EDITOR'S WALLET

Otago Witness, Issue 2111, 9 August 1894, Page 50

EDITOR'S WALLET

Hoaxing a Policeman The other Sunday a policeman was passing a church in tbe provinces as a gent email came out. The man jokingly accosted the officer, and said that he was wanted inside The policeman naturally Ihought there was some troublo in the church and went in. Tbe sexton, on his appearance, said "Come in here," and took him to a pc v, waving his hand as much as to say, " Help your.- elf." There was another man in tbis pew, who had, as the po' iceman thought, a most sinister oppression, and ho supposed that he was the man they wanted arrested, so he tapped him on the arm and told him t o come along. The man turned pale, and edged along as though to get away, when the policeman ook him by the collar and jerked him into- the aisle. The man then Btiugglcd, thinking that the policeman must be crazy, and tried to.get away, but be was dragged along. Several of the congregation thought he had been doing wrong, and helped the officer to get him out. The policeman taw the gentlemau who told him he was watted in the church, and asked him what was the charge against the man arrested, and he didn't know ; so the sexton was appi aled to, and lie didn't know ; and finally the prisoner was asked what it was all about, and he didn't know. The officer was asked what ho arrested the man for, and he didn't know ; and after a while the matter was explained, and the j.olieenmi, who had to arrest somebody, took the mm into custody who told him he wis . wanted in the church, and he was eventually fined He s*ys he will never try to convert a policeman again. Tit for Tat. A certain pragmatical pedagogue up north hauled up to an oral task a student who had corrected him on one Occasion, and so excited his wrath. After keeping him on his feet for 20 minutes with posers and conundrums, and getting no satisfactory results, he said, in tones of withering sarcasm, "That will do, 'sir; you have amply demonstrated that there is a eadvaccum here." And, as he spoke, the savant's bony forefinger touched his own expansive forehead. Tho cheeky student rejoined, with a significant glacce at the professorial head, " You, sir, a^e the best judge of that ; but I assure you " (pointing to his own forehead) " tbat there is no vacuum here." Pleasant for John Jones. Mr James Payn tells < f a fr'end of his wbo had avoided jury duty for some time by the assistance of a Government official, hi acknowledgment of a certain douceur ; but he got t'red of paying an annuity, and wanted it to be done with for good and all. " For £10," said the official, " I will guarantee tbat you shall never be troubled again," and the money was paid. When the day came for his attendance at the court John Jon s, let us call him, could not resisttbe t mptaion of s eing how hi* mon- yhad been invests. He d< scribed thi sensation of hearing "John J?'iu j s" called out as rath-r pecul'ar; it wasc^ll-d out a second tim*, and he cou'd hard y iv sist answering to his name. When ifc was called out a third timi be f> It quite «erie, and much more so at what took place in consequence. A person in deep mourning stepp* d forwari from tliH back of the couri", and with a *oice broken with emotion, exclaimed : " John Jon s is dead, ray lord." And his lord-hip, with a little refit cted melancholy in bis tone : "Poor fellow; scratch his name out." An Unlucky Sword. When Na 01-oh th^ First f- lit' red (""airo, on Jaly 22, 1793, he w-s pres nled with tbre-> swords of honour, ri' hly inlaid wi-h precious stones. He brought them back to Europe, and in 1802 he ga^e one to Marshal Ney and another to Murat, keeping the third for himself. • NVy rece:v< d his at an imp' rial reception; the sword ppssed from one to another of those pr^s.nfc, among whom was a young subalterifof th" Auvergne rpgiment. When Napnleon t sc:-ped from Elba, Ney left thu king and took sid' s with h : s farmer chief. After th« Allies enttred Paris the place became too ho 1 ; for him, and ho maie preparations to get out of the country with a pass procured for him under a fals^ nam", but his wife and a friend persuad»d him that there was really no dang'.r, and he decided to st »y in France. Then came the order for h's arrest ; he fled to a castle in the poss'S'ion of some friends, end sacceeded 'in reaching it without h ; s whereabouts becoming known. But; he was destined to be be'ivyed bjr ths sword of honour given to him 13 years p evious'y. He was one day looking at tbe pa'ntings in one of tin more public rooms of the castle, which he usually avoided, and feeling tired he threw h ; mself on a couch, first taking off his On nt'l sword, which h8 always wore out of atiection for th • Emperor. Suddoaly he heard voicrs; he sprang up and hurriedly loft the room, forgi tting his sword. A m-nute later a parly of "ad\ts and g ntlemeu untiTCil the room, < n - of th?m buing the young suba'tern of tho Auvergne regiment, now a colon 1. He at on< c rcognised the sword, and in spite of a'l the owner of the cas le could do, hecaliel in som« gendarme s and proceeded to make a search for Marshal Ney. Finding th t he was discovered, Ney gave hims If up quietly In December, 1815, the marshal was shot, scarcely two months after the owner f tho second sword, Murat, had

