THE CURIOSITY SHOP.

New Zealand Times, Volume LV, Issue 2043, 28 October 1893, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE CURIOSITY SHOP.

AJACCIO. Birthplace of th© Great Napoleon and Old-* ©st Town In Corsica. > Very ancient is the history of AjaccioJ the capital as well as the oldest town off, Corsica. Mentioned by Ptolemy under the! name Urcinium, it was known as Adja- : cium iu the middle ages. The moderm town, with the citadel, was founded about; 1493 by the Bank of St. George of Genoa, a, company analagous to the East India com-i pany, and in 1558 the French under Marc-j chal Thermes obtained possession of Ajac-i cio only to yield it again, however, six; years later by the treaty of Chateau Cam-| bresis to that hated and tyrannous rule. , Space fails to follow the vicissitudes of! the island to its present position of a French* department, but there is one name, Napo-I leon Bonaparte, which can never be forgot-! ten in Ajaccio, and almost every street and l , sight speaks of him and his family. His; marble figure surmounts the fountain iul the Place du Marche, but far finer is the; bronze monument by Viollet-le-Duc in the| Place Bonaparte, with the first emperor on horseback in the middle, looking seaward,; and his brothers—Joseph, Lucien, Louis,; Jerome—standing at each corner, all five ini Roman togas and Napoleon with a laurelj wreath upon his head., i The chief sight of Ajaccio is the three storied house in the Place Letizia where hewas born, and it is pathetic to wanderj through the rooms, with their quaint, old| fashioned furniture faded and passing toi decay, and think of the strange experiences! of the eight young lives which began sol merrily within them. The nursery and! Napoleon’s little sleeping room are shown,) and an interesting creche, or representation, of the nativity, with ivory figures, which he brought from Egypt as a present for his mother. The house and little garden iu front belong now to the Empress Eugenie, who, iu one room, has placed a delightful little boyish bust of the late prince imperial. In the Hotel de Yille are many interesting relics of the Bonaparte family, notably busts of Napoleon, his mother and little son, and a portrait of his father, CarloMaria, the notary. Carlo-Maria is buried at Montpellier, but his wife Letitia lies iu the crypt of the Memorial chapel built by’the last emperor—“ Mater Regum” the inscription on her tomb.

This chapel is attached to the Collega Fesch, a large public school for boys founded in 1823, one wing of which contains the fine library of 30.000 volumes once the property of Cardinal Fesch, Napoleon’s uncle, and a large collection of poor pictures, also his, presented to the town by King Joseph of Spain. There are, however, good engravings and a really charming statue of the little king of Rome. A touching mark of loyal feeling toward the Bonapartes is shown in Count Pozzo dl Borgo’s new villa on a height above Ajaccio, the decorative pillars and panels of its exterior being brought from the ruins of the palace of the Tuileries. The Making of Scissors* Though no complexities are involved in the making of scissors or much skill required, yet the process of manufacture, as described by The Inventive Age, is very interesting. Scissors are forged from good bar steel heated to redness, each blade being cut off with sufficient metal to form the shank, or that destined to become the cutting part and bow, or that which later on is fashioned into the holding portion. For the bow a small hole is punched, and this is afterward expanded to the required size by hammering it bn a conical anvil, after which both shank and bow are filed into a more perfect shape and the hole bored in the middle for the rivet. The blades are next ground and the handles, made smooth and burnished with oil and emery, after which the pairs are fitted to-. • gether and tested as to their easy working. They are not yet finished, however. They have to undergo hardening and tempering and be again adjusted, after which they are finally put together again and polished for the third time. In comparing the edges'of knives and scissors it will be noticed of course that the latter are not in any way so sharply ground as the former and that in cutting scissors crush and bruise more than knives. . _ i INTERESTING FACTS. By virtue of his office the lord chief justice is the principal coroner of England. Men with gray and blue eyes are usually better marksmen than those with dark eyes. A person naturalized under an assumed name can give title to property in that name. Brandy was first used medicinally, and ; miraculous cures were ascribed to its em- : ployment. I Before a Chinaman can quit Australia ho is compelled to register and leave his ' photograph. 1 Mount Ararat, the resting place of the Scriptural ark, is in reality two mountains separated by a valley. The higher peak is i 17,210 feet and the lesser 13,000 feet above ; sea level,