WAIFS AND STRAYS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 85, 12 December 1874, Page 12

WAIFS AND STRAYS.

++ Sapidity or Motion. — A man walks three miles per hour ; a horse trots seven ; a horse runs twenty ; slow rivers flow four ; rapid rivers seven ; a moderate wind blows seven ; a storm moves thirty-six ; a hurricane moves {eighty ; a rifle ball moves one thousand ; sound moves seven hundred and forty-three ; light moves one hundred and ninety -two millions ; and electricity mores two hundred and eightyeight miles. Cttbbeh'CY xs Abyssinia. — The currency in. Abyssinia is coticular blocks of rocisalt, eight inches long, one inch in width, and one in thickness. No coin is recognised except the Austrian dollar of the year 1780, introdxiced, since that year, to replace the nativsgold withdrawn. General Napier tried hard to introduce rupees or shillings hi the country, but it soon proved impracticable. The natives, besides being very tenacious for the dollar, were also very careful that the distinguishing marks were -visible on the coin ; otherwise, they were refused altogether. These are a portrait of the Empress Maria Theresa, with a diadem of pearls around her head, a pearl brooch on the shoulder, and the mint mark — S.P. It was very essential, therefore, that all the dollars were of the true orthodox stamp. As there were not enough dollars of that reign extant, new ones had to be coined, and it is a curious fact that 500,000 of this obsolete coin were struck at the Imperial mint at Vienna expressly for the Abyssinian Expedition.

A Vert Sm:am Youitg- Jotjekaiist. — An interesting history ef a "smart young man journalist" is recorded by the 'Chicago Post.' This clever young man came to Washington soon after the close of the war, to correspond for the ' Chicago Post' and ' Albany Journal.' He was very young and inexperienced, but a good telegraph operator. Failing to secure the news he wanted ty personal observation and investigation, he adopted a method as novel as it was successful. He could read the Morse alphabet by sound. This was his stock-in-trade. Upon it he operated, and for months "was recognised as one of the most clever [and enterprising newsgatherers at the Capital, and all without any labor on his part. He would rise late, stroll down to the Capitol about noon (just when the other correspondents were sending off their despatches), wander into the telegraph office, listen to the click of the wires, and then send a telegram containing all the important items the other men had gathered. It was easily done and eminently successful. Complaint was made of him, but it was unavailing. He overreached, however, and fell. The Washington Treaty was being considered in executive session of the Senate. The doors and windows were closed, but nothing could hinder this ingenious youth. He climbed te the top of the building, crept over the Senate Chamber, and, lying flat on his face, sborthanded every word of the treaty as it came from the lips of the clerk and arose to the ceiling. He sold it to the 'New Yorl Tribune., The 'Tribune' correspondent was angry, and exposed him, and his papers dismissed him. He has now set himself to work at the improvement of telegraph instruments, and has just invented a machine from which great things are expected. The scheme has been taken up by a company of New York capitalists, and the clever young man is " a millionaire, and but twenty-five years old." Clever Deceptions. — At a lecture delivered in Cxoydon, England, the lecturer spoke of the dodges resorted to by unscrupulous persons to secure prizes at cattle shows. Amongst other improvements made in their animals by exhibitors he mentioned a prize bull at the Ayrshire Association's Show, which was afterwards found to have false horns, and an Ayrshire cow was bought which proved to have a gutta-percha tail. On one occasion He saw three men pouring can after can of water down a cow's throat the morning of the show, to give the beast's ribs a better spring. AtPenniwicb an exhibitor had painted the noses of his black-faced sheep so successfully that he would have got the second prize if someone, in examining them, had not been ma4e as black as the ace of spades. A Cxjriotts Plant. — The French Bishop of Canton has just gent to the Jardin d' Acclimation, at Paris, a plant whose flower changes color three times a day. It is spoken of as another wonderful evidence of Chinese art in leading nature out of her customary paths. It is not more remarkable than a floral freak of Southern Australia, a !beautiful flower, similar to our well-known morning gloxy, with five streaks of color on its bell-shaped calyx. In the ~ early morning the color streaks are pale blue. Toward noon they turn to a rich purple tint, which changes to alight pink during the afternoon. As the day declines the color fades, disappearing entirely after sunset, -when the flower closes and dies. Parisian Art. — There are hundreds of occupations pursued in this world of which the general public know nothing. A peculiarly French, art consists in the restoration of old books and manuscripts, and has been raised by a few experts to a marvellous perfection. The skill of these artists is, indeed, so great that no book is considered by them to be beyond their transforming touch. They take take out the most inveterate stains and marks ; they reinstate the surface where holes have been gnawed by rats or e»ten by worms ; they replace missing lines and leaves in such a way that no one can discover pxe interpolations ; they remake margins, giving them

exactly the color of the original — in fact, so well is all done that frequently the most discriminating jndges cannot tell the restored copy from the perfect original work. Ornamental frontispieces, editors' marks, vignettes, coats-of-arms, manuscripts or printed pages, all are imitated to a degree of accuracy that tasks even the most practised eye. Such restoration, however, is of course expensive. Thus, at the sale of books some time ago, a tattered, filthy and repulsive, but in some respects quite a unique, copy of the Breviary of Geneva brought only one hundred dollars on account of the damaged condition it was in. The purchaser at once took it to a book-restorer, who stated his terms to be one hundred dollars, and that the process would take a year. •

