WAIFS AND STRAYS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 42, 17 October 1891, Page 479

WAIFS AND STRAYS.

Where there’s a will there's very often a lawsuit. Alimony is the silver lining to the cloud of divorce. The age of wisdom : From seventeen to twenty one. Women are not always deep thinkers, but they are generally clothes observers. No matter how much a man hates a creditor, he invariably asks him to call again. The reason some people ‘ love at first sight ’ is because they don’t know each other then. A loud necktie doesn’t necessarily indicate a depraved heart ; the wearer’s impulses may be better than his taste. It makes no difference how much confidence a man has in a friend, he will always wish the day after he tells him his trouble that he had not told him quite so much. Do not flatter yourself that friendship authorises you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become. Thackeray’s ‘ Vanity Fair,’ though written after its author had made a success as a novelist, was nevertheless, refused by every reputable house in London, the writer finally being forced to bear half the expense of publication. Why do people wait until a man is sick ami ean’t eat to send him good things? When he is well and would like something good no neighbour comes in with fancy jellies, old wines and things like that. Things are very unfair. POETRY AND PROSE. ‘ Where are you going, my pretty inaid f * Into society, sir, she said. ‘ May I go with you. my pretty maid f ‘ If you've plenty- of money, good sir.’ she said. ‘ I haven’t a penny, my pretty maid.’ ■ I wish you good morning, sir,’ she said. We all know that a woman cannot throw a stone with any certainty of hitting a mark as big as the side of a house ; but she can thread a gross of needles while a man is finding the eye of one, and she can detect beauty in a squalling baby where no man can see anything more than a pudgy mass of unattractive humanity. At a watering place in the Pyrenees the conversation at table turned upon a wonderful echo to be heard some distance off’ on the Franco Spanish frontier. *lt is astonishing,’ exclaimed an inhabitant of the Garonne ; ‘ as soon as you have spoken you hear distinctly the voice leap from rock to rock, from precipice to precipice, and as soon as it has passed the frontier the echo assumes a Spanish accent.’ Summer in St. Petersburg.—As a rule, there is not much to see at Petropolis in the summer. The families of the great nobility are usually away at their country estates or at their villas in the charming islands which dot the Neva ; while the Imperial Court is sometimes at TsarkiCelo, but much more frequently at Gatscliina. The WinterPalace, the Hermitage, the museums and picture galleries are open to sightseers ; but there are no balls and no receptions, no races, and very few public amusements. MAINE JAW-BREAKERS. Don’t visit the commonplace Winnepesauke, Or the rivulet Onoquinapaskesasanognog, Nor climb to the summit of bare Woosinauke, And look eastward toward the clear Umbagog ; But come into Maine to the Welokennebacock, Or to the saucy little River Essiqualsagook, Or still smaller stream of Chinquassabunticook, Then visit me last on the great Anasagunticook. The Spreading of Slander.—A lady who had been in the habit of spreading slanderous reports once confessed her fault to St. Philip de Neri, and asked how she could be cured. He said ‘Go to the nearest market-place, buy a chicken just killerl, pluck its feathers all the way as you return, and come back to me.’ She was much surprised, and when she saw her adviser again he said : ‘ Now go back and bring me all the featheis you have scattered.’ ‘But that is impossible !’ she said. ‘ I cast away the feathers carelessly ; the wind carried them away. How can I recover them?’ ‘ That,’ he said, ‘ is exactly like your words of slander. They have been carried about in every direction ; you cannot recall them. Go and slander no more.’ Widow-strangling in Fiji.—The death of a man was always closely followed by that of his wife, and in the case of a chief by that of all his harem. If a married woman died a passpoit to the shades was furnished her in the shape of her husband’s beard, which was cut off'and placed under her left armpit. Widow-strangling was earned out with imposing ceremonies. All the relatives of the diseased assembled in the hut which he had occupied in life, and to them the widow was brought in. Her brother if she had one, was the executioner, and the instrument was his waist cloth, which he unwound at her entrance. The victim was made to assume a position on hands and knees, and the long cloth was given a turn about her neck and held on either side by her brother and another man. She was then instructed to expel all the air from her lungs and hold up her hand as a signal that all was ready, which being done, the cloth was drawn tight and a swift and nearly painless death ensued. The Circassian Beauty a Myth.—That the whole of the Caucasus abounds in lovely women is a mistake. What are called Circassian beauties are to Ire found not far from Batoum, in the towns and neighbourhoods of Akhaltzig, Ozergerth, and Loogdidi, very small villages and so-called towns. They are also to be found in the north of the Caucasus, also at Anapa, and the small villages extending from that town to Lochi on the coast, but they are not beauties at all, and I can assure you that nine men out of ten would travel through those districts without noticing them. They are mostly poor peasant girls. They have lovely eyes, it is true, but without any expression. Ip to the age of fourteen they have nice features, but after that age they become very coarse-looking indeed. Some have fair, some have dark hair, generally long and plenty of it. It was from the neighbourhood of Loogdidi that the Sultan of Turkey originally procured girls for hishaiem. Of course we sometimes hear of one or two extraordinary beauties in that part of the wot hl, such as the * Baioness Klara von der Deckler of Tillis,’ but such women are only beautiful to the native eye. Europeans find nothing about them to admire.