TRIALS OF A LECTURER.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXV, Issue LXV, 15 November 1913, Page 9

TRIALS OF A LECTURER.

Several amusing s rones of his lectuf"--h\fr experiences were told in London by" Sir' Ernest Shackleton, the Antarctcic explorer. « One day when in Scotland golfing, after his first expedition, he received a letter from Harrow School asking him to give a lecture. He did not wnnt to go. so he wrote fixing a prohibitive price, as he thought —a fee of £30. exclusive of expenses. To his amazement the offer was accepted, and he gave the lecture. On the strength of that he wrote to the authorities at Eton and offered his services at an eoual rate. The reply came back, "Dear Sir,—This is five times as much as we pay to really first-class lecturers."

His audience at Leith was once so small that he went to the cabman he had left outside and 6aid, "I will pay for someone to hold the horse and you can come in' and hear the lecture." "Oh, no, thank you," said the cabman ; "I am all right where lam. 1 Afterwards, with his wife, he was counting his losses and said, "Twentyfive people at Is a head —that makes the total receipts £1 55." "But," said his wife, "you must deduct 2s from that. I sent the cook and one of the maids."

For greatest efficiency, the brakes of a car should have one square inch of braking surface for every ten pounds of gross ear weight, according to the experiments of Professor C. B. Veal.

The ancient Hindus were skilled surgeons, and their earliest w°r^s mention nol less than 125 surgical instruments for many difficult operations.