HERE AND THERE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXV, Issue 23, 9 December 1905, Page 15

HERE AND THERE.

A Terrible Accident. The inquisitive landlady looked at the new boarder's hand. "-Mistur-r.” site said, "hew didjer lose yer lingur-r?” “I was run over by a steawboat,” replied the innocent city youth. "For the lawd’s sake! Wuz yer in swummin’?” Rebuked. "Father,” said a boy of 12, "can you tell me who Shytock was’” “What!” exclaimed the father in an aggrieved tone, "have I sent you to Sunday school for the past six or seven years only to have you ask me who Shylock was? Shame on you, boy! Get your Bible and find out at once!” In Bible Times. "Anybody in family but you and your husband?” “I have a boy three hundred years old and a girl of two hundred.” “I’m sorry, madam, but I can’t let the house to anybody having young children.” Sure Cure. Dr. William Osler recently recited a quaint old cure for gout; "First, pick a handkerchief from the pocket of a spinster who never wished to wed; second, wash the handkerchief in an honest milker's pond; third, dry it on the hedge of a- person who never was covetous; fourth, send it to the shop of a physician who never killed a patient; fifth, mark it with a lawyer’s ink who never cheated a client; and sixth, apply it, hot, to the gout tormented part. A speedy cure must follow.” A Losson on Fractions. Teacher (giving a lesson on fractions): Children, here is a piece of meat; if 1 cut it in two, what shall 1 have? Class (tutti): Halves. Teacher: And if I cut my pieces again in I wo, what do I get? Class (tutti): Quarters. Teacher: I again do the same: now what have I? Class (half-chorus): Eighths. Teacher: Good. If 1 continue in the same way, what then shall I get? Class (a duet) : Sixteenths. Teacher: Very good. I cut my pieces once more in two, what shall we have then? Dead silence in class. However, one hand went up in the corner of the class. Teacher: Well, Johnny, what is it? Johnny (solo): Mincemeat, p’.case’m. A Questionable Style. [‘‘lt is expected that in a few weeks those ladies with sufficient enterprise tv thoroughly acquire the new poise wilt become perambulating Imitations of tl.| note of interrogation. Dully Express.] The new perambulating mode Appears a trill* eerie; When walking (says the latest code), A lady looks a ? This fashion will no doubt amuse The streetboy. every cheery; And Madame, when be airs his views, Will feel more queer than ? Is It that Woman, fully drest. Must grow of Nature weary, And stay, in feminine uurest, An everlasting 7 J* J 8 It. that ah* may cut n And beat the Gibson Is it the eharm of senuething rash? Is everything a ? I give !t up—Such riddles make Existence 'simply dreary— And with a I my leave 1 11 take Of thlSg the la teat Query ! —“Punch.”

Condensed Romance. The final chapter of the serial novel was two columns long, but the editor had only one inch of space for it . Accordingly he compressed the hero’s tragic end "into the following paragraph: "Arthur took a small brandy, then his hat, his departure, besides no notice, of his pursuers, meantime a revolver from his pocket, and. lastly, his own life.” How Weather Makes Crime. "Crime has more than a casual or accidental relation to a falling barometer,” said a well-known detective to th,? writer. “A low-pressure area on the weather map ought to be a signal for high-pressure activity on the part of the police in the region affected. The normal brain is constructed to bear with comfort and convenience an atmospheric pressure of nearly fifteen pounds to the square inch. If one lives on the mountaintops one may become accustomed to a little less, and if one dwells in the valleys, to a little more; but any considerable variation iu either direction from the accustomed mean is likely to seriously disturb one's mental ‘and moral, as well as physical, equilibrium. "It is known that exhilaration comes from ascending a mountain—provided one doesn't climb too high. It is known that a little relaxation of the everlasting pressure exerted by miles of superimposed atmosphere is life to men with weak lungs, but, death to those with weak hearts. The effect on the mind and morals is just as great and just as obvious. The mechanism that preserves a. man’s mental balance is delicately adjusted. A little variation in pressure, or a trilling exocss or deficiency in the amount of oxyggji, nitrogen, ozone, carbon dioxide, or any other element or impurity in the air that sustains life may cause a man to behave in a manner that would he quite impossible under strictly normal conditions.” A Tall Fish Story. I ho Sydney "Bulletin" is responsible for the following:—“At Opawa, near I. heistchurch (M.L.), there are some fish ponds and hatcheries kept by an old identity, who swears that full are possessed of a high intelligence. There is no doubt that bis fish know him. When strangers approach the ponds they display great shyness; when their owner comes, they sw'un dose to the edge. He talks to them in a highpitched voice, and when he bids those in the aquarium dance the gorgeouslymarked rainbow trout sink and rise alternately with great rapidity, brushing their scales against the glass. One small perch in an isolated pond shows

