HUMOROUS DEFINITIONS.
A smart, pithy, or humorous definition often furnishes a happy illustration of the proverbial brevity which is the soul of wit. Wit itself has not inaptly been called ‘a pleasant surprise over truth;’ and wisdom, often its near ally, is, in the opinion of a clever writer, ‘nothing more than educated cunning.’ ‘Habits are what we learn and can’t forget,’ says the same author, who also defines silence as ‘a safe place to hide in,’ and a lie as ‘the very best compliment that can be paid to truth.’ ‘Show him an egg and instantly the air is full of feathers,’ said a humorist, defining a sanguine man. ‘A moral chameleon’ is a terse reckoning-up of a humbug. Man’s whole life has been cynically summed up in the sentence, ‘Youth is a blunder; middle life, a struggle; and old age, a regret.’
Whimsical definitions are sometimes quite as neat and telling as those of a smarter kind. Dr Johnson confessed to a lady that it was pure ignorance that made him define ‘pastern, the knee of a horse;’ but he could hardly make the same excuse for defining pension, ‘an allowance made to any one without an equivalent.’ A patriot, some writer tells us, is ‘one who lives for the promotion of his country’s union and dies in it;’ and a hero, ‘he who, after warming his enemies, is toasted by his friends.’
Of juvenile definitions, ‘dust is mud with the juice squeezed out;’ scarcely so scientific as Palmerston’s definition of dirt as ‘matter in the wrong place.’ A fan, we learn, is ‘a thing to brush warm off with;’ and a monkey, ‘a small boy with a tail;’ ‘salt, what makes your potatoes taste bad when you don’t put any on;’ ‘wakefulness, eyes all the time coming unbuttoned;’ and ‘ice, water that stayed out too late in the cold and went to sleep.’
A schoolboy asked to define the word ‘sob,’ whimpered out: ‘It means when a feller don’t mean to cry and it bursts out itself.’ Another defined a comma as ‘a period with a long tail.’ A youngster was asked to give his idea of the meaning of ‘responsibility,’ so he said: ‘Well, supposing I had only two buttons on my trousers, and one came off, all the responsibility would rest on the other button.’
‘Give the definition of admittance,’ said a teacher to the head-boy. This went from the head to near the foot of the class, all being unable to tell the meaning of it, until it reached a little boy who had seen the circus bills posted about the village, and who exclaimed: ‘Admittance means one shilling, and children half-price.’
‘What is a junction, nurse?’ asked a seven-year-old fairy the other day on a railway platform.—‘A junction, my dear?’ answered the nurse, with the air of a very superior person indeed: ‘why, it’s a place where two roads separate.’
To hit off a jury as ‘a body of men organised to find out which side has the smartest lawyer,’ is to satirise many of our ‘intelligent fellow-countrymen.’ The word ‘suspicion’ is, in the opinion of a jealous husband, ‘a feeling that compels you to try to find out something which you don’t wish to know.’ A good definition of a ‘Pharisee’ is ‘a tradesman who uses long prayers and short weights;’ of a ‘humbug, one who agrees with everybody;’ and of a ‘tyrant, the other version of somebody’s hero.’ An American lady’s idea of a ballet-girl was, ‘an open muslin umbrella with two pink handles;’ and a Parisian’s of ‘chess, a humane substitute for hard labour.’ Thin soup, according to an Irish mendicant, is ‘a quart of water boiled down to a pint, to make it strong.’
Of definitions of a bachelor—‘an un-altar-ed man,’ ‘a singular being,’ and ‘a target for a miss,’ are apt enough. A walking-stick may be described as ‘the old man’s strength and the young man’s weakness;’ and an umbrella as ‘a fair and foul weather friend’ who has had ‘many ups and downs in the world.’ A watch may be hit off as a ‘second-hand affair;’ spectacles as ‘second-sight’ or ‘friendly glasses;’ and a wig as ‘the top of the poll,’ ‘picked locks,’ and ‘poached hare.’ And any one who is troubled with an empty purse may be comforted with the reflection that ‘no trial could be lighter.’
‘Custom is the law of fools,’ and ‘politeness is half-sister to charity’—the last a better definition than that which spitefully defines polite society as ‘a place where manners pass for too much, and morals for too little.’ ‘Fashion’ has been cleverly hit off as ‘an arbitrary disease which leads all geese to follow in single file the one goose that sets the style.’ An idea of the amusement of dancing is not badly conveyed by the phrases ‘embodied melody’ and ‘the poetry of motion.’
