A NATURAL BAROMETER.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1962, 29 October 1889, Page 3

A NATURAL BAROMETER.

A Winchester correspondent to the Standard' says;—“l hare witnessed every morning for the last four or five years a natural barometer, locally far more reliable than any ‘ Weather I'orecasts,’ or the most expensive -artificialcbarometer, and yet so simple ihat it' is within the reach ef every family. With my breakfast I drink coffee mixed with milk. When' poured into ,the cup I gently drop in a MWp" of loaf .sugar, and shortly after the fixed air in the sugar rises to the top in small detached bubbles. Now ; watch these—l call them my little people, who will tell me if it is going to rain or not—and although the coffee is perfectly still, these little bubbles will be on the move, almost like life. It will be noticed that if it is going to rain very hard they will almost rush over to the side of the cup— as much as to say, I shall get under shelter as quickly as possible. If. the rain is only to be a gentle downfall, then the bubbles all meet together, evidently to deliberate on the matter, and then quietly move oyer to the side; but, if it is not going to rain, every bubble that comes up remains stationary in the middle of the cup. Now, for all these years these little people have not deceived me a dozen times altogether, but have acted somewhat marvellously. On one occasion, a moat lovely morning, with every signs of a fine day, I remarked, 1 What can be the matter with the coffee this morning ? ’ as it shewed signs of wet. Before twelve o’clock came, down poured the rain, to the astonishment of every one; and I could relate many other such instances. I cannot anyhow explain why this should be so, but I have found it pot only a source ©f amusei ment and wonder, but a most valuable A guide for the day.—H.D.C.”

A quiet, conscience delights in solitude; a guilty soul finds it a dungeon.

LANDLORDISM IN THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND.

The general results of the system of modern landlordism in Scotland are now less painful than the hardship and misery, brought upon individual sufferers. The earlier improvers who drove the peasants from the sheltered valleys to the exposed sea coast, in order to make rpom for sheep and sheep farmers, pleaded, however erroneously, the public benefit as the justification of their conduct, They maintained that more food and clothing would be produced by the new system, and that the people themselves would have the advantage of the produce of the sea as well as that of the laud for their support. The results, however, proved them to be the opposite, for thenceforth the perennial cry of Highland destitution began to be heard, culminating at intervals in actual famines like that of 1836-37, when £70,000 was disr tributed to keep the Highlanders from death by starvation, The evidence taken before the (Select Committee on Emigration, Scotland, showed much the same state of chronic poverty as prevails in Ireland—and from the very same cause great landlords. And the only remedy our wise landlords legislature could find for this state of things was emigration! Just as in Ireland, there was abundance of land capable; of cultivation, but the people were driven to the coast and to the towns to make way for sheep and cattle and lowland farmers; and when the barren and .. inhospitable tracts allotted to them became overcrowded, they were told to. , emigrate, consequently diminishing the people of that country by half, with "increased poverty. The ■great lords of the soil in FGotland have for the. last twenty years, or more, been systematically laying waste enormous areas of land for purposes of sport. At the present time more than; 2,000,000 . acres of Scottish soil are’ devoted to the preservation of deer alone, an area larger than the entire counties of Kent and Surrey combined.! Glen Tilt Forest includes 100,000 acres; the Black Mount is sixty miles in circumference; and Ben Aulder Forest is fifteen miles long by seven broad. On many of these forests there, is the finest pasture in Scotland, while the valleys would support a large! population of small farmers. Tet all this land is devoted to the sport of the do-nothing wealthy; farms being destroyed, houses pulled down and burned, and the people banished to create a wilderness for the deerstalkers.—A, E. Wallace.