met his fate in the same way. — Berlin Tageblatfc. Surprising: the Dwimmer. While walking along the. streets of Vienna one day with a friend, the late Herr yon Bulow came across a regimental band on its way to tbe castle, to pl*y at a certa n hour. He let go the arm of his coinpaoion, ran to the middle of the street, and joined the crowd of small boys who hovered about the drummer. Folio nng the band, he kept bowing to the surprised drummer, and applauded him at almost every beat "That is rhythm! Excellent! That's the way I like to hear it," he continued to ejaculate, to the surprise of the musical soldiers and the great delight of the small boys People in the streets recognised the famous pianist and jo'ned the procession.'si that the band, upon arriving at the ca«tle, had one of the larges 1 ; audiences to which if had ever played. He listened attentively to the end of ! the last piece, and then made a deep obeisance before the drummer and his instrument. ] "Thank you," he said; "that was refreshing ! That puts my nerves in good condition again." Whui the drummer learned the identity of bis strange admirer, he was a proud man. Noise from Human nones. Among savage nations it is often customary to use human bones for tie purpose of making horns, and a terrible screech can be brought out of these awful instruments. Ti e braves in many Sout'i America! tribes in the vicinity of the Amazon employ these peculiarly con-tructed horns as instruments of war, playing on them as they enter into conflict, cind employing their harsb, screec-hiug tones to drown the cries of the wounded, and inspire their foes with terror. The chief warriors of the tribe make it one of the main pom's of tLeir fighting to capture or k.ll the chosen chiefs of the other side, not to eat them or take their scalps, but to make horns out of their bones. Armed with these pecu'iar instrument, they mu-ch a second time against the hostile tribe, playing the battle music, which is to encourage tht ir own men, on the bones of the chiefs of those whom they march to oppose. A warrior, in fact, maybe the chosen bra^ c of a tribe one day, and the next day part of him may be turned into an instrument of martial music with which his brethren are terrified and scared. Romance of .1 Wine Cellar. Anyouo who has visited London's great wine cellar near -the Albert Docks must have been struck with the eno mous amount of fungi which grow above the wine bins and thrive on the fumes of tLe wine. If these vegetable parasites were allowed to extend tb/ y would fill the cellar from end to end and drain every drop of wine in the place. The fungus is chiefly of a white or trownish colour. In' one part of this vast cellar, however, a blood-red fungu3 grows, concerning which the guides tell a curious story. Rlat.y years ago a well-known city wine merchant showed his daughter tbe wonders of this subterranean storehouse. A bandome young Italian had become enamoured of his daughter, but the merchant had sternly checked his advances ' The passionate son of the South, had been heard to use threats against him, but the merchant laughed and took no precautions for his own safety. Armed with a "tasting order," the father and daughter went one day through the great wine vault, and the merchant paused before a bin of old and well-matured wine. As the wine flowed into the glass the merchant laughingly said : "We're taking the life out of the old barrel." . He had no sooner uttered the woals than a figure glided past the girl, and a /%oice exclaimed : "And I'jl take the life out of you."" Before the merchant could defend himself the Italian had lifted a knife and stabbed him to the heart ' The blood of the dying man spurted to the roof and dyed a patch of fungi there. Since that time the fuu 6 us has- always been of a deep blood-red colour. Fesiilt of Observation. During the progress of a war between Austria and Turkey, a baker in his cellar kneading dough noticed a slight noise, ri*ing and falling a*; intervals, which appeared to come from a distant corner of the cellar. He stopped bis work, and, tracing the sounds, discovered that they were caused by a few marbles dancing up and down on the head of a small drum his child had left there. The majority of people would have been satisfied to attribute the motion of « he marbles to the rumbling in the street, or to the occasional firing of guns, but this man was an observer. Surprised at the perfect regularity with wbich the marbles jumped from the drum-head, he put his ear to tbe ground and noticed a distant tapping. He recalled how as a boy he had heard from one end of a long log a companion scratching with a pin at the other, and he judged that the earth was just such a conductor of sound as the log had been Suddenly ifc flashed across his mind that what Le had heard was (he sound of a pickaxe, and that the Turks were doing what had so long been feared— undermining the city. The news was communicated to the Austrian commandant, an examination made, a countermine prepared and exploded, and 3 the Turks put to flight. Heine in Paris. Heine, during his prolonged stay in Paris, where he was adopted and became Daturalised, paw all the new operas and most of the new pictures ; attended the meetings of the institute ; abused tbe polka, then just invented ; diccussed the Eastern question, and tried to decide whether it was more prob ble that England and Russia would declare war against France, or that France and Russia . would declare war aga'nst England ; calculated Philippe's chances of remaining on the throne, considered the rival merits of Thiers and Guizot, and generally criticised everyone and everything with which he was brought in contact

