In the Smoke Room.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVII, Issue I, 4 July 1896, Page 12

In the Smoke Room.

AN enterprising firm of American bicycle manufacturers have presented Miss Lilian Russell, the prima donna, with a golden bicycle. This is the second presentation of the kind to the singer. The manufacturers themselves are the authority for the statement that this ‘ bike ’ cost complete £2BO. Every part of the wheel that could be plated has three layers of gold, and the value of the bullion used in the plating process was £ 160. I have been asked a curious question. ‘ls it painful to die ?’ From my own experience, and I have been given up many a time and oft, here and abroad, I should answer ‘no, in ninety cases out of a hundred.’ The doomed patient is tired and weary, and fain would sleep. Albeit that sleep will be a long one—

• To die, to sleep, perchance to dream but we have only to trust to the goodness of the Father, who will, I believe, measure our sins by our temptations and idiosyncrasies.

We read the other day of a Californian woman who, in wifely resentment of the fact that her husband remained away from home all night, tied that gentleman up by the thumbs and administered chastisement with a horsewhip.

Dr. Conan Doyle, speaking of cycling, says : —‘When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope seems hardly worth having, just mount a bicycle and go and have a good spin down the road, without thought of anything but the ride you are taking. I have myself ridden the bicycle most during my practice as a physician and during my work in letters. I can only speak words of praise for the bicycle, for I believe that its use is commonly beneficial, and not at all detrimental to health, except in the matter of beginners who overdo it.’

In the long run—that is to say, at the end of the long nun—the chief difference between the rich and the poor is in the material out of which the coffin is made.

There is always something to look forward to, even though it be only the millennium.

There is a gentleman in Holland (Mr Boomgardt) who has lived, and is still going on, up till the age of 107, and has all his life been an outrageous smoker.

Imagine Paris without her trees. Still, at the present moment, it is hinted gloomily that this may happen. The fact is that the sewer gas is oozing into the ground and poisoning the roots, with the result that many are withering away.

I like stories of dogs, even when I am compelled to take them with a pinch of salt. I love the dog so much that I am willing bis friends should tell the rankest falsehoods to illustrate his intelligence, but I must strongly assert that, while there are many men who know more than any dog, there are also a few dogs who know more than some men. The dog of which—or, shall I say of whom ?—I speak went to a doctor’s office and set up the most piteous whine. The doctor tried to make him chase himself away, but the dog stuck like glue. When all the other patients had gone the dog presented his front foot to the doctor, who saw that it was broken. Being a decent sort of fellow, the M. D. got some splints and began to work on poor doggy’s foot, and, although the operation was painful, the pug licked the doctor's hand through it all.

In the west and west central districts of London there are constantly in evidence several professional billiardplayers who actually describe themselves as ‘ billiard tutors,’ and who, week in and week out, do fairly well at the occupation, for there is no doubt .that the popularity of billiards is ever increasing. These ‘ tutors ’ have an arrangement with a certain number of publicans, and are privileged when the tables are otherwise unoccupied, to take pupils up for instruction, for which the usual fee to the tutor is sixpence for a good quarter of an hour, though the instructor undertakes to teach one easy stroke, say, for twopence. Sometimes the pupil will elect to play a game with a slight stake at issue—the latter being to recompense the tutor for his loss of time. The sixpenny lesson generally also entails refreshments for the tutor and the marker. One marker said that he had known a tutor to give as many as twenty short lessons in one day, but of course this is very unusual.

The Greek and Italian fishermen of the Columbia River have some ideas of trades unionism peculiarly their own. They have made a rule that no fisherman may catch fish except for his own consumption, and that if he takes more than he can use he must divide the spoils with his neighbour fishermen who have not been out. No fishermen will be allowed to sell to the markets or to private trade. It is further ordered that all nonunion fishermen shall refrain from casting a line into the

river either for pleasure or business, and certain penalties are supposed to be visited upon such misguided persons with a taste for piscatorial pursuits. Here is an account of the Mexican jumping bean, a curiosity of the vegetable kingdom, until the reason for its peculiar gymnastic properties was found to be due to the animal kingdom. The bean is the seed of a plant belonging to the Spurge family, and its pecularity consists in the fact that specimens of it are often found which are capable of making short leaps forward and of turning themselves over by a sidelong movement. If some of these beans are put into a box and examined the following season it will be seen that they are no longer capable of movement, and small holes will be found gnawed through the shell or pod, and in the bottom of the box some small moths will be noticed. On opening one of these active beans a small larva will be found in the interior. The grub does not entirely fill the space that was occupied by the seed, so that by suddenly changing its position it is capable of giving movement to the lighter seed pod which it occupies.

There has lately arrived in Egypt a French trader who was expelled from Abyssinia at the instance of the Greek traders with that country. Shortly before the recent crushing defeat of the Italians he had supplied 20,000 rifles, similar to those in use in the French army, to the troops of the Negus. On learning this, and fearing lest they should lose their monopoly, the Greek traders denounced their rival as an Italian spy, whereupon he was condemned to be shot at sight, unless he left the country at once. At great peril he made his way from Harar to Djibouti, in Somaliland, from whence he took steamer to Suez. It is probable that the Abyssinians owe their recent victory more to the number and quality of their arms than to anything else.

This is an agony column advertisement in a London paper :—‘ Maggie D.—Dear sweet little Peepie, do come back to me or to your mother and forgive my unkindness. This will be a lesson to me, and I will forget everything. I will only live to do everything to make you happy. I see now how much I really love you, and you do love me, don’t you ? Everyone wants you back, and your mother shall live with us. —Willie.’

The dulness of the English Sunday has become too great a burden for the active members of the New Oxford and Cambridge Club, Pall Mall. An extraordinary meeting of the members has been called to decide upon the propriety of opening the members’ billiard-room on Sundays.

Are American murders increasing ? No one has yet attempted to refute the recent and startling assertion of Hon. Andrew D. White, that more murders are committed in the United States than in any other civilized country in the world. In 1889 the number exceeded 3,500; in 1895 it was almost three times as great! Jurists attribute the increase to the lack of restraining fear which, they believe, would come through prompt trial and adequate punishment of the criminals, and to the sentimental objection of the public to the infliction of capital punishment.

Clarke’s Worid-I’amid Blood Mixture.—‘The most search Ing Blood Cleanser that science and medical skill have brought to light.’ Sufferers from Scrofula, Scurvy, Eczema, Bad Legs, Skin and Blood Diseases, Pimples and Sores of any kind are solicited to give it a trial to test its value. Thousands of wonderful cures have been effected by it. Bottles 2s 9d each, sold everywhere. Beware of worthless imitations and substitutes.