TWO CURIOUS NEEDLES.
GIRLS, we are afraid, don't like sewing quite as well as they ought to. It is so much easier to ask mother to do what is needed than to do it themselves. But the girls may be interested in reading about some curious needles, if they are not obliged to use them.
The king of Russia recently visited a needle manufactory in his kingdom, in order to see what machinery, with the human hand, could produce.
He was shown a number of superfine needles, thousands of which, together, did not weigh half an ounce, and marveled how such minute objects could be pierced with an eye. But he was to see that in this respect something still finer and more perfect could be created. The borer, that is, the workman whose business it is to bore the eyes of these needles, asked for a hair from the monarch's head. It was readily given, with a smile. He placed it at once under the boring machine, made a hole in it with the greatest care, furnished it with a thread, and then handed the singular needle to the astonished king.
The second curious needle is in the possession of Queen Victoria. It was made at the celebrated needle manufactory at Red ditch, and represents the column of Trajan in miniature. This well-known Roman column is adorned with numerous scenes in sculpture, which immortalize Trajan's heroic actions in war. On this diminutive needle, scenes in the life of Queen Victoria are represented in relief, but so finely cut, and so small, that it requires a magnifying glass to see them. The Victoria needle can, moreover, be opened; it contains a number of needles of a smaller size, which are equally adorned with scenes in relief.—
Good Cheer.
A BIT at first is but a silken thread,
Fine as the light-winged gossamers that sway
In the warm sunbeams of a summer's day;
A shallow streamlet, rippling o'er its bed;
A tiny sapling, ere its roots are spread;
A yet unhardened thorn upon the spray;
A lion's whelp that hath not scented prey;
A little, smiling child obedient led.
Beware! That thread may bind thee as a chain;
That streamlet gather to a fatal sea;
That sapling spread into a gnarled tree;
That thorn, grown hard, may wound and give thee pain;
That playful whelp his murderous fangs reveal;
That child, a giant, crush thee 'neath his heel.
Selected.