RANDOM READINGS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XX, Issue 2065, 10 January 1925, Page 6

RANDOM READINGS.

THE FAMILY NAME. The smart young man—his school honors thick upon him, and his inten* tion to teach the world in general, and his father in particular, the manner in which up-to-date commerce should />« conducted—stood earnestly holding forth in his father's office.

"You may rely on me, sir," he was saying, with perfervid emphasis. "I will devote my whole life to the interests of the business. It shall be my whole aim to keep the family name free from stain."

"Good," said the old man, gruffly. "That's the spirit. Tell the office-boy to give you the whiting and ammonia, then go and polish up the brass nameplate on the door.'' EAU-DE-COLOGNE. The toilet-water industry of Cologne was established in the beginning of the seventeenth century. At thnt time the city numbered about fifty thousand inhabitants. I ut the present population is four hundred and fifty thousand. The inventors of toiletwater known as "Eau-de-Cologne" were Paul Feminis and Maria Clementine, a Catholic nun. The?' began on a small scale,, with few persons employed. These employees they did not initiate into the secrets of the whole process, the last and most important mixture being, made by the inventors themselves. Paul Feminis left the secret with the Farina family, while the nun bequeathed the secret to one Peter Schaeben, who had been her assistant for many years. THE SHATTERING SHELL. It has been proved that the comparatively harmless bombarding, so far as wounds are concerned, of a besieged town is terribly demoralising to the bravest men.

When a shell bursts near a group of twenty men, it may kill one and wound two.i while the remaining seventeen escape without a scratch.. It will be found, however, that many of these air t.ever the same men again. No matter how iron-nerved they were before, they are now irresolute and timid, and all their faculties are weakened. Very often they are jeered at by their comrades because of this change. But this is utterly unjust—in fact, their brain and spinal-cord have been injured by being violently shaken against the walls of their bony cavities.

The same thing occurs in railway collisions. People who were robust become quite feeble and nervous, though they may not have received a scratch. This curious state in the case of soldiers is well recognised by doctors under the nam - of the mental injuries of explosives. The injuries are reallv quite as physical as a shattered leg. for they consist of a kind of bruising of the very delicate tissue of the spinal •ord and brain. A DAY OF GLORIOUS ACHIEVEMENTS. October 2 is the anniversary of two brilliant days in English history. On that date, in 14Lj, the English, under an immense disparity in point of numbers, gained a decisive victory over the might and prid;- of the chivalry of France at the village of Ayincourt. Nor was the smaliness of their force (9,000 against 60.00)) the only disadvantage under which they laboured, for fatigue and privation had reduced the small army to a rca'lv pitiable state. Indeed, so deplorable was their condition that after the can'ure of flarfteur the project of re-cmbarkinft for England was seriously d hated in the council of war: but Henry V. indignantly rejected this idea, and his counsel prevailed. I'pwards of seven thousand French knights and gentlemen and one hundred and twenty great lords perished on the fi.ld, while the loss of the English did not exceed sixteen hundred men. Success was in a great measure owe to the splendid work of the F.nffl'sh archers whose arrows threA the French horsemen into hopeless con fusion. Four hundred and thirty nine yeais later— - on the field of Balaclava the British warriors of the nineteenth century rolled back the flood of prrey coated Russians who had captured the Turkish redoubts, in a vain attempt to cut the British communications, This Was the day of the heroic charge of the Light Cavalry Brigade- the gallant Six Hundred, immortalised by Tennyson in his "Charge of the Light Brigade"—and the less famous, but equally gallant and more useful, onslaught of the Heavy Cavalry Brigade —three hundred strong—which, under General Scarlett, routed the Russian cavalry; while the 93rd Highlanders -~"the thin red line"—put a mass of Russian cavalry to flight. ' The Highlanders had been drawn up by Sir Colin Campbell to cover the key to the British position.. The Turks in front had given way, and 1500 horsemen galloped towards the now historic "thin red streak, topped with a line of steel." A volley at 600 yards—a long distance in those days—failed to check the rush, and the 93rd, still drawn up "two deep, r ' were watched with breathless anxiety by the staff and officers on the heights. Only 150 yards remained between the two forces, when a second volley rang ottt. When the »rnoke cleared away the horsemen were seen wheeling at>e*ut and retreating.