Page 1 Advertisements Column 5

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 8, Issue 380, 25 February 1864, Page 1

Agricultural Statistics. —At a mee-j tingof an Agricultural Society in England! lately, the importance of Statistics of the crops being collected was insisted on by I some of the speakers. An instance of its importance was given in the change of price in 1846. France was buying wheat largely in the English markets at 46s to 50s and in nine months afterwards the price rose to 102 s. Had proper statistics been in existence such a rise would have been [impossible. Twelve millions of acres were used in growing corn, and an excess of ten bushels an acre gave 15 millions ofi quarters or about 21,000,0001 worth more than an average crop. The excess of crop in 1863 would be millions of quarters the usual orop waa Imillions anti—fcW consumption 20 millions ; so that only million quarters would need to be imported : thus saving the country twenty millions sterling as compared with the previous year in which 10 millions quarters had been brought abroad.

Something foe the Ladies.—How Mrs. Buonaparte puts on her Clothes. —A Paris correspondent of the * New York News’ gossips - a little about the dresses of jEugenie. He says it is universally conceded that she is the best dressed lady in 'Europe. She sets the female fashions for the world, and employs not only modistes but artistes to invent them. Her “ department of ready-made clothing” is something immense. To say that she has a new dress for evfcry day in the year would not begin to convey an idea of the extent and variety of her wardrobe. In the front centre of the ceiling of her Majesty’s dressing room there is a trap-door opening into a spacious hall above filled with “presses” each containing a dress exhibited on a frame—looking like an effigy of the Empress herself. in a part of these presses there is a little railway leading to the aforesaid trap door, through which the dress is “ descended” into the presence of the Empress. If it please her Majesty, the dress is lifted from the frame and placed upon the imperial person ; if not, it is whipped up and another comes down in its place; and not unfrequently another, and another, and another: so fastidious is the tase which gives the law to the world of fashion. In public the Empress never looks over-dressed. A severe simplicity always characterises her toilet, while everything in material, fit, and colour, is as complete in . harmony as a sonata in Beethoven. This is the great secret of “ the art of dress.” A woman who wears discordant ribbons breaks that sense of visual melody commonly called “ good taste,” without which not even the Duchess of Uolconda can dress well. Certain colours are incongruous and inharmonic as certain notes in music; and the artists who make dresses for the Empress Eugenie study those natural law's of harmony a 9 carefully- as the painter the hues of his palette. Just now it has been discovered | that the parasol, the dress, the bonnet,! the gloves, and gaiters, must be all the same colour to produce the most unique and pleasing effect. And thus a perfectly dressed lady no longer offends the eye with a confused contradiction of colours of all the shades and without the order of the rainbow', but presents a perfect picture as melodiously charming to the eye as the air of “Home, [sweet Home,” is to the ear.

The Present Generation. —Our young meu are terribly alike. For these many years back the yonng gentlemen I have had the fortune to encounter are clever, knowing, selfish, and disagreeable ; the young ladies are of one pattern, like minted sovereigns of the same reign—excellent gold, I have no doubt, but each bearing the same awfully proper image superscription. There aie no blanks in the matrimonial lottery now-a-days, bnt the prizes are all of a value, and there“is but one kind of article given for the ticket. Courtship is an absurdity, and a sheer waste of time. If a man could but close his eyes in a ball-room, dash into a bevy of muslin beauties, carry off the fair one that accident gives to his arms, his raid would be as reasonable and as likely to produce happiness as the more ordinary methods of procuring a spouse. If a man has to choose one guinea out of a bag containing one hundred and fifty, what can lie do ? What wonderful wisdom can he display in 'his choice 1 There is no appreciable difference of value in the golden pieces. The last coined are a little fresher, that’s &\\.—-Dreamsthorp, — Alex. Smith. Language. —We are told on good authority by a country clergyman that some of the labourers in his parish had not 300 words in their vocabulary. The vocabulary of the ancient sages of Egypt—at least so far as it is known to us from the hieroglyphic inscriptions was 685 words. The libretto of an Italian opera seldom displays a greater variety of words. A well educacated person iu England, who lias been at a |'ublic school and at the university, who reads his Bible, his Shakespeare, the Times and all the books of Mudie’s library, seldom uses more than about 3,000 or 4,000 words in actual conversation. Accurate thinkers and close reasoners who avoid vague and general expressions and wait till they find a* word that exactly fits their meaning, employ a larger stock ; and eloquent speakers may rise to a command of 10,000. Shakespeare, who displayed a greater variety of expression than probably any writer in any language, produced all Ins plays with about 15,000 words. {