HERE AND THERE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2811, 26 August 1908, Page 81

HERE AND THERE.

Re— IThe1 The Author of "Uncle Remus." — Kphe. Rev. Joseph H. "Twichell, of Hart--Connecticut, who attended the ConMfegational Council ' in - Edinburgh, has Been giving some- reminiscences of the mite' _Mr Joel 'Chandler-Harris, better Known as -"Uncle Remus." . Mark Twain gave Mr Twichell a letter of introduction ■S "Uncle Remus," and be called at his Knee and asked if he was in. > The -clerk ■felled' up to the editorial department. Karris was in. I sent up Clemens's fetter, Tahd after a while a boy entered He room. He came right up to me and Kked, "Are you Mr TjHdchell?" . "Yes," " E answered ; and I thought he was a lad Ent. to show -me upstairs. -'Tm glad Mr ■arris is in," I said. ,He looked . at me ! Bpth _i queer expression on his face, and | ■Eaen said quietly, "I am Mr Harris !" j Well, I was thunderstruck. He looked a : ■cere boy. He was below, medium height, gnd . of full'- person, had red hair., and teas very, much "freckled." He was an Rtremely shy, modest, and retiring man — X. very /shy -man— and this characteristic ■| observed sin him. when I met. Mm again. ' Karris -had -very little to say for himsslf, < Brat ie- impressed Mr Twichell ac "an ingpnsely'jefigpos. man."' X — Pearls of Price.-* &If the*' Sj^ufc^rh JlJross pearl w.6ch is on p^w at Ihe'fTr.anoo-British exhibition is, |6 stated, worth £10,000, it is certainly pfae of the most valuable in the. world. Slven the largest pearls in the.J)uchess of wonderful necklace^ 50- of Jlhich- are said to average half an inch in ->met&e, and are valued at £4000 -each, <>f' 'trivial value in comparison with lis /Australian gem. But there have isen if. we are to believe the rebrds', o£ much greater value. The pearl hich Cleopatra is said to have dissolved id swallowed has been > valued at more ban £80,000 ; and' a similar pearl, cut in ; lives, adorned the ears of the statue of ■^snus in the Pantheon at Rome. More iißtly etill was the great Taverniex pearl, j »igW*|Jytiin.fei^he possession of an Arab , serchbniJ/rnwhiqh- M. Tavemier travelled *m. cEaHssto-fArabia to purchase, and for giich'iihe 'ds skM' to have paid the enor*ous^3um\ 0f>36110,000. « lo BiLnso'ii'* s .* .arteiJiflk lsr«t Penny Post. — authoritative history of the first" ?ondon.-cpjinny, post is given in the Stamp Lover^'a jnw monthly magazine for stompoollectcsSl b • ' The penny post of 1680 (rot , 1681, af given in a number of newspapers) was invented* by one Robert Murray, an upholsterer, and was carried on by Wil- , Kam Dockwra, of the Gustoms service, }c latter being the seventeenth-century rototype of Rowland -Hill.. It is curious 2 not& that this penny post gave iLe bndon district in 1680 a more frequent fryice than it has had in modern times, and collections being made i |cry hour of the day. The difficulties ! | delivery will be in a measure underpod when it is noted that the names of *c streets were not posted up and the feuses were not numbered, it being left fjvan Act of -Parliament in 1767 to pro--$e for these improvements. » — A Road-binding Composition. — ■ firm in Saxony has introduced a. road- '. tnding composition called "Apokonin," Srich has been tried on the macadamised , greets of Leipsiz and other places .with Uich success. The material is thus de- , — It "is a. mixture of -the heavier j jjsidual oils obtained dnHhe distillation of , jal tar"jdth high boiling hydrocarbons. , *c in£tnc<£Qf mixing apparently involves , rCcr^an^, degree of chemical combination, . t wffich .phenol and similar constituents ] Say a^ple. . The manufactured material \ i prepared for .tise ■ by- heating \n iron 3 luldromv-wfentical with those. used for ] iphalt,J'to temperatures ranging from -t 2deg to 248deg Fahrenheit. It is then \ rayed- evenjy over the surface of a road- ; ly with a "special form of apparatus, and ider- such high pressure that the fluid ] fiss penetrates to a certain distance into fe upper layer of dust* or dirt. The ] pult isVthe formation of a compact lusqus black coating, which meets the de- < ands of heavy traffic, and is not dis- < tegrated into dust particles. A marked t »antage of the new process over the { fthods hitherto employed for the same { cpose, and based upon the use of cordi- ( ry ttatr t is yi& tot«l absence of odour |5Sr the application. fc — The National Flag. — and Queries contains an official tptement from the- Home Office that the wion Jack' is, the national flag, and may <( g.used freely by- British subjects. Just |jyear ago the Scottish Office issued a * Secular instructing th© oonstabulary A

