All Sorts

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 19, 9 May 1907, Page 38

All Sorts

' .You seem to cough with more difficulty to-day than yesterday,' the physician saii. ' That is strange/ murmured 1 the patient, ' for # was practising a>ll last night. ' A stranger wishing to play golf at North Berwick saw some onje in- authority upon the matter. ' What name ?' asked tlie di'gfnified official. in charge. "De Neufeldt/ the stranger replied. ' Mon,' suid the official in a tone of disgust, 'we canna fash oorsels wi' names like that at North Berwick. Yell stairt in the morn at ten fifteen to the name of FsArgusson.' Mr. John O'Connor, M.P., has elicited from the English Board of Agriculture some remarkable and even startling figures with regard to the increase in the importation of foreign agricultural produce into the Three Kingdoms. The value of foreign beef im> ported has jumped from £5,599,502, in 1895 to £10,245,550 in 1905 ; mutton from £4,100,120 to £7,236,135 ; butter from £12,802,379 to £20,665,316 ; and flax froip £2,765,772 to £3,291,467. An American, • visiting Dublin, told some startling stories of the height of New York skyscrapers. 1 Ye haven't seen our newest hotel, have ye ? ' asked an Irishman. ' No,' replied the Yankee. ' Well,' said the Irishman, ' it's so tall that we have to «put the two top storeys on hinges.' ■' Wjhat for ? ' asked the American. ' So that we oan let 'em down while the moon goes by ! '• said Pat. The use of incubators Sn the hatching of eggs is not a nfcw process. On the contrary, ib dates back to the ancient Egyptians, who often hatched eggs of viarious fowls in clay ovens heated to tile proper temperature. With the dyinjg out of the Egyptians the science of incubation, like so many of their other arts, went with them, and it. was thought that it was one of the lost arts until Reaumur regained it in the _ last century. To call a man who sells small quantities of sugar and flour ai ' grocer ' is, strictly speaking, an error (says the ' Aye Maria,'). There is really no such thing as a retail grocer ; for the word was originally grosser, and meant one who sold in gross, or at wholesale. Our ancestors talked about ' .grossers ' of fish and ' grossers ' of wine. In the days of Edward 111., "spicier ' was the word for grocer. But it happened once that the Grossers' company sold so much spice that the terms became confused ; hence our modern word ' grocer ' for one who sells spices, and similar* things. In China- physicians are treated in precisely an opposite fiashion from the way we treat them. Each family has its physician, "whose business it is to preserve the health of that family. As long as health reigns the physician receives a stated amount of pay, but from the hour a member falls ill the physician's pay ceases and is s not resum/edi until the patient's hefelth is restored. ' Massage is one of the principal forms of treatment in China. It is used especially in cases of pain. The greater the pain the more violent ,the treatment. Oftentimes the physicians, wh>o are all abhletes, by the way, will climb right up and kneel on the blody of the patient and pull and haul and ibfcat the sufferer until the cries for mercy exceed the groans from the malady. The most ancient bound books in the library of the British Museum (says the- 'Ave Maria') are the following floiur : the manuscript of St. Cuthibert's Gospels, written between 698-720 ; it is bound in velvet intermixed with silver, and ' has a broad silver border ;' both the centre and border are inlaid with gems,-rA copy of the Latin Gospels, written in the beginning of- the ninth century ; the binding is coeval or nearly so ; it consists of thick oaken covers plated in silver and set -with gems ; on one side is embossed the figure of our Saviour, -with the symbols of the Evangelists in the corners, and on the other side is the Agnus Dei.— Another copy of the Latin Gospels of the tenjtb 'century, in ancient metallic binding;, ornamented vAtih crystals.— A Latin Psalter, with the -canticles, litany and Office for the Dead, written and illuminated ablout the year 1140 ; the covers are of carded ivory, set with turquoises ; on one, side are represented some events in the life of DavJd ; on the other, illustrations of the Seven Works of Mercy.