All Sorts

New Zealand Tablet, 23 March 1911, Page 550

All Sorts

Visitor (to little girl): And were you born in India?’ I was. * V hat part?’ ‘All of me, of course/ In the civilised countries of the world 60 per cent, of persons over ten years of age have to work for a living. ‘We need brains in this business, young man/ You needn’t tell me that, sir. Your business shows it.’ Edmund Thiery, the French economist, figures that the maintenance of Europe’s armed peace footing in the last twenty-five years cost £6,000,000,000, which excluded from productive industry 195,000 officers and 3,800,000 men. ‘Oh, how lovely of you to bring me these beautiful roses 1 How sweet they are, and how fresh ! ,I do believe there is a little dew ,on them yeti’ 4 W-well, yes, there is; but I’ll pay it to-morrow.’ Mother: ‘Why did ye strike my child for naethingP’ teacher: ‘ I struck him because he wouldn't tell me where the nver Thames was. He only stood and looked at me.' Mother : ‘He wad be dumfounded at yer ignorance, likely/ Tarsus, the ancient city in Asia Minor, where the Apostle Paul was born, ‘is now illuminated by electricity. Hie power is taken from the Cydnus river. There are now in Tarsus 450 electric street lights and about 600 incandescent lights for private use. ‘You are the greatest inventor in the world,’ exclaimed a newspaper man to Alexander Graham Bell the inventor of the telephone. ‘Oh, no, my friend, I’m not,’ said Professor Bell. 1 ve never been a reporter.’ Surveyor (for new line): ‘We want to run a railway through your cowhouse, farmer.’ Farmer- ‘A railway through my cowhouse? Not likely! Do ’e think Oi’m going to get out of my bed and open the door every toime a tram comes along at night!’ Visitor (consolingly to Tommy, who has upset a bottle of ink on- the new carpet): * Tut, my boy, there is no use crying over spilt milk.’ ■ Tommy: 4 Course not. Any duffer knows that. All you ve got to do is call in the cat, and she’d lick it up. But this don’t happen to be milk, an’ mamma will do the licking.’ ‘I don’t know whether to accept this testimonial or not mused the hair-restorer man. What’s the matter with it r demanded the advertising manager, ‘Well’ explained the boss, ‘the man writes: “I used to have three bald spots on the top of my head, but since using one bottle of your hair-restorer I have only one.” ’ A countryman in a restaurant ordered roast lamb, and the waiter bawled to the cook: ‘One lamb!’ ‘Goodness mister!’ cried the countryman, ‘I can’t eat no hull lamb. Gimme some fried oysters instead.’ ‘One fried oyster bawled the waiter. ‘Well, Methuselah’s ghost! Mister one fried oyster ain’t going to be enough. Gimme a dozen of em. Hang these city eatin’ places!’ The strange thing about rats is that they are perfectly harmless so long as you have a number of them. You can take from a cage a number of rats one by one without any fear but when you get to the last one look out for squalls. The last one always fights, and it takes an expert to tackle him. e Birds get up early in the morning, and they retire early, or they could not do it. The blackbird is the last to go to bed. The robin is awake and singing at halfpast two. Fifteen minutes later the thrush begins: and one after another the feathered troubadours start in. breakfast f ° Ur &U are &t it ‘ At five-thirty it is time for . The history of fungi is full of interest. Ergot, the invaluable medicipe, is a fungus that grows on rye. Fungi are found in all sorts of extraordinary places— the nests of white ants, on the roots of old bamboos. They put to many and varied uses. Some are used as tinder, to make chest protectors, dyes, green wood stain, or as an ingredient in snuff. Two curious foreign fungi may be noted— ‘little man’s bread’ of the Neilgherries. which grows at a height of 5000 ft. It is a subterranean fungus like the truffle, and of as great use as a nutritious rood. Another fungus, which, according to some, is not a fungus, is the ‘ Luckahoe ’ of the United States. ~ It consists almost entirely of pectic acid, and is used for making jelly. Penicilliura, the vinegar plant/ is used in some parts of France to make vinegar.