THE LUMBER ROOM

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 178, 14 August 1937, Page 4

THE LUMBER ROOM

"PAUL

PRY," ;

Anonymous.

By,

Rugby. A description of the preparation. for a matcli at Rugby: Tho great mass in the middle are players, botli _ sides mingled t-ogether ; they are hanging up their jackets, aud all who mean real work, their bats, waisteoast, neekahaudkerchiefs, and braces on tho railings round the small trees. There is none of the colour apd tastiness of get-up, you will perceive,- which lends such a life to the present game at Rugby making the dullest and worstfought match a pretty sight. And now that the two sides have fairly sundered, and each occupies it& own ground, and we get a good look at them, what absurdity is thisP You don't mean to say that those fifty or sixty boys in white trousers are going to play that huge mass opposite. Indeed I do, gentlemen, Tom Brown's School Days. Lang Words. What is the longest word in the lingliskj language? Who 'knows? Well here are some that have posed for the time being as the longest words in tho - ianguage. — "Honorificabilitudinity", from- LoveIa Labour Lost. "Ineircumscriptibleness", author a Puritan divine'. "Antidisestabiishmentarions", Doctot Benson. "Disestablishmentarianism," Wilham Gladstone. A revenue agent in Germany is called ..... "Obertranksteuerdonativcautionszinsgelderhauptcassir", w h i 0 h means literally: "First Man Oashier of Duty on Drinks and Bait Rent Moneys." - Silent for Thirty Years. Reb Frommer did not speak a word or utter a §ound for thirty years. This remarkable penance was self-imposed. It seems that Frommer, in an oatburst of temper-, cursed his newly-wedded wife, wlio soon after met with a violent death which Frommer feared was brought about by his abuse. He was a celebrated local character of Czortkow, Poland, and when h© died in 1928 the, newspapers of Germany and Poland repeated the story of. his life and the strange vow that he had never broken. One Hundred Years and a Day. Jean, Baptiste Mouron of Toulon served a full sentence of "100 years and a day" as a galley slave. Mouron was a flaming youth and in 1684, when but 17 years of age, he was convicted of incendiarism and sentenced to the depths of a galley ship to slave his life away. Exactly one liundred years and, a day later, a totering old man shambled unsteadily ashore in the town of Toulon. It wa& Mouron. He had served his sentence in full — and the world was even with him once more. ;As the nse of galleyg -for war purposes ceased at the time of his sentence he did not have to pull an oar for long, but was chained helojv and left to rot with tho kulk. ' " * Paradox. War provokes pillage, Pillage brings ruin, Ruin brings patience, Patience implies peace; Thus does war produce peaeo* Peace provokes abundance, Abundance brings arrogance^ Arrogance brings war; Thus does peace produce war. Author unknowa. One Thing Leads to Another. Primitive man had no idea of where he was going along the path of pro^ gress, nor of any particular reason for getting there . . . . In those early days man had 110 more need to become a meebanic tlian lie had to practice as a tbeologian. He drifted into both professions. If a pre-historic man were born to. day, in one o.f our cities, he might become a skilled mechauio or an able bishop. "One thing .leads ,to another" ia man'a ancestral motto. I. Mears, • The Mermaltf. Her hair was as a wet fleece of gold, and each separate hair as a thread of fine gold in a cup of glass. Her body was a white as ivory, and her tail was of silver pearl. Silver and pearl was her tail, and the green weeds of the sea coiled round it ; and like sea-shells were her ears, and her lips were like sea coral. The cold waves dashed over her cold breasts, and the salt glisteaed upon her eyelids. O. Wilde. The Tongue. "The boneless tongue so small and weak Can crush and Irill," declared the Greek. "The tongue destroys a greater horde,"' The Turk asserts, "tlian does the sword." A Persian provei'b wisely saith, "A lengthy tongue — an early death.'4 Or sometimes takes this form instead. "Don't let your tongue cut off your head." Tbe tongue can speak a word whose speed — Says the Chinese "outstrips the steed." While Arab sages this impart; "Tlie tongue' s great storehouse is in the lieart." From Hebrew wit the maxim sprung, "Though feet should slip, ne'er let the tongue." .The sacred writer crowns the whole;. "Wlio keeps tlie tongue doth keep the SOlll."

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