WAIFS AND STRAYS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 188, 3 November 1876, Page 15

WAIFS AND STRAYS.

A capital anecdote of the late Sultan is told. He was very fond of gossip, and sent for the banker, Abraham Beg, to learn the scandal of Pera and Stamboul. As Abraham was being conducted to the presence by the Master of the Horse, that functionary begged him, should the Sultan question him on the subject, to say that the funds were at thirty, his Majesty having been so informed by his Ministers. Poor Abraham, consented. He had not been long with. Abdul Aziz when he was questioned as to the funds, and replied as he had promised. To the horror of the banker, the Sultan expressed himself delighted, and handed Abraham a large bundle of bonds to sell for him. Abraham sold at twelve, and paid Abdul Aziz thirty. It is not often that a Jewish banker tumbles into such a pitfall. The learned astronomer and philosopher, Lalande, gave himself |out as an atheist, and attracted attention by eating living spiders before ladies. On one occasion he told them that his spiders had a slight flavor of nuts ; upon which one of the fair spectators, who, although a lady of fashion, was not destitute of wit, remarked [ " Like atheism, which has a slight flavor of philosophy." Napoleon grew impatient of these follies, which were calculated to bring his Institute, of which Lalande was a member, into disrepute. Wherefore he wrote the following letter on the subject of his atheism and his spiders : — " I learn with regret that a member of the Institute, celebrated for his learning, but now fallen into second childhood, has not the prudence to hold his tongue, and is endeavoring to draw notice upon himself, sometimes by advertisements unworthy of his former reputation, sometimes by a loud profession of atheism a principle destructive of all social organization, which robs man of all his consolations and all his hopes. My intention is that you assemble around you the presidents and the secretaries of the Institute, and that you instruct them to inform that illustrious body, to which I have the honor to belong, that it is to instruct M. Lalande, and to charge him, in the name of that body, to print nothing more, and not to sully in his old age what he has done during his years of strength to obtain the esteem of learned men ; and if these fraternal invitations are insufficient, I shall be obliged myself, also, to remember that my first duty is to see to it that the morals of my people are not poisoned, for atheism is destructive of all morality, if not in individuals, at all events in nations." The incident I am going to relate occurred over a hundred and fifty years ago, in a mountain district of France mucli infested with wolves and other wild animals. The little heroine was named Franchise Marie. She -was left an orphan at the age of eleven years, with a little brother, four years old, to care for, and only a small cottage and a little farm to tend, but the neighbors used to work the fields for her. For three years she " kept house " with her little brother, knitting, sewing, spinning, and cooking for them both, and helping as much as she could towards tilling her little farm. One cold winter's day, when Francoise was fourteen and her brother was seven years of age, a great hungry wolf with five whelps approached the cottage. They were probably attracted by some loaves of bread which Francoise was baking. She was bending over the oven, with, her little brother standing by her, when they entered the house. She turned and at once attacked them with a heavy stick. She had nearly driven the old wolf off, when she saw one of the young wolves attack her little brother. Francoise turned and struck it a severe blow, and, seizing the child, shut him up in a cupboard. But while she was thus saving him from harm she exposed her own life; the old wolf returned) and, seizing her by the throat, pushed her to the floor. The other wolves also attacked her, and in a short time had torn her to pieces. She had died, but her brother was saved. He remained locked in the clipboard for some days. There he found plenty to eat, and there he remained until released by some neighbors. He lived to be a very old man, and never failed, when occasion offered, to tell, with many tears, of the good sister who had died in saving him. The first weed pulled up in the garden, the first aeeefput into the ground, the first shilling put in the saving bank, and the first mile travelled on a journey, are all very important things ; they make a beginning, and thereby a hope, a pledge, an assurance, that you are in earnest with what you have undertaken. How many a poor, idle, erring, hesitating outcast is now creeping and crawling his way through the world who might have held up his head and prospered if, instead of putting off his resolution of amendment and industry, he had only made a beginning.