MISCELLANEOUS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2664, 4 October 1881, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

An exchange says. —“ A Westchester man is trying to hatch out some alligator eggs sent him from Florida.” Ho must cut a pretty figure sitting Ihcrc night and day wearing upon his face a look that is a cross between patience and anxiety. He had better be on his guard and get up real quick when tho critters come out, There are two canneries in San Jose, California, which employ in the busiest season about 000 hands —men, women, and girls. The price paid for the fruit used is from TOdols to SOdols per ton for apricots, lOOdols to 120dols for cherries, 40.1 ols to fiOdola for peaches, 40clols to oOdols for pears, and about the same for plums, and about 10-lols pci’ ton less for grapes, and about 120dols per ton for strawberries. One of these factories put up 1,000,000 cans of fruit last year, besides Joo tons of jelly, and largo quantities of vegetables. There are scores of similar canning establishments scattered over the country.

A little over a year ago a Chinese professor was engaged by Harvard College. At a recent dinner given by him to his fellow professors, Leo Pin was much annoyed because the cooking was not to his taste. An American host would have waited until the company had departed and then found fault with his wife for the cook’s shortcomings. Not so with Mr Leo Pin. Ho said bluntly “Me go and lickeo wife! ” bowed solemnly, and loft tho room. Alter a short interval he returned, smiling and bland as usual, having administered judicious chastisement to his wife. Tho Americans are indignant at (he way in which their pedestrians were treated at Birmingham recently, and ask if this is a specimen of English fair play ? An English paper says “Wc beg to say that it is not. Birmingham is no part of England. In all its doings its un-English. Tho honest manliness of John Bull is totally lacking in its character. As a people they preach peace and sell guns ! They prate about honesty, and make articles of [pinch! web! Thor talk about enlightenment and sell idols to niggen ! They commiserate with the Irish] and return two members of a Government of Coercion. It scorns to us that Birmingham is a place that would do well to take itself off. It is a vagabond, and ought to be locked up." It is claimed (says an American paper), that tho best wood paper pulp is produced by first putting the material in its crude state into a large caldron to boil, the effect of which process is to extract all the glutinous matter and resin, and render it soft, when it js put on a large stone grinder, with water pouring on it all tho time ; the grindstone wears off the fibres until they are finer than sawdust, which float away into a receptacle; the water is drained off by means of a fine sieve, leaving the pulp, which consists of fine fuzz or splinters of wood. It is white and requires no bleaching, but is ready to be mixed with rag pulp or any other substance that has a strong fibre, and receive the proper constituents to make it into paste, after which it runs off into paper sheets; rags on tho contrary, require to be washed and bleached with chloride of lime, soda, ash, and alam, and such strong chemicals, to take oat the color, and then they are picked into shreds and made into pulp.