Miscellany.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 439, 5 October 1880, Page 3

Miscellany.

ONE THING AND ANOTHER

(Collated from our Exchanges.)

A curious circumstance is told of a couple of parrots in London, who were owned by a shopkeeper ; these proved of much annoyance to the neighbors. One bird was green, the other gray : the green parrot had been taught to answer whenever he heard a knock at the street door, the gray whenever there was a ring at the bell. They only knew two short phrases, but they spoke very distinctly. The house had a projecting, old-fashioned front, so that tho lower floor could not bo seen from the side-walk on the same side of the way. One day, when left at home alone, they were hanging out of a window when there came a knock at the door. '• Who's there ? " said the green parrot, as was his office. " The man with the leather," was the reply, to which the bird answered with his second phrase, " Oh, oh ! " Tho door not being opened as the man expected, he knocked again. " Who's there ? " was again asked. <: Dam you, who's there?" said the stranger. " Why don't you come down ? " to which he received the same answer, " Oh, oh 1 " This so enraged the caller that he dropped the knocker, and pulled furiously at the house bell ; but this called forth from the gray parrot the words, " Go to the gate." " To the gate! " said the nppcl'ant, who saw no one, and imagined some one was bantering him. " What gate?" asked he, stepping out so that he might see his interlocutor. " Newgate, ' responded the grey parrot, just as his species was discovered. It is wonderful that ignorance exists in the minds of people in other parts of the world in regard to the present state of the Australasian Colonies. It is hardly possible to take up a Home paper without coming across some ludicrous paragraph in reference to us. Nine-hnndred-and-ninety-nino out of every thousand people in the United Kingdom are in a perfect fog as to the geographical positions of these colonies and their chief towns. They have a misty belief that Australia, is underneath their feet, and that people at the Antipodes walk with their heads downwards. They hear of Australasia, Oceania, and Polynesia, but as to " which is wlio" (as Artemus Ward says) they are utterly in the dark. All they are convinced of is that the country is overrun with savaires and that it takes colonists all their time " to save their bacon." In one of the leading English papers received by the last mail, we find it stated that " Sir Hercules Robinson, the Governor of New Zealand, was expected to be present at the opening of the Melbourne Exhibition in Wellington." This shows ignorance only ; but when an American paper, in particularising the splendid assortment of goods which Brother Jonathan will send to the Melbourne Exhibition, says " the same class of goods that were required on the Cahfornian coast, say twenty-five years ago, for the development of the country, are now needed in the Australian Colonies, which are now only beginning to develop their resources," it is adding insult to injury, and the San Francisco Alta . California in airing its knowledge on the subject has displayed its utter ignorance of the matter. We trust the Melbourne Press will pay special attention to the American section at the Exhibition, and faithfully describe the class of goods which were used on the Pacific Coast twenty-five years ago, for they should be real curiosities. If our Brother Jonathan thinks he can pawn off his old clothes on us in this manner he is labouring under a misapprehension. A Waimate tradesman having sought the protection of the Bankruptcy Court the other day, had his windows artistically covered with whitewash. Subsequently, to make the improvement still more suggestive, a judgment summons and another document were attached to the glass, with the inscription beneath " Too late ! Too late ! You cannot enter now." Judge Weston, appears to ha\e taken the ten per cent reduction very unkindly and was guilty of the shocking bad taste

to allude to it on the Bench. Here is what he said :—" The country will yet realise the folly of degrading and pauperising tho judicial bench. By-and-bye our Courts will be presided over by men possessing neither honor, experience, nor ability, and so it will come to pass that crime will go unpunished, tho innocent will sutler, and property will be no longer safe to its possessors. Oi"all the institutions of the country, the Bench should be the most carefully protected, its occupiers shou'd be placed beyond temptation, and beyond the influence and caprice of members of Parliament annually exercisable.*' The eminent N'orwcgiavi violinist, Ole Bornemann Bull, whose death was announced by the last mail, had, according to Men of the lime, a chequered and somewhat romantic history. From his earliest years ho evinced a strong infatuation for music, but met with the greatest difficulties in his course. In 1824 he went to Cassel to study the v'.olin with Spohr, but met with such a cold reception that he turned to the study of the law at the University of Gottingen. Subsequently he found his way to Paris, where ho was reduced to such misery that he flung himself into the Seine, but was rescued and aided by a lady of rank, who recognised in him a likeness to a deceased son. Through her assistance, he was enabled to appear publicly as a violinist, and rapidly amassed a large fortune. In 1852 he purchased 120,000 acres of land in Pennsylvania, where he attempted to found a Norwegian colony. He lost his fortune in the effort, and after a brief but unsuccessful trial as a theatrical manager in New York, In returned to Europe, and gave concerts with his old success. He returned to America in 1869 with a comfortable fortune, married a German lady at Wisconsin in 1870, and resided there until the time of his death. Fifty years ago the Dey of Algiers struck the French Ambassador with his fan, which led to the conquest and the annexation of his realm to France, and that extends for 600 miles along the northern coast of Africa. The country is naturally rich, but as a colony it has failed, owing to the system of Government being military, not civil. This drawback has been remedied since the advent of tho Republic. The French have just celebrated the golden marriage —a forced one—of Algeria with France, and drank the health of old Sion, who first planted the tricolor on the heights of Algiers, and since called " Sion's Hill."