Untitled

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XV, Issue 30, 18 November 1887, Page 27

■i,MThe St. Louis Catholic World says :— At the meeting of Ransom PbP^, Graud Army ur ihe epublic Captain Jack Crawford, the poet-scour, told a thrilling story of hU eveutful hf . Among other things li : said that his father was a drunkard, and his dissolute manner of life prevented his sou from obtaining any education whatever. He could neither read nor write, nor did he get an opportunity to learn until 1863. In one of the hottest battles of the war he was dangmously wou-idsd. lie was placed in the hospital, wneie he received the tenderest care at the hands of a Sister of Chanty. The captain told ibis incident most touchiugly, and he said that when he had recovered, sue taught him the alphabet, and finally how to read and write One of his famous western poems contains a pathetic allusion to the tender aud beautiful soul who not only saved his life, but spired him from the darkness of ignorance. This is only ene of the thousand tales that might be told of the noble Sisteie of Chanty.

Tobacco was first introduced into Western Europe iv 15(!0 by Francisco Hernandt z, who imported some tobacco-plants from Nortli Arueiica into Spain. The tube, ur pipe, in which tLe Spaniards smoked the imported weed was called tobaco, and hence came the name which is now so familiar to civilisation all over the world. In yp-nn it is istill cHilrd tobaco ; iv Germany, Holland, uni Russia, tabak ; in France, tabac ; and in Knglar.d and ibr* United Siatef, '■ tobacco." Sir Walter Raleigb, Jie^h troni oiiO of his voyages to Virginia, was tuts tm.t to m^ke urn .king"_Cashiou-iblt! in England, and even went s > far us to induce Que- n Elizabeth '• to try a few whiffs of the bewitching vegetable." " The Queen, ' says Colonel Bird, the fouudei of Richmond, in Virginia, " graciously accv.pied of it; but finding her stomach mcken, r was presently whispcied by the burl dt Leicester's faction that Sir Walter hed ceiiainly ponuued her Mdjcbt} . So >n n cuvitidl; from L r clisordei. the Queen obliged the Counter of Nottingham and all h"*r nmidjut honour to smoke out :i whole pipe amoug&t them."