CLIPPINGS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1847, 8 May 1884, Page 4

CLIPPINGS.

A company of twelve Viennese swordswomen, who are said to bo as remarkable for their beauty as their skill, will shortly arrive in Paris to give a series of entertainments and try their strength with some of the leading French amateurs. An Exchange Company's telegram from Rome says : -Tho Tope lias been informed that an English lady who has for some years allowed Ins Holiness £4,(100 per annum, and who died recently, has bequeathed to his Holiness a sum of £30,001). Cardinal Catildi is leaving for England to obtain the bequest. Some excellent singeis who have been trained for the opera, and many who sing regularly m the chief concert- rooms, are engaged on Sunday in the choirs of the churches in New York. The salaries of good sopranos and altos lange from 300dol. to 400ilol. <i year, but much higher sumo arc paid to special singers. Public salaries and private wages arc absurdly low in .Switzerland. The President of the Confederation receives only £600 a year ; few judges get more than £200, while there is haidly a bank manager in the whole country who earns twice the latter sum in a year. The winter now about ended in England and Scotland, was the mildest ever experienced within the recollection of living man. Roses were in full bloom in the isle of Bute in the middle of January, usually the coldest poition of the year ; butterflien were abundant in England, and the heat of London was quite oppressive. Tun Pope heads a subscription to build a memorial church at Daniel O'Connell's birthplace, Cahhciveen, and promises to furnish the corner-stone. The Pope speaks of his personal knowledge and pleasant lecollections of O'Conuell, and expresses himselt as giatih'ed in becoming the first Mibsciibei to the election of a national Irish monument to O'Conncll. Therk are no less than 10,000 square miles of almost unbroken foiests in North Carolina— pine, chestnut, oak, maple, beech, and hickory timber in their finest growth. Within the next ten years it is estimated that the timber alone in North Carolina will exceed in value the piesont total valuation of all the propmty in the State, including land. The State grows as man)' as nineteen ■\aiietios of oak, and its pine foicots arc of the heaviest. Some most important correspondence has been stolen from the house of a deceased statesman. It consists of confidential letteis exchanged between the late Due de Morny and Napoleon 111. '' lie fear of its publication is causing quite a flutter of excitement in Parisian cades. The advantages of breeding fiom polled rains are summed up by a Mis&ouii sheep hieedcr after a nine \eal3' tn.il thus . The animals fight loss, me no\ it fly-blown around the horns, arc more conveniently sheaied, and, what is of the most importance, keep easier and <fiow longer."' If this be true the sooner horns aie dispensed with the bettei. If they keep easier it must be accounted for on the gi omuls that they aic more peaceable and quiet. A Losr. Sr.i.Lr. — A caitain famous liistoiiual dcseit snail was brought from Egypt to England as <i conchological specimen in the yens 184(5. This particular mollusc (the only one of his race, probably, who evci attained individual distinction), at the time of his airival in London, was lcnlly alne and vigoious, but as the autlioiities of the Biitish Museum, to whose tendci caie he was consigned, weie ignorant of thi-> unpoi- j taut fact in liia economy, he was gummed mouth dou m\ aid, on to a piece of cardboaid, and duly labelled and dated with scientific accuiacy, "Helix deseitorum, Mai cli -•">, 1810.'' Being a snail of a lclmug contented disposition, however, accustomed to long droughts and corresponding naps 111 his native .sandwastes, our mollusc thereupon simply cuilcd himself into the topmost 1 crosses of his own whoils, and went placidly to sleep in pel feet < ontentment for an unlimited poiioil. Every conehologist takes it for jri anted, of com so, that the shells winch lie leceivcs from foreign paits have had then inhabitants pioperly boiled and extracted before being oxported ; for it is only the mere outer shell or skeleton of the animal that pre sen em our cabinets, leaving the actual flesh and muscles of the creature himself to wither unobserved upon its nati\ c shores. At the Biitish Museum the deseit snail might ha\c snoozed away his inglorious existence unsuspected, but a happy accident which atti acted public atti action to his lcmaikablc case in a most extiaoidinaiy mannei. On March 7. ISoO, neaily four yeais later, it was casually obscned that the caul on which he icposed was slightly discolouied ; and this discos eij led lo the suspicion that pei baps a h\w« animal nu«ht be temporary immuied within that papeiy tomb. The miiMMim authorities accoulingly ordeied oui fnend a wanu bath (who shall say hereaftei that sciencp is unfeeling !) upon w Inch the giateful snail, waking up at the touch of familiar moisture, put his liedd cautiously out of his shell, walked up to the top of the basin, and bega?i to to take a cmsory siuvey of British institutions with his four eyebeiring tentacles. Rostiangea iecovei\ fiom a long torpid condition, only equalled by that of the seven sleepeis of Ephesus, deserved an exceptional amount of scientific recognition. The deseit snail at once awoke and found himself famous. Nay, he actually sat for his poitr.utto an eminent zoological artist, Mr Waterhousp, and a wood-cut from the sketch thus procmed, with a histoiy of his life and aihentuies. maybe found even unto this day in Dr Woodward's " Manual of the Mollusca," to witness if it is a lie. — TheCornhill Magazine. How John Bkown Buklij) the Be3'OTvTKKs. — Jn the Queen's book we aie told by Her Maye-.ty how John Biown biifled the repoiteis. Instinct taught Brown to avoid publicity, lie was able to read. He was good in many walks of lite. But no training could have transformed him into a competent special correspondent. His heart would not have been in it. The passage, as told by the Queen, is •— " We sat down on the grass (we three) on our plaids, and had our luncheon served by Blown and Francie, and then I sketched. The day was most beautiful and calm. Here, however — here m this complete solitude, we were spied upon by impudently inquisitive repoiters who followed us everywhere ; but one in particular (who writes for some of the Scotch papers) lay down and watched with a telescope and dodged me and Beatrice and Jane Churchill, who weie walking about, and was most impertinent when Brown went to tell him to move, whicli Jane herself had thought of doing. However, he did go away at last, and Brown came back saying he thought there would have been a fight ; for when Brown said quite civilly that the Queen wished him to move away, he said he had quite as good a right to remain there an the Queen. To this Brown answered vevy strongly, upon which the impertinent individual asked, ' Did he know who he Was ? ' and Brown answered he did, and thas ' the highest gentleman in England would not dare do what he did, much lesb a reporter,' and be must move on, or be would give him something more. And the man said, ' Would he dare say that before these other men (all reporters) who were coming up ?' and Brown answered ' yes," he would before ' anybody who did not behave as he ought.' More strong words were used : but the others came up and advised the man to come away quietly, ■which he finally did. Such conduct ought to be known. We were there nearly an hour, and then began walking down a portioa of the steep part." This is the Queen's report of it. The reporter, who was the representative of a Scotch Conservative journal, gives a slightly different account. According to him, Brown began the conversation by asking, " JDo you know who I' am ?" to which - tlie *renpVfce?> .replied, " Yea > you are a