Items.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XVII, Issue 5462, 19 December 1892, Page 4

Items.

'Oh, for the "Wings of a Dove!"' Helen—Must listen to that soprano! What «ood would the " wings of a dove " do fier i She must weigh two hundred pounds.' Jack Probably she wants them to trim a hat with.' • You are must entertaining,' remarked the gallant old gentlemen to his fair partner at dinner. 'I assure you that I envy your future husband.' The maid turned an appealing face towards him. ' Would—would you mind introducing him T she asked.

A man said that porter taken in large quantities made him fat. His friend answered— 4 1 once saw it make you lean —against a lamp-post.' Stranger: "What do you have the wires on that barbed-wire fence so close together for ?" Mississippi Farmer : " So that when the river rises we can use it for a fish net." According to Dingler's Polytechnisches Journal, Herr B. Schultze has examined and compared 18 different kinds of socalled safety matches of Swedish and German manufacture, especially with regard to the readiness with which they could be ignited by friction on different surfaces, and he has also investigated the glowing and falling off of the heads after the flame has been extinguished. The results of the experiments show that the claim on all the different boxes examined, that the matches " ignite only on the box," is quite unfounded. The members of the Londou Alpine Club do not suffer from giddiness, but there arc occasionally mountaineers who do. For these the cure, according to a writer in the Quarterly, is not brandy or alcohol in any form. Stimulants are practically valueless in such circumstances. The victim will have to give up climbing. But there is surely one cure which has the reputation of having been effectual when tried. On one of these occasions four mountaineers, roped together, were just entering on a narrow ledge where the foothold was most precarious, when vertigo seized hold of one of them. He told his companions that he dare not move. The leader was one of the two most famous guides of the Oberland about 1800, and when he heard the news merely gave the command " Push him over." He wa3 obeyed immediately, and the traveller was suspended off the edge of the rock for a few seconds and then pulled up. Then he was able to go on all right. But a " pull " at the brandy flask is still the favorite remedy among mountaineers. A set of horse shoes, made by W. Dunwoodie from iron puddled at the Onehunga Iron Works from ironsand gathered at Onehunga, was presented to His Excellency yesterday. The shoes were beautifully made, and enframed in a very handsome case. The Countess of Glasgow was presented with a couple of handsome j rugs manufactured from New Zealand |

wools by the directors of the Onehunga Woollen Works.—Auckland Star. Among the most interesting objects in the Chicago Exhibition will be a panorama of the Swiss mountains. From the village of Mannlicben the outlook will include che heights of the Wetterhorn, the Schreckhorn, the Jungfrau. the Lake of Thun, and the Jura range. The whole vast project will be worked out in the most realistic manner (the Chronicle says) so that the spectator will seem to hear the waterfalls and to feel the glacial cold. Three Swiss artists have devoted more than a year entirely to this work, the cost of which is about L 14,000. It is now almost finished, and it will be-exhibited in Paris before being sent over to the Chicago Fair. " I don't know what I should do, said a very lively married woman the other day, "if it were not for my annual divorce," she laughed. You perhaps wonder what that is, but it is really the greatest of social institutions, and I should die without it. I mean the six or eight weeks every summer that I can go away and be just like a young girl once more. I love Jack very dearly, but I should get tired of him if it were not for this yearly respite. We are very happy now over our reunion, whereas, if he had seen me every day all summer long he would be wanting to go out every night and leave me alone instead of doing escort duty. It is a great scheme, and should be adopted by all wives." The Waikato Times says The hay season is now at hand, when clear, breezy days will be needed if the crops are to be saved in anything like good condition. We hear that several paddocks of grass have already been cut in the Waikato, and down country large areas are in hand. The hay crop, as might be expected, will be heavy, but it is hard to see how good hay can be made in such weather as we have lately been experiencing. Probably a good deal of rank growth will be made into silage, for which purpose many of the heavy and badly laid crops, particularly of oats, are only fit for. Fears are expressed that a continuance of such damp, muggy weather will cause rust in the grain crops, many of which are now out in full ear. It is said that there was a man shearing recently on a Wairarapa station who was turning 156 sheep off the shears per day. Thirty thousand sheep were killed and frozen at Woodville last season. This season Messrs Nelson Bros, expect to double the number.

Mr Swinburne will contribute to the Magazine of Art a series of illustrated poems entitled " Carols of the Month." The city authorities have decided to place a bust of Tennyson in the Guildhall—a distinction only enjoyed hitherto by naval and military heroes and civic dignitaries. A newspaper correspondent calculates that M. Zola has received LI4OO for the serial rights of his new story " Doctor Pascal," which means that he is paid some loid per line, or lid a word. The payment is said to be the highest ever made in France for the serial rights of a story. Shiploads of granite from the United States, writes Mr Carnesie to the Times, are being brought there cheaper than it can be taken from the home quarries. What is " coals to Newcastle" compared to "granite to Aberdeen ?" This is only another case of the American "surplus." The quarrier in Maine, having a large home market, can afford to supply expensive machinery which no small quarrier can afford to do, and also to dispose of his surplus at low prices. It is not generally known that Henrik Ibsen, the Norwegian poet and dramatist, can-claim descent from the royal family of Scotland, through the old Forfarshire family of the Dischingtons of Aberlemno. A writer in the Dundee Advertiser traces the lineage from this family down to one Thomas Dischington, who was minister of St. Magnas, Kirkwall, in 1660. One of the descendants of the latter emigrated to Norway about 1720, and settled in Bergen. His daughter, Wenche Dischington. married Henrik Petersen, a ship's captain, and they took up their residence in the town of bkien, in Southern Norway. This Scottish lady was the great-grandmother of the poet. Tiie strain of royal Scottish blood in the Ibsen family has been somewhat diluted by a German admixture since the time of Wenche Dischington. Her son Henrik was married to a German lady, and his son Knud, the father of the dramatist, took for his wife a certain Maria Cornelia Althenburg, who was also of German extraction. The born in the town of Skien in 1828. As the first of these Ibsens went to Norway from the Danish Island of Moen in 1720, and as their wives have been exclusively either Scottish or German since that time, it is pleaded that only the environment of the poet and his race has been Norwegian. The other day, says a Rangoon correspondent, an elephant, not a very old_one, it is true, after deliberately making an entrance for himself through the railway fence at mile 156, near Oktwin Station, proceeded to walk leisurely along the line at the footof the embankment, till a gangman's hut forced him to make a detour. This brought him to the top of the bank, between the rails. At this time the Mandalay mail made its appearance, and the noise of the rapidly-approaching train caused the animal to look round. The sight of the train with its lights and vomit of fire caused the elephant to make an iustant resolve to charge the intruder. There was a shock, a momentary stagger, and then the train was seen to pursue the even tenor of its way. But alas ! it was the worse for the poor elephant. He was killed on the spot, his skull being completely smashed in ; and so great had been the force of the collision that the huge carcase was hurled clear of the line to the bottom of the embankment. In a short time a horde of Burmans appeared on the scene, and before many hours had gone by all the flesh and boues and hide of that elephant were safely lodged in the nearest village.