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New Zealand Mail, Issue 1260, 23 April 1896, Page 11

In China there is a strange profession for ladies—strange because openly and handsomely remunerated. It is carried on by elderly ladies, who go the round of tho best houses, announcing their coming by beating a drum, and offering their services to amuse the lady of the house. This offer accepted, they sit down and tell tho latest scandals and the newest stories and oil dilr.

Teeth-reading is the latest method of investigating character. Tho science is only in its infancy yet, but the following are two or three of the items which its professors assert to be incontrovertible. Teeth that are long and narrow denote vanity • projectors indicate a grasping disposition; treachery is best known by small, white separated molars; inconstancy by wide, overlapping teeth ; and tho possessor of wide, separated ivories is sure to tell all ho knows.

Stammerers rarely, if ever, show any impediment of speech when speaking in whispers. On this fact a new method of treatment lias been founded, which is as follows : —For the first ten days speaking is prohibited. This will allow' rest to the voice, and constitute the preliminary stage of treatment. During the next ten days speaking is permissible in a whispering voice, and in tho course of tho next fifteen days the ordinary conversational lono may be gradually employed.

’Fliis is indeed comforting news for smokers. An accomplished bacteriologist has reported a curious experiment. Having'' cultivated some bacteria from tho mouth and throat, ho subjected them to tobacco smoke in a specially designed apparatus, so as not to expose them more than they would be exposed in ordinary inhalation by the mouth. They were then returned to a broth culture, and found to bo sterilised—that is, their vitality was gone, they ceased to grow, and they were virtually destroyed. He regards the inference as irresistible.