WAIFS AND STRAYS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 117, 23 July 1875, Page 14

WAIFS AND STRAYS.

A Curb iroa Insomnia. — Mr. Frank Buckland has come across a sovereign specific for insomnia. When unable to slumber, he eats two or thi'ee raw onions, with the result that the drowsy god, probably attracted by the fragrance of the sleep-compelling root, forthwith hovers in the air. For such weaklings as might object to a meal of raw onions at bedtime, the Spanish variety, stewed, is recommended. Among other remedies that may be tried by the sleepless is a hard-boiled egg or a bit of bread-and-cheese eaten immediately before going to bed, and followed up by a glass of wine or milk, " or even water," adds Mr. Buckland, with a palpable shudder. Should these fail to effect, another cure may be attempted. This was confided to Dean Buckland by the late Dr. Wilberforce, when Bishop of Oxford, and consists in repeating very slowly the vowels A, E, I, O, which are to be faintly pronounced with each inspiration and expiration. Discovert of Iron Oke. — A very rich bed of iron ore has been discovered in Nordland, in the Arctic part of Norway. The ore, which 'is what is called bloodstone, gives from 50 to 67 per cent of iron, and is free from phosphorus and sulphur. It is exdected that this new bed will produce qaiite as much and as good metal as the famouß mines as Dannemora, in Sweden; and the fact that it lies only a Norse mile from the little seaport of Bodo, a haven which is never frozen over, makes it of great commercial importance. A Swedish speculator has already bought the right of working the mines. About Spiders. — Prof. E. S. Morse says : — Only the fem4jp. spiders spin webs. They own all the real estate, and the males have to lead a vagabond life, under stones and in other obscure hiding places. If they come about the house so often as to bore the ruling sex, they are mercilessly killed and eaten. The spider's skin is as unyielding as the shells of lobsters and crabs, and is shed from time to time in the same way to accommodate the animal's growth. If you poke over the rubbish in a female spider's backyard, among her cast off corsets you will find the jackets of the males who nave paid for their sociality with their lives — trophies of her barbarism as scalps show the savage nature of the red num. The Carrier-Pigeon. — The carrier-pigeon, when travelling never feeds. If the diitanca be long, it flies on without stopping, and at last arrives thin, exhausted, almost flying. If corn be presented to it, it refuses, contenting itself with drinking a little water, and then sleeping. Two hours later it begins to eat with great moderation, and ■loeps again immediately afterwards. If its flight has been very long, the pigeon will proceed in tliia manner for forty-cigtht hours before recovering its normal itate of feeding. Matrimony. — Every woman has some chance of being married. It may be one chance to fifty against, or it may bo ten to one in her favor. But whatever that is, representing her entire chance at 100, her particular chance at certain denned periods is estimated to be in the folio-wing ratio : — When between 15 and 20 years of ago she lias 14£ per cent, of her ■whole probability ; when between 20 and 25 she hat 52 per cent ; between 25 and 30, 18 per cent. After 30 years she hai lost 84^ per cent, of her chance, but until 35 she has still 6£ per cent. Between 35 and 40 it is 3A per cent ; and for each succeeding fire yean i» ropectiTely 2|, f, and" \ per cent. At any rate after 60 it

i» l-10th of 1 per cent., or 1-lOOOth of her chance of a chance— a pretty slender figure, but figures are often slender at that ag». A CompiiEsowt. — Rector — " Well, Thomas, and what did you think of the bishop's sermon last Sunday ?" Tummas — " Sorr, oi didn't loike it a "bit j it was by fur too plain and simple to suit me ; oi loikes a sermon whut jumbles the joodgement, and confoozles the senses, and oi nerer come acrost one to come up to yerself for preachin' they ! " Thb Famixt Aibttm. — There is a sort of delirious joy in looking over a family album with a sprained back, which occasionally and unexpectedly drops through your fingers, leaving a couple of cousins in one hand and aunt* in the other, and the balance of the family under the chair. — The first picture is of an old gentleman with an expression of wary cautiousness in his face as if he was engaged in dodging a wild bull, and was somewhat doubtful of the result. — Opposite him is the grandmother, a patient looking lady in a black dress, with a book in one hand and a pair of spectacles in the other. There is a feeble but well-meaning •ffort to look safe in her face. — On th« next leaf is a middle-aged man, looking as if he had been suddenly shot through the roof of a starch factory and had been landed in the middle of a strange country. — Opposite is the picture of his wife, who haying heard a rumor of the catastrophe has made up her mind to be prepared for th* worst. — Then follow the children ; little girls looking so prim as to make you squirm, and little boys with their eyes turned on their noses, and with an expression on their faces of un•arthly solemnity. — Then follow uncles taken in their overcoats, with a spreading inclination in their clothes, hair, and face as if they were bound to get their moneys' worth ; and aunts with warts on their noses, and varnish in their hair, and preposterous lace collars about their necks. — Then there is the bashful young man penned opposite an