Untitled

Waikato Times, Volume I, Issue 12, 28 May 1872, Page 2

Rib Grass.— This is a, highly valuable forage plant, and should form a part of every pasture mixture. It is particularly adapted for dry pastures, and its young growth is much relished by all kinds of stock, and is highly nutritious. Mangel Wukzel.— This crop might with great advantage be more extensively cultivated, and from the large yield of roots, we think it would amply repay the small expense incurred in cultivation, and no dairy farm, however small, ihould be without a few acres; it greatly adds to the quantity of milk, and can be stored for many months, if required. It is nsefnl for feeding all kinds of stock, thrives best in a rich loamy soil, and should always be sown in drills. The quantity of seed required to sow an acre is about four pounds. The Long Red and the Yellow Globe are the varieties most esteemed. A! good strong deeply-worked isoil will produce the heariest crops. j

I THE SYRIAN EARTHQUAKE. J London, April Bth.—A telegram from Con.. J stautinople, reporting the occurrence of a most fearful and fatal visitation by earthquake in the East, reached this city during , the morning jtu-day. The despatch states that the I cit.yt)f Antioch, in Syria, has just been visited by an earthquake, causing terrible loss of ljfe and an almost general ruin of property. Ouehalfofthe city was totally destroyed, and 1,500 persons snept from oxistence with fearful suddenness. A rumbling noise, of almost unearthly sound, pervaded Antioch at an early hour this morning. The people became alarmed and startled. They were not permitted a moment for reflection as to the cause, when the town was visited by three successive shocks or. earthquake and earth-waves, the force of which onused the buildings to vibrate and rock to and fro. .Houses commenced to topple over, and the inhabitants rushed from the falling buildings terror -stricken 0 and shrieking iri dismay. They endeavoured to force their way from the town to the open country, but very many of them' perished in the attempt Tho river Orontes rose and swept over the lower portions of the city. The two bridges which spanned the river have been carried away, and great portions of the city walls thrown down.

Great distress prerails in that portion of the cily which has not been demolished, and the inhabitants are sadly in need of the assistance which is being forwarded to them rapidly from the cities and towns more adjacent to the scene of disaster. ♦_ THE EVILS OP TOBACCO-SMOKING. Accoijung to the statements of Dr. liubio, the number of lunatics is much greater in the ■northern countries, where the consumption of spirituous liquors and the use of tobacco is much greater than in southern countries, where the people are very sober and small smokers. According to Mr. Moreau, not a single case of general paralysis is seen in Asia Minor, where there is no abuse of alco. holic liquor, and where they smoke a kind of tobiicco which is almost free from nicotine or the peculiar poison in tobacco. On iheother hand insauifcy is frightfully increasing in Europe, just in proportion to the increase in the use of tobacco.

It appears that from 1830 to 1832 the revenues from the import on tobacco in France rose from £ 1,250,000 to £u35,3,00u —a tremendous figure certainly to have disappeared from the pockets of the people into smoke, lint hand in hand with the increase iu the consumption in tobacco, tliero appears to have been during- the same period an augmentation of the number of Junalics in France, 8,000 to> 41,000, or rather ( JO,OOO, if we take into account other lunatics.

II one-tenth of the alleg-ed evils of tobacoo- | smoking- he facts, the entire human race must be seriously injured by the "Indian weed," for it appears that the average annual consumption by the whole human race of J ,000,000,0u0 is at least 70 ounces (four pounds six ounce*) per head, and the total quantity annua'ly consumed is 2,000/>OO tons, or 4,4w0,00U,000 pounds weight, It is, hovrever, to the young that the evil of smoking- is likely to be the most distrous. Whaterer benefit may be deriyed from pmoking in maturity and old age, it is obvioua that the young- cannot need the fictitious aid of a narcotic. Parents should look to this, and prevent the moat deplorable physical or moral consequence of this habit to their children. Many a young man dates the ruin of his health back to the first whiff of tobacco, which, by dint of nauseous practice, be was at length able to smoke in the foolish imitation of manhood. That smoking must impair the digestion of the young seems certain, and that it may lead to drunkenness or excess in drink is more than probable, from the thirst it necessarily occasions.

The origin of the title " The Thunderer," by which the London "Times" ia known, was from a writer beginning- a leading; article with the phrase, "We thundered forth the other day," &c. Some of their contemporaries, in referring to this expression, called the "Times" by the above title, and though nearly fifty years have elapsed, this appellation still clings to it. The report of M. DeLeeseps Gn the present condition of the Suez Canal states that all the work on the canal has been completed, and that there is a minimum depth throughput of 26 feet 2 inches. Steamers of 2;500 tons pass without difficulty, and one American steamer of 3000 tons has gone through. These passages have quieted all apprehensions, and the largest merchant vessels are now freighted to go to Asia via the Canal, which may, therefore, be set down as a success. A gentleman in Augusta, Ga., purchased, some two years ago, a shaving brush from a druggist in that city, and, after constant use for that time, turned it over to his little eon. While the child was playing with it, the top became unscrewed, and in the hollow handle a valuable diamond was discovered set in the wood and carefully covered with pink cotton. The exact value of the stone is not known, but it is of pare water and good size. There are many conjectures as to how the gem came to be in the handle of the brush, the most plausible of which is that it was placed there by smugglers.

