WAIFS AND STRAYS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 158, 12 May 1876, Page 16

WAIFS AND STRAYS.

Some months since an Englishman named Atkinson bought a country place near Pithiriers in Trance. For many weeks thereafter, carpenters and masons were busily employed in repairing and altering the ch&teau, and after their work 'had been completed, Mr. Atkinion issued invitations for a large dinner party to all the most prominent families in the neighborhood. The guests arrived at six o'clock, and on taking their seats at the dinner table, noticed with surprisa that there was not er*n one servant to be seen. The soup was consumed in silent astonishment. "When all had pnrtaken of it, the host sounded a whistle, and as if by magic the soup plates disappeared, and three magnificent silver platters, each containing a roast goose, appeared. I/ittle cries of terror were heard from the ladies. Mr. Atkinson took no note of his guests' surprise, but remarking that it was a very warm evening, whistled again, and the whole ceiling disappeared ; the host'i black coat Tanished at the same moment, leaving him clothed in • white suit. The guests, alarmed, were about to rise from their chairs, ■when they found themselves, their chairs, and the table suddenly raised five feet above the floor. They, however, were soon lowered again to the floor, and all took refuge in hasty flight from the demoniao abode. A judicial investigation was instituted, and it was found that Mr. Atkinson had been for ten years the chief machinist at the CoTent Garden Theatre in London, where he had amassed a nice littk fortune. The dinner was a little freak to indulge his fondness for hii old pursuit.

Speaking of dress in the last century, a writer says :— " The toilet was the great sum and business of life, the adjustment of th« hair the principal employment. Take, for instance, how a lady of fashion passed her day : At ten, after her ' dish of Bohea,' as it was called, generally taken before rising the lady arrayed herself in a muslin wrapper, and had a regular reception of friends, while, with her hair dishevelled, she was submitted, for the first time in the day, to the hands of her hail-dresser ; for usually she dressed four or five times a day. Her hair, dragged off her face, coveied with powder, plastered with pomatum, frizzed in stiff curls, was raised by means of gauze feathers and flowers into an edifice often equal to her height ; four ells of gauze have been contained in some of these erections, with butterflies, birds and feathers introduced— the last of the most preposterous height of, it is recorded, about a yard. After an hour's plastering and frizzing the hairdresser's task was over, and a weary one it was, though enlivened by the animated conversation of the visitors. lhe remainder of the toilet was finished, the most important of which was the arrangement of the patches— a point of great interest. Thesa •were made of black silk, gummed and cut into stars, crescents and other forms. Patches had originated in France under Louis XV., with a view to show off the whiteness of the complexion, but they were never worn by women of dark skins. Great was the care in placing these patches near the eye, the corner of the mouth, the forehead and the temple. A lady of the wor'.d would wear seven or eight, and each had a special designation. She never went without a bos of patches to replace any that might accidentally fall off; and these little boxes, generally of Baltersea enamel, finely painted by some eminent artist, had usually a tiny looking-glass inserted within the lid to relp her repair the accident. _ Professor Crookes of London has actually succeeded in weighing the light of a candle, although light has hitherto been considered imponderable. The principle of his delicate and complicated instrument is based on the fact that a fine thread of glass, suspended at one end, may be turned round twenty or thirty times without breaking, and has a tendency to untwist itself. By fastening such a thread in a tube, and throwing a ray of liorht on the interior it has been found possible, with the aid of other scientinc appliances, to register the revolutions and tensions caused by the introduction of the light of a candle into the tube, the result of which is that it weighs about 0.001.728, or nearly the twothousandth part of a grain. Taking this as an approximate starting point, we find that the light thrown out by the sun on the earth is equal to about thirty-two grains per square foot, or fifty-seven t^ns to the square mile, or 3,000,000,000 tons on the whole earth a force that, but for gravitation, would drive our planet into space. An article in the ♦ Galaxy ' should be read and copied by the 'Woman s Journal,' and the facts scored to the credit of the Catholic Church. It is interesting to know that 600 years a«-o the Church recognised the chief of those "rights" which intelligent ■women have now to beg from political conventions. The writer says:— "We went to see the great university, where, in 1250 Bologna entertained 10,000 students. She taught them jurisprudence, the Roman law, medicine and philosophy. Here first was taught the anatomy of the human frame, galvanism, and the circulation of the blood. Bologna with a wonderful success has seemed definitely to settle the question of woman's rights, for she has had a long line of female professors, who are not deemed inferior to their male coadjutors. One, Movella d' Andrea, was so beautiful she lectured behind a curtain ; ' lest if her charms were seen, the students should let their eyes vander o'er her and quite forget their jurisprudence/ Others were Madonna Manzolian, nrofessor of anatomy ; Matilda Tombroni, learned in languages ; Laura Bassi, professor of mathematics ; and, most distinguished of all, Marie Agnesi, who asked permission to fill her father's chair, made vacant by his illness. She showed such talents fcr mathematics that Colson, professor of mathematics at Cambridge, translated her great work ' Instituzioni Anilitichi,' and it is now used by the students of that university, She was beautiful, and modest, and pleasing, but her severe studies overwhelmed her delicate frame, and in" 1799 she hid herself in the convent of Blue Nuns at Bologna, where she lived for several years a devotee and invalid, and in dyino- left behind heT a sad but honorable record. °