MISCELLANEOUS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2006, 11 February 1890, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

Ada—" I had ten offers of marriage last week," Ella—" How monotonous and persistent of Jack."

Enfant terrible—" And did they go ioto the ark two by two ?" Mamma —" Yes, dearest." Enfant terrible—- " Well, who went with auntie ?"

He was fond of singing revival hymns, and so his wife named the baby Fort, so that he would want to hold it.

He—"l see Miss Jones's back back from Paris.' She (a spirited rival) —" I noticed her dress was cut rather low, but I didn't suppose you could see her back from that distance."

Blanche—" Have you made any conquests this summer ? " Lilian—- " Oh, yes ; Mr Jones proposed the day before we came away." Blanche—- " Doesn't he pop the question in the most awkward manner imaginable ? " They meet now as strangers. On Christmas Eve branches of holly which would hardly have fetched two shillings in ordinary years were, it is said, being sold in the shops of very "swell" florists in London for two guineas, because they had berries upon them, in no surprising quantities. " I asked the proprietor what was the customary fee to waiters," said a tourist to a coloured waiter at an American hotel," and he told me that any caught accepting a fee would be discharged." Pompey : " Yes, sah, an' I hope, sah, you will make your tip big enough to pay me for de risk of takin' it, sah!"

_ An American, who has lived some time among the noble red men of the forest, says the debts of red Indians are paid by their relatives. Until such ridiculous and heathenish notions are eradicated from the head of Mr Lo, all efforts to civilize and ehrisianise the Indian must necessarily result in a failure. Among enlightened people, the relatives of dead white men frequently neglect to pay their own debts.

When " la grippe " had got fairly hold to work in Paris, physicians advised the use of warm alcoholic drinks, and so favorably was the advice received that 1500 persons were arrested on the streets within three days for drunkenness. Of this number 1200 declared that they were simply following the doctor's prescriptions. A fine portrait of John Wesley has

just been hung in the hall of Lincoln College, Oxford. The picture, which has recently been purchased by the rector and fellows, represents Wesley when he was a fellow of the college", and it is pronounced by experts to be either the original or a replica of the once well-known portrait which was painted by James Williams in 1742.

A shocking fatality at a Christmas game is reported from Troedyrhiw, Euweh, near Pontylottyn, where two schoolboys, Thomas Heywood and James Lewis, were playing together the well-known game " Christmas Boy." The boys wore night-dresses ever their clothes, and whilst Lewis was trying to reach some soot from the chimney his dress took fire, and he was immediately enveloped in flames. The poor fellow was burnt in a shoking manner, and succumbed to

his injuries. A proposal for free marriages has been made amongst the clergy of Derby, and if the movement should be successful locally it is considered probable that it will extend throughout the country. The object of dispensing with the fee is to counteract the increasing tendency to civil marriages indicated in the returns

recently issued by the BegistrarGeneral, which show that the proportion of marriages solemnised according to the rites of the Church of England was only 70 per cent., the smallsst in any year except one since the institution of civil marriages New Zealand is not the only country where a decline in the marriage rate

has to be deplored. The trouble exists in an aggravated form in the Mother Country. Last year, according to an English paper, was the first in recent times in which, while the price of wheat fell, the marriage rate remained stationary. It is now 14.2 per 1000. The most ominous feature in the returns is that " the decline in

the popularity of marriage is greatest with those who have already had some experience of wedded life." Between 1876 and 1888 the marriage rate fell 12 per cent, lor bachelors and spinsters

27 per cent, for widowers, and 31 per cent- for widows. At first sight it looks as if the popularity of the "Pickwick Papers," and the consequent wide dissemination of Mr Weller's views had something to do with the drop in the re-mamage of

widows. 'J he alternative explanation is that it is due to the glutting of the marriage market with surplus spinsters. The excess of women oyer men in

England and Wales is estimated at 765,000. It is also worthy of note that births have now reached the

lowest rate recorded since civil registration began. In 1876 the rate was 36.3 per 1000 ;it is now 30,6. It is satisfactory to add that the proportion

of illegimate births last year, 4.6 per I cent., was the lowest yet registered.

A waggon-driver named Campbell has been found dead four miles out of Blenheim, with his head jammed in the brake.

The Ngarara block at Waikanae, of 30,000. acres, is now being dealt with by the JUand Court at Wellington. It is expected the proceedings will occupy a month.

A child named Alfred George Osborne, 16 months old, was drowned in Christchurch on Sunday by falling into a tub of water. It was only iu the water a few minutes.

It is understood that a company will be formed, with a capital of £SOOO in shares of £1 each to build a trades hall in Dunedin. The site has not yet been fixed on.

San Francisco, with a population of about 400,000 has only 120 churches, with seating capacity for 40,000 and an average attendance of 25,000. The clircate of San Francisco does not seem to be conducive to churchgoing. The last session of the English Parliament was composed of one hundred and twenty-two sittings. There were eight thousand five hundred afld forty-five speeches, the Government using up one thousand six hundred and twenty-five. Mr Gladstone made forty-two, On. Sunday evening an elderly woman was found by two young men in a dying condition on the footpath

on Papanui road, Christchurch, opposite the residence of Mr Ehodes. The news was sent to the police but on the arrival of two officers and Dr Mickle, it was found that death had taken place. There were no marks of

violence about the body, and it is surmised that she must hare dropped down and expired in Borne kind of fit. I like to be in the fashion (writes Mr Labouchere), so I bore my fate with equanimity when I discovered that I had caught last week the prevailing epidemic. All of a sudden I seemed to have caught a cold, and

took to sneezing, &c. Then came a cough, a headache, and an all-overish ache. Knowing that it was not dangerous, I proceeded to doctor myself by the light ©f common sense. To prevent any fever, I at once administered to myself thirty grains of quinine—that settled the fever. To

meet the cough, I took unlimited squill pills—that settled the cough. To meet the eold I went to bed, heaped on my bed blankets, and took nothing but slops—that settled the cold. In four days I was quite well.

Hollowav's Pills.—The Great Need.— The blood ie the life, and on its purity our health as well as our existence depends. These Pills thoroughly cleanse the vital fluid from all contamination!, and by that meani strengthen and invigorate the whole system, healthily etimulate sluggish organß, repress over-exoited aotion, and establish order of oiroularion and eeoretion throughout every part of the body. The balsamic nature of

Uolloway s Pills exercises marvellous power in giving tone to debilitated and nervous conBtitutions. These Pills dislodge all obstruotions, both in the bowels and elsewhere, and are, on that account, muoh sought after for promoting regularity 0 f aotion in young females and delicate persons who are naturally weak, or have from some cause beoome bo.

The noted quality of the Coffee made ia the (Ja£6s of Turkey, France, and Amerioa ia ohioflj due to the fact that only Fresh Boasted Coffee is used ; so that none of the volatile oil and other essentials are lost. Ask your grocer for Anderson's Coffee, and you

will have a bovorage alike refreshing and timulating, as it ia fresh roasted and ground at the faotory, Timaru.—[Advt. 2 J