CURRENT TOPICS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7432, 29 November 1892, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

"♦ :: The Berlin Opera House will celebrate on Dec. 7 tne one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the first performance of a grand opera in that house. It was given by order of Frederick IL, under the intendantsbip of George Wenzeslaus von Kuobelsdoiff. The king was present at the previous rehearsal of the opera, which was Cleopatra c Cesare, by Graun. , Mr J. S. Thornton, Hon Secretary of the Sloyd Asacciation. writes : — *'The word ' Sloyd ' (an Anglicised form of the Swedish 'Slojd') is closely akin to our word 'sleight,' ÜBed now only when we speak of sleight-of-hand. It means, therefore, dexterity, akilfulnesa. Manual work in schools may be industrial in its character; or it may be semi-industrial, semi-educational, when it is appropriately called manual training ; or, in undertaking it, all other ends may be subordinated to purely educational ends, in which case we use the term ' Sloyd '' in default of any other." ! In a west Prussian village a man was arre3ted for professing to exorcise the devil from persons possessed, and to be able to work other miracleß. His victims were mostly women. The person supposed to be possessed with the devil was, according to the professor's treatment, bound with a rope, and among other instruments used was a black wooden stick cut in the form of a cross. With this cross he soundly belaboured his victims. The magistrate who tried the case had no faith in the magician's wand, and sent the professor of the Black Art to prison aa a rogue and a vagabond. Bishop Smythies, who has had so extensive an experience of missionary work in Central Africa, declares that " the average African," after he has been at all educated, is as a rule a much more ready speaker and a much better preacher than our EngI lish clergymen when at three-and-twenty I they are ordained deacons. The secret of this lies partly in the fact that the black preacher has "no self-consciousness." The bishop had ventured to ordain one native priest who had originally come to the Universities' Miasion at Zanzibar as a little freed slave, and Dr Smythies assures us that the career of this man, even if it stood alone, would be quite sufficient to give the greatest hopes of the future of the African. A note-maker, who has been spending hia holidays in Ardnamurchan regions, tells a new Highland anecdote (says an English paper). A Lowland minister heard an earnest discourse by a Highland brother from the text "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard change his spots?" in which the preacher, more familiar with Gaelic than English, frequently used "leper" and "leopard" aa the same word. Thinking to do a kindness, the Lowland cleric spoke to the preacher after the service was over, and explained to him that the one word meant a beast with a spotted skin and the other a man under a painful disease. " Wall, wall," replied the Highland minister, "it may be that there ia that vera fine distinction ye draa between the words. And it also may be that ye came to the house of God in a vera bad frame of mind, prepared to find fault with the weak instrument. And now.' will ye let me gi'e ye wan word for your own saul P It's this : Beware of that terrible spirit of criticism ; it'll land ye in all mainner of ' infidelity." The Lowland minister is said to be a wiser man to-day. Did Napoleon 111. put rouge on his face ; to conceal its paleness on the fatal day for his country and his dynasty when he surrendered his sword at Sedan to his "good brother " the King of Prussia P The subject is still being hotly discussed in France apropos of M. Zola's novel "La DeMcle." M. Zola, whose painstaking minuteness is well known, declares— it will be remembered—he has positive evidence that the Emperor did paint his cheeks. Princess Mathilde has, it appeara, related the story more than once. On the other hand, M. Paul de Cassagnac comes forward to champion his late master. He accompanied the Emperor during the whole of the day of the surrender, and iB quite certain that the story of the rouge is an invention. There the matter rests, and the historian of the future mußt take his choice of the two versions. Some who profess to know the facts assert that the Emperor coloured his cheeks, to hide from the troops, who would otherwise have been discouraged, the pallor and waste which his dreadful physical sufferings had caused. One of the most curious stones in the world iB found in Finland, where it occurs in many places. It is a natural barometer, and actually foretells probable changes in the weather. It is called " semakuir," and turnß black shortly- before an approaching rein, while in fine weather it "is mottled with spots of white. For a long time this curious phenomenon waß a mystery, but an analysis of the stone shows it to be a fossil mixed with clay and containing a portion of rook-salt and nitre. This fact being known, the explanation was easy. The salt, absorbing the moisture, turned black when the conditions were favourable for. rain, while the dryness of the atmosphere brought out the salt from the interior of the stone in white spots on the surface. The Scottish Fishery Board's great " hatchery " at Dunbar, which has a floorspace' capable of containing at one time eighty millions of fish ova, and of allowing double that number to be manipulated during the spawning season, occupies one of the most historic- spots in Scotland. It is the old Castle of , Dunbar, associated with Scottish history for eight hundred years, and dismantled subsequent to the fight of Queen Mary and JBothwell, who took refuge in it. A portion of the sub-creek, now being converted into a peaceful fiah pond, formed the dungeon in which the poet, Douglaa, Bishop of Dunkeld, and many other illustrious prisoners were confined. A dark and tortuous passage still exists leading upwardß towards the citadel. The westward opening ia conjectured to have been the portal through which Sir Alexander Ramsay, of Dalhousie, brought succour to Black Agnes during the siege of the Castle by the English under the Earls of Salisbury and Arundel, in 1338 ; and it is believed that it was by this postern that King Edward 11. escaped in a fishing boat, after his disastrous defeat at Bannockburn in 1314. Most people have been interviewed nowadays, bub there'' still remained the interviewer himself. At last he haß been tracked down by a contributor to Cassell's Saturday Journal and subjected to the pumping process he is so fond of inflicting on others. Some persons, we are told, it is impossible to get at. At the head of these was Lord Tennyson. He was never interviewed in the legitimate sense of the term, although a conversation with him was once published by an American, at which the venerable poet was exceedingly angry. Mr Raskin has aleo a decided objection to interviewers in general. Aa a rule, novelists are the best men to interview. They seem to have the whole plot of their confessions settled beforehand. Actors are fairly good, and ladies are very difficult to deal with. Interviewing actors invariably yields a good crop of anecdotal matter, although, sad to relate, in many instances the interviewer has had the same story told to him as a personal reminiscence by half-a-dozen different individuals. Nor does the deceit of some members of the profession end there. One well-known • actor, who is regarded a3 a great lady-killer, made very elaborate preparations for the interviewer's reception. The dressing-room was crammed with flowers, bonbonß, and little knicknacks tastefully displayed. «' Little presents from ladies," said: the actor. At the end of the week the interviewer dropped in on tbe . same actor unexpectedly, when not' a vestige of.: a flower,, bonbon, or knioknack met hia {