The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1868-10-09
Varieties.


The following was copied literally from an
old tombstone in Scotland: fHsu 5ni ..8 81
Here lies the body of Alexander Mcpherson,
Who was very extraordinary person;
he was two yards high in his stocking feet
And kept his accoutrements clean and neat.
At the battle of Waterloo Ell
Plump through "- ti-''
The gullet; it went in at his throat,
And came out at the back of his coat s~,tr
BY some strange inadvertence, Miss Lou
lisa Alcott's Little Women, the most charming
book for girls which we have recently had oc-
casion to notice, was included by Us in the list
Of publications of Messrs. Ticknor & Fields,
instead of being in its proper place among
those of Roberts Brothers of Boston. There
was no mistake, however, in the cordial praise
which we awarded to the book. 1t is the
sweetest, brightest, freshest picture of girl life
which has been given us for a long time. No
girl can read it without being delighted and
made better; and for those who have left the
sunny land of girlhood behind it will most
pleasantly recall the time when all things were
bright "with golden exhalations of the dawn"
BY all means let us have the promised sequel
to Little Women. Messrs. Roberts Brothers
have published the book in very pretty and
tasi ieful style. laq gst'sonr la, sga5nGvba s8j
1t has long been contended that steel boil
ers never could be used, not being sufficiently
tenacious But this theory has been badly
damaged by some recent experiments at Pitts
burgh. when steel boiler has withstood the
most pressure that could be brought to bear
upon it. The boiler is made of two plates of
No.3 steel, IA inch thick, 6 feet long, and SO
inches in diameter. 1t has been subjected to
several tests, the tenth trial giving it press
ure OF 725 pounds to the square inch. Experi-
ments on it continue, but up to this writing
no pressure has been able to burst the boiler.
1t has stretched three inches since the tests
commenced. Hnisf
An old maiden lady in New York has left
all her property for the purpose of building a
church, on condition that her body and bones
shall be made into mortar in which to lay the
cornerstone. - A 7H taa1
Mrs. Lincoln has partially outwitted the
newsmongers, and has departed in peace for
Europe, intending to place her son at school
and spend the winter in the south of France.
Three European sovereigns have just en-
tered on the twentieth year of their reign,
namely, the Emperors OF France and Austria
anu tuc hiuk VI Atdiy, WIN dSCeuuou tuolF
spective thrones within few months or each
other ild s1atElE Tsei7 -erga0J &C.,
"A man dropped dead in saloon in Rich
mond before he had paid his bill, and the pro
prietor refused to give up the body until his
relatives had settled for what he had eaten.
Mr.. Beecher addressed the working men
and women of Brooklyn, N. Y, at the open
ing of the Bethel Mission in that city on Sun
day afternoon. Among other things, he said
that "workmen could not afford to be anything
but workers. 1t was better to be good,
healthy worker than to be a man worth a mil
lion of dollars and writhing with gout he
would rather be a worker and kept busy, than
to have time enough to get drunk
The schools of San Francisco changed the
time OF vacation this season to accommodate
the fifteen hundred Jewish children in the
schools, who celebrate with their parents re-
ligious holidays during the latter part of Sep
| tember. af.l. ... ...,.s ..s aesT
-One Sheridan, descendant of Richard
Brinsley Sheridan, has been before the Lon
don courts for obtaining money BY false pre-
tences, e.E .o 50 as.rs1+ .gyf
-Eye-sight is very deceptive. Here is arrow
| of ordinary capital letters and figures
sSsSXx ZZZz333s8sss
They are such as are made up of two parts Of
equal shapes. Look carefully at these and you
will perceive that the upper halves OF the
characters are a very little smaller than the
lower halves-so little that an ordinary eye
will declare them to be of equal size. Now
turn the page upside down, and, without any
careful looking, you will see that this differ
ence in size is very much exaggerated--that
the real top half of the letter is very much
smaller than the bottom half. 1t will be
seen from this that there is a tendency in the
eye to enlarge the upper part of any object
upon which it looks. We might draw two cir
ces of unequal size, and SO place them that
they should appear equal @
An Italian named Muratori has invented
kind of felt, made of vegetable substances.
which /. tough enough to resist rifle ball,
H. ,rono.es 10 dress soldiers in it for battle,
and Nanoleon ILL., thinks of employing it, in
.tooa of IRON for the armor OF ships.
IT i, rumored, says Punch, that Calcraft,
the bangman, is engaged in compiling histo-
ry of hanging down to the date OF the aboli-
tion of public executions. He intends to call
it The Decline OF the British Hemp-ire.
"A letter from Berlin announces that the
offer made by Mr.. Seward to use his good off,
ces for the renewal of friendly relations be
tween Mexico and Prussia has been accepted
by the latter and instructions have according
ly been sent to the Prussian Minister at Wash
;noton TO enter into preliminary negotiations
| on the subject
Quite a number Of celebrated European
,avans will visit this country the present win
ter. DIR. Karl Vogt, OF Geneva, the distin-
guisbed anthropologist and zoologist, author
and professor, will favor our scientific classes
with certain new theories and views on his ia
vorite subjects. Prof. Robert Schlagintwrit'
one of the three brothers wko explored the
Himalayas and great part of Upper ASA
eleven years ago, and who has for isone years
been engaged in publishing his eontriOu'lcn
to geography is coming over 70 deliver series
! is. a distinguished ProfessOt q oe¶tive
: Anatomy and Physiology, is also sxneesed'
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