The Family Circle

New Zealand Tablet, 25 April 1912, Page 61

The Family Circle

THE PEOPLE IN IT Some love the glow of outward show, • The shine of wealth, and try to win it; The house to me may lowly be, ' If I but like the people in it. .What’s all the gold that glitters cold, When linked to hard and haughty feeling? .Whate’er told, the noblest gold Is truth of heart and honest dealing.; . A humble roof may give us proof That simple flowers are often fairest; And trees whose bark is hard and dark May yield us fruit and bloom the rarest. There’s worth as sure among the poor As e’er adorned the highest station; And minds as just as theirs, we trust Whose claim is but of rank’s creation. Then let them seek, whose minds are weak, Mere fashion’s smiles, and try to win it; The house to me may lowly be, If I but like the people in it.

I A BRAVE GIRL |! ' 1 Miss Kate Shelly, the only person to whom the State of lowa ever granted a gold medal for heroism, diJid recently at her home near the scene of her heroic acli of 1881. She was 45 years old. I The deed which placed this young Catholic girl’s ? name in the list of heroines was a bright example of j tho courage of a fifteen-year-old girl who believed sho was saving the lives of the passengers on a limited train on the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, although’ later developments proved the number of lives she actually saved was two. The girl was the daughter of a farmer living near Boone, and late on the night of July 6, 1881, as she was preparing to ■ retire, from her bedroom window she saw a locomotive approach the bridge crossing Honey Creek, stop a moment, then advance and plunge into the torrent belpw as the bridge gave way. Realising that a limited ' train was due to cross the same bridge in a few minutes, the girl dressed hastily, improvised a lantern out of a miner’s lamp and started to Moingona to give the alarm. The feeble light soon was dashed out by the fury of the gale, but as she approached the bridge she saw two of the engine’s crew clinging to trees in the creek. ■ ' ! Kate’s trip across the bridge was made doubly 1 difficult by the fact that all the planks had been removed to keep pedestrians from crossing it, and as she crawled on hands and knees across the floating ties her! flesh was lacerated in many places by the stubs of nails protruding where the planks had been removed. But she succeeded in giving the alarm at Moingona be- : fore the limited train had left and in having a rescue party organised to save the two railroad men . who had plttiiged through the bridge. I Passengers on the limited at once made up a purse for the brave girl and railroad men undertook to raise ributions in recognition of her heroism. As : a raatlter of fact, the locomotive had been sent out to see that the bridge was safe, and the limited train would . not have proceeded beyond Moingona until , the engine crew had reported from the station. But this did not i ( minimise the heroism of the girl’s act, and a short time i later the lowa legislature, passed an act awarding Mis* 5 Shelly a gold medal. Soon after Miss Shelly was mad e station agent of the railroad at Moingona, a position she held for years. In 1890, through the • off or ts of the press, a mortgage of nearly 1000 dollars . was I paid off on 1 her home and she had lived in comifortlible circumstances since. ,

