WAIFS AND STRAYS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 7, 13 February 1892, Page 153

WAIFS AND STRAYS.

The bone of contention is the jawbone. Praise a man twice for something he did not do and he will be convinced that he did it. With some people it is not their own troubles so much as the happiness of their neighbours that disturbs them. There is nothing more difficult than to make a friend of a foe ; nothing more easy than to make a foe of a friend. ‘ Take away woman,’ asks a writer, ‘ and what would follow.* We would. Give us something hard next time‘Let us remove temptation from the path of youth,’ as the frog said when he plunged into the water, upon seeing a boy pick up a stone. If you don’t believe in the strength of insect life, watch the velvety little bumble bee, with the tropical polonaise, and see him lift a 2001 b. picnic man out of the grass. Lion v. Tiger.—lt is popularly supposed that the lion is the most courageous and powerful of the carnivora, or at least of the felid&e ; but on the few recorded occasions of a battle royal between the lion and the Bengal tiger the lion has come oif second best. One such combat occurred recently at the Calcutta Zoo between an African lioness and a tigress. They were exhibited in adjoining compartments of the same cage, and the door having been carelessly opened between the two compartments the tigress rushed in and disposed of her rival in a light which lasted about ten minutes. A DRHADFUT. 63TUB. They stood upon the mountain high.. And she said. * See the view •’ To which the youth then made reply. • I’d rather look at you.' And. oh dear, how she snubbed that man I Right scornfully said she. * You've got to climb much higher than You are to look at me !’ Love and the Understanding.—Some one, epeaking of a beautiful girl with enthusiasm, said he was almost in love with her. though her understanding was by no means brilliant. ‘ Pooh !’ said Goethe, laughing, ‘as if love had

anything to do with understanding. 53 e love a girl for different things than understanding. We love her for her beauty, heryouth.her mirth, her confidingness, her character, with its faults, caprices, and Heaven knows what other inexpressible charms ; but we do not love her understanding. Her mind we esteem (if it is brilliant), and it may greatly elevate her in out opinion ; nay, more, it may enchain us when we already iove. Bat her understanding is not that which awakens and infian.es our passions.' A Good Girl.—A girl of eighteen years, the daughter of a sea captain, recently navigated her father's ship when he and all the erew were down with the yellow fever. The barque, a coasting vessel, bound from South America to Savannah, was last spoken at sea off Navassa, when all hands were reported ill with yellow fever, and no attempt was made by the vessel which reported her to give any assistance. The master of the barque had with him on board his only daughter, who appears to have been the last to catch the fever. With the aid of one or two sailors, who managed to crawl to the deck, she navigated the vessel for several hundreds of miles, and succeeded in reaching port with a crew dead and dying and the captain in a critical condition.

Maternal Instinct.—A short time ago a fire occurred, a mile and a-half from Southampton, and burned about ten rods of furze. There was no wind at the time. .When the fire was extinguished some labouring men noticed that a little plot of heath in the centre of where the fire had been was not burned, and that the fire bad burned everything round the heath, and had approached close co it. In looking about the men oiscovered a pheasant’s nest containing six eggs among the heath. A few hours afterward the pheasant was seen sitting on the eggs. Some time after the nest was visited, and the parent bird was absent, bnt the eggs were nearly batched. When the nest was again visited the pheasant had hatched the eggs, and carried off the young birds. It is remarkable that the heath was not burned, as it was perfectly dry, and it is believed that the pheasant had, by flapping her wings, kept the fire off The Fidelity of Woman.—A young man who has recently related in a Bristol paper his experiences of a trip to Australia says :— 1 I met a fellow-passenger at Melbourne who had sent home for his intended wife ; be had just been down to the boat with the certificate to meet her, and was ready to marry her, but lo! and behold, she would have nothing further to do with him, and went round to Sydney. She had fallen in with another man on the voyage whom she thought she would like better, but which I very much doubt. A woman on oar ship was the pioneer in another case. She, too, had fallen in with a fellow, and bad written home to her husband telling him not to follow. In another case on our ship a young married woman was going out to her husband. She openly averred that if “so-and so ” (mentioning the name) asked her to elope with him she would readily do so ; but as be didn't she proceeded to her destination, giving some particulars of a short stay at Colombo.’

Old Memories It was at a popular concert. The band was playing * Reminiscences of Mendelssohn,’ and a thousand heads were wagging an accompaniment. Suddenly by way of finale, the • Wedding March ’ struck up. The effect was electrical. All over the audience the wedded pairs looked at each other and smiled tenderly. It was a reminiscence. What happy visions it called up ! Here was a couple, homely, raw, from the country evidently, who had just started ont to guide the plough together. Tbe march had been played tor them in tbe little village church not long ago, but now they heard it played indeed. They leaned a little closer together, and her big hand, fixed out to kill in cotton mite which showed the wedding ring, sought his and held it. And all through the audience I saw signs of the pictures called up by that fragrant and alluring music. Old couples and young, rich and poor, those who live like cate and dogs together, and those who have learned the pleasant alchemy of forbearance in wedded life, all were for tbe moment bewitched. Ta, te, tara, rara, turn tiddle de dura di do. It fairly makes me reminiscent myself, though they played Wagner at my blessed wedding.