Interesting Items.
A Rarely-blooming Flower.—In one of the conservatories at Hamilton Palace gardens there is a fine specimen of the Angeavia variegata in full bloom. The tradition is, that the plant only flowers once in a hundred years.
Steam heating and electric lighting of trains is receiving very close attention from a number of the leading railway managers in the United States. On some roads the change has been decided upon, and cars are being reconstructed on the new plans as rapidly as possible.
Pilots' Pay.—From London to Gravesend the pilot's fee may range from 18s. to £7 18s., and from Gravesend to the Nore from £1 12s. to £7 8s.; and while a vessel drawing less than seven feet of water is piloted from the Downs to the Isle of Wight for £3 4s., one that draws twenty-five feet will cost for the same distance, either way, as much as £14 6s.
Romanism in America is throwing off its sheep's clothing, and revealing its wolfish nature. The following is an extract from one of its journals, the Western Watchman—"Protestantism! We would draw and quarter it. We would impale it and hang it up for crows' nests. We would tear it with pincers, and fire it with hot irons. We would fill it with molten lead, and sink it in hell fire a hundred fathoms deep." Only the genius that invented the multiform cruelties of the Inquisition could express itself in such an infernally varied vocabulary of torture.
The Warrant for Bunyan's last Imprisonment.—Among the Chauncy collection of autographs recently dispersed by Messrs. Sotheby, there lay, hidden and unnoticed, the original warrant under which Bunyan was apprehended for that third and final imprisonment of some six months' duration, during which, according to his latest biographer, he wrote the first part of "The Pilgrim's Progress." It fills a half-sheet of foolscap, and is dated March 4th, 1674-5, under the hands and seals of twelve justices, six of them, either then or in the Parliament of 1678, members for county or borough, and three of whom had originally committed him for the previous twelve years' imprisonment.
Composition During Sleep.—Lord Thurlow told his nephew that, when young, he read much at night, and that once, while at college, having been unable to complete a particular line in a Latin poem he was composing, it rested so on his mind that he dreamed of it, completed it in his sleep, wrote it out next morning, and received many compliments on its classical and felicitous turn. In my own experience, I have imagined myself, during sleep, to be listening to instrumental music quite new to me, and have been able to reproduce the melody next day; and I have now in my possession a MS. copy of a Dead March composed by the author, from whom I had it, in a dream.—Correspondent of "Notes and Queries."
The Dangers of Eating Orange Peel.—It is a very bad habit to eat orange peel. Nor is the juvenile habit of eating apples with the peel on to be recommended either. Parents who do not care as yet to correct these evil propensities will perhaps be more inclined to do so when they hear that the little black specks which may be found on the skins of oranges and apples that have been kept some time are clusters of fungi, precisely similar to those to which whooping-cough is attributed. Dr. Tschamer, of Graz, who has made the discovery, scraped some of these black specks off an orange, and introduced them into his lungs by a strong inspiration. Next day he was troubled with violent tickling in the throat, which by the end of the week had developed into an acute attack of whooping-cough.
A Brave Child.—One day recently at Sandown, while a gentleman was showing his little girl how Lion, a splendid St. Bernard dog, and a great favourite in the family, caught pieces of biscuit in his mouth, the poor child stole up to put her arm round the dog's neck. Unhappily Lion was so engrossed, he never heard the fairy footstep. Taking the little face for a dainty morsel intended for him, he sharply closed his large teeth in the tender cheek and nostril. Elsie bravely struggled to conceal the blood which fast flowed from the wound, and assured her mother without a tear that she was "far more frightened than hurt." Lion, who had been taught to apologise for wrong-doing by standing up, at once assumed that plaintive attitude, while Elsie entreated his master not to punish him, as she knew "it was all a mistake." The little face is still strapped up, but as the dog was perfectly healthy, the only fear entertained is that a permanent mark may be left there. One lasting impression was certainly made. The self-control and calmness of the mother, who saw the sharp, sudden bite inflicted on her only child, and the unflinching courage displayed by Elsie while she pleaded for the dumb friend who had so unwittingly injured her, will never be forgotten by Lion's master or any one who witnessed the unfortunate incident.—Lady's Pictorial.
