All Sorts

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 23, 11 June 1908, Page 38

All Sorts

The Caspian Sea is the lowest body of water on the globe. Its level has been growing gradually lower for centuries, and N now it is eighty-five feet bolow the level of the neighboring Black, Sea. . ' 'Rising like the phoenix from its ashes ' is a temperate phrase when applied, to San. Francisco. Since S?n nnn nn q n" a y, kC lh ? > ires of **° yeara past, about £20,000,000 have been invested in new buildings. -- Burglars (says an Australian back-blocks' editor> entered our home the night before.lastT To the- everlasting shame of the community, for ..whose welfare we have labored during eight-and-tvventy years, be- it said they got nothing. 1 '-- "■- ' Mrs. Bizzey— l noticed you're cleaning house, Mrs Newcome, and I was afraid you might throw your rubbish out on the back lot. We don't do that sort of thing „ here. Mrs. Newcome— l burned all our rubbish in the furnace this morning, Mrs. Bizzey, including a book on V'H.tiquette which I might have saved for you. Family Physician—' Now, there is nothing wrong organically with your father. He needs rest, that's all As for occupation, let him do something which wili neither, tax his mind nor carry with it any responsibility. Son of the Patient—' I understand, doc. I'll get him on the board of directors of some trust company.* A North of England clergyman , who recently preached against ill-natured gossiping, and spoke pretty plainly to his congregation on the subject, relates his experience in the ' Church Family Newspaper.' One of the members of the congregation to whom he was especially alluding, came up to him after the service The vicar thought he had touched her, and that she was about to express contrition ; but she said— 1 Ah r vicar, I am so glad you spoke out ; and what a good thing it was the Misses were there to hear you.' Sir Thomas Lipton's yacht ' Shamrock IV.' easily won the Maiden Race from Southend to -Harwick beating ' White Heather ' and ' Nyria.' Sir Thomas Liptou had the ' Shamrock IV.' built with the intention of making another effort to wrest the America Cup' from America. In September last he forwarded a challenge which was, however, declined by the New York Yacht Club on grounds which in yachting circles were regarded as merely technical and trivial. The three attempts which Sir Thomas Lipton made to win the America Cup cost him, for yachts alone, £100,000. ' Shamrock IV.', which was built at the Clyde, cost him £16,000. It is strange that the use of points for purposes of punctuation should be such a comparatively modern invention. Of the four generally-used points only the period (.) dates earlier than the fifteenth century. The colon (:) is said to have been first introduced about 1485, the comma (,) some thirty-five years later, and semicolon (;) about 1570. It is difficult to understand- how the literary world dispensed for so many centuries with the useful points, and their lack must . have added to the toil of the decipherer of written ""documents." When we remember what curious inversions of meaning may be caused by the misplacing of a comma, we marvel how early authors contrived to escape the strange misreadings of their works, in which no points guided the students. Down in the skyscraper commercial district of New , York the buildings have doubled in height an average ,of every 50 years for the last two centuries. They are ten or fifteen times as high now as they were at the beginning of the eighteenth century. At Broad street and Exchange place, Kin the east side of Broad, in 1707, ' stood wooden and brick buildings averaging no more than 20 feet in height. To-day, 200 years later, the buildings on the site of these ancient pigmies are giants 500 feet tall. an old cut of the. street corner in 1707 the outlines'of its ancient>buildings are shown. Already, with another century beginning, the 40-storey building is built to succeed the 20-storey edi-fice,-the wonder of ten years ago. The picture presents a curitaus^history of growth— of increasing wealth and architectural daring.