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.