officials in Scotland to prohibit the use c the Scottish Standard— the "Red Lion flag, — it being tbe personal flag of th King as representative of the ancient Scoi tish kings. The blue St. Andrew's Cross the circular stated, was the national _fla of the Scottish people. A few week 5 later, however, another circular was issue. J cancelling the previous order, on th : ground that it had been discovered tha i the Scottish Lion flag as being only on t quartering of the .Royal Standard; "can s no* be the real Royal Standard." : — Robinson, prusoe. — ; Mr Frank T. Bullen, F.R.G.S., in th, | Bibliophile, has an interesting article oi "Robinson Crusoe." Among other thing , "he makes this statement: — "I need in I other proof of the amazing genius o ; Defoe than thic — that now at 50 ye^r* of age, as then at sir, he is to me bu \ -a. shadow, Robinson Crusoe ie the sub ; stance. Whenever I feel pleased witl Robinson Crusoe's action, or displeased, i ' never occurs to me to blame or praisi his creator. He is the only rtility t< me, not the man who evolved him ou of his inner consciousness with but th< barest substratum of fact to build upon.' , When Mr Bullen read the story hi tin ship's focs'le to his shipmates tlnre usec ' to be great arguments as to Roblnsor Crusoe's doings as far as they were mil nected with seafaring, "based iioon th« perfect assurance that these things nr'uallj happened." Another tribute w!i ? oh-Mi Bullen pays to Defoe is the w-mderfr] freedom of the story from technical blun> ders, in a. comparative sense at axvy rate. "Blunders he does make and freely," say* Mr Bullen — "never, however, of anj moment lo the story; but I have sea stories sent to me for review at th© present daj written by men who claim to be seafarers which have more howlers in regard to nautical technique within the space d a magazine article than Defoe has in the -whole of 'Robinson Crusoe.' " It is, Mi Bullen thinks, a proof of Defoe's genius that although his name has been bfcfore ' the worldi for nearly two centuries as the author of "Robinson Crusoe" he still remains nearly as anonoymous as the 1 author of the Book of -Job. — Intelligence and Instinct in Birds.— Some illuminating contributions to the distinction between intelligence and instinct in birds are made by Professor Francis Herrick, whose theory is that birds in their nesting, breeding, and migratory habits are mere time machines. The adult bird does not, he thinks, show intelligence in serving the proper quantity of food to its young, and really only | tests each of its offspring for greed. But it does really display some intelligence in the kind, of food served. While a good deal of instinct is involved in all these matters, the parent does not act like a machine, but the young are provided with food adapted to their growing needs. A gulj chick one half-hour old gets small 1 pieces of predigested fish, while at three weeks of age it may Ibe . invited to bolt an entire squid. Of the general intelligence of old birds, Professor Herrick is inclined to think that their various instincts become so much modified by habit or associations that their life tends to run in grooves. They quickly form the habit of going to their nesting site by a definite patK j in tise same yray -drinking ami bathing places, perches, spots for dusting, for sun bathing and sleeping are resorted to by habit, for longer or "shorter periods, according -to the other conditions which modify behaviour. It is very hard to say whether wild birds can meet emergencies, or whether their actions suggest deliberation or planning. A robin will tug at a string which has caught on a limb, but, is never seen fully to meet the situation by releasing the string. It will make several turns of a cord about a limb and leave the other end to hang free without any relation to the nest, so that its effort is useless. The gull, according to abundant and competent testimony, will carry shell fish to a considerable height, drop them on the rocks or hard ground, and repeat the experiment till it gets the soft meat. This, like the thrush's methods of cracking snail shells on a stone, suggests adaptive intelligence or even analogical reasoning, but probably does not vi=e above the level of associative memory. A thrush or a gull once did it and found it useful, and the bird's descendants have done it -,ince.

The owner scratched the favourite horse. The punter scratched his head. And gazed distracted to the course, Then to his friends he said : "This pun&njr may allure, but not Ac other things allure, And I would sooner put my lot Ou Woods' Great Peppermint Cure."