RANDOM READINGS.

Waipa Post, Volume VIII, Issue 347, 8 September 1914, Page 3

RANDOM READINGS.

jjHE ART OF BEING HAPPY, 6 flio bo bright and cheerful, wrote {Lord Avebury, often requires an effort; J&fere is a certain art in keeping ourkelvos happy; and in this respect, as In others, we require to watch over and jjnanage ourselves, almost as if we were ?omebody else. Everyone must have elt that a cheerful friend is like a jßUnny day, shedding brightness on all around; and most of us can, as wo phoose, make of this world either a palace or a prison. We have in life many troubles, and troubles are of many kinds. Some sorrows, alas! are real enough, especially those we bring on ourselves; hut others, and by no means the least numerous, are mere ghosts of troubles. If we face them boldly we find that they have no substance or reality, but are mere creations of our own morbid imagination. If we d.o our best, if we do not magnify trifling troubles, if we look resolutely, Ido not say at the bright side of things, hut at things as they really are; if we avail ourselves of the manifold blessings which surround us, wo cannot but feel that life is, indeed, a glorious inheritance.

WAGNER’S CABHORSE

A story of Wagner is told by the “Vossische Zeitung.” When the composer was in "a really merry mood, the right mood for story-telling, he used to say that being - in Berlin on a very hot summer’s day, and finding himself in the Donhoffsplatz, he summoned one of the first-class droschkes .that were still fairly numerous at that time, and told the driver where to go. His destination was at the very furthest point of a district, within which only the lowest fare could be demanded.

It struck Wagner immediately that his driver was taking a very affecting leave of one of his fellows, as though he were starting on a life' or death journey. “Good-bye, William,” he said, “we shan’t see each other again for a long time.” After the carriage had rattled on for a good while it came suddenly to a standstill. The driver got down from ljjs box on the right-hand side, opened the carriage door, and banged it to again; then he went round to the left side, and repeated- the performance, climbed up on to his box, and resumed the journey. At the end of the drive Wagner asked him what this dumb-crambo show meant. The driver, with a sly look, made answer, “I just wanted to bamboozle my old nag; he would never have believed that the whole drive was for 'a minimum fare, 'and would have refused to go on. But by banging the doors I got him to imagine that one fare had got out and another got in.” Wagner laughed heartily over this explanation, and the driver, in spite of his greed, over which the composer made very merry in his letters, realised the handsome tip on which he had been speculating.

HOW OPIUM JUICE IS OBTAINED

The collecting of the opium juice in Persia, says the “World’s Work,” begins in June, when the flowers having faded and the leaves fallen, the poppyheads are ready to be “bled.” For this purpose a peculiar knife is employed. It has a thick handle, in which several thin, short blades an inch in length are set, and with which several parallel cuts may be made at one stroke.

When the sun stands low on the western horizon, the men with these knives start their work, making one ox two incisions in the fleshy green skin of the heads on the side towards the setting sun. During the cool night hours, the brown, strong-smelling, viscious juice oozes out and collects in pear-like drops on the surface of the seed vessel. Before the rising sun gains sufficient power to dry or crystallise the sticky substance, the gathering is in full swing. Stepping carefully from plant to plant, the men gather the opium on the broad blades of their crescent-shaped collectingknives, which have an upturned back about an inch high to prevent the juice from dropping off. As soon as the knife is full, it is handed to the owner of the field or his foreman, who stands among the collectors to see'that none of the precious drops are hidden away by the workers to increase their daily wages.

When the morning work is over the fields are deserted until the afternoon, when new incisions have to be made. Each plant is tapped twice, and a large poppy-head gives from two to three grains of opium. A few days are sufficient to finish a field, then the poppy-heads are left alone, and, robbed of their nourishing juice, the sun soon dries them up. In a few days more they begin to shrink and change colour, and when they are quite withered and have assumed a yellow-brownish tint they are gathered by children, collected in heaps' on a suitable spot and threshed out with long sticks by women. The seed is then winnowed preparatory to its sale and export. It contains about 40 per cent, of oil, which is largely used in France and other countries in the place of olive-oil, which it resembles closely. It contains no opium. The juice is sold in large copper vessels by the grower to the merchant,' in whose hands it undergoes several processes in order to preserve it from tion and decay.