Old Grumble on the Weather and Phenomenon

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 96, 5 February 1891, Page 3

Old Grumble on the Weather and Phenomenon

, — : — •" This should he the harvest moon Mrs Crumble, the most beautiful moon of the jear"; but hitherto I have not seen it: Evidently there has been a row upstairs and the pale eyed creature' has drawn a curtain betwixt her and the earth, and . . wept herself away ; while the stars— those lanterns, of the night— have been but watery globules falling on the earth as rain, to the rum of our fruits and grain ; but, one" Star still remains to us. I see it bright and clear every other night, as ii makes its circuit around the favored > district, and throws its beaming light upon our mundane affairs regardless of all atmospheric disturbance -I mean the Fkildikg Star, Mrs Grumble. The weather is phenomenal, Ma- am, but I have witnessed a greater — one that proves to me that with all our boa3ted iuowledge, all our researches, aud all our discoveries we know .as yet but little of of Nature and her mysteries; and we -draw hypotheses' only to find that some new fact explodes them. ' "Oh Grumble .' Don't talk of more explosions. '•- Have you forgotten h?w hastily the poor Inspector of Weights aud Measures went' heavenward, hoisted up .either by blue beans or- blasting powder? Whichever it was! could never make out.". "Mrs-G., I spoke figuratively, -will you never discern betwixt metaphor -and metaphrase ? What I was about to .say was, you know how firm a disciple of Darwin 1 am, and how I adhere to his theory that birds were evolved from rep tiles, and that animals could find their •origin in fishes ; "and being ever desirous -to advance science, and thus lead my fei low-man to a clearer discernment as to his origin. I lectured last night upon it, . but little did I thiuk, as I spoke, of the countless ages that el.-ipsed, and the .transitions which had taken place before

man readied liis present state ; but rudely X was to b.e undeceived, and learn thai a aiidenigh mig •' bejsufficienttoturn afi-h , in io an auunai. Previous to my going to the' lecture, I bought -some pickled herrings, and fearing they might be salt I ' tied three of them with a string, to -which I attached a stone and sank them in a cistern of water to soak. This morning-- how they have changed 'during the night ! I hauled at the string, when , Xtq, on com ng to. the surface I -beheld — "not three herrings, but' three kittens. Were they dcid? Of.coursethey were, but so were the herrings when* l put them in ; doubtless, had they been alive • the kittens wjuld have been alive also -* What phenomenon is this ?' I exclaimed, ■*This is evolution with a vengeance.' That it was a freak of nature I felt con- ' • vinced ; nut what had occurred once, might it not occur again P And if returned to the cistern might not these kittens •evolve into something even nobler still. I was about to replace them, when a * thrill of horror stayed my hand — they might evolve into three dead babies ; when not all my assertions, backed bj f all the theories of evolution, and all the ' greatest proofs science could adduce, would, I knew, ever .induce a jury to believe other than that I had committed infanticide, so I left them alone. Old Grumble. P.S.— Grumble has since disco ivivd that it was larrikins, and hot a freak of Nature that created the metamorphosis.