Here and There

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 18, 4 May 1907, Page 25

Here and There

Self-confidence. Self-confidence, when not carried to excess, is a wonderful help to success. When you begin an undertaking, do so with the idea that you are going to succeed. Don’t be fearful that you are doing the thing wrong all the time. Lack of confidence will hold you back, and you know the old saying, “Nothing venture, nothing have.” You must run a certain amount of risk in order to succeed. And if you fail the first time, don’t be daunted, go at it with renewed energy and the determination to win in the long run. <J> <S> <s■ A Mighty Steamboat. The trains of the Trans-Siberian railway are ferried across the Lake Baikal on a steamboat which, it is said, possesses the most powerful engines employed in any vessel afloat. They are of 45,000 horse-power, and a large share of their immense energy is required to break a way for the boat through the thick ice which covers the lake in winter. The engines of the great German boat Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse are of only 28,000 horse-power. s><s>■» Max O'Bell on Keeping Young. It is restlessness, ambition, discontent, and disquietude that make us grow old prematurely by carving wrinkles on our faces. Wrinkles do not appear on faces that have constantly smiled. Smiling is the best possible massage. Contentment is the Fountain of Youth. We complain when we ought to be thankful, we weep when we ought to rejoice, we fidget and fret. Instead of smiling, which keeps the cheeks stretched and smooth, we frown—which keeps them contracted and engraves wrinkles on them. Instead of looking at the rosy side of things, which makes the eyes clear and bright, we run after the impossible or the unlikely to happen, which makes us look gloomy. In short, I may say that old age is if our own make, for youth is placed at one’s disposal for ever and ever. The organs of man are like the works of a clock. If they are not used, they rust. So long as the human machine is kept well oiled and regularly wound up, it goes. ft is activity, it is work that keeps you young, healthy-, cheerful, and happy; it is work—thriee blessed work!—that makes you feel that you are not a useless piece of furniture in this world, and makes you die with a smile on your face. Work, work again, work always! «•<•><?> Pompeiian Housekeeping. That there is very little new under the sun one very often has occasion to admit, for frequently antiquity reveals to us many things which show that the scientific knowledge and the devices of to-day were the property of some few wise men hundreds of years ago. A Birmingham manufacturer visiting Pompeii not long ago was amazed to find in a collection a small cable skilfully made of very tough wire and almost exactly similar to those used in our modern industries. You may go in the jeweller's to-day and select from a very artistic assortment a hot water urn, with its lamplike contrivance for keening up the temperature, and deem that you arc buying something extremely modern. But you will be mistaken. There has recently been added to the Naples Museum a splendid collection of these objects dug up from the ruined city. Archaeology has been able to piece together an almost entire picture of the uses of these beautifully designed urns. In Roman times wine wns always mixed with water. The host would ask his friends how they would like to have it. Some preferred to have their wine cooled, and •now or snow water was put into the

wine. Here is where we have the advantage over a Roman in our modern refrigerating methods, which enable us to have ice at all seasons without regard to the product of the winter. But a custom among the Romans, which nowadays seems strange to us, was the admixture of hot water with the wine.

Special vessels were adopted for heating or keeping the water hot, and they were very often of beautiful and elaborate design. There are many and very ingenious varieties of these urns, each one possessing a space for the hot water, a tube or other receptacle for hot coals, and a tap. Besides their chief use of heating water for mixing with wine they could he Used also for cooking ovens. Great numbers have been dug up in Pompeii and Herculaneum, where iu the days of their prime they must have formed beautiful table ornaments. Now that the winter custom of mixing hot punches and toddies is in vogue, it is not improbable that the artistic impulse will lead to the reproduction of these beautiful ancient models. <s><&<& Unlucky Charms. If there is any faith to be placed in the working of charms and the significance of talismans it might be well worth while to know and understand some of them. Foreign curios, for example, are. in great demand, whether they are found in their native lands or in this country, and many are bought and worn without the slightest knowledge of what they mean or were intended to be used for. Not long ago a well-known society woman purchased a very attractive Japanese charm which bore an inscription in Japanese. The fair purchaser liked its style; it was quaint and odd-looking and it was just the thing to hang on an Oriental chain she possessed. But it so happened that whenever she chanced to wear this ornament some ill-hick came to her or her friends, usually to her. This ill-luck was so marked that sho finally laid it to the charm, and in order to find out whether there could be any evil omen in the charm she sent it. to an Orientalist and had the design and inscription read. What was her surprise to find that the ornament was the Japanese emblem of sickness. Needless to say it. never again adorned the fair owner, who has since made it a rule to know something about the significance of the foreign curios she is tempted to buy. fancies, Flippant and Other-wise. Many a good husband hasn’t the neive to be anything else. A woman's vanity begins with her hat and ends with er shoes. Motto for medical men: “How poor is he that hath not patience! ” Charity begins at home, but give her a breath of fresh air now and then. You may stretch a truth into a lie, but you can't shrink a lie into truth. Half the world travels first with a third class ticket. The other half says “ Season.” Marriage is a serious step. You never know if you are stepping up or down. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. And do great deeds while wise men are in bed. The light house of Faith lights the dark seas of doubt. If you would reach harbour, steer by the lighthouse and follow not the lights of other ships. They, too, steer towards the light, but sands may lie between you.

