THE ASTRONOMER & THE FIREFLY.

Northern Advocate, 21 January 1888, Page 3

THE ASTRONOMER & THE FIREFLY.

An uncommonly wicked boy lives in Wash* ington. He visited the observatory a few days ago with a large firefly he had caught, and with the aid of some mucilage stuck in the centre of the largest lens of the telescope. That night, wht-n the astronomer went to work he perceived a blaze of light apparently in the heavens, and what amazed him the more was that it would give a couple of spurts and then die out, only to burst forth in a second or two. He examined it carefully for a few minutes, and then began to do sums to find where in the heavens that extraordinary star was placed. He thought he had found the locality, and the next morning he telegraphed all over the universe that he had discovered a new and remarkable star of the third magnitude in the Orion.

In a day or two all the astronomers of Europe and America were studying Orion. They gazed at it for hours until they were mad, and then they began to telegraph to the man at Washington to know what he meant. The discoverer took another look, and found that the new star had moved 18,000,000 miles, in 24 hours, and upon examining it closely he was alarmed to perceive it had legs. When he went on the dome the next morning to polish up the glass he found the lightning buz. The bill for telegraphing despatches amounted to £520; and now the astronomer wants to find that boy.

The parents of a pair of twins named one Simul and the other Taneous, because they were borne at the same time.

A Recantation.— Judge : " You told the plaintiff that he was aot even good enough for the gallows. That is a most offensive expression, and I must ask you to withdraw it ; otherwise I shall have to order you to prison for contempt of court." Defendant : " Well, I acknowledged that I was worng, he is good enough for the gallows."

He who will stop every man's mouth will need a great deal of meal.

How much pain the evils have cost us that have never happened. By litigation we often win a cat and lose a cow. — Chinese proverb. >j Anger is danger, even the anger of the riglfteous is not always righteous anger. If thou hast but little, make it not less by murmuring. If thou hast enough, make it not too much by unthnakfulness. The ideal of high breeding is reached by those who best fulfil their duty to tneir neighbour, and who best succeed in carrying out the precepts to do as they would be done by through all the difficulties with which the exigencies of Bociallife surround it.

The late Dr. Bethune once asked a morose and miserable man how he was getting along. The man replied : " What business is it of yours?" Said the Doctor: "Oh, eir, I am one of those who take an interest in even the meanest of God's creatures ! "

A Sure Way. — " I say, old man," remarked Robinson to his friend Jones, who is almost a living skeleton, " I'll tell you how you can get fat in a very short timo if you waut t\" "How?" demanded Jones, eagerly. "L'uya prize pig," chuckled Robinson, as he yam.hoi around the corner.

A poet sends us a contribution, entitled "Why do I live?" After reading the 12 stanzas of the conundrum we are reluctantly compelled to give it up.

"Bough on Itch." — "Rough on T«<:h" cures skin humours, eruptions, ring worm, tetter, salt rheum, frosted feet, chilblains, itch, poison, barber's itch.