Odds and Ends.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 347, 5 October 1878, Page 3

Odds and Ends.

Does a small waist enchance a lady's beauty ? Corset does. Why is chess a decidedly honorable game ? Because you always " act on the square." It takes less time to get over one's misfortune than to be reconciled to a neighbor's good fortune. The Crown Princess of JDermarkis the tallest princess in the world. She measures six feet two inches. Them: isn't as much fuss made over the inauguration of a hoy's first pants' pocket as there is over the laying of a corner stone, but there are more things put in it. A Scotch nobleman one day visited a lawyer at his office, in which, at t e time, there wa3 a blazing fire, which led him to exclaim, Mr. , " your office is as hot as an oven." " So it should be, my lord," replied the lawyer, " it is here I make my bread." The financial newspapers in the East are urging our capitalists to lend money to Russia. We advise them not to do it. They will never get a cent back. Over four years ago a resident of Petaluma wrote direct to the Czar for a box of Russian salve, enclosing the money. Not a word has he ever heard in reply, to this day. Nothing but his regard for Nicholas' family has prevented his exposing the whole matter in the Petaluma Bugle long ago. An English gentleman once fell from his horse and injured his thumb. The pain increasing he was obliged to send for a surgeon. One day the doctor was unable to visit his patient, and therefore sent his son instead. " Have you visited the Englishman ?" said the father in the evening. " Yes," replied the young man, "and I have drawn out a thorn which I found to be the chief cause of his agony." " Fool !" exclaimed the father, "I trusted you had more sense ; now there is an end to the job !" Some amusing anecdotes have been going the round of the German papers about Lord Beaconsrield, whom they represent as the wit of the Congress. One story is that on Prince Bismarck mentioning, two days before the Treaty was signed, that he had arranged to leave Berlin that day, Lord Beaconsfield suggested that a hitch might occur, and that this was selling the bear's skin before killing the bear. " Kill it, then," said the Prince. " I mean to kill it," replied Lord Beaconsfield, alluding to a popular psexxdonym for Russia. Queen Victoria, says sheia qxxite satisfied with the result of the late Congress, except that she regrets this country was not roped into the negotiations, as she understands that Mrs. Hayes has a certain sxire recipe for preventing preserved quinces from turning sour, and which the latter won't tell anybody. She thinks Beaconsfield would hav.i wrung it out of this Government if he had a good chance. The Prime Minister, however, has promised to send a new Ambassador to Washington whose wife is more of a qunce diplomatist than is Lady Thornton. If that fails, her Majestv says grimly, she will try what a few ironclads will dp. Never have we seen two face 3 more painful to look at than those of Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbxxry as they passed slowly ixp to the seat of the Lord Mayor in the Guildhall Library. The countenance of the Prime Minister was of a far more ghastly pallor than xisual, and the only trace of life which it exhibited was a sepulchral and fearfully artificial smile. The really tragic effect was hightened by the Court uniform, the bran-new ribbon f.f the Garter, and the flash and sparkle of Sir R. Wallace's diamond star. Lord Salisbury looked in the last stage of physical exhaustion, a good twenty years older even than . on the day of his return from Berlin. His gaze was fixed to the ground, as if he was not too proud of the' company in which he found himself, and his face seemed to quiver with intense and suppressed excitement. If this was the progress of triumph, what, we; wonder, woxxld that of humiliation have been like 1 . Thus says the World. " ' ' .. ", iT is not oiten the Town Crier's cynical lip has, occasion to uncurl, but for a moment we. must desist' from throwing figurative bricks at the bends of mankind to pat a fellow-creature, and a school-girl at that, upon the back. Last Wednesday a groixp of young females, just out of school, were standing; oh Geary-: street, hard by where an old mason was mending the; street-crossing. Fiom time to time a phrase of semihoodlum slang reached his ears,, and at last one expression, which caused him to look up from his work with genuine amazement. " Do you know what you are saying?" he asked, "If yon kn»w what those

