CLIPPINGS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1871, 3 July 1884, Page 4

CLIPPINGS.

The Queen's pi inters, Messrs Spottiswode and Co., have the largest printing p/ess in the world. It scarcely ever stops, and turns out 24,000 sheets per hour. In Saxony it l.a\ been ordered that in fiiture no female singer under twenty on yeare of age, and no act res ov dancer (whether nati\e o t- foieignn) undei pove lttvn, will be allowed to appeal in anyplace of amusenn ill's. THh Oh.no-,0 have j-ist completcil n bridge at Smgang, o\ui an aim of the Chim sea. It is live miles I'miu, built entirely of ston-*, hu 300 aicht's seventy teot high, the roadway is seventy f« et wide ami pillars seventy li\ c f'ft apait JSJiss Ha. TisdS, (f \lal\ein (KngHiub, a relttive of Wai len Hasti.ij.s completed h>r 103 id yi'ai on March 13 She was thus 10 yens oil at tie time of the ai(|iii: t il of he r illnstii'iii . lelativo. The Aivhdu've John of AusMta has io cenfcly onstnu'tcd a lepeaMng rifle w tli an attached ohamber. A committee h.is been cngigod in testing the weapon, and the results of the txpjiiinc.it aro said to have been highly satisfactory. Or the 20,000 bron/e articles which have been found among the icmains of the Swiss lake dwelleis about 30 per cent are rings, 17 p^r cent biaclets, 4 per cent knives, 3 per cert needles, 0.4 per cent haminprs, and 0.2 per cent fibula; South Africa has now a Wesleyan Conference of its own, and it has been resolved to push on through the Tiansvaal and Switzerland to the centre of the Continent. In South Afiica they have twenty thousand church members, to whom Oie hundred and eighty fo n missionaiies and foity-eightchatechists minister. The Spiiit of the Times says of Maggie B. H., dam of Iroquois, that she was bred by Mr James B. Clay, jun., of Kentucky, and her name given out of positive romance. It was no secret that at the time Mr Clay was the nccrptel wooer for the hand of Miss Moggie B. Beck, a daughter of United .States Senator James Beck, of Kentucky. The lady was one of the most boii'itiful and accomplished of that brilliant cottilo of women who shono at the gay Federol capital, But th« waters of true lo\ c did not run smoothly. It is seldom they do. For some reason Senator Beck did not look kindly upon the match ; it v.'a-i broken, and the lady ultimately mauied one ot theCorcorans, of Washington. But the mjrtle soon replaced the oiange blossom, and the tall glass has waved over the spot wheie the young bude is btuied. Mr Clay, while ho smaited fioin the pangs of despised love, did nothing ia&h, but, in the tiue cavalier spiiit, he named his filly Mpggieß. B , .iftes thegiil whom he hid loved ami lost, and as sncli she became noted on the tutf, and in the stud has attaniel a distinction sui passing that of any of her co'itemporanes. Mirvclk Piays. — Miiacle plajs went through no tiansition stages after the manner of the catei pilluis till they were transformed to something altogethet dif fcrcnt. They siuvi\ed unchanged long after they had passed theii piime ; indeed, till the time of the youth of Shake speare, and they dwippeaied then .dto gbther because the use for them had passed away. The Bible in their own tongue had been given to the people. Inasmuch as these sequences of incidents from Sciipture, always chosen for their bearing upon cardinal points of Christian faith, imposed a mote continue 1 strain on powers of serious attention than it would be possible to maintain, places of relaxation were prouded by the interpolation of l'e^t, and this was diawn always in England from incidents not i-i themselves Sciiptural. Noah would b" provided with an obstinate wife to piovide comic bnsii. ess, and so foith. lie tween the Old Teslarneiit and New Testament beneo tlieie was dv inteihule, th u Shepherds' Play, that led up to the bnth of Christ The sliepherds supposed to be keeping their flocks at Bethlehem weie presented as common shepht ids, talking, jesting, wiestlmg, one of them plajing especially the pait of the county clown, till the song of the ..ntHs w.u heard. Ath*i->tthey mimicked it ruddy, afterwards they became impiessed, they weie led to the infant Chnst in the manger, knelt, offered their mstic gnofs, and arose prophets. There is icason to believe that this Shepheids' Play had it independant oiigiu in rustic spoits out side a town, ananged by tiie cleigy, who cencealed a clioir atiaytd as angels to rise the " Gloiia in K\telsis " at the pioper time, and thin led the mile ao'oif, and their audience into the l.ghtjd chuich. Here there had been setup a ivpiesentation of the new-born Sa\.our, ami as the shepherds knelt b) the manger the organ pealed, the "(-Jloiia" icsounded through the church, and tlie people icalising the occasion, had their hearts stirred with emotion. The Mag', too, in Eastern robes, would ndc into the town and bring their ofTenngs. So also when Easter was at hand peisoir. in Oriental diess entered the maiket place, selling spices— spices to be bought for the aniiointmciit of the Loid. It Imp pens that in the Wakefield scnes thenaie two Shepheids' Plays piowdcl, either of which miy be chosen by the guards who acted the w hole seiies. One of these furnishes the iisml dialogue and sport, but the otlici happens to develop a aslioit faicic.il stoiy which accidentally fulfils the leijuiNito condition?, and so becomes oui cailioat known piece of acted diama. — Cassell's Libiary of English Liteiature Wii \t is FajU i'ricitv? — Electricity ib the most ijtiipondouo ioice in native appaientl}' acthe thio'.ghont the unneise, the cause of the phenomena desciibed as attiaction, gra\ itation, and m.ignetism, and most piobably of lie.it and b«ht. It i-j incessantly aLti\e, and maintain., it would seem, the physical life of the world. Science can only appieciato some of its results, and apply it on a very limited scale to practical pui posts; but knowledge of its adaptability is giowmg e\ery day, and w hat a iew yeais fcinte was little moie than mateiial for I» illiant laboiatoiy expeiiments oi the pioduction of .scientific toys, is now becoming a gigantic motive power a\ailable for the semce of piactical science and the progress of eivih/ition. Abeady it provides a means of instantaneous communication between poitions of the earth's surface most lemotc fiom each other. It it gratluallv supeiacding all other methods of aitifieia! illumination, and it piomises to make steam obsolete as a motive power. What other aid it may give, we know not, and we seaicely dare conjecture, although it would seem that the most \ivnl imagination must fail to apprehend it-5 possibilities. It is in the earth beneath us, known as the tene&trial magnetism ; it is in the atmoa phere aiound us, and its energy ia seen in the lightiiing flashes •which mark the tii&charge of foice between clouds, each of which is a storage of force ; and in the vast, inconceivable kosmos, electricity maintains the relations of suns and systems mo\ iuc; with enoimous velocity and unvaiying regulanty through space Tt is a force wheih, so far as human intellect can appreci ate it, knows no cessation, diminution, or deterioration. It can be suinnioned but not created by skill of man-made up paient in the results of friction or chemical action, but made apparent only, not produced. A spark the eighth of an inch long, produced by contact with the small electric machine in the lecture room i 3 precisely similar in character to the terrible flash which splits a tree to frag ments, striking it with sudden death, or topples down the most massive tower reaicd by the skill of man. In Oriental fable, we read of lamps, the rubbing of which pvodu^d an obedient genius ready to ihinisler to every want. We can excite the electric force, and the most stnpondon» of a'li the genii nature— if riot, indeed, the master spirit, of wh b all'Jjnown natural forces aie but varia tioue— is at our service ; our servant, i W& ,wiH-rrour most terrible master if w< have no skill to conciliate him.-r-Beeton'i Dictionary of Soience,