Extracts.

Auckland Chronicle and New Zealand Colonist, Volume 2, Issue 39, 2 May 1844, Page 4

Extracts.

Water for Domestic purposes.— bathing can be more destructive to the ipiriiity and sweetness of water than to keep sit iin the old and generally rotten barrels vtfbich adorn the back yards of so many Urouses. Pitch, even when fresh, is a wery slender protection from vegetation, ibeing itself a vegetable substance; but the coating has been for some time to the sun (for by a strange perverseness, water-butts generally kept uncovered), the oily matter is drawn off, and the water converts the pitch into slime, in Which flies and gnats generate luxuriantly. Hlheir eggs are washed from the sides of tihe barrel as the water flows in, and largely assist in giving the element that noxious (Effluvia for which many persons are inclined to blame the water, while it is their own carelessness, All water in a state of repose should be covered in, and kept in as cool a place as possible, instead of being exposed to the rays fltrf the sun in a pervious wooden vessel. Ws advise all our reades to give thejir landlords notice of quitting unless they are ffurnished with lead-cisterns, for uuless *they possesss them, they nevercan depend ©n keeping water sweet or fresh. In the Wean time, if the butt must be retained in use, we advise the good lady of the house do clean it well, to keep it covered, and to Put a piece of charcoal therein, by which much of the vegetable matter will be precipitated to the bottom, and the water preserved fresh and clear tor a greater length Cf€me.— Chambers's London Journal.

Mental Inequalities which lead IT© Suicide. —l cannot conceive a more “piteous condition thaa that of a man of ambition without the powers of mind which are indispensible for its gratification. In him a constant contest is going on between an understanding constitutionally weak, and a desire to distinguish himself in some particular department of science. How often does a man so unhappily organised and his career in a mad-house, or terminate his miserable life by suicide ? Let men be taught to make correct estimates of their own capabilities—to curb the* imagination— to cease building castles in the air, if we wish to advance their mental and bodily health. “ Nesutor ultra erepida,” said Apelles to the cobler.' A young man who penned a stanza when he ought to engross,” blew out his brains (?) because he had failed in inducing a London publisher to purchase an epic poem which he had written—which he had the morbid vanity to conceive was equal to “ Paradise Lost.” That this state of mind predisposes and often leads to the commission of suicide numerous cases testify. Winslow’s Anatomy of Suicide .

Sea-Lions. —ln 1825, the captain of the Fiench corvette Victoria, while at anchor in the Bay of Tunis, bought of a Moorish merchant two lion’s whelps, of the mount Atlas breed. The whelps made themselves perfectly at home in their floating habitation; they grew up, and became lions—sea lions as they were. Without the tutorship of Van Amburg or Carter, they received an accomplished education, and were allowed to go entirely free; the length and breadth of the ship were equally at their disposal; they were docile, and beautifully tame ; they rolled and played like brothers with the cabinboys, and seemed to understand all that passed. The strains of fife and tambour were nothing obscure to them. At the hour of review, they sat with quiet majesty at the side of the drum, and observed as the regiment defiled. One of their favourite customs was to run to the portholes of the ship, whenever a strange boat hailed them. Their heads and yellow manes then jutted out like those of two Gorgons, their eyes menaced, and their jaws resembled two terrible chasms, that frightened the visitors. Once the men were wonderfully delighted at the panic they caused to an American commodore, who when at the top of the ladder, found himself face to face with these singular masters of ceremony. At this unexpected appearance, he leaped precipitately into his boat, ran the whole round of the vessel to get on the opposite side; but there finding the same faces, contented himself with crying out, in a voice of concentrated anger, that he was ready to visit the commander, but refused to have anything to do with his sentinels. The commodore, thus having his self importance wounded, complained to the admiral against the lions of the Victoria - They were enchained; their native ferocity again regained its sway ; and they were obliged to be thrust into a cage of iron. The unfortunate animals could not stomach this insulting treatment; a low melancholy succeeded to some days of furious rage, they fell ill, and soon after died, to the regret of the whole ships company— Journal de la Flotte.

