ODDS AND ENDS

New Zealand Tablet, 22 November 1906, Page 38

ODDS AND ENDS

' Can your mother look at your, hands' and tell your fortune ? ' 'No ; whenever she looks at my hands she tells me to go and wash 'em.' In Spain, Portugal,-, and Italy cork, grows in abundance. Some of the trees - are from one hundred to one hundred and fifty years old. When about fifteen .years old they commence to yield cork-bark/ and are then stripped for five years. 'Incisions are made round the trees ; the bark- is -stripped, boiled, and pressed ; then it is dried, cut, trimmed, and tied in bales fox export. .- - A little "boy of Jour years of age, on noticing for the -first- "time a lock of grey hair on his father's head, asked : ' Papa, why_ are some of your hairs grey ? ' Thinking, to- drive -home a moral lesson, the father answered: 'Papa' 4ias'^a jiew' grey hair every time his little' boy ! is naughty.' "The child seemed lost in thought, but after a pause said gravely: 'Then grandpa must have had awiullyf naughty boys.' A North Island schoolmaster received the following - note Irom one of his brightest pupils, a girl about " twelve, years old :— ' Dear Sir.—Sorry I cannot be pre- - sent this afternoon. Circumstances relating to tho - birth -of a sister do not permit.'