FACTA AND FANCIES

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 19, Issue 21, 17 March 1908, Page 8

FACTA AND FANCIES

Ik WOMAN'S WORK IS NEVER DONE. How can a man say that a woman hai nothing to do i In one year she gets dinnei 365 times, washes dishes 1,095 times > Bet!8 et! the children ready for school twice a day foi 180 days, gets the baby to sleep 1,460 times makes about 300 calls, and, as she wishw for something she hasn't every minute, she wishes 60 things an hour, or 262,800 things tn a year. Who says a woman has nothing to do? A SOAPLESS COUNTRY. HiRB is a chance for our rival soapmakers. India, it seems, is virtually a soapless country. Throughout the villages of Hindustan soap is, indeed, regarded as a natural curiosity, and is rarely, if ever, kept in stock by the native shopkeeper. In the towns it is now sold to a certain extent, but how small this is may be gathered from the fact that the total consumption of soap in India last year was only 100,000 cwl That is to say, every 2,500 persons used on an average only mlbs, of soap between them, or, in other words, considerably less than half an ounce was the average consumption per person. DO NOT FORCE CHILDREN TO EAT. Some parents compel children to eat against their will, as when they come to the breakfast table without an appetite, or have lost it at the prospect of a visit. Unless we are thirsty wedo not care to drink the purest water without aversion, and as for eating when there is no appetite it is revolting, as anyone may prove to himself by attempting to take a second meal twenty minutes after having eaten a regular dinner. The appetite, the hunger, is excited by the presence of gastric juice about the stomach ; but if there is no gastric juice there can be no hunger, no appetite, and to compel a child to swallow food into the stomach when there is no gastric juice there to re:eive it, is an absurdity and a cruelty. When there s no gastric juice food is rejected by vomiting, «• remains there for hours—a " load," or lite ferments, causing oppression and wind. SHE MUST HAVE MALARIA. A subscriber to the Telephone Exchange isiedto be placed in communication with Bis medical man. Subscriber—" My wife complains of a leverepainat the back of her neck, and Kcasional nausea." t Doctor—" She must have malaria." ? Subscriber—" What's best to be done ?" ► At this moment the clerk at the central station alters the switch by mistake, and the unlucky husband receives the reply of a mechanical engineer in answer to inquiries of a mill-owner. *' ' Engineer—"l believe the inside is lined with excoriations to a considerable thickness. Let her cool during the night, and in the morning before firing up take a hammer and pound her vigorously. Then get a garden hose with strong pressure from the main, and let it play freely on the parts affected." To his great surprise the doctor never saw bis client. A BAD MAN. 1 NostetterMcGjnms is an arrant coward, but at the same time he is very boastful. Meeting Gilhooly, he said—- " Bill Snort came mighty near getting into a mess this morning." "With whom?" "With me. I tell you he had a pretty close shave." "What was it all about?" "Well, you see last week there was a piece in Snort's paper about me having stolen a pig. My name wasn't mentioned, of course, but the description clearly pointed to me. The article went on to say that a red-hot stove wouldn't be safe if I was in the vicinity, and it seemed to me that it was a sort 01 a reflection on my honesty." "Yes, I read the article. It was rather personal." "Just so. Well, I thought I'd call on the editor and ask him what he meant, if I could find him in." " Did you find him in ?" "Yes, he was in, so I asked him if he meant to impeach my honesty. What do you suppose he said ?" " I've no idea." T"HB said I didn't have any honesty to impeach, and with that he slapped me on rh#.face. I happened to notice that there was a ponderous " shepherd's crook" walking stick on the desk, and as quick as lightning I grabbed it." "Did you strike him?" " No, I just grabbed the stick to keep him from striking me with it. As soon as I got hold of it I darted out of the door. He took after me but couldn't overtake me. What Jo you suppose Snort has done now ? He comes out in his paper and charges me with stealing his walking stick, when I only took it to keep him from thrashing me with it. Snort is a great deal too reckless in what he says and does, and some of these days he'll get hurt." v*V K"Yes, he'll break bis toe running after yw.", ' SCARING A LION. 1 WitO beasts are usually alarmed by the Unexpected. The Italian's organ monkey that saved itself from the bulldog by taking •jff its* cap, evidently seemed to the startled brute a creature that could