SCISSORS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4065, 1 August 1884, Page 4

SCISSORS.

Gardening is practically taught in more than 20,000 primary schools in America.

Rome celebrated the 2G37th anniversary of .its foundation by Romulus on the 27th April. In Sweden, it is said, there is a law taking away the right of suffrage from every man ■who has been drunk.three times.

The native Christians of Bengal have increased, chiefly by conversion, at the rate of 64.07 per cent, since the census of 1872. An American editor says that the only reason -why his dwelling was nDt blown away in a late store was that there was a heavy mortgage on it. The natives of the island of Chileo use the shell of a crab as a barometer. In dry ■weather it is nearly white, but on the _ approach of rainy or stormy weather it is flecked with red spots. In a wet season it is red.

When the London Missionary Herald of the British Baptists lately announced that the society had decided to send fourteen new missionaries to China the whole of the £2000 required was contributed by friends in Bristol.

An undertaker in Newcastle-on-Tyne, in the north of. England, inserted recently in a local newspaper the following advertisement: "Why livo and bo miserable •when yon can be buried in comfort for three pounds ten." An old Swiss Christian, named Pointer, has for many years gone through France selling , and giving away Bible.s and Testaments. In ISB3 ho sold 7713 New Testaments, 7S Bibles, 17,355 illustrated sheets, and gave away 48,000 single Gospels. The present registered British voters are as follows: England, 2,G18, 453 ; Scotland, 310,441; Ireland, 224,018—t0ta1, 3,152,912. The present number of members is: For England, 489 ; Scotland, GO ; Ireland, 103 — total, 652. The death of the Duke of Buccleuch leaves Mr Gladstone the last survivor of the Cabinet of Sir Robert Peel. In spite of their subsequent political estrangement, the Duke and Mr Gladstone always remained on the most friendly terms. When Lord Rosebery was leaving Hanley the other day, a crowd of working men assembled round the door of his compartment, and just before the train moved off, a rough head was thrust in at the window, and then came the unexpected question : '' Say, • Master Rosebery, can cc tell iis ■what , 11 win Derby ?'' A romantic incident occurred with tho convict ship Lady Shore, bound to Sydney in 1798 with 60 female convicts on board, and a detachment of military. The soldiers mutinied, shot the captain and officers, and then married the female convicts. Tho ship sailed to Rio Plata, and was delivered to Spaniards, the mutineers settling in America.

A talented lady who advocates '' Woman's Rights" was recently speaking upon the subject, and brought down the house with the following argument: —" I have no vote, but my groom has, whose rent I pay. I have a great respect for that man in the stable, but I am sure if I were to go to him and say, ' John, will you exercise the franchise,' he would reply, ' Please, mum, ■which 'orse be that ?' "

A short time ago a little girl was asked at a school examination, the meaning of the word "average." " Please sir," said she, "its what a hen lays her eggs on." "What?" exclaimed the examiner, in astonishment. She only repeated her answer. Seeing his surprise, she said, " Please, sir, its what the book says." On being .sent to fetch the book and verify her answer, she said, '' a hen lays on an average tv/o hundred eggs in a year." You can always tell a boy whose mother cuts his hair by the way he stops in the street and wriggles his shoulders. When a fond mother has to cut her boy's hair she is careful to guard against any annoyance and mess by laying a sheet on the carpet. It has never yet occurred to her to set him over a bare floor and pnt the sheet round his nock. Then she draws the front hair over his eyes and leaves it there, •while she cuts that which is at the back. The hair which lies over his eyes appears to ho surcharged with electric needles, and that which is silently dropping down under his collar band appears to be on fire. She has unconsciously continued to push his head forward until his nose presses his breast, and is too busy to notice the snuffling sound that is becoming alarmingly frequent. In the meantime he is seized with an irresistible desire to blow his nose, but recollects that his handkerchief is in the other room. Then a fly lights on his nose, and does it so unexpectedly that he involuntarily dodges, and catches the points of the shears in his left ear. At this he commences to cry and wish he was a man. But his mother doesn't notice him. She merely hits him on the other car to inspire him with confidence, and goes on with the work. When sho is through she holds his jacket collar back from his neck, and with her mouth blows the short bits of hair from the top of his head down his back. He calls her attention to .this fact, but she looks for a new place on his head and hits him there, and asks him why he didn't use his handkerchief. Then he takes his awfully disfigured head to the mirror, and, young as he is, shud.fl.crs as he thinks of what the boys in the street will say.