In The Smoke Room

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVII, Issue IX, 29 August 1896, Page 267

In The Smoke Room

,4 LAZY individual has invented a device for auto- \ matically feeding his horse, and this he has done by means of an alarm clock. He has found that his horse wants to be fed at a time when he wants to be in bed, and this has been arranged for by connecting the alarm with a slide, which allows the grain to run through a shoot into the manger. Berry, the late hangman, declared that during his term of office he conducted over 500 executions. A great many of the crimes were caused by drink ; and he adds emphatically, ‘ I never hanged a teetotaler.’ Mr T. L. Patterson, in Nature, suggests that inoculation with the blood of healthy natives may be able to give residents and travellers in tropical parts of the world immunity from the diseases which are the result of climate, just as vaccination is believed to prevent attacks of small pox. Mr Patterson adduces in support of his suggestion the case of Mr Stanley, who underwent the operation of blood-brotherhood no less than fifty times I So that Turnbull was justified in saying that ‘ the blood of a fair proportion of all the first families of Equatorial Africa now courses in Stanley's veins,’ which is a delicate way of insinuating that he is half a negro. At any rate Mr Stanley did not suffer from these inoculations, though whether his healthiness is to be attributed to the exchange of blood with the natives he met is another matter. So seriously has the city of London taken the custom of the button-hole bouquets worn by stock brokers that it has actually given the ladies who sell flowers recognition. The flower-girls, as they are all gallantly called are permitted by the regulations to set down their baskets and sell their flowers around the iron railings opposite the Royal Exchange. They are among the most respected stall holders in the city. They are uniformly polite, as they may well be, since they may be said to be on speaking terms with all the youth and fashion of the city. Some people are born to be lucky. The astonishing good fortune which carried Slatin Pasha safely through his captivity has not deserted him. In the Egyptian Derby sweepstake Slatin drew both Persimmon and Earwig, and must have made a pretty fair haul. It is to be hoped that his luck will continue, and will be combined with a certain amount of personal prudence in the campaign. If, by any chance, the Pasha should fall into the Khalifa's hands again he would hardly get a second opportunity of escaping. The horse Norma, which the Czar rode at the coronation festivities, is a thirteen-year-old stallion of English descent. It is his favourite horse ; its hoofs are shod with silver. Hereafter it will never be ridden again, but will spend the rest of its life as a pensioner in the Imperial stables. Solid beer is the newest speculation. A few Westralian speculators who bought up a local brewery, in the course of their operations have discovered that the owner had a process for making a splendid thing out of this find. The new beer can be carried around in blocks at a big saving of carriage, and—which is an even more important thing—it is given neither to leaking nor to evaporation. The French chemist, Moissan, recently analyzed the smoke of opium and found that its peculiar effects are due to the presence of a small quantity of morphine. The cheaper qualities of the drug when burned produce a variety of poisonous compounds in the smoke, which are more injurious that the morphine that characterises the smoke of the best opium. It is said that the only European monarch who is not insured is the Czar. The companies will risk nothing on him. In the privacy of his study the Emperor William is accustomed to smoke a big china-bowled pipe of the typical German kind. A well-known oculist, who has been studying the human eye for thirty years, declares that most great men of the past and present have or had blue or grey eyes.

Surrender by telephone is the latest development in war. A Cuban force having recently surrounded a Spanish garrison, the insurgent General telephoned to the Spanish commander that he must capitulate under penalty of having the town burned. An hour later he telephoned to know the decision, received the required surrender and entered the town without firing a shot.