A Handful of Stories.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3408, 13 January 1890, Page 2

A Handful of Stories.

" WHEEL TO THE LEVT,

Little more tlmn 200 years ago the English army and navy wore not tho completely separate " services" that they are now. Thus it was often the case that the navy was commanded by a soldier with little or.no : training in the art of sailing- a ship, For instance, George Monk, the Duke of Albermarlo, a distinguished general of the tiipe of Cromwell and Charles 11, was victorious in Beveral Wa-figh ts, Bnt'even he, in spite of all his skill in tho handling of men, wassoignorant of thehandling of a ship that; whon he wished his vessel to alter her course,-lie shouted out" Wheel to the lelt I"—a military order—much to tho merriment of the " old salts" aboard, who had been trained to the soft from their youth upwards, A LEARNED Dog, Sometime since a dispute about the ownership of a dog had at last to he' isettled in a Dublin police court. The tenimal had been jn .llie ppssessiop of its tlien for nearly fa months,' he gentleman who claimed,it having ost it for ttial epaoo of time, The

claimant said that he bad the dog in India, and that ho had succeeded in teaching it the Hindustani and Tamil languages. It 'was . thereiijjon decided to fetch the dog into court. Thin having been done, the claimant dpoke to it in the tongues named, and the wise cieature showed by' its manner that it .understood what <vas • being addressed to it, and did several things that it was bidden lo do. The claimant proved his ease, and walked off the proud owner of ajnost learned ' k % .: ' r BLOWING THE CURFEW HOBS. Every one knows : that Norman, William ordered the fires to be covered and folk to go to bed at the ringing of a bell, Though the custom as such has long died out, sometimes eveu 1 ~ ■ now " the curftiw tolls tlio knell of > parting day." But in the Yorkshire city of Bipon, there still exists a ' pltasantvßrißtib.il of-the.old practice, ' for every night at niue o'clock the - ■< curfew horn is'blown in the market place by n man dressed in a uniform that recallsa very distant past. , . TUB PARROT AND THE BABY, A grey African parrot is the hero of otie of the best parrot stories ever told. It was usually kept in the nursery, along with itß owner's children, and, its greatest delight in life was to see the baby bathed. One . day, however, it was somewhat suddenly taken trorn the nursery to the kitchen, where its cage had not been

placed abovo an hour or so when "the whole household was horrified by tha parrot shrieking in the most plercingpJ®! tones: "Oh! tho baby, the baby.' 1 Of courso everybody rushed in hot haste to the kitchen. Here

they found the parrot, wild with exultation, watching Ik routing of a sucking pig I at duty's call. • . Lord Wolsley says that one winter's night, in the Crimea, he was greatly structby the sense of duty which was shown by a prifate Boldier. .. A number of Russians had driven a handful of our overworked meu out of. the trenches; but the Russians were in turn driven back to their own lines. At the extreme end of the trench a British soldier was found on sentry. Though he saw that his fellows had lied in a panic, and must / hve known that he wus in danger of being caught, he stuck to his post. Ab ' a matter of fact the Russian patty had not reached as far as his post, although tliey did go very near to it. When spoken to, heßimply said he hud been ordered to his post by his rv officer, and he did not intend to leave it until he was relieved in the usual way,

■ A TIN MINE UNDER THE SEA. Near Penzance, in Cornwall, there is a little bay, on both aides of which tin lias been " worked" for several years, Towards the end of the ' eighteenth century it occurred to a miner that very likely the tin veins ran bolow the surface of the bay, He therefore resolved to open a mine in the Band, which was covered at high water. About seven hundred feot from the shore lie built a shaft, first of all carrying it upwards till it reached a point higher than the highest spring tides, and then working downwards into tho rook, Although exposed to the fury of many storms and to the constant inroads oi water through the, rocks and the wood word of the shaft, it is said that tin to the value of L 70,000 was raised here. But one" day there came a. terrible, tempest, >■. during (vhich .an American vesselJjl drove against the shaft and destroyed jf the mine, This is not. tne only yf. instance of .Cornish miners working ' below the sea,

SWALLOWS AT SEA. One day, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, d French steamer left Marseilles for Algiers. Two hours later the sky becamo darkened, and presently thousands of swallows perched on the sails, rigging, and masts. Then they flew down on the deck, where they bopped about among the passengers and the crew, and bye and byo they made their way into.thej cabins, It was seen that they were exhausted j by a long flight, for they wore easily 'caught by the sailors, who, however, did them no harm, but gave them plenty of food. All nitjht the bird} remaiued oil board, but nexl morning at 1 o'clock the sentinel swallow sighted the Baleario Isles, and the wholo flock at once took wing for land.

" BROTHER JONATHAN," Just as Engltind and Englishmen are often nicknamed "John Bullj" so i tlio Americans are sometimes called Vi " Brother Jonathan." This namo is * traced buck to tho period of llie war which ended in establishing the independence of tho United States, Jonathan Trumbull, the Governor of 9 Connecticut, was a man ia whose judgment tho utrnoßt confidence was placed, and he was frequently consulted by Washington when difficulties arose. At such times Washington used to say, "We must consult Brother Jonathan." Thus the name bocame a familiar description of the American people as a whole.

A Romantic Incident

A romantio incident in General Boulanger's career Las just been made public. One .niglit' young. Boulangor (says Turner, private secretary to Count Dillon), whilst going hia rounds to all tho sentry posts in Algeria, observed a. woman ■ glide furtively into camp. On making inquiries lie discovered she A was the/raw of one of the natively who had been taken prisoner the' previous evening. Ordering the girl to be arrested anil brought before him, the young officer inquired the reason of her visit to the French camp. The tremblint? girl-a handsome sp&oimen of native beauty, not i more than 17 years old-told her story in a very frank and courageous way when once with what kindness she was being treated. Her ; i Jimm, quite a young man, had : \.- allowed himself to bo led by imprudent friends into taking part in tho resistance against the French troops. When she heard lie had been taken ) prisoner, she determined to rejoin him and share his lot; whatever it may be. Boulanger knew that if they remained they would meet the fate off all tho prisoners, and be shot at daybreak next morning. Seized with pity for [the two unfortunate lovers, who were so fond of each other " that they had resolved to live or die together, he determined \ to set them free, they having boityffv sworn, with tears in their eyes and by all they held sacred, to remain perfectly quiet during the whole campaign Having watohed them leave the camp hand-in-hand, weeping with joy and gratitude on finding themselves frco, George Boulangerieturned to bis teut with that, satisfied, contented feeling formed a good action. From a strictly ' • military,;disciplinary point of <viow he was, no doubtj Very wrong; but he espapetl with a severe reprimand from Major Pechot,the officer the battalion.