MISCELLANEOUS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 538, 9 August 1872, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

An invoice of fifty factory girls imported from Scotland arrived at Norwich, Connecticut, on Feb. 27th. The following grotesque advertisement has appeared on several occasions in the Times: — “Kangaroo—Give the baboon a biscuit. Blow the tSleatre. Will the hair of the boar d«? Send word about the gorilla. ” An amusing story is told of three ladies who had to go away unpresented from her Majesty’s Drawingroom the other day because no person in connection with the Court could read tho illegible handwriting on the cards bearing their names. George Butterfield, stated to be a Church of England was recently charged at a London Police Court, with being drunk and incapable. A policeman found him in the midst of a lot of girls, whom he said he was directing on the road to heaven. He was so drunk that for his own safety the policeman conveyed him to the stationhouse. The. defendant was fined five shillings. “1 always sing to please myself,” said a gentleman who was humming a tune in company,. “Then you ate not at all difficult to please,” said a lady-who sat next to him. Cassell,s Magazine says,. th»t the favorite bed of the poor homeless outcasts in London is beneath the tarpauliug covering in Covcnt Garden, which protects the vegetables. Here they will huddle together in dozens for the warmth they impart to each other, but the police will not allow them the luxury if they know it. The barges off Billingsgste, among the pads or fish baskets, is another favorite resort; again, under tho dry arches ; and ons little boy for several winters slept in the iron rol'er in the JR»geut’s Park Garden. Even this uninviting cover was denied him by a “ Bobby, ’’who one night turned him out. ~ A man at Exeter has, says a local paper, (the Western Times), sold his wife for fifty pounds. It appears that the purchaser was smitten by the charms of Ids friend’s wife, who did not live- on the best terras with her husband; having too much “dash” for him; negotiations were entered into, an offer of fifty pounds, was accepted, and the man took the woman to Plymouth where the couple are now residing. On Thursday afternoon a shocking accident occured at the printing office of the Illustrated London News. Mr. Hunt, tho engineer, slipped and fell against the printing machine, which was in rapid motion. Some portion of the machinery caught his clothes and dragged him into the works, crushing his bones at each revolution. The machine having been stopped the unfortunate man was extricated. He was frightfully mutilated, but still breathing. He was taken to King’s College Hospital, where he died. A Sacramento paper says:—“A number of sheep on Patton’s ranch, north of the American, were not sheared last fall, and hence their.fleccis very long. During the fall it got very dirty, and probably grass and other seeds fell into it, At all events, since rain commenced to fall, grass with blades, say two inches long ,is growing luxuriantly out of tho wool, and the sheep travel about carrying their pastures upon their backs. Any grass which the sheep cannot reach itself a friend is allowed to nibble, and he or she. reciprocates. We haven’t seen the sheep ourselves.” I reminded Sydney Smith of a saying of his own about studying on a little oatmeal, for that would have ([applied literally to my brother and myself: “Ah, lahora labora *” he saidsententiously, “how that word expresses the character of your country?” “Well, we do sometimes work pretty hard I observed “but for all that we can relish a pleasantry as much as our neighbours. You must have seen that the Scoth have a considerable fund of humour.” “Oh, by all means,” replied my visitor; “you are immensely funny people, but you need a little operating upon to let the funn out. 1 know no instrument so effectual for the purpose as the cork-screw?” —Memoirs of Robert Chambers.