Scraps.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXX, Issue 75, 17 January 1872, Page 5

Scraps.

Things in Tasmania are in such a depressed Bfcate that the very thieves, are reported to be leaving the colony. It is proposed in Tasmania to induce the IC native-born " to settle on the lands by offering to them the same inducements as are offered to immigrants from Europe. An animated discusBion on the subject has taken place in Parliament. Victoria has 58,506 miners, of whom 43,359 are Europeans, and 15,147 Chinese. Of the former, 27,026 are engaged in alluvial, and 16,333 in quartz mining. Only eighty-nine of the Chinese are quartz miners. The total value of the mining plant in the colony is £'2,097,089. All accounts received from Chicago show that fully one-half of the safes exposed to the lute fire failed to preserve their contents, the larger and first- cluas safes of the best makers not excepted. The great requisite of a fire-proof Bafe is now more than ever the study and object of many inventive geniuses. At the trial of a cattle-stealing case at Sydney, recently, on the jury bringing in a verdict of not guilty, the Judge remarked, " Very well ; I entertain no doubt the prisoners are not guilty, as you say so, but all I can say is, that it is one of the plainest cases I ever tried in the course of thirty-five years." The other day the carriage of Prince Torlonia ■was fired at by brigands as ifc was passing from his villa at Castelgandalfo to Rome. One of the ladies who accompanied the Princess Torlonia discovered, on arriving at home, a bullet lodged in her chignon, and two other bullets wero found in the carriage case. The authorities have not yet arrested any one. We see by an English paper that the Queen of the Belgians has been summoned by a dressmaker to pay her bill, amounting to 67,000 francs. Her Majesty refuses to discharge it on the grounds that the prices are exorbitant. The London Milk Journal says :—": — " That cowe have memory, language, signs, and the means of enjoying pleasant association, combining for aggressive purposes, has been recognised, but Bcarcely to the extent the subject merits. Travelling in Italy many years ago, we visited Borne of the dairy farms in the neighbourhood of Ferrara. Interspersed among much of the low-lying, unhealthy land, remarkable for the prevalence on it of very fatal forms of antrax in the summer season, are fine undulating pasture lands, and the fields are of great extent. We happened to stop afc a farm-house one fine afternoon when the cows •were about to bo milked. A herd of over one hundred were grazing homewards. The women took their position with stool and pail close to the house, and as the cows approached names ■were called out, which at first were, wo thought, addressed to the milkmaids. Rosa, Florenza, Giulia, Sposa, and many names which were noted by ub at the time, were called out by the overseer, or one of the women, and we wero astonished to see cow after cow feeding or chewing the cud, and make direct, sometimes afc a trot, for the woman who usually milked her. The practice, we found, was not confined to one farm ; all the cows on each farm knew their respective names, and took up their position ; jusfc as readily as the individual members of some large herds in this country turning from the fields to take up their places in the sheds." Two rival belles met afc a ball. " How well you look under gaslight !" exclaimed one, with a Bfcress on the word gaslight. " And how charming you are in the dark!" answered the other. An American author has reason to believe that when the wages of the mechanics are raised to eight and ten dollars a day the workmen will not come at all, they will merely Bend their cards. Can you realize Mrs. Malaprop's bewilderment afc hearing her grandson read from an article in the paper about Rome — "The ground is so parched that it is full of fishers" ? A coloured orator in Ohio the other day demonstrated the liberality of his views by exclaiming, " I pray I may live to see the day when the coloured man may forget his prejudices co far as to be willing to receive all other races as his equals." Sir Walter Scott once gave his daughter Anne a useful rebuke, She happened to say of something she could not abide it — it was vulgar. "My love," said her father, "you speak like a very young lady ; do you know, after all, the meaning of the word vulgar ? 'Tis only common ; nothing that is common, except wickedness, can deserve to be spoken of in a tone of contempt ; and when you have lived to my yeai-B, you will be disposed to agree with me in thnnking God that nothing really worth having or caring about in thin world is uncommon." The Use of a Long Nose.— The following good story is told of Mozart at the time he was a pupil of Haydn : Haydn had challenged Mozart to complete a piece of music which he could not play at sight. Mozart accepted the challenge, and a champagne supper was to be the forfeit. Everything being arranged between the two co.mposers, Mozart took his pen and a sheet of paper, and in five minutes dashed oil' a sheet of music, and, much to the surprise- of Haydn, handed it to him, saying : " There is a piece of music which you cannot play, aud I can ; you are to have the first trial." Haydn smiled comtemptuously at the visionary presumption of his pupil, and placing the notes before him, struck the keys of the instrument. Surprised afc its simplicity, he dashed away till he reached the middle of the piece, when stopping very suddenly, he exclaimed: "Ah! How's this, Mozart? How's this? Here are my hands stretched out to both ends of the piano, yet there is a middle key to be touched. Nobody can play such music — not even the composer himself." Mozart smiled at the half-excited indignation and perplexity of the great master, and taking the seat he had quitted, struck the instrument with such an air of self-assurance that Haydn began to think himself duped. Running along the simple passages, .he came to the part which hia teacher had pro-

