Miscellaneous. ROMANCE OF A LAW COURT.

Waikato Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1607, 21 October 1882, Page 2 (Supplement)

Miscellaneous. ROMANCE OF A LAW COURT.

Chief- Justice Holt considered justice as a cardinal virture, not as ft trade for maintenance. Wheroever lie was judge he never forgot that he was also counsel. Tho criminal before him tfas always suro'he stood before his country, and,' iiivshort, a parent of it. Tho prisoner knew that though his spirit was broken with guilt, and incapable of language to defend itself, all would bo gathered from him which could conduco to his safety, and that his judge would wrest no law to destroy him nor conc6araTiythat~could saVe'liiUE -HtTWaStlie' son of an Oxfordshire knight of good property, and a bachelor of Gray's Inn. In his early years it appears that he was conspicuous for his idloness and dissipation. While at Oxford ho seemed to have abandoned himself to every species of licence and immorality. It is said that during his residence at the University, Holt, together with some associates as reckless as himself, were rambling over tho country until tlieir resources failed them. Upon this event thoy agreed to separate, and Holt pursued his journey alono. Towards evening ho reached a very comfortable inn, which he irnme- ' diately entered, and ordered an excellent supper, and desired that his horse should have erery attention paid to it. After ho had concluded his repast he strolled into the kitchen, where he saw a daughter of tho' hostess standing by the fire sliireringwith ague. The hostess told him that her daughter had been nearly a year in this state, and although she had spent nearly £40 in doctors and doctois' stuft sho could obtain no relief. Holt listened to this detail with the greatest attention, and assured the mother that sho need bo under no fiuther apprehensions, as he knew an infallible ' finve for her daughter's disorder. Ho then returned . to the parlour, and hastily scribbled a Greek sentence on a slip of parchment, carried tho charm to tho anxious mother, and desired her to bind it 1 round tho suifoier's wiist, and ho declared sho would hear no moie of the ague. Tho hostess obeyed these directions, and fortunately the ague did disappear and Holt acquil ed tho reputation of ; a miracle worker. At the end of a week he boldly r called for his. bill, but the grateful landlady assui ed him that it was she who was in debt to him, and i only regretted her inability to cancel tho obligation . ho had laid hor und6r in restoring her daughter to 1 health. Foity years passed over, and the gay and ! thoughtless student hud become Chief Justice of England. At the assizes for tho city in which thib ludicrous ad venture took place he had to tiy [ an old woman accused of witchciaft, beingpossessed ' of a chaim for cunng and spieading diseases amongst cattle. The Chief Justice, at the trial, ■ desired to see this redoubted charm, and to his 1 amazement ho found it to bo tho indontical slip of s paichment and characters witli which he had him- : self deceived the cicdnlous landlady. lie related . tho anecdote to the jm y, and the poor old woman \ was lmmodiatcly acquitted. When ho was Chief Justice ho onco lecognised in a culprit whom ho ' had to tiy ono of his quondam associatoi. After ' this worthy had been convicted, Holt visited him ' in piison for the piupose of learning what had bo- : come of Ins eaily companions. '• Ah, my loid," was tho criminal's reply, " they 1 aio all hanged except your lordship and myself."

TAIJLI.AUX. Thl sun of Austerlit/. had set Behind tho pantiy dooi ; Napoleon sheathed Ins gleaming blade And laid it on tho iloor ; The Iron Mask took off his wig — It hint his ear, he said; And Queen Elizabeth lcmovcd Tlneo-quartcrs of her head. The next thing was Iniquitous, Which seemed to please them all ; And then we played Tho Prodigal, And then tableau'd The Fall; But Snipes, -who took Tho Serpent's part, Got hungry piobably ; At least ho ate Tho Apple up And quaivcled with The Tree. A larky spirit was abroad Which spoiled tho serious things, And led the girls to giggle at Apollyon's awful wings ; And when tho final scene was set Of Mary Stuart's death, Poor Mary was in Such a gale She couldn't catch her breath. * A gloomy court, a headsman's block All hung with weads of woe, An Executioner in black, And tapers burning low ; A weird, funereal, solemn sceno, Impressive, gloomy, dark ; With all the tragic retinue Just bui sting for a lark. Too bad ! but Mary looked so sweet, And had such pietty hair, The hcad&man leaned upon his ax And kissed her plump and squaro ; Then Perky Jones, tho cowled monk, So giim, and stern, and slow, • Turned somersaults across the block And spoiled the whole tableau. Then buzz of talk, and change of seats, And laughter's merry peal, Broke up the show, and all the boys Took partneis for a leal. And we at Jones's Corneis think That tiying to be jolly Is better, thirteen months a year, Than limp, aesthetic folly, David L. Pioudfit.

