All Sorts

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 19, 14 May 1908, Page 38

All Sorts

Fair Aspirant— What is the chief requisite lor a ypung lady entering the literary field ? Editor (who has had a wearying day)— Postage stamps.

Who is the responsible man 'in tMsi firm ? ' asked the brus!q(ue visitor.

I don't know who the responsible party is,' answered the sad 1 , cynical office boy, ' but I am always to blame.'

The express train was rushing along at tine rate of thirty miles an hour, when a five-year-old youngster, who was sitting at the window, was startled by the rush and roar of a passing train, and fell back in his fright. Recovering quickly, he looked up in his father's face, and gasped : ' Papa ! did we swallow it?'

' Now, Tommy,' said Mrs. Bull, ' I want you to be good while I'm out.'

' I'll be good for a penny,' replied Tommy. ' Tommy,' she said, ' 1 want you to remember that you cannot be a son of mine unless you are good for nothing.' .

' What sort of a table do they set at your boarding house ? ' asked the young man who was contemplating a change.

' A table- of waits and measures,' replied Wis friend. 1 The first long and the latter short.'

No tobacco is grown In Egypt. The Khedive has forbidden its cultivation. There are no olive' trees on the Mount of Olives. The Turks and tourists have destroyed them. The Holland cheese is seldom seen at The Hague, and Neufchatel cheese is made in New York. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Egypt is a c tizen of the State of Florida, and the head of the anti-Armenian party in the Turkish Empire is an Armenian.

The sales and earnings of electrical apparatus throughout the world in 1907 have been, put down at £660,U00,000 sterling. ' Knowing these facts,' said the president of the Electrical Association of New South Wales recently, in his annual address, ' there is nothing whi?ch makes you feel more than anything thaitl you have suddenly landed back, into the middle ages than when you hear men, and prominent men, state that electricity is still in its infancy, and that, therefore, they will defer for a few years before putting in electnical plant. You cannot hit a man who says a thing like this. You are too overwhelmed. You can only pity his ignorance. I qjiite appreciate Shakespeare's" statement that ll there are more things in heaiven amd earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy." No one contends » that we have discovered all that we have to discover in electricity ; but it it certainly not in its infancy in the sense in which the particular individual referred to above said of it.'

There are few birds or animals which have figured so prominently 'in the realms of fairy-tale as the white stork. At the present time it is held in affectionate regard, and in Holland, Denmark, and Germany is afforded the strictest protection, e\cery inducement being held out to persuade it to biuild its nest on the house-roof. Sometimes even a cart-wheel will be fastened on the roof, and this generally proves successful, as the bird is very fond of building on some kind of flat' foundation. Once occupied it 'is often: held by generation after generation of tenants, and as additions are yearly made to the nest, the original shallow structure at last attains a height of several feet. In Morocco also, the bird is held in great regard, and according to Colonel Liby there are in Fez and other large towns, regular stork hospitals, and tha.t, should a bird be in any way injured or fall from the nest, it is sent to one of these institutions, or rather enclosures, which arc kept up by subscriptions from wealthy Moors. The stork is one of the very f"*v birds which appear to be quite dumb. It supplies the want of a voice by a very remarkable clapping noise made by the long, horny beak. The affection, displayed by storks for their young is! well known. They feed them by thrusting their beaks down into the gaping little mouths and injecting the halfdigested remains of their last meal, which may represent frog, fish, young bird, worm, or insect.