Page 4 Advertisements Column 1

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3784, 12 February 1881, Page 4

The announcement very recently madei, that Herr Krupp has successfully tendered for 3000 tons of steel rails for a Norfolk railway will be but unsatisfactory news for the .British iron trade, and will revive again in all its force the old bogy of foreign competition. Germany has, no doubfc, increased her iron and steel production very remarkably of late years, the statistics of her make showing that both pig and merchant iron have been doubling from one decade to another with the.greatest steadiness. But the secret of Herr Krupp being able to supply the demand of the Norfolk contractor at prices considerably below the tenders of our own ironmasters, probably lies in the unremitting care and attention which the Essen house has bestowed on the recent changes of manfacture, and the many experiments which Herr Krupp has himself initiated to secure the best and cheapest mode of dephoaphorisation. There is no doubt that in the matter of cheap steel, Prussia is somewhat before England at the present time, and the experiments at the Essen and Hoerde works are proving the fact in a somewhat uncomfortable way for the British trader. It is related that while Wagner, the celebrated musical composer, was at Naples he was shaved by a barber, who bargained in advance with certain : admirers of the composer to sell them locks of his iron grey hair. To his consternation, however, the composer's wife caregathered up every hair which fell from the barber's shears. The barber went home in great despair; but his wife was equal to the occasion. " The master is a great composer, no doubt," said she, " but his hair and that of our neighbor, butcher, are very much alike." The barber took the hint, and those who had contracted with him received locks which they religiously placed under glass for eternal preservation. There is a good story told of the President, says the Washington Star, in connection with the recent appointments made to fill vacancies in the United States army. A gentleman who is distinguished in- social life was extremely anxious to have the son of a warm friend designated for one of the vacancies: He called upon the President and made known his request. ' You see Mr President,' said he, in advocating the young man's claims, his father is a distinguished ex-army officer. His great grand-father was a gallant soldier of the army, and his great-great-grandfather was an officer in the navy during the JSevolutinary War.' These points were pressed with force upon the attention of the President. All of a sudden the President said: • And this young man's father, great-grandfather, and even a more remote grandfather have all been officers of the United States ?' ' Yes,' came the reply. ' Well,' replied the President in a merry chuckle, • don't you think it about time that someone in that family earned a living for himself ? " Chills.—Probably the worst blunder ever made by the telegraphists was one that occurred in the case of a St. Louis merchant, who, while in New York, received a telegram informing him that Ms wife was ill. He sent a message to his family doctor, asking the nature of the sickness, and if there was any danger, and received promptly the answer—' No danger. Your wife has had a child. If we can keep her from having another to-night, she will do well." The mystification of the agitated husband was not removed until a second enquiry revealed the fact that his indisposed lady had had a'chill.' ' A young lawyer in Arkansas, having a case decided against him by the court, said:" Well, now, I'll just take this case before another judge, and let him make a guess what the law is, too."