In The Smoke Room

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVII, Issue XXII, 28 November 1896, Page 109

In The Smoke Room

TOBACCO pouches are made under conditions which are said to be very injurious to the operator. A factory inspector, reporting on the indiarubber works which she visited in the Manchester district, in which bisulphide of carbon and naphtha are used, says : — ‘ I have found women and young girls at work, and in only one case have I found precautions systematically adopted which appear, so far, to have adequately protected them from the otherwise necessarily injurious effects of the fumes to which they are exposed ’ The mother of one girl says that she never expects to see her daughter the same girl again ; that ‘ she sits down in a stupor, or extremely drowsy condition, in front of the fire whenever she comes home, refusing food, and that also frequently she can only be got to bed by being carried there, while, if aroused, she gets wild and excited.’ All these symptoms, together with others, such as uncertain gait in walking, are attributed to poisoning by bisulphide of carbon. Another inspector says:— ‘ Most of the workers who are much exposed to these fumes complain of violent headaches, dizziness, and nausea, and in some instances a paralysis is set up. In one of the places I visited I found two workers who had apparently suffered from this disease recently ; both had completely lost the use of their limbs for some weeks, and gradually recovered when they were not exposed to the fumes.’

Pointed toes, says an authority, are to disappear from boots and shoes before very long. It has been discovered that the shoe has to be very much longer than it need be if it is made with a pointed toe, and if the wearer has to walk in it without suffering Chinese tortures. And this extra length makes the foot look very much larger than it need.

Klaes, the merchant of Rotterdam (says Mr I’ayn in the Illustrated Loudon News), was called the King of the Smokers, from his devotion to the gentle weed, and he had a right regal funeral. By the terms of tis will every smoker who chose to attend it was presented with ten pounds of tobacco and two Dutch pipes, on which were engraved the name, arms, and date of the decease of the testator. All his guests were invited to be careful to keep their pipes alight during the funeral ceremonies, and to empty their ashes into the grave. His oak coffin was lined with the cedar of his old Havana cigar-boxes, and a packet of old Dutch tobacco was placed at the foot of his coffin. His favourite pipe was laid by his side along with a box of matches, as well as flint and steel and some tinder, as he had expressed an opinion that ‘ there was no knowing what might happen.’ Some anti-tobacconists of the period seem to have wickedly remarked that these precautions about procuring a light would be found superfluous.

Professor Oliver Lodge, an English electrical expert, says that everything now indicates that the Rontgen rays are transverse vibrations. They are akin to ultraviolet light.

The Gaekwar of Baroda possesses the most costly sword in the world. The hilt is so set with precious stones that the weapon is worth at least £220,000. The large waterfalls of the United States are now nearly all being utilized for the commercial develop meat of power, which is transmitted electrically to some distant point. The power of the Lachine Rapids of the St. Lawrence River is to be so utilized. A large wing dam under construction runs out for more than 1,000 feet into the St. Lawrence River, by means of which a fall of water is secured sufficient to develop at the low water season 15 000 horse power. Upon the dam a power house will be built, which will run its entire length, and show an unbroken interior 1,000 feet long. The basement of this will contain the dynamos of which there will be twelve, each of 1,000 horse power, or a total capacity of 12,000 horse power. The dynamos, of the General Electric Company’s latest multiphase type, will generate current for transmission to Montreal, for use there in lighting the city, operating the street railroads, and for private commercial use. The contract for the electrical installation is very large, and, notwithstanding the fact that it was competed for by the leading firms of the world, it was awarded to an American company on account of the superior apparatus. If a tin of water is placed at night in the room where gentlemen have been smoking, all smell will be gone in the morning. Perpetual sunshine occurs on the coast of Peru, where,

although it may be misty occasionally, the blue sky is always visible through this whitish veil. Perpetual sunshine, when the sun is above the horizon also exists in the Sahara, the great desert of Africa, and in the other rainless regions of the earth, namely : —the highlands of Iran, various tracts of Turkestan and China, the plateau of Gobi, and also in Australia, between the southern colonies and the Gulf of Carpentaria. Should clouds appear in any of these districts the heat of the sun is so intense that they are dispersed almost before they have formed. A new experiment in lighting has been made in the room containing the Raphael cartoons at the South Kensington Museum. Instead of clear glass layers of green, yellow and blue glass are used. This gives a white fight, eliminates actinic rays and prevents the pictures from fading. The hottest place in the world is Bahrein Island, in the Persian Gulf, near the Arabian coast —so an American geographer states. In this region the average daily summer temperature is 100 degrees in the shade, running up to 140 degrees in the afternoon.

The little children of a native school in Burmah have just sent/5 for the re-building of one of the churches in St. Louis wreckfid by the cyclone. The church had formerly helped the school. How little the population of France moves about is shown by the last census Out of 38,000,000 inhabitants 21,000,000 live in the town or village in which they were born, and 30,500,000 have not moved out of their native departments. Only 1,500,000 have emigrated to France from colonies or foreign countries. One of the old Greek laws provided that if a man divorced his wife he could not marry a woman younger than the discarded partner.

A gentleman, who has recently retu 1 ned from the seat of the rebellion against Spain writes that no one in Cuba, except the foreigner, ever smokes a pipe, but cigars and cigarettes are universal. Of necessity there is a great demand for a cheap article, and some of the cigars that meet that demand emit a smoke which will float a straw hat and wither the vegetation for yards around. The cigarette, however, is the main reliance of the working man. It is not easy for the visitor to get a good cigar at the tobacconist’s. For the equivalent of sixpence, he gets an article close and heavy, and a headache goes with every one. But a visit to a factory near Havana makes the old smoker’s mouth water. There one can buy cigars at all prices. The best are sold to wealthy people in different parts of the world —mainly wealthy Spaniards and Portuguese. Very few of these cigars go the British Isles. The Briton is allowed to take just forty-nine cigars home with him without paying duty. A French railway has hit upon a new source of revenueIn future people who accompany their friends to any of the stations on that line to see them off, will only be admitted on the platform on payment of a fee of one penny. As this railway is the largest in France a considerable yearly sum is expected to be derived from this source. The expression ‘ from pillar to post ’ is derived from a custom practised in the riding school of olden times. The pillar was placed in the centre of the ground, and the posts were arranged two and two around the circumference of the ring at equal distances Hence ‘ from pillar to post ’ signified going from one thing to another without any definite purpose. Insistent and arrogant industry deserves scant praise The great Dr. Johnson affirmed that no man is obliged to do as much as he can ; that a man should have part of his life to himself. This applies equally to the other sex. A woman, too, should have part of her life to herself. Does she get it? Does she take it? If so, the chances are that she will keep well. The impulse to selfsacrifice is too often uppermost in women. They err through ignorance. They know not what they do. Modern hygiene teaches that the correct balance between effort for others and activities giving pure personal pleasure must be maintained if nerves are to be held in orderly and peaceful subjection. There must be moderation in all things, even in the exercise of unselfishness.