MISCELLANEOUS.

Evening Star, Issue 3064, 13 December 1872, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

Acrobats of every household: Pitcher and tumbler.

Only a stray sunbeam ! yet perchance it has cheered some wretched abode, gladened some stricken heart or its golden light has found its way through the leafy branches of wood, kissed the moss-covered hanks where the violets grew, and shades of beauty adorn its lovely form.—Only a gentle breeze ' But how many aching brows has it fanned, how many hearts has been cheered by its gentle touch !—Only a frown ! But it left a sad, dreary void in the child’s heart; the quivering lips and tearful eyes told how keenly he felt it. Only a smile ! But ah, it cheered the broken heart ; engendered a ray of hope, and cast a halo of light around the unhappy patient.—Only a word of encouragement, a single word ! It gives to the drooping spirit rew life, and tbs steps pass on to victory. An O'iginal idea was lately started in Hamilton, Ohio, where a ice of twenty-five cents was collect* d from all persons who entered a church to witness a wedding. The money was given to the young people to start them in life.

The following composition has been turned out b an American scholar, aged nine years : —“A boy without a father is a norphau without a mother a double norphau, but is oftenest without a grandfather or a grandmother, and then he is a norphanist.”

It is sweet to have friends you can trust, and convenient sometimes to have friends who are not afraid to trust you. An Alabama paper was not issued at the regular time lately, one of the editors being on the jury and the ether having been married. Both expressed their regrets in the next issue.

A box c ontaining a black bear was received at an express office in San Franc’sco the other day ; outside was this inscription ; “ Black Bare, cf yew don’t want to get bit, your fingers opt of the crax.” Of all the minor tyrants of domestic life, ill temper is the most detestable. It is of various kinds, but the three main divisions aye these : -the hasty and violent; the peevish and cross-grained ; the sullen and vindictive. We are all of us liable to some kind of ill-temper. There arc two chief causes, want of health and want of sense The last is, perhaps, the chief cause of all bad temper. Good sense is shocked and disgusted by the utter foolishness of ill-temper, just as much ns good taste is by its ugliness. Good sense sees at a glance the impotence oi rage, the stupid hrutishness of sulkiness, and the absurd waste of time and mental strength in peevishness and perversity. Things that we really despise have no power overorir minds ; and a man of sense knows that it is beneath him to give way to temper upon every petty occasion. ASpotch nurse was opt ydth a baby in her garden, and the gardener inquired, “Is’t a laddie or a lassie?’—-“a laddie,” said the maid.—“ Weel,” says he, “I’m glad o’ that, for there’s ower inouy women in the world.” —“ Hech, mon,” says Jessie, “ did ye no ken there’s a maist sown o’ the best crap ?” It was wittily said of a beautiful French literary lady, that she bad but one fault—her husband. *

A writer on long engagements says : “ The difficulty of sustaining with appropriate effect the character of an engaged man is sometimes enormous.”

A lady of rather vixenish propensities had long been wanting to visit Highgate Cemetery, and in early summer she said to her husband, “Yon have never yet taken me to Highgate.”— “ No, my dear,” he replied; “ that's a pleasure 1 have as yet had only in anticipation.” A long race- the race of man. Query —How car a very “ low” ball-dress be “ highly” improper ? A fact—one can always find a sheet of water on the bed of the ocean.

George Washington was once at a dinner party where his host had set him with his back to a fiery red-hot stove. Finding it too hot for comfort, after some squirming, a retreat to a more comfortable posi tfon, at the same time explaining the reason. “Why,” said the hostess, jocularly, “I thought an old General like you could stand fire better than that.”—“ 1 never could stand fire in my rear,” replied the General. Ignorance bridles the tongue of the wise, but gives perpetual motion to that of the fool.

The true motives of our actions, like the reed pipes of an organ, arc usually concealed; but the gilded’and hollow pretext is pompously placed in the front for show. How far is it to Cub Cr,:ek ? asked a traveller of a Dutch woman at a toll-gate in Canada. —“ Only shoost a little vays “Is it four, sjx, cig-iV-, or ten miles impatiently ksked th6'fyetfiil traveller.- “Tas, I dinks It is,” sprchely replied the unmoved gatekeeper. Wh-‘t is the difference between a civilized diner and a person who subsists at the North Pole 7 —Attention agamy—One has his bill of fare, and the other has hif till of bear. ,l I live by my pen,” said a poet, wishing to impress a young lady.—“ You look as if you lived in one,” was the reply. Military Tools—“ Files” of soldiers.

