PECULIAR MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
"The accompanying photos. are of two musical instruments which, with their inventor, can be found at an obscure little hamlet called Keld, about twenty miles from Richmond in Yorkshire. No. 1 is an adaptation to a harmonium, and consists of the branch of a tree fastened to the end of the harmonium; upon the branch is a double row of bells which come from all parts of England. When playing, the musician has a long piece of wood ending in a steel spike, and at the lower end of the wood is a finger-hole. The striker is slipped upon one of the fingers of the left hand, and as the treble and bass are being played the finger with the striker upon it is bent in order to strike one of the bells. No. 2 is what the inventor calls 'a stone organ.' The old man said that one day when fishing in the river his foot caught a stone and he noticed that it gave forth a musical note, so he constructed a sounding-board, secured stones from the river, and placed them thereon. He found that clipping a piece off the end of the stone sharpened the note, whilst to clip off the side flattened it; in this way he made three octaves. The old man has never had any lessons in music."—Mr. G. Hardwick, The Promenade, Bridlington.
SAVED BY A CARTRIDGE.
"Here is the photograph of a cartridge which has been pierced by a bullet. My brother, of the 6th Dragoon Guards, was carrying this in his bandolier when he was wounded in the late South African War. The bullet after piercing the cartridge passed clean through his body, leaving in the centre of his back after penetrating one of his lungs. Fortunately it did not touch the spinal cord, owing probably to being deviated by the cartridge, and he recovered. The cartridge did not explode, and has still the explosive in it intact."—Mr. F. W. Robins, 14, Wellington Road, Barnsbury, N.