words nieant," he continued, kindly, " I am sure you would never use them." -The party looked indignant *nd moved off much disconcerted. After awhile the girls paused, hesitated, and then one brave ruiss, with flaming cheeks, returned. Holding out her little gloved:hand to the mason, she said resolutely, .Sir, you are fight ; we thank you very much and will remember what you say." The. workman stood up. wiped his hand on his apron, gravely saluted the voung ladr and then went on with his work, remarkin?, " You've the making of a good woman in you, little one. We believe he was right.—San Francisco News Letter. THE NEWSPAPERTurn to the press—its teeming sheets survey, Big with the wonders of each passing day; Births, deaths and weddings, forgeries, fires and wrecks, Harangues and hailstones, brawls and broken necks. Trade hardly deems the busy day begun Till his keen eye along the sheet has run ; The blooming daughter throws her needle by, And reads her schoolmate's marriage with a sigh ; While the grave mother puts her glasses on And gives a tear to some old crone that's gone. The Preacher, too, his Sunday theme lays down, To know what last new folly fills the town ; Lively or sad, life's meanest, mightiest things, The fate of fighting cocks, or fighting kings. — Charles Spraffue. If there is any human being says the (San Francisco Nevjs Letter) who doesn't know anything, and is conceited about it, an agricultural paper editor is that person. The other day one attended an agricultural fair at Marysville. Among other valuable information he dispensed to the farmers was the fact that they knew really nothing about sheep shearing. The editor said he would disclose a method that would result in twice as much wool, and save lots of time. The next day a lot of sheep men solemnly led him to one of the prize pens, presented him with a pair of shears, and asked him to elucidate his system. The ! editor wished the simple-minded rustics in the bottomless pit ; but there was no help for it, so he took off his coat and sailed in. ' After some difficulty, and bursting four suspender buttons, he managed to seize an old ram and threw hi-neck over his shoulders in the orthodo < way. The first clip he gave, the ram jabbed his starboard horn in the editor's ear, ripped his vest open with a slap of the fore leg, and kicked down a section of fence with his hin .1 ones. With the next frantic jab of the shears-he nearly cut the ram's throat; and when the dust, wool, blood, broadcloth, and things stopped flying..they picked up the journalist from the wreck, and sent him home on a shutter. He says now that if he eve r recovers from a couple of bursted blood vessels, he will eat nothing but mutton for the next six years. . He is bound to get even somehow. The French Press reporters are an omniverous class, who will take almost everything that is given to them, even if they do not burst their coat-sleeves reaching for things, as is the case with their fraternity in this but never mind about that now. Paris correspondents say that whenever the Grand Jury starts to inspect any given department, the Press Gang, to the number r.f a couple of hundred, promptly join in and sample everything with the most thoroughness. For illustration, when the California wine exhibit was reached the jury found the reporters had got a little ahettd of them, and every drop of our native (alleged) champagne had been quietly put away. They testified as to its merits, however. They even got away witha whole hogshead of Nantucket codfish, and the Commission found thorn blandly picking their teeth with the bones, and waiting for the canned Saddle Rock oysters to bo opened. This so exasperated Governor McCormick, our Cominissioner-in-Chief. that he called a council of war, in which a most horrible job was put up on the unsuspecting scribes. A gross of Seidlitz was qnietlv procured from the Drug Department, and abnut fifty pitchers were filled with water in which the white papers had been mixed. The attendants then supplied the cohort with glasses and filled the same, the Governor annoxxneed that he desired their best attention to a celebrated American mineral water. He proposed a toast, rs is the custom, and the glasses were solemnly drainet. He then ask-d them to sample another and equally famoxx-'American spa ; and the glasses were refilled with thn blue papers, mingled this time with the beverage. When all was ready, McCormick gave " The French Press.'* The army of reporters solemnly bowed and emptied their goblets. As they did so, two hundred smothered shrieks were heard, and two hundred human fountains began to gush over the spectators. When the last rep rter ceased bubbling over, the entire Commission was being escorted out of the bxxilding in- the midst of a hollow square formed by the marines. -Not a solitary prize will ba awarded to this country if the French newspaper men: can help it.— Neivs Letter. A man out in Beloit, Wis., pid 300 dollars not long ago for the pri ilege of kissing another roan's wife. He must have had queer notions of domestic economy, when hej could have kissed his own. wife for a silk dress costing half the money.