MISCELLANEA.

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 125, 2 April 1872, Page 7

MISCELLANEA.

The Taranaki Herald has the following : —* “ The last funny story is to the effect that an old deaf gentleman was walking in his garden one day, when every one was away from home, when presently the milkman came along outside the high garden fence, and gave his customary yell. The old gentleman heard some- ■ thing, but being very deaf, was unable to make out just what was wanted, so he put his ear trumpet in place, and elevating the bell-end over the fence, exclaimed, ‘Here!’ The milkman took it for a dish, emptied a quart of milk into the old gentleman’s car, and went about his business.” Two Kinds.— There are two kinds of girls ; one is the kind that appears best abroad, the girls that are good for parties, rides, visits, balls, *fcc., and whose chief delight is in such things. The other is the kind that appears best at home, the girls that are useful and cheerful in the dining-room, the sick room, and all the precincts of home. They differ widely in character. One is frequently a torment at home ; the other is a blessing. One is a moth consuming everything about her ; the other is a sunbeam, inspiring life and gladness all along the pathway. Now it does not necessarily follow that there shall be Lwo classes of girls. The right education would modify them both a little, and unite their characters in one. An extraordinary tramp across the Australian continent by a lunatic is noticed incidentally by the Adelaide papers. The lunatic walked from Queensland to the Darling, then down that river and across the country 1 to the Peake, a station on the overland lino : of telegraph, lie was without canteen or ; blankets, and lodged with the natives he met with on his journey. The condition of his hair is very remarkable. It is ten inches in length, and strongly and densely matted together. An extraordinary feature in his hirsute development is that the hair all round the back and sides of the head was short, ! and the excessive growth was confined to the I crown, where it was so luxuriant tiiat the man had to cut a hole in the top of his hat I I to let the hair through. 1 “John Peerybingle,” in the Melbourne , 1 Weekly Times, says : —A teetotaller of thirty |: years’ standing wants to know whether a man ‘ i can get drunk on colonial wine ( Let him J | try it, and I won’t answer for his standing ‘ j any more for the present. Instead of writ'ng J to the papers to ask the question, he can get a bottle of this kind of teetotal drink from 3 f the grocers and drink it. If he doesn’t feel J “ mixed” after it, you can call me a Dutchman. Why, 1 recollect going to see a man once that brewed colonial wine. A kindly, good sort of an old cock, he took me to his cellar behind a stable, and let me loose, as it 1 were. “This,” says he, holding up a glass, j “ I call the pure juice of the grape. There isn’t so much as a whisper of brandy in it.” 1 We sat across a log in the cellar, dreaming r | the happy hours away —and we drank that I pure juice of the grape. Wo talked —and I drank the pure juice of the grape. We arI gued—and drank the pure juice of the grape. 1 1 We borrowed money of one another —and we 1 d-d-drank the pure puico of the g-grape. Wo ■' sang—and we g-g-graped and chirruped, and and wo d-drauk pure juicoograpes ! There 0 was a bundle of straw in the corner of the cellar, and I slumbered. There was a bundle s of straw in the other corner, and there the other man slumbered. When he woke up, I asked him how ho felt. lie said there wasn’t ° a lie ulache in a hogshead of it. It was the 5 - pure juice of the grape ! Still 1 thought we’d b been drunk, and I think so still, otherwise why did that other man snore so, and what t j fetched him, as ho called it, off the “ propJ pindicklar ” I My teetotal friends, and my I friends that aren't teetotal, dont’t deceive ( 1 1 youi selves. Take the very purest grape juice you like, and in fermentation, I've read in j bool: s, “the sugar is decomposed, and "the d | brandy formed.” This is the stuff to make 'P a teetotaller talk of his friends. The Queensland*r publishes an amusing rc--10 { port of an imaginary lecture by Professor •’ e j Allianamcss, delivered on the Ist January, j 2872, on “Australian Natural History of a j Thousand Years Ago.” The following is an 'd | extract ; —“ The Emu, or Aynm.—Tliis ferocions bird was one of the same species as the ‘ mower bird’ of New Zealand, so called from s-1 its scythe-shaped beak, with which it could ■d i mow down several men at a time. The emu j differed from the mower in having a short •k sharp beak and capacious throat. Even ! better than human flesh it liked eats, and it | from the mode in which it secured them dej rived its name. Knowing the fondness cats ly have for making love during the midnight j hours, the emu approached the dwellings of nl j the settlers after dark, and would utter a io j mew of seductive sweetness. The cats — poor ic j victims to misplaced confidence —-would leave a j the shelter of the roof to join their lovers, as id j they thought, and lie forthwith devoured by cs i their relentless enemy. They were thus called ‘ mews,’ and to distinguish the sexes, to ‘ hc-iuews,’ and ‘ shc-mows.’ As they died lout, the male's appellation got applied to ik both, and thus we have emu.” The Morepork : “ A species of bird identical, it is ,y, supposed, with one mentioned in very ancient •a writings—the ‘harpy.’ Like the emu this ue bird had a favourite description of food ;c- namely, pigs, but instead of using any art to entrap its victims, retying on its enormous ! size and strength, it used to enter the lints | of the inhabitants and utter its awe-inspiring r-ry, consisting of two words ‘More pork !’ | A pig would bo immediately sacrificed, in ,’O. j order to bribe him to depart. Instances even od | have been known in which inhuman parents ml | have, in the absence of pork, present ml the nr ! monster with a young child, in cube to asi cue its dmurtuve." I