PINS THAT PRESERVED A MAN'S REASON.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 414, 15 March 1880, Page 2

PINS THAT PRESERVED A MAN'S REASON.

In the show window of one of the leading jewellers of Vienaa is exposed to view a brooch, magnificently studied with gems, in the middle of whose chasing is enclosed the most singular of centres—• four common, old, bent, and corroded pins. This brooch is the property of the Countess Lavetakofy. The pins have a history, of course, Seven years ago Count Robert Lavetskofy was arrested at Warsaw for an alleged insult to-the Russian Government. The real author of. the insult, which consisted of some careless words spoken at a social gathering, was his wife. He accepted the accusation, however, and was sent to prison. In ono of the lightless dungeons in which the Czar is so fond of confining., his Polish subjects, the unfortunat martyr for his wife's loose tongue spent six years, He had only one . amusement. After lie had been searched and thrown into a cell, he had found in his. coat four, pins. These he pulled out and threw on the floor; then in the darkness he hunted for them. Having found them, perhaps after hours ' and even days, he scattered them again. And so the-game went on for six weary years, " But for them," he writes in his memoirs, "I would have gone mad, Tlie)r provided me with a purpose. So long as " I had them to search for I had something to do. When, the decree for sjr liberation as an exile was brought to nl byjhe gaoler, he found me on my knesvjJpting for one which had escaped me forTvro . days. Tliey saved my wife's husband from lunacy, My wife, therefore, could not desire a prouder ornament."

" What is nobler than a man wrestling his bread from the stubborn soil by the sweat of his brow?" asks a philosopher. We don't rseall anything nobler at this moment, but we know what is a great deal more popular—hiring some other follow to do it, while you sit on the fence and superintend him.