Great Lattghster. — Prescott, the historian, when at his college, was subject to uncontrollable fits of laughter, which amounted almost to disease. He once went to the study of the Professor of Rhetoric to receive a private lesson in elocution, no one else being present. Prescott took bis attitude as orator, and began the speech he had committed to memory, but after proceeding through a sentence or two something ludicrous suddenly came across him, and it was all over with him at once. The Professor — no laughing man — looked grave and tried to check him, in a tone of severe reprimand. This only seemed to aggravate Prescott's paroxysm, and he tried in vain to beg the professor's pardon, but he could not utter an intelligible word. At last the ludicrousness of the situation seized the professor himself, bis features relaxed, and he began to laugh. The more they looked at each other the more they laughed, each holding his sides, while tears rolled down his cheeks. Of course there was an end of reprimand, and equally an end of declamation.

A Curious Fact in Natural History. — At Anner Mills, the residence of Joseph Clibbon, Esq.., near Clonmel, the gardener found a strange-looking object suspended from a slender branch of an apple tree. It was nearly spherical, about as large as an oidi-naiy-sized cannon ball, and was streaked all over with the brightest colours. He soon discovered that it was a wasp's nest, but for some time was puzzled to account for its prismatic tints and singular formation. At length the problem was solved. Mr CUbbon had, some time before, procured a quantity of long paper " shavings" of different colours — red, blue, green, yellow and white — which he flung over his strawberry b*eds to protect the fruit from the attacks of Tbirds and insects. A colony of wasps, instead of being " warned off," made frequent visits to these colored streamers, and, with singular ingenuity, reducing the paper to pulp, soon carried it away for the construction of their nest, which quickly grew under the united efforts of quite an army of little busy artists. The most wonderful part of their work is the regularity of those undulating hues of color, as they were carried around from side to side. This curious nest has been preserved intact, and it is now an object of much, interest and wonder to visitors at Anner Mills.

A Strange Fact. — Notwithstanding all the drain of emigration in the past twenty-five years, the Protestant and Catholic populations have not relatively altered in Ireland. In Munster, in 1851, 938 out of 1000 were Catholics ; the proportion now stands 936 to 1000. In Kerry, in 1861, the Catholics were 967, they are now 968 In Ulster, in 1861, there were 751, there are now 756 to the 1000. The old faith does not die, although all or alanost all the the emigrants are from this class. In Ulster the increase in population, churches, schools, and religious institutions has been marvellous in the past fifty years. Seventy years ago there was only one priest in all North Antrim ; now there are forty. Forty years ago there were only three priests in Belfast, Ballyclare, Hollywood, Carrickfergus, &c. Now Belfast alone has over forty priests. Every town has its churches and its schools, and Catholicity is o nce more becoming the dominant power in Ulster. A Thousand Tears Ago. — One of the wonders of the world is demonstrated in the fact that abotit a thousand year-s ago a colony l of Icelanders was planted on the western coast of Greenland. They* were hardy people, inured to cold, and meagre living 1 , and there seemed to be no reason why they should not take root in the frozen soil of their new home. They built a stone church there, and stone houses to live in, of which the ruins are still to be seen. But what became of the "builders is a problem that has never been solved and never will be. They vanished from the face of the earth, and that is all that is Imown. Whether cold or pestilence, or starvation took them off, or -whether wandering savages killed them, no man can tell. Lost Greenland is the name by which this settlement is known' in history, -which can solve this mystery no more than it can tell the ultimate fate of those hapless women banished to Florida years agone. A Home for Printers. — The Philadelphia 'Public Ledger' says :— Mr J. G. Cooley, of Middle Hill Farm, Connecticut, proposes to turn over the whole of his property, consisting of a wellstocked farm of 150 acres, to his fellow printers who in old age desire to secure a peaceful home at the price of moderate labor. Neither the idle nor the sick will be admitted, but all others will be made welcome, including editors who may have served apprenticeship as printers. Mr Cooley began life as a printer, published the 'Norwich Courier' for several years, and made a fortune in New York "by manufacturing wooden types for large job -work. Having secured wealth and leisure for himself, he desires to make up in some measure for the unequal fortunes of his fellow-crafts-men. * New Form op Gratitude. — The 'Continental Herald' says that early in the summer a shepherd of Oherwald, in the canton of Valais, found a German tourist lying on a glacier in a state of exhaustion, who had evidently been bewildered by the storm that was raging, and saved his Hie. The tourist recently sent a letter from.Bremen to his deliverer, enclosing an order for 500 marks upon a bank in Stuttgart, which, when presented, proved to be valtieless.