ECHOES FROM ODD CORNERS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 5737, 4 November 1905, Page 10

ECHOES FROM ODD CORNERS.

(Collated By ,r WilI-o’-the-Wisp.”) The preliminary skirmishing of our parliamentary candidate i* providing the usual crop of mixed metaphor and clever repartee. At a meeting in Waikaia Mr Gil tedder referred to tho Now Liberals as "men with a muck-rake delving into a sewer”—a metaphor ]us». about as elegant as It ia mixed. But the following perpetrated by a candidate for the ilavv’ke’s Bay seat will take some beating. "TheyTl keep cutting the wool off tho fihaep that Jays the golden eggs until they pump it dry. The glorious work will never be accomplished until the Government properly assist the good ship temperance to sail from ona end of tho land to tho other, und with the cry of victory at. each step she takes she shall plant banner m every town and hamlet from Waikarcmoana to tho topmost heights cf Uuahino.” The way ill-luck pursues some people is truly remarkable. Charles Bellman, a young man of about eighteen years, came to Now Zealand from England eight months ago. 11c worked one mouth, met vrA-h nu accident and was laid up in tho hospital for seven months. He was :ont; of tho hospital ono week when h© ! was kicked by a horse, narrowly escaping with his life. Ho had barely recovered when, ono day lie was chopping wood, holding tbo axe in on© hand and ihc block in the other. He made* n misshit and slashed his baud, necessitating another visit to tho doctor, who inserted live stitches. This completes tbo list to date. There is a change of luck in odd numbers, and perhaps No. 3 will be tho lout misfortune that happens to Bellman. This is a canard. A Loudon judge lately inquired of a witness what he meant by "up-to-dick?” Witness replied: “ 'Slapup/ ‘All-right/ ‘Up-to-date/ my lord!” Asking a learned counsel if he could give the moaning, tho lawyer replied:“lt is a phrase that originated in Maoriland. In the early days when Mr Seddon was still a miner, his admiring mates constantly remarked It was TJp to Dick 1 to stand for Parliament. Ilis tumultuous ! success as a politican has made the phrase not only colonially but universally applicable to anything superlatively good.” Mr Roosevelt, in addressing the Kaiser, used the pronoun “you,” but in the message handed to tho press tho words <r Your Majesty” were substituted, and the President of the United States thereby saved from the crime of lose majeete. After all there Is more majesty in the President's simple, natural life than in the Kaiser’s spiked moustache and rooster feathers.

