SELECTED ARTICLES.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 171, 7 November 1876, Page 2

SELECTED ARTICLES.

WEAK PLACES. The Rev. C. Hj, Spurgeon, as John Ploughman, thus delivers himself on the doctrines of the perfectionists ■; —" He who boasts of being perfect is perfect in folly. I have been a good deal up and down in the world, and I neither did see either a perfect horse or a perfect man, and I never shall until two Sundays come together. You cannot get white gloves out of a coal sack, nor perfection out of human ■nature ; he who looks for it had better look for sugar in the sea. The old saying is, "Lifeless, faultless." Of dead men we

should say nothing but good, but as for the living they are all tarred, more or less, with the black brush, and half an eye can see it. Every head has a soft place in it, and every heart has its black drop; every rose has its .prickles, and every day its night. Even the sun shows spots, and the skies are darkened with clouds. Nobody -is so-wise but he has folly enough to stock aistall at Vanity Fair. When I oQuld not ?see—the fools-cap, I have nevertheless heard the-bells jingle. As there is no sunshine without some shadow, so is all humanfgood mixed up more or less with evil; Even poor : law-guardians have their UttiefaHirigsj and parish beadles are not wholly of heavenly nature. The best wine has its lees. All men's faults are not .written on their foreheads, and it is quite as well they are not, or hats would need wide brims ; yet, as sure as eggs, faults of some sort nestle in every man's bosom.' There's no telling when a man's sin's may show themselves, for hares pop out of a ditch just when you are not looking for them. A horse that is weak in the legs'may not stumble for a mile or two, but its in him, and the rider had better bold hint up. -The tabby cat is not lapping the milk just now, but leave the dairy door open, and we will see if she is not as bad a thief as the kitten. There's fire in the flint, cold as it looks; wait till the steel gets a knock at it, and you will see. Everybody can read that riddle, but. it is not everybody that will remember to keep his gunpowder out of the way of the candle."

THE PROPORTION OF GOOD LOOKS TO THE SEXES. Looking at the matter mare broadly, it may be safely asserted that there are far more fairly good-looking women than there are welUshaped men. The causes of this result are probably many, but the fact is patent to any observer. The crowded tramcara, and trains, the endless current that flows through the principal thoroughfares, will establish.-tiw statement if only cursorily examined..

Only mak» a practice of observing peopte'kn<i»> *&«•> m a v<st ¥ s^OTt ' t * me Bfve * ftC9 trill' bo apparent that the number of beaut ijfui handa among women is far larger (dun in tlie same tale of men. It is c-icnJty u with- the other component* {arc* of bounty. A »» m piwitisuuit) aftt'f f' i; ' y.;it'f'|ut' anon* which ruled the acttlptora of the \atinous of the Apollo is so niMy ' w to be practically non-cxisten'' : t\.wv go some few who come nearer fci> the U(,rKiiltJ9. A woman after the model of !]!„ Vunns i* afeo- rare r bat there nererIholess are such wotneo at this hoar, and pay who approach to that excellence of

! i GIRL "TWICE AS SMALL AS | TOM THUMB.' A, targe number of physician* went; b> L, y Pastor's Theatre yesterday to flee L Mtsican dwarf, Lncra Zarate. They L«(iur«d her,, and ascertained her height |to be twenty-one inches, her feet three Mvsa tocig, her tegs below the knee fonr acltea in circnTnfe.re.nce> and her hands an nclt and a quarter broad. Her mother, ,1,0 is robust, and of a medium si*?, says fjafe Lucia i» twelve years old. Her face- , t Mvx than that. Her features are iwnisli, and her complexion dark. Her divity is incessant. She played prank* litli the physicians, and talked fast in [punish. She stepped into a high silk jit, «rouch.«ti down, and was out of sight jcnptiiijc l.er head. She squeezed ene of i e r pliable tittle hands through a rattier in;u linger ring. The hand «>f an adedt plu an ample'senfc for her. Standing on lohuir, and holding to the back of it, hor jHjurs struck the spacts in the eanework .lidlus that just admitted the passage of isimilt ptnholder. She was not weighed, nt her weight is said to. be nve pounds ; ml, poised" in the hand, she does not Kin heavier. Her clothing is comicality mutt, as though intended for a doth the bus and stocking* especially being fcoy-

