WAIFS AND STRAYS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 200, 2 February 1877, Page 15

WAIFS AND STRAYS.

I bf.i'Okted, says Mark Twain, on a morning newspaper three Tears, and it was pretty hard work. But I enjoyed its attractions. Reporting is the best school in the world to get a knowledge of human beings, human nature, and human ways. A. nice gentlemanly reporter — I make no references — is well treated by everybody. Just think of the wide range of his acquaintanceship, Ids experience in life and society No other occupation brings a man into such familiar social relations with all the grades and classes of people. The last thing at night — midnight — he browsing around after items among the police and jail-birds in the lock-up, questioning the prisoners and making pleas- J ant and lasting friendships among some of the worst people in the , world. And the very next evening he grts himself up, regardless of ] expense, puts on all the good clothes his friends have got, goes and j takes dinner with the Governor or Commander-in-Chief of the district, the United States Senator, and some more of the upper crust of society. ' He is on good terms with all of them, and is present at every gathering, > and has eatsj access to every variety of people. Why, I breakfasted almost every morning with the Governor, dined with the principal clergyman, and slept at the station-house. A reporter has to lie a little, of course, or they would discharge him. That is why I left it. ' I am different from Washington ; I have a higher and grander standard of principle. Washington could not tell a lie. I can lie, but I won't. Reporting is fascinating, but then it is distressing to lie so. Lying is bad — lying is very bad. Every individual knows that by eipei ience. I thiuk that for a man to tell a lie, when he cannot make anything by it, is wrong. At the Dickinson Place, on Bullard Creek, near Six-mile Station, is a ten- acre field which is nothing more nor less than a subterranean , lake, covered with coil about eighteen inches deep. On the soil is cultivated a field of corn, which will produce thirty or forty bushels to the acre. If any one will take the trouble to dig a hole the depth of a spade handle he will find i" to fill with water, and by using a hook and line fish four and five inches long can be caught. These fish are different from others, in not having scales nor eyes, and are perch-like in shape. The ground is a black marl, alluvial in its nature, and in all probability at one time it was an open body of water, on which was accumulated vegetable matter, which has been increased from time to time until now it has a crust sufficiently strong and rich to produce line corn, though it has to bo cultivated by hand, as it is not strong enough to boar tlic weight of a horse. While nooning, the field hands catch great strings of delicate fish by merely punching a hole through the earth. A person raising on his heel and coming down suddenly fan see the growing corn shake all around him. Any one having the strength to drive a rail through this crust will find, on releasing it, that it will disappear entirely. The whole section of the country surrounding this field gives evidence of marshiness, and the least shower of rain produces an abundance of mud. But the question comes up — has not this body an outlet ? Although brackish, the water tastes as if fresh, and we have no doubt but that it is anything else than stagnant. Yet these fish are eyeless and scaleless — similar to those found in caves. It is a subject; for study, and we would like to have some of our " profound " citizens to investigate it. — Montgomery, Ala., ' Bulletin. 3 The first material ever used for transmitting writing 1 , says • Ualignani's Messenger,' to posterity was stone. The first pages of the "History of Oriental Nations " were written oa tlxe walls of

their temples ; the Scandinavians inscribed their records in Runic characters on the rocks of Sweden and Norway. The Tables of the Law, which Moses broke to pieces at the foot of Mount Sinai, were stone, and the Chaldeans marked their first astronomical observations on brick. To stone succeeded metals. Aaron was commanded to wear a plate of pure 'gold, with the words " Holiness to the Lord" engraven upon it ; this plate to be attached to his mitre with a blue lace (Exodus xxviii , 36, 38). The Roman Laws of the Twelve Tables were engraved on bronze. The works of Hesiod were written on leaden plates, and preserved by the Beotians in the Temple of the Muses. Such collections of laminae used to be put away in boxes, and could not, therefore, be properly called volumes; but, when silk and linen stuffs, skins, leaves, and the bark of trees began to be used for writing, a sort of book-binding began ; the Latin word liber, a book, was borrowed from liber, the inward rind of a tree. Papyrus was particularly prized. Its stem was first cut into pieces of a given length ; its pellicles were then skillfully peeled off and stretched out on wooden boards, where they were duly scoured and polished; other pellicles were glued upon these, and so on, till the requisite thickness was attained. The leaves so prepared were then put under a press, dried, beaten with a mallet, and polished for use. This method was in use at the time the Book of Job was written. The Septuagint version of the Old Testament was written on papyrus, and made into a book called biblos by the Greeks, whence our word " Bible " Parchment owes its name to Pergama, the kings of which city, Attalus and Euinenes, caused skins to be prepared smooth on both sides for writing purposes, the King of Egypt, Ptolemy Euergetes, having, under the severest penalties, forbidden the exportation of papyrus, in order to prevent his rivals from Pergams, from founding a library equal to that of Alexandria. The other day, as some men were sinking a coal-pit on the farm of Smeaton, to the north of Kirkcaldy in Fifeshire, they were surprised, on blasting a portion of a rock at the bottom of the I shaft, to see a frog leap out from one of the pieces. How long it 1 had been imprisoned in its rocky cell is a question for naturalists, I but it is evident from the way it leaped about that it enjoyed its 1 freedom. The stranger did not seem to differ from the common i frog, and some of the workmen sent it up to the surface in a i bucket, when one of the men put it in a pond, where it has been lost sight of. The depth at which the frog was found is thirty fathoms. About three years ago a frog was found imbedded in a layer of clay j about twenty feet from the surface at the Brick Works, Cupar- ! Fife. When found it was in a dormant state, but when exposed to ! air it began to move and then to leap about. A few years ago a I living frog was dug out of the coal measures at Lochgally, Fifeshire ; and not many years ago a miner, when working in Balgonie coal-pit, in the parish of Markinch, also in Fifeshire, found a living frog far down among the " black diamonds." Notwithstanding all these discoveries, many disbelieve that the animals can live so crusted up with rocks and other matter. Still the matter has some i convincing proofs before it. — ' Lake Shore Visitor.'