Odds and Ends.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIII, Issue XII, 16 September 1899, Page 497

Odds and Ends.

HOUNDS AND THE RAM. If :i dog has once indulged in sheepkilling. it is difficult to eradicate the vice. In former days, when e\ery former kept a Hock of sheep and a dog. vice. In former days, when every farmation of the bad habit by penning the canine, when young, with a big ram addicted to butting. The punishment the <log received taught it that sheep were to be let alone. In a book, ‘‘Thoughts on Hunting.” published in England in the last century. the author. Peter Beckford, tells the following story of a bold, but unsuccessful. attempt to cure a pack of hounds of sheep-killing: “A late lord of my acquaintance, whose whole pack had often been guilty of sheep-killing, determined to punish them, and with that intent put the largest ram he could find into the kennel. The men with their whips and the ram with its horns soon put the whole kennel into confusion and dismay, and the ram and hounds were left together. “Meeting a friend soon after, he said to him, ‘Come to the kennel ami see what rare sport the ram makes among the hounds. The old fellow lays about him stoutly; there's not a dog dares look him in the face.' “Ilis friend, a compassionate man. pitied the hounds, and asked if he were not afraid some of them might he injured. ‘No,' said the lord, they deserve it. and let them suffer.’ “They opened the kennel door, but san- neither ram nor hounds. The ram by this time was entirely eaten up. and the hounds, having filled their bellies, had retired to rest.” No development is more remarkable than that of the Post Office. In “Scribner’s” some interesting facts are given about the growth of the European-American mails. In 1840 the foreign mails from England to the I’nited States, carried on the Great Western, consisted of two sacks of mail. As late as 1873 a steamer from Europe with 20,000 letters on board was considered a record breaker. Today the Cunard steamers and other Transatlantic ships, carrying what is called a “full European mail.” usually bring some 200,000 letters, and an average of 300 sacks of newspapers and printed matter, for New York City, not to mention the 500 and odd sacks for Canada, Mexico, and Transpacific countries. WHAT IS ELECTRICITY? Mr Howard B. Little, in the current issue of “Knowledge.” continues his untrammelled discussion of things electrical, and in this, his fourth article, vaults over, dives under, and walks round, as it were, that little factor in successful work —experience—showing us its value and its danger. “There is.” says Mr Little, “the individual who wants to know, and who will ask questions. In this connection the average electrician suffers more than all the members of any Foreign office ever constituted, for two reasons; first, he is expected to make clear, to the class of questioner aforesaid, in the course of a few instants, what it may have taken him many years to arrive at a just appreciation and understanding of; and secondly, because the lay mind, having from childhood been familiarised with the phenomena of light, heat, and sound, never realises that it has no information whatever as to ewhat they are; consequently by some curious process of reasoning, or want of reasoning, the impression prevails that any electrician who knows his business should be able to tell at once what electricity is.” MB CHAMEBRLAIN AS A SI’NDAY SCHOOL TEACH ER. Some thirty yens ago (writes a Birmingham correspondent of “M.A.P.”) Mr Chamberlain used to conduct a class in connection with the Sunday school at the Church of the Messiah, and those of the surviving members who are still in Birmingham are. full of reminiscences of the time when they sat at Gamaliel's feet, lie was then a partner in Nettlefold's firm, and was mainly concerned in making money, with ex-

*raordinary rapidity, out of screws. Although a prominent inenilter of a local debating society, he had at that time taken no very conspicuous part in the public life of the town. Though the class usually read a chapter of Scripture and afterwards discussed its contents, the greater part of the time was spent in reading ami threshing out a topic in natural science, or a period of historical interest. for which a text-book hail lieen selected at the beginning of each term. The religious instruction was not characterised by any excess of devotional fervour. In fact, it was mainly exegetical. In his treatment of the secular subjects he was above all things thorough. He loved the leisurely Socratic disputation. Fixing his eye-glass and lounging in his chair, he would contradict the most obvious axioms for the sake of argument. and his delight when he had completely befogged a man who had sought to prove the absurd proposition that two and two make four and not five, or that black was black and not white or yellow ochre, was very evident. His interest in theology was, as I have hinted, too evidently assumed; party polities he scarcely ever mentioned, but he was insistent in impressing upon the class their many duties as citizens; and a favourite saying of his at that time was that his religion consisted in doing’ his duty to his fellow men. and particularly in alleviating the lot of the poor a definition I heard him repeat many years after in a Nonconformist Chapel.

Two grim relics have just been added to the collection in Paris known as the Musee de I’Armee. which was recently installed in the Hotel des Invalides. They are the wooden leg worn by General Daumesnil and General d’Aboville’s steel shoulder. Dauniesnil. a Napoleonic veteran who had left one of his lower extremities on flu* field of Wagram, happened to be in command at Vincennes when the Allies entered Paris. He refused to surrender, crying- from the battlements. “I won’t give tip the place till you give me back my leg!" Baron d Aboville was also a hero of Wagrum. where a cannon ball carried away the whole of his shoulder to the collar bone. “Patch me up this.” he remarked to Baron Larrey. the great surgeon, when he reached the field hospital. Larry, though he considered the case hopeless, bound the wound up as best he could. Some years after an officer came into his consulting room in Paris one day and complained he could not get a coat to tit him. The doctor at once recognised his former patient and made for him the steel shoulder, which the General wore for the rest of liis days. UNEXPECTED. A feature of life in the poorer districts of Loudon is the number of women of good education as education went in the days when they were young who are driven by penury to accept work at charing and washing lor a living*. Three char-women successively employed at a public institution in South London have been of this class. One has enjoyed the llattering attentions inserted for heiresses. and at the time of her marriage

had an attractive fortune. Iler successor to the position of charwoman is will aciptaintid with the British poets. Asked the other day to name her favourite poet, the unexpected reply was "Browning." She added: "And I’m very fond of Bobbie Burns."