Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 17).djvu/610

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CURIOSITIES.
613

A HOUSE OF PORCUPINE QUILLS.

The pretty little model of a house shown in our next photograph is made of porcupine quills, and is the handiwork of a retired gentleman, Mr. Joubern, of Graaf Reinet, Cape colonyy, who devoted the leisure hours of a whole year to its construction. Between 30,000 and 40,000 brass pins were used in fixing the quills together, and the house has a straw roof. The dimensions of the little domicile are 2ft. 6in. by 3ft. 6in., and it stands in a huge glass case. It was exhibited at the Kimberiey Exhibition of 1892, and also at Pretoria. The photograph was sent to us by Graham Botha, the fifteen-year-old son of a Dutch Reformer, living at St. Stephen's Parsonagc, Cape Town.


TRANSPORTATION OF DUCKS.

A novel method of transporting ducks, in operation in Szabadka, in Hungary, is shown in the accompanying photograph. In place of the usual Crate a sack is obtained, in which a number of holes are cut; through these the heads of the unfortunate birds are thrust. In the photograph we are able to reproduce, thanks to the courtesy of Mr. Ernest C. Jeffery, of 20, North Park, Manningham, it will be seen that the birds have settled down in their confined quarters, but when they are first taken out of the train the noise they make may be better imagined than described, and the helples struggles of the imprisoned birds are really most comical.


A BIG FAMILY.

The accompanying photograph represents T. H. Norman, of the Post Office Department at Washington, D.C;., and his family, consisting of his wife and fifteen children, all girls. The parents have had seventeen children altogether, but two died, one boy and one girl. There are no twins in the family. The eldest was twenty-five years and the youngest nineteen months old at the time this photograph was taken. Norman is a coloured man, forty-five years of age, and his wife is about the same age. His salary is only fifty-five dollars a month, and yet he has managed to educate all his children old enough to receive an education. His family reside at Montgomery, Fayette Co., West Virginia, and the picture—which was sent in by Mr. A. H. Burt, Washington—shows a portion of their home.