He was on friendly terms with George Sand, Meyevbeer, Rothschild, Balzac, Victor Cousin, Spontini, and Alfred de Mu c set ; and he has given elaborate portraits of some of these celebrities, while he has written something characteristic of each.

If he was at any time personally acquainted with Victor Hvgo, all intim.acy between the two must certainly have censed after Heine's murderous attack upon the gi'eat French poet : "As all the French writers possess taste, fcbe total absence of this quality in Victor Hugo struck his compatriots as a sign of originality and genius. He is essentially cold, as is the devil, according to the assertions of witches — cold and icy even in his most passionate effusions ; his enthusiasm is only a phantasmagoria, a piece of calculation devoid of love ; for

[he loves nothing bub himself — he is an egoist, or, worse still, a Hugoist. In spite of his imagination and wit, he has the awkwardness of a parvenu or a savage." In another place we are told that Hugo's studied passion and artificial warmth suggest "fried ice" — an edible antithesis prepared by the Chinese, which consist "of little balls of ice dipped into a particular kind of batter, and forthwith ftied and swallowed.-*-From Cassell's Old and New Paris for June. The Boy and His Froblems. For questions dark and eerie let me recommend my boy, Who, though lie ishis father's pet, doth nono the less annoy " . By putting problems every day that no man living here Upon this earth can answer with a conscience that is cleai. It's " Papa tell mo why it is that granite is so hard " ; And " What's the slipp'rieat thing alive, a cake o ice or lard?" ' And "Why don't lions learn to roar in EDghsh, so that we , Can understand 'em?" And again, ' Just how wet is the sea?" " If it should snow in summer time, how long be-

fore 'twould melt?" And "If felt is the pa^ for feel,' why isn't

squealed spelt squclt?" " If horses had five legs, how fast could poniea run

amilc?" And " Why do snakes in fairy tales so often gnaw

afilo?" "If you were ma, and she were me, who do you think I'd be? 1 ' " Who was it first discovered that four minus one

is three ? " " When all those Philistines were by Samson over-

thrown, What was that good jackass's name who let him have the bone ? " From morn till night he keeps it up, until I some-

times think If I am not quite crazy, I'm at least upon the brink ; And when I ask him why ho does not for one

moment pause, He answerd me convincingly : "Why don't I? Oh,

because!" And were it not that when he sleeps he seems so

innocent, I think I'd sell him to some man across the con-

tinent ; Although I'm very certain if I sold him once that Would move the earth to get him back and have him ask me " Why ? "