WAIFS AND STRAYS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume V, Issue 47, 22 November 1890, Page 3

WAIFS AND STRAYS.

Gold is tested by tire, man by gold. Another man’s burden is always light. Vanderbilt ha* bunions. A man a* rich as he is can hare anything. The green grocer is the one who trusts the new family in the next street. Gentleness makes children endurable, women lovable, and men admirable. Most young women study the character of men but little,, because they have but little opportunity. * You’re a man after my own heart,’ said a summer girl. ‘ Will you give it to me . imploied the irrepressible youth. A wise man always keeps in mind that nothing in thisworld can retain its first freshness, beauty, and significance. He (at 11.30 p.im): ‘All the girls tell me I am the best young man going.’ She (with a yawn) : ‘ Yes, much better then than at any other time.’ A contemporay tells us that a favourite hotel is to lie kept this season at one of the watering-places ■ by thew idow of Mr Jones, who died last summer on a new and improved plan."

Man’s life is born into a bootless world. It he strives not. how base ! and if he strive. What weariness and grief, whilst evermore Recedes the earthly goal! We plan and act. Our little wisdom runs before our deeds Led other way by fate : and all our days But moek the visions of our yesterdays. Till every purpose seems as shaped by dreams. Futile and waking, voided. Female Type-setters.—At one time women threatened to become formidable rivals to the men as printers, but the invention of type-writing has opened to them a more congenial occupation, and the number of female type setters issaid to be decreasing. There are not over three hundred women printers in New York now, though formerly they were so numerous as to excite the hostility of the Typographical Unions. Seemed Like a Miracle.—A seamstress, like Hood’s pathetic heroine, worked till the stars shone on the roof, and she injured her eyesight. She saw at the same time four hands, four needles and four seams. She at first treated them as an illusion, but at the end of some days, in consequence of weekness and prolonged mental anxiety, she imagined that she was really sewing four seams at once, and that God, touched by her misfortune, had worked a miracle in her favour.

Train up the Voice.—lt would be a good thing if some of the people who s|>end small fortunes in giving their daughters musical educations would adopt the French idea of having the voice trained for conversation by a good singing teacher. Persons with sensitive ears have often sighed w nen a pretty and refined woman opened her mouth to drop pearls or wisdom in a voice of shocking discordance. That tollows neglect of the voice in youth. A child, eight years old, whose voice is pitched so high or so low as to be unmusical should be taken in hand at once and taught to talk in a tone that best suits the vocal organs.

Social Functions in the Season. —There has lieen, according to a calculation, an average of nine social functions a day in London during three months, and in all about 900 entertainments, specifically society entertainments. The calculation, proceeding upon the assumption that none ‘ probably costs less than £3OO, and several six or seven times that amount,’ estimates the gross outlay at considerably over £250,000. The direct exjienditure in dinners, play parties at home, etc., is put at a million, and the indirect expenditure, cost of houses, dresses, etc., at another three millions. We are thus left with an expenditure of four millions in the West End of London in three months.

Clever Fraud in Cyprus.—A rather novel way of cheating by a butter seller in the bazaar came recently to the notice of the police in Cyprus. It appears that the seller in question would offer one of the country jars containing butter for sale, and the person puichasiug would have tne weight verified by weighing the jar and butter. The butter would then be taken out and the jar weighed, so that the purchaser should have credit for the tare of the jar. This went on swimmingly for some time, when it was. discovered that in weighing the jar with the butter there was a large bung always in the jar, but when getting credit for the empty jar the bung was always left out of the jar. The bung was found to be weighted with shot.

Carrier Swallows.—‘Carrier swallows,’ instead of ‘ carrier pigeons,’have been tested successfully at Roubaix by a swallow trainer. Fifteen of the birds were given absolute freedom of wing for the first time. They flew in different directions, and in about twenty minutes one came back ami perched on the trainer's oustretched finger. The otheis followed, and in half an hour every swallow was back. M. Desbouvrie, who trains these birds, is confident that in war time they would ire ten times at least more useful than carrier pigeons, as they are more intelligent, fly higher, and can obtain their torsi while on the wing. As to the habit of the swallow of flying south when the winter sets in, here in our northern climes the experienced trainer is able to produce birds which he kept all through the most bitterly cold months of last year ana this. The exjreriment imparts a new interest to our little summer visitors.

A Pointed Sermon.—A well-known London preacher, famed alike for his outs]>oken discourses ami tor his utter fearlessness of consequences, recently star tied a West end evening congregation by announcing in his sermon that a lady w iiolii he knew had murdered her coachman. Everyone was at once on the </'<i rice. ‘ She went,' said the preacher, ‘ to a ball ; not knowing how long she might lie, she told the man to wait. He waited three hours in the bitter cold and frost; the cold struck his lungs, and lie was removed to an hospital. At that hospital, 1, continued the preacher, ‘ attended him. He died and his death must surely l>e laid at that lady’s door.' The congregation, thoroughly solemnised by the stern words, sat in profound silence, every eye intently fixer! upon the sjteaker. Judge, therefore, ot the further thrill which awaited them when the preacher, after a pause, leaned forwaid and said, * My brethren, that lady is present in this cliuich to-night.’