MISCELLANEOUS.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 237, 19 September 1873, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

We are informed that a young man of the name of Hicks has recently conceived the idea of dipping matches, after they were tipped, in paraffin, so as to protect them from moisture. For this improvement, we are told, he now receives from a 'well-known manufacturing establishment an income of $lO per day. Matches thus prepared are. said to ignite readily after having lain in a basin of water an entire night.—' American Artisan.'

A French inventor proposes to photograph despatches to microscopic fineness, and blow them through a tube sunk in the Straits of Dover. When at their destination, the despatches could be enlarged again.

A Minister who was changing his Hying took for the text of Ids farewell sermon Acts "And I go bound'in the spirit to Jerusalem, not; knowing the things that shall befall me." "Ah?" said the laird, loudly enough, " weel kens he that the stipend is fifty pun better than the stipend here."

Judge Hoar said of a lawyer: "He has reached the superlative life ; at first he sought to get on, and then sought to get honour, and now he is trying to get honest."

"Is Zedekiah Staples in the rank ?" asked the commander-in-chief, as the army- stoood in line of battle. "Here, G-en'ral," said Zed., stepping forwai'd. " Then let the engagement begin," said the general; at least that is the way that Zed. tells the story. lii California they are so much annoyed with mosquitoes and fleas, that a physician advises —first, a bath in a solution of soft soap and treacle, then a sprinkle of sawdust on the head, after which the patient should take to his bed and maintain perfect repose.

Use off a Eeceipt --An Indian of the Choctaw tribe, Kiser by name, owed a lawyer some money. The lawyer had waited long for the tin. His patience: at last gave out, and he threatened the Indian with, law suits, processes and executions. The poor Choctaw got scared, and finally brought the money to the creditor, lie waited for the lawyer to give him a receipt.,- " What ~ are you waiting for ?" said the lawyer. " Eeceipt," said the Indian. " A receipt," said the lawyer—- " a receipt! What do you know about a receipt ? Can you understand the nature of a-receipt ? Tell me the use of one and I will give it to you." The Indian looked at him a moment, and then said: " S'pose may be me die; me go to heben ; me find de gate locked; me see Apostle Peter ; he says, ' Xiser, what you want ?' me say ' c want to get in;' he say ' you good man?' me say ' yes ;' he say, ' you pay Mr. A. that money ?' What me do ! I hab no receipt; hab to hunt all over h- to find you." He got his receipt.

The fellowing anecdote is related of Whitefield, and contains admonition against self-glorification : —He had just finished one of his sermons when a man came reeling up to him and said, " How do you doi Mr. Whitefield?" He replied, "I don't know you, sir." "Don't know me. Why you converted me so many years ago, in such a place." "I shouldn't wonder," replied Mr. Whitefield, " you look like one of my converts : for if the Lord had converted you, you would have been a sober man."

A school inspector, examining the boys, put them through the " animal kingdom," and in the coarse of his performance rather grandly exclaimed, " Now, can any of you boys name to me an animal of the order Edontata that is a -front-tooth tooth-less animal ?" A boy at once smitten with wisdom replied, " I can." " What is the -animal ?" "My grandmother !" replied the boy. Mr. Whiskytoddy's three reasons for not drinking are very characteristic of that gentleman : —" Take something to drink?" said his friend to him one day. "No, thank you," replied Mr. "W. "No ! why not ?" inquired his friend in great amazement. "In the first place," said Mr. Whisky toddy, "I am Secretary to a temperance society that is to meet to-day, and I must show my temperance character. In the second place, this is the anniversary of my father's death, and out of respect for him I have promised never to drink on this day. And, in the third place, I have just taken something."

An editor in America advertised the other day that he "would take a clog in payment of one year's subscription for his paper." The. next day forty-three dogs were sent to the office. The day afterwards, when the news had spread out into the country, four hundred farmers had sent two dogs apiece by express, with eight baskets full of puppies, all marked CO.!).' In the meantime the offer found its way into the neighboring States, and before the end of the week there were eight thousand dogs, tied up with ropes, in the editor s front and back yards ! The assortment included all the kinds from bloodhounds down to poodles. A few hundred broke loose and swarmed on the staircases and in the entries, and stood outside the sanctum and howled, and had fights, and sniffed under the crack of the door as if they were hungry for some editor. And the editor climbed out of the window, up J ehe water spout, and out on the comb of the roof, and wept. There was no issue of the paper for six days ; .and the only way the friends of the eminent journalist could feed him was by sending lunch up to him in balloons. At last somebody bought a barrel of arsenic and three tons of beef, and poisoned the dogs ; and the editor came down only to find on his desk a bill from the mayor for eight thousand dollars, being the municipal tax on dogs at one dollar per head. He is not offering the same inducements to subscribers now, and he doesn't want a dog.

