MISCELLANEOUS.

Inangahua Times, Volume VII, Issue 1049, 15 February 1882, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS.

There is no end to the strange trades of modern life. One of the oddest is surely that of the obscure and ingenious individual whom for want of a recognised professional title we may call the caterer's in newspapers cuttings. The carter's business is to collect all the notices of pictures which appear in all the London and provincial papers, to cut them out, and to travel round with the snips to the different artists they concern, who are invited to buy for the modest sum of 6d a snip. If the beginner has a proper interest in seeing his or her name in

print the sympathising agent or " artistic correspondent " will persuade him to standing order, and for a small yearly sum he will become possessed of all the pleasant or unplesant nothings which concern him in the press. A calculation of the profit of this curious business can only end in perplexity. How many sixpences does a Times Academy notice cut up into 1 How many separate criticisms does a successful picture encounter in a year 1 How many artists care to buy up their reviews 1 Here is an opinion of the performances of the Chinese Opera Company recently appearing in Sydney. It is extracted from the Federal Australian : — I have fallen down a 60ft shaft at Forbes, have been blown up out of a Hill-end claim, chased three miles and lifted into the next allotment by a bull, who evidently objected to my wearing a red shirt, swallowed by a Cooktown alligator, eaten alive by a festive gang of Soloman Island picnickers' run over by a Randwick races tram-car and speared by the Regan blacks, bnt I can safely, say I never thoroughly enjoyed myself yet until I heard the Chinese Opera Company here on Tuesday last To describe this musical misery, one would require the North Pole for a pen, the Atlantic Ocean for an ink bottle, and paper the size of a dozen worlds like ours to do the subject justice. I earnestly recommend all your readers who have deadly enemies to buy them tickets, and at once cart them along to this place of enternal torture. igA singular criminal case has just been tried at Berlin. Some time ago Prince Eristoff, a Russian, called on a firm of jewellers in that capital, and, under false pretences, induced them to send to his hotel articles to the value of about 9000 marks, for which he also persuaded the hotel porter to advance in payment of the sum of 3000 marks. Thus possessed of the jewellery, the Prince sold part of it, and was about to start from the Eestern Station for St Petersburgh when he was arrested on suspicion, at the instance of the confiding porter. The counsel for the defence intimated that the hotel porter had been refunded the money he had advanced and the jewellery had been restored to its rightful owner, begging the Court at the same time to regard these, as the Prince did not intend to commit a fraud, but the Bench, being otherwise minded, sentenced his highness to two years' imprisoment, and loss of civil rights for the same period. A mixture of Indian blood with that of the despised Negro would not seem to be a very promising compound for the production of talent, but Dame Nature delights in surprises* Miss Edmonia Lewis, the distinguished sculptor, is the daughter of an American Indian by a Negress. In the United States her lineage subjected her to constant insults, and she fled to other lands. She was very kindly received in Rome by the late Pope Pius the > inth, and Lord Bute, one of England's richest noblemen, purchased a Madonna, carved by her, for £600. She can now command abundance of orders at very high prices. Gerius will force its way upwards even though weighed down with the heavy disgrace arising from the most ignoble parentage. The death is announced of Cardinal Cantermi, who was the oldest member of the Sacred College, he having completed his eight-sixth year on October 15. He had lived during the reigo of seven Pontiffs, and served The Holy See under the rule of four successive Popes. The number of persons emloyed in making shoes in Chicago is about 2800, including those employed in the 700 stores and small shops. About 1500 persons are employed in large factories where the work is performed on the top floors with imperfect and in most cases no ventilation whatever. Female and child labor is largely employed, and there is a constantly, in creasing demand for it, as it is cheap. The subdivisions of labor have destroyed the demand for skill that requires long study and practice. The wonderful machinery in shoemaking has divided the making of a shoe into sixty-four parts, and the shoemaker of to-day is only the sixty-fourth part of a whole shoemaker.