pull off its own head. , , , A stranger instance was related the other day by a hunter lately returned from Africa, where he had been trapping for the animal collectors of Hamburg. He was out one afternoon with one of the natives, preparing A trap in a rocky ravine. He says;— t " we had built a stout pen of rocks and logs, and placed a calf as a bait. The sun was nearly down as we started for the camp, and no one had the least suspicion of the presence of danger until a lion, which had been crouching beside the bush, sprang out and knocked to* Acwn, In springing upon his prey the flon or tiger strikes as he seizes. This blow of the paw, if it falls on the right spot, disables the victim at once. " I was so near this fellow that he simply reared, seized me by the shoulder, and pulled me down. I was flat on the earth before I realised what had happened. I wai on my back, and he stood with both paws on my waist, facing the natives and growling very savagely. The men ran off about 300 feet, which was, doubtless, the reason why I was not carried off at once. "I can say without conceit that I was fairly cool. The attack had come so suddenly that I had not time to get ■ rattled.' I had been told by an old Boer hunter, that it ever I found myself in such a predicament as this I must appeal to the lion's fears. Had I moved my arm to get my pistol the beast would have lowered his head and seized my throat. So long as I lay quiet he reasoned that I was dead, and gave his attention to the natives. "Suddenly I barked like a dog, following the bark with a growl, and that lion jumped twenty feet in his surprise. He came down between me and the natives, and I turned enough to see that his tail was down. I uttered more barks and growls, but without moving a hand, and the lion, after making a circle round me, suddenly bolted and went off with a scare which would last him a week If you picked up a stick and discovered it to be a, snake you would do just as that lion did. He supposed he had pulled down a man. The man turned into a dog. He could not understand it, and it frightened him."

A Court-room in China.—ln the magis- ! rate's dirty court-room the prisoners aw brought in, tried, tortured if they refuse to confess, sentenced, and punished with a dispatch that is in admirable contrast to thi deliberations of our enlightened courts! If the real offender cannot be found, they seize upon one cf his relatives and hold him as hostage. It is generally a poor relation, and the longer he stays in gaolthebetter his family prospers. The mandarins art inclined to look leniently on any who are willing to pay their way out of gaol, or pay a substitute who will be caught and imprisoned for them, so that in the small number ol its fettered prisoners Canton stands well in comparison with civilised, law-abiding communities a third of its size. Feathered Suicides.—The keeper of the lighthouse on Fire Island, which is generally the first land seen by vessels from Europi , bound for New York, has made an interesting statement with reference to the numbg of birds which commit involuntary suicide against his lantern and his lenses. The thick lenses are chipped in places by the ducks and geese striking them with their heavy bill, after flying through the glass (one-eighth of an inch thick) which covers the outside of the lantern. Frequently, ha ;ays\ he has found one or more ducks or ;;eesc Hying about in the lantern chamber, .vounded with the cut glass, and sprinkling lie lenses and floor with their blood. As nauy as 60 dead ducks have been picked up on .he ground about the base of the lighthouse m a single morning; and sometimes more • ban 100 birds of various kinds have been round; while the large metal ball which crowns the lighthouse has been bent and nearly twisted from its position by flocks of wild geese coming againsWt. 7 Ales of Sacred Trees.—The palm,, the oak, and the ash are the three trees which, since time immemorial, were held to be sacred trees. The first among them, which figures on the oldest monuments and pictures of the Egyptians and Assyrians, is the date palm (Phoenix dactilifera), which was the symbol of the world and of creation, and the fruit of which filled the faithful with divine strength, and prepared them for the pleasures of immortality •■aid Mahomet, "thy paternal aunt, the date palm, for in Paradise it was created out of ihe same dust of the ground." The Jews and the Arabs again looked upon the same tree as a mystical allegory of human beings, for, like them, it dies when its head (the summit) is cut off, and when a limb (branch) is once cut off it does not grow again. Those who know can understand the mysterious language of the branches on. days when there is no wind, when whispers