The Queer, the Quaint and the Quizzical Part 28

_The Queen's Vow._

Catherine de Medicis made a vow, that if some enterprises which she had undertaken terminated successfully, she would send a pilgrim on foot to Jerusalem, and that at every three steps he advanced he should go one step back. A citizen of Verberic offered to accomplish the queen's vow most scrupulously, and her majesty promised him an adequate recompense.

She was well a.s.sured, by constant inquiries, that he fulfilled his engagement with exactness, and on his return he received a considerable sum of money and was enn.o.bled.

_Swearing on the Book._

In testimony, oaths have always been a.s.sociated with something to be touched or kissed. In England people used to kiss their thumbs instead of the Bible, and so supposed that they had saved their consciences. A rustic, in one of Mr. Meredith's novels says, "I swore, but not upon oath," meaning that he had kissed his thumb, not the book. Arthur Orton, in the Bush, laid his hand on a copy of Sheridan's plays, "which, though not a Bible, bore a cross." So Zeus lays his hand on the earth, in Homer, when he swears by that planetary body. People had to touch relics when they swore in the Middle Ages, as in the famous oath of Harold. The Danes, when they invaded England, were ready to take any oath with impunity, save that of touching a certain sacred ring or armlet. Hamlet made his comrades lay their hands on the blade of his sword.

_Chinese Oath._

At the Thames public office, in London, some years ago, two Chinese sailors were examined on a charge of a.s.saulting another Chinese sailor.

The complainant was examined according to the custom of their country. A Chinese saucer being given to him, and another to the interpreter, they both advanced toward the window, directed their eyes to heaven, and repeated in their own tongue the following: "In the face of G.o.d I break this saucer; if it comes together again, Chinaman has told a lie, and expects not to live five days; if it remains asunder, Chinaman has told the truth, and escapes the vengeance of the Almighty." They then smashed the saucers in pieces on the floor, and returned to their places to be examined.

_Color of the Hat for Cardinals._

Innocent IV. first made the hat the symbol or cognizance of the cardinals, enjoining them to wear a _red_ hat at the ceremonies and processions, in token of their being ready to spill their blood for the Saviour.

_Cat-Concert._

Some years ago there was a cat-concert held in Paris. It was called "Concert Miaulant," from the mewing of the animals. They were trained by having their tails pulled every time a certain note was struck, and the unpleasant remembrance caused them to mew each time they heard the sound again.

_Mob Wisdom._

A singular instance of a mob cheating themselves by their own headlong impetuosity is to be found in the life of Woodward, the comedian. On one occasion, when he was in Dublin, and lodged opposite the Parliament House, a mob, who were making the members swear to oppose an unpopular bill, called out to his family to throw them a Bible out of the window.

Mr. Woodward was frightened, for they had no such book in the house, but he threw them out a volume of Shakespeare, telling the mob they were welcome to it. They gave him three cheers, swore the members upon the book, and afterwards returned it without having discovered its character.

_Queer Arctic Music._

One of the greatest curiosities in the arctic regions is the music which the traveler has with him wherever he goes. The moisture exhaled from his body is at once condensed and frozen, and falls to the ground in the form of hard spikes of crystals, which keep up a constant and not unpleasing clatter.

_Fineness of Indian Muslins._

At the time of the Great Exhibition of 1851, the local committee of Dacca, in India, gave notice that they would award prizes for the best piece of muslin that could be woven in time for the Exhibition. The piece which received the first prize was ten yards long and one yard wide, weighed only three ozs. two dwts., and could be pa.s.sed through a very small ring.-_Prof. Royle._

_Mummies Converted into Paint._

Few persons are aware that veritable Egyptian mummies are ground into paint. In Europe mummies are used for this purpose-the asphaltum with which they are impregnated being of a quality far superior to that which can elsewhere be obtained, and producing a peculiar brownish tint when made into paint, which is highly prized by distinguished artists. The ancient Egyptians, when they put away their dead, wrapped them in clothes saturated with asphaltum, and could never have realized the fact that ages after they had been laid in the tombs and pyramids along the Nile, their dust would be used in painting pictures in a country then undiscovered, and by artists whose languages were unknown to them.

