All Sorts

New Zealand Tablet, 27 October 1910, Page 1774

All Sorts

**Why is a dog like a —Because they both produce 81 DarK. What is that which travels about, goes much up and k°jj n > an d wears shoes, but never had any shoes? —A foot- ‘ I suppose a man who plays on a trombone calls himself a trombonist?’ I believe so. Other people call him various names.’ And,’ said the narrator of hunting stories, the explorer ran off with all his might and the lion with all his mane. You can’t guess what sister said about you just beore you came in, Mr. Highcollar,’ said little Johnnie. ( 1 haven’t an idea in the world, Johnnie.’ ‘That’s it. You guessed it the very first time.’ The following ingenuous sign, displayed one summer by a fruiterer in a southern Californian town, is not without humor: ‘ Watermelons —25 cents our choice: 35 cents your choice.’ . ‘ One writer says that genius is the capacity for taking defined ’ eniUS however » lias never been satisfactorily ‘ It’s simple enough. Genius is the capacity for existing without regular meals.’ From statistics recently published in France, the annual consumption of tobacco per individual in various county 13 placed as follows:—Holland, 7.51 b; United States, 4.661 b; Canada, 3.51 b; Belgium, 3.41 b; Germany, 3.31 b ; Austria, 31b; Norway, 2.91 b; France, 2.51 b; Spain, 1.31 b. ~ You have a pretty tough-looking lot of customers to dispose of this morning, haven’t you remarked the friend of a magistrate, who had dropped in at the police court. Huh! rejoined the dispenser of justice, you are looking at the wrong bunch. Those are the lawyers.’ Herbivorous animals do not eat all of nature’s menu. The horse refuses the water hemlock that the goat eats with avidity, and, on the other hand, the goat refuses some plants that are eaten by the sheep. The tobacco plant is avoided by all save the goat, man, and the tobacco worm. Some botanists think that no plant is absolutely poisonous, but only relatively so, being harmful to only certain animals. In one of the earliest trials before a colored jury in Texas, twelve gentlemen were told by the judge to retire and ‘ find a verdict.’ They went to the jury-room. The servants and others outside heard the opening and shutting of drawers, the slamming of doors, and other sounds of unusual commotion. At last the jury came back into the court, when the foreman rose and said: ‘We have looked everywhar, in the drawers and behind the do’, and can’t find no verdict. It warn’t in the room.’ The well known adjutant-bird of India belongs to the group of storks. The size of its beak may, be imagined from the fact that, if it finds a dead cat in the street, it swallows the animal at a single gulp. It has been known to take a leg of mutton, or a whole fowl from the table, and dispose of it in like manner. On account of its services as a scavenger and snake-killer, the adjutant is protected by law, and .has therefore become almost a domesticated bird, stalking about the streets with perfect security.' ‘ Did you see a man and a woman driving past here in a trap about an hour ago?’ a detective asked Mrs. Blank. •Yes,’ answered Mrs. Blank. ‘Ah!’ said the detective, now we re getting on the right track. What kind of a horse was it?’ ‘ They were driving so fast, I didn’t notice that, replied Mrs. Blank. ‘ But the woman had on a scotch mohair and wool jacket of turquoise-blue, last year’s style, with stitched lines, a white pique skirt, with deep circular flounce, a satin-straw hat, tilted and rather flat, trimmed with hydrangeas and loops of pale blue surah, and her hair was done up Pompadour. That’s all I had time to see. In the dark there is no animal so difficult to see as a lion. Almost every hunter has told a similar storyof the lion s approach at night, of the terror displayed by dogs and cattle as he drew , near, and of the utter inability to see him, though he was so close ’ that they could hear his breathing. Sometimes, when he has crept near an encampment, or close to a cattle enclosure, he does not proceed any farther, lest he should venture within the radius illumined by the rays of the fire. So he crouches closely to the ground, and in the semi-darkness he looks so like a large stone or a little hillock that anyone might pass close to it without perceiving its real nature. This gives the opportunity for which the lion has been watching, and in a moment he strikes down the careless straggler, and carries off his prey to the den. Sometimes, when very much excited, he accompanies the charge with a roar, but as a general fact, he secures his prey in silence. ’ ■