Apropos the accomplishments of Bailey the spiritualistic medium, the following is not without interest. Mi David Syme, proprietor of "Melbourne Age/* has taken an interest in the spiritualistic movement in Melbourne lately* and. the manifestations oi one so-called successful medium have especially attracted him, but he does not seem to be one of the faithful; on the contrary, he is evidently impelled by a spirit of doubt and mistrust. At one seance- recently, when the medium promised that his spirits were prepared to bring anything those present might ask for, Mr Syme asked for an Indian paper of that day's date. The spirit then under control declined to obey. "But,'' said Mr Symo, "it is a fair request. Ton offer to bring fresh bread hot from an Indian oven, why not a paper hot from an Indian press?" The spirit said firmly in pigeon English that he couldn't do it. The man of the "Age" pointed out that to a spirit who could bring fish fresh from the bottom of the sea, and relics from unknown Egyptian graves at a moment's notice, it should bo an easy matter to bring the paper asked for. "If it's an easy matter do ifc yourself V ! snapped the spirit, which had evidently lost its temper, and the seance ended there. Mr Russell Sage is the amiable millionaire who denounced holidays as the robbing of employers. "When I engage a clerk," ho said. ‘T pay for his working time, , Why ask me to pay for times he chooses to be idle?" With such views a man is capable of anything, and the following now story of Mr Sage will surprise nobody. Ho was asked for a subscription to a charity, and a list of subscribers was handed to him. Never having subscribed a cent to a charity in his life, h© regarded the proposal as brigandage. But looking over the list he saw the name ot his wife, who has money of her own, and endows brigandy with it. Ho took a pen and wrote something on the ’ list. The collector, overjoyed by this ! unexpected triumph, was eager to see what he bnd contributed. Opposite his wife's subscription the millionaire had written "Mr and Mrs" ! Very late on a bitter cold night recently a well-known and bulky Taihape citizen. who stays at a certain hostelry, took a warm bath. Hr fell asleep. The ; water gradually cooled, but-still be slept. Eventually the cold half-woko him, and he sleepily essayed to pull the blankets up round* his shoulders. His groping hand struck something hard and deadly 'mid. The shock woke him completely. , The bath was frozen over. The noise that bulky citizen made as ho thi'ashod out on to the floor of the bath-room was like a rhinoccrous backing through a plateglnss window. Mr Robert Blatchford (hotter known as "Nrmquam") in a chatty article in the "Clarion" speaks very convincingly of vegetarianism as the true diet for mankind. Ho says since ho has become a vegetarian he has lost the keen craving for-tobacco that ho;had hitherto experienced. Similarly the tasto lor wine has left him. Hock and Burgundy, once favourite beverages, now taste to him like physic. "Nonquota" thinks the solution of the Temperance problem and of many hygienic mysteries is to be found in a vegetable diet. An exiled Scot charged recently before the Stratford Magistrate’s Court with having imbibed too freely of his native mountain dow. when asked if the charge .was true replied:—"Gin the pollis soy I was the warn* o'“t, it maun be true—l ha'c never kent a pollisman to . tell a Ice!" And Scotsmen have no sense of humour. A young Queenslander is a striking exciaoi© ot the indomitable energy occasionally met with in the true Australian type. Born of humble parents, he first engaged in the Mines Department as a clerk. Ho was sent to one of the mining towns. After a year or two he asked leave to sit for tho University examination 3. T/hile in Brisbane he explained to the office that he had obtained an engineer's certificate, and asked permission, while in the city, to go up for examination as a mine manager. Ho succeeded at the University.examination. And ateo got his mine manager's certificate, provided he put In a certain time underground. Quite recently ho was admitted to practise as a barrister, and he is now studying bacteriology—on a a salary of .£9O a year! He may not have made much monev so far, but for energy a red ant and a bee and a circular saw don't compare with him. Mr Bert Peace, of Hamilton, who was recently in the King Country establishing a branch bicycle business in Taumarunui, met with a startling experience there. He, or rather tho bike on which he rode, was attacked by a bull, shortly after fording the Ongaruo river, some six miles north of Taumarunul township. The animal, coming on at a smart pace, thrust his horns into the centre of the frame, and with a quick twisting movement of the head threw Mr Peace and half the machine a distance of several yards onto a steep scrub-covered bank, where they relied a distance. The bull, after sniffing awhile at the remains of the machine left on the road, trotted off whence he came. Mr Peace, who was fortunately unhurt, then experienced the exhilarating task of carrying one halt of the bicycle and trundling tho other half the six or seven miles back to Taumarunui. A disgraceful state of affairs is reported from America—the sale of forty-nine girls, American and Canadian, to wealthy Chinamen, through collecting agencies at Shanghai and Chicago. The prices paid ranged from 500 to 1,000 dollars, the girls being nominally engaged as high classeerrants.

The triumphal march of our footballers in the Old Country has made football much oftener the subject of conversation than heretofore in places where men most do congregate. Recently we heard it claimed that cricket was a much older

