Miscellaneous.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2055, 15 April 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

Miscellaneous.

In the Wheat-field.

When the lids of the virgin Dawn unclose. When the earth is fair and the heavens are calm, And the early breath of the wakening rose Floats on the air in balm, I stand breast-high in the pearly wheat That ripples and thrills to a sportive breeze Dome over the field with its Hermes feet, And its subtle odor of southern seas ; While out of the infinite azure deep The Hashing wings of the swallows sweep, buoyant and beautiful, wild and fleet, Over the waves of the whispering wheat. Aurora faints in the in the fulgent fire Of (he Monarch of Morning’s bright embrace. And tlie summer day climbs higher and higher Fp the cirulcan space ; The pearl-tints fade from the radiant grain, And the sportive breeze of the ocean dies, And soon in the noontide's soundless rain The field seems graced by a million eyes : Each grain with a glance from its lidded folds As bright as a gnome's in his mine of gold While the slumbrous glamor of beam and heat Glides over and under the windless wheat. Yet .the languid spirit of lazy Noon, With its minor and Murphean music rife, Is pulsing in low voluptuous tune With summer's lust of life. Hark ! to Die droning of drowsy wings, To the honey-hees as they go and come. To the '• boomer ” seare'e sounding his sultry rings. The gnat’s small horn, and the beetle's hum ; And hark to the locust!—■Noon's one shrill song, Like Die tingling steel of an elfin gong, Grows lower through quavers of long retreat To swoon on the dazzled and distant wheat. Now day declines 1 and his shafts of might Arc sheathed in a quiver of opal haze ; Still through the chastened, but magic light, What sunset grandeurs blaze I Fur Die sky, in its mellowed lustre, seems Like the realm of a master poet s mind — A shifting kingdom of splendid dreams — With fuller and fairer truths behind : And the changeful colors that blend or part Ebb like the tides of a living heart. And the splendor melts and the shadows meet, And the tresses of twilight trail over the wheat. Thus Eve creeps slowly olid shyly down. And the gurgling notes of Die swallows cease, They flicker aloft through the foliage brown. In the ancient vesper peace : Hut a step like the step of a conscious fawn Is stealing—with many a pause this way, Till the hand of my love through mine is drawn, Her heart on mine in the lender ray : 0 hand of Die lily, 0 heart of the truth. (J love, thou art fond and faithful as Hath, But 1 am the gleaner—of kisses—Sweet, While the starlight dawns on the dimpling wheat.'

The Criminals of Berlin.

The criminal profession of Berlin is completely organized. There are regular arrangements for augmenting its strength when it is thought desirable to do so, and for training the neophyte in his art. The common lodging houses furnish the thief trainer’s favorite hunting ground. These are, apparently, in no better condition in Berlin, than the like establishments in London were thirty or forty years ago, and it is not creditable to the municipal authorities or to the government that something Ims not been done for their improvement. It is little wonder if a youth, offered the means of escape from the wretchedness of such surroundings, yields without much difficulty to the blandishments of the recruiting sergeant for the army of crime, and willingly takes the necessary trouble to learn his new profession. If he proves an apt. pupil he is put through successive stages of instruction, and when pronounced efficient receives a new name, whichever after in the inner world of his acquaintances replaces that which rightly belongs to him. A place is found for him according to his aptitude in one or other of the numerous brandies of the profession. The pickpockets of Berlin are celebiaied, and. as in other countries, they include in their ranks a good many women and children. Shoplifting is practised by women, who generally work in couples, and who are always provided with pockets of a special construction or other arrangements for ihe safe stowage of their booty. Bobbers of shop tills form a special class. They are armed with a bit of a whalebone, the end of which lias been dipped in birdlime. Specialists in the predatory art look after the lodging houses of the working people, while others carry on their depredations in the washerwomen's drying ground.

Cooking at Sea.—' the first thing that naturally attracts the attention of a landsman is. what a fearful state of confusion there must he in the galley during a rolling sea! Imagine an ordinary kitchen grate covered with saucepans. Ate. were it suddenly to begin to swing backward and forward like a seasaw. This difficulty, however, is easily overcome. Every galley fire is fitted with a number of iron bars fastened to a rod at the back, and which fit into little grooves in a rod in front. (Janseqncntly when the sea is rough these bars are tkved, and each cooking utensil is held tightly in its place between the bars just the same as a saucepan could be held over an ordinary fireplace with a strong pair of pincers. Another difficulty is when the saucepans on the fire are all full—when the ship rolls they run over. The remedy for this is as si tuple as Dr. Abernethy’s one for the old lady who complained of having such a dreadful" pain in her arm when she went ”so.” He pocketed his guinea and said, •• Don’t go so.” So with the saucepans. The simple remedy is,” Don’t fill the saucepans,” Xo saucepans on board ship should ever be more than three quarters full when the ship is rolling. My first impression in watching the cooking on hoard ship was—how many practical lessons might be learned from it by cooks on shore 1 How often do cooks complain ‘■there is no doing anything in this pokey kitchen," the pokey kitchen being probably quite four times the size of the galley in which 1 am standing, in which breakfast, lunch and dinner have to he prepared for over 20H persons. The requisite qualities required tor success are early rising, an entire absence of fussiness, and. by no means the least important, the power of looking ahead and seeing that cadi person minds his own business without interfering with another’s.

Motive Power— <’ll the strength of recent made tests, the llevite Scientitique. of Tit vis, aHirins that, for purposes of moderate traction, it is cheaper to employ animal than steam power. With the latter there is a loss of quite vu per <-ent. in eouverting chemical int ' mechanical enemy : that is. only one tenth i f :!i‘ power latent in coal can be changed, : nto applied force. With the former on tli.r oilic hand, there is a loss of but *SB per ecu'.. Thus it is found to cost on one of the tramway lines in I’aris C_‘ d for each car per day that is run by steam power, and : illy J -1 IT when horses are employed for motive power. This would indicate that a a great deal has ycl to be doles in the way of improvement before anything equalling the economy of nature can he secured be human contrivances, 518