VARIETIES.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 1074, 6 December 1877, Page 3

VARIETIES.

Arizona has a race of tailless dogs. The boys of that region die early, and tire tin can feels as if he had no mission.

“My opinion is,’ - said a philosophical old lady of much experience and observation, “that any man as dies upon washing-day does it out of spite." At Carrollton, Missouri, recently, wheat was cut , threshed, ground, made into bread, baked, and eaten, all within eleven minutes by the watch.

A Springliold butcher was invited recently to attend a minstrel show, but positively declined oven when a free ticket was offered him, Pressed for his reason, he replied : “If I went! should sec so many people who owe me for meat that it would spoil my fun.” Scene in a Yankee Police Court —Lawyer ; How do you identify this handkerchief ¥ Witness Bv its general appearance and the fact that I have others like it. Council: That’s no proof, for I have got one just like it in my pocket. Witness: I don’t doubt that, as I had moro than one of the tame tort stolon.

The American Consul at St. John’s (Newfoundland) has purchased from a seaman who was wrecked in Hudson’s Buy two spoons, supposed to be relics of the Franklin Expedition, one of them being marked “J. GK F.” It is said that Esquimaux living in the neighborhood of the Repulse Bay got thorn from a native chief, at whose camp the original owner, $ white man, had died of scurvy.

The English Ambassador and Mrs Layard lately dined with the Sultan of Turkey, ft is said to be the first time that a Sultan has sat down to dinner at his own table with a European lady.

It is asserted that one of the latest novelties of fashion is a lady’s shoe with a lookingglass heel. The object of this extraordinary addition to a lady’s toilet is not exactly clear, but those who do not understand will yet admit that in something so peculiar there is abundant opportunity for reflection. A splendid item about a mau being kicked all to pieces by a horse yesterday was utterly spoiled by the carelessness ef the mau himself, who climbed into the hay mow and stayed there until the horse stopped kicking. And yet a cold world may blame a reporter for this.

The mil’s of the gods grind slowly, but the grist is sure. One of America's chromo artists has been inveigled into a position in the Turkish army. Of course its only one, but that’s something. A Frenchman has discovered why Eve ate the apple in Eden. The gentlemanly devil, presenting it toiler, remarked that, “If Mr Adam eat ze apple he will become like our l.)ieu ; but you Madame Iv, cannot become more of a goddess than you are now.” The compliment settled the, question. A writer in the “Post,” after weighing the claims of various cities to be the birthplace of Rubens, arrives at the conclusion that the palm must in all probability be awarded to that town where his mother was staying at the time !—“ Examiner,” “Mother, mother, here’s Freddy teasing the baby.” “Make him cry again, Freddy, and then mother will give him some sugar, and I'll take it away from him, then he'll squall, and mother will give him some more, and you can take that, and we’ll both have some.”

The Chief Commissioner of the Dublin Police introduces a curious feature in his annual report—that of the height and weight of his men. From the last return issued we find that he has 1100 constables, whose average height is sft lOiin, and whose average weight is 12st 111 b. On the outgoing steamers conversation is often of a cosmopolitan nature. A Boston merchant on a recent trip was considerably impressed by the earnestness of a German passenger. “America,’’ said the returning Teuton “is der best coundry in der world. I haf lived dere more as deu years, and failed vivo dimes, and now I goes home to lif mit a fortune and my vamily!”—“Boston Commercial Bulletin.” M. X is a widower. Since the time he lost his wife, whom he adored, live years ago, he has not left off looking every day at the locket containing the hair of Ins clear and austere companion. Yesterday he had a visit from a friend at the moment when he was dyeing the look of hair of the much loved one. “ What are you doing ?” asked his friend, “ You see well enough I am dyeing this hair an ash-blonde, because that color is much worn now. I wish the hair of my ‘Sainted Maria 5 to be always in fashion.” Dr. Hans Von Bulow, the pianist says “ If I stop practice for one day I notice it in my playing ; If I stop two days my friends notice it; if I stop three days the public notice it.” It is different with the young gentleman who practices down the street. If he stops lor one day the whole neighborhood notices it, and feel like paying him five hundred dollars never to begin again. If he doesn’t stop for two days, the neighbors ask the police to notice it as a nuisance ; and if he does’nt stop for three days, they get down their shot guns and go gunning for him. — “ Norristown Herald.” A writer the other day went into a newspaper office and said : —“ I’ve got an article on Mahomet for some paper that spells it that way.” He was immediately kicked downstairs, for he had gone into a Mohamet office. Then he climbed upstairs into a Mahommed office, and was let out on the fire escape gently, but positively. Next he struck a magazine where the proof-readers were partizans of the old school of Muhammed, and he went sadly away. One man whom ho met on the stairs of a religious but practical journal informed him that Mehemet was the style there. An hour after ho was seen to he let down the coal hole of a Mohammed establishment. Parents should always teach their children how to spell.

The Black >Sea.—On the Black Sea coast winters are mild ; snow falls, perhaps, but hardly lies, all sorts of southern plants thrive in the open air, and the rainfall is so abundant that vegetation is everywhere, even up in the mountains, marvellously profuse. At Poti, the seaport at the mouth of the Eiou which every traveller has for his sins to pass through, the most fever-smitten den in all Asia, one feels in a perpetual vapour bath, and soon becomes too enervated to take the most obvious precautions against the prevailing malady. Higher up, in the deep valleys of the lugur and Kodor, rivers which descend from the great chain, the forests are positively tropical in the splendour of the trees and the rank luxuriance of the underwood. If there were a few roads and any enterprise, this country might drive a magnificent trade in wood and all sorts of natural productions. This is the general character of the Black Sea coast But when you cross the watershed at Suram, and enter the basin of the Kur, drawing towards the Caspian, everything changes. The streams are few, the. grass is withered on the hillsides, by degrees even tire beech wood begins to disappear; and as one gets further to the east bevond Till is, there is in autumn hardly a trace o S vegetation either on plain or hills, except along the courses of the shrunken rivers. In these regions the winter is very severe, and the summer heats tremendous. At Lenkoran, on the Caspian, in latitude 3S degrees, the sea is often blocked with ice for two miles from the shore, and the average winter temperature is the same as that of Maastricht, in latitude 51 degs., or Reykjavik (in Iceland), in latitude*!) 1 degs. The explanation, of oenrse, is that whilst the moist westerly winds are arrested by the ridge at Sarum, the eastern steppe lies open to the parching and bitter blasts which descend from Siberia and the frozen plains of Turkestan; while scorching summers are not moderated by the influence of a neighboring sea, the Caspian being too small to make any sensible difference to the climate. In Armenia the same causes operate, with the addition that, as a good deal of the country stands at a great height above the sea level, the winters are in those parts long as well as terrible. At Alexandropol, for instance, the great Russian fortress over against Kars, where a large partof her army is always stationed, snow lies till the middle of April, spring lasts only about s fortnight, and during summer the country is parched like any desert. — “CorahillMagagme.'*