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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 5
[miscellaneous paragraphs]
The subject of peculiar antipathies is full of interest to students of science. Most people have heard of the gallant admiral who had as great a horror of the harmless necessary cat as his crew had of the terrible Felis enneacaudata. Sensitive ladies have shuddered at the odor of violets. In the South Island there is a newspaper editor who is seized with sudden faintness when he opens a manuscript containing lines beginning with capitals, and rhymed at the ends.
The most expensive comma on record was probably one accidentally inserted in an American tariff bill some twenty years ago. In the duty-free schedule were included « all foreign fruit-plants, » the intention being to exempt plants imported for transplanting, propagation, or experiment. The clerk who prepared the official copy misread the sentence, and wrote « all foreign fruit, plants, » &c. For a whole year the public revelled in the unwonted luxury of cheap fruit—oranges, bananas, grapes, and all the rest coming in duty-free. The little mistake cost the Government $2,000,000 in duty—what it cost the fruit-monopolists in profits is not stated. They lost no time, when congress re-assembled, in having an amendment bill passed, and the mistake rectified.
The New York Lithographic Art Journal tells the following story of the fine equestrian statue of Lafayette at Washington:—The statue was finished by its designer, a gifted but penniless young Italian sculptor. On one excuse or another payment was put off until it was placed on its pedestal ready for dedication. By this time the artist had become weary of hunting the Congressional Committee with his importunities for relief, and had sunk into absolute pitiable poverty; indeed he had become quite forgotten. The unveiling of his work took place at last amid pompous ceremonies and the booming of cannon—the exercises costing more than the needy genius had begged to be given for his services. As the canvas draperies were drawn amid the huzzahs of the multitude, a tattered miserable object was discovered seated astride the bronze steed in front of the figure of the great French general, and apparently sleeping peacefully, protected by its massive arms. The committee of ceremonies approached and angrily ordered the presumptuous tramp to withdraw. But the sleeper did not stir, and when at last a ladder was raised to expel the intruder, they found the gaunt form of the young sculptor dead.
A writer in a contemporary (no proper authority given) says: The length of life of a paragraph which goes the round of the press is sometimes prodigious. There is one which was started at the beginning of the century, falsely attributing to the elder Herschell some ridiculous opinions respecting the influence of the moon on the weather, and it is still occasionally met with. There is another which I have just met with in a scientific journal, and recognize as an old acquaintance. It sets forth the ages at which various animals arrive at their maturity, and multiplying that by five, fixes their length of life. Man is shown up as the exception, inasmuch as that he matures at 20, and should live to 100. I have seen that paragraph started a great many times, and after a few years of repose it makes its reappearance with all the irregular regularity of a comet. I have no idea as to when it was first sent on circuit, but I make no doubt as to the probability that it will be found going the round ever and anon for another century. I have a theory of the way in which its circulation is kept up. Some youth, with literary predilections, cuts it out or copies it into a common-place book. After the lapse of a few years, on looking over his collection, it arrests his attention, and he thinks it worthy of reproduction. It suits his purpose to touch it up, with a few improvements perhaps, and to launch it over again. It gets copied, and the round is re-commenced. On the present occasion it has a moral attached to it, attributing the long lives of the inferior animals to their regular and temperate habits. The paragraph is, after all, a trashy one, not one of the figures having any statistical warrant. All the alleged facts were originally mere arbitrary assumptions, and so they still remain. Nobody takes the trouble to test their accuracy.
