Traveller.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 426, 23 June 1904, Page 2

Traveller.

BUBIED MILLIONS. SF there is a scarcity of gold during the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries dentists, according to a German statistician, will probably be more to blame than anyone else. He asserts that they usß every year in filling teeth and other work about 800. kilogrammes of gold, the value of which is J5100.000, and that at this rate the gr&ve--1 yards of the various countries will contain in 300 yearß now £30,000,000 worth of ' gold. INFiNT MABETAGES. Child marriages are still all too common in India. According to a recent census report, 148 boys and 187 girls under one ' year of age were married in India during a single year. The record daring the same year for marriages of children under five years was 2,297 for boys; and 3.534 for girls. - As a consequence of this state of affairs there were, at the time the census was taken, twenty-two widowers and twenty-saven widows less than a year old, and some 300 less than five years old. The evil results of this system have been so extreme and alarming among certain of the Hindu castes that a bill has lately been drafted in the province of Baroda which limits the marriageable age at eighteen years for boys and fourteen for g«le. A CELESTIAL KISS. A curious story was told in last month's 'Cosnhiir by Mrs Archibald Little. 'A little American girl,' she wrote, 'was among the guests at one of the Empress's parties, and the Emperor at once took her up and kissed her, till the child, looking at her mother, said: 'He does like me, mother, doesn't heP' After that he followed the child about and kissed her again and again. She was a round-faced, rosycheeked little child of five. 'But how had the Emperor of China ever learned to kiss t How had the very idea of such a thing ever been suggested to himP No Chinese man throughout the whole length and breadth of the vast Chinese Empire ever Jrissea wife or child, unless he has been taught to do so by a foreigner. No Chinese mother even kisses her child. The nearest she gets to it iB lifting her child's face up to hers and, as it were, smelling at it. Yet here was the Emperor of China evidently versed in the practice, so that directly he saw thia foreign little girl he took her up and kissed her, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, while to the every-day Chinaman this would be a most unnatural, and, indeed, repulsive process.' CUBIOUS FBONTIEE CEBEMONY; Among the Pyrenees, on the FrancoSpanish Frontier, a curious ceremony takes place once a year. It was first instituted, and has been annually performed for upwards of 800 years, and its origin—though almost lost in obscurity—is believed to have been due to a ' right-of way' dispute which occurred between the shepherds of both nations. In this dispute the French appear to have been the aggressors, and to have killed a Spaniard, and in consequence of this error have ever since complied with the original sentence, | and met the Spaniards on eaoh anniversary of the day. Early on the morning in question, representatives of the two nations from the villages round, meet at the frontier, where a large stone marks the boundary. An equal number of k renchmen and Spaniards approach the stone —each party remaining on its own territory—and on it a oroBS formed of daggers is laid, upon which they alternately place their hands, while swearing to keep the peace for one year. Daring the performance the Spaniards do not uncover their heads, bat the French bergers remove their berets. The final part of the ceremony is the presentation Bo the Spaniards of three yeung oxen, which gift is accepted after a satisfactory inspection by a veterinary surgeon. The . Spaniards then invite the French on to Spanish soil, and entertain them at a dejeuner. This quaint old custom, although having taken place among these mountaineers for so many years, appears so have attracted little notice until lately, probably owing to the obßOurity of the villages.