nounced impossible to be played. Mozart, ifc must bo remarked, -was favoured, or afc least endowed, with, an extremely long nose. Reaching the difficult passage, he stretched both hands to the extreme ends of the piano, and, leaning forward, bobbed his nose against the middle bey, which nobody could play. Haydn burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, ; and, after acknowing that he was beaten, he declared that nature had endowed Mozart with a capacity for music which he had never before discovered. What was Sated in Paeis. — At the recent annual meeting of the five Academies of Paris, M. Jules Simon selected for his subject the national disasters. After describing the burning of the Tuileries and other buildings, he thus continued :—": — " The library in the Rue de Richelieu has lost neither a volume, a medal, nor an engraving. The national archives and the history of France is saved. The other public libraries — those of the Arsenal, Sainte Q-enevieve, Mazarine, the Sorbonne, the Luxembourg, and the Corps Legislatif, so magnificently decorated by Eugine Dalacroix, remain intact. The National Printing Office, and the Mint, have escaped ; and the Gobelins, which was supposed to have been entirely destroyed, though it suffered cruelly, has been able to commence work. The Museum of the Luxembourg, the Hotel de Cluny, with its marvels, the School of Fine Arts, the Sainte Chapelle, Notre Dame, Saint G-errnan l'Auxerrois, and Saint Germain dcs Fres, have escaped the projectiles of the enemy and the torch of the Commune. Europe can return ; for to-day, as yesterday, we are the first city in the world for study {sic.) Even the ruins will soon disappear. It is said that the Municipal Council has resolved to rebuild the Hotel de Ville after the conception of Domenco Boccadora. One of our greatest artists will give us back the Tuileries under the elegant form given to the palace by Philibert Delorme. Open arcades, taking the place of the buildingß raised by Jean Bullant and Pere Ducereau, will connect the new palace with the two wings of the Louvre, and the Place dv Carrousel will thus be in direct communication with the gardens," &c. COLONIAL PROTECTION A3 VIEWED IN EnGland. — Morgan's Trade Journal, of the Ist of November last, has the following : — " A striking proof of Protectionist principles and practice comes to us from the antipodes. They must bo in the ascendancy in the colony when the Victorian Legislature contemplates the imposition of twenty per cent, ad valorem duties on imports. Differential duties are now out of fashion, so that the mother country is treated quite the same as all other States. Of course it consists neither with our principles nor our interest to retaliate, but there Beems to be a grievous want of generosity on the part of our fellow.-countrymen in Australia, thus uncivilly to shut the door in our faces. They are working people who in this country and in the colony are more immediately affected by protection. Here, so far as the action of the Victorians can affect us, our working people are deprived of bread in the interest of their fellow-labourers on the other side of the globe. Had we dealt thus with them, and refused to receive but under a heavy impost the wool, cotton, copper ore, or the gold of Australia, the commercial world would have resounded with their complaints. "We know very well that to do so would in effect be to tax ourselves, and not less certain do the Victorians tax themselves by protectionist duties. Every article of foreign manufacture that is excluded by a 20 per cent, duty insures that said article is more than 20 per cent, dearer to native consumers who rely on native manufacture. Protectionist duties are just bounties on native indplence and incompetence, and they rob the great bulk of consumers to gratify the interest and the avarice of the few. Nothing could be more destructive of the advance of a colony than protectionism. By the nature of things, a new settlement is a producer of the raw material of manufacture, and an intelligent regard to that fact should dictate the commercial policy proper to such plceas. Their interest in every way is bound up with the cause of free trade, in order that the raw materials which they produce should, with the least possible pecuniary hindrance, find their way into immediate use." The Use of Soluble Glass joe rendering Wood Fireproof. — We can scarcely expect that the building of wooden houses will hereafter in all cases be forbidden by law, and no fireproof material has yet been discovered whicli can take the place of wood, which now enters into the construction of both brick and stone houses. Iron beams and columns have proved entirely inadequate to withstand an intense heat. They are, under such circumstances, but little, if at all, better than wooden ones. They twist and curl to such an extent that, in Chicago, buildings, it is said, fell down owing to the heat from neighbouring fires. We can, however, with but little trouble and expense, render wood almost as passive with regard to fire as brick or stone ; and we think that this precaution should be insisted upon by municipal authorities. The process to whicli we allude, and on which there exists no patent, so that any one who likes can try it, is briefly as follows : — The dried lumber is soaked for a short time in a solution of soluble glass, a silicate of soda or potash, and then immersed in a bath of lime water. In this way the silicate of soda is decomposed, and a silicate of lime formed in the pores of the wood. This substance occurs in nature as a mineral known as Wollastonite, and it is both fireproof and insoluble in water, so that wood once treated in this way will never change its qualities. Soluble glass is largely manufactured in this country, and used for a variety of purposes. — American paper. Norton and Co.'s Watches. — The 12-dollar Lever Watch, No. 13,580, purchased from Chas. P. Norton and Co., 86 Nassau-street, New York, January sth, has been carried by me over six montliß, with a total variation in time of only 26 Beconds, without the slightest regulating, and presents the same brilliancy of colour as when purchased.— James R. Wilson, Sec. A.S.M. Co., N.Y—New York, July 80, 1870. |