IConi Thumb has grown appreciably bb he vvas exhibited by Earaom, but en he first astonished the public tie was ico as lar,:,'e as Lucia, and ho was then iiit her prt:si-ml; ago. Siiw has nut r,vii tiny, her mother says, since she aiv year old. —•.Vm' Ym-lc mt.it>.

HE HEROINE OF HERZEGOVINA. Miss Marcus, who has been surnamed t Joan of Arc of fleraogovina, is a itch woman, but of Fren; i Origin. She ionipto an excellent family, and one of r brothers is an admiral in ths L*ut(j'v two. Of about thirty j\ ars of a;:e, and gimowhat diminutive stature, s'.w Has opted 6lie masculine attire, w,.ieh has sod by taking from !uu" gtr.iS n.nd iturcs a great portion of the t\ mining lets. She wears her black hair cut ort; her forehead is big'-, and _!u,r tj'es, alight bttte, sparkle with malice. S-u.-pnlowmiptexioued. wit t a moat e'l.ann- ; swuutnssa of smite. Sins cannot be id to fats pretty, but seems tn-you some wg« apparition when you sec tier scale hntsebucfe tlie goat-tracks of the motttv n witlv her band r&stipg «>n the stock of revolver. In a moral point of view, uMaruns is a «kjnd of 'MnmiiMkt. Her t Ultra w» to erect at Jerusalem; a Ptoant temple over again*)! the To tub* of ist. The temple exists, ami! is mainwl at her expense; it has cost her ut 350,0001". Although she has in her Mites scattered abroad a great part w fortune, she has still left f,Boo,oflof. r ideas of liberalism, her theories of ipendence, have brought her gradually i almost insensibly to the limits ©f imty.. Although placed tinder legal ittietion at the request of her ily, she does not the teas continue pranks, now in one insurrection, m another. It has .even been said, •gh [ am unable to verify the fact, Islib had a hand in the affairs of our limme. She spends her life in seekadventures in whatever country war h goingoorn r and making these adtttw agreeable to herself, at least s> sad, by all sorts of amorous freaks, what in contradiction with the name jjrasbctn given her. At ene tinie she jilt close it.fc caacy with liubihrati' ch, ktlie chiefs of the Herztgovinian tnption. At the present moment, she pis to be madly in love with the pit Minister of War. Extravagant [II audi persons are, she is at ee, tain I s capable of the strongest energy. [»int«r, in ffen:egox.tn.i, it was proPto blow upv by means- of dynamite, pish fortress situated between Kapd Tvtbinjie. When they arrived Fiho fortress in the night, there was PWunt's hesitation among the men t«l with the dynamite,, and when tie ffflino to and place it, beneath the ff the fortress, they refused. Miss |te was present. Snatching ftp* the dynamite, she pressed them PWiur bosom, sjcelaiming, '" Von are i*ardß ; since not one of yoit dares to Id will B how you the way," and she PW forward. Two or three men PdW half-way, ar.d constraining her ■Mown hot burden, upon themB , ' t ho perilous duty. Miss Marcus, llul quivering with anger, let them J*ithout saying a word. The dynal*i» frozen, and therefore did not exH' 8 " that a fow Bengal tlames alone B*«P the triumph of the heroine.

two miles from the City of Mex•tonda * cyree* tree, very math '■ It is one thousand year* t>M, * w«« in diameter at its base. Ten *to the ground, it wfottrtean feet to ***) at twenty feet high, it divides the Mexican jwiturt have placed; a. fence round it. TJJS th# cOTtcaitks the Centennial '»a has produced are & mechanical S^,* 301 ® steam men. Theaw automJ***Jto hj« sample in construction,, v stniing in their movements.