Notes and Events.

Manawatu Herald, 2 June 1892, Page 3

Notes and Events.

Lord Tennyson has often been censured for continuing to receive pension of £200 which he received nearly forty years ago. It ought to be known, however (says a London paper) that for many years the Poet Laureate has derived no personal advantage from the pension. He has given the whole of it for relief of authors in distress. He has, in fact, constituted himself the almoner of a fund of £200 a year, and he used it — no doubt with judgment and care — to relieve the necessities of authors. If he relinquished the pension it would not be conferred on another less prosperous writer. Its abandonment would merely save the State £200 a year, and Lord Tennyson known that the money may be very well employed in relieving the distress of men of letters. " One of the peculiarities attributed by the natives of the Himalaya to the goat, says the Live Stock Journal, is that it eats snakes of all kinds ; and that the bite of the most venomous does it no harm. We cannot testify as to the goat from observation ; but we can that the sow will eat snakes, vipers, and eels. In " Surrey Hills," by " A Son oi the Marches," it is stated that the deserted garden — or pleasance— of an old manor house became so invested with vipers that the rustics were afraid to venture into it. The place was sold, and the newcomer determined to clear it. But how was it to be done ? He consulted an authority in hob-nailed boots and a smock frock, who thus advised him: — "Turn pea fowls iuto the terraced portion of the grounds, and a rough bred sow, with her litter, i into the dell." This was dona, and the rusult was thua described by the informant of the " Son of the Marshes ":— Them peacocks went for 'em like lightnin' ; a'mo3t whenever ona showed out. As for the pigs, they jest goes up, puts their fore feet on 'em, tears 'em to pieces a bit at a time, and champs them up. They likes the flavour of them 'ere warmits. But, I tell 'cc, none of us about here would hay' them pigs if they were gie t'us arter they bin a'wolfin they warmins." So | said Surrey peasants. But epicures say that the fine flavour of Westphalian hams is due to a mixed feeding of sweet chestnuts and viper— especially vipers. The Simian tongue is no longer the only language of ' dumb animals ' which is being studied by inquiring mankind. M. Prevot dv Haudray has gone a step further than Professor Gamier, and has carried science into the hen-coop. His manner of ascertaining whether the barndoor fowl clucks in a tongue understood by all its kind consists in placing a telephone first into one henhouse where the " family " are at home, When the long-suffering receiver has been cackled into for half an hour, it is taken away, and caused to repeat all the gossip in a neighbouring hen coop. The results of the experiment are said to be marvellous, and the Academi des Sciences is awaiting a lecture on the subject with the greatest interest. A seafaring man, G. J. Short, late mate on the steamship Tarawera, j underwent an operation at the | Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, recently j (the Age reports), i*esul6ing in fully an inch of the amber stem of a pipe being extracted by Dr Anderson from his tongue. About a month ago Short, while on duty on board the Tarawera at the Bluff, Invercargil, New Zealand, plunged in to j the rescue of a passenger who fell between the ship and the wharf. He was caught by a stray rope , under the chin, and, having a pipe in his mouth, the stem was driven into his tongue. This began to swell, and it afterwards became very bad. He was unable to account for the swelling, and it was only when the amber was removed that he remembered having the pipe in his mouth when he saved the the passenger. Meantime he had suffered intense pain. The extraction of the amber afforded him immediate relief.