NEWS AND NOTES.

Waikato Independent, Volume VII, Issue 463, 21 January 1908, Page 6

NEWS AND NOTES.

A newspaper, describing the effects of a cyclone, said: "It shattered mountains, tore up oaks by the roots, dismantled churches, laid villages waste, and overturned Mr J. P. Brigge's haystack." The burglar's wife was in the witnessbox, and the prosecuting attorney was conducting a vigorous cross-examination. " Madam, you are the wife of this man?" " Yes." " You knew he was a burglar when you married him ?" " Yes." " How did you come to contract a matrimonial alliance with such a man ?" " Well," the witness said, " I was getting old, and had to choose between a lawyer and a burglar." Sir Richard Powell, in the course of an address on " Some of the Advances of Modern Medicine," referred to a story now current in professional circles " that a well-known surgeon once trephined an officer after a hunting accident, and deprived him of so much brain tissue that he felt the greatest uneasiness as to the consequences to his patient. He, however, met the gallant gentleman some years later on foreign service, never better in his life, and in command of the Intelligence Department I" The pastoral industry is the latest to feel the effects of the so-called conciliation system, and we suppose that before long it will be bound down by rules and conditions like the other industries, it will not be found that the relation of master and servant is rendered pleasanter. But the moment is inevitable, and we are glad to note that the Executive of the Farmers' Union consider that it would be possible to come to terms with the workers if the latter are not urged on by agitators to make unreasonable demand— .Hawke's Bay Herald.' The family was gathered in the libiary admiring a splendid thunderstorm when the mother bethought herself of Dorothy alone in the nursery. Fearing lest her little daughter should be awakened and feel afraid, she slipped away to re-assure her. Pausing at the door, however, whjin a vivid flash of lightning which illumined the whole room, she saw her youngest olive-branch sitting straight up in bed. Her big brown eyes were glowing with excitement, and she clasped her chubby hands, while she shouted encouragingly, " Bang it again, God ! Bang it again ! " During the recent rise in the wheat market (says the Asbburton Guardian) a large southern farmer had forty-thousand bushels of wheat in his possession, and while prices were on the upward tendency he was induced to sell at 5s per bushel, which represented £1 per sack.' A few days after the transaction, the buyer sold the line, without being obliged to shift a bag, at an advanced price of 6d a bushel, which brought him in a net profit of £IOOO on the deal. The wheat changed hands in the course of a few days, for the third time, at 5s 9d per bushel, and this time the seller made £SOO. A mummy lying at the Paris Morgue was recently the cause of a dispute between the police, who insisted that it was an unidentified corpse, and the owner, who insisted that it was a piece of furniture. The dispute was the sequel to a fire in a flat. The firemen found the mummy amid the ruins of a cupboard. It was placed in a sack and conveyed to the Morgue " for identification." The owner of the flat had done everything possible to get it back. But the police replied to all representations with the question, "Is a mummy a corpse, yes or no?" " Yes," says the owner, "but —-" " There is no but," declared the police, " a mummy is a corpse, and this is the place for corpses." All life on the earth appears only in connection with one substance—a watery jelly—closely related chemically to egg albumen, and this substance is known as protoplasm. Every living thing is built of this one substance—jellyfish, trees, whales, men—everything that lives. Biologists have succeeded in obtaining some wonderful things. Five or six starfish eggs have been fused into one, from which a monster starfish has been produced. Other starfish eggs have been separated into eight pieces, from which eight dwarf starfish have been brought forth. Crabs can be made to order, with the large claw on either the right or the left side, and flatfish have been produced with the color pattern on the underside. —New York American.