The following congratulatory telegram was lately received by a wedding pair ; —“ Con cratulations on your nuptials. May your future troubles be only little ones.”

Some one says that the lion and the lamb may lie down together in this v orld, but when the lion gt ts up it will be hard work to hud the lamb.

Said a nice old lady the other day to a morning caller “ Pray make yourself at home; I’m at home myself, and wish you were too. ”

t-'sme one, sneaking of the red pose of an Intemperate! pfyn, said ‘tit was a very expensive painting.’ ! ' tt is the energy of will that is the soul of the intellect; wherever it is, there is life ; where it is not all is dullness, and despondency, and desolation, Ag bearing upon the Immigration question, we may quote the following from the Taramki herald of the 20th November:— “The want of labor is making itself manifest in the difficulty experienced by all employers to obtain the requisite number of bauds to carry on the business of their various establishments. It is evident that the impetus given to commerce by the public works policy, is beginning to be felt even in Taranaki. There is exhibited an amount of confidence in the future prosperity of this Province that causes the purse-strings of the most prudent to be somewhat relaxed, and the contents devoted to reproductive enterprises. Already the flax-mill proprietors jjopiplam pf the Want of hands at reasonable rate*, and road work is at a standstill from the same cause. If this is the state of the labor market at the present time, the ques tion arises, what will it be when the railway works are started ? Those works cannot be parried on with the labor in the Province, except by draining all that is available from other pursuits, and leaving the farming and manufacturing interests to struggle on as best they can. Joanda Koerten Block, the wife of Adrian Block, from her youth, showed a strong inclination to drawing, painting, and embroidery. and arrived at an astonishing excellence in all. But she principally employed herself in cutting on paper the representation of landscapes, birds, fruits, and flowers, which the executed with incredible exactness and delicacy. The lines with • which she expressed her objects, were as exquisitely nice as the lines of epgraving ; and yet she performed it with scissors alone. Nor was she confined to any particular subject, for all kinds were to her equally easy and familiar. Sea pieces, animals, architecture, and still life, were perhaps her favorite subjects ; but she also cut portraits on paper with as striking resemblance as if they had been painted in oils by the hands of the ablest masters. She was accounted so great a prodigy in this way that she was visited by the nobility of the first rank of all nations, who travelled through Amsterdam, where ebe resided;

and was particularly honored by Peter the Greal, who condescended to pay her a visit in hj f own hr,use. The Elector Palatine off- .'w! bcT. for three small pictures of her cutting, a thousand florins ! yet she refused even so large a price for them. At the request of the Empress <-,f Germany, she designed a trophy, with the arms of the empire, ornamented with laurel crown--, garlands of flowers, and other decorations sui able to the subject, which she executed with such correctness of drawing and design, such wonderful beauty and delicacy, as it is impossible to describe. For this exquisite performance, she received a present from the empress of four thousand florins. -Sue also cut the portrai"- of the emperor, winch is hung up in the Imperial Cabinet at "V ienna, and esteemed not the least curiosity in that collection of rarities.

Another matter of interest to the poorer classes, in these days of emigration, has been opened in the Daily jVcic.s by a correspondent who styles himself “ n .Amateur Kmiurant. He espouses the cause of steerage passengers, and very vividly describes the discomforts they endure in crossing the Atlantic. We used to hear a great deal in the tunes of the slave-trade of the horrors of the Middle Passage The chorus of complaints evoked by this one letter shows that freemen have not a little to endure when th r y tunt tin mselves to these waters. There arc lines of ships which aie honorable exceptions but these prove the rule. The voyage is often worre than a purgatory, for it docs not purge, but defih s. We in-isfc on our poorest people having the means of comfortable land transit in Parliamentary trains, but we still too often send our emigrants adrift, like outcasts, with the scantiest regard for their nec- ssities, It is suggested that every vessel should carry a Government officer to enforce a fitting code of rules. The time is come when, on both sides of the water, and wherever we have ocean communication, attention should be given to the means of cheap sea travelling, so that passengers who cannot aflf- rd the costly saloon accommodation may \et tru.-t themselves to the waves without the overcrowding and discomfort worse than a common lodging-house. We cry out, if a boatful of sea-sick people is tossed for a couple of hours in the English Channel, that it is a scandal to our civilisation, hut we launch thousands every year upon the ocean, and make them live for days a life that would not he endured in the most di reputable cottage.