WAIFS AND STRAYS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume X, Issue 10, 11 March 1893, Page 224

WAIFS AND STRAYS.

The overcurious are not overwise. The busy have no time for tears. The villain’s censure is extorted praise. Many a man has made a goose of himself with a single quill. God never keeps a willing man waiting long for an opportunity. Temptations are a file which rub off much of the rust of our self-confidence. Some men tire themselves almost to death looking for an easy place. It is easier to forgive enemies we have worsted than enemies who have worsted us. No mean man has a right to wish he had never been born. Let other people do that for him. Of four things every man has more than he knows—of sins, of debts, of years, and of foes. He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper ; but he is more excellent who can suit his temper to any circumstances. There is no more universal characteristic of human nature (says Russell Lowell) than the instinct of men to apologise to themselves for themselves, and to justify personal failings by generalising them into universal laws. BOUND TO HAVE SOME FUN. A maiden who wore a blue toque Enjoyed any kind of a joque ; She was tickled enough And exclaimed. ‘ That’s the stough.’ And other like sentiments spoque. Novel Mode of Hatching Eggs. — ‘Ducks,’ as the poulterers occasionally say, are ‘ cheap to-day ’ —indeed, they are cheap every day—in the markets of Tamsui, in the Island of Formosa ; and one reason why they are cheap is that the country people have devised a remarkably simple and inexpensive process of artificial hatching. A long, low shed is built of wattles and mud, with a thick thatched roof. Along the inside walls are arranged rough troughs, filled with grain and roasted paddy-husk, on which the eggs are placed as fast as they are laid. In summer no particular precautions are taken ; but in winter the eggs are covered over with quilted coverlets. The grain, which is sprinkled over with a little warm water, sets up fermentation, and that, with the help of the warm paddy-husk, which is continually being changed, hatches the eggs in about 30 days. By this simple means the Formosan poultry-dealer is enabled to sell young ducklings at about Id each.

Strange Dwelling-Places.—Birds occasionally show a peculiar taste in seeking a place for nest building. In a book entitled ‘ Glimpses of Animal Life ’ we are told of a water wagtail which built her nest in a noisy brass foundry, and of a wren which chose her habitation in the body of a dead hawk, nailed to a barn. The following are other instances of bird rearing. At Hesse Darmstadt, about 30 years ago, a black redstart built her nest on the collision spring of a railway carriage which had remained for some time out of use. Five eggs were deposited, and the stationmaster for a long time refrained from using the carriage. At length, however, it could be no longer dispensed with, and was attached to a tiain and sent away. Four days and three nights elapsed before its return, and during all this time it was in motion. When it arrived at its own station, however, the young birds had not only been hatched, but were in a lively condition. It was evident that at least one of the parent birds must have travelled with the nest and provided food for their young. The Easiest Death. —Professor Helm, of Zurich, says that the man who falls from a tremendous height has the most enjoyable time imaginable—till he stops. If be could fall for ever it would be better than Paradise. He suffers no pain, he is not frozen with terror, as is commonly supposed, yet he is perfectly aware of what is happening. Time seems to pass very slowly as he goes down, and he thinks of many subjects. There are pleasant sounds in his ears—probably caused by the whizzing of the air as he goes by. He knows perfectly well that there will presently be a tremendous thud and a violent pause, but he regards the prospect wiih absolute composure, and rather looks at it from an outside standpoint, as if it were someone else who was going to come down with that thud, and he was going to stand by and see the fun. When the stoppage does come he knows nothing about it. It is a beautiful death—to die by rushing down from a great height. The patient seems to be a comet or a meteor flying athwart the blue sky, and then he sinks into oblivion, as if he had fallen into a sea of chloroform and roses; and, if the fall is long enough, he never knows anything more, and nothing worries him again to all eternity.

A Chinese Execution.—A correspondent writes under date Nanking, December 3, 1892: ‘Yesterday I was returning to my home from the city when I saw an immense crowd of people, and presently I saw the chair of the magistrate and his retinue hurrying away, after a gun had been fired. It was an execution. The criminal was led along the street with chains on his legs, and his hands tied behind his back, and escorted by soldiers. When he arrived at a spot where two large streets cross he knelt down, a man held his queue, and the executioner with one blow seveied his head from the body on the signal of a gun being fired. The headsman was dressed in red. Immediately the head fell the great crowd of people clapped their hands, not in loud applause, however, but in their superstition to diive away the sha shi (the deathly influences, or the spirits of death). Then the magistrate and his retinue hurried away, almost on the run, to the temple of the city god, Chan-hwatrg, to burn incense, so letting the god know that justice had been done, and to prevent evil influences. From the city god’s temple they then went to the Magistrate's Yamen and the officials at in the Hall of Justice, with the whole yamen assembled when all cried out * Ho ! Ho ! ’ to drive away any remaining evil spirits, lest death or calamity should come on any of them. As I crossed the street 1 saw the great pool of blood, and a crowd surrounded the head and body. The criminal was a man who had committed adultery and murdered the husband of bis guilty paramour.