A weaver and a [Radical toot liis child to tlie rneeting-house for baptism. Upon being asked by the minister what he intended the name of the child; to be, he said, " The Eight Honorable William Gladstone." The minister replied, " Oh, William, that'll never dae. I can admit your bairn into the veesible kirk ; but if you want the world's honors for it, I doot ye'll hae to gang to the Prime Minister hirnsei'." ■• "

The little boy saved from the wreck of the Atlantic is said to have been engaged by Barnuai. The terms are £4OOO, and the right to sell his photograph. A School-girl in Pittsfield, Mass, in order to convince a jealous boy that she liked him better than she did some other urchin, exclaimed "Of course I like you better than I do Bill, for don't I miss words in my spelling lesson on purpose, so as to be down at the foot where you always are ?"

An Ohio poet lias ground out apoemlet to thirty-six stanzas. "To the memory of Edwin Sir Butwcr Litten.

Which ?—Elate Stanton, in her lectures on " The Loves of Great men," asserts that the planets re voire around the sua by the influence ot love, like a child revolves about his parent. "When the writer was a boy, he used to revolve around his parent a good deal, and may have been incited thereto by love, but to * an unprejudiced observer it looked powerfully like a strap'.

There is a young scion of aristocracy who is creating rather a fiorore in the West End drawing-rooms by his splendid amateur acting. It was. with difficulty that his friends persuaded him not to join the company of a well-known manager last season, and he " he has it out of himself" in these private representations. He may yet follow in the wake of. two or three titled personages who are engaged in London and provincial houses.

Proof of Correction. —Recently- a proof- sheet of the list of members of the Michigan House of Representatives was given out, on which corrections were to be made if any errors were discovered. Soon afterwards the compiler of the manual received the following note from -one of the singlemen : —" In proof-sheet of manual in House I see you say I am married. Please correct, or send the woman around, and oblige."

A zoological item of interest conies from Ticks burg, which -has an eccentric torn cat that persists in sitting on a nest of hen's eggs, evidently for the purpose of hatching them, as he is never absent from his charge, except for the purnose of supplying himself with food. St last accounts, three of the chickens had broken shell, and were "kindly cared for by their strange protector, who immediately cast the empty shells out of the nest, and went on with his incubation.' That a cat. should imagine himself to be a hen is one of th& most singular instances of monomania on record. ,• -

A curious incident is reported from Littlehampton. The vicar of Lyminster, in the course of a sermon preached at the former place, said a clergyman died in 1871, leaving a packet of papers labelled "JSFot to be opened." It was not opened till 1872, when it was found by the person who had the settlement of deceased's affairs to contain a dispensation from thePope, -permitting the clergyman to retain his position in the Church of England, while he had become a Catholic. Are there any more, and alive ?

From Vienna is announced the death of the Countess Teresa Spaur, whose name may possibly be remembered in connection with that of his Holiness the Pope, who, on the outbreak of the [Revolution at Some in November, 1848, after the assassination of Count Rossi, escaped in a private carriage, and made his way to G-aeta, the first town in the Weopolitan territory. The Countess just deceased was the lady who, at no little personal risk to herself, conveyed the Pope safely out of Rome on that occasion, disguised —so runs the popular story —as a.footman, or, according to the better information of Sir Gf-eorge Bowyer, as her domestic chaplain. . Pope Pius has always regarded her good offices with grateful recollection; and we believe that her last hours_w ere gladdened by the benediction of his Holiness.—' Times.'-

A. Pennsylvania editor lost a paying subscriber to death lately, and this is the editorial obituary that follows : —'"' Death seems to lurk behind every rail fence and hay stack in this vicinity, and lie in" wait for our prominent and choicest citizens. To-day we see it, to-morrow we don't. Ah, who can tell what a week .may bring forth in such a blasted country as this ? Death' has again. turned a flip-flap, and come down flap-footed in our midst, and snatched from amongst us one of the best advertisers and subscribers we ever had. He possessed the love, confidence, and esteem of all who knew him, and some who__

did not, and, save a slight poker debt to Mr , did not owe a cent in the world.

Max Adeler, an American humorist, says:—"We are very much pleased to hear, the other day, that Don Carlos has offered to present the Spanish throne" to his son. This kind of generosity is too noble to pass unrewarded, and it shall not pass. If Don Carlos does this act we will make him a present of Commodore Yanderbilt's fortune, and throw in the Island of Nova Scotia and the State of New Jersey. We are only a poor, untitled liepublic, without any rjyal blood in our veins ; but no man shall surpass us in generosity, particularly with other people's property. There is no Bourbon that ever breathed the breath of life, or wore a seven-and-three-eighths crown, or hammered a myrmidon with a brass sceptre, who can give away more than we can."

Punctuation first used in literature, 1520. Before thattimewordsandsenteaceswere puttogetherlikethis. /