FACTS AND SCRAPS

Southland Times, Issue 1815, 7 November 1873, Page 3

FACTS AND SCRAPS

Field Exercise. —Ploughing. Mrs. Smith says her husband is like a tallow candle, because he always will smoke when he is going out. When a girl falls in love with an unlucky Irishman her heart always goes pity-Pat. " I'm going to draw this beau into a knot," a lady said when standing at the hymeneal altar. A gentleman being asked by an old lady with rather confused ideas as to horses and dogs, if his dog was a hunter, said " it was half hunter and half setter : that he hunted till he found a bone, and then set down to eat it." An advertisement in an Irish paper setting forth the many conveniences and advantages to be derived from metal window sashes, among other particulars observes that " these sashes would last forever; and afterwards, if the owner had no further use for them, they might be sold for old iron." Unknown Eegions of the Globe. — According to a writer in the Academy, there are four vast areaa which have never been traversed by civilised man, and which among them constitute about one seventeenth of the whole area of the globe. Of these the greatest is the Antarctic region, the extent of which is about seventy-five times tbat of Great Britain ; the second lies about the North Pole ; the third is in Central Africa ; and the fourth in "Western Australia. The areas of these unknown regions of the globe are estimated, approximately, at^bout 11,600,000 square miles. At a general meeting of the butchers of Edinburgh, it was resolved to raise the already exceptionally high price of butcher meat, the reason assigned being that on account of the advance of cattle and sheep tbe present prices are not remunerative to the retail dealer. The following scale of charges for the best quality of meat was arranged for cash or j monthly payments: —Eoast beef, Is 2d per lb ; boiling beef, lOd to lid ; stewing beef, Is; steak, Is 2d to Is 8d ; legs and loins of mutton, Is Id to Is 3d ; chops, Is 4d • boiling mutton, lOd t» Is. The inferior qualities will be sold at correspondingly lower prices.