Untitled

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 76, 29 March 1877, Page 4

A Steam Piano.— We take the following from one of " Tahite's " amusing articles in tbe Australasian:— In enumerating tbe things to be seen and heard at the Circus, I omitted to speak of; the steam piano. This is a grent invention about the size of a traction engine. You can bear its music a long way oil — several miles; and when you bear it, no matter how far you are from, it, you wish you were still further away. It is one ot those things lo which distance lends, if not enchantment, certainly bearableness. Most people, in fact all people except deal people, would prefer to hear it about fifty miles off. Wben you are near it gives you the notion that twenty or thirty railway engines have gone mad, and are wailing out their misery in a locomotive lunatic asylum. Tbe wild bpasts io. the circus must have a bad tuo.o of it. At first, probably, it excited them a good deal, but afterwards, finding the steam piano their destiny, (hey. grew resigned and melancholy.

That, perhaps, is why they are now so tame, That is why (he lions and tigers let Mr Johnson go among them, and that is why they jump at his command over hurdles. The occupation diverts their mind into other channels, and causes them for a while to forget the steam piano. I .think such a musi-, cal instrument would clear any country of the most dangerous wild beasts. In India, for example, they might drive all the tigers and snakes into the sea by a judiciously regulated line of advancing steam pianos, playing at the top of their cacophoniousness. It could be used in this country to disperse crowds; and any Government might retaiu office for ever by having one fixed in a convenient place near the Houses of Parliament, ready at any moment to turn on steam ia anticipation of an adverse vote. I do not know who was the inventor of this steam piano, but he is unquestionably a yery great man. Thunder is a child's rattle to it; a cataract, a whisper; the roaring of the sea, a baby's prattle; and the howling of the hurricane, ",a still, small voice." It is' unlike all other sounds that I have heard, or hope to hear. It is appalling, unearthly, uncanny. If they, have pianos in Hades, this is how they play. It makes ooiees so different from all other noises that I think out of a feeling of perversity, I should in time— a long time— come to like it, and listen for it of a night, and be disappointed when I did not hear it. I repeat that it is a wonderful invention. A terrible affair occurred in Sing Sing, New York; recently. Tbe Heraid says tbat two or three weeks ago Andrew Ludwig, a well-digger, had a can of nitro-glycerine. He buried it in the rear of his garden, thinking it might become of use. On Thursday he concluded to dig it up, and procuring a pickaxe started at his work. Suddenly the pickaxe struck the can, and a . fearful explosion occurred. Ludwig was torn into a thousand pieces; the houses in the neighborhood, and tbe clothing that was hanging on the clothes lines, were spattered with pieces of bia flesh and his blood. Houses were shaken to their foundation, and the windows in the vicinity were shattered. A hole was lorn into the ground five feet deep and ten leet in diameter. Hundreds of people flocked to tbe scene,; and so heavy was the concussion that great alarm was manifested.