The ‘Complete Angler’ as a definition of ‘a flirt’ is particularly happy. Beauty has been called ‘a short-lived tyranny,’ ‘a silent cheat,’ and ‘a delightful prejudice;’ while modesty has been declared ‘the delicate shadow that virtue casts.’ Love has been likened to ‘the sugar in a woman’s teacup, and man the spoon that stirs it up;’ and a ‘true-lover’s-knot’ may not inaptly be termed ‘a dear little tie.’ Kisses have variously been defined as ‘a harmony in red,’ ‘a declaration of love by deed of mouth,’ and ‘lip-service.’
‘Matrimony’ was defined by a little girl at the head of a confirmation class in Ireland, as ‘a state of torment into which souls enter to prepare them for another and better world.’
‘Being,’ said the examining priest, ‘the answer for purgatory.’
‘Put her down!’ said the curate, much ashamed of his pupil—‘put her down to the foot of the class!’
‘Lave her alone,’ quoth the priest; ‘the lass may be right after all. What do you or I know about it?’
THE MONTH:
SCIENCE AND ARTS.
Nearly seven millions sterling have been already expended upon the Panama Canal works, and according to all accounts, there is plenty to show for the money. The channel is being dredged out by enormous machines, which scoop out the softer earth and operate upon the debris of harder rocks, after the latter have been blasted. Colon, the Atlantic terminus of the canal, has, from the miserable and dirty little village which it presented some years ago, sprung into a prosperous town. The dry season has unfortunately been an unhealthy one, and there has been an epidemic of marsh-fever; but altogether we may take the general report of the Canal works as a satisfactory one. There is little doubt that the great work of uniting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans will be accomplished within very few years.
News has been received by the Geographical Society that their intrepid explorer, Mr Joseph Thomson, whose departure some months ago on an expedition to the region east and north-east of Lake Victoria Nyanza we briefly chronicled at the time, has safely returned to Zanzibar. Little is at present known as to what he has done, further than that he has successfully carried out his programme with the most satisfactory feature that the work has been done without any loss of life except from disease. We may look forward with great interest to Mr Thomson’s account of this his third successful expedition, the more so, as this time he has journeyed in a region of Africa untraversed by any previous explorer, and about which, therefore, the knowledge possessed by our best geographers is open to improvement.
From a paper recently read before the Institution of Civil Engineers, by Mr G. H. Stayton, upon the Wood-pavements of London, we glean the following interesting particulars: The metropolis comprises nearly two thousand miles of streets, of which only fifty-three miles are at present laid with wood. Most of the wood used is in the form of rectangular blocks of yellow deal, principally Swedish. Neither elm nor oak will stand changes of temperature sufficiently well to fit them for this purpose; but pitch-pine answers well, and so does larch; though the supply of the latter limits its use. Creosoting the blocks has no value as a preservative, and the wood is now used plain, the joints being filled in with cement. The average cost of laying wood-pavement is about ten shillings and sixpence per square yard, and the expenses of maintenance compare very favourably with Macadam and other systems of pavement. ‘There is nothing new under the sun,’ even in the matter of wood-pavements, for we find, on reference to a Mechanic’s Magazine dated 1858, that wood-blocks, placed grain uppermost, as in all modern systems, are distinctly advocated as having many advantages over granite roads, diminution of cost and durability being among those stated.
It has become customary to speak of the present epoch as the ‘Iron Age,’ in order to distinguish it from those two long periods of human interest known respectively as the Stone Age and the Bronze Age. But future historians may well be tempted to substitute the word steel for iron, for it is an undoubted fact that improved processes of manufacture, and the resulting easy and cheap production, are causing steel to be widely substituted for its parent metal. In railways, steel rails are now almost entirely replacing iron ones, and that modification of the metal known as ‘mild steel’ is finding great favour just now among shipbuilders. The Board of Trade have lately had representations made to them that the superiority of steel over iron for shipbuilding purposes should be officially recognised; and that this request is well grounded, the following instances will go far to prove. A steamer wrecked on the coast of the Isle of Wight remained for ten days in stormy weather perched on a ledge of rocks without breaking up. ‘If,’ says the engineer’s Report, ‘she had been built of iron instead of steel, there is not a doubt that she would have gone to pieces. The agent of another vessel wrecked at New Zealand last year reports to the owner that the vessel was eventually released from her rocky bed; ‘but, with a large number of passengers, would have been lost, had it not been for the beautiful quality of the material of which she is built, known as mild steel.’