A MODEL LOVB LETTER. Bhkach of< promise cases usually produce laughter ; especially when the love letters are read is the risibility of the court excited. We have been favoured from a thoroughly trustworthy source with a letter which was not read the other duy, when a cause for breach was tried in one of the midland counti<'<s. Had it been, perhaps the damages given by the jury would have been more than they were, viz., £500. We print the epistle more as a warning than as an example. It ran thus :—" My dear Mies M., —Every time I think of you my heart flops up and down like an excited eel in a lime basket. Sensations of an unutterable joy caper through it like young kittens on an outhouse roof, and thrill through it like broken bottles on the top of a garden wall through the tight trousers of the nocturnal thief Aβ a gosling swimmeth in a mud puddle, so swim I in a sea of glory. Visions of ecstatic rapture thicker than the hairs of a blacking brush, and brighaer than the eyes of a hummingbird's pinions, visit me in my slumbers, borne

on their invisible wings, your image stands before me, and I reach but to grasp it, like a pointer snapping at a blue-bottle fly. When J first beheld your angelic perfections I was bewildered, and my brain whirled round like a bnmble-bee under a glass tumbler. My eyes stood open like the doors in a country town, and I lifted up my ears to catch the silvery accents of your voice. My tongue refused to wag , , *ud in silent adoration 1 drank in the Hweet infection of love as a thirsty man flvvallowcth a tumbler of iced lemonade and sherry. Since the light of your face fell upon my lifo I sometimes feel as if I could lift roynelf up by my bootjack to tho top of the church steeple and pull the bell-rope for morning school. Dny and night you are in my thoughts. When Aurora, blushing like a bride, rises from her salTron-coloured couch ; when the sparrow pipes his tuneful lay in an apple tree; when the chanticleer's shrill clarion heiaids the coming morn; when the awakening pig arises from his bed aud grunteth, and goeth for his refreshments; when the drowsy beetle wheels to droning

flight of sultry noontide, and when the lowing herds come home at milking time—l think of tlice ; and, like a piece of gutta percha, my heart seems stretched cleur across my bosom. Your hair is like the mane of ucheenul horse powdered with gold, and the braea pins skewered through your water-fall till me with unbounded awe. Your forehead is smoother than the elbow of an old coat. Your eyes are glorious to behold In their liquid depths I sec legions of little Cupids baihing, like a cohort of ants in an old Wellington boot. When their fire hit upon my manly brejist, it penetrated my whole anatomy, as a charge of bird-shot through a rotton apple. Your nose is from a block ot Parian marble, and your mouth is puckered with sweetness. .Nectar lingers on your lips like honey on a bear's paw ; and myriads of unfledged kisses are there ready to fly out and light somewhere, like young birds out of their parents' nests. Your laugh rings in my ears like the Jew's harp strain, or the bleat of the siray lamb on the bleak hill-side. The dimples on your cheeks are like bowers in beds of roses, or hollows in the puffy paste of apple pies. lam dying to fly to thy presence and pour out the burniug eloquence of my lore as thrifty housewives pour out hot coffee.

Away from you I nm as melancholy as a sick rat. Sometimes I can bear the cockchafers of despondency buzzing , in my ears, and feel the cold lizards of despair crawling down my back. Uncouth fears, like a thousand minnows, nibble at my spirits, and my soul is pierced with doubts, like an old cheese is bored with mites. My love for you is stronger than the smell of Battersea mud butter, or the kick of a young cow, and more unselfish than a kitten's first catterwaul. As the song bird hankers for the light of day, the cautious mouse for the toasted cheese iu the trap, as a lean pup hankers for new milk, so I long- for thee. Yp'ji.are fairer than a speckled Dorking hen, sweeter than a raspberry tart fried in treacle, brighter than the plumage of the head of a Muscovy duck. You are brandy and water, with lots of sugar in it. If these few remarks will enable you to see the inside of my soul, and me to win yonv affections, 1 shall be as happy as a woodpecker on a cherry tree, or a coach horse in a green pasture. If you cannot reciprocate my thrilling passion I will pine away like a poisoned bug, and fall away from a nourishing vine of life, an untimely branch; and in coming years, when the shadows grow from the hills, and the philosophical frog sings his cheerful evening hymns, you, happy in another's love, can come and drop a tear and catch a cold upon the last resting placo of yours, affectionately, " H."