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Southland Times, Volume III, Issue 247, 27 April 1866, Page 3

I made a box, and filled it with mould In the mould I sowed some seed, and then placed it in my window-sill, and what do you think came up ? — A poli( c man, and told me \o take it down again. An old bachelor, who has dined out on Christmas day for several years, says, "If when you visit a friend his wife tells you in a husky voice to ' make yourself at home,' obey her literally as soon as ossible." Count D'Orsay, who, in the days of Us prosperity prided himself in having horses, carriages, and his own toilet of the most expensive and reoherche kind,, consoled himself, when- less fortunate, with the resolution, to possess " do finest orabrella. ia konionJ 1 '

In a large party, one evening, the conversation turned upon young men's allowance at college. Tom Sheridan lamented the ill-iudging parsimony of many parents in that respect. "I am sure, Tom," said his father, "you need not complain; I always allowed you eight huadred.a year" — "Yes, father, I must confess you allowed it, but then it was never paid." TLtoeb- Water Vision. — The indistinctness with which bathers see objects beneath the water is the result of the too great convexity of the eyeball for the denser medium in which it is immersed, and which throws the sight out of focus. Contact of the eyeball with the water is the condition of this displacement, for the vision of those "who wear the submarine helmet is as distinct under the water as in the air, if the water is transparent. To obviate this • difficulty for pearl divers, and for those who have ! occasion to plunge after lost treasures, Mr G-alton, of England, has contrived spectacles, the lenses of which are double convex with a surface radius of 0.48. and these are supplemented by another lens — either convex or concave — as the peculiarity of the eye and the difference in the refarctive power of flint glass may require. Armed with these spectacles, the diver can see under the water as well as the amphibious seal or otter, although his range of vision will be more limited than in the air, even though the water may be pellucid. "Why*is a photographic album like, the drainer on a bar-counter ? — because it is often a receptacle for empty mugs. The latest Yankee definition of billiards is, " playing marbles with a stick." The subterranean sewers in Paris, which are so broad and so deep that they are called canals, measure 250 miles in length, without including those executed during the present year.