The Queer, the Quaint and the Quizzical Part 33

At Bayeux, Normandy, a strong belief exists among the people of some hidden treasure in the ground beneath the ruined churches and castles so abundant in the neighborhood; but they are supposed to be guarded by supernatural means. Even so late as 1827 persons were found credulous enough to follow the directions of a Douster-swivel and employ much time and labor uselessly in searching after imaginary riches beneath the stones in front of the Cathedral. This belief that the hidden or lost treasure is guarded by a spiritual attendant is very generally diffused.

On this point Southey, in the "Doctor," observes: "The popular belief that places are haunted where money has been concealed, or where some great and undiscovered crime has been committed, shows how consistent this is with our natural sense of likelihood and fitness."

_Tenacity of Odors._

Dr. Carpenter states, in his "Comparative Physiology," that a grain of musk has been kept freely exposed to the air of a room, of which the door and window were constantly open, for ten years, during all which time the air, though constantly changed, was completely impregnated with the odor of musk, and yet at the end of that time the particle was found not to have sensibly diminished in weight.

_Antiquity of Acrobatic Figures._

Modern toys of acrobats are made to perform evolutions by the use of quicksilver. Daedalus, the famous Greek figure-maker, who is said to have lived about a thousand years before Christ, introduced quicksilver into a wooden image of Venus, thereby lending to it a sort of Chinese tumbling motion.-_Dr. Doran._

_Saffron as a Perfume._

It seems a little odd to us that the ancients used saffron as a perfume.

Not only were halls, theatres and courts strewn with the plant, but it entered into the composition of many spirituous extracts, which retained the scent. These costly smelling waters were often made to flow in small streams, which spread abroad their much admired odor. Luxurious people even moistened with them all those things with which they were desirous of surprising their guests in an agreeable manner, or with which they ornamented their appartment. From saffron, with the addition of wax and other ingredients, the Greeks and Romans prepared scented salves.

_Spontaneous Combustion._

In Levoux's "Journal de Medicine" is an account of a very fat woman, twenty-eight years of age, who was found on fire in her chamber, where nothing else was burning. The neighbors heard a noise of something like frying, and when the body was removed it left a layer of black grease.

The doctor conceived that the combustion began in the internal parts, and that the clothes were burned secondarily.

_Egyptian Perfumes._

So perfect were the Egyptians in the manufacture of perfumes, that some of their ancient ointment, preserved in an alabaster vase in the museum at Alnwick, still retains a very powerful odor, though it must be almost three thousand years old.

_Magic Rain Stone._

The Indian magi, who are to invoke Yo He Wah, and meditate with the supreme holy fire that he may give seasonable rains, have a transparent stone of supposed great power in a.s.sisting to bring down the rain when it is put in a basin of water. It is reputed to possess divine virtue; it would suffer decay, they a.s.sert, were it even seen by their own laity; but if by foreigners, it would be utterly despoiled of its divine communicative power.

_Decapitation by the Guillotine._

A reliable gentleman who witnessed an execution, wrote as follows: "It appears to be the best of all modes of inflicting the punishment of death, combining the greatest impression on the spectator with the least possible suffering to the victim. It is so rapid that I should doubt whether there was any suffering; but from the expression of the countenance, when the executioner held up the head, I am inclined to believe that sense and consciousness may remain for a few seconds after the head is off. The eyes seemed to retain speculation for a moment or two, and there was a look in the ghastly stare with which they stared upon the crowd, which implied that the head was aware of its ignominious situation."

_Chateaubrun's Escape from the Guillotine._

During the Reign of Terror, M. de Chateaubrun was sentenced to death and sent to execution with twenty other prisoners; but after the fifteenth head had fallen, the guillotine got out of order, and a workman was required to repair it. The six remaining victims were left standing in front of the machine with their hands tied behind them. A French crowd is very curious, and the people kept pressing forward to see the man who was arranging the guillotine. By degrees M. de Chateaubrun, who was to the rear of his companions, found himself in the front line of the spectators, then in the second, and finally well behind those who had come to see his head cut off. Before the man could get the guillotine in working order night began to fall, and M. de Chateaubrun slipped away. When in the Champs Elysees he told a man that a wag had tied his hands and stole his hat, and this simple individual cut him free. A few days later M. de Chateaubrun escaped from France.

_A Lucky Find._

During the month of April, 1733, Sir Simon Stuart, of Hartley, England, while looking over some old writings, found on the back of one of them a memorandum noting that 1500 broad pieces were buried in a certain spot in an adjoining field. After a little digging the treasure was found in a pot, hidden there in the time of the civil wars by his grandfather, Sir Nicholas Stuart.

