MISCELLANEOUS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 275, 8 May 1873, Page 6

MISCELLANEOUS.

The " Gyro Pigeon" is the name of a newly-invented mechanical contrivance recently introduced into the neighbouring Colonies. Its object is to do away with the necessity for using live birds at pigeon-shooting matches, and is said to answer its purpose so well as to induce the belief that it will in time secure that end. A late Hobart Town " Mercury" thus describes the " Gyro Pigeon": — " A'trap' is fixed in the ground, and a 'pigeon,' consisting of a boomerang-shaped piece of tin, is propelled by means of a spring into the air. The force of the propulsion suffices to make the 'pigeon' perform gyrations in the air after the manner of a live pigeon, and thus the usual mark for the gun of the sportsman is presented. By means of a cord attached to the spring, the ' trap' can be set off, and the usual 'rise' of 20 or 25 yards secured. The artifical pigeon is as difficult a mark for the sportsman as a live bird, and its course after leaving the trap equally uncertain. On the cricket ground this morning there were some excellent shots assembled, but after several attempts, which were productive of much amusement, the shooting party acknowledge that the artificial ' birds' were quite as wary and fleet of wing as the living birds, and pronounced the apparatus a complete success. Indeed there is little doubt that in pigeon-shooting matches where this novel apparatus is brought into use it would always be a safe course in betting to take the chances of the bird against the man. The 'Gyro' apparatus is plentifully supplied with a stock of these birds, and the advantage they possess over the living doves is that they sustain little damage after being hit, and are, after a coat of paint, quite ready for another flight. / The 'Gyro' is likely to come into general use amongst sportsmen, and particu-

larly where live birds are scarce, and its use will prove of much convenience. A writer in the "Bendigo Advertiser " makes quarterly comparisons of the dividends declared at Sandhurst, and the rest of the Colony. The results for the three first months of 1873 shows £169,107 for the former, and £78,662 for the Colony, Ballarat contributed only £3966 to the returns from the latter. In 1872, the Victorian alluvial mines paid dividends to the amount of £180.000, while the dividends from quartz reached the enormous sum of one million and sixty-nine thousand pounds, having increased to that amount from £470,802 in 1870. The New York " World" baa been figuring upon the cost of an occasional drink, says: — '• Once in a while a pensive one may be heard to say, 'I wish I had all the money back that I have spent for drink for the last ten years.' No man in twenty, that retrospectively gazing gives utterance to that wish, has in his mind an approximating estimate of the amount which a person of even moderate bibulous propensities may spend upon drink in the space of ten years. Leaving wines and expensive liquors out of the question, let us see what the plain cocktalist, or modest imbiber of oldrys, is likely to disburse on his favorite refreshment in the course of a year. Take a very moderate man, for axample. Assume that he drinks every day four glasses of whiskey at 15c. That amounts to 60c a day, which makes 4dols 20c a week ; multiply by four, and you have 16dols 80c a month, which comes to 201dols 60c a year. Thus, if a man who has gone on at this rate for ten yeart had all his liquor money back, his pjQßets would be inflated to the tuuelpf 2,016d015. This is only a small-beer calculation: but think of those who spend five times that sum on liquors, and remember that their name is legion." From the " Queen " we take the following, as showing a new phase of woman's rights ;—; — "At Godalming there has been established a ' Woman's Free and Easy.' The locale is the classical hostelrie, the Half-Mood, where, every Tuesday evening, the front parlour is occupied exclusively from half-past seven to eleven o'clock by the fair sex (married and single), numbering twenty five. Each member takes the chair in rotation, the principal duties of this chairwoman being, as we hear, to ' keep the harmony going,' to 'rap down' the choruses, to ' call for the toasts,' and to maintain order. A Mrs Morris, the secretary receives the subscriptions — > twopence weekly each. During the progress of each song each ' lady,' calls for what refreshment she wants, and the use of the fragrant weed' is not disallowed. It is intended to devote the subscriptions once a quarter to a 'tea-supper' or 'meat-tea,' when the members will attend in full force. So popular has this 'free and easy' become — for the men have one at the same place — that an enlargement of the Half-Moon has been resolved upon." A Sleepless Age. -The cause of the death of Horace Greeley is said to have been confirmed sleeplessness. The exertions of his profession and the excitement of his canvass for the Presidential chair were, doubtless, too much for his brain, which refused to take the needful rest, and left him to the inevitable fate of all for whom nature fails to repair in the night the wear and tear of the da^» hlecturer of the Royal Institution hS^tme the bold assertion that the way to secure sound sleep was to work very hard by day, on the principle that " the sleep of the laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much." A visible shudder passed over several benches of the learned assembly at this unqualified statement, for not a few of their occupants knew that their labors, being of the brain and not of the hands, it was precisely the excess of work which too often deprived them of the visits of Somnus. The Rev. Edward Hale says that the evil of sleeplessness is rapidly increasing in America — as it is undoubtedly in England — from this single cause of over-exertion of the brain, kept up for too many hours at a time, or at hours when such exertion interferes with digestion. Other causes of sleeplessness, of course, have always been common, such as physical p.iin, anxiety, and either excessive heat and food or excol I and hunger. But the special sort of " Insomnia" which haunts in our day the men of literature, of science, and of commerce, is quite different from that which comes from unsuitable external conditions. It comes from the state of the man's own brain, and must be treated accordingly. — " Echo." We were prepared (says the " Homeward Mail ") for almost any prediction of change that might assimilate Japanese manners and customs to those of Europe; but we must admit that the possible adoption of our language by the thirty millions of that country in the place of their own is a revolution that had not occurred to us as possible. It appears, however, that it is an event looming in the future. The Japanese Minister to the United States has expressed his conviction that the language of Japan, which is described as very poor, will give place to the English language for general purposes, and the existing vernacular be preserved merely as a curiosity. The new public sclools are looked to as the medium of promoting this vast change. Our motfcer tongue is already being unconsciomly adopted by India, and we may note thas it will, to all appearances, soon be as free spoken in Asia as in America or Australasia. Of all languages it would seem that the English has the best chanoe of extinguishing the confusion of tongues.