But there is one branch of the metal trade which shows a continually increasing activity, and which need not fear any rivalry from steel, and that is the tinplate trade. Many thousands of tons of this tinned iron—that is, thin sheets of iron coated with tin—are annually exported from this country, our best customers being the United States. We may presume that a large quantity of this metal comes back to us in the form of tins containing preserved meats, fish, and fruit. In Philadelphia, there are a number of factories for utilising these tins after they have been used. They are collected from the ash-heaps, the hotels and boarding-houses. The solder is melted and sold, to be used again; the tops and bottoms of the tins are turned into window sash-weights; the cylindrical portions are rolled out flat, and are made into covers for travelling trunks, and are used for many other purposes. The industry is said to be a very profitable one, for the expense of gathering the tins is covered by the sale of the solder, and the capital required is small. Such ingenious applications of waste materials most certainly deserve to succeed.
What is known as ‘flashed glass’ consists of common white glass blown with a layer of coloured glass superposed on its surface, which surface can afterwards be eaten away in parts by the application of fluoric acid, so that any ornament or lettering can be executed upon it. The same principle in an extended form has lately been applied by Messrs Webb of Stourbridge to the production of most beautiful vases in what has been aptly called cameo glass. The vase is first blown in glass of three different descriptions, fused together, forming eventually three distinct layers of material—the innermost of a semi-opaque colour, the next white, and the outside of a tint to harmonise with the first or innermost. Now comes the artist’s work. The design being drawn upon the surface, the outer colour is removed so as to leave but a tint, deep or light as may be wanted in certain parts; next, the white is cut into so as to show up where required the ground colour behind. In this way the most intricate design is produced with the most artistic results. The operator employs not only fluoric acid, but makes use of the steel point, and also the ordinary emery wheel commonly used for engraving and cutting glass. Two of these vases are, as we write, on view at Mr Goode’s, South Audley Street, London.
The first cable tramway laid in Europe has been opened on the steepest bit of road near London—namely, Highgate Hill, and is pronounced on all hands a complete success. It is to be hoped that the system will become as common in this country as it is in America, where not only steep gradients are thus dealt with, but level roads, such as our horse tramcars already traverse. The boon to horses would be immeasurable. At the present time, on British tramways more than twenty thousand horses are at work. The labour is so hard, that about one quarter of this number have annually to be replaced. This annual loss absorbs forty-three per cent. of the gross earnings, a consideration which will appeal more eloquently to the feelings of many than will the sufferings of the poor horses.
Referring to the epidemic of smallpox in London, a correspondent of the Times gives a valuable suggestion. He tells how an epidemic of the same dreaded disease was quickly stamped out in a South American village some years ago, and although our great metropolis bears but small resemblance to a village, the remedy in question might nevertheless be tried. Huge bonfires of old creosoted railway sleepers were made in the streets, and gas-tar was added occasionally to stimulate the flames. In the meantime, every house where a death or recovery occurred was lime-washed. With these precautions, which are manifestly applicable to other zymotic diseases, the visitation speedily vanished. Concerning this all-important subject we may have something further to say in a special paper.
Meanwhile, there is no kind of doubt that the spread of infectious disease is attributable in great measure to personal ignorance, commonly called carelessness, as well as to that entire indifference as to the welfare of others which is so common to human nature. Some time since, an advertisement appeared to the following effect: ‘Should this meet the eye of the lady who travelled (by a particular train) with her two boys, one of whom was evidently just recovering from an illness, she may be pleased to learn that three of the four young ladies who were in the carriage are very ill with the measles.’ This is surpassed by a statement contained in a recent letter in the Times. A lady, finding that her boys, on recovering from a severe attack of scarlatina, suffered much from dandruff (the scales which separate from the scalp, and which, in fever, are a prolific source of contagion), took the sufferers to a leading West End hairdresser’s, so that their heads could receive a thorough cleansing with the machine-brush!
We would in this connection draw attention to a novel system of providing for smallpox cases with the least amount of risk to others, which is established by the Metropolitan Asylums Board of London, and which will undergo in time further development. In addition to the five hospitals in different parts of London which have been opened whenever a fresh epidemic has broken out, there is a very elaborate ambulance system, by which a suitable carriage with a nurse and porter is despatched, as soon as notice is received, to the patient’s place of residence and removes the patient to the nearest hospital. This has been at work for some years; but in addition there are three ships moored on the Thames opposite Purfleet, two of which are hospital ships, the third being used as a residence for the staff, and containing offices, kitchens, workshops, &c. Some four miles inland there is a convalescent camp, consisting of tents for about one thousand patients, each heated and lighted by gas, and suitably fitted for the purpose in every way.
