GLEANINGS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 933, 17 January 1890, Page 5

GLEANINGS.

REVISED PROVERBS.

That which is attained without difficulty will depart with equal facility. If you possess a feeling of attachment for me, you must also bestow your affections upon my canine animal. Binding assurauces, like the outer envelopment of a pastry, are only fabricated for the purpose of being fractured. UTILITY OF TEPID BATHS. Sir Edwin Chadwick, at the recent Health Congress and Exhibition at Hastings, England, expressed an opinion of the wonderful sani tary effect of bathing in tepid water. The German army, he said, had the lowest death rate of any in Europe, which he attributes to the fact that frequent bathing in warm water is compulsory. TWENTY-EIGHT SLEEPING IN ONE BOOM. In North Carolina, about seven miles west of Hot Springs, there lives a family by the name of Brooks. It is a very interesting one, consisting tf a father, mother, and twenty exceptionally handsome children. Every one is a blonde, with yellow-golden hair and peachy complexion, and all as ignorant, wild, and untutored as they are beautiful. In addition to the above family proper, the two oldest girls are married ; one is a widow with two children, and the other has three children and a husband. Both these little families are living with the old folks at home, making In all a family of twenty-eight when none are missing. The home or log cabin consists of but one room, and that a very small one. The family sleep in berths, arranged line those of a ship.— Louisville Courier.

MRS ALICE SHAW. Mrs Alice Shaw, the American siffleuße, whose whistling feats created a good deal of interest in society a year or two ago, made her first public appearance in London, at her Majesty’s theatre, when she whistled Signor Arditi’s waltz, *ll Baoio.’ La Siffieuse made a sensation, and the result, now that she is fairly coram publico, will be that every young lady with an ear for music will begin to practise this new labial music. This is really a dreadful outlook.

A Thug some time ago made his confession to an Euglish officer. He had committed 700 murders, but he plaintively said : * Ah, sir, if I had not been in prison twelve years the number would have been 1000.

Lady Victoria Campbell, a daughter of the Duke of Argyll, is addressing meetings of young women during her annual visitation of the Western Islands of Scotland, and is everywhere received with much enthusiasm.

It is stated in Brussels that Archduke John of Austria will join the staff of a New York paper. His name has been stricken from the army list.

The principal claimant to the Earldom of Caithness, Scotland, is James Augustus Sinclair, a chartered accountant of Aberdeen. He has four sons, one of whom, John Sunderland Sinclair, is a resident of one of the Dakotas.

An elephant recently died in Ceylon which had served the Public Works Department for over sixty.five years, and had previously worked in various parts of the island for an unknown period.

A new mode of teaching music has been proposed in France, based on the periodicity of the octave. A radical reform is aimed at, the system being expounded in a series of fundamental propositions, such as, musical effect is quite different from acoustic effect ; there can be no physical gamut, a major and a minor, but only one, that of the white notes of the piano called the major, and so on.

A man with an artificial face has been attracting attention at an English wateringplace. He has an artificial cheek, eye, and palate, fitted upon him by a Bristol surgeon. He eats without difficulty and speaks distinctly.

Miss Harriet Colenso, daughter of the late Bishop Colenso, has spent more than £3OOO in the defence of the son and brother of Cetewayo, and other Zulu chiefs, for alleged high treason. During the long trial of Dinuzulu and his friends, nearly all the responsibility of their defence, except aB it was shared by the counsel she employed, lias

been borne by Miss Colenso. She has spent all her fortune in what she considers the cause of justice to the victims of English misrule in Zululand. It is now proposed to appeal to the judicial committee of the Privy Council against the severe sentences imposed, and a Zulu defence fund has been started in England to help Miss Colenzo.