Untitled

Thames Star, Volume XIII, Issue 4321, 6 November 1882, Page 2

Charles White, of Newcastle, New Hampshire, has a brood of chickens which are fed with moistened meal in saucers, and when the dough gets a little sour it atrracts large numbers of flies. An observant toad has e»idently noticed this, and every day, along towards evening, he makes his appearance in the yard, hops to saucer, climbs in, and rolls over and over until he is covered with meal, having done which he awaits -developments. The flies, by the smell, soon swarm around the scheming batrachian, and whenever one passes withia two inches or so of his nose, his tongue darts out, and the fly disappears,, and this plan works so well that the toad has* taken it up as a regular business. The chickens dp not manifest the least alarm at their clumsy and bigmouthed playmate, but seem to consider it quite a lark to gather around him and peck off his stolen coat of meal, even when they have plenty more of the same sort in the saucers. The ingenuity which is common among the American people seems to be shared by the artists of the United States, for it is said that fashionable Boston having inculcated a taste for high«class pictorial works, the provincials are anxious. to follow the lead that has been shown them in this respect; as, however, high class pictures do not exist in sufficient numbers to allow of all tastes being satisfied, a few clever and conscientious painters have invented a plan by which high class works can be placed in the hands of the connoisseurs who come from all parts of the country. The system these thought* ful artists have adopted with this end in view is simple enough. A long strip of canvas is hung right across the wall of the studio, and divided into, perhaps, fifteen spaces, all of which are tinted white with a broad, flat brash. The fifteen skies are then washed in by the artist, and then the fifteen backgrounds. The painter then puts in all the browns and the greens and the oranges and the carmines successively in each work, so that after about two days of steady, conscientious labor, fifteen highclass paintings "donefiom nature", in oil are produced, and ready to be disposed of to the highly educated aesthetic provincials, who explain to their admiring friends that they have come fresh from some of the European studios. The Boston postman admits that it is very wicked to marry for money, but philosophically adds : " It is just as easy to love a rich girl as a poor one."