eigns of almost dog-like affection ai his approach, leaping clear of the walei and emitting a series of short barks.’' Most Popular Age. With physicians—Pillage. With spinsters—Manage. With babies—Cribbago. With pilots—Steerage. With botanists—Herbage. With coachmen—Cabbage. With dogs—Courage. With lovers—Dotage. With merchants—Storage. With farmers—Tillage. With no one—Shortage. With every one —Coinage. “ A Prophet Until Honour.” Alfred Woods, well known in New Zealand as a fighting mummer, has ■been breaking loose in a San Francisco paper about the way ho doubled up all the best American pugs in his sporting drama "Boy Jim” (says a writer in an Australian paper). The big scene in "Boy Jim” is a prize fight, and Woods told the Yankee interviewer that in the piece he had met every good fighter in the Southern Hemisphere. He graphically described how ho knocked out Bill Doherty, the heavy-weight champion of Australia:

“I was hard up for a fighter in this piece, and 1 suggested the part to Doherty.

“‘l'll be pleased,’ said he, ‘but wiiat about rehearsal?'

"I said: ‘Bill, wo don’t need rehearsal. Of course, you're a big strong man, and nil I ask of you is to be a bit careful.’

“Well, the opening night came, and I was full of the spirit. ‘Make it a willing go, Bill,’ says I, ‘because when 1 work I work hard.’ ‘‘‘All right, Mr Woods,’ says he; ‘I will make it as hard as you can stand.’ "J he gong sounded, and we were at it. hard and fast. The first round wasn’t three-quarters over before Bill .Doherty, the champion heavy-weight of Australia gasps, ‘Knock me out! For the love of 'envens knock me out! If you don't I’ll have to go outt’ Bill, 1. said, ‘1 can't spoil the ; lay by putting yon out iu the first round’; stick to it n bit.’ And Bill, who was dead game, stuck. But we hadn't gone a dozen blows in the next, round before Bill, the champion, was down amt out.’ , "The very next week Bill fought Peter Felix, and downed him.” Bill Doherty, perhaps will wrile to Mister Woods and ask him to explain. The Village Blaclcsiuitli. Under a spreading chestnut tree ihe village sm.thy BtaiHls; The smith, a lordly man Is he, with wide and fertile lands. No more his brawny back he bends beneath the horse’s weight; No more his ringing sledge ho swings in happy strength elate. No more his lace Is covered o’er with blazing forge's smut. Nor beaded will: his honest sweat. Its clianuels there to cat. Adown the street he sits at ease before the wayside luu. And Jingles in bis custoin-inndes h’s stacks of easy tin. For wise whs be within his day and seized the chance that came By charging seven prices when the motorcars went lame.

Riley's Manner With Children. James Whitcomb Riley, whose love for children is so great, and who is almost invariably successful in making himself popular with them, has one unfailing method of winning their confidence (remarks a Chicago paper). According to Riley, anyone who employs it cannot fail, unless he is a most unnaturally disagreeable person indeed, of winning the shy interest of a child. “Often,” he says, “I have been sitting in a room which a child would enter while I was in conversation with some of its elders. My impulse would be to leave the elders incontinently, and to turn to the child, but that never accomplishes anything. Instead, I would go on talking and pay no attention in the world to the little intruder. There is enough human nature in a child to make him unconsciously resent this, perhaps be piqued by it. Gradually the child has come nearer, watching and listening, and wondering what manner of person this may be who pays it no deference. And at last I have know’ll children to venture quite to my knee. Then I have put out a hand in a casual and absentminded manner, perhaps absent-minded-ly I have patted the hand, and at last, still talking with an assumption of absorbed interest to the grown people, I have even lifted the child to my knee, and known it to sit there in content and confidence without my ever having addressed it. “Anyone can do this. Instead, people usually frighten a child away by demonstrativeness and unreserve. A child is like a grown person, only more. sc. It wants the privilege of making some of the advances of friendship itself. And the confidence is so well worth winning, I wonder that everyone doesn’t make it a study.” And She Kei>t on Smoking. “Aunt Chloe, do you think you are a Christian?” asked a preacher of an old negro woman who was smoking a pipe. “Yes, brudder, I ’spects I is.” “Do you believe in the Bible!” “Yes, brudder.” “Do you know there is a passage in the Scripture that declares that nothing unclean shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven ?” “Yes, I’se heard of it.” “Well, you smoke, and there is nothing so unclean as the breath of a smoker. So what do you say to that!” “Well, when I go dere I ’spects to leave my breff behind me.” <s<£<s> Byron the Athlete. One of Lord Byron’s athletic feats is recalled to memory by the institution of a, swimming prize, bearing his name, to be competed for at Venice. During his residence in the City of the Doges, Byron challenged all comers to swim against him from the Lido to the Bridge of the Rialto. Two competitors presented themselves, but when the Grand Canal was won the headmost swimmer swam alone. Nor did the poet leave the water when he bad won his race. He continued in triumph as far as Santa Cbinra, which he reached with ease, after swimming for four hours and ten minutes.