THE ROMANCE OP A MDJISIY. One of Thcopbile Gauticr's novels, with the scene laid in Egypt. The author revels in all the traditional lore of the Nile. He is a painter, choosing the pen rather than the pencil. An English Lord (Evandale) and a scientist, Dr. Eurnphius, a famous Egyptologist, set out on a tour to find an original tomb. The subject is introduced in this way :—": — " I have a presentiment that we shall find a tomb intact in the valley of Bibon-el-Molook,' said a young Englishman of haughty mien to an individual of much more humble appearance, who was engaged in mopping, with a huge blue-checked handkerchief, his bald head, froni which the perspiration was oozing, as though it were made of porous clay and filled with water like a Theban gorgoulette. ' Osiris, hear you,' said the German doctor to the young Lord. ' This invocation is certainly permissible oj^posite the ancient Disopolis Magria ; but we have failed so often — the treasure-seekers have always been ahead of us. If we ca.n but find a tomb untouched by the Shepherd Kings, the Medes of Cambyses, Greeks, Eomans, or Arabs, that will yield up to us its treasures and mysteries inviolate,' continued the perspiring savant, with an enthusiasm that made his eyes sparkle behind his blue spectacles." This conversation is supposed to have taken place on the banks of the Nile. Soon afterwards these persons set out for the royal necropolis of Thebes. There they fell in with a Greek, who took contracts for excavations, and was in fact, a speculator in mummies, a violator of tombs. The Greek was ready for a trade. He offered to conduct .them to a. tomb which had never been opened for a thousand gunieas. Then follows a long description of the approaches to the tomb, the excavations, the series of crowded chambers, the hieroglyphs and symbols, and, finally, the discovery of the sarcophagus. The savant unwound the fine linen badges until the last one was reached. A ciy of admiration burst simultaneously from the lips of Eumphius and Evansdale at the sight of this wonder. Never had Greek or Eoman statue presented a more elegant type. The particular characteristics of the Egyptian ideal gave to this beautiful form, so miraculously preserved, a slendemess, and litheness - 'that antique marbles do not possess. The islight, tapering fingers, withnaUs brilliant as ' agate, the high-bred, .narrow feet, the slender, waist, the small bust, showing its firm, beatiti- , ful outlines beneath the gOldleaf covering, the , icontour , of the hip not too prominent, the J 4 rp)uridne|s f ,oithe thigh, the leg a little long, , jj^^^licately.moulcfed ankles, .recalling the ' HBij|g&c&\,q£;!;the ( and. dancers 1 , assisting at the at Thebes. $io grace of the !" of the v^pnian, that with' '.such ' tender upon 'the walls ■■ l orußn. or , patiently in „ebpny,s '

could not have differed, mhch f^'Wa? } of tho young Egyptian when alive. l!he features wore the calm of slumber more than that of death; "the eyelids; fringed with long lashes, showed between their edges, stained with' antimony, the enamel of the eyes, lustrous with the 'dewy light of life; it seemed as if they wer?e about to shake off, like the dream of 'a m^meiji, the?sleep of thirty centuries^ I?he nose, small and delicate, had'tetained, its pure outlines ; no depression deformed" the beautiful oval of the cheeks; the mouth, tinged with a faint color, was gently closed, and on.the .voluptuously -modelled lips restejl a melancholy and mysterious smile, charmingly sweet and sad; the same smile that closes, in such a delicious curve, the mouths of those adorable heads surmounting the Canopian vauses in the Louvre. Then follows a description of the jewels found on this royal -mummy. When the last bandages were taken off, the novelist contrives to have a " fragile roll" drop out, which contained something more than the ordinary signs and symbols of the ritual. That is made-to contain the material of the novel. It is a tale of love, recording scones in the life of the young Egyptian woman, Tahosa, who was in love with a young Hebrew, Poezo, who marched out of Egypt with his kinsfolk and made the passage of the Bed Sea ; and of Pharaoh, another lover and rival, who marched " into the Bed Sea and did not return. Lord Evandale, who had the story translated for him, never married, and was supposed: to be in love with the fair Egyptian. The story is remarkable for its strained improbabilities. Yet the descriptions are often very graphic, so that if all the characters were stricken out it would still be a readable book.

