MISCELLANEOUS.

Inangahua Times, Volume VII, Issue 1193, 10 November 1882, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS.

After the Punch's regatta in Sydney, Rush, the winner made a speech, and said he believed every man did his best in the race. Having won the highest honours, he would decline any further contest unless Hanlan came out. He spoke highly of Beach, and said he woxild be champion of Australia — and perhaps of the world — in two years. Laycock has again challenged all comers for .£2OO aside and the championship of Australia over the Paramatta course. < ne of the most remarkable cases of " mysterious disappearance " on record is that of the engine of the Kansas Pacific Hail way that wont down into Kiowa creek, some 30 miles west of Deuvei, one black, stormy night, several years ago. Thf stream, which is ordinarily insignificant, had been transformed by a sudden flood into a roaring torrent which swept the bridge away and in the engine plunged in and was swallowed up in the quicksand. Repeated efforts have been made by boring and digging to find the lost locomotive, hut we learn from good authority that they have all been to no purpose ; the thirty tons of iron and steel have Imrrowed beyond discovery. Po^ioly they are working down toward* China, and will ere long turn up as t.h« first locomotive in the Celestial Empire. County Court Judge (to defandant) " The case seems clear to me, and, having had the goods, you must pay the amount claimed. Nw, how much can von pay. Can you manage four shillings n month V Defendant (a poor man, certainly) : Mr, sir? four shillings a month 1 Tso, certainly not; but I clout mind paying two shillings a week." The Auckland Herald, reviewing the growing averson to marriage and itsresonsibilities on the part of young men, has some home trusts at the young girls, of the period, asfollows : — 'Young girls, the children of artisans and mechanics, or even labourers, must now learn to play the piano, and must not scrub, or they will spoil their hands for piano playing. They prefer the assoeia- I tion and company of fast clerks and i shop lads, who cannot afford to marry with the dress and luxuries which they must have, to the company of working men who do marry. As to going to domestic service, they would be horrified at the idea. And thus it happens that, with a superfluity of idle young women in the i-ommunity, domestic servants cannot be had, and we have to offer special encouragement to immigration, A few years ago an enormously wealthy bai.ker, of the Hebrew persuasion was travelling from. Munich to Vienna by vail ai:d in the same carriage with hiinsoll ! v.as a gentleman accompanied by a friend. he stranger was of pleasii g manners, and the purseproud banker "at length condescended to enter into conversation with him, and gradually (as he himself expressed it) took a liking '-to the man." lief even went so far as to say at last, j " You soein to be a good sort of a fellow and a gentleman. Look here, I am going to Vienna to see my daughter, who is married there, is awfully rich, and keeps a tiptop house. I will introduce you to her." The stranger thanked him, and mentioned that by a curious coincidence, he too was travelling to Vienna to see his daughter. "Your daughter, indeed!" said the Jew banker, with considerable arrogance ; '■ and pray who may she be 1 " " The Empress of Austria." wa~ |

the cool reply. The stranger was the Duke Maximilian of Ba\aria, ; father of the present Empress of Austria and the ex-Queen of N aples ; the companion was his aide-de-camp. It is needless to add that the Hebrew millionaire utterly collapsed. | A dogatSumter (Ga.), meets guests at the gate of his master's residence, escorts them to the house, and then goes to the yard and catches chickens for the | day's dinner, holding them till the mis- • tress comes and kills them. It would I spoil this story to doubt it. ! N-"»tal papers record an affecting , incident which occurred in the Trans. vaaldurii gthe late war, astoldbyMajoi Anderson, of the 50th. A wounded officer was lying helpless on the ground, and a Boer had his weapon raised and was just on the point of giving him the I finishing stroke, when the officer indes- ! pair made a Masonic signal of distress. It j was understood by the Boer, who, at the risk of his own life bore his brother to a place of safety. j Some curious experiments as to the action of the brain during sleep have . lately been made upon himself by M. Delauney. Working on the known fact that the action of the brain causes a rise of temperature in the cranium, the experimenter found that the converse of this was true, and that he was able, by covering his forehead with wadding, to stimulate the action of the brain. ' 'reams which are naturally illogical and absurd became under his treatment quite natural and intelligent. ''o also found that their character was much modified by the position assumed during sleep, whereby the blood might be made to flow toward particular parts of the body, and thus increase their nutrition and functional activity. These experiments have but slight value. Those whose lives are spent in hard work, either physical or mental, will prefer their dreams to be as illogical and vague as possible, so that the poor brain may not go working while the body is at rest. — 'Chambers's Journal.' " Atlas," in the " World," describes a new variation in juvenile dancing evolutions : — 'From Baden-Baden I hear that the prettiest, and certainly a very novel, figure in the ' Grosser Cotillon' — the concluding dance at the 'Rinderfest' — was the air-ball figure.' In the pause between the figures colored air-balls were brought in and distribed amongst the children. Then the music struck up, and a complicated figure was commenced, the little children couples going through their evolutions with almost military I precision. At certain intervals the chilj dren ' popped ' their balls, and so well I was this timed that the reports, for the most part, blended exactly with certain notes in music, producing a by no means unpleasant harmony. Some of our ballet-masters might pehaps take I a hint from this youthful cotillon, which : would add effect to then next produc- • tions. | At a monthly meeting of the New ■ South Wales Royal Society, held recently, Mr. G. Butterfield exhibited a model of the orbits of the great comet now visible and of the earth, showing their actual positions at sue- ; cessive dates June to December, 1882. i The model was on the scale of 10,000, i 000 of miles to an inch, sufficiently j large to show some interesting partioj ujars as to the position and motion of the comet with regard to the sun and the earth. By the application of scale from the position of the comet to that of the earth at corresponding dates (says the Evening News) it is i seen that the comet since its perihelion has been slowly increasing its distance from the earth as it rapidly re- | ceeds from the sun. In November, j however, the direction of tha earth's ) motion converges to the direction of the comet's motion ; and the comet, slackening slightly its speed, as it is more remote from the sun, is slowly decreasing its distance from the earth during that month. In December the motion of the earth is too much athwart the comet's path to keep up with the motion of the comet, and the comet increases its distance from us, and | would rapidly disappear from us. In apparent position in the heavens the comet is increasing its elongation west from the sun, and will in a few weeks been seen from midnight, and in December. A discussion ensued between a member of the society who saw the comet of 1843 from England and one who saw it from this colony, on the splendour of the present comet, compared with that of 1843, and Mr. ButterhVid explained that as the orbits of these comets lay almost entirely coincident they should be seen to greater advantage from this southern latitude. Various shifts of fortune visited a miner in New York and he was able to count his million. Trying to double this — he had fixed his fortune at 2,000,000i10ls — he was again financially wrecked. This time he was so poor, that he stayed among the wells and was forced to earn a livelihood as a day labourer. New opportunities opened to him, and the third time he got very rich. Reckless speculation once more brought him low, and he left for California, hoping to improve his prospects but was again thrown back. I!e made a fourth, fortune and lost it ; and finally i a fifth with the same result. \Y ithin a few months the fickle goddess has smiled for a sixth time, and he has invested all his money in Government bonds— well nigh 1,7000,000 — and foresworn speculation. He sold all his oil before the recent tumble of prices, and says ho has learned wisdom by ■■Ap^)'r>uc<\ j