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Taranaki Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 10008, 19 May 1894, Page 2

Extraordinary though it may seem, says the Otago Daily Times, the late Dr Stuart attributed his rise in life to no less potent an agency than a bottle of whisky. In the days when he conducted his "adventure school" at Levin he attracted the attention of two maiden ladies, who, seeing the raw-boned young Scotchman, as he was then, walking daily along the street with his only pupil, were led to make enquiries about him, and having ascertained that he was a schoolmaster they called upon him. In those days Highland hospitality dictated that whiskey should be offered to visitors, and as it occurred to the young teacher that he should in such a manner entertain his visitors he 3ent out for a bottle of whiskey. The ladies, Dr Stuart used to say, were much struck with his> hospitality, and through their good offices he obtained an introduction to a family in which he obtained the position of tutor. The gaining of this tutor's situation ho regarded as the foundation of that measure of success he was enabled to achieve in life. During the last twelve years some 400,000 Jews have emigrated from Russia, of whom a very large number have gone to the United States. Only 2 per cent of them were agriculturists; the other 98 per cent were employed in small trades and handicrafts, chiefly shoemakers and tailors. A machinery importer in one of tho leading centres is going nito a new lino if we can judge from the following advertisement, which appeared in a paper on April 28: — "Boiled Jackass, 17 x (5, tested 100 cold : £75. Inspection invited."' Tho dreams of to-day are the history of to-morrow. The London Spectator has discovered an article which was published in 1830, in which tho author indulges in a vision of tho scientific discoveries that the next century was to ■witness. In " Tho Album of a Modern Sybil " — the article referred to — a traveller is represented as having come^frorn Edinburgh to London in "seven hours and a-half." The Great Northern in actual fact runs tho distance i in eight hours. A sporting party — including " the Duke of Parramatta, the Australian Ambassador " — used " guns which can be discharged 25 times a minute " — an imperfect forecast of magazine rifles and the Maxim gun. Fashionable visitors on paying a call are placed by the porter in an " Introduction Chair," which mounts with thorn through tho ceiling, and a lady of society describes how she % 'has been talking to Mrs Winterblob'som this afternoon through the telescope till my finger aches " — her friend being " about two miles off." The introduction chair is, of course, outdone by the modern lift, and what is " talking through the telescope " over a distance of two miles compared to talking by telephone from London to Paris under the English Channel, oi from New York to Chicago across 1200 miles? An "automaton notowritor;" and "conceu trated exsonce of caloric " is a less wonderful product of chemistry than the liquid air and solidified oxygen of Professor Dewar.