aggressive young lady whom heaven and some married women have designed for each other. — There are also the picture* of Cousin Alexander and his wife, who stopped here when on their tour, and no young man looks at him without retiring and registering a terrible vow never' to get married. — Then there are two or three fine looking corsairs of no particular identity, and several broken-spirited women with their babe* in their arms, directly or indirectly related to the owners of the album ; and the exhibition closes. A THEinnra Stobt. — The 'Pictorial World,' in its "Afterdinner Talk," gives, in connection with a paper respecting the wreck > of the Birkenhead, the following Bristol anecdote :—": — " There is an old sea-captain at Bristol whose hair is snow white, and who, not yet free from the paralysis of fear, cannot write his name, and cannot either look at or talk of the sea. I will tell you why. He was once in a boat's crew, in mid ocean, saved from a burning wreck, in company with a lawless set of desperate men and his ,son, a lad of fifteen years. They were in a fearful plight, and, having tossed about for days and days, and starved with hunger, and mad for human blood. It was settled that one of the crew must die — they must have flesh and blood. They cast lots, and the lot fell on the captain's son. It was believed there was foul play at this terrible lottery. So it was arranged that the boy was to be killed, and in such a manner that the young blood might be sustaining for the miserable creatures Then 'up spoke the c&ptain, and up spoke he,' as the song svys, and he offered his life instead of that of his son. He begged the crew on his knees to kill him and to save the lad. The crew refused. They wanted to kill the boy. The captain bit his lips, and felt in his pocket. Thank Gt-od ! there was the revolver, safe, and loaded. Then the captain spoke again, and asked that he might be allowed to kill his son in his own fashion. He would not allow him to be bled to death, but would shoot his boy, and blow his own brains afterwards. The crew refund. They were desperate, brutal, and determined to do their worst. The captain f«lt in his pocket and gripped the revolver. When the biggest ruffian of the lot advanced to harm the lad, the father, leaning forward, Bhot his antagonist, and the brute's body fell into the sea. Then, putting the boy behind him, his father determined to see out the other barrels, but at that inttant a sail appeared, and they were tvll saved. This is a true story. The hero of it lives in Bristol. He i» alive and well. But his hair, jet black before, turned white at that grim viiitant, and h» never went to ■•» again. It maddens him." Thb Pockbt-Handkerchief. — Until the reign of the Empress aJosephine, a handkerchief was thought in France so shocking an "object that a lady would never have dared to use it before any one. The word even was carefully avoided in refined conversation. An actor who would have used a handkerchief on the stage, even in the most tearful momenta of the play, would have been unmercifully hissed j and it was only in the beginning of the present century that a celebrated actress dared to appear with a handkerchief in her lia.nd. Having to speak of this handkerchief in the course of the piece, she could never summon enough courege to call it by its true name, but referred to it as a light tisstie. A few years later, a translation of one of Shakespeare's plays by Alfred de Vigny having been acted, the word handkerchief was used for the first time on the Btage, amid cries of indignation from a great part of the house. I doubt if even to-day French elegants would carry handkerchiefs if the wife of Napoleon I. had not given the signal for adopting them. The Empress Josephine, although really lovely, had ugly teeth. To conceal them she was in the habit of carrying small handkerchiefs adorned with costly laces which she continually raised gracefully to her lips. Of course all the ladies of the Court followed her example, and handkerchiefs have rapidly become an important and costly part of the feminine toilette ; so much so that the price of a single handkerchief of the trousseau of the Duchess of Edinburgh would make the fortune of a necessitous family. A Spider's Bkidob. — The way in which a spider spins and uses his web is often very remarkable. A writer in the ' Hearth and Home' gives this curious instance. One chilly day, he says, I was left at home alone, and after I was tired of reading Robinson Crusoe, I caught a spider and brought him into the house to play with. Funny kind of playmate, wasn't it ? Well, I took a wash-

basin and fastened up a stick in it like a liberty-pole or a vessel's mast, and then poured in water enough to turn the mast .into an island for my spider, whom I named Crusoe, and put on the mast. As soon as he was fairly cast away, he anxiously commenced running round to find the road to the mainland. He'd scamper down the mast to the water, stick out a, foot, get it wet, shake it, run round the stick, and try the other side, and then run back up to the top again. Pretty soon it became a serious matter with Mr. Robinson, and he sat down to think it over. As in a moment he acted as if he wanted to shout for a boat, and was afraid he was going to be hungry, I put a little molasses on a stick. A fly came, but Crusoe wasn't hungry for flies just then. He was home-sick for his web in the corner of the wood-shed. He went slowly down the pole to the water and touched it all round, shaking his feet