HERE AND THERE.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 3261, 19 October 1897, Page 4

HERE AND THERE.

The author of the “Englishman in Paris," in some remarks on mistakes in spelling, recalls the story told of a Welsh baronet, in the time of William IV., who was asked by one of his constituents, who chanced tn be in town at the time, for an order of admission into the House of Com mens.

He wrote in the usual terms, and addressed it thus:—“To the Door Ceeper of the House of Kommous." The person for whom it was intended discovered the errors in the spelling after he had gone ten or twelve yards from the worthy baronet, and turning b.ek ail : ni.n.i.;' n;j to- him said, “ Oh, there is a slight mistake in your order; two letters have been transposed ; you have spelt ‘ Keeper ’ with a 0 instead of a K and ‘ Commons ’ with a K instead of a C." “That’s all right," was the answer, “ The doorkeeper will sea to it. He is sme to know which is which."

A number of soldiers were noticed in Folkestone and Shornoliffe on the Ist of August to be wearing roses in their helmets. As to this custom LieutenantColonel O’Malley gives the following interesting particulars : The custom of decorating soldiers’ hats is confined to the 2nd Battery of the Royal Artillery and the Royal Suffolk Regiment, the men of which wear their roses in commemoration of the Battle of Minden, fought on August 1, 1759, by the English, Hanoverians, and Hessians against the French under General do Goudades.

Environment, it is well known, has a marvellous effect on human beings, mentally and physically. Foresample, it has been remarked that the sons of the King ox Greece, though born of Teutonic parents, are Greeks even in features. And, according to a letter from M. Albert GUuttatd to the French Ethno" graphic Society, the efforts which the Japanese have been making since the revolution of 1868 to adapt themselves to European civilisation and modes of life have resulted in surprising transformations of their national type. Some of them are losing the eccentricity of their eyes and the prominence of their cheek bones ; children born recently have leas flattened nosts than their ancestors, and a akin not so yellow. On the other hand, Europeans residing permanently in Japan lose the rosy colour of their skin, and tend to acquire an eccentricity in the eye.

An English hatter who has been for some years compiling a list of the size of heads of eminent men, recently wrote to Mr Gladstone :

“I send you a cap which I think will prove a good fit for your head (size 7s). lb may prove useful as a travelling cap. As a hatter, I take an interest in collecting sizes of heads of eminent men. The following are a few sizes of popalar heads ! Lord Chelmsford, } Dike of York, 6 6-8 J Dean Stanley, 6j; Emperor of Germany, 67 8; Prince of Wales, 7 ; Burns and Dickens, 7£ ; Earl Russell, ifj ; W. M. Thackeray, 7 5 8 ; Dr Thomas Chalmers, 7f; Dan O’Oonnel, 8; Dr Thomson (Archbishop of York), 8 full ; Joseph Hume, lIP. (the financier), B£. This gives you the whole scale from the smallest to the largest known. Your favourite author, Sir Walter Scott’s head was about 7. Our Sovereign, Queen Victoria’s head, from a close view I once got, I take to be 6 7-8 size." Mr Gladstone, in accepting the cap as a gift, sent the following reply : “ I thank you very much for the handy cap you have sent me. Thu sizes of the heads given by you are full of interest."

A find of great interest to collectors of old coins has been madeatNedde, not ftt from Limoges : Whilst some workmen were digging a pit for the purpose of burning cln.lk one of them felt his pick strike something hollow. When dog up it was found to be an old earthen pot filled with gold coins of the reigns of Charles VI. and Charles VII. There were also a great number of other coins and medals, which are believed to bo of great value.

Dr Leyds, Secretary of Stato for the Transvaal is, tho cable informs us, conferring with the Portuguese Governor at Lorenz a Marques (Delagoa Bay) It is of vital importance to the Boers that tho Portuguese Government in Hist Africa should bo friendly, as it is only" through Portuguese territory that German troops could get to the Transvaal. Dr Leyds hopes that by the aid of Germany the Boer will ultimately be supremo in South Africa. In this connection the following, by Joseph Hat I on, in tho Yorkshire Post , will be of interest.

Smoking a cigarette tho other after noon by the Solent, and watching tho manoeuvres of the boat’s crows of several men-of-war, I fell into conversation with an old African trader, who seemed to know the Transvaal intimately, and what he called tho Leyds lot. “ L-yds," he said, “is antiEogliah to the backbone ; ho and- his' friends and tools have no other aim than to get rid of British influence and authority, to keep Boor and Britisher separate, to have no laws or language but their own, to strengthen and fortify their territory to tho utmost, today in vast stores of ammunition, to bring in Dutch and ‘ German emigrants and military advisers and officers, co drill

and make every man they’ve gut a trained soldier; and when tho time comes to invito the aid of Germany, and 6ght it out with England." I asked him what Germany could p: ssibly do against a fleet that could sweip her from the seas, and against whoso guard ships not a single company of German soldiers could be landed at Delagoa Bay. “ There are more ways of killing a dog than hanging," he replied, “ and the, Kaiser is a powerful monarch. Leyds has not been idle in beating it into tho dull Boer brain that the Emperor’s famous telegraphic despatch congratulating Kruger upon the defeat of the Jameson raid was a direct intimation that if the Transvaal had needed assistance it would have had the immediate aid of Germany. That is today the belief the Boers, and they are fortifying and preparing for the time when, England having possible European or Indian difficulties, will come the opportunity of the Transvaal and Germany."