Probably (says the “Academy’’) Byron was the best all-round athlete among the poets of any country and any age. He was a boxer ns well as a swimmer; while as a cricketer be was good enough to play for Harrow against Eton, at Lord’s. In his favourite sport of natation, his most formidable literary competitor would probably have been Guy de Maupassant, What is curious is that Byron (and not Byron alone among poets) was more proud of his athletic than of his poetieal achievements. The gallery is more immediately responsive to the former class of feat. The poet, whatever he may achieve. may never have the satisfaction of feeling that he has made or broken a "record.” But it is noticeable that the athletes of whom the poets arc jealous do not pay them the compliment of reciprocating the jealousy. Soldiers have sometimes done so. “Gentlemen, I would rather lie the author of that poem than take Quebec,” is the classical example. But can anyone picture Mr. Montagu Holbein saying, as ho strips for his dive: “Gentlemen, I would rather be the author of that poem than swim the Channel”? He would provide excellent “copy” for the newspaper* if he

would do so, but he has not done so yet. Any number of people, he probably reflects, have written poems, but the Channel swim has, up to the present, only been accomplished once. What a Woman Cannot Do. The way a woman doesn't throw a ball has made her famous. The theory of medical men that she is anatomically not constructed for ball-throwing should make her exempt from all blame. Her brother’s arm is put on at the shoulder differently, and with an entirely different muscular arrangement. The overhand method of throwing a ball, which .has brought so much contempt on ther fair sex, is not capable of ejecting the ball with great force, and it is quite an impossibility to get a correct aim. The whiplash movement adopted by a man when throwing a ball is quite impossible to a woman. Strength is not a consideration in the faet that women cannot run ami jump ns well as men, but their hips are too large. This docs not interfere with their climbing well, however. The rare instances where girls have learned to whistle properly are cited as eases of freaks of nature. It is supposed that the habit of whistling was cultivated by primitive men as a signal while hunting, and that it was introduced into certain religious ceremonies of the early days in which women were not allowed to lake part. The Business Side of Literature. Professor Harry Thurston Peck, who contributes to “ Munsey's Magazine an article on “Books Which Publishers Rejected,” tells the strange stories of such famous works as “Robinson Crusoe,” “Uncle Tom's Cabin,” “Jane Eyre,” and many other Aell-known books of fiction, history, etc. Usually it is due to the mistakes of the publisher or the publisher’s reader that world-famous books have been rejected, but in more recent times publishers have for excellent reasons frequently declined books which they knew would sell well. An author, already popular, may demand too high terms, or the publisher may object to the nature of the book, or there may be some other special circumstance which militates against the publisher’s acceptance of the book. As his first example of a rejected manuscript, Professor Peck cites the case of “Robinson Crusoe.” Defoe’s book was refused by publisher after - publisher, and was finally undertaken by a man doing business in a very small way. The price paid for it was no doubt very small, but “Robinson Crusoe” sprang at once into fame. An almost parallel case in America is that of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” “the most popular book ever written by an American.” The publisher hesitated a good deal, hut when he finally issued book ten thousand copies were sold within three days, and it has been stated that this book found more readers than any other book except the Bible. Charlotte Bronte, Sir Conan Doyle, Mr. Rudyard Kipling, Mr. Maartens and many another writer of fiction had similar experiences with their first or early books. But the disappointment is not confined to novelists alone. Prescott and Motley both shared a like fate. Prescott’s “Ferdinand and Isabella” was rejected by Longmans and Murray before it was accepted by Bentley; and Motley's “History of the Dutch Republic,” after being deelined by almost every London publisher, was at last published by John Chapman at the author’s expense. Actor and Audience. Those taking part in the interesting symposium in the “Grand Magazine” on the Psychology of the Audience (Mrs. Kendal, Mr. Edmund Payne, Mr. Cyril Maude, Miss Gertrude Kingston, Mr. Martin Harvey, Mr. H. B. Irving and Mr. James Welch) seem entirely agreed as to the extraordinary variableness of audiences and the curious way the audience affects the actor and the actor the audience; while with hardly an exception they all agree that a Monday night audience is dull and a Saturday night one the liveliest in the week. Moat of them also agree that actors varjr in the qual-