like pussy when she wets her stockings in the grass, and suddenly a thought appeared to strike him. TJp he wenfc like a rocket to the top' and commenced -playing circus. He held one foot in the air, then ! another, and turned round two or three timeß. He got excited and nearly stood on his head before I found out what he knew, and that was this, that the draft air made by the fire wouid carry alone ashore on which he could escape from Ms desert island. He pushed out a web that went floating in the air until it caught on the table. Then he hauled on the rope until it was tight, struck it several times to see if it was strong enough to hold him, and walked ashore. I thought he had earned his liberty, so I put him back in his woodshed again. What the Leaf Does. — It pumps water from the ground through the thousands of tubes in the stem of the tree, and sends j it into the atmosphere in the form of unseen mist, to be condensed and fall in showers ; the very water that, were it not for the leaf, would sink in the earth, and find its way through subterranean channels to the sea. And. thus it ia that we 'see it works to give us the " early and the latter rain." It works to send the rills and streams, like lines of silver, down the mountain and across the plain. It works to pour down the larger brooks, which turn the wheels that energize the machinery which gives employment to millions — commerce stimulated and wealth accumulated and intelligence disseminated through the agency of this wealth. The leaf does it all. It has been demonstrated that every square inch of leaf lifts 0.035 of an ounce every twenty-four hours. Now, a large forest tree has about five acres of foliage, or 6,272,630 square inches. This being multiplied by 0.035 (the amount pumped by every inch) gives us the result — 2,253 ounces, or eight barrels. The trees on an acre give 800 barrels in twenty-four hours. An acre of grass, or clover, or grain, would yield about the same result. The leaf is a worker, too, in another field of labor, where we seldom 100k — where it works for the good of man in a most wonderful manner. It carries immense quantities of electricity from the earth to the clouds and from the clouds to the earth. Rather dangerous business, transporting lightning, but it is perticularly fitted for this work. Did you ever see a leaf entire as to its edges ? It is always pointed, and these points, whether they be large or small, are just fitted to handle this dangerous agent. These tiny fingers seize upon it and carry it away with ease and wonderful dispatch. There must be no delay; it is "time freight." True, sometimes it gather* up more than the trunk can carry, and in the attempt to crowd and pack the baggage, the trunk gets terribly shattered and we say that lightning struck the tree ; but it had been struck a thousand times before. This time it waß overworked. — 'American Entomologist.' Things to be Remembered.— The famous " attack in line," whereby so many victories were gained for England, was invented by the unfortunate James 11. when lie was Duke of York and High Admiral. Nay, the very regulations now in force are taken almost word for word from James' own instructions. Pepy's says :" He raised the navy of England from the lowest state to importance." See Nice and Gilberts' Outlines of Clarke's Life of James II. ; Pepys' Diary ,• Dublin ' Review,' November, 1840.)— Kepler, the astronomer, though a Protestant, was obliged to fly from his coreligionists and take refuge with a Catholic prince, who allowed him a pension. — Jean Paul Richter, the great German novelist, also a Protestant, received a pension of one thousand dollars from Von Dalberg, a Catholic bishop, which the latter paid out of his own pocket for two years, and then secured its being paid him by the State. Richter petitioned the King for a pension in vain. So much for Popish intolerances ! Manxtpacttjeb op Papbb Coxiabs.— There are, it is thought, about 8,000 girls employed in America, in the manufacture of paper collars, one-fourth of whom are under fifteen years of age. The youngest children bend the collars, and perform many other details of the work. The swiftness and skill attained by some of the older girls in counting and putting up the collars is truly astonishing. One whom I saw at work counts and boxes 20,000 in a !day of ten hours. Another, whose business it is to paste lining on the button-holes of the collars (three on each), lined 5,000 at a day's work. The making of paper boxes employs, as least, 1,000 children.—' Papermaker's Journal.' " Mgles " writes in the 'Australasian': — " One of the richest and, at the same time, one of the most ignorant and grasping of all those who have amassed large fortunes out of sheep, had occasion to go to Sydney. He fully prepared himself for the voyage with a large paper of sandwiches. When the dinner-bell rang he regaled himself on these, and the t\ ater from the caraffe. The voyage was long— the sandwiches were getting very dry' (sandwiches three times a day are, under any circumstances, monotonous), and the economical passenger was getting desperately hungry. Looking down the cabin hatch, a handsome dinner smoked upon the board, and the traveller felt tempted to regale himself. Calling the steward, he enquired thus :— " I say, steward, the soup's gone; if I went down now, how much would I have to pay?' ' Nothing at aU, sir; meals are all included in the passage money," How that forbearing squatter then expressed himself it would be unparliamentary to repeat.