_Paradise of Old Hats._

The group of islands known as the Nicobars, situated about one hundred and fifty miles south of the Andamans, have been but little explored, though the manners and customs of the inhabitants of these islands offer interesting peculiarities. One of the most noticeable, and one which seriously affects the trade of the islands, is the pa.s.sion for old hats which pervades the whole frame-work of society. No one is exempt, and young and old endeavor to outvie each other in the singularity of shape no less than in the number of the old hats they can acquire during a lifetime. On a fine morning at the Nicobars it is not unusual to see the surface of the ocean in the vicinity of the islands dotted over with canoes, in each of which the n.o.ble savage, with nothing whatever on but the conventional slip of cloth and a tall white hat with a black band, may be watched standing up and catching fish for his daily meal.

Second-hand hats are more in request, new hats being looked upon with suspicion and disfavor. The pa.s.sion is so well known that traders from Calcutta make annual excursions to the Nicobars with cargoes of old hats, which they barter for cocoanuts, the only product of the island, a good, tall white hat with a black band bringing from fifty-five to sixty-five good cocoanuts. Intense excitement pervades the island while the trade is going on. When the hats or the cocoanuts have come to an end, the trader generally lands a flask or two of rum, and the whole population, in their hats, get drunk without intermission until the rum also comes to an end.

_Wedding-Rings._

The wedding-ring, symbolical of the perpetuity of the conjugal relation, has ever been the accepted accompaniment of marriage. Its being put on the fourth finger of the left hand has been continued from long-established usage, because of the fanciful conceit that from this finger a nerve went direct to the heart.

_The Prince of Charlatans._

Paracelsus was the prince of charlatans; indeed he styled himself the "King of Physic." Although he professed to have discovered the "Elixir of Life," it did not seem to have been available in his own case, for he died at the early age of forty-eight years.

_One Meal a Day._

Dr. Fordyce contended that as one meal a day was enough for a lion, it ought to suffice for a man. Accordingly, for more than twenty years, the doctor used to eat only a dinner in the whole course of a day. A pound and a half of rump steak, half a broiled chicken, a plate of fish, a bottle of port, a tankard of strong ale, and a quarter of a pint of brandy satisfied his moderate wants. Dinner over, occupying an hour and a half, he returned home from the chop house to deliver his six o'clock lecture on anatomy and chemistry.

_Gold-headed Canes for Physicians._

In the times of the renowned Radcliffe, the gold-headed cane was the sceptre of authority among the medical profession. Dignity dwelt in the mysterious symbol. It also protected the owner against contagious diseases, being filled with disinfecting herbs, which he applied to his nose when visiting patients.

He pursed his brows, then wink'd his eyes, Put his cane to his nose and look'd wise.

_Yearly Food of one Man._

From the army and navy diet scales of France and England, which, of course, are based upon the recognized necessities of large numbers of men in active life, it is inferred that about two and one-fourth pounds avordupois of dry food per day are required for each individual; of this amount three-fourths are vegetable and the rest animal. At the close of an entire year, the amount is upwards of eight hundred pounds.

Enumerating under the t.i.tle of water all the various drinks-coffee, tea, alcohol, wine, etc.-its estimated quant.i.ty is about fifteen hundred pounds per annum; that for the air received by breathing may be taken at eight hundred pounds. The food, water and air which a man consumes amount in the aggregate to more than three thousand pounds a year; that is, about a ton and a half, or more than twenty times his own weight.-_Wells._

_Eating Tea._

It was not until the end of the seventeenth century that tea was indulged in as a beverage. The first brewers of tea were often sorely perplexed with the preparation of the new mystery; after boiling the tea, "they sat down to eat the leaves with b.u.t.ter and salt." The Dutch were the first to discover the utility and value of the herb, and when, in 1666, it was first introduced into England, it sold at about three guineas per pound.-_Salad for the Solitary._

_Human Hair._

It has been estimated that a single square inch of the scalp-the skin of the head-contains about seven hundred and forty-four hairs. This number, multiplied by one hundred and twenty square inches-the surface of the head-gives us eighty-nine thousand two hundred and eighty as the number of the hairs of the head. If a lady's hair is a half-yard in length, she will have one hundred and thirty three thousand nine hundred and twenty feet of hair. A man who has arrived at the age of fifty years will have lost, by hair cutting, about thirteen feet, which, multiplied by the number of hairs (eighty-nine thousand two hundred and eighty), will amount to one million one hundred and sixty thousand six hundred and forty feet of hair tubing, or about two hundred and twenty miles.

_Durability of Bricks._

The bricks of Nineveh and Babylon, in the museums, show that they were selected by the ancients as the most lasting material. Plutarch thinks them superior to stone, if properly prepared; and it is admitted that the baths of Caracalla, those of t.i.tus, and the Thermae of Dioclesian, have withstood the effects of time and fire better than the stone of the Colisseum or the marble of the Forum Trajan.