MISCELLANEOUS.

Inangahua Times, Volume II, Issue II, 29 August 1881, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS.

The chiropodist first dates from William the corncurer.

A commercial traveller from Boston, having had run of hard luck io prosecuting business on the road, receiving from his firm the following exhilarating dispatch : ' If you can't make expenses, come home at once.' To which he sent the following reply ; * Ail right. Can make plenty of expenses, but no sales.'

There is more need of a revival in medical than rel : gious circles. We look confidently forward to the day when a man can get \m tongue examined, his pulse felt, his case diagnosed, and bis little pill put into his mouth, all for the chargo of Idol. As the matter now stands, sickness in the family is more expensive than a divorce suit.

A Chicage man at Planifield lud., desired to leave his travelling bap: and overcoat while be walked to a place twenty miles distant lie put them

in a field, unprotected from thieves except by tbe sign, ' Small-pox — beware !' and when he returned they were right there in the field. But they were twenty feet under ground, buried by health officers, Oh, ifc takes a Chicago man to be smart.

llt is possible,' observes the Home News, ' that we are on tbe threshold of a new devolopment of motive power applied to passenger traffic, and that, the railway as we know it well soon be a thing .>f tbe past. Already tho electric railway is in full and substantial working at Berlin, It is perfectly simple : the current lies on tho rails and projects the carriage ;;long, the only drawback so far being that horses at crossings have been killed by an electric shock, and,]thJs evil will be obviated placing the rails at these points underground, A still more remarkable adaptation of electric power is to velocipedes and bicycles. M. Troue, a French electricity stored in ! a battery beneath. The whole carriage, passenger and apparatus, did not weigh more than 4 cwt' and it went at a speed of sor 6 miles an hour. The new invention of M. Fauro's will much simplify the application of tbe power, and much greater speed can be atiainod, This new power will cer« tu'nly create a revolution in locomotion. To middle-a^ed men the notion of mastering tbe bicyle has hitherto, seemed hopeless, and the effort needed to work a tricycle is irksome except to tbe most robust. But with one's electrical power in a bos under i\ seat, to be turned on or off at the pressure of a finger, it will be very different. It is no fa; ••"etched prophecy to predict that electric vehicles will be in general use within a year or two. Not only will they supersede bath chairs or garden chairs for invalids, but they will surely be adopted by all who desiro to transfer themselves? easily aud promptly from phco to place without being at the mjrey of public conveyances, or of keeping a re_ruhr carriage. Au electrid coach will wir.t no coachman, and \'z well be dragged by horses that eat no corn.'

An articlo in the ' Cornhill, 1 by the wife of a London clergyraai, headed ' A Home to the I'oor,' has b;>ea attracting a good deal of attention, and will probably bear fruit abuikl.-uitiv during the cJiuiug summer season. She recommeuda, and has already illustrated by successful practice the course of inviting small parties of tho toiling poor to enpy and refresh themselves in private housrs aud pleasure grounds, the party being m each case sjlected by those beat acquainted with the neighborhood whence they are co be invited. The chests may be from tweuty to fifty or more, acc't'iliug to tlvj cxrent of thej emci'tainer's prerni^o?. And M>s 13.\rr,ctt ;v»:l! poiaU -v: iluO a •:';.. I'ui-jioheJj <j;vu i: uol ;; higaiy-dt;.:-

ated mansion, is full of interesting novelty foe the toiling poor, and dwells strongly also upon the value set by the very poorest of His poor on a personal welcome.

The Marquis of Westi muter left an estate with an income of more than a million a year, ten thousand pounds going to each of 4ris daughters, and the remainder to his son now the Duke of Westminster, One of hw sisters married in Cannes, in the south of France, an accomplished physician, who wished lo nettle in London ; but with the English contempt for physicians in general, and the Duke of Westminister's in particular, the Duke g-ive his sister another tea thousand pounds to keep her husband out of England,

The Yictoriaa press generally, attacks in strong terms the composition of the 'Mtniatorfol team which Sir ' Bryan O'Loghlea has got togetherOne paper says:— 1 It is not alone a burlesque ; it is not alone an elevating Billingsgate and stupidity ; it is not a'one a monstrous piece of Cabinet manufacture. \t is worse than all t*> is, for it ia nn insult to the country. The very Takings of the Assembly have been brought together to discharge functions which none but men of intelligence good character, and prestige among their fellows should have any kind of part in. Wit.h the exception of one member, there is not a man in the Ministry wbo is not either a rowdy, achron : c place hunter a traitor to bis party or a political imbecile of the first water. The sole exception is Dr Dobson ; and how the mischief a man of his culture, Univer* sity standing and respectability could have anything to do with such a molty crew passes all comprehension: All the rest are the yery ' rag-tag and bob* tail ' of the House without their careers of late exhibiting one redeeming feature.'