MISCELLANEOUS.

Inangahua Times, Volume VII, Issue 1194, 13 November 1882, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS.

The Invercargill correspondent to the Dunedin Herald says : — The Garrison Band runs the risk of falling from its high estate. As a band it is getting into the sear and yellow leaf, and this decadence seems to be more marked since their new implements were procured. This, however, might be tolerated, but it is evident that there is a disagreeable idea abroad that the band is inclined to become dissipated since it grew rich. Having extracted about £100 from the citizens by a plea of poverty, they, after their dramatic favours, have gone in for a nice little party for selves and friends, the people are very impertinent if it was part of the funds of the band that paid for tfie spread. The ugliest thing about it is that no answer seems to be forthcoming to the queries. The Lancet relates the following anecdote concerning the late Mr ' arwin : — " A s an instance at once of the modesty and penetratration of the late I r Darwin, some boys found first, (a water beetle), and afterwards some frogs, with small freshwater mussels clinging to their hind legs. Puzzled by the phenomeon they made bold to write to Mr Parwin asking him if he could throw any light on the subject. In return they received a very kind answer, thanking them for the very great light which they had thrown on a problem that had long puzzled him viz., how it came about that mussels, which can neither fly nor walk, can migrate from one pond to another." Two Italian oarsman, Messrs. Barucci and Ferrari, (says an English paper), have set out on an attempt to row from Rome to Paris in an outrigger. From the Mediteranean and they intend to row up the River ' J hone to the point where the Seine flows into it, to follow the course of the latter stream until they reach the canal which unites it with the Seine, and thence row along the Seine to Paris. The London Spectator remembers nothing in history which parallels Prince Bismarck's position, and speaks of him as ' the government of Germany weilding the whole military force of that strongest of empires, and forming the one figure with which the diplomacy of England always reckons. The Chinese compositor cannot sit at his case as our printers do, but must walk from one case to another constantly, as the characters needed cover such a large number that they cannot be put into anything like the space used in the English newspapers oflice. In setting up an ordinary piece of manuscript, the Chinese printer will waltz up and down the room for a few moments and then go down stairs for a line of a lower case. Then he takes the elevator and goes up into the third story after some caps, and then out into the wood-shed for a handful of astonishers. The successful Chinese compositor doesn't need to be so very intelligent, but he must be a good pedestrian. He may work and walk around over the building all day to set up a stick full and then half the people iv this country couldn't read it after all. — Boomerang.