In The Smoke Room

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIX, Issue XIX, 30 October 1897, Page 585

In The Smoke Room

The idea of the great electrician Edison's marrying was first suggested by an intimate friend, who told him that his large house and numerous servants ought to have a mistress. Although a very shy man, he seemed pleased with the proposition, and timidly inquired whom he should marry. The friend, annoyed at his apparent want of sentiment, somewhat testily replied, ‘ Any one.’ After a summer shower you must have often noticed that fresh, curious, but not unpleasant odour that rises from the new watered earth. Lately it occurred to a well-known man of science to investigate the cause. It proves to l>e produced by a new compound never l>efore discovered, of which in a pound of soil less than one hundred-thousand th part of an ounce exists. This compound has, as far as known, some of the properties of camphor, but so very little could be obtained that there was much difficulty in conducting the experiment.

Von Moltke was an early riser, and loved early risers. Once, while roaming around the Silesian estate at daybreak, he found a woman bearing on her back a sack of potatoes which she had just dug, making a load heavy enough for a mule. ‘ Here’s a thaler for you,’ said the great Field Marshal ; ‘ you see, the early bird catches the worm.’ Afterward he found out that she was a night thief, who had ravaged his fields persistently, but whom his steward had never got up early enough to catch. In 1875 a law was passed prohibiting the use of the portraits of living men, on the United States stamps, thus placing living men in the same position that women occupied, whether dead or alive, for no woman’s portrait has ever graced a stamp belonging to the United States, postal or revenue.

When Fred Archer, England’s famous jockey, once consulted one of England’s most famous surgeons, the surgeon said : ‘ You must not think me rude, Mr Archer, but I take no interest in any branch of sport, and I have never heard your name.’ 4 Well,’ said Archer, ‘ I hope you won’t think me rude, either, but till a friend advised me to consult you I had never heard your name, either, and when I asked my friend who you were, he said : “ He is the Fred Archer of the surgical profession.” ’

A man recently, in New York, laid a wager that he would woo, win and marry within an hour a young lady whom, with his companions, he had just seen arrive at the hotel where he was living. There is nothing in the American marriage law to prevent this despatch. He introduced himself to the damsel ; she smiled upon his suit, and a minister was called in ami they were married within an hour. The wager, of no inconsiderable amount, was handed over to the bridegroom, who left with his bride on the following day. It was shortly afterwards discovered that the couple had long been man and wife, and that they had been travelling al>out playing the same trick at various hotels. Von Humboldt, the great scientist, when on a visit to Dutch Hazher, near Bristol Bay, predicted that the mother vein of gold would show itself in Alaska in a parallel line. Recent discoveries indicate that this prophecy has lieen fulfilled.

If you are a true smoker, you will never really love more than one pipe ata time. You will possibly flirt with others, winking at them as they ogle you from your mantelpiece ; patent pipes, wrapped in a sheet of directions for use, hygienic pipes, self-ejectment pipes, unbreakable pipes, non slipping pipes, non alcoholic pipes, all of them unsnioKable pipes, These* arc the passing follies of youth, though there are some people who never grow up. You will, therefore, select your pipe with can*, reflecting that you are choosing a partner of your life, one that will Is* near yon by day, and lie by your side at night—on the table by your bed.