General Items.

Waipukurau Press, Issue 4, 5 January 1906, Page 3

General Items.

—o — The present disorders in Russia, recall the prophetic utterances of one of the most brilliant of Russian poets—Alexander Pouchkine. A favorite at the Russian Court, he yet hated despotism, and raised his voice in protest. For his bold talk he was banished to the southern provinces. u Think you/’ he said, “to dazzle for ever those heavy-eyed, drowsy militudtS by the splendor of the Czar's crown? Error, That splendor will fade, and just, too, at a time when it will be most needed. These sixty millions of s finish serfs sleep still, you say. True ; but they will awake. Not certainly in our time, nor perhaps in that of our children, but awake they will; and when that moment con e < the Emperor’s sceptre will be a chi d’s plaything ; his divine right a jest; the supremacy of Russia a vanished dream. Be warned, and let the work that must be done be timely set about The army, do you say ? Pooh ! On the day I speak of the extinguishers will be on fire too." This was uttered more than three-quar-ters of a century ago. Perhaps the most remarkable dwarf on record was Sir Jeffery Hudson, the little - fellow whom Scott introduces in ‘ Peveril of the Peak. 1 He was born in Rutlandshire in 1819. When eight years of age he was presented by the Duke of Buckingham to to Queen Henrietta in a cold pie. He afterwards became attached to the Court of Charles I. At one of the Court masks the King's porter, a man of gigantic size, who used to torment the little dwarf, pulled from one pocket a loaf of bread and from the other Jeffery, much tp the surprise and amusement of the company present. Jeffery was at this iitoje only eighteen inches in height. i Terror at the idea of matrimony was the reason given in a letter left by a bridegroom named Sonnemann, of Sandberg, Germany, who committed suicide on his wedding day.