PERCY ANECDOTES.

Waikato Times, Volume III, Issue 158, 13 May 1873, Page 3

PERCY ANECDOTES.

M. Vaucanson.- The taste of M. Vaucanson, who displayed an uncommon genius for mechanical science, was first determined by an accidental cucumstance. When very young, he frequently attended his mother to the residence of the confessor, and while she wept with repentwioe he wept with weariness. In this state of disagreeable vacation he wm struck with the uuiform motion of the pendulum of a clock in the hall. His cm losity waa roused ; he approached the clock caae and studied it» mechanism ; What he could not discover he guessed at. He then projected a similar machine, and gradually his genius produced a clock. Encouraged by his tirat success he proceeded in his various attempts, and the genius which could thus form a clock, in time formed an automaton that played ten airs on the flute with precision. He also made several other automata, and a duck which was exhibited in London in 1742, and which we are gravely told would " eat grain and digest it." J African Lovbrs. — Among the unfortunate victims o the frightful traffic in (slaves, brought to Tripoli, in 1788, was a beautiful black female, About 16 years of age, and a young man of good appearance They had been purchased by a Moorish family of distinction. They were obliged to be watched night and day, and all instruments kept out of their reach, as they were continually endeavouring to destroj themselves, and sometimes each other. Their story will prove that friendship and fidelity are not strangers to the negro race. The female, who had been the admiration of her own country, had bestowed her heart and her hand on the man who was then with her. Their nuptials wet* going to be celebrated when her friends one morning missing her, traced her steps to the corner of an adjacent wood, immediately apprehending that she had been pursued, and that she had flown to the thicket for shelter, which is the common and best resource of escape from those who scour the country for slaves. The parents went directly to her lover and told him of their dittress. He, without losing time to search for her in the thicket, hastened to the sea side, where his forboding heart told him he should find her in some vessel anchored there for carrying off slaves. Ho was just easy enough in his circumstances not to be afraid of being bought or stolen himself, as it ii in general only the unprotected that are carried off by these hunters of the human race. His conjectures were just — he saw his bethrothed wife in the hands of thoso who had stolen her. He knelt to the robbers who had now the disposal of her to know the price they demanded for her. A hundred mahboobs (nearly a hundred pounds) was fixed ; but, alas ! all that he was worth did not make him rich enough for the purpose. He did not hesitate a moment to sell his little flock of sheep and the s:uall piece of ground he possessed ; and lastly he disposed of himself to those who had taken his companion. Happy that they would do him this last favor, he cheerfully accompanied her, and threw himself it-t) slavery for her sake. This faithful pair, on their arrival at Tripoli, were sold to a merchant, who determined on sending off the female with the rest of the slaves, to be sold again, she having, from her beauty, cost too much money to be kept as a servant. The merchant intended to keep the man as a domestic in his own family. The distressed pair, on hearing they were to be separated, became frantic. They threw themselves on the ground before some of the ladies of the family, whom they saw passing by ; and finding that one of them was a daughter of their master, they clung around her and implored her assistance ; nor could their grief be moderated until the humane lady assured them that she would intercede with her father not to part them. The black fell at the merchant's feet and entreated him not to separate them, declaring that if he did he would lose all the money hs had paid for them both ; for that although knives and poison were kept out of their way no one could force them to eat ; and that no human means could make them break the oath they had already taken in the presence of the god they worshipped, never to live asunder. Tears and en* treaties prevailed so far with the merohant as to suffer them to remain together, and they were sold to the owner of a merchant vessel, who took them with several others to Constantinople. Kotzcbub. — The first work which interested the curiosity of this great dramatist, whose tragic end has recently caused so much affliction to the friends of letters and humanity, was a collection of tales from different languages, called " Evening Hours." The story of Borneo and Juliet, which forms the subject of one of them, so deeply affected his sensibility that he was inclined to ascribe to it the preference which he ever after gave to pathetic stories. " Don Quixote" next engaged and delighted his fancy, but the incomparable romance of " Robinson Crusoe" appears, above all others, to have afforded him the most earnest and deep-felt pleasure. At the earlj age of six years he composed verses , and soon after a little dramatic dialogue. The event, hovever, which gave the most decisive turn to his genius was his first visit to the theatre. The play was Klopstock's " Death of Adam," and the performance overwhelmed him with a tide of emotions which he had never experienced before. From that evening the bent of his mind was settled ; his chief amusements consisted in boyish attempts to imitate the representations of the stage, and so catching was his example that almost every boy at Weimar had, like him, his Lilliputian theatre and puppets. The preceptor under whose charge he was placed devoted an hour every Saturday to poetry, when such of the scholars as had composed anything of their own read it from the rostrum ; and such as did not write verses usually recited some piece which they themselves selected from the works of celebrated authors. On one of these occasions young Kotzebue produced a ballad which obtained great approbation from the master. This was followed by several essays of the same sort; but although these effusions exhibited spirit and elegance, they were destitute, as he himself acknowledges, of originality ; indeed, the first endeavours of all genius consist of imitations. The celebrated Goethe, the author of " Werter," being a frequent visitor at his mother's house, was struck with the intelligence of young Kotzebue, and treated him with marked and amiable indulgence. In his little piece of the " Brethren," which was first performed at a private theatre, Kotzebue performed the part of the postilion, and was laughably mortified because no one took any notice of the justice witk which he presumed he acted the character. At the age of sixteen he was sent to the College of Jena, where he made considerable progress in Latin and French, particularly the latter. The students had a private theatre, and Kotzebue had the satisfaction of being soon enrolled on the list of actors. It does not, however, appear that he was ever eminent as a performer. In this, as much as in other respects, the Shakespeare of Germany (as Kotzebue was called) appears to have strictly resembled the great dramatist, whose mantle is supposed to have fallen on him. From Jena he went for some time to Duisburg, where he organised a juvenile company of dramatic amateurs, and obtained permission from the holy brotherhood of Minorities to perform a translation of Sheridan's " Rivals" in the cloister of their convent. While at Duiiburg, he wrote a little drama called the " Ring," a romance in the style pf " Werter." The latter was, in his own opinion, not inferior to the original ; and, possessed with this notion, he sent it to Weigland, the bookseller at Leipsic. But the bibliopole was unfortunately quite impenetrable to the piece, and had actually the Gothism to return the young aspirant for an answer, that he might have the MS. back again on repaying the sum which the carriage of it had cost ! Such was the result of M. Eotzebue's first adventure in the republic of letters, to which he afterwards contributed more perhaps than any man of his age.

