WAIFS AND STRAYS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 96, 27 February 1875, Page 10

WAIFS AND STRAYS.

The Consumption op an Ordinary Lifetime. — Our young readers have a big task before them, if this calculation of the amount of food eaten by a man in half a century be correct, but they need not be discouraged, and should take things leisurely. He would have to climb a good sized hill to overlook the articles ; for they comprise 30 oxen, 200 sheep, 100 calves, 200 lambs, 50 pigs, 1,200 chickens, 3,000 turkeys, 193 pigeons, 140 pounds of ealmon, 150 pounds of other fish, 30,000 oysters, 6,443 pounds of vegetables, 244 pounds of butter, 24,000 eggs, 4^ tons of bread, 8,000 gallons of tea and coffee, besides tons of fruit, barrels of Bweetmeats, and hogsheads of water. Not a Bad Joke. — An incident of a somewhat amusing nature occurred at a meeting of the Christchurch Council a few days since. The time arrived for the opening of tenders for the cartage of rubble, and Councillor Calvert, on whom that duty usually devolves, proceeded to open the batch of letters handed to him by the Town Clerk. To the astonishment of all, the first he opened was — not a tender, but a "Valentine specially dedicated to his Worship the Mayor. It is needless to say that the incident caused considerable merriment, the Mayor joining his brother councillors in the laughter that ensued. Councillor Calvert proceeded, and two or three genuine enclosures were broughtjtp light one after the other j then came another Valentine addressed to Councillor Gapes, and lastly a second for his Worship. The letters were all marked " tenders," and there was nothing whatever to lead the Town Clerk to suspect the nature of their contents. It was suggested that perhaps the "cabbies" knew something about them. The Motjth as an Index of Character. — The mouth is the frankest part of the face. It can the least conceal the feelings. We can neither hide the ill-temper with it nor good. We may affect|what we please, but affectation will not help us. In a wrong cause it will only make our observers resent the endeavor to impose upon them. A mouth should be of good natural dimensions, as well as plump in the lips. When the ancients among their beauties, made mention of small mouths and lips, they meant small as opposed to an excess the other way, a fault very common in the South. The saying in favor of small mouths, which have been the ruin of so many pretty looks, are very absurd. If there must be an excess either way it had better be the liberal one. A pretty pursed up mouth is fit for nothing but to be left to its complacency. Large mouths are of tener found in union with generous dispositions than very small ones. Beauty should have neither, but a reasonable look of openness and delicacy. It is an elegance in lips, when, instead of making sharp angles at the corners of the mouth, they retain a certain breadth to the very verge, and show the red. The corner then looks painted with a free and liberal pencil. Chinese Printing-. — Printing a book in China is done somewhat as follows (says the ' -New Zealand Times ') : — Two pages are written by a person trained to the business, on a sheet of thin paper, divided into columns by black lines, and in the space between the two pages are written the title of the work and the number of chapter and page ; when the sheet has been printed, it is folded down through tLis space, bo as to bring the title, &c, partly on each page. The sheet, when ready for printing, is pasted, face downwards, on a smooth block of wood, made usually from the pear or plum tree. As soon as it is dry, the paper is rubbed off with great care, leaving behind an inverted impression of the characters. Another workman now cuts away the blank spaces by means of a sharp graver, and the block, with the characters in high relief, passes to the printer, who performs the work by hand. The two points that he has to be most careful about arc — to ink the characters equally with his brush, and to avoid tearing the paper when taking the impression. From a good wooden block some 15,000 copies may be printed, and when the characters have been Bharpened up a little it is possible to obtain 8,000 or 10,000 mdre impressions. A BahhißTEß.'s idea of a Heifer. — At the Quarter Sessions yesterday (says the ' Burrangong Chronicle '), while a learned advocate was cross-examining a witness in a case where a man was charged "with cattle-stealing, some diffi>"Hy arose about the stolen animal in question having one or two >a\ uy . ?. when the learned gentleman asked in most serious manne- " ""• - .er the hind knees were bandy as well as the front." His Honor -ew attention to the fact that a heifer had only two knees, which announcement was received by an out-burst of laughter from the attendance, and the barrister looked eomewhat astonished and crestfallen. The Lesson of Grattan's Life. — Eeader if you be an Irish Protestant, and entertain liars!! prejudices against your Catholic fellow-countrymen — study the works and life of Grattan — learn from him for none can teach you better, how to purify your nature from bigotry. Learn from him to look upon all your countrymen with a loving heart — to be tolerant of infirmities, caused by their unhappy history — and like Grattan, earnestly sympathise with all that is brave and generous in their character. Reader ! if you be an Irish Catholic, and that you confound the Protestant religion with tyranny, learn from Grattan, that it is possible to be a Protestant and have a heart for Ireland and its people. Think that the brightest age of Ireland was when Grattan — a steady Protestant — raised it to proud eminence ; think also that in the hour of his triumph he did not forget the state of your oppressed fathers, but laboured through his life, that both you and your children sho\ild enjoy unshackled liberty of conscience. But, reader ! whether

you be a Protestant or a Catholic, whatever "be your party, you will do well as an Irishman to ponder upon the spirit and principles which governed the public and private life of Grattan. Learn from him him how to regard your countrymen of all denominations. Observe, as he did, how very much that is excellent belongs to both the great parties into which Ireland is divided. If, as some do, yon entertain dispiriting views of Ireland, recollect that any country, containing such elements, as those which roused the genius of Grattan need never despair. Sursum corda. Be not disheartened. — From ' Memoir of Henry Gattan/ by D. O. Madden. How the Gkeenlanders Dress. — A correspondent with the late Juanita expedition says of the Greenlanders that to one ignorant of their style of dress, and the similarity of the dress of both sexes, it would be difficult to distinguish the man from the woman. The man combs his hair straight down and over his forehead, only parting it sufficiently to enable him to see directly ahead of him, while the woman combs her hair in a long plait, forming it into a knot on the top of the head, which is elevated about four inches from the scalp, and tied with a strip of ribbon either of a black; blue, or red color — the widow being distinguished by a black ribbon, the wife by a blue, and the maidfen by the red one. The complexion is coppery, like that of the Indian, their hair black, and their nose flat, while their cheekbones are broad and prominent, nearly hiding the nasal appendage when the profile is presented. The kepetah, or jumper, with hood attachment, worn by both sexes, the hood of the woman's being much larger, in which to carry the young babe, is of sealskin, with trimmings of dogskin. The pantaloons and boots are also worn by both sexes, those of the woman being in most cases very elaborately and artistically trimmed. The pantaloons of the women reach only to the knee, while the boots, made of finely tanned sealskin, nicely crimped and sewed with the sinews of the deer, make them look comfortable.