One Thing and Another.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 915, 13 September 1889, Page 6

One Thing and Another.

Leaving one’s card at the graves of distinguished people is one of the latest forms of fashionable idiocy. * Sugar Weddings,’ four weeks after marriage, are the latest device of married Viennese who wish to keep themselves happy. . A remarkable condition, known as nightbindness, often results from retinal exhaustion, duo to protracted exposure to bright light, aud many interesting cases have been placed en record. In many towns in Germany and Switzerland are found hotels owned by shareholders, which are entirely under the management of the * Evangelical Union.’ In some of them there is evening prayer at 9.30 every evening, conducted by the house. A gentleman, being in company with the Earl of Chatham, waa asked by his Lordship I'or his definition of,wit. * Wit,' he replied, * my Lord, is what a pension would be, giveu by your Lordship to your humble servant a good thing well applied. According to Dr Harrington, of the Harvard Medical School, the diabetic foods commonly sold contain but a trifle less starch than ordinary bread, and he points out the danger which attends their use by persons suffering from diabetes, and who accept as true that these foods are non-starohy. Moderate work, alternating with moderate rest, gives a brain which, taking the whole life through, will accomplish the most and the be3t work of which a human being is capable; The brains are to be improved and developed by reasonable exercise and reasonable rest. The one is as essential as the other.

The term * watch ’ as applied to a pocket timepiece, is a comparatively modern usage of the word. The probable derivation of its adoption is that as the period of time of a guard, known as a watch, would be set by a timepiece, the word came to signify both duty and the instrument by which it was regulated. The serious results of lace work, in which the eyes are severely taxed, compelling nearly all who work at it to use magnifying glasses and leading to premature decay of the eyes and loss of vision, and the impairment of vision complained of by girls whe work at night, on articles of dress of a black colour, are sufficient evidence cf the injurious effects of sewing if too flue or prolonged, or performed under unfavourable conditions of light. It has been calculated that a single gas-jet with an ordinary burner produces, in the course of an"hour, as much carbonic acid as seven adult human beings. To warm yourselves, therefore, by means of burning gas, without providing au effectual means of escape for the invisible smoke that it produces, is to expose yourselves to great risk of gradual deterioration of health, and often of immediate headache, from the noxious fumes that you take into your bodies.