Light and the Complexion.— The action of light on the human skin ii manifest. It browm and tarn the tegunienti, by calling out the production of the colouring matter* they contain. The parti of the body uiually bare, u the skin of the face and hands, are darker than others. In the •itae region, country people are more tanned than town residents. In latitudes not far apart, the inhabitants of the same country vary in complexion in a measure perceptibly related to the intensity of solar light. In Europe three varieties of colour in the skin ore distinctly marked ; olive brown, with black hair, beard, and eyes ; chestnut, with tawny beard and bluish eye ; blonde, with fair, light beard and sky-blue eyes. White skins show more readily alterations occasioned by light and heat ; but, though less striking, facts of variation in colour are observable in others. The Scytho-Arabic race has but half its representatives in Europe and Central Asia, while the remainder pauses down to the Indian Ocean, continuing to show the gradual rising heat of climate by deepening brown complexions. The Himalayan Hindoos are almost white ; those of the Deccan, of Coramandel, Malabar, and Ceylon, are darker than some nogro tribes. The Arabs, olive and almost fair in Armenia and Syria, are deep brown in Yemen and Museal. The Egyptians, m we go from the months of the Nile up-stseatn toward its source, presenting an ascending chromatic scale, from white to black, and the same is true of the TWikaon the southern side of Mount Atlas, who are only light olive, while their brethren in the interior of Africa are black. The ancient monuments of Egypt show us a fact equally significant. The men are always depicted of & reddish brown ; they live in the open air, while the women, kept shut up, have a pale yellow complexion. Barrow asserts that the Mantchoo Tartars have grown whiter during their abode in China. Rerausat, Pallas, and GutzUff speak of the Chinese women as being remarkable for a European faimesi. The Jewesses of Cairo and Syria, always hidden under veils or in their own houses, have a pallid, dead colour. In the )ellow races of the Sumatra Sound and the Maldives, the women always covered up are pale like wax. We know, too, that the Esquimaux bleach daring their long winter. These phenomena, no doubt, are the results of several influences acting at once, and light does not play the sole part in them. Cleat and other conditions of the medium probably have a ■hare in these operations of colour. Still, the peculiar and powerful effoct of luminous radiation as a part of them, is beyond di»pute. — Popular Science Monthly. A oountry maiden explains that " Dolly Varden " was a character in Thaokeraj 's play of "The Temptation." We ■hall be glad to hear from our correspondent again. A coloured gentlsman lately went to consult a lawyer, a»d after stating his case, said, " Now, Mr , I know you'« a lawyer, but I wish you would, please sir, jiss tell me the trutr about dat matter."

The Invalids Rtuse states that the effectire of the Russian army on a peace footing is fixed at 739,000 men, with a reserve of 621,000 on leare of absence) making a total of 1,360,000 men. The number of breech-loading firearms in the arsenals, &c., exceeds by lio,ooo tlie number' necessary to supply the whole army. In IM7U there wore only three batteries of artillery lor every division ; there are now four batteries for every brigade, and, bj the direct orders of the Emperor, fifth and mxcli batteries are m course of formation, and are already supplied with caution, gun-carriages, &c. There remain only ttie organisation of the train, the purchuse of horf.es, and other minor details to complete these additional batteries. With regard to equipments, there are abundant supplies in the arsenals, and the manufacture of military accoutrements is organised in such a way as to furnish 145,000 suits of clothing per annum. In case of emergency, ■ay* the Invalids, this figure could be eaaily doubled. A gushing poet asks in the first line of a recent effusion : " How many weary pilgrims lie ?" We giro it up, but ex* preience has taught us that there are a good many.