MISCELLANEOUS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3423, 31 January 1890, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS.

There is nothing; like dramatio ' training to teach self-control, Wo must-first'become aware and conscious , that wo have a body, aims, and legs, and then learn how to use .tliem,When Napoleon wished to receive instruction in • public speaking he , sent for an actor, Talma. A young twin" who intended to becomo a clergyman, lawyer, or public speaker of any kind would behelpcd by full dramatic 1 equipment; this would oliminalo "parlor voices" and awkward maunerß from some'of our pulpits, Courts of ! Justice, and college piatfornis, Tho i best English is spokon on stage and i not in colleges, and tho introduction . of stage training in a university , might establish an . authoritative standard for the pronunciation of , English. Tho Bev. Cbas. Shaw, of SW [ Andrew's Free Church, Dundee, wad* | walking along the esplanade in that • city recently when he saw a little girl 1 fall into the river, The cliild was i being carried away by the tide, whgK I the rev. gentleman, without waiting : to divest himself oi his ecclesiastical i garments —by no means the best i adapted for a swim—plunged into tho [ water, and after a protracted and i exhausting struggle managed to bring i the child to the shore, i The German Government are i endeavouring to curb dancing among i tho young by limiting the houra . during which it can bo indulged in, ; and prohibiting candidates forconfirmi ation from dancing at all. i Thelrish regiinentsof militia in the , United States have signed a petition I asking M. Carnot for the loan of one of the (lags carried by tho Irish ! Brigade at Fontenoy, 'so that it'may \ figure in the grand demonstration to , be got up next year at Philadelphia by the Irish American Military Union. If the President accedes to this i demand a delegation of officers belong- - ing to the Union will como over to fetch the standard and servo asits escort. An electrician in New York.hto: , beon engaged on single over three years. In ths early part of 188G a lady called upon him and told bim that she wished to have the superfluous hairs on her lip and chin removed. There is only one way to accomplish this successfully, and that is by inserting an eloctrio needlo into the capillary tube of each hair and killing the root by electric shock. : At a rough estimate the electrician tho number of hairs on the woraans - lip and chin at 9000, He is an exceedingly busy man) and he sat down and figured out how long it would take to accomplish thn total eradication of the beard, Then a contraot was'entered into with the patient, aud the result was that the electrician lias drawn, a .comfortable income from her ever since. He has completely annihilated the beard, and tlio lady's face is 1 free of the old adornment.

The New Plymouth Harbor Board's sinking fund at present amounts to £18,769,- of ; which, sum fs,9oo*ia invested in bonds, and the balahcdFiß ; on fixed deposit in tho Bank of New Zealand. :

The Foresters' Sports Committee anticipate that, after paying' all tho expenses of the recent gathering, they will be able to hand over about £2CL> for tho Wellington Free PubHff' fund.

The Tasm»niari Ministry has tiikou the decisivo step of withdrawing the Government subsidy from tho Benevolent Society, and thus destroyed a system' which has worked well for many years.

The Railway Commissioners, in conjunction with tho Manawatu Railway Company, have roduciid the freight on butter between New Ply. mouth and Wellington to 48s per ton on lots of 4 tons and over.

The building tiado is pretty brisk in Wairoa North just now. No fewer than three halls., are going up, tho Masonic in Dargaville, the Foresters' in Mangawharo, aud ,a public hall in

Arapohue, By a new process, and by means of perfected machinery, manufacturers in the Eastern. States are making carpets out of cows' hair, claimed to bo superior to woollen carpet. This industry will prove of great benefit to cattle interests of the West in making a market for tbo hair as well as the liido

The old proverb ivhicli relates that lightning does not strike twice in the same place bus, in the mind of John Bucks,'of Urbana, Ohio, lost its signi : £ ficance. He has had four barns, on tbo samo site, struck and burned within the Bix years last past.' There is also said to be in the town of York, Maine, a barn on tho sito of two other barns that liavo been burned burned by lightning within the past 30 years.

At the late manoeuvres in Belgium, a number of amateur photographers followed the troops, and 'ptotograped several points of the manasuvres by the instantaneous process, raanding general, Van do MiAti, hearing of this, desired, to look at; tho» photographs, and so. discovered at" once that his commands had not in every ease been carried out/

' " An .-'American who has spent ,:m\tch time in Italy tells us," snvs a jletter from-Italy, " that we cannot conceive the terrible' -poverty of the peoplo.of .Italy—tbat great numbers of them have l nothing'' to ; eat > but roasted chssnuts, and that they suffer keenly from the'odld'in'winter from which they have no suitable protection,"

V The defences of Gibraltar ore not by any means in a Eatisthctory condition, Tho 100 lon gun which was displaced from its former position some two yoars ago, owing to tho pliitform giving way during pr.ictioe firing, has not yet been replaced, and tho other gun of tho same calibre cannot be used, lest a worst accident should happen, Tho tiimous rock galleries aro quite unsuitable for the modem heavy ordnance. Yot now batteries liavo not yet been constructed, Two Bagdad Jews We bought tho entire Bite of ancient Babylon, On Ibii Le Clirotfen Bolgo well remarks: " Is it not a signiGctnt fact that two Israelities should to-day possess the soil and the ruins of the immenso city where their ancestors wero captives and slaves nnd of wliioh their prophets had announced tho utter destruction ?"—Hebrew Standard, At a meeting of iho Kumeroa Boad Board, Hawks's Bay, the overseer reported that a riinu bridge had been standing ten years, and was quite sound now, He said that rosinous rimu always stands well, LordDigly, who died the other day was, tho son of Admiral Sir Henry Digby, the hero of ono of the strangest psychical experiences of the ago. During the war with Spain, in 1799, Sir Htn'y was in command of A warship, the Alcmene, and was cruising on the Spanish shores, going in h southerly direction. As nothing was in si; lit, Sir Henry retire I ono Bi »lffc:o litd, A Bhort time after he rang liis liell, and inquired who had been in his cabin. No one had 'been thorn. This happened t-wico, and then he remarked, "It is very odd. Every time I drop asleep I hear somebody shouting in my ear, 'Digby I Digby! go to the northward.' I shall certainly do so," ho added. He gave orders accordingly, and sailed due north, In tho morning ho found a hugo Spanish galleon laden with silver closo at hand. He boarded it and the treasure lie took vug such that, as bounty money, each mariue in tho Alcmene received £lB2 Ids 9}d, while tho captain himself lmd £40,730 18s. To the last day of his life, Sir Henry never ; doubted but that the voico he heard was an interposition of Providence in favour of English and against Spain. At the conversazione given in connection with the Art Congress lately held in Edinburgh there were | some capital Scottish tableaux vimuts i which may furnish a useful idea to ' somo of our readers. One subject . was taken from Theresa Duncan's ' picture of Chatles Edward sleeping in a cave, guarded by Flora Macdonald, Another—in which the artist himself posed as the central fi«uto—representating the dying Covenanter, from Herdsman's " After tho Buttle" Jacobitj airs were played during | these tableaux. In the final scene, "John Knox preaching before Mary Queen of Scots," tho Queen and her four Maries wero represented by a group of strikingly beautiful women, and an old Scotch psalm was chanted the while. Tho curtain bad to be ' raised again, timo after time, on the r lovely vision