INTERESTING ITEMS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLIX, Issue 12547, 10 July 1905, Page 7

INTERESTING ITEMS.

CULLED FROM VARIOUS SOURCES

A new Balzac story has been unearthed. Tho novelist, it appears, flattered himself upon his skill in reading character from handwriting; and the story is of the test applied to his skill. A lady brought him an extract from tho exercise book of a 12-year old schoolboy, and asked for an opinion as to the youngster's" character and prospects. 'Balzac inquired whether t!io child was her own. Answered in the negative, ho examined the exercise carefully and delivered his judgment. "Madame," he said, "this child i* thick headed and frivolous. He will never come to any good. If h1? were my child, I would take him from school aiirl put him to the plough." And then it had to Ik? broken gently to the graphologist that the exercise on which ho had pronounced so severely was one of his own which had been discovered hidden away between the leaves ol an old lesson book. A most extensive and important work i\i about to be undertaken in Prussia . . namely, the canalisation of the Avhole country and tho improvement of the existing waterways. The Rhine is lo ba united with the Weser at a cost of over £12,500,000. Out of this huge sum will also be defrayed the expendi-tvii-o necessary to make the Lippe navigable. Another canal will be run from Berlin to Stettin, and this will absorb £2,150,000. The great waterway between the Oder and the Vistula will bo improved to the extent of £1,----058,750, while nearly a million will be allocated to the canalisation of the t)der at certain points. The bill which authorises this heavy expenditure has been passed through Parliament, and tho works will be commenced as soon as the preliminary organisation has been perfected. Part of the gigantic schemo is tho creation of a uniform towing system in the Rhine-Weser canal and its branches to be worked by the State. All the great rivers of the country are to be joined, and products <oi whatever kind afforded an outlet to tho coast. The canal from Berlin to .Stettin will, for all practical purposes, make tho capital of the German Empire a port. By joining the Rhine and Weser, and turning the Lippe into a canal, the heart cf Prussia will be pierced by a gigantic water way. The effect upon trademust, of necessity, be immense, but it will bo rather curious to note what its effect will be on the German Stato railways. Mr Andrew White, the distinguished American diplomat, in his autobiography, gives some very amusing illustrations of an Ambassador's life. Here is one delightful instance —"One morning tho mail brought me a large packet filled with little squares of cheap cotton cloth; I was greatly puzzled to Jknow theik purpose until, a few days later, the.* came a letter which, with .changes of proper names, ran as follows:—'Sir,—We are going to have a fancy fair for tho benefit of the-— church in this town and. we are getting ready some autograph bed quilts. I have sent you a package of small squares of cotton cloth, which please tako to the Emperor William and his wife, also to Prince Bismarck and the other Princes and leading persons of Germany, asking them to write their names on them and send them to me as soon as possible.—Yours truly. P.S. —Tell them to be sure to write their names in tho middle of the pieces for fear their autographs may get sewed in." Thackeray and Dickens represented two widely different manners in their ■writing. Dickens was in the habit of gushing. He, as it were, shook hands with you in a violent manner, sympathise! loudly and painfully with you in your distress, gavo you many good Wishesii;in>the most empathtic manner,-: and parted from you with & farewell o| ; exaggerated pathos.',» f ijs .the sjback -of these phenomena ao doubt.'there'nvas a fine and genuine man, but his personality found an expression exactly opposito to that of Thackerayy who was really an apostle of the informal that has now come to reign in Great Britain. No one could have imagined Thackeray punctiliously observing the stately ceremoniousness that used to be characteristic of English society.

The shortest way to be rich is not by enlarging our estates, but by contracting our desires.

On all sides now astronomers appear to bo converging to the opinion that the canals of Mars are no more than an optical illusion. Had one the aid or diagrams, such as may be seen in any elementary text book of psychology, '.t ay ould be of interest to show how large an element the mind contributes in the formation of our visual precepts to use the technical term. In the present instance there appears to be no doubt that Schiaparelli and his followers were deceived. Even those who will not admit thiy as regards tho mere existence of tho canals are compelled to admit it as regards their alleged "doubling." Positive evidence of any kind as to the existenco of intelligence begins on Mars is, therefore, entirely lacking; and the known facts strongly militate against siseh a conclusion. But to assert that there is no intelligence on Mars is by no means to say that there is no life on Mars at all. On the contrary, there is no reason why vegetable life of sorts should not flourish on Mars, and there 1h good reason to believe that, in point of tact, it does. There sisems to be no other reasonable explanation of the green colour which is displayed by ( a largo portion of his surface. This, bf course, bears on the question of the origin of life, for it strongly suggests that life may evolve upon a cooling planet by natural means—which is the scientific contention as regards the earth. These considerations lend point ■to tho theory of Lord Kelvin that life might have been borne to the earth on a meteorite.

An unrestrained sneeze emitted in a Paris restaurant has landed the sneezer in an awkward predicament. He is a fat Frenchman, and he was seated at a tablo in ?. Duval restaurant on the boulevards recently, when he sneezed. He squeezed again across the table, when tho other occupant, greatly annoyed, threw a tin of sardines, which fell into the Frenchman's lap. Then the incensed sneezer rose, and demanded, with many imprecations to be paid the price of his damaged clothes. Finally both partifisadjourned to the local magistrate's omcfcfcto have the matter settled. As the stout Frenchman gave his name to the magistrate, his rival, who happens to be a Scotch solicitor, hastily pulled a bundle of papers out -of his pocket, and thrust them at the astonished Frenchman, much to the amazement of tho police officials. It then turned out that tho solicitor had como to Paris to serve this identical Frenchman with a writ, and had hunted tho city in vain for him for three day.*.