Odd Moments.

Kaikoura Star, Volume XIV, Issue 745, 8 June 1894, Page 7

Odd Moments.

Heroes of the Iron Track.

In the summer of 1874 a number of navvies were at work upon the line of railway between Glasgow and Paisley. They stood buck upon the approach of an express train which upon passing them would cross a lofty viaduct. The engine was in sight. One of the men, named Jamieson, saw that a sleeper had started and that unless it was replaced the train would be wrecked—wrecked upon the viaduct. There was no time for words—the navvy made a sign to his nephew, also named Jamieson, and the two rushed forward. They fixed the sleeper, saved the train, and were left dead upon the line.

The funeral was largely attended, especially by fellow-workmen, who had turned out to do honour to their comrades. ‘We laid them,’ writes the Rev James Brown, of St James’ Manse, Paisley, ‘ in the same grave, in an old churchyard on a hillside that elopes down to the very edge of the railway. As the two biers were carried down the hill, the bearers being the friends and comrades of the dead, the trains were coming and going. No fitter resting place could have been found. I thought of Tennyson’s lines on the Duke of Wellington’s funeral in the crypt of St Paul’s : ‘ Let the feet of those he wrought for, Let the tread of those he fought for, Echo round his bones for evermore.’ ****** The commander of the Boston City (Capt Weiss), in November last, reported to the Bristol Mercury an incident which he says is unique in his long experience of the Atlantic. On a recent voyage from New York to Bristol he met, about 300 miles W. of the Irish coast, a large flight of crows [rooks], very r hungry and exhausted. They were so weak that he saw some half dozen blown off the rail, on which they had alighted, by the breeze which the motion of the ship made; they were unable to recover themselves, and foil into the sea and were drowned. The rest consumed ravenously the food and water which the captain humanely provided for them, and remained in the rigging until the vessel sighted the coast of Ireland, when they flew ashore. The Boston City overtook on the way another steamer, which apparently had similar visitors; but the flock in possession resolutely beat off any attempt to transfer to the quicker vessel. Several outward bound vessels were passed, but the birds seemed to know which way they wanted to travel, and would not fly off to them. ****** A person who forgives without forgetting is nobler than he who forgives and forgets. ******

A thing is never so valuable as when we need it and haven’t it. Of nothing is this truer than reputation. ******

A man who gets mad at you on small provocation is generally a man you have at some time done a favour. ******

The humble individual who saws wood for a living is of more benefit to his race than the man who does nothing and that poorly. * * * * « *

The so-called annual riugs in timber may not be annual at all, and therefore no index of growth. * * * *

The Aztecs filled quills with gold dust, sealed them, and passed them from hand to hand as coin. ******

American Indians are not Indians at all, and were only called so by Columbus, under the belief that he had not discovered a new Continent, but a Western extension of Hindustan.