Read Ebook: Freezing a Mother-in-Law; or Suspended Animation: A farce in one act by Pemberton T Edgar Thomas Edgar

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 436 lines and 23357 words, and 9 pages

TEN THOUSAND WONDERFUL THINGS

COMPRISING

WHATEVER IS MARVELLOUS AND RARE, CURIOUS ECCENTRIC AND EXTRAORDINARY

IN ALL AGES AND NATIONS

ENRICHED WITH

EDITED BY

EDMUND FILLINGHAM KING, M.A.

LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, LIMITED

BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL MANCHESTER AND NEW YORK

STANDARD WORKS OF REFERENCE.

LEMPRI?RE'S CLASSICAL DICTIONARY.

WALKER'S RHYMING DICTIONARY.

MACKAY'S THOUSAND AND ONE GEMS OF ENGLISH POETRY.

D'ISRAELI'S CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE.

BARTLETT'S FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS.

CRUDEN'S CONCORDANCE TO THE BIBLE.

THE FAMILY DOCTOR.

PREFACE

A BOOK OF WONDERS requires but a brief introduction. Our title-page tells its own tale and forms the best exposition of the contents of the volume.

Everything that is marvellous carries with it much that is instructive, and, in this sense, "Ten Thousand Wonderful Things," may be made useful for the highest educational purposes. Events which happen in the regular course have no claim to a place in any work that professes to be a register of what is uncommon; and were we to select such Wonders only as are capable of familiar demonstration, we should destroy their right to be deemed wondrous, and, at the same time, defeat the very object which we profess to have in view. A marvel once explained away ceases to be a marvel. For this reason, while rejecting everything that is obviously fictitious and untrue, we have not hesitated to insert many incidents which appear at first sight to be wholly incredible.

We trust it is needless to say that we have closed our pages against everything that can be considered objectionable in its tendency; and, while every statement in this volume has been culled with conscientious care from authentic, although not generally accessible, sources, we have scrupulously rejected every line that could give offence, and endeavoured, in accordance with what we profess in our title-page, to amuse by the eccentric, to startle by the unexpected, and to astonish by the marvellous.

INDEX TO ENGRAVINGS

PAGE

ABYSSINIAN ARMS, 509

ALTAR-PIECE OF SAN MINIATO, 601

AMULET WORN BY EGYPTIAN FEMALES, 452

AMULET BROTCHE, 332

ANCIENT METHOD OF KEEPING A WASHING ACCOUNT, 3

ANGLO-SAXONS, SEPULCHRAL BARROW OF THE, 27

APTERYX, THE, OR WINGLESS BIRD, 308

ARCH, A BEAUTIFUL, IN CANNISTOWN CHURCH, 433

ARCHITECTURE FOR EARTHQUAKES, 324

ARMLET, AN ANCIENT, 425

ARMOUR, ANCIENT, CURIOUS PIECE OF, 341

ASH, THE SHREW, 397

AZTEC CHILDREN, THE, 37

BAGPIPES, 505

BANDOLIERS, 560

BANNERS AND STANDARDS, ANCIENT, 584, 585

BASTILLE, STORMING OF THE, 195

BEAU BRUMMELL , OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, 61

BECTIVE ABBEY, 392

BELLOWS, A PRIMITIVE PAIR OF, 637

BELL SHRINE, AN ANCIENT, 348

BILLY IN THE SALT BOX, 181

BLACKFRIARS, PARIS GARDEN AT, 465

BLIND GRANNY, 70

BOAT, A BURMESE, 668

BOOK-SHAPED WATCH, 328

BRACELET, A MAGICIAN'S, 345

BRAMA, THE HINDOO DEITY, 556

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet