All Sorts

New Zealand Tablet, 13 October 1910, Page 1686

All Sorts

Blessed is the sorrow that cures of selfishness. Gilding the waggon does not ease the springs. Reprove thy friend privately, commend him publicly.It's a wise son that knows he knows less than his own father. The reward of mastering one difficulty is to meet another. By blustering minds tact is easily mistaken for culpable inaction. Experiments in France show that skimmed milk, dried and ground, is a good food for horses. South America has the greatest unbroken extent of level surface of any country in the world. On an average it requires about two productive acres of land to support each inhabitant of a country. Mary (aged six): 'Uncle Charlie, I wish you many happy returns of your birthday, and mamma said that if you gave me a dollar not to lose it.' Earnest but Prosy Street-corner Orator: ' I want land reform; I want housing reform;-1 want educational reform; 1 want ' Bored Voice: 'Chloroform.' Our family is awfully exclusive,' said one little girl to another who had just moved into the adjoining flat. 'ls yours?' ' Oh, no,' replied the other. 'We haven't anything to be ashamed of.' Little Girl: ' Mother, that's such a nasty little boy ; whenever he passes me he makes a face.' Mother: ' Very rude of him. I hope you don't do it back.', p ' Little Girl: ' Oh, dear, no! I simply turn up my nose and treat him with despisery.' Teacher: ' You do not intend to make a profession of your study of music ?' Pupil: ' Dear me, no! L only am learning to play to kill time.' Teacher (grimly): 'You're doing it.' An Irishman who was visiting Boston, taking in the many points of historic interest, went over to see the Bunker Hill Monument. At the foot of the towering structure is a tablet which reads: ' Here's where General Warren fell.' The Irishman looked at the tablet, then at the top of the monument high in the air, then back at the tablet, and said: 'Be gorra, but he did have a terrible fall.' ' Yes,' said the famous M.P., 'I used to be pestered to death by a bore. My secretary was a good-natured, obliging chap, and he could never find it in his heart to turn the bore away. .lust as sure as I was in, the bore was certain to be admitted. One day, after an hour's martyrdom at the man's hands, I determined to end that persecution. So I called my secretary and said to him mysteriously: " Parton, do you know what makes Smith come here so regularly?" "No, sir," said Parton, "I can't say I do." "Well, Parton," said I, "I don't mind telling you in confidence that he's after your job." From that day,' concluded the M.P., 'I saw no more of the bore.' The Dead Sea is a remarkable lake, forty-six miles long and from five to nine miles wide, situated in the south-east of Palestine and known from the time of Jerome (340-420 A.D.) as the ' Dead ' Sea, because no fish of any kind have ever been found in its waters. Its surface, which is lower than that of any other body of water known, is 1292 feet below the level of the Mediterranean. At its northern end it has a depth of about 1300 feet, while the water at its southern extremity is only from three to twelve feet deep. The Dead Sea is fed by the Jordan from the north, but has no outlet, the water being apparently carried off by evaporation. The water of the Dead Sea contains a large amount of the salts of magnesia and soda; as a consequence its specific gravity is high, and bathers float in it with ease. The popular notions that the Dead Sea exhales noxious vapors, and that birds cannot fly over its surface and remain unharmed, are not founded on fact. - A well-known County Court judge had once just finished the court business in a certain town in his district. The' doors were about to be closed, when the usher inquired: ' What, your Honor, is to be done with the man who created a disturbance at the last sitting? Your Honor will recollect that you committed him for contempt.' 'Good heavens!' exclaimed the judge, who had, of course, only committed him for the day. Has the man been confined over since? Release him at once!' The usher carried out his instructions, and on his return to the court the judge anxiously inquired what the man had said. ' Well, your Honor,' drawled the usher, ' I told him I had known many a man sent to penal servitude for much —and he wasvery grateful.'