ONE THING AND ANOTHER.

Otago Witness, Issue 1191, 26 September 1874, Page 20

ONE THING AND ANOTHER.

Candlemas Day, 2nd February, is regarded in Germany as a most important day for weather omens. The first number of "Bradshaw" contained nothing more than one page, showing the Liverpool and Manchester trains, and a small map of England and Wales. The oldest English M.P. is Mr. Barrow, M.P. for South Notts, aged 90 ; and the youngest, Hon. C. French, M.P. for Roscommon, aged 22. The two celebrated pictures by Rubens, in Antwerp Cathedral, of the " Elevation of the Cross," and " The Descent from the Cross," are likely to be removed to the museum, as the cold and damp of the church are damaging them. Mr. Samuel Mendell, it is stated, recently sold some " superfluous " pictures for £150,000. Amongst them was Landseer's "Otter Hunt," which went for £6000. It was afterwards resold to Baron Grant for £8000, and it is now stated that Messrs. Agnew, the dealers, have offered £10,000 for it. A curious book is being published by two French firms and Messrs. Trubner & "Co., of London. It is a manual of the Chinese mandarin language, compiled after Ollendorff's method. The object of this publication is to teach Chinese to all who speak English. An expedition for the exploration of the Upper Nile is being completed by the Egyptian Government ; the object is to determine the geological and physical constitution of the Valley of the Nile, and to ascertain the possibility of diverting the river into the old river valley. Ali Pasha is to be the director of the expedition. There was celebrated during the past year in Paris and its neighbourhood nearly fourteen thousand marriages, all made of course in heaven — save the fortytwo separations that took place after four months' experience of matrimony. Everything, it is said, may be hired in Paris, from swaddling-clothes to windingsheets. Flowers, fruit, china, laces, and jewellery are duly loaned by very respectable people, who wish to astonish their neighbours and not a little themselves. Aquariums well-stocked are among the recent novelties loaned for the day or the week, with facilities for payment if retained, like pianos and wearing apparel. The very latest wants supplied are cockatoos, love-birds, and various members of the finch family. A gentleman who has been studying the subject, and has examined many dogs andjeats in France, England, and America, has discovered that every spotted dog has the end of his tail white, and every spotted cat the end of the tail black. At Dieppe, in France, the following notice has been issued by the police :—: — " The bathing police are requested, when a lady is in danger of drowning, to seize her by the dress and not by the hair, which oftentimes remains in their grasp." Joseph Turner, who lived to the age of 101 years and 2 mouths, has just

died at Wallrow, Highbridge, near Bristol. The deceased, a carpenter, possessed a remarkably strong constitution, and only kept his bed a fortnight previously to his death. Up to the last his faculties were very clear, and when high wages and the dearness of provisions formed the topic of conversation, he would refer to the time in his life when he worked for half a crown a day and paid Is. lOd. a loaf for bread, and the same price per foot for timber.

In Cairo, Egypt, broad streets have been laid out, modern edifices have been erected, gas has been introduced, and shops make a display of goods similar to those of London and Paris., This, however, is the appearance only in one part cf the town. Turn into another section, and there is found a genuine Oriental city, with narrow lanes, where camels and donkeys dispute the way with foot passengers. The following story comes from the Gold Coast. When Sai Tooti, the founder of the Ashantee empire, fixed upon Coomassie as his capital, he rested under a certain tree while his temporary palace was building. The tree so honoured became sacred in Ashantee eyes, and was regarded with superstitious veneration. Last January, having long been decayed, it fell, and the circumstance was considered ominous. No one dared to touch it, and when Coomassie was taken, it was still lying across the street. The Jews in London are supposed to have their own butchers, licensed by the Rabbis. They always cut the throat of the animals, instead of knocking them on the head. Tea is now extensively raised in Hindostan, the export to England in IB72texceeding sixteen millions of pounds. Mie Indian teas are of a rare flavour, and are used by English, shopkeepers to mix -with the Chinese. The culture in India is now carried on by joint-stock companies, which are paying from 10 to 20 per cent, dividends. The earnings of Sir Astley Cooper afford a striking example of the slow promotion of even the most skilful and deserving of doctors. In the first year he netted five guineas ; in the second, £26 ; in the third, £64 ; in the fourth, £96 ; in the fifth, £100 ; in the sixth, £200 ; in the seventh, £400 ; in the eighth, £610 ; in the ninth, the year in which he secured his hospital appointment, £1000. _ The highest amount he ever received in any one year was £24,000; but for many years his average income was £15,000. The most that the famous Abernethy ever realised in one year was £5,000, showing that his vagaries and eccentricities were by no means a source of profit to him. Floating Islands. — A traveller in Florida thus describes the floating islands in Lake Poinsette :—": — " We passed several floating islands. They are formed by the dead roots of the smart weed and other swampy vegetation torn up the wind and hurled upon the shore. A soil is formed, birds drop acorns upon the mass, and little trees make their appearance. A second Mind sends the whole thing out on the lake, where it floats subject to every breeze. One of these islands was sunk in the channel between Lake Poinsette and Winder in the memorable gale of August, 1871. The captain asserted that he had cut many a bay tree over a foot thick from the sunken island. Its dead trees still appear above the water at the mouth of the river. Some times Indians and white hunters set these islands on fire. The blaze generates a gale, and the burning islands are driven across the lake." A Shower of Buffaloes.— A Colorado paper, the Rocky Mountain News, thus pathetically describes a somewhat novel scene in a buffalo hunt on the prairies : "Out on the plains, about two hundred miles from Denver, is a vertical bluff seventy-five feet high. A party of hunters recently stampeded a herd of buffaloes right to the brink of the precipice. The foremost brutes, appreciating their critical situation, attempted to avert the calamity, but the frightened hundreds behind crowded forward. The front rank, with legs stretched toward each cardinal point of the compass, bellowed in concert and descended to their fate. Before the pressure from behind could be stopped, the next rank and the next followed, imitating the gesture and the bellowing of the first. For thirty seconds it rained buffaloes, and the white sand at the foot of the bluff was incarnardine ; and not until the tails of fifty or seventy-five of that herd had waved adieu to this wicked world did the movement cease." By a liberate roll of 36 Henry 111., the sheriffs of London were commanded to supply fourpence "per diem" for the maintenance of the king's white bear and his keeper in the Tower of London. By a similar roll of the following year they were ordered to provide a muzzle and an iron chain, and a cord for the same ("unum Musellum et unam Cathenam ferream, and tenendum Ursum ilium extra aquam, et unam longam et fortem cordam ad tenendum eundem Ursum piscantem in aqua Thamisite "), the muzzle and chain for use on land, the cord to hold him when in the water. By another liberate roll of 39 Henry IIT., they were ordered to build a house in the Tower for the king's elephant ; and by yet another of the 40th of the same reign, to provide necessaries for the elephant and his keeper. Another royal mandate, addressed to the same sheriffs, bid them disburse, out of the ferm of their city, £40 7s. 6d. for the maintenance of the king's leopard in the Tower and the wages of his keeper, at sixpence a day for the leopard and three-half-pence a day for the keeper.