Salt Lake Tribune | 1904-07-03 | Page 10 | Singularities

Singularities. Some of the acts of Pnrllament at one time In effect were of curious Interest. There was the famous act passed in tho reign of Charles II. against Sunday Sun-day trading, which was until very recently re-cently put into force regularly once a week at Yarmouth, where an honest trader came up every Monday morning "like a man" and paid a fine of 7 shillings. shil-lings. Then there was tho Birmingham Birming-ham "metal button act." That was an oxtraordlnary statute, and under it payment of a debt was recently resisted on the ground that, according to its provisions, every suit of clothes supplied sup-plied by a tailor must have upon It metal buttons. An extarordinary duel has just been fought In Paris between two youths named Maltler and Lamort. The arrangement ar-rangement was that Maltler was to 6tand with a drawn sword, while La-mort, La-mort, 100 yards away and armed with a knife, mounted his bicycle. At the word the latter was to ride at his best speed at his adversary. The combat took place In the Rue de la Convention, Conven-tion, and Lamort rode at breakneck Bpced and succeeded In knocking down his opponent, but at the same time fell himself. The swordsman received a serious cut on the head from a pedal, while the cyclist Is suffering from two oevere cuts from the sword. There are more ways of wooing than there are nations, and to most people peo-ple many of them may well seem very strange Indeed. The etiquette of love among the Hungarian gypsies, for instance, in-stance, is as follows: Cakes are used as love letters. A coin Is baked into the cake, which at the first opportunity is flung to the favored object. The retention re-tention of this is looked upon as a virtual vir-tual "acceptance;" Its forcible return, an intimation that the "attentions" are undeslred. This, of course, requires no eloquence on the lover's part. In some parts of the world, indeed, all that Is demanded of a lover is physical force. Among the semi-savage tribes in the Arabian desert, round about Sinai, the lover tries to seize the girl while she is pasturing her father's flocks. She pelts him with mud, sticks and stones, and will be held in lifelong repute if i she succeeds in wounding him. Once driven Into her father's tent, tho betrothal be-trothal is proclaimed. Chicago News.