WONDERFUL CLOCKS - ; - v : ■■ ■ ■ Somebody once asked a little boy about the nesting habits of the cuckoo, and elicited -the rather startling information that .cuckoos, built - their nests in clocks! Ihe lad had evidently never heard of a cuckoo save in connection with a' cuckoo clock. To most; children the cuckoo clock is a truly . wonderful piece ;of -mechanism, but since the very beginning of the- manufacture iof clocks, it seems to have been the delight of ■ clockmakers to introduce into the working of them some' interestingfeatures, altogether apart from : their primary purpose of belling the time. ’ - • ■ v ; One of;-the most famous timepieces in the world is the Strassburg-clock, which was built in 1352. Following is a recent description of it : — ‘ It is 30 ‘ feet high and 15 feet at the base. On one side of the main portion is a flight of winding stairs surmounted by five columns. On the other side is a Gothic pillar, the panels of which are filled with figure paintings. At the base of the main portion of the clock is a celestial globe, indicating sideriai time and showing the rising, passing over the meridian of Strassburg and setting of all the stars that appear above the horizon visible to the naked eye. Behind the globe is a calendar showing the day of the month and the fixed and movable feasts. A statue of Apollo points out the day of the month. Above are figures drawn in chariots, one appearing each day. On Sunday Apollo appears, drawn by the horses of the sun. On Monday Diana appears drawn by stags. She is succeeded in turn by Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Cupid and Saturn. - Above these figures is the dial which tells the time of the day. On each side of this dial sits a figure, one strikes the quarter-hours and the other holds an hour glass and turns it every sixty minutes. _ The: next story of the clock is devoted to the planetarium and the next is a globe showing the phases of the moon. - Above this are movable figures which in succession strike the quarter hours. The first is an infant which strikes the bell with a rattle the second a youth, the third is an old man, the fourth us Death, which strikes the bell with a bone In the highest compartment is a figure of Christ. Each day at noon a procession of the Apostles passes before Him, while a cock, perched above appears and flaps its wings and crows, three times.’ ... 1 ~ Another remarkable clock is on the clock tower- at the Piazza San Marco, Venice. A Madonna sits on a, platform between two doors overlaid with- gold. When the time for certain religious festivals occurs an angeL comes out of one of, these doors, blows a trumpet, bows to the Virgin and passes out at the other door. the hour is struck by two giants. >. TOO MUCH FOR THE MATE A greengrocer’s boy hailed a vessel in dock at Liverpool. The surly mate gruffly asked what he wanted. reply rve got some vegetables for the ship,’ was the All right, you needn’t come aboard; throw them up one at a time,’ said the mate, as he stood ready to receive the expected vegetables. ‘Ahoy, there, look out!’ shouted the lad, as he tinew a small dried pea towards the mate; * I’ve got a sack of these.’ 8 AN ARTIST’S * WHITE PLUME * lock °af° Wyler’s many peculiarities was a lock of white hair gleaming from among: the black tresses on his forehead. At one house to which he had been invited to dinner the butler came into the draw-ing-room and whispered :! - - i-U'■ ‘There’s a gent, downstairs says ’e ’as come to dinner wots forgot ’is necktie, and stuck a fewer in HIS For at this period Whistler never wore a necktie when m evening dress. eci£tie ', The white lock bewildered others. On one occasion when in a box at the opera the attendant leaned over

and said: * Beg your pardon, sir, but there’s a white feather in your hair, Just on top.’ GRAND LARCENY A clever convict who . wanted more than the regular prison fare once made a complaint in rather ingenious terms. An inspector entered this man’s cell and found it very hot and stuffy. ‘Why have you got your ventilator closed?’ he asked. ■■ -• The prisoner. answered plaintively Well, inspector, the last time I had the ventilator open a wasp flew in, you see, and carried off my dinner while back was turned.’ ■ ‘ ; ' A ROBBER’S REAL TERROR The only really satisfactory burglar’ alarms are living ones and the best of all is a crying baby. No man will enter a house or remain in one if he hears a baby crying, for the simple reason that he knows that some one will be about. The small dog, we may add, is also a burglar alarm, and there is a story told of Sir Walter Scott and a burglar. The author of Waverley had ■ defended a veteran cracksman, and in gratitude he gave his counsel a little advice. It ran something in this way: ‘You are a rising sun, but I am going down. The best way to frighten house-breakers is to have a small dog about. He’ll always be on the alert and is better than the ordinary watchdog.’ GETTING READY Rubber plantation companies are favourite forms of speculation in London, they are so easily begun. Mr. Harcourt, at the British North Borneo dinner, said that a city friend of his was approached with a view to floating a rubber company. His friend was quite ready. ‘How many trees have you?’ he asked. * We have not got any trees,’ was the answer. * How much land have you got ?’ We have no land.’ * What, then, have you got?’ ‘ I have a bag of seeds.’ MORE ‘ LINELESS POETRY’ A North Missouri farmer whose hog was killed by a train wrote for a settlement, says a writer in the Columbia Statesman . He penned his communication thus: ‘ Dear Sir: My, razorback strolled down your track a week ago to-day. Your twenty-nine came down the line and snuffed his life away. You can’t blame me, the hog, you see, slipped through a cattle gate; so kindly pen a cheque for ten, the debt to liquidate.’ He received the following reply: ‘ Old twenty came down the line and killed your hog, we know but razorbacks on railroad tracks quite often meet with woe. Therefore, my friend, we cannot send the cheque for which you pine. Just, plant the dead, place o’er his head, Here lies a foolish swine.-- ■■ ’ ■' ' TWO CAUSES, ONE EFFECT : One morning, at breakfast, Joey announced that he had the misfortune to fall out ■ of bed the night before. . ‘That was because you slept too near where you got in,’ said Ethel, who likes,to reason about things that happen to Joey. ' Pooh, that wasn’t it!’ he retorted, with scorn. * It was because I slept too near where I fell out.’ ONE FOR THE DOCTOR With Home Rule so much in the air, the following . story may not be without interest: In a debating society in the. West of Ireland one of the leading members,- a local doctor, who was a keen