To convey patients to the ships, an ambulance steamer runs as often as required, being fitted up as a travelling hospital, with beds, &c., and having a medical and nursing staff. Patients are removed to the river-side either direct from their homes, or from the hospitals, usually on comfortable beds, and carried on board the steamer, and thence down the river. Another steamer brings the recovered cases back; and when landed, they are conveyed in special carriages to their homes, free from infection in person and clothing.
So far the problem of how to provide for an epidemic of smallpox in London is in a fair way of being solved, by a system which, though still in its earliest stage, is daily undergoing development and improvement. When yet another steamer is fitted out, there will be no difficulty in coping with a much larger epidemic than has visited London for many years, and at the same time treating patients with an amount of attention almost unknown till now.
The proposal to revive the art of lacemaking in Ireland, to which we adverted some months ago, has now received more definite form. A scheme has been framed under the auspices of many influential persons, the chief features of which are as follows: Original designs are to be purchased under the advice of the best authorities on the subject. These designs will be sent to the lacemaking centres for execution. The specimens will then be exhibited and offered for sale. The expenses to set this machinery at work will amount to about five hundred pounds, much of which is already subscribed. Full information as to the project can be obtained from Mr Alan Cole, of the South Kensington Museum.
Dr Von Pettenkofer has, according to the Lancet, been lately paying attention to the poisonous action of coal-gas on the human system, and a few notes of authenticated cases may be serviceable to those who pay little heed to an escape of gas so long as it does not in their opinion assume dangerous dimensions. The cases quoted all refer to escapes of gas into dwelling-houses after passing through a layer of earth, and we may note that such escapes are difficult of detection, for the earth robs the gas in great measure of its tell-tale odour. At Roveredo, three women were killed in their sleep by an escape from a broken pipe under the roadway thirty-five feet distant. At Cologne, three of one family were carried off by a similar escape at a distance of ninety-eight feet. At Breslau, a case is reported where the escape was no less than one hundred and fifteen feet away from its victim. It would seem that the dangerous constituent of coal-gas is carbonic oxide, which usually forms about eight per cent. of the vapour conveyed to our houses. Whether this noxious ingredient can, like other impurities, be eliminated in the process of purification at the gas-works, we do not know, but the question is certainly worth the attention of the authorities.
The Observatory on the summit of Ben Nevis, which our readers will remember was opened in October last, will be completed this summer. The observations already made confirm the anticipations as to the value of a high level station, and the completion of the structure will add to the efficiency of the work done, for hitherto the observers have been cramped for space. A shelter for tourists forms part of the scheme, and travellers will be able to obtain light refreshment there, and if they desire it, can telegraph from the highest point in Britain to their friends below. The cost of completion will absorb about eight hundred pounds; but this estimate does not include the heavy outlay for carriage of materials on horseback up the bridle-path already constructed. It has been suggested that visitors on horseback using this path should pay a toll of five shillings—a modest sum, when it is considered that the expenses of maintenance are much increased by the soil being loosened by the horse’s hoofs, especially when the ground is in a soft condition.
The small Chinese colony established at the International Health Exhibition is one of the principal attractions of the place. Visitors have now the opportunity of tasting various strange dishes which before they had only heard of by report. The much extolled bird-nest soup can be had here, together with shark-fins, beches de mer (sea-slugs), edibles made of different seaweeds, shredded cucumber peels mixed with vinegar, and various other delicacies, which, we trust, are nicer than they seem to be by mere description. We may note that the South Kensington executive have already arranged for an Exhibition to follow on the present one. It is to be called the Exhibition of Inventions, and will include all kinds of appliances, one entire division being devoted to musical instruments.
A long-felt want by paper-rulers and others has now been supplied by the new Patent Automatic Paper Feeding-machine. It has been invented by Mr William Archer, 204 Rose Street, Edinburgh—a paper-ruler who has spent his spare time during the last ten years in working it out, and who has now succeeded in patenting a Ruling-machine which is allowed to be the most accurate in use for feeding the paper in a continuous stream, or feeding to grippers at given intervals. It can be worked either by hand or steam-power, and it renders unnecessary the employment of boys or girls as paper-feeders. It can also be applied to hot rolling-machines; and it is expected that it will also be turned to use in connection with printing, &c.