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Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 313, 2 May 1911, Page 2

"When De Quincey wrote his 'Confessions' he probably imagined that with the exception of Coleridge and one or two others he was unique as an English " citizen of Sybaris and Daphne." A London doctor, writing m 'National Health,' however, assures us that the drug habit is on the increase, though of the extent of opiumtaking there is no mention. "In these days of stress and excitement, when betterclass women have their sensitive nervous systems over-strained by the over-growing demands of society, there is," he says, "a strong temptation to have recourse to alcoholic stimulants and sedative drugs. Secret spirit drinking— not only whisky and brandy, but even eau-de-cologne-wind also morphia injections are, alas ! far too common. Rarely does a week pass that I do not see some lady suffering directly or indirectly from such indulgence." There is a terrible story m the Latilla family of Naples, which Mrs Hugh Fraser tells m ' A Diplomatist's Wife m Many Lands.' In one of the first visitations of the cholera to the city, the head of the family was carried off suddenly, and was hastily interred m tho family 'mauloleum where his ancestors reposed, 'far away at the most distant end of the large park. The mausoleum was carefully shunned by the family and servants for' quite a year after tho unfortunate Marchesc had been carried thither. At the end of that time his widow, who had either just been married again or was preparing to do so, summoned tiie courage to go and have a. look at it. Imagine hej- horror on beholding, behind the bars of the heavily grated -windows, a ghastily a Imost -skeleton, witb fingers twisted, as m a last agony of despair, around the iron bars.

If all the money m the world were divided among the people each person would got about £6.

The jawbone of an average whale is 25ft m length. The tongue of 'such a monster will yield a tun of oil.