The General and the Sparrow.—General Robert E. Lee was one of the bravest soldiers and ablest leaders of the Southern States armies in the great American Civil War. Along with an almost culpable indifference to danger he joined an intense love for animals and a deep feeling for the helpless, as the following story will show. He was once visiting a battery near Richmond, in Virginia, when the soldiers (with whom he was immensely popular) crowded round him, and thus offered a good target for the enemy's fire. Lee at once bade them retire to the rear, out of reach of harm. The men did so, but—as if unaware of the risk he ran—he walked across the yard, and picked up some object from the ground, and put it on a tree branch above his head. It was afterwards found that this object was an unfledged sparrow, which had fallen out of its nest, and which the general had restored to its home at such imminent danger to himself.
The End of a Dog's Quarrel.—One day, a fine Newfoundland dog and a mastiff had a sharp discussion over a bone, and warred away as angrily as two boys. They were fighting on a bridge, and before they knew it, over they went into the water. The banks were so high that they were forced to swim some distance before they came to a landing-place. It was very easy for the Newfoundlander. He was as much at home in the water as a seal. But not so poor Bruce. He struggled and tried to swim, but made little headway. The Newfoundland dog quickly reached the land, and then turned to look at his old enemy. He saw plainly that his strength was fast failing, and that he was likely to drown, so what should the noble fellow do but plunge in, seize him gently by the collar, and, keeping his nose above water, tow him safely into port. It was funny to see these dogs look at each other as they shook their wet coats. Their glance said as plainly as words, "We'll never quarrel any more."
The following tragical story of a pen is deeply interesting, since to an instrument in itself so humble the death of a little Liverpool schoolboy is due. The lad, sitting at his desk at St. Anthony's School, saw on the floor a piece of paper which he wished to pick up. To leave his right hand free he put his pen in his breast pocket. He was sitting at the end of a bench, from which, in stooping, he fell to the floor. The weight of his body fell on the point of the pen. The nib pierced the poor little fellow's heart. Amid the silent work of the writing lesson his cry of agony rang out with startling effect, and a whole town, hearing of a boy's death from such a cause, shares the painful surprise of the school-room. The one ray of relief in this painful story shines over the grief-stricken home. The public sympathy directed to this house, finds it inhabited by a struggling widow, with four young children still surviving. A subscription is forthwith got up for her benefit, and the son's death is likely to be the means of saving the mother from destitution.
The Manchester Ship Canal will be a stone-banked stream, 25 feet in depth, and at least 120 feet in width, supplied with numerous docks, crossed by lofty bridges for trains, and swing-bridges for road traffic, and forming a waterway in which the biggest steamships and sailing vessels will be able to pass one another at a fair speed. It will be wider and deeper than the Suez Canal, and will depend for its construction chiefly on the huge steam excavators, which are a kind of cross between cranes and the dredgers we see in rivers and harbours, and which remove a cubic yard of soil at a time. It will enable Manchester to send her calicoes direct to all quarters of the globe, and will tap the chemical region of Runcorn, and the salt districts of Cheshire, saving the present cost of transhipment of a million tons per annum of the latter condiment. Nearly 20,000 men will find employment for the next four years in the construction of this big canal for the passage of ocean ships between Liverpool and Manchester. The first sod has been quietly cut with a navvy's spade by Lord Egerton of Tatton, the chairman of the company, in the presence of twenty directors and a few shareholders, at Eastham, where the canal will lead out of the Mersey.
Hanover Baptist Sunday School, Tunbridge Wells.—The half-yearly meeting of the above school was held on Wednesday, October 26th. The meeting was presided over by the Superintendent, who in a few opening remarks urged the parents to try and send their children to school in time, and in the morning as well as the afternoon; after which the children recited their various pieces to the Pastor, Mr. Newton. Mr. Botten then proceeded to give away the rewards, which he said he hoped they would prize, and lend to their brothers and sisters to read if they wanted them; and he hoped they would never read the pernicious books and periodicals that found such favour amongst boys in our day, but, if they were offered a book to read, to show it to father and mother, and, if they did not mind their reading it, then all right. In conclusion, he wished the teachers God-speed in the work. Mr. Saltmarsh and Mr. House also gave parcels of books away, and a pleasant meeting was brought to a close by singing the hymn, "Around the throne of God in heaven," Mr. Newton concluding with prayer. Each child received a bun on departing.
W. L. W.
"PAPER, SIR?" (See page 26.)