Small Birds and insects.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume X, Issue 3317, 24 September 1889, Page 2

Small Birds and insects.

A plea for the preservation of small birds is put forth by a correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald. Ho says:—The immense mischief which thanks to the inaenate destruction ol small birds, is now being done to fields and gardens by snails, slugs, , 4 caterpillars, and other vermin, may "%.. not improbably be complicated with an invasion of locusts, these terrible pests having crossed the Mediterranean, shown themselves in .Spain, and raado their apr.ea'rauce in tho Southwest of France. Jn Algeria, where they devour every blado and leaf, causing wherever thoy appear a loss of many million aterling.tlw poasauts reinforced by troops, are doing their utmost to kill them by kindling fire 3 £ of straw, the smoko of which is fatal * to thorn. But what can human effort accomplish with a foo that makes its sudden desoent in masses presenting a dense front'of six miles in length, Confiding Chanty.

The Lyttelton Times of September 18, contains the following examplo of confiding charity:—A case occurred at the Magistrate's Court yesterday _ .... - morning, which shows the neces3>' "' ' for Charity having good guard her, and furnishes an instance"'! iof confiding man and treacherous jm woman not often heard of in these latter days. A workman was employed mending a lamp near the South Park when a woman, who had not long regained her liberty from gaol, came up and askod him " to do her a kindness." Ho enquired tho nature of the good offices she solicited, and the answer was a modest demand for sixpence. Now let confiding man tell his own story. " I had not got sixpence, your Worship," he said, " but I had half-a-crowu, and I says to her, Til give you sixpence,'cays I, 'if you'll bring mo two shillings change back,' and she said she would." " And did you give her the half-a-crown," enquired Mr Beotham." " Yes, your Worship, I gave her tho half-crown, and sho did not come back. 1 saw hot on tho road afterwards, a.id asked her for tho two shillings, and she gayc ine any amount of cheek." The donor's indignation was aroused, especially when he saw that the receiver of his. hardly earned cash was the wors*~ for liquor, He informed the police, and tho woman was arrested, and yesterday was sont back to gaol for three months,

How the Money is Spent. It is reported that £750,000 was the sum mentioned as the total of tho surpluses which had been transferred to Queen Victoria's Privy Purse account from classes 2 and 8 of tho Civil List during the last 62 years, and an additional £BO,OOO was referred to as having been added to, / the Privy Purse account during tho "ftsurao period from tbo rosorvod fund, > or the unappropriated money class, which is fixed at ibout £BOOO a year. Amongst the items of extra expenditure cited by Mr Smith aa having consumed portions of the extra £830,000 arc said to have been the ' visits of tho Emperor of Russia, the Emporor of tho French, the Shah, and other potentates, the erection, of memorials of the late Prince Cousjft and outlays in connection with Osborno and Balmoral. Tho other matters laid before the committee wore an account of .revenue derived from tho Duchy of Lancaster, which report puts at £45,000 a year, reprints of the reports of the committees of 1881 and 1888, and a statement of all royal grauts made during tho last 150 years.

In a Spardah Tobacco Factory. The great tobacco factory at Seville is one of tho first sights the stranger jis taken- to aeo. Everybody in Spain smokes cigarettes. Little boys begiiiy j* at the age of eight, and from that tv time the cigarette is rarely absent from the Spaniard's lips. Many of them die smoking, The consumption of cigarettes is naturally enormous, and the bulk are manufactured in Seville, The Government factory gives daily employment to about 7,000 people, and of these only a hundred or two are men, Whefyou enter the enormous rooms crowded with girls dressed in bright colors, the coup flail is striking in the extreme. In one immense low-vaulted room there are 1,500 girls. Thoy sit in endless rows—about twenty girls to a row-on either sido of the room, all at little tables, all rolling cigarettes. There is a blaze and blur ot color, a babel of tongues, Every girl has a gay handkerchief about her rjeck—every girl has a flow stuck ,in her hair. All along the walls hang

the gay outdoor dresses of tbo littlo cigavcltc-makors. As I walk, blushing and nervous, down an endless avonue of flashing eyes, T grow almost giddy. It is a sea of women's faces, an undulating ocean ofilowar-decked heads. Ono lias to pick one's way carefully down the control avoiuio, for it is blockaded all along the lino with cradles. The married cigarettemakers are allowed to brim? their babies with thorn to tho factory, They rock the cradle with one foot, while iheir busy lingers roll the cigarette. girls oarn good wages. At many of the tables whole families are working together. But tho hours aro long and the atmosphere awful. Tho damp warm odour of tho tobacco in the long low-rooted rooms is in itself almost stupefying. But tlievo is no ventilation, and tho atmosphere is absolutely indescribable, Many of tho girls smoke cigarettes at their |" work. I was very glad to light one «" . myself long beta I had dono the round of the factory —G. R. Sims.

'Tho Maharajah of Benares has clio'l, in his serontioth yaw. Ho was chief of tho Brahmin community at Benares, and waa neatly respected and beloved by all classes. Ho succeeded in 1835. Though a strictly orthodox Hindoo lie lived on terras of nlfectionato friendship with a largo number of Europeans. His nopliow and adopted son succeeds him.

Mr Nansou, who looks tho picture of health and manly strength, confesses that in crossing Greenland ho did not wash for over two months. If ho had indulged in tho luxury of a tub it would liayp rendered him much more liable to Ijgjitul blistering by the Arctic sun. Mrs Gladstone, writing a letter to the women of Lowestoft urging them to form a women's Liberal Association, says:—Tho great question of tha day is Ireland, to which they should give all their energies, a question of mercy and justico, which, when studied, thoy would more and more understand. Colonel F.H. Tyrrell writes to the

Daily News:—There i 3 souio question of the meaning ot tho word "Dervish" \ applied to tho followers of tho late W Mahdi. Tha Persian word Dervish means beggar or poor man, and has by degrees come to bo applied particularly to religious mendicants, and by a further step to religious fanatics, in which aenso it scores to bo applied to tho soldiers of tho Mahdi'a Khalifa. Tho Prophet Muhammad naid "L;L Bilhitol niat 6'llslamia.""Thorois no monitor in Islam," but whon Turinic tribes were convorted thoy brought their own old monastic institutions into their new religion, honco the nrdur of Dervishes or religious mendicants in Turkey and Porsia, vowed to poverty and celibacy, and bound by a vow of obedience. No doubt it is from their resorublanco to

thcso Mussulman mendicant friars that

.tho Mahdists are called Dervishes but .l&nether they thomselves own to the name, or whether it is merely a nickname fastened upon thorn hy their enemies, I do not know. Thoroisa curious analogy in tho namo of the epithet of Ueusen or Gueux (beggars) which has applied in derision by tho Royal Courtiors to the patriots of tho Spanish Netherlands, and was adopted by thorn as a houourablo jo(iri</iic(. Tho despised " sea-beggars" (Cfuciw dc Mer) of Holland and Zueland, who woro cret cents in there caps as a sign that tlioy * would rather servo the Turk than the Pope, carriod on tlieir " absurd beggars' wars" until thoy hid hnmblod tho prido of tho mightiest Monarch in Europo,