The illustration given below shows one of the queerest houses in the United States. It is four storeys high, yet does not exceed an ordinary cottage in height. The house itself is said to have been built by a man of small stature and eccentric ideas, and a romantic little story is connected with the place. When the house was completed--so runs the legend--its owner was lonely, and, thinking the most expeditious way to get what he wanted was to advertise in the American papers, he inserted a paragraph under the heading "Wife Wanted." Scores of letters and photographs arrived from the hopeful divinities. From the collection of pictures he selected a beautiful face--one that fulfilled his ideal of woman and wife. They corresponded and an engagement resulted. The prospective bride left her Eastern home and came to the eager bridegroom in California. She was a magnificent specimen of womanhood--a modern Juno--but, to the horror and complete despair of the now undone bridegroom, she was six feet high: for him and his house a giantess. Under no possibility could he get her into his "Diamond Castle." This was an insurmountable obstacle to their marriage, and with great sadness they held a consultation and decided to part for ever.--"+THE STRAND MAGAZINE+." [Illustration] * * * * * PRESIDENT CASTRO'S STEEL PALACE. President Castro, of Venezuela, lives in what is probably the most remarkable dwelling-place of any modern ruler. It stands within a park at Caracas, and is built almost entirely of steel. The outer walls are covered with a kind of soft stone, so to look at there is nothing peculiar about the place; but it is said to be the strongest house in the world, and it will resist the heaviest gun fire. The idea of a steel "palace" occurred to the President after he had had experience of one or two earthquakes. One night he was awakened by an earth tremor, and in his fright he jumped out of a window and broke his leg. After that he decided that bricks and mortar were not safe, hence the reason for his metal abode.--"+TIT-BITS+." * * * * * GOLFING DIFFICULTIES IN CHINA. "I remember once," says Mr. Bertram Steer, in "Woman's Life," "when I was in Northern China, I and some others were laying out a nine-hole golf-links near a European settlement, with curious results. The local mandarin was informed by a native that some 'foreign devils' were doing weird things, and it seems that in that part of the globe the laying-out of a golf-links is not exactly an everyday occurrence. Anyhow, that mandarin sent an urgent despatch to the Imperial Government at Peking calling attention to our dangerous doings, and asking for immediate instructions as to the measures he should take to nip our conspiracy in the bud. We were, he reported, busily engaged in mining a tract of land near the town, and had already sunk nine holes ready to receive the charges of dynamite."