ABOUT INDIAN MONKEYS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3700, 31 July 1906, Page 4

ABOUT INDIAN MONKEYS.

lh« Method They Employ When Bobbin* a Cornfield. It is still an article of faith, not only in India, but in all lands where monkeys go in packs, that they have a king, laws and language of course. Saving the first item and duly limiting the others, the belief is sound no doubt. But Ibn Batuta tells us, on the authority of “pious persons” he met in India, that the king lives in state. Four noblemen »lwaya attend him with rods in their hands and cooks serve him on their knees. The king has a train of “armed followers. ” When a subject is caught, he contrives to send a message to the sovereign, who forthwith dispatches an army, and when they come to the town they pull down the houses and beat the people, and their armies, it is said, are many. This is not quite so ridiculous as it looks, for the sacred apes that frequent an Indian village will readily gather to avenge an injury, and it is a common practice with them to destroy the huts when angered. They have a great many children, and when a child Is unlike its -father and mother it is thrown out on the high road. Then they are taken by the Hindoos, who teach them every sort of handicraft, or sell them at night, that they may not find their way home. At Shabar, which appears to have been somewhere neat Madras, pebple dare not travel by bight in the woods, for fear o! monkeys, which is certainly not exact, since these creatures never move after sundown, but if there be a foundation of truth ih the legbbd it is curious. We are hot aware that any Indian apes at this day will attack a passerby unless gravely provoked. But there are plenty elsewhere that will. It is a well known fact that in proceeding to raid the Cornfields in certain parts of Africa apes’have a combined plan of action. The old males go firstsome of them scont on either flank, and climb every eminence near the line of march, to assure themselves that the route is safe. After recobtioiterlbg, they give orders in such different tones of voice that each must have a special meaning. The elders are silent when advancing, but the main body, females and young, keep np an incessant chatter, playing and feeding as they go, unless brought to an instantaneous halt by signal. Behind follows the rear guard of males, who drive loiterers sharply on. On reaching the cornfields the scouts take post all round, while all the rest fall to plundering with the utmost expedition, filling their cheek pouches as full as they will hold, and then tucking the heads of corn under their armpits. —Boston Traveller.

THE ORGAN. Its Peculiar Fitness Por the font »f Composition Known as the Pogue. The organ as it existed in Bach’s day, and as in most essentials it exists now, is an instrument peculiarly suggestive In regard to the realization of the finest and most complete effects of harmony, of modulation and of that simultaneous progression of melodies in polyphonic combination which is most completely illustrated in the form of composition known as the fugue. It is so for two or three reasons. In the first place it is the only instrument in which the Bounds UTS sustained with the same Intensity for any required length of time after they are first emitted. However long a note may have to be sustained, its full value is there till the moment the finger quits the key, a quality which is invaluable when we are dealing with long suspensions and chains of sound. Secondly, the opportunity of playing the bass with the feet on the pedals, leaving the left hand free for the inner parts, puts within the grasp of a single player ft fall and extended harmony and a freedom in manipulation such as no other instrument affords. Thirdly, and in the case especially of fngue compositions, the immense volume and power of the pedal notes impart a grandeur to the entry of the bass part in the composition such as no other medium for producing music can give ns. In the time of Bach this splendid source of musical effect was confined to the great organs of Germany. The English organs of the day had in general no pedal,board, and it is probably owing to this fact more than to anything else that Handel’s published organ musio is so light, and even ephemeral in style as compared with Bach’s; that be treated the organ, as Spitta truly observes, merely like a larger and more powerful harpsichord. Without the aid of the pedal it would be rather difficult to do otherwise, and the English organ of the day was in every respect a much lighter and thinner affair than the “huge house of the sounds, ” the thunder of which was stored in the organ gallery of many a Lutheran church.— Fortnightly Review. A Substitute For Gold. A French technical paper, The Journal de I'Horlogerie, declares that a new amalgam has been discovered which is a wonderful substitute for gold. It consists of 94 parts of copper to six parts of antimony. The copper is melted and the antimony is then added. Once the two metals are sufficiently fused together a little magnesium and carbonate of lime are added to increase the density of the material. The product can be drawn, wrought and soldered just like gold, which it almost exactly resembles on being polished- Even when exposed to the action of ammoniacal salts of nitrous vapors it preserves its color. The cost of making it is about a shilling a pound avoirdupois. ■English Oleo. The oleomargarine factory of the Earl of Jersey, near Loudon, turns out 5,000 pounds of oleomargarine every week. It was I,ho Loudon Saturday Review which once called oleomargarine “that Ameri"an crime against humanity and the but it would probably regard “Jersey’’ oleomargarine as the proper thing.-