Never judge a man by his waistcoat, or a cigar by its band. Any fool can give advice, but it needs a wise man to take it. You know a man by his friends and a woman bv her enemies.

By sorrow we leant, by wisdom remember, by foolishness we forget. A man begins to learn something as soon as he realises that he knows nothing.

The world will not mind what you da

if you can just keep it laughing whilst you are doing it Beware of your enemies, and always remember that your gretaest enemy walks in your own boots. An old man is as proud of his ability to do a day’s work as a young man is of his ability to avoid it. ❖ <3> ❖ The Kaiser and His Navy. Only those who have seen the German Emperor among his ships and men can thoroughly appreciate how completely ba is the very soul of his Navy. He continually visits it, knows all his superior officers personally, and loses no opportunity of delivering one of those flamboyant s[leeches to his men which the world knows so well. At the annual swearing in of the recruits before him ho invariably delivers a speech or sermon to them, standing in front of a field-altar, with crucifix and candles on it, and attended by a Protestant pastor and Catholic priest. On board ship, on Sundays, he always conducts divine service and preaches the sermon (generally written for him by a pastor). He is never seen out of uniform, one curious consequence of which is that he sets no lewd in the fashions for civil dress. On the contrary, it is our peace-loving King Edward (so cordially hated and so much caricatured in Germany) who is taken as the mode for men’s dress. The Emperor's sort. Prince Adalbert, is in the Navy. He is not popular among his brother officers. When at a naval port the Emperor sleeps on board a battleship, dining in the com mon room at the mid-day dinner of his officers at their Kasino. When the meal is over he almost always delivers a speech, and is said to “ let himself go ” in the way of expressing his opinions a good deal more than he does iu his other and more public speeches. As Emperor he is a very different person from what he is in private life. On hearing him speak in public it is impossible Got to think of a drill sergeant. The loud, harsh voice, the curt, peremptory sentences, ending abruptly, irresistibly remind one of the drill-ground. But in private life he is all generosity, lavish even to his officers, as his gifts of his yachts, pictures (his own drawings among them), books, and many other things show. One cannot help suspecting that the sudden and impetuous manner in which he some times acts is provoke.:! by the chronic malady of information of the car from which he is said to suffer. It is generally forgotten, too, that lus left arm is almost useless. It is four inches shorter than its fellow, has a malformed hand with only rudimentary fingers, and is quite limp and lifeless. At table he uses a combined knife and fork. Among his personal tastes may be mentioned a liking for Dachel-hunds, erroneously called dachshunds in England. He has a lit ing also for Munich beer and Frankfort sausages, and always drinks Sekt (German champagne, which is not champagne at all), and smokes the inexpensive ten pfennige cigar of a thin Dutch shape. The partiality for the two last is partly dictated by patriotic motives. Lastly, he does not like Wagner—thinks he is too noisy—and objects to the “suffragette,” believing that woman's lot in life is tc attend to the three K's-—Kinder, Kuchc, and Kirche. -?> -$> «> The Only Way. A gentleman complained to his doctor recently that every time he bent forward slightly and held out his arms horizontally, waving them around in a small circle, he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder-blade. “Well,” snorted the doctor, “why tho dickens do you want to do such a contortion act?” “How else is a man to put his overcoat on, doctor?”