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Show Queer Bits of History. Skating is believed to have been invented in-vented in northern Europe in prehistoric times. William Vitz Stephen speaks of it in Loudon toward the cud of tho twelfth century; but it did not really catch hold until tho cnvaliers. who had beeu in exile with Charles If, brought it with them from Holland. On December , 1GG2, Pcpys, having occasion to cross the park, ''first in iny life, it being a groat frost, did see people sliding wiili their skates, which is a very pretty art.'" On Xecombcr 8 he wenr. purpose! pur-pose! v to see tho eight, aud again found it "very pretty." And on tho .IrJlh ho went with tho Duke of York (James II) iuto the park, "where, 1 though the ice was broken and dan-1 dan-1 gerous, yet he would go slide upon his skates, which I did not like, but ho slidc3 very well." In Now Zealand courts the natives were formerly addicted to prodigiously long orations'. Only a little over twon-ly twon-ly years ago a .judge in Now Zealand was" obliged lo issue an order to tho effoct lhat "in future singing would not bo taken as evidence" in his court. It was Hie constant habit of the Maoris when pleading a cause to sing long, poetic sagas. As these generally began with legends of remote ancestors, sometimes some-times many hours, even days, would bo spent before the point (possibly a trivial triv-ial one) was reached. Old-tnno Englishmen hated idleucss. An act, passed in lijol. decreed tlmt anv person "being whole and mighty in "body and able to labor" found bog-giug, bog-giug, might be arrested, ami if nuablo to give a satisfactorj' account, of himself him-self lie was brought lo tho nearest market mar-ket town, tied to the end of a cart, stripped of his clothes, aud beateu with whips through the town, bleeding and ashamed, after which degradation he was sent to his native place, on his oath to "put himself to labor, like a true man ought to do." If tho sturdy vagabond vaga-bond wero caught a thin! time iu idleness idle-ness he was to suffer death, "as an eji-omy eji-omy to the commonwealth. Chicago News. |