Unionist in politics, was fond .of initiating debates oi political questions, particularly on Home ' Rule, • Or one occasion he delivered himself of a virulent harangue upon that topic, his principal opponent in : the word) war being a working man. In the course' of : his speech- the - doctor declarer that the Irish people were not fit to be trusted witl Home Rule, as they were not even : honest. > ‘I can prove it!’ shouted the: doctor defiantly. Proof! Proof !’ was the general cry.-' ’ ‘Well,’ said the medico, ‘I once practised in i working-class district, and. had over a hundred Irisl patients on my books.' Now, out of that number how many do you think paid me?’ ‘ We don’t know, but we’re willing to take you word for it,’ said the working-man. >■ ( ‘Only ten,’ returned the doctor, impressively ‘Now,’ he continued, turning to. his opponent, ‘car you explain that?’ ‘ It’s aisily enough explained,’ returned the un abashed Hibernian, without a moment’s hesitation * There- was only tin of thim hundhred patients o yours recovered.’ ■ - ; - . i. ; The discomfited medico, says . the author of Iris) Life and Humor, subsided amid a general roar of lour and prolonged laughter. „ If NOT CAUGHT HIM YET I A very small negro boy, was a regular attendant® at a boys’ reading club, and always called for fihe samie book, and always turned to the same place, at whicli he looked eagerly and then laughed -heartily. | The attendant’s curiosity was aroused by a periformance .many times repeated, so-he followed the littlie fellow one night, and, looking over his shoulder, saw he opened the book at a picture of a bull, chasing la terrified negro across .a field. Pie was just- about tip ask-what the joke was, for- the laugh had again'comp rippling up to him, when the boy looked around grinning: “ b T: Golly,’ he cried, ‘he ain’t kotched him yet!’ ADVISING THE JUDGE ‘ A colored man was brought before a police judge charged with stealing .chickens. Pie pleaded guilty, and received sentence, when the judge asked how he managed to lift those chickens right under the window of the owner’s house, where there was a dog in the yard. > Hit wouldn’t be of no use, Judge,’ said the mar.’ ‘to try to ’splain dis thing to you all. Ef you was to try it you like as not would get your body full o’ shot, an’ get no chicken nuther. ' Ef you want to engage in any rascality, Judge, yo’ better stick to de bench, whar yo’ am familiar.’ ; . . : 't 6 - FAMILY FUN Very Amusing.— is a game that must be played by five or more people. Take a strip of paper, let No. 1 write upon it an article and an adjective, then double over the end of the paper so that No. 2 may hot see what is written. No. 2 writes a noun, doublingthe paper before passing it to No. 3, who writes a verb; turns down the paper, and hands to No. 4, who writes another article and adjective, hides it, and passes ao No. 5, who writes another noun. The paper is them opened and read, and the combination makes very funny sentences. For instance, No. 1 writes A mil white; No. 2, Hottentot; No. 3, caressed; No.. 4, a singing; No. 5, baby—A milk-white Hottentot caressed, a singing baby. The fact that no one knows what the other has written makes the most absurd contrasts .between the adjectives and nouns, while the verb wall place -opposing nouns in the most ludicrous positions. It is a very amusing game for : a merry circle.- Whlii more than five play, the different parts of speech are more amusingly distributed, as 6 can begin, 7 continuje, and then,;! gets a verb instead ; of an : adjective, amd each time sends her a new part. ; : /'•