WAIFS AND STRAYS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VI, Issue 35, 30 August 1890, Page 5

WAIFS AND STRAYS.

The Sabbath-day is the savings bank of humanity. Know thyself. If you can't get the requisite information, run for office. Henry VIII. differed from other men as a suitor. He married his wives and axed them afterward. A process has been discovered for extracting sugar from cotton-seed meal. It is said to be 15 times sweeter than cane sugar, but cannot be sold in competition with the ordinary article. Money will feed gluttony, flatter pride, indulge voluptuousness, and gratify sensuality ; but, unless it be an engine in the hands of wisdom, it will never produce any real joy. Hereafter let no one say that the Indian is deficient in delicate thoughtfulness for others. The young buck Indians of Canada refuse to marry because they have no work for their wives to do. The primary object to which agricultural land should be devoted is the growth of the foot! of the people. Anything which interferes with that object, and prevents the development of the resources of the soil, is against the interests of the country. There is a young woman in New York whose marvellous memory is her fortune. No book escapes her. This extraordinary girl is as familiar with the literature of past ages as with the twopenny novels of to-day. Not only borrowed plots, but borrowed styles, borrowed phrases, are instantly detected, and their original source is noted down. She occupies the position of literary detective in one of the great publishing houses. A Moderate Appetite.—The Baroness de Bachlieu, a great social celebrity in Paris under Louis Philippe, lived to a very advanced age, and to the last was distinguished for her handsome appearance. For forty years of her life this lady never took anything but three dozen oranges, a glass of wine, and two slices of bread a day. Notwithstanding this frugal fare, the Baroness was celebrated for her hospitality, and died at considerably over 80 years of age. Nothing New under the Sun.—The penny-in-the-slot machine is not by any means a modern invention. In the old Egyptian temples devices of this kind were employed for automatically dispensing the purifying water. A coin of live drachmae dropped into a slot in a vase set a simple piece of mechanism like a well sweep in motion ; a valve was opened for an instant, and a portion of the water permitted to escape. This apparatus was described by Heron of Alexandria, who lived 200 years before the Christian era. Future Industrial Centres.—Nothing in the future appears more probable than that the industrial supremacy of Great Britain will pass away with the exhaustion of her coal fields. Switzerland, Italy, and the Scandinavian Peninsula are destined to become the great manufacturing districts of Europe. This extraordinary industrial revolution will be brought about by the transmission and distribution, by electrical means, of the inexhaustible ami permanent water power of these countries. In the new eia the Swiss Republic may not improbably become the foremost industrial nation of Europe. A Fifty Years’ Engagement.—A man died recently in the North of Ireland who had been engaged fifty years, but though the course of true love seemed to run smooth enough in the case, for some inexplicable reason the long-drawn-out courtship never culminated in matrimony. Every Sunday evening the lovers spent in each other’s company. Deceased s household affairs were carefully supervised by his./fonrrc, whilst he returned the favour by acting as her financial adviser, and otherwise assisting her in business matters. It is said that both had for years possessed and reverently preserved their wedding garments.

The Czar and Poisoned Eggs.—‘ Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.’ This is especially the case with the Czar. He has now a new cause for anxiety ; might not the ‘great revenge’ of the Nihilists be satisfied through the medium of his food ? Not long ago a savant, it is said, made the discovery that an egg could easily be poisoned by the insertion of a thin wire that could leave no mark on the shell. Until then the Czar had eaten eggs with absolute security. Now a Continental correspondent avers, they are sent him in all sorts of mysterious receptacles—sometimes in hat boxes—and they are boiled or converted into omelettes in a little kitchen continuous to the Czar's study.

Fight about the Beauties at a Ball.—The annual ball of the Artists’ Club at the Thalia, on Reiehenbergerstrasse, Berlin, concluded with a lamentable ami sanguinary affray. The last polonaise was being danced, and a number of artists, who were somewhat tipsy, began to quairel about the beauty of certain ladies. Words soon led to blows, chairs were broken up for clubs, glasses were thrown, and finally knives were drawn, and several persons were severely injured. Women joined in the fight so as to assist husbands am) sweethearts, with the result that their dresses were torn to tatters and their faces bruised and scratched. The police entered the hall after the fight had lasted some minutes, and made several arrests.

The Influence of Earth-Worms. — Darwin estimated that worms, by swallowing earth for the sake of the vege table matter it contains ami forming castings, bring to the surface as much as ten tons of earth per annum on an acre. Worms are great promoters of vegetation by boring, perforating, ami loosening the soil, and rendering it pervious to rains and the fibres of plants, by drawing straws and stalks of leaves ami twigs into it, ami, most of al), by throwing up such infinite numbers of lumps of earth called worm casts which form a fine manure for grain and grass. The earth without worms would soon become cold, hard-bound, void of fermentation, ami consequently sterile : this has occurred in many eases where the worms have been either accidentally or intentionally destroyed, and the fertility of the soil thus lost has only been restored when the worms hail again collected and resumed their fettilising work.