Here and There

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 15, 13 April 1907, Page 25

Here and There

Think of It. Great Britain and her colonies and the United States represent together the fabulous total of 111,000.000 Englishspeaking persons, figures which leave all competitors hopelessly in the rear. Germany and Russia occupy second place with 75,000,000 apieee. and prance, Spain, Italy and Portugal follow with 51,000,000, 43,000,000. 33,000.000, and 13,000,000, respectively. A £lO,OOO Book. Besides owning the finest pictures in any individual collection, Mr. .1. Pierpont Morgan, the American millionaire, has also the costliest print’library. Here are some of his book treasures, with the prices he paid for them:—A set of A'dines (£30,000), a Caxton (£1.000), the original MS. of Byron’s “Corsair” and of Lytton’s “Last Days of Pompeii” (£2000), the “Evangelia Quatuor,” bound in beaten gold — lidded with previous stones (£10.000), the System Park Psalter (5000 guineas), the Ms. of Ruskin’s “Seven Lamps of Architecture” (£5000), the AIS. of “The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table” (£800), a set of Dickens (£10.000). an Old Testament illustrated by Tissot £1000), the “Psalmorum Codex,” described as “the grandest book ever printed” £0000), and last, but by no means least. William Morris’ entire library of seven hundred books, including thirtysix Caxtons. for which Mr. Morgan paid nearly a million sterling. <S> ❖ Tradesman’s Enterprise, The keenness of London tradesmen is proverbial. I have come across many examples both pleasant and unpleasant, but (says the Sheffield “Telegraph” correspondent) 1 don’t think that 1 have come across a better one than that related by a friend. He has to remove this spring from Streatham, in the South of London, to Barnet, in the North, and after much prospecting iu the middle of last week, fixed on a suitable house, ami applied to the agents. Within 30 hours, and long before he had heard from I lie agents whether his terms were accepted, he had. notes ad circulars sent, to him in Streatham from four butchers, four grocers, two green grocers, two dairymen, a bootmaker, and a stationer in Barnet! Although an hour and a-half’s journey separates the two places, within two days he had visits from two of the butchers, one of the grocers, and one of the dairymen. <•><?> <®> Political Amenities. Sir Algernon West chats in the ‘‘Cornhill Magazine” about the personal aloofness, sometimes bitterness, which party polities engendered in England half-a-century ago. In the early days of Mr Gladstone and Mr Disraeli in the House of Commons, no one would address a member sitting on the opposite side of the House as his “lion. friend,” but aS the “lion, member”—however intimate their private relations out of the House might be. Mr Gladstone lias often told me (writes Sir Algernon) how he regretted his never having known Lord Melbourne, and, as far as I know, he only once met Mr Disraeli at dinner, when a young man, at Lord Lyndhurst’s, but it made no impression on him; and Disraeli, commenting on the dinner, said it was dull, and declared that a swan very white and tender, and stuffed with truflles, was the best company at the table. Once, I think, the two statesmen met at tea at Lady Derby’s; but nothing but “la pluie et le beau temps” passed between them. Before protection was finally defeated, and before the resignation of the Derby Government of 1852, Mr Gladstone was in the Carlton Club, quietly reading his sowspaper, when a band of excited roysterers who had dined not wisely but too well, rushed into the room, and with insulting language said he ought to be hurled head-