THE " BIAN FLY'S" LAST FLIGHT. " A pitcher that goes too often to the well is broken at last." " Professor S. J. Dare, the Man Fly," was known all over the country as a daring and graceful performer on the tight rope. He was at one lime with Barnum. Three months ago he fell while giving a performance in California. He struck upon his head and remained insensible for ten days. The injury to his head resulted in permanent deafness in his left car And a certain numbness of his face. On Monday he exhibited at Flushing, Long Island. The rope was stretched about thirty feet from the ground. The gymnast made the rope taut by twisting it with a billet of wood which he neglected to fasten, except to secure it by placing the billet against the chimney, and relying upon the pressure of the rope to hold it. Ho went through the first part of his performance, and then started out blindfolded across ths rope. During his previous acts he had, by some means, deranged the billet of wood which held the rope taut, and just as he reached the middle some bricks in the chimney against which the billet rested were displaced, the billet itself slipped and the rope suddenly slackened. He lost his footing by this unexpected movement, dropped his polo, and fell astride the rope. He bounded back in the air from tho force of tho fall, made a frantic' effort to catch the rope, and then fell baskward to the roadway, striking upon his shoulders and the back of his head. The blow rendered him insensible, and he was picked up unconscious and was bqrne to a neighboring hotel. He lingered about four hours and then died. His real name was James Seman, and he is said to be the son of a clergyman who is editorially connected with a Norwich (Conn.) newspaper. It is believed that the coroner's jury will recommend the prohibition in future of such performances #3 Seman essayed. — Exchange.

MIXED RELATIONSHIP. A young fellow in England was recently invited to visit an old gentleman who had a "mania" for pedigree or genealogy. As he had also an excellent reputation for his dinners and his wines, the young man stood a good deal of talk about his host's ancestors for the sake of the other things; but when the old gentleman took him through his picture gallery and, showing him a portrait of an old fellow painted 200 years before the time of James 11., and said that it was a portrait of his father-in-law ; and another of his brother -in-law, who, at the age of 18, fought at Edgehill in 1642 (being born in 1624) ; and a third of his nephew, who at the time of his death was ninety-two years older than his uncle, the guest got out of that house at the earliest possible moment. He was dealing with a "crank." As it turned out, however, the old gentleman was correct. For his " brother-in-law,"at the age of 78, married, in 1703, a young girl of 17. Her father was at that time a young man, but he, too, married when very old and had children, his youngest being born in 1739. In 1816, when she was 77 years old, the old gentleman who T)wned the picture gallery married her, he being 19 at the time. So that the old gentleman's father-in-law was, as he said, alive in the time of James 11. But as this father-in-law had a son-in-law many years older than he was, this gave the old gentleman a brother-in-law who would have been 257 years old if he had lived until 1881. As this brother-in-law died soon after his marriage, his young widow married again, and- had a son who was born 91 years before his uncle (by marriage) was born, so that the old gentleman was not a lunatic, unless, it was when at the age of 19 he married a woman nearly 60 years older than he was. — Detroit Free Press.

