Varieties.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 360, 2 April 1903, Page 7

Varieties.

AS HIGH AS GILDEBOT'S KITE. QfijfKILDEROY is a corruption of Gille «mjr Boy, a red-headed gilly. It was 6%£M tbe soubriquet of a Scottish outlaw, Pat Mecgregor, of the same clan as Bob ißoy, who infested the highland of Petershire. In retaliation for the capture of a couple of his followers, he renewed his depredations with such violence that the aroußed people turned out to bring him to justice. He and a number of his men were captured, tried and hanged in Edinburgh, June, 1836, he being accorded a gallows high-above his fellows, his body maintaining the bad pre-eminence when all were hanged in chains. In the Scottish language kite or kyte means stomach or belly, and there ia an easy extension to. sometimes apply the term to the whole body. Therefore the expression 'as high as Gilderoy's kite' or as high as Gilderoy's carcase. PING-PONG EEMEDIES. There is a firm which makes a specialty of a 'ventilating ankle support' to relieve the ' ping-pong pag,' which is marked by a swelling on the left ankle. Put on one of these 'ankle supports,' and you may play the game day atter day without any danger of being permanently disabled; at least, that is the promise. The next thing in order is spectacles for 'pinr-pong ey*s,' %nd electric bracelets for the ' pingwrist, to Bay nothing for emollients for the 'ping-pong knee.' a complaint very much like ' housemaid's knee,' brought on from crawling about the floor on hands and knots after the elusive ping-pong bill. SMOKE MADE USEFUL. In many of the towns of Belgium a novel method of making use of smoke has lately been employed. The scheme is worthy of particular notice because it not only does an ay with the' smoke nuisance/ but turns it into profit. The Bmoke is driven by a ventilating fan into a filter of porous material, over which pours a continuous stream of petroleum, benzine, .alcohol, or some liquid hydro-carbon flows. Thus the smoke is entirely suppressed and the filter yields a gas of great heating power, which may be used in many ways. The material in the filter alao becomes a good fuel! TEAES BENEFIT THE EYES. Tears do not weaken the sight, but ire prove it. .They, act as a tonic oh the muscular vision, keeping the eye soft and limpid, and it will be noticed that women in whose ©yea sympathetic tears gather quickly have brighter, tenderer orbs than others. When the pupils are hard and cold the world attributes it to one's disposition, which is a mere figure of speech, implying the lack of balmy tears that are to the cornea what salve ia to the skin or nourishment to the blood. The reason some women weep more easily than others, and still more readily than the sterner sex, has not its difference in the strength of the tear eland, but in the possession of a more delicate nerve system. The nerve fibers about the glands vibrate more easily, causing a downpour from the watery sac. Men are not nearly so sensitive to emotion; their sympathetic nature—the term is used in a medical sense—is less developed, and the eye is therefore protected from shoes s. Consequently a man should thank the formation of his nerve nature when he contemptuously scorns tears as a woman's practice. DANCE OF DEGENEBATES. AHbizarre dance was given recently in Munich, to which all the guests came in the character of some noted criminal. The walls of the ballroom were covered with pictures representing horrible murders and other crimes, and under them were written grisly stories of hanging, suicides, etc Among the guests could be seen Lady Macbeth and Lucretia Borgia, while more modern criminals, well known locally, were well represented, and murderers, swindlers and burglars waltzed merrily together. A mock judge was present, who went about promising an acquital to everyone. The ball was given, by a company of artists studying in 1 Munich, but the horrified people who were not invited to the affair called it a ' dance of.degenerateß.'

NOT A WIFE TO BE TRIFLED WITH The 'Timet)' of India tells the following story to show the character of the Arabs of Yemen, among whom there have been some disturbances recently. A man of Zaraoiks, who has several times cat the new telegraph lines, and who was punished more than once, was canght on one occasion by an Arab sheik in charge of the lines. The sheik intended to send him to Meedy for imprisonment, but the wife of the accused came in and stood as a guarantee for his future good behavior. Th sheik accepted the bail and released him, but shortly afterward he again resorted to his'old practice of cutting the wires and bolted away to another village, at a distance of one day's march, where he has another wife. Toe sheik than Bent for his first wife who stood security for him, and told her he would disgrace her among the Arabs if she failed to bring in her husband. The woman asked the sheik not to 'spread the black sheet' (a custom of the country when anyone commits a breach of trust) until the following day. She started that night, taking a sharp dagger concealed under her clothes, to the village where her husband was staying. She found him asleep in his abode, and stabbed him, cut his throat, and carried his head back to her home. The next morning she went to the sheik and presented' the head of her husband, saying,' Here is your criminal and lam freed from the bail. Please do not affix the black sheet.'