Madge.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1905, 20 September 1884, Page 6

Madge.

A t\ oman with a tender haunting voice, And brave sweet eyes^in which the sunny flash Will sparkle ere the laughter curve her lips, And peep out slyly through the drooping lash. A woman on whose head one seems to see A circlet, woven by the love and tears And laughter she has won from us, whoso lives Her presence brightens through the happiest years. The hands — a trick of hers — arc oft oui;stretched; So many cling to them, and strong men rise The better from her touch, while children's smilea Will break in laughter a<3 they meet her eyea. — So true a woman, that were all her art, Arrd bright sweet coquetry, and winning ways, To pass from memory in the time to oome, Thero still were flexfc enough for grateful praise, In that bystanding in tho fiercest glare, As one whoso whole brave life is one of good And tender deeds, she help 3 our girls to grow More noble through her perfect Womanhood. — M. E. W., in the Theatre.

A. coiuusspoxdunt of the Daily Noes, speaking on the erection of a telegraph line in China, says :— Little knots ot people may frequently be seen gathered ronnd a post listening with gaping astonishment, but with the fullest confidence, to some wiseacre who is pretending to explain the modus operandi. He tells them that there is a devil in each poßt, that the posts are placed close enough together for the devil in one post to make himself heard fay the dfcvil in the next, that the wire is placed on the top of the posts merely to keep them in an upright position ; anything of a slant would make the devil inside feel very uncomfortable. These devils, of course, speak a language which is both unintelligible and inaudible to the uninitiated; "foreign devils," however, understand it well, and so to send a message is a very simple thing. A " foreign devil" speaks it to the devil in the first post, he passes it on to the next, and so it reaches its destination, where another " foieign devil" receives and interprets it. Other explanations are sometimes given, but all of thorn aro equally wide of the mark.

According to Kranick l s Zcitschritf flir Metallwaarcn Industrie, the introduction of atearn into enclosed spaces for the purpose of extin guishing^re has been successfully tried in Berlin. The owner of a steel-pen factory in that city, in consequence of repeated outbreaks of fire in the drying-room, had steam pipes placed in three of the rooms, this appliance being shut off by short soldered pipes of an easily-flowing alloy of lead and tin, arranged to work automatically. One day a hissing noise made the fireman aware that one of these appliances had been called into action. It wa3 found on investigation that the contents of the drying-room had become ignited, but that the steam thus set free had extinguished the fire before it could spread.