_Swallowed by an Earthquake and Thrown out Again._

A tombstone in the island of Jamaica has the following inscription: "Here lieth the body of Lewis Galdy, Esq., who died on the 22d of September, 1737, aged 80. He was born at Montpellier, in France, which place he left for his religion, and settled on this island, where, in the great earthquake, 1672, he was swallowed up, and by the wonderful providence of G.o.d, by a second shock was thrown out into the sea, where he continued swimming until he was taken up by a boat, and thus miraculously preserved. He afterwards lived in great reputation, and died universally lamented."

_Scripture Prices._

Abraham paid 400 shekels of silver ($200) for a piece of land for a burying-place. In Solomon's time (1 Kings x. 29) it is mentioned that the price of a chariot from Egypt was 600 shekels of silver ($250). The price of a horse was 150 shekels (about $72).-_Wells._

_Manufacturing Feat._

In 1811 a gentleman made a bet of one thousand guineas that he would have a coat made in a single day, from the first process of shearing the sheep till its completion by the tailor. The wager was decided at Newbury, England, on the 25th of June in that year, by Mr. John c.o.xeter, of Greenham mills, near that town. At five o'clock that morning Sir John Throckmorton presented two Southdown sheep to Mr. c.o.xeter, and the sheep were shorn, the wool spun, the yarn spooled, warped, loomed and wove, the cloth burred, milled, rowed, dried, sheared and pressed, and put into the hands of the tailors by four o'clock that afternoon. At twenty minutes past six the coat, entirely finished, was handed by Mr.

c.o.xeter to Sir John Throckmorton, who appeared with it before more than five thousand spectators, who rent the air with acclamations at this remarkable instance of despatch.

_Wall Paper Pattern._

In the Great Exhibition at London, in 1851, a single pattern of wall paper, representing a chase in a forest, attracted much attention. To produce the pattern, twelve thousand blocks had been used.

_Feathers for the Ladies._

Statistics of a late feather sale in England show that to furnish material for that one sale, at least 9,700 herons or egrets and 15,574 humming birds must have been killed.

_A Man Carries his House on his Head._

Simeon Ellerton, of Craike, Durham, died in 1799, aged 104. This man, in his day, was a noted pedestrian, and before the establishment of regular "Posts," was frequently employed in walking commissions, from the northern counties to London and other places, which he executed with fidelity and despatch. He lived in a neat stone cottage of his own erecting, and, what is remarkable, he had literally carried his house on his head. It was his constant practice to bring back with him from every journey which he undertook, some suitable stone, or other material for his purpose, and which, not unfrequently, he carried 40 or 50 miles on his head.

_Queen Anne's Farthings._

The farthings of Queen Anne have attained a celebrity from the large prices sometimes given for them by collectors. Their rarity, however, has been much overrated; it was, indeed, long a popular notion that only three farthings were struck in her reign, of which two were in public keeping, while a third was still going about, and, if recovered, would bring a fabulous price. The Queen Anne farthings were designed by a German named Crocker or Croker, princ.i.p.al engraver to the mint. They were only patterns of an intended coin, and, though never put into circulation, are by no means exceedingly rare.

_No Lead in Lead Pencils._

Lead pencils contain no lead. Lead pencil is as much a misnomer as it would be to call a horse a cow. Red lead is an oxide of lead, and white lead is a carbonate of lead, but the black lead used in pencils is neither a metal nor a compound of metal. It is plumbago or graphite, one of the forms of carbon.

_Whalebone._

This substance is improperly named, since it has none of the properties of bone; its correct name is baleen. It is found attached to the upper jaw, and serves to strain the water which the whale takes into its mouth, and to retain the small animals upon which it subsists. For this purpose the baleen is abundant, sometimes eight hundred pieces in one whale, placed across each other at regular distances, with the fringed edge towards the mouth.

_Light from Potatoes._

The emission of light from the common potato, when in a state of decomposition, is sometimes very striking. Dr. Phipson, in his work on "Phosph.o.r.escence," mentions a case in which the light thus emitted from a cellarful of these vegetables was so strong as to lead an officer on guard at Strasburg to believe that the barracks were on fire.