GENERAL EXTRACTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12624, 3 August 1904, Page 3 (Supplement)

GENERAL EXTRACTS.

POTATOES AT £10 TEll OUNCE. Spalding is the "eye" of the potato world, and during the past few mouths it has, of course taken the liveliest interest in watchL and profiting by the rise in the price o „ varieties. Among oilier seedsmen and • growers of the "Metropolis of the Fen," who Save come into public prominence is Mr. George Massey. In a >'« cnt lettor to the * iter Mr Vnsscv mentioned that lie was actuallv selling—not offering for sak-singlo actually selling—not offering for sale—single {tilers'of Eldorado at £10, none of which weighed more than loz, and as the majority wpre under that weight the price per pound worked out to nearly £200. Again, it is reported that two tubers of Eldorado, which were bought by a ft lea foul auctioneer for £19 have just been resold by him for the astounding sum of £25.—The Garden. THE SEXTON IN CANADA. The sexton in Canada is only overworked • for half the year, for it is impossible to dig a grave during (lie winter, and "the vaults are full in consequence until the spring, when funerals take place all day long—in curious contradiction, by the way, to Nature's .scheme of new birth. But an odd-job man (says the Daily Chronicle) is invaluable in the Canadifin'homestead, for Canadian servants, whoso wages begin at £36 per annum, are, it is said, even less satisfactory than those- of whom we complain over liere, and householders, as a rule, prefer to do without. So the sexton is kept pretty busy till the springtime. in sifting cinders and otherwise helping to keep the bid stoves going, on which so much of the indoor comfort depends over there. It seems a come-down for a sexton, but. after all. who could more appropriately deal in ashes? TIIE rCMPKIN EXPLODED. Mrs. J. It. Gallemore. of Fayette, is mourning the loss, tinder peculiar circumstances, of a highly-prized pumpkin. Mrs. Gallemoro's appetite for pumpkin pie becoming somewhat acute, she put- a large representative of that species of vegetable into the oven of her kitchen stove to thaw out. " Not- only," | says 'he Fayette Advertiser, "did the pumpkin thaw out. but it oniric out in a most- unexpected manner. After putting the pumpkin in the oven Mrs. Gallcmoro placed eunuch fuel in the stove to soon give a very hot fire. In a short time (lie family wasstartled at hearing an explosion sounding like the report of a small cannon. On entering the kitchen the doors were found to have blown off the stove and soft, pumpkin and pumpkin seed were scattered all over the kitchen. The family at first were scared pretty near out of their wits. But, of course, after finding out the cause of t-h» explosion, they thought it a great joke—all but Mrs. Gallomore, who mourns the loss of her pumpkin."—Kansas City Journal. JUGGLER WHO IS ALSO A STRONG MAX. Tt is remarkable that most of the lending jugglers have first gained fame as athletes or strong men. Cinque valli travelled with a circus, performing athletic feats and a gymnastic "turn" until a fall from the swing made it necessary that he take up some other branch of work, and Paul Spadoni. who now ranks with Cinquevalli, also originally sought public favour as a muscular marvel. This enables him to accomplish many feats which the lesser jugglers are unable to imitate, such, for instance, as employing cannon balls in place of the light tennis balls usually adopted. Among his more ambitious feats, winch he shows at Proctor's Twenty-third-street Theatre, New York, is the balancing of a dogcart upon his chin. The wheels are removed from the axles and spun upon the shafts, one. shaft being extended above the other, and tiie entire vehicle is then raised and balanced by the juggler, whose bare chin is protected only by a light metal shield. Pie also makes use of an aiftomobile runabout in gome of his tricks. THE DANGEROUS HANDSHAKE. The French journals have recently given publicity to a scientific discovery which may have a considerable influence upon one of the most ordinary usages of social intercourse. One M. Crouzel,.a chemist at Bordeaux, has discovered that the human hand is largely occupied in sowing the seeds of all sorts of diseases. _ The hand, he says, is not. only the most dirty but the most dangerous portion of our anatomy. It contains on the average 83.450,000 bacilli. Hence, he argues, people should never shako hands. We know already that it is dangerous to kiss; but now, a* a French paper puts it' science is no less hostile to friendship than to love. All men, however, are not equal in this matter. You must not- shake hands with a physician. surgeon, hairdresser, or butcher—especially a pork butcher. Workers in metal are. however, much les= dangerous, because the minute metallic particles form, under the influence of the hand's warmth, an antiseptic oxide. It is possible. M. Crouzel says, to protect yourself, if you must shake hands, by using soap and a nail brush for fiv.e minutes, plunging your hand in a warm alkaline solution, rinsing it with sterilised water, drying it on a sterilised rough towel, and finally washing it again in a solution of alcohol and ether. Wo commend this precaution to public men in general and to the President of the United States in particular.London Graphic. SIGHT OF SAVAGES. There prevails a very general impression that the senses of savages are much more acute than those of civilised peoples, and to some extent no doubt this prevalent belief is well grounded, though the investigations of the Cambridge anthropological expedition to Torres Straits dees not substantiate the - whole of the claims put forward on behalf of savages for unusual keenness of sense. As regards vision, at all events, they exhibit no superiority when their sight- is measured by scientific methods, and their sense of colour is very inferior to that of cultured people. The savage is capable of discerning objects at a great distance because ho knows where to look for them and what to look for. but Europeans and others can see quite as far when the object is pointed out to them. The natives of Murray Island, New Guinea, and Sarawak were found to have somewhat keener vision than that of Europeans, inasmuch as being accustomed to look over large unobstructed tracts of land they were able to discern distant objects more readily than people v.-ho live in towns and consequently have their vision limited by obstructions of various sorts. Except, however, in this particular. their sight was generally inferior. The savage's sense of touch is more delicate than that of the average civilised man, the sense of smell is also on the whole more acute, but very great differences were found in these respects among different races, some being as dull and ever duller than ordinary Europeans in smell, hearing, and touch. COTTON-PICKING. Cotton-picking is light labour hut very tedious, and requiring more skin and care than might be supposed. Careless picking is very ruinous, and often results in great losses, and it is hard to impress the light-hearted, happy-go-lucky negro with the importance of his labour. The cot-ton falls out on the ground and is lost, or its delicate purity is soiled with earth and dead fragments, or stained with its own juice. The rate of pay for the cotton-picking season ranges from 45 to 50 cents per hundredweight of seed cotton, and the daily amount picked by the black worker, who has no intention whatever of hurrying himself or of being hurried, is about 1001b a day. A skilled and industrious labourer can pick nearly twice as much in the same time, however, and it has been frequently said— perhaps not quite justlythat the production of cotton in the Southern States is only limited by the amount that can bo gathered. Of a truth, there seems no end to the productiveness o f the wonderful soil of the South —at least, as far as cotton is concerned. In the great cotton belt of America, which is bordered on the north by the 37th parallel of latitude, and on the south only by the sea, ip grown 60 per cent, of all the cotton used in all the world, and yet it is maintained that this colossal industry, which employs over seven millions of people, could he increased eight times over, if required, without even enlarging its boundaries, for the cotton will thrive on all kinds of soil provided only the proper temperature and —even more important—the proper humidity be supplied. Nowadays the married couples of society ! are as much in other people's houses as their own, wliile many girls positively live on the road, making of their homes a species of cloakroom where boxes may be stored.— Hearth and Home. Silk? of many kinds claim attention for the coming season, one of the latest weaves being named "Radium." This has commenced to boom, and ribbon travellers vie with each other in planting a range of radium ribbon upon their clients —British and faoutil African Export Gazette,