MISCELLANEA.

Cromwell Argus, Volume V, Issue 214, 16 December 1873, Page 7

MISCELLANEA.

A professor's wife who occupied herself sometimes with assisting her husband iii making casts of interesting objects of geology and natural history (says a contemporary), alsd for her own pleasure sometimes made flowers and fruits of wax and other materials; but notwithstanding that she had become quite a successful expert in this line, she found that almost always her efforts were criticised by her friends. Onco at a tea party she passed a large apple round, and stated her confidence that this time she had been quite successful in her imitation of nature's product ; but her friends were, as usual, not of her opinion. One criticised the shape, saying it would be more natural if it were not so globular ; another criticised the colour, and said that it was better than other imitations ; but that she had not quite hit that natural indescribable peculiarity which distinguished the natural from the imitation ; almost every one had sonic fault to find. After the apple had been passed round and had come into her hand again, she ate it, without saying anything. Her friends had been criticising a real apple, but never afterwards criticised her imitation of fruit.

The Preaching and Pratice of Philosophy. —An aged couple on Wooster-street are very fond of checkers, and play frequently. When he beats at the game she loses her temper, and declares she will not play again. It vexes him to have her act so, but he controls his irritation and talks to her about it. He tells her how wrong it is for people at their age in life to be disturbed by such trifles, and shows her so clearly the folly of such a course, that she becomes' ashamed of her weakness and returns to the game, and plays it so well that she beats him. Then he throws the checkers in one direction and kicks the board in another, and says he will never play with anybody who cheats so alfiredly, and stalks off to bed leaving her to pick up the things.— Danbury News. A very touching case of mental aberration in a charming young lady is described by a careful observer. Not long ago her mother found her in her room energetically darning stockings, and soon after she appeared in the kitchen and assisted that wondering dame in making and baking bread and pastry. Alarmed by these fearful signs of intellectual disorder, her fond parents immediately sent for a skilful physician, who watched her through a keyhole while she sewed buttons on her father's garments and mended those of her little brother. Much affected, the venerable man remarked that never during a practice of twenty-five years had he known any young person to manifest such symptoms as these. The most heartrending phase of all, however, was shown the other day, when her kind father, with a faint hope of arousing her from her sad state, gave her two hundred dollars and told her to buy a new dress. Alas ! 'twas useless. She instantly observed that she didn't need a new dress, and if he would let her keep twentyfive dollars to pay a poor widow's rent she'd much rather he would take the rest of the money for himself. For a few moments that grief-stricken old gentleman gazed upon his hapless child, then hiding his face, muttered between his sobs, "Her mind is gone! her mind is gone !"— New York Tribune. Newspaper Writers. —" Cameo" thus writes in the Auckland Weekly News respecting newspaper writers:—"lf any one of my readers wishes to experience the very depths of misery, let him become a newspaper writer, and undertake to supply two or three columns 'amusing' matter of local interest every week, and if he does not swear that he'll never again forsake the pick and shovel to rely upon such a precarious ffijeana of obtaining a livelihood as that provided by the pen of an ' occasional' article writer, then my experience goes for naught. Just picture to yourself the extreme felicity of being taken unawares in the street, and requested at once jto make a joke. Chances are that you would | perpetrate one by instantly knocking clown I the proponndcr of the insult. May be you i had just had a bill dishonoured, or your family was down with measles, or your digestion bad, or your best cow drowned itself in the mill-pond, or perhaps your neighbour's fowls had been amusing themselves in your garden, and with these grievances, or any of them, fresh on your mind, you are called upon to look pleasant, and to say something funny. Why, an insult would be excusable under such circumstances. But what is that to the troubles of the scribe, who is expected to be humorous over the dry doings of the super-dry inhabitants of this city, which are | infinitely more calculated to give one the dis- | mals than to excite the risible faculties 1 I (declare I have searched the papers this week with the most painful care, and have not lit upon a subject suggestive of a gleam of wit or humour, or the slightest approach to a joke in the records of our great men's doings.

A Merry Monarch.—The San Francisco Nenslcihr rojoiccs in the death of Mirambo, a mighty prince of Central Africa. "We can hear," it says, " with despots who observe the decencies of life; hut a tyrant who dresses himself in a single banana leaf, and on Sundays wears only one ring •through his nose, cannot be countenanced consciously. A monarch who takes the trousers sent from missionary-inspired ladies of Aberdeen, splits them in half, tills them with sand, and makes a war club of each leg, cannot be forgiven on the ground of mere eccentricity. Mirambo had a habit of shoving his crown suddenly under his son when the prince went to sit down, so that the spikes would make him screech. The father enjoyed this joke as much as if he had been brought up and educated on a comic journal."