Pith and Point.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 9, Issue 78, 30 September 1898, Page 2 (Supplement)

Pith and Point.

In Italy the sabre seems to be the favourite weapon for duelling. The library of the late Oliver Wendell Holmes is valued at only £l6O. The carat used in estimating the weight of gems is a grain of Indian wheat. The recent visit of Kaiser William to Lord Lonsdale cost, it Is said, £40,000. Good-bye is an abbreviation of an old English form of parting, "God be with you until we meet.” The diamond, if laid in the sun and then carried into a dark room, shows distinct phosphorescence. The booking office at Paddington takes in the course of a year through its pigeon holes the sum of £300,000. The American laws enable the friends of a drunkard to prohibit saloon keepers under penalty from supplying him with liquor. * Ground walnut (shells are used to adulterate powdered cinnamon. A close microscopic examination is required to detect the fraud. Meat once meant any kind of food. In one old English edition of the Lord’s Prayer the well-known petition is rendered, “Give us this day our daily meat.” To remove a rusty screw apply a redhot iron to the head for a short time, the screwdriver being used immediately afterwards while the screw is still hot. . There never did, and never will, exist anything permanently noble and excellent in ther character which is a stranger to the exercise of resolute self-denial.— Walter Scott. Miss Manda Steel, who died a short time ago in Mlddlesburgh, Ohio, at the age of 40, weighed seven hundred pounds. The strength of seven men was taxed to carry the corpse downstairs. Many savage nations worshipped only the malevolent deities, on the principle that the good gods would do all* they could for humanity anyhow, while the evil gods or demons needed conciliation. / ■' The Right Hon. Cecil Rhodes, the most Interesting man in the Gape House of. Assembly, is said to be as “restless on his seat as a spring doll.” Rarely does he retain the same attitude for two minutes in succession. Abstracts, abridgments, summaries, &c., have the same use with burning glasses, to collect the diffused rays of wit and learning in authors, and make them point with warmth and quickness upon the reader’s imagination.—Swift. According to one authority, the flow of water in the Palls of Niagara per second is 275,000 cubic feet, and is equal to the latent power of all the coal mined in the world each day. According to the calculations of another (authority, the Palls represent theoretically seven millions of horse-power. Ibsen is a Royalist and Conservative; Bjornsen, a Radical and Republican. The itwo authors, once fast friends, were for ia time divided by politics, and ceased to be friends. But Ibsen’s son and Bjornsen’s daughter married, and that settled the dispute. Ibsen greatly admires Mr. Pinero.

The Earl of Dunraven, as Lord Adair, was a journalist. He went through several campaigns as a special correspondent, and, as he himself remarked, “I was precious glad of the money I got, too.” He was at one time proprietor of the Opera Comique Theatre, and has always interested himself in theatrical matters. A vibrating helmet for the cure of nervous headaches has been devised, by a French physician. It is constructed of strips of steel, put in vibration by a small' electro-motor, which makes 600 turns a minute. The sensation, which is described as not unpleasant, produces ' drowsiness; the patient falls asleep, under its influence, and awakes to find that the pain has ceased. . An incubator for hatching hen’s eggs y under reduced atmospheric pressure has been devised by Professor C. Giacomini, an Italian embryologist, who expects the apparatus to prove a valuable aid in the ■ study of teratology. Reduced pressure in the early days of development incites various monstrosities, besides retarding growth, but in later, stages embryos are killed, unless oxygen is added to counteract the effects of the rarefied air. By the novel contrivance of an English inventor, air is highly ozonised by means of a Wimshurst electrical mcchine, and is then driven by fans from the close case to any point desired. Very little power. is required to work the machine and deliver a strong blast from the , blower. The apparatus has been used for rapidly ageing raw spirits, and it, seems to be just what is needed by those „ who look with favour upon ozonised air as a sanitary agent.

Astley, the founder of the celebrated circus in the Westminster Bridge-road, knew nothing of music, theory or ipractice. One day, while conducting a rehearsal in the ring, his eye suddenly ■ alighted upon the trombone player, who was not at the moment engaged upon his instrument. “What are you doing, sir?” roared the enraged Astley. ‘‘Counting my time, sir,” meekly replied the musician.“ Then get on with you, work; I don’t (pay you to count time, was the severe retort.