Here and There.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 77, 5 April 1904, Page 4

Here and There.

PRESENTIMENTS. Among the many stories* of prethat turn out to be trustworthy must now be included the jAnwpi case of Mrs Elvey, the «lfc of a. Coleford iron miner. She bagged In husband not to" go to *%£ tibe other day, as she feared be killed. It was the last i)ay bciore the mine was close* dojw thtj was lver second husbapil, and the first hud been killed bjf an auident at smother mine on what was to lie the last day of his gnjbhtyinent Elwey iiade light of ~fl£!eS, went to work, and was Wiled by the <all of a nvass of iron ore. SONGS AT £4O PER MINUTE.

Mme. Patti sang four songs on Nov. 27 at a concert which was held at the West End Theatre, New York, and for winch she received £IOOO. An hour before the concert she was informed that the house was not full and UMi only £6OO worth of seats had been sold. In consequence she refused to sing unless the received lroiu Messrs Weber and Fields, who, bad promoted the concert, her full lees.in advance. These were eventually banded to the diva, who thereupon appeared on the stage and charmed the audience by her brilliant singing. Messrs Weber and Fields therefore bad to pay £luO out of their own pockets. It is estimated, says the New York Herald, that the songs she sang: cost the organisers at the rate of £4O per minute. AMERICAN GJsRLS UP-TO-DATE. Ameritfam:;girls are noUjßngi if not jnergetic. When they take up an idea they go on with a rush, and several reforms Have b|jpn at Jeaat set on foot by youthful maidens casried away by the impetuosity of newbora enthusiasm. The latest idea comes from a town in one of the States, where a club has been formed among' some zealous girls with the object, no less, openly avowed, c< "making the boys behave," and thereby reforming the town. The object of the club is to cure men of the drink hajbit, to establish, a code of morals for men wjhich will make their Hves aa pure as they would have -those of the girls whom they wish to make •their wives. The method is to boycott all marriageable young men whose conduct violates the standard of the club, and the prime aim is to secure a good hustrareMor every member, the girls being all pledged to avoid spinsterhood aa Hbtif, would the plague*

COLOURED DRESS SUITS. Some of the fashionable West End tailors are trying to break through the iron regulation which prescribes black as the only wear for the male dandy in the evening. They are longing to introduce coloured dress clothes, on the ground that they would "lend pictureaquaness to ballrooms and rnfuse some brigbtaess into social life generally." Behind tins benevolent ambition there is, of course, the prospect that an introduction of varioup colours would be a splendid thing for the tailoring trade. A man who is now able to manage with one or two suits of inoonspicuous tints for evening wear would be obliged under the new convention to order about half a dozen coloured suits. The choice ol his clothes would become almost as much of a nuisance and an expense a£ in the case of fashionable ladies. A few of the more courageous young bloods, with more time and money at their disposal than they know what to do with, have lately figured at London society balls attired in plum colour, bright blue, end even green and crimson, but they are not., likely to have many imitators. ''The moSestyof the average man," says a tailoring authority, "prevents a more general adoption of the idea." He says nothing of the economy and convenience as factors in the cose. But more important than any of these considerations is the fact that the innovation has not been sanctioned by Royalty. Both the King and Prtnse of Wales prefer quiet colours.

A PASSING ACCOMPLISHMENT. With the advent of Christmas . in the old days, we used to set about writing letters to our friends abroad. But now that we have got the telephone, the cheap telegram, and tie pictorial postcard,. the art of letter-writing, like the art of conversation, bids fair to die out. To be able to indite a readable, lively screed will soon be the rarest of accomplishments ; for (writes Ella Hepworth Dixon in the Lady's Pictorial) even the ladles—formerly past mistresses in the art—have become as laconic in their communications with each other as they were once voluminous. What reams of paper were covered, in mid-Victorian times with elegant slanting words, in violet ink ! Friends were not left in doubt of each other's affection, or in ignorance of each other's amotions .and experiences. Quires of notepaper, ornamented with crest and monogram, were crossed and with advice, news, gossip aria tie commonplaces of travel Who dare to write down nowadays Uwir impressions of Home and Mont Btenc, of the Engadine or the Escurfal?

THE LARGEST TYPEWIUTEH. An English typewriter company oiree made a special machine for Li Hung Chang. It was necessary to construct a machine much more elaborate than the ordinary instrument owing to the strange characters of too Chinese tongue, and this typewriter was fitted with eighteen hundred characters, each of which had to bo engraved by hand. Naturally this wonderful instrument created a great mpression on being introduced at Pekin, and it evidently suggested to the speculative mind of the Chinese the idea of forming a company for the sale of Chinese typewriters. One bold individual went to London with the project. He asserted that it Would be possible to write a kind of , Chinese shorthand with as few a s 250 characters (about bliree times the number used on the ordinarjtjnachIne), but the instrument would"" be about three times the usual size, and the price was to be £IOOO. In spite of the Chinaman's conviction that ' there would be a ready sale in the Celestial Empire, neither the typewriter firms nor the British capitalists cared to hav« anything to do ' %ith so risky a venture. Li Hung Chang's machine is still probably the ' only machine which writes Chinese 'Characters.

A CLOCK MADE #F BREAD. A clock made entirely of bread has * been exhibited In Milan. The works are comparatively large, and for sev«rel years kept good time. The mak- -' fflr was a native of Milan, who de- - voted three years of his time to the task: He was very poor, and, being without the means to purchase th» necessary motal for making a clock, he set apart regularly each day a part of hia bread, eating the crusts f and saving the soft part. To solidi- -' fy this he mad© use of a certain kind of salt, and when the various pieces became dry they were perfectly , hard and insoluble in water ■* Another clock exhibited some years ago in London was constructed of " pins, buttons, and all sorts of odds ** and ends by a pauper named Mercer. *• The back and front of the clock were « made of iron bed laths, whilo the -' barrel was part of a large brass fcif rule, the ends being brass iHuttons ~~ hammered out. The barrel arbour ,~ bad been originally the blade of a j# ahoemaker's awl; the main and several other wheels were nothing more s r<* or less than suspender buttons from Skills own trousers, while the cog teeth portions of bygone knitting |!>'jwedles. The teeth of tha centre |WJ,Wheels bad once fccen rivets. In the there were one hundred separate G& A LONG-LIVED MAN. Kpft* recently, reported tamstiga-

tions into the possibility of prolonging human file reminds a correspondent of an English paper that Uvt.. Ikveuiber occurred the 2ii;hvl an-i.i\<-.aiy of the death of Henry Jont.ii..>, who rfiod on Dec. 6, 1670 at the attributed age of 100 years. ' He lived longer than meu who were stronger, And wan too old to live any longer, say-nan old rhyme. Jenkins is said to have been a fisherman for 140 years. Tie ••b«<l-boak" ouenion did wot trouble him, for he could neithei read nor write. But his reach of memory was such that lie would calmly give ovddunce in court on matters on which lias memory went back 120 ami 140 years. As a boylie is .said to have taken a horseload of arrows to Northallerton to be forward*! north in time for the Sn II S °' *>**«>'• At the age of 100 he used to swim the Yorkshire Swale with ease. Ho lived until four years after the Great Fire of Lon°^J Iew * P° ol ' a " his life, but subsisted cheerfully by thatching and salmon-fishing. 8