game than football. On referring to authorities, however, ive find that on the score of antiquity football is an easy first. Though definite reference to the game in Britain cannot bo traced earlier than the twelfth century- antiquarians incline to the view that football tvus introduced into Britain prior to the coming of the Conqueror —with those 4 carUer conquerors, the homan«, in fact. They had a popular game with a ball called "harpasturn" (from the Greek verb meaning to seize), which seems to have been a primitive form of the Rugby game, and the Greek gam© "episo.yrus" was probably of a similar nature. But there is one notable contrast. “Dusty" is the adjective applied by the poet Martial to Homan football; to-day Mr Kipling speaks of “ 'mud'-died oafs at the goals/' Four pellclrj of shot out of an ordinaryhelping of beef, entered inwards from the abattoirs via the fanrilv butcher, are a weighty cargo. A Dunedin man had it accidentally consigned to him recently. lie announced the fii'st • pellet with a pronoun; to the second and third he dedicated certain -adjectives. When the fourth skidded between his teeth he trounced it i with all the parts of speech of three languages. A little investigation of the joint discovered sixteen pellets, all within a radius of about three inches. Now tnat "spontanooue" generation" (if the ridiculous term must bo retained) has exchanged the realm of superstition for that of fact, a n older theory about it becomes interesting. In Andrews’ ,rAnecdotes Ancient and Modern" (1789), we ,read; "Should a Glass-house fire bo kept up, without extinction, for a longer term than seven yeans, there Is no doubt that Salamander'would bo generated in the Cinders/' This probably accounts for tno popular idea that a salamander lives in Clio fire, a fallacy so far removed from the truth that the curious lizard-liko boast ho culled cannot endure even the lieut of tho sun, but skulks away under stones to avoid it. It will never lose its deputation for fire-eating, though, which lingers still in the cooking utensil that is named after it. A well-known Norfolk landownermakc?? the statement that the brick bearing Nelson's initials, preserved under a glass case at Paston Grammar School, is not a relic of the groat admiral, but was the result of a schoolboy's "lark" about twenty-four years ago. At that time Mr Ridor Haggard's father stated that Nelson while at the school had carved his initials on one of the walls. As the boys could not find the brick bearing the initials one of them conceived tho brilliant idea of supplying the defect, which he promptly did, filling up the initials with moss and earth to give them a properly ancient appearance. The Norfolk landowner declares that he saw the boy do it, that there are other eye-witnesses living, and that if he is challenged he will give their names William P. Naughfron, fho ballot-box expert, found guilty of getting at the St. Vincent's Hospital art union for all the prize-money, is said to have been mixed up with some peculiar circumstances in Maoriland. Ho bossed the drawing of a Sisters of Mercy art union in Auckland, and all tho principal prizes were won by the girl he was engaged to. There were suspicions then, but William p Naughton threatened large libel actions, and ae no one knew more than that he seemed to be engaged to a very lucky girl, the voice of slander died away in the dim, dim distance. Now the voice of slander is calling out pretty loudly again. Reference to the map will show, up the west coast of North Auckland, a landlocked sheet of water known as Kaipara Harbour, with Kaipara river flowing in at tho southern end, and Wairoa river at the northern; down one river and up the other is a waterway, beside which no other inside the coastline of the colony can be compared for a moment. To describe it as a harbour really conveys no idea of its far-flung proportions; it is an inland • eea, with no less than 2000 miles of coastline, that is to say that the land surrounding it has 2000 miles of •water .frontage. All the navies in the world could be stowed away on that broad bosom and scarcely be seen from the other shore. In several London papers Is advertised the Danysz rat virus. The preparation is made at the Pasteur-Jnstiute, and is sold as an article of commerce. Dr Danysz, who has offered to visit Australasia and experiment with a rabbit disease, is responsible for this virus, and according to tho advertisements It is very effective in disposing of rats. A London butcher has proffered a testimonial, in which ho states that tho virus beats everything he has tried for killing rats, and there is no trouble with dead bodies. After giving the rats a chance to got the preparation his sons killed fortv with sticks. Apparently the rats die very gradually, ancl while dying leave their nests and venture abroad in a very weak state, probably looking for somebody to end their miserable lives. Lord Glamis. who came or age a few days ago, would on that eventful day hear from the lips of his father, the Earl of Strathmore, tho secret of the “haunted room" in Castle Glamis, Porfarehire. This has been the invariable practice on such occasions from time immemorial. What secret the "haunted room* 5 conceals is supposed to be passed on to ©very heir as he attains his majority. Thus its precise nature is never in tRe possession of more than three persons, and in fact seldom more than two persons at the same time, for some assert that the paternal grandsire in this family never survives until tTio dread secret is divulged to the third party. Conjecture and tradition say that a long time ago, when the Lindsays and the Ogilvies were at feud, a number oT tho latter clan wore imprisoned and died in that particular chamber. That the room has some uncanny peculiarities appears beyond doubt, for the late Lord Strathmore had it walled up after visiting the apartment one night to determine tho origin of certain weird noises which it is said had for a long time disturbed and puzzled him. A correspondent relates that a rather unusual and startling experience bofel two peaceful residents in a country district the other day. Prompted by curiosity to explore a lonely hut in which a man had recently died, they turned their steps thither when out with their guns looking; for sport, Afi they drew near to the for-| sakeu domicile, their equilibrium was creatly disturbed by an unearthly rumbling nois© inside, and awo-stricken by the suggestion that it might be the ghost of tb© departed, and conscious-smitten, too, because it was Sunday, they hesitated a long time on the outskirts. Determined, hovrever, not to be baffled even if they had to face his Satanic Majesty .himself, one levelled his gun at the height of a man's head, while tho other pushed th© door open with the barrel of his weapon. Tho sight whica greeted their already sockotforeaken eyes was enough to shatter the nervous system of the strongest, for out of the rushed horns, and a head with wild fiery eyes, and not tifting time to se© that it was only a harmless cow, which had evidently been caught in a trap, they dropped their guns and fled to the bush. Her© is a short poem by a W©tollman, extracted from "History of Wales," by B. B. Woodward, 8.A., as a very interesting item of tho genius of Welsh poetry. Thero is a great truth embodied in the lines, which may be of as great service to the present age a-s to the past. Besides, the world is greatly indebted to the genius of the Welch race in more ways than one, and it is desirable that their teachings in poetry, as well as music, should not be forgotten in the headlong rush of modern times." The piece referred to is as follows: Poverty causes exertion. Exertion causes prosperity. Prosperity causes wealth. Wealth causes pride. Pride causes contention. Contention causes war. War causes poverty. Poverty causes peace. The peace of poverty causes exertion. Exertion brings sound the game circle aa before. Pdoeth,