Spray.

Western Star, Issue 2220, 8 July 1898, Page 4

Spray.

in Adventurous Irishman. Mr. James O'Kelly, the Parnellite representative of North Roscommon, ha*> had a more adventurous career than any member of the House of Commons. Having been educated at the Parte Sorbonne, he entered the French Army and saw something of the war of IS.O. Some years later he was war correspondent in Cuba, and then editor ot the " New York Herald." He took part in the American campaign against Sitting Bull, the great Sioux chief. Air. O'Kelly found his way to the Soudan when war broke out there.v and in 1885 made a determined but unsuccessful effort to interview the Mahdi. He had just turned fifty. In the Car. " Take my seat, madam," said a man in a crowded State-street car the other morning, rising up as a lady entered. While in the act of accepting the otter the car started suddenly, and she tottered as if about to fall. " i asked you to sit down, madam, not to fall down, he said, lifting his hat. " I catch on, sir," she replied, promptly grasping a strap. Straightening herself up, she took the vacant scat with unruffled seltpossrtision, and the silence that followed was broken only by the low, sott, exquisitely modulated voice of the conductor asking for fares. A Fat Trayiata. Christine Nilsson and Adelina Pattl, both of them world-famous as queens ot song, were born in the same year ; and when the former was discovered by Mdlle. Valerius, who took her as a peasant child and cultivated her talents, Jenny Lind was in the zenith of her success. Nilsson met with an enthusiastic debut at Stockholm, and thence went to Paris. But in the French capital she failed in Verdi's then new opera, "La Traviata." A curious reason was assigned. She was supposed to impersonate a girl dying of consumption, and her buxom and robust appearance struck the risible faculties of the Parisians who greeted with loud laughter the words of"the doctor in the death scene; " She is fading away." Unintentional Satire. One may well ask If the satire In the following specimens of epitaphs were intentional : Maria Brown, wife of Timothy Brown, a"ed SO years. She lived with her husband fifty years, and died in the conlidential hope of a better life. Here lies Bernard Lightfoot, who was accidentally killed in the forty-fifth year of his age. This monument was erected by his grateful family. Death of Herr Engel. The German papers announce the death last month in Berlin, at the age of S 3 of the man who took care ot Emperor William 1. for thirty years. His name was Engel, and the old Emperor was so much attached to him that lie created a special title for him—' Gar-derohen-intehdant." He had charge ot the Emperor's historic collections, and it was his special duty to see to it that the scrap-book containing newspapei clippings made for the Emperor was placed before him promptly every morning. Statuary in Church. The Dean of Manchester has been speaking very plainly to the small body of narrow-minded individuals Who have been expostulating against the use ot statuary on the cathedral over which he rules There is no fear, he says, in these days anybody falling down and worshipping graven images ; and therefore he considered that everything beautiful in Nature, whether it was in the shape of a man or a flower—whatever, in tact God had created-had a right to its place in the creations of an architect. Hard-headed. A certain Mexican was condemned to death for stealing a can of kerosene. He was taken out hy a party ot soldiers, received a volley of Pullets at close range, and was left for dead. As soon as the soldiers had gone he sprang to his feet and walked to the City of Mexico, many miles away, where he entered a hospital. The doctors ifound three nfleoullets embedded in his skull, but fie was not fatally injured. Almost Overlooked.

It was customary in Baron Graham s day to suspend judgment in criminal oases till the close of the Assizes, and then deliver the sentences all in a lump. ■V man had been accidentally omitted in the list of capital punishments, of which lie was reminded on coming to the end. " Oil, yes, 1 see, John Thomson ; John Thomson, I beg your pardon. i'ou are also to be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and may the Almighty have mercy on your miserable soul also." Made a Difference. Magistrate (severely): "Horsewhipping is the only suitable punishment for you and your kind. The idea of a man of your size beating a poor, weak woman like that." Prisoner : " But, your worship, she keeps irritating me all the time." Magistrate : " How does she irritate "Why, she keeps saying, ' Hit me, beat me, 1 dare you to hit me. Just hit me once, and I'll have you hauled up before that bald-headed old reprobate of a magistrate, and see what he'll do with you !' " Magistrate (choking): "Discharged. The Other Side. Princess Louise some years ago opened a bazaar in a certain North-country town, which was adorned by a statue Of its mayor, placed with its back to the railway station. The mayor wished his face to be the first on which the PnnL .e« S 's eyes should rest on her arrival, but dreaded the ridicule of his fellow-towns-nwn should he moot such a change. He accordingly went stealthily to work, with a disregard of expense, and when th.- inhabitants arose, on the morning of the Princess's visit, the statue had been turned round to face the station. Death of an Explorer. The death is announced at Ruengsdorf, near Godes/berg, on the Rhine, of the celebrated African explorer, Heir Friedrich Gerhard Kohlfs. The deceased was horn at Vegesaek, on the 14th April, ls::i, and after studying medicine entered the French Foreign Legion, and from 3856 to 18(10 acted as military surgeon during the French campaign in Algeria. In 1860 he undertook his first journey of exploration to Morocco, traversing the greater part of the country dressed as a Mohammedan. The deceased explorer also travelled across America in 1875-70, and in 1884 was appointed German Consul-General at Zanzibar, whence he returned to Germany in 1884. Sacred Cxen. One of the greatest curiosities among the domesticated animals of Ceylon is a breed of cattle known to the zoologist as the sacred running oxen. They are the dwarfs of the whole ox family, the largest specimens of the species never exceeding 30in. in height. In Ceylon they are used for quick trips across country with express matter and other light loads, and it is said that four of them can pull the driver of a twowheeled cart and a 200 Tb. load of miscellaneous matter sixty or seventy miles a day They keep up a constant swinging trot or run, and have been known to travel 100 miles in a day and night without either food or water. No one knows anything concerning the origin of this peculiar breed of miniature cattle iney have been known in the island of Ceylon and in other Buddhistic countries for more than a thousand years.