Odds and Ends.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2090, 8 July 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

Odds and Ends.

Man's a poor deluded bubble, Wandering in a mist of lies; Seeing false, or seeing double; Fooled alike by ears and eyes. Yet, presuming on his senses, On he goes most wondrous wise; Doubts the truth, believes pretences 5 Lost in error, lives and dies 1 * * * Among all the lilies, And daffy-down dillies; Perfumes like the shop of a barber: With posies and roses, To snuff up your noses; Who wouldn't take tea in an arbor? • * * A. Veteran gambleri in a tempest caught, Once in ids life a church’s shelter sought; Whfte many a hint, pathetically grave, On life's precarious lot the preacher gave. “ Strict truth," quoth he “ this reverend sage declared; I feel conviction— and will be prepared— Nor e'er, henceforth, since life thus steals away, Give credit for a bet, beyond a day /" * * • soliloquy op a bealistic chicken contemplating HIS SHELL. How do I know I ever was inside ? Now I reflect, it is, I do maintain, Less than my reason, and beneath my pride, To think that I could dwell In such a paltry, miserable cell As that old shell. Of course I couldn’t I How could/have lain, Body and beak and feathers, legs and wings, And my deep heart's sublime imaginings, In there ? * * »

"One kiss.”dear maid, I said and sighed, Out of those lips unshorn.” She shook her ringlets and her head, And laughed, in merry scorn. And so I won my Genevieve, And walked in Paradise; The fairest thing that over grew Between me and the skies I * • «

TO A LANCASTBIAN MAIDEN, WITH THE GIFT OP A WHITE BOSE; If this fair rose offend thy sight— Placed on thy bosom bare, ’Twill blush to find itself less white, And turn Lancastrian there 1 * * . The devil was sick the devil a monk would be; The devil got well—the devil a monk was he I

Lord Stamford, Who succeeded to the earldom a few years ago on the death of the late Lord Stamford and Warrington, has long been resident in South Africa. He inhabits a wigwam of corrugated iron at Wynberg, and has a stone-built bungalow on the seashore at Muzenberg. He married a black wife, and has by her a dusky daughter, Lady Mary Grey, who, when she arrives at years of discretion, will bo, no boubt, a unique if not welcome addition to the ranks of the *• upper ten thousand ” at home. Let us hope that his lordship will have a son by the Hottentot countess. It would make a nice change in the House of Lords, where, of course, he would sit as one of the hereditary legislators. Yes—such a family should present a picture of black looks, and a brown study. But if they were all pea-green it would'nt matter. A coat of arms and a coronet would bring homage and respect to a chimpanzee. The Ozar Of Eussia. is physically one of the strongest men in Russia. When he was Czarowitz he one day took a gold rouble in bis hands and by main strength twisted it into a corkscrew. Throwing the mutilated coin at the Perfect of Police, he said; “ If yon open one of my letters in the future, I will treat you as 1 have this coin." The incident was the outcome of an order on the part of the Czar that all letters should be opened by the police. The prefect thinks the coin was bogus, but does’nt want to test it. There were a hundred and ninety-five new streets and one new square added to London last year, making an addition of about thirty-three miles and a halt to the public thoroughfares. This was less than usual, as it was a bad year tor builders. The above figures refer to the Metropolitan police district, which has a radius fifteen miles from Charing Cross. The strength of the police force is between 13,000 and 11,000. Babylon’s a spreading I

The economical catalogue-maker who set down the titles of two books as “ Mill on Flos®,” ditto “ Political Economy,” reminds the Transcript of a woman whose scrap-book is carefully indexed in this fashion: 11 Patti, Adelina. Ditto Oyster.” And this reminds the Courier of the index-maker who based the entry; “Best, Mr. Justice, his groat mind,” upon a statement in the text that “ Mr. Justice Best had a great mind to commit the witness.”

A citizen who knows Wall Street New York, says that women are very popular as clerks and copyists in that neighborhood, because their employers are not afraid of their divulging the secrets of the shop. They can be trusted better than can the ambitious male employes not to give away “ points.” Too thin I A woman keep a secret 1 Then is nature indeed, in a condition of transmutation. But experience forbids credulity, ’Tis a Yankee yarn. A correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette remarks that all words beginning with si have in some degree a second-rate or bad quality about them. “ Look through the dictionary,” he says, “ and you won’t find one that is quite first rate, for‘sleep,’ which is about the best of them, is, after all, half-way to death, and the great majority of these words are more or less disgusting as well as degraded.” A Bank defaulter might say a good word foi “ slope,” anyway. The only surviving near relative of Bobert Burns—Miss Isabella Burns—is dead. She was eighty years of age, very active and intelligent, and resided at Bridge House Cottage, Ayr, surrounded by many survivors of her uncle. She received visitors up to the last few weeks of her life. She was therefore better treated than the poet was. Nobody came around to see him when dying. Better to inherit than earn.

A Georgian relates that some years ago, ■while he was deer-hunting, a buck was started that was seen to carry on his horns a round white object. The deer was shot, and its burden proved to be a human skull. One of the sharp horns had been driven into it so far that the buck could not dislodge it. There are tragic possibilities in the story, not to speak of impossibilities. Bishop William Taylor has planned a device for his new Congo steamer which will do sway with the necessity of firearms. In case of attack he can put the natives to flight by a hose attached to a powerful steam-pump. “Neither dog nor man,” he remarks “can stand before such a shot of water. Besides it will be soaped, and no nigger can stand that.”

A Montana man reached Chicago with five car-loads of good cattle, the other day, sold them at an advantage, and turned up in a police court next morning with three shillings, which was all that remained of the two hundred and fifty pounds he had when he started to take in the town. This story ought to make our lambors down emigrate right away.

The death-rate Of England is decreasing, and 150 people arc added yearly to each ten thousand. At the present rate of increase, according to Dr. M. Tidy, the country’s population twenty generations hence will be 27, 200,000,000, or enough to fill twenty earths witii the present density of population.