THE TROUT FISHING LIAR. " The trout liar," said Captain Herbert, "is the gem of all fishers. He is the saddle-rock liar ; a moose among antelopes ; Hyperion to a satyr ; he is the long-tailed comet among the quiet twinklers. All men cannot be trout liars. The trout liar must be born with a peculiar fitness for the task, and then he must be educated to it and devote himself to treat lies as a life-work. " When David said in his haste, ' All men are liars,' Saul and Abinadab, Doeg and Bdmonite, had probably just returned from a trout-fish down along the brook in the Valley Elah, and were telling what they had seen and what they had done, and David, as he listened to them murdering the unharmed truth, naturally supposed there was no more truth left in the hearts of men in all the wide world. "The trout liar exceeds all other liars, because the man who has done any amount of trout fishing is, to a certain extent, a travelled man. It is his custom to sit on the verandah and tell his, stories, crushing all competition, and putting his feet on the neck of all ordinary striped bass and land-locked salmon liars. But if it happen that just as he has told his master-piece the opposition trout liar comes in with a right bower, a genuine royal flush of a trout lie, the first liar is hurt teffche heart ; he is dejected and sorrowful, and says not another word that night. But he draws new inspiration from 'defeat, and the very next place he goes to he appropriates the lie that paralyzed him, and, unblushingly claiming it as his own, defiantly crushes .down all pitiful competition with a crowning lie 'that only two 'days before crushed' 'him. "There are several kinds of trout liajrs. The liar of weight, who never catches more than half-a-dozen trout a day, but they each weigli anywhere from five to ten pounds. r Then ,there is the liar of numbe/s, who always 'catches N so many dozen in one hour and twenty-eight minutes. And there is the liar of place 3, who knows pools, dark and still: irf ilie Heore^i the rocks, that are 'juijfb'pilihg 6'ver with trout, and he takes you, under many paths of secrecy and' by stealthy and circuitous route?, to these'placW, and you* fish in' them for eight, mortal hours' without a' nibble. " *' '_ , . ] t ' i /"But' you can never corner" a' trout }i&y--f Arithmetic, 'jfaots, science,' probabilities, pre'ee-^

in a horse trade ; you may believe the army and you may believe the snake liar} but 'when a man takes nis cigar from his lips, and with a simple prefix c-f^a plfice arid date, starts in on a trout story, bar and bolt and lock and \ double lock the, gates' of your belief when he Igets to the place. Don't believe a single solitary trout, not though it weighs less than a pound. ■ Under the shadow of the' trout, truth dies, and the" man that fishes four days and only hooks one lone trout, so small that he looses it in his empty basket, comes home the biggest liar of them all." — San Francisco .Chronicle.

ECLECTIC SHOBT-HAND. Shorthand is the art by which one can write from 150 to 200 words a minute. When the operator is in good trim he can attain a higher speed than 200 words a minute. By practice he I converts himself into a machine, which absorbs a word at the ear which is instantly transferred to paper by the fingers. When the stress on the machinery is not too heavy the adept can often think of something else, while his work is being mechanically performed. The first method of doing this kind of Writing was called stenography. This was succeeded by phonography, which reduced the labor by rejecting the superfluous lettering that had crept from various causes into language. The eclectic system by J. George Cross, M. A., invented some time ago, contains the best features of all the systems. It does not ignore the habits acquired in long handwriting, which is a great point gained. The haijd, before short-hand writing can be undertaken, has become habituated to motions which should be utilized, rather than eliminated. The writing of the eclectic system has the general running, flowing appearance of 'long hand. The characters made use of are horizontal, right oblique and left oblique lines, gurves in the same classification, together with loops and ellipses. The letter k is of course omitted as superfluous when its sound is given to c. There are short lines and curves which represent different characters. In this way all the characters required are secured. Abbreviations can be obtained by' what is known as the line position. A consonant which is made to cross the line of writing is understood to be followed by i or y ; one which begins at a point above the line indicates that c follows, and two points above, a ; one point below 0 and two points n. By this device the vowels, though indicated, are eliminated from the work altogether. E also can be represented by a heavy shading of the letter which precedes or follows it. This, beyond question, is tho best and simplest system that has yet been developed. But it is doubtful whether auy old short-hand writer can avail himself of it without running the risk of getting two systems mixed up in his head, when there is not an instant of timetfor discrimination or reflection. The work has already gone to a third edition in America, which is proof of its success.