Year: 1871

Where is the piece that had that V.


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EXTRAORDINARY WAGER-A London paper says
as follows


81 will bet any man hundred pounds that
he cannot make million strokes with pen and
ink within month"


They were not to be mere dots or scratches
but fair down strokes, such as form child's
first lesson in writing. gentleman accepted
the challenge. The month allowed was the lu-
mar month of only twenty-eight days so that for
the completion of the undertaking, an average
of SO, 900 strokes per diem was required. This
at sixty per minute--3, GOO per hour-and nei-
ther the human intellect nor the human hand
can be expected to do moFe-woud call for ten
hours labor in every twenty-four.


With proper feeling of the respect due to the
observance of the Sabbath he determined to alb
stain from his work on Sunday and by this de-
termination he diminished by four days the
period allowed him, at the same time by so do
ing he increased the daily average of his strokes
to upward Of forty-one thousand. On the first
day he executed about fifty thousand strokes ;
on the second nearly as many. But at length
after many days his hands became stiff and
weary, the wrists swollen, and without its prog
ress over the paper, it required the almost CON
slant attendance Of some assduous relation or
friend to besprinkle it with lotion calculated
to relieve and yigorate it. On the twenty third
day the million strokes, by some few thousands,
"to make assurances doubly sure, were accom-
pished and the piles of paper that exhibit
them prove that to the courageous heart, the
willing hand and the energetic mind nothing is
impossible. These interesting papers were
placed in the archives of the Royal Society of
which their author is fellow, but were claimed
and received by the person who paid the wager.


AN IRRITATING PLAsTER.-I heard, writes a
Newport correspondent, an excellent story and
know it to be a fact. | must relate it. A gem
tleman and his wife, on a travelling tour, stopped
at hotel. The gentleman was an invalid,
jaunting for health and was subject to severe
attacks Of spasms in his chest, which nothing
would remove but blister, or, in the absence
of that, good hot mustard plaster. They
reached the strange hotel late in the day, and in
the night Mr. -- was taken i'll. His wife was
unable to find any remedies at hand among her
trays but, remembering to have seen the castor
containg mustard, on the side board Of the dining
hall, and being reluctant TO arouse the servants,
she flew down with light and made q plaster
as quickly as possible. Now, the room she oc-
cuped was at the head of the stairs, on the
right hand coming up, but there was one pre-
csely similar to it on the left side Just as she
reached the head of the staircase, her light
went out but wishing to bring relief to the suf-
ferer as quickly as possible, she went to her
room on the right, as she supposed and flying
up to the occupant of the bed-her husband, OF
course-slapped the plaster on his chest Just
as it touched the individual in question, what
was her fright and horror at being assaled with
a strong expletve, and at discovering that she
had turned to the left instead of to the right,
and entered the wrong apartment. The hurry
with which she entered was not quite equal to
that with which she rereaed and on finding
her own man and telling him the story, he
laughed so outrageouly as to get cured without
any plaster at all. So mortified was the lady,
however, that she insisted on leaving the hotel
the next morning.