Ways of Living.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 368, 28 May 1903, Page 7

Ways of Living.

THE POOR JIiLN'S, MARKET. the London poor maa's market photographs that are reproduced Show that the markets are well patronised. Prices, of course, rule very low; in fact, even the customers themselves sometimes ' wonder ho* it is done,' when&ey-can buy a very, fa.it or an," enormous cabbage' for orie%enny. Flowers and fruit are equally cheap. To get;at the; Becrefc of the. prices one must-go to Govent Gtarden Market very early in the morning. The costers wait there and watch what fruit and flowers and vegetables are most: abundant. These they buy, and sometimes they get them at such absurdly low prices that the man ffho has grown them gets nothing out of the transaction after he bas paid the carriage of his goods. However, it is an ill wind that blows no one any good. The poor man buys vegetables for his little household at a price that exactly suits his own. pocket, and .many a home- is brightened by a large btmoh of flowers at at a cost, perhaps, of only twopence. In some-parts of London one can come across markets of another kind, in which clotaing. of _eyery description i s offered for sale. One wonders sometimes where all tfie second-hand clothes* Kave v ~ coins from. 1 tjlsk least,one wouM ;; wbhder if one did not remember the men who go about the suburbs offering to sell plants, andsuggesting that the purchasers should give some old clothes for the plants insteady of money.:- It is saidthatihethisv way the stalls in Petticoat Lane (now Middlesex Street), the New Cut, and other places are Sept. well supplied, for the man who offers to give a plant for a large bundle of clothes frequently gets the clothes given to him and sells the plant a>welt!. •;-;.?*;.•; %«•.••

CABEFULLY LOST, EASILY FOUND. When Mrs Eardley/" was summoned before the register at Liverpool she admitted receiving isI.OOO from the sale of some public-house property (said to have been sold for JBll.QOO) and the investment of that sum in cottages, from which she drew rents and at last sold forrijspo.;} .

The lady was very . v shy ,of telling what ; had become of * the money j on Saturday she was put to the question by Justice Far'well T in ' the * chancery division, and there told a staggering story. gfe * I used, .to -throve -the* solS; into ||k3§! :Me*Bey 'nfc: Ivoroased m; •.sua to prevent those aginj me gettin' '|t3f?' she witossbox. ;": //:- '" 'Midaiaj' do' T you kisow where wicfeed perjurers go to.f'_ hiß lordship asked, bat the witness Btuck to the gold-sinking story, * Very well/ said the judge, resignedly, 'you'll have to find this, money, and if •you don't produce; itvyou. will have to go to prison. If you expect me to believe that story you are desperately mistaken.' Mrs Eardley appeared before the register with the <£3QO intact and handed it oyer to her bob, whose cottage rents it represented., Ohe court did not pry too closely into the'manner of gthe/gold's reappearance iidr -a%k whether it .had been ; fi*aed?,up; from the river bed.—London Express.

OUT-OF-DATE BIGYCLES.

-Several years have now .elapsed since pneumatic tyres revolutionised the cycle market, aad as the average life of a bicycle may be anything from five to almost' 6<J : years, the -:city man is apt to wonder what has become of the thousands of solid and cushion-tyred machines which were a familiar enough sight as recently . as a dozen years ago, and the manufacture of which did not quite cease until even a' year or two after that. Only a trifling proportion of these machines were converted . into pneumatic mounts—the weight and construction of frame and wheel b e ing. all against such a conversion, la 1889 it was estimated that considerably over 50.000 bicycles of this class, including a few thousands of that fearful * and wonderful peregriaator,' ' velocipede,' were either on the market ot in the possession of cyclists. Yot at the present time a sight of the latter machine, or even of the once familiar safety-solid, is denied the dweller in cities. Prebably nothing on wheels would cause a bigger sensation in a big town than the velo-cipede-I—certainly more than would the latest thing in automobiles, Fifteen years ago solid-tyred bicycles were catalogued at 0 -£2S each; in 1890 the same make of machine. figured at ..£l2; five years later a third 7 of that sum, would easily have purchased one. But now w« know that such a machine—let it be in ever so well-preserved a state—will not,

while the great, lofty ' bone-shaker,' which fifty years hen<. e may command a respectable price as a curiosity, is regarded as so much scrap-iron. Remembering all these things, one is led to suspect that in some parts of Britain there must be a market for this out-of-date class of wheel. Such a conclusion, indeed, would be a tolerably correct one. There is a market of this nature, and an amazing-keen one, too. ■inicountry districts, out of the "spell of modern notions, cycles which cities know ho longer, and will never know again, may be seen in large numbers. In the Highlands and islands of. Scotland, and away in remote corners of Wales and Cornwall, solid-tubed and solid-tyred bikes of 40lbs or 501bs weight, and with nothing new-fangled about their constructibn, are to be Been in company I with broad-beamed jangling tricycles, and their owners seem as contented with their mounts as if they wore the very latest 20-guinea machines. To them the pneumatic bicycle is still only a very occasional visitor, which arouses much interest, j At some games, held in the Island of Lewis not long ago, there were so many entrants in a solid-tyred cycle race that the event had to be decided in four heats, while in a race of a similar character, held in an almost extremely opposite part of the kingdom—Devon to wit—the handicaps were adjudged not only by the reputation of the contestants, but also according to the age and make of the machines ridden a weather-beaten tricycle being on the limit mark, half a lap in front of two velocipedes. . , . These ancient makes of machines are often bought up wholesale at a trifling prioe each by investors, who Bhip them abroad, or to remote partß at home, and in this way they are apt to come into possession of persons who never saw a bicycle in tbeir lives before except at a distance. Tae man who treats some funny picture, depicting a savage warrior ] energetically pedalling a six-foot chainless wheel, as a fine example of imagination might be a little surprised to learn that there are snapshots of such scenes in existence. In a kraal in the very heart of Africa, a celebrated traveller discovered to his amusement a fine sample of a boneshaker. It belonged to the village chief, whose importance was much enhanced in consequence, but how the machine had got so far inland. nobody could satisfactorily explain.—J. S.