long out of the window into the Reform Club. The title of Sir Algernon West’s article is “Tempora Mutantur.’’ indicating that such things are of the past; ytet 20 years ago the Home Rule split provoked violent personal animosities in England. But the tendency is no doubt towards the softening of angels. During the last years of Mr Gladstone’s life, Mr Balfour, who confronted him in the House of Commons, was among Inc guests forming the house party at. 11 a warden. Strange Epitapli. .There exist so many extraordinary epitaphs that all told they form quite an extensive graveyard literature. Some of them are strangely grim, some grotesquely comic and others purely curious. But there are few tombstone inscriptions more peculiar than that t<» be seen upon Thomas Thetchers tomb in the churchyard of Winchester ( at hedral, in England. It begins as follows: In Memory of T HOMAS Tll ETUI IE R, A Grenadier in the North Reg. of Hants- Militia, who (lied of a violent fever, eon true ted by drinking small beer when hot tile 12ih ot May. 1761. Aged 26 years. In the middle of the stt no is this further Here sleeps in peace a Jlanipshirc grenadier. Who caught his deatli by drinking coin small beer. Soldiers, be wise from this untimely fall. And when you're hot drink strong or none at all. And at the bottom of the stone you may read:— 7 An honest soldier never is forgot. Whether he die my musket or l y p J. & & A Shakespeare Riddle. Mr E. M. Dey, in a letter to a literary journal, suggests that the riddle of a misprint in Julius Caesar I. ii.. ’’Were 1 a common laughter,'' is to be solved by harking back to the old “lawter pronounciation of ‘daughter.” I nder ‘•laughter” the ‘ New English Dictionary’’ gives the variant ‘•lawter.” and .Mr Dev suggests that the compositor who set up the passage (presumably from dictation) supposed he heard the word ‘’lawter, and. accordingly, set up ‘daughter.” when the actual expression < was “lauder. Cassius is here trying to prove hi> sincerity in praising Brutus, and urges, as regard his own habit of speech, that he is not a common praiser (lauder). Ihe explanation has the merit of ingenuity. <s><§>■s> Dangers of Coffee. People who only occasionally take coffee after their evening meal will be surprised to learn that the practice is a. pernicious one. According to a leading authority on nervous diseases, coffee taken only occasionally after dinner keeps a person awake, and is apt to cause nervousness. In some it induces palpitation of the heart. H taken regularly the unpleasant symptoms disappear after a time. Coffee is essentially a breakfast drink, and unless regularly taken after dinner should be av.udcd at that hour altogether. •$> <s> A Sudden Stop. Some years ago there was a political campaign in the South in which a certain candidate was so certain of his election as sheriff that lie actually arranged for the distribution of the subordinate offices that were to come under him. Some one was telling the late Speaker of this. The grim old veteran of many a political battle smiled and observed: ‘*l trust that our friend’s ease will not be like that, of a man I knew. This fellow went on a hunting trip, accompanied by his faithful, retriever. Things went on finely up to a certain point; then the expedition suddenly ended in disaster. Tin* dog undertook to jump over a deep well in two jumps.”

A Marvellous Collection. The royal library of Munich is one of the greatest in existence, probably sec ond only to the British Mu im. The building was erected by Ludwig I in 1832. in the Romanesque Florentine style, amt is very imposing. Seventy-seven rooms contain a million and a hall of printed volumes, halt a million parchment manii scripts dating as fir back as the year 777, 3600 volumes of music, and 7000 volumes of records of the Kingdom of Bavaria, dating back to the fourteenth century. The latter occupy 30 rooms. There are several precious treasures, th? most notable being the “Codex Aureus” the four gospels written on parchment in gold letters in the year 87 A.D.. aal bound between plates of embossp I gol | studded with jewels and pearU. <s> <s» <s» Money iu Old Umbrellas. One curious result of the decrease in the number of whales captured is the increasing value of old umbrellas in which whalebone is used. So great is the excess of demand ovci supply, that no manufacturers who use whalebone hive any considerable stock in hand. Twenty years ago whalebone could be bought wholesale at from IS/ to 22/ a pound. Now Hie ruling price is, at least. 40/ a pound, and unless whales are caught in larger numbers whalebone will continue to rise'in value. Owing to its increased cost, its use is now practically restricted to the manufacture of corsets and whips. The umbrella with thick whalebone ribs has long since ceased to be manufactured; but, however old. it is readily bought at :» good price by manufacturers, who us*? the whalebone for w h p mend It is surprising how many of these umbrellas continue to bp offered. People come across them in old garrets and co*tages. Recently a mail took to a Bir minghaui firm of whip manufacturers a dingv umbrella with torn silk and a shabby ha-dle. As the whalebone rib> were in perfect ciJiiditi a, they gave him 7 G for it. He | •! it up for 1 in the outhouse ( ’; . ; • h farm. A Rloodthirsty Amir. Th? picture of the terrible Amir. Ab.ltir Rahman, drawn iu one of Mr Kiplings poems, ; as u > exagg.’rat ion. judging b.\ Mr F. A. Maili.i u w book. “I ndei the Absolute Amir.” Mr Martin was for eight years eugiimei in . liief successively to Abdur Rahman and Habibullah, our recent guest in India, and some of his chapter-, abound in horrors. lie? dread ful torUiics and the savage punishments described are no invention id' subordinate officials of peculiar ferocity or depravity.. The Amir alone has and exercises tin* power of capital punishment, and directs its form. I've) v important ease comes before him. and a good many which we should call trivial. Abdur Rahman made no concealment of his methods; he said Dial lie had an unruly people to govern, and that lerrihle examples were Hie only means of making them peaceful and law abiding. Hr told Mr Martin ’th it he h id ordered over a hundred tlmu-and to be executed since the beginning of his reign, and that there wine still others who thought they could set his laWs al delialiir.”