The Sweater had run down the prices, in sooth,
Till his rivals no longer could earn bread and butter;
And they one and all vowed that his sign spoke the truth—
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The following old program—a genuine one—issued by the late P. T. Barnum in 1852, seems to contain the germ of the idea developed in after-years with such irresistible comedy by Artemus Ward. It is quoted in Mountains and Molehills—a work by Frank Marryatt, a son of the celebrated captain. « Just opened with 100,000 Curiosities, and performances in Lecture-Room; among witch may be found two live Boar Constricters, Male and Femail also!! A striped Algebra, stuft besides!! A pair of Shuttle cocks, and one Shuttle hen, alive! Sword witch gen. Wellington fit with at the battle of Waterloo! whom is 6 feet long and broad in proportion. Great Moral Spectacle of Mount Vesuvius! The beginning of the Eruction. A cloud of impenetrable smoke hangs over the fated city, through which the Naplers are seen makin tracks. The moulting lava begins to squash out. Denumong! Grand Shakspearing Pyroligneous display of Firewurx!! Maroon Bulbs! changing to a spiral weel, witch changes to the Star of our Union; after, to butiful pints of red lites; to finish with busting into a Brilliant perspiration. During the performance a No. of Popular Airs will be performed on the Scotch Fiddle and Bag Pipes, by a real Highlander. »
« L'homme propose Mais le Lien dispose, » a Rangitikei paper observes; and « Di Mortins Nil Nise Bonum » is an example of Latin as she is printed on the West Coast.—In Dunedin, under a recent by-law, five auctioneers were summoned to court for suspending flags over the footpath. In one of these cases, the word « flag » being omitted, the defendant was accused of suspending himself. He assured the magistrate that he had not attempted felo de se, and had no intention of so doing, and the case was dismissed.—In the old days, when no roads and bridges existed, according to an ingenious Wairarapa comp, the settlers had « to forge rivers. » —This is from a story in the N. Z. Tablet: « The coroner sat silent for a minute or two, chewing the end of country house in a big town, such as no other municipality of its size would tolerate. » —A weekly contemporary, in describing its new web printing machine, is somewhat obscure. It says: « The leading principle is, that from the pages of type, casts in solid metal are taken four miles. This in a curved form; these are arranged upon cylinders, between which the paper passes. Each roll of paper used contains a length of upwards of machine is engaged in printing. » — « I thought I was dying. The vigour of death chilled my limbs. » We find this affecting passage in a Christchurch paper.— « Totalisateurs de thé » is the latest French rendering of « teetotaler. » It occurs in a play supposed to illustrate modern London life.—A contemporary, in reference to a late Parliamentary episode remarks, « Mr Speaker does not come out of the affair with clean hands, as he displayed a decided absence of backbone. » —Another paper tripped in commenting on the same theme. « The unfortunate difference, » it said, « arose first from the just indignation of Mr Richardson at the wild charges made against his administration …, and calumniated in an attack on the Premier. » —Mr James Mair, of the Auckland Education Board, replying to a letter in the press concerning certain tenders for school supplies, is thus fiercely and zoologically metaphorical: « The cloven hoof of self blots and blurs every line, while spleen like a hissing serpent glares from every sentence. » —The ruthlessness of the average comp was well exemplified in a late Catholic Times. Referring to a noted mendicant priest, the editor was made to assert that « Father G. rejoiced in his mendacity in begging. » —According to the Grey Argus, among the articles found at the house of a thief were « Crimean shirts, carpenters' bits, and a host of other articles of clothing. » For including braces in this category there might be some excuse, but it is not easy to imagine carpenters' bits being used as wearing apparel. The classification is worthy of a New Zealand customs « expert. » — The Wanganui Herald lately perpetrated the following heading, in large type:— « An Immense Sea Monster. A Serpent One Hundred Feet Long. What was seen on Board the Rotomahana. It Might have been an Earthquake. » From which the lover of the marvellous may learn that the biggest stowaway on record—a sea monster 100ft. long, was found on board a New Zealand steamer, and that it is an open question whether the beast was a Serpent or an Earthquake.— The same ingenious journal describes a certain picture as « one of the latest emanations from Mr F.'s skilful brush »; and a Wanganui refrigerating company announces by circular that « arrangements are being made to place shippers on the best possible terms for the disposal of their skins and fat. »