of present and future events are communicated by the tree. Abraham of old, so the Rabbis say, understood the language of the palm. The oak was always considered a •• holy" tree by our own ancestors, and, above all, by the other nations of the North of Europe. When Winifrid, of Devonshire (680—754), went forth on his wanderings through Germany to preach the Gospel, one of his first actions was to cut down the giant oak in Saxony, which was dedicated to Thor and worshipped by people from far and near. But when he had nearly felled the oak, and while people were cursing and threatening the saint, a supernatural storm swept over it, seized the summit, broke every branch, and dashed it with a tremendous crash to the ground. The heathens acknowledged the marvel, and many of them were converted there and then. But the saint built a chapel of the wood of this very oak, and dedicated it to St. Peter. The Celts, and Germans and Scandinavians, again, worshipped the mountain ash (Fraxinus), and tt is especially in the religious myths of the latter that the "Askr Yggdrasil" plays a prominent part. To them it was the holiest among trees, the " world tree," which, eternally young and dewy, represented heaven, earth, and hell. According to the Edda, the ash yggdrasil was an evergreen tree. k specimen of it grew at Upsala, in front of the great temple, and another in Ditbmarschen, carefully guarded by a railing, for it was, in a mystical wa,y f connected with' the fate of the country, When Ditbmarschen lost its liberty the tree withered, but a magpie, one of the best prophesying birds of the north, came and built its nest on the withered tree and hatched five little ones, all perfectly white, as a sign that at some future time the country would regain its lost liberty. . Making Umbrellas.—There are more things necessary to the make up of an umbrella than one would suppose. There is the stick, generally of maple or ironwood, ribs, stretchers,, and springs of steel, the runner, runner notch, the ferrule, cap, bands, ana tips of brass or nickel; the covering of silk, gingham, alpaca, or the like; the runner guard of leather, the inside cap and the lan ay handle, whjch may be of oxidised silver, horn, curiously carved wood, mother ){ pearl, or any substance that the cunning artificer can devise or shape. The runner errule, cap, band, and such parts aremanU' ;'actured elsewhere, and still another factory nets out the steel ribs which have supplanted the old rattans. The goods for the covering are mostly made at Home, except the fine silks, which are almost all imported from France. Having gotten together the materials, how does the umbrella get along ? The stick is turned, stained, and polished, the handle isjiut on, the little brass cap on the end is riveted fast, and then two slots are cut in the sticks, which receive two springs, over which slides the " thingumbob" that keeps the umbrella either up or down. A band is then fastened on it which the ends of the ribs of the umbrella are to slip, when it gets ribs. The frame-maker then makes the sticks, fastens the stretchers to t lie ribs, and strings the top cords of,the ribs on a wire which is fitted into the "running notch." He then strings the lower ends of the " stretchers" on a wire and fastens them in the "runners," and when both runners are securely fixed he turns it over to the coverers. Aroundthe room are hanging V-shaped wooden patterns, brass bound on the corners. The cutter lays his silk or gingham very smoothly out on a long counter, folding it back and forth uptil there are 16 thicknesses. He then takes one of these patterns, lays it on the pile of cloth, and with a keen-edged knife he slashes cruelly in the fabric, according to the pattern. These pieces are then carefully sca/ined by a woman, who rejects every one having a hole or flaw in it. Then a man takes the pieces and carefully stretches the edges. Unless the whole length of the edge is properly stretched the cover will not fit smoothly. Next the piece! go into the sewing room, where they are sown together on machines by what is called the pudding bag stitch. Then a woman sews the covers on the frame, keeping the umbrella half open with a contrivance made for that sole purpose. If she is a good woman she can sew on a cover in five ninaltis, besides stitching on the tie. The edges of the umbrella are then smoothed with a flat-iron. Once more a woman holds the umbrella up to the light and searches for flaws. If it be all right then the coverts trimly folded round the stick and into the sale room it goes to take its chance of being bought and going out into the inclement world. And how long does it take so important a thing as an umbrella to come into being ? Just about 15 minutes.