ity of their acting, as audiences do in their appreciativeness and sympathy. But they can no more give “the reason why” than could the famous disliker of Dr. Fell. They mostly agree with Mrs. Kendal that pathos produces a greater and more lasting effect than humour. Moreover, different kinds of humour appeal to different publics. The humour of drunkenness, Mr. Martin Harvey tells us, falls painfully flat in America. One thing, ho says, never fails to appeal to every audience, London, provincial or American, and that is heroism. Mr. Cyril Maude wishes he knew what could be relied on to affect the audience. The only thing he knows is the unexpected appearance of the theatre cat! He remarks:

“I am convinced that if you give the finest comedian in the world the finest lines that ever were written, and he were acting his best, he will not move an audience to the same extent as the theatre cat will if you can get it to go and sit by the footlights and wash its face demurely with its paws during a serious scene, and then let the actors, when they become aware of its presence, attempt to drive it off.”

The same actor says a bank holiday night audience is bad, but that which assembles when the King and Queen go to a theatre is worst of all, for they pay extreme attention to Their Majesties and next to none to the play. An ideal audience you do not meet more than once a month. Mr. James Welch thinks the most difficult thing to get an audience to respond to is wit, real wit, “for that appeals to the brain and nothing else,” which perhaps explains why the B.P. has been so long in appreciating Mr. Bernard .Shaw. One or two remarks made as to “obfuscated” after dinner unintentionally reinforce the “Pro” side of the “Do we eat too much?” controversy. The Tale of a Hand. “Now what shall the limit be?'’ 1 said, When ante had gone away. You're doing the calling”—she bent her head—“So you are the one to say.” “No limit,” I cried, “if you'll «tay in.” She answered, “I will, you Jet.” I dealt, as she added. “I hope I win, O, tell me, what did you get?” “Just one more I need to make a pair.” “So do I,” said she, “a knave.” “A queen for mine,” said I, and there A royal flush she gave. “I’ll open,” said I. “if you don’t mind.” She lifted her lips and cried, "I raise you one!” I had three of a kind, So we laid the cards aside. “Were you bluffing?” she asked. “You were so abrupt.” Solid I, “Don't you understand That 1 feared a full house might Interrupt, And I wanted to win a hand?” ---Harvard Lampoon.

What the Motor Car Has Done for France. In the “World’s Work” this subject ie discussed by Mr John Joseph Conway. He reminds us that France is the cradle of the automobile, whose birth took place in 1709, when Cuguot invented a crude sort of steam carriage, not bo crude, however, but that the Minister of War, with a view to possibilities, ordered him to build one the next year. Now France is easily first in everything pertaining to the motor-ear. In 1898 1850 cars were turned out, worth £332,000; and in 1904 these figures were respectively 22,000 and £7,040,000 — a more than twenty-one-fold increase in seven years. These figures are based upon the tax list. Coming to exported auto-cars, we have in 1897 £70,000 worth sold; in 1903, £2,080,000; and in 1904, £2,960,000 worth, figures which are rather under than over the mark, being based on the net weight multiplied by lOfrs. per kilo., whereas machines weighing 1000 kilos, often sell for £OOO and even £BOO, according to the maker. He says: “It is estimated that over 300,000 people are directly interested in the development of the automobile industry of France. Last year it gave employment to 55,000 workmen at a wage varying from 4/3 to 8/ per day. During the same period 20,000 drivers were drawing salaries, varying from £8 to £2O a month, and 25,000 others had lucrative occupations. Refiners of petroleum, hotel-keepers, iron, steel, and copper merchants, compositors of the trade journals, etc., ali bring up the number of the interested to a very high figure.” > Most of the auto-ears imported into' the States come from France. The “Annuaire du Cycle et de I’Automobile” gives France as having 172 automobile manufacturers, Great Britain 114, and Germany only GO; all the'other Powers being far behind. In making automobile woodwork France again leads* the way with IG4 manufacturers and men-hauts, Belgium being next with 29. French tyre-manufacturers number 115, as against those of the next country, Germany, which has only 39. She has 3357 automobile dealers, while all the other European countries, including the United Kingdom, have only 1076. In round, numbers, about 20,000 auto cars are in use in the French Republic. The writer pays the highest compliments to the French roads, and to French dourtesy and goodwill, which two excellences combine to make Fiance the favourite land of the motorist. Switzerland loses a fortune every year because of the narrow-minded hostility of her people to the auto-car, but the most bigoted nation against automobiles are probably the Dutch.