On tho other hand, continues the writer, 1 inhumed tho African trader that Mr Bigelow gathered from the most intelligent Boors that while they desire to be entirely free from-English authority they would prefer it to tho substitution of Prussian officials.

‘Oh yea, l hit la no doubt true enough, but they o mean to have Prussian officials, they rnuan to bo an independent- colony, ruling the foreigner with a rod of iron which they are now constructing in the shape of a tn'ghty fort and other warlike equipments with the-money they equueezo out Of the Uitlanderai No, sir, Majuba Hill and the rash and idiotic invasion of Dr Jameson and his amateur staff have weighted tho future in Africa with a war for supremacy, in which there must be great bloodshed, but with only one possible outcome—the triumph o! the Uitlanders and the British arms. Then the Boers must trek to less favourable lands ; if they were well-advised they would come to an honest and generous understanding with their neighbours ; but every country has its Dr Leyds and its outside intriguers, and you have only to hit John Bull once or twice in the eye or push him up against wall to get bis bleed to fever heat, and then there is the devil to pay, as there will be unless some miraculous interposition of Providence or good luck stops it in Africa."

Most people ■ imagine that advertising by bill and poster is a modern idea, bub a discovery made at Herculaneum contradicts this. A column has been found in the , streets of that buried city very closely resembling the structures to be seen ■ on the boulevards of Paris, and known as Lea Colonnes Morris. Upon its surface layers of advertisements, stuck one on the top of another, has been preserved for.nearly ‘2OOO years under a layer of lava and acorim. Tho sheets,

presumably of papyrus, were'separated, by judicious treatment, and enough of the inscriptions could be deciphered to reveal that they related 10 theatrical performances, public meetings, and electoral addresses. Moreover, science declares that the substance used in place of our vulgar paste was pure gum arable.

Miss Mary Kingsley does not hold to the popular opinion that an African is in capable of tcllioc the truth under any circumstances. She says in the National Review :

There is no intrinsic harm in lying,

to his (i.e., the African's) mind, because a man is a fool who believes another in in on an important matter unless he puts on the oath ; when im puts on the oath he calls in a great spirit who will make the man who tells a lie in its presence swell up and burst. 1 can honestly say I would not take an Afrbian’a w- rd on any important subject, if tbit word were spoken out of oath, but I would stake my life, as I have many times already done, on the word of the wildest bush cannibal in all West Africa if that word were spoken under oath.

A monument of a decidedly practical nature has been erected to the memory of a distinguished Frenchman, amid the rocks of Penmaro’h, on the Breton coast. Some little time ago Mate, de Blocqueville, a daughter of Marshal Davous, Duke of Aueratadt, left the sura of .£12,000 sterling to perpetuate her father's memory by the construction of a lighthouse. The Government approved of so excellent an idea, especially as at that moment the Pei.maro’h light was getting obsolete, and trebled the amount of the lady’s legacy in erecting the lighthouse. This is now the most powerful beacon that Prance possesses, quite outdoing the Heve light. Its electrical illumination is stated to be of ten million candle power, and placed more than ISO feet above the sea it is visible at a distance of sixty miles. On the summit under a canopy stands the statue of the great soldier looking forth over the wide waste of water.

Augurt SO was the Fete of St. Fiacre, and was kept as a holiday by French horticulturists. The Paris correspondent of the Chronicle tells the legend of this saint, who was an Irishman, it seems. St. F&fre, whose name has been corrupted into St. Fiacre, was born in Ireland about the year 600. When still quite young ho left bis country for France, and settled down in the neighboui hood of Meaux, where he was cordially received by the bishop, St. Faron, who permitted him to take as much laud as ho could surround by a trench in one day. . The story goes that St. Fiacre took his staft and laid it on the ground, and set off walking hard. The stick (tuo«ed by supernatural force) followed him and left in its trail a deep ditch. Paris cabs are all called fiacres because one of ihe first stables for cabs on hire was situated in the Hue St. Martin about tho year 1650, and the facade of the house was decorated with an image of the saint.

Bismarck was interviewed by a representative of tho NTewe Preie Presse the other day.

At first he confined himself to such topics as his health, which he declared to bo excellent, only oomplaing of rheumatism. “Itis a devil of a job to light my pipe," he remarked, but in the absence of his son-in-law or grandson, his charming neighbour, Baroness Merck, performs this friendly office. The vetoian was easily led into recalling some of his political experiences. Ho told his visitor how successfully ho tampered with tho correspondence that passed through tho Berlin Post-office. All suspicious looking letters were submitted to throe expert officials, one of whom opened tho envelopes with profound dexterity, whilst another took cognizance of the contents, and a third closed them up so as to show no trace of manipulation. He himself managed to deal with the telegrams.