MISCELLANEOUS.
Yum-Yum.—It is quite possible that the pain over your eye may proceed from a little congestion, if in the hollow over the ball of the eye. Perhaps your spectacles are unsuitable, and there should be a difference between the two glasses. There is often a different focus in one eye from that of the other, and the left one may be overstrained. We advise you to consult an oculist or a good optician, to test the sight of each. We are glad to give our correspondent “Seaton Devon” the benefit of your information respecting the song, “Please have You seen my Dolly?” It is (you say) composed by F. W. Lancelott, and the words are by E. Cympson. The publisher is F. Pitman, 20, Paternoster Row, E.C.
Miserable.—We are never told in the Bible that “to those who do not marry He will give a rich reward.” No such thing. But during those terrible persecutions, already begun, and to continue subsequently to St. Paul’s time, women unmarried and without children were in a preferable condition to those who had them. Of course, to marry without a very special bond of affection between you and your husband, would be not only a bar to any happiness, but also very wrong; and to marry without suitable means to support and educate a family must entail much suffering, mental and physical. From what you say of your feelings, and that you only “care for him in a way,” you would act wisely in declining his offer. You say “the thought of living unloved unmans me!” We hope you have no pretensions to manliness!
March Girl.—Hares are said to be specially wild in the month of March, and thence has arisen the term, “Mad as a March hare.” According to Dr. Brewer, the name “Neddy” was transferred from the little low cart for which donkeys are employed in Dublin, to the animals themselves. And the meaning of the term as used for the cart refers to the jolting which results from the lack of springs, and makes those who drive in them to nod perpetually. These, or a much similar description of cart was also termed a “Noddy.”
FOOTNOTES:
[1] It may be interesting to readers to know that the adventure of the Slains Castle and the unexpected return of those who had been mourned as dead, is, in almost every detail, the true history of a British vessel called The Wandering Minstrel, which sailed from Hong Kong in 1887 and was not heard of again for more than two years, when her first mate and “a castaway” suddenly appeared in Honolulu, and a steamer was sent off to rescue the remainder of the party.
[2] Peptones and pre-digested albumens are also soluble in boiling water; but these substances do not naturally occur in our food stuffs. Some, but very few, of the patent meat extracts, consist of peptones or altered albumens soluble in boiling water.
[Transcriber’s note—the following changes have been made to this text.
Page 827: purtrefy to putrefy—“putrefy and die”.
Page 832: decease to disease—“disease was most prevalent”.]