896, Page 4

Miscellaneous Extracts.

FAILURE OF TOBACCO CROPS. Bad news for smokers. There are no tobacco crops in Cuba, and the planters are sending to Europe the remnants of old stocks —that is to say, tobacco put aside in former years as not goon enough for the markets. There are still cigars of 185)4 to be had, but when they give out the fastidious consumer will have to fall back on the Borneo and Indian leaf for a year or-so. Mexican cigars may aliord a temporary rescue. They are comparatively cheap ; but the smoker who cannot exist, or thinks he cannot, without the linest and most expensive Ilavannah will be a melancholy object lo his friends. A SLIGHT MISTAKE. It was not a " toney " affair—just a common or garden hop. After the ball was over, a cavalier, who lives in a certain suburb, offered to see one of the. voting ladies home, the offer was accepted. The lady happened to be the (laughter of a small farmer (a very small one), and when she reached the parental abode she passed it by, not choosing that her escort should seethe 'appy onto. Presently they reached a big house, standing in a big paddock. Here the young lady paused, and said: " 1 won't take you any further ; I live here and as it is so very late I won t ask you in." "Don't mention it," replied the escort, " for, as it happens, I live here, too. so we'll go in together." Jt was his home, right enough.—Observer. PEST INTRODUCERS. He who first brought the rabbit to Australia imagined he was doing his countrymen a good turn ; no rv, if he were in the flesh, and get-at-able, he wouldn't be given much for his chance to escape lynching. The unknown individual who introducee the sparrow from England doubtless deemed it an inoffensive little bird, whose twittering would not harm anybody : but the anathemas that have since been heaped upon the head of this acclimatisator woidd damn him to all eternity. So the Scotchman who brought out the thistle, and the Englishman the sweet briar, little dreamed of the irreparable injuries they were inflicting on us.—■ Sydney Truth. SLEEPY CRASS. In some parts of New Mexico there grows a grass which produces a somniferous effect on the animals that graze upon it. Horses, after eating of it, in nearly all cases sleep while standing, while cows and sheep almost invariably lie down. It has occasionally happened that travellers have stopped to allow horses to feed in

places where the grass grew pretty thick and the animals have had time to eat a considerable quantity before its effects manifested themselves. In such cases horses have gone to sleep on the road, and it was hard to rouse them. The effect of the grass passes oft ill an hour or two, and no bad results have ever been noticed oil account of it. Cattle on the ranges frequently come upon patches of this grass, where they feed for perhaps half an hour, and then fall asleep for an hour or more, when they wake up and go on feeding. The programme is repeated perhaps a dozen times, until thirst obliges them to go to water. Whether, like the poppy, the grass contains opium, or whether its sleep-producing property is due to some other substance, has not been determined. AN AMUSING INCIDENT. The Thames, at Windsor, has just been the scene of a rather comical incident. A lady, who had been camping out with a gentleman by the side of the river near Romney Lock, while returning to her riparian abode the other morning, was compelled when near the Home Park to ask her way. The person who pointed out the direction she should take on looking after the lady saw her apparently disappear down the stream bank. Thinking she was in the water lie informed Mr Austed, the Windsor Bridge toll-keeper, who ran immediately to the spot and dived for the body, which was believed to be lying at the bottom of the cut. Meanwhile punts were pushed down and other assistance arrived, but although the water was clear and only Oft deep, no trace of the missing lady could be discovered. Ultimately it was suggested that the camping-out place should be visited, and there she was found " safe and sound," and unconscious of the laudable efforts that had so kindly been made to recover her " remains." A WONDERFUL CAREER. For its prosperity Newcastle is largely indebted to the genius of one man. "As a youth," writes Sir Wemyss Reid, " 1 remember a plain house in Westgate-street, upon the door was a worn brass plate bearing the words, " Mr. Armstrong solicitor." The Mr. Armstrong of -10 years ago was an eminently respectable member of his profession. Some good people, it is true, shook their heads when they hoard that, instead of attending to conveyances and writs and mortgages, he had taken to dabbling in mechanics. Not that way does fortune lie in the profession of the law. But one day I was taken as a boy to see a remarkable new toy---it seemed nothing more—that had been placed upon the Quayside at Newcastle, where a few small steamers and Dutch merchantmen were in the habit of coming with cargo. It looked like a metal box, with some curious handles not unlike water taps upon the lid. A good natured workman turned one of these handles, and lo ! as he did so, a great crane hard by -rattled its chain and slowly but surely swang a heavy load into the air. It was like magic. " Now try it yourself," said the man, as he stopped the movement of the crane. Timidly I moved the handle, and straightway the miracle was repeated. At the touch of a child the heavy load was at once borne upwards. " It's arl dune by watter," said the man, " and it's Armstrong the solicitor in Westgate-street that invented it." That was the first hydraulic crane. " Mr. Armstrong, solicitor," had found his true calling in life. He still kept up the practice of his profession. But he bought a small bit of ground by the side of the Tyne, away from the town on the Scotswood road, and there he raised a modest building within which the manufacture of his new hydraulic machinery was undertaken. From that humble beginning of more than 40 years ago has sprung the vast Elswick establishment, which knows only one rival in Europe. Fifteen thousand workmen are busy from day to day at furnace, forge and lathe. Where once the flower bloomed and the cattle fed on the riverside meadows there is now a range of industrial buildings a mile in length ; and a whole town has grown up in that which I can still remember as rustic Elswick —the place where as a boy I roamed in the fields, or rowed in one of Harry Clasper's boats upon the river."