Early rising. —Next to temperance, a quiet conscience, a cheerful mind, and a<// a ve habits, I place early rising as a means of health and happiness. I have hardly words for the estimate I form of the sluggard, male or female, that has formed the habit of wasting the early prime of the day in bed. Putting out of the question the positive loss of life, and that too of the most inspiring and beautiful part of each day, when all the voices of nature invite man from his bed; leav* ingout of the calculation, that longevity has been almost invariably attended by early rising; to me late hours in bed present an index to character, and an omen of the ultimate hopes of the person who indulges in this habit. There is no mark so clear of a tendency to-self indulgence. It denotes an inert and feeble mind, infirm of purpose, and incapable of that elastic vigour of will which enables the possessor to accomplish what his reason ordains. The subject of this unfortunate habit cannot but have flet self-reproach, and a purpose to spring from his repose with the freshness of dawn. If the mere indolent luxury of another hour of languid indulgence is allowed to over-rule this better purpose, it argues a general weakness of character, which promises no high attainment or distinction. These are never awarded by fortune to any trait but vigours promptness, and decision. Viewing the habit of late rising in all its aspects, it would seem as if no being that has any claim to rationality could be found in the unhallowed habit of sacrificing a tenth, and that the freshest portion of life, or the curtailing of the remainder, for any plea» sure that his indulgence could confer.— Flint , Cromwells Bon'-s. —Mr, Carlyle in his‘* Past and Present” says :—Oliver Cromwell quitted his farming, and undertook a Hercules’ labour and lifelong wrestle. His wages, as I understand were burial under the gallows tree near Tyburn Turnpike, with his head on the gable of Westmins ster Hall and two centuries now of mixed'cursing and ridicule froip all manner of men. His dost lies under the Edgeware road, near Tyburne Turn pike, at this hour. We believe there is no Tyburn Turnpike now, but the Bones of Oliver rest beneath the mile post on the Park side of the way which serves as the Lord Protector’s tombstone.

Making Fruit Trees. —When you wish to procure young trees of a particular kind of fruit for transplanting, dig round the old tree until you come to a healthy, growing root, which cut off and turn the end of the detached portion out of the ground. It will produce shoots the first season, and in a few years baar fruit of tie Siroe kind as be parent tree.

March of Refinement —A well-known confectioner of Cambridge wa3 lately requested by an equally weilaknown bootmaker in the same town to send him some iee, as he was going to give a party. The confectioner returned the following laconic reply :— ‘‘ Mr. L never freezes for snobs.” Theory of Marriage. —There was a merry fellow who supped with Pluto three thousand year, ago, and the conversation turned upon love and the choice of wives. He said, “He had learned from very early tradition that man was created, male and female, with a delicate set of limbs, and performed his locomotive functions with a kind of rotary movements as a wheel; that be became, in consequence, so excessively indent, that Jupiter, indignant, split him in two, since that time when tbe original halves meet, they are a very loving couple ; otherwise they are subjeot to a miserable, scolding, peevish, and uncongenial matrimony. The search, he said, was rendered difficult, for the reason that one man alighted upon a half that did not belong to him, another did necessarily the same, till the whole affair was thrown into irretrievable confusion.” Value of Looks. —At the Newcastle Bazaar a young gentleman lingered for some time atone of the stalls, which was attended by a very handsome young lady. *• The charge of your inspection of my wares,” said the fa.r dealer, “ishalfsacrown, Sir.” “ I was admiring your beauty, ma’am and not that of your goods,” replied the gallant. “ That is five shillings,” responded the lady with great readiness; and no demand,, perhaps, was more cherfully complied with. Men and Gentlemen, Women and Ladie*.— The New Orleans Herald makes the following singular distinction among these several classes of society : —” MeD are quarried fro, tbe living rock as with a thunderbolt. Gentlemen are moulded, as the potter’s clav, by the dainty fingers of fashionWomen are the spontaneous growth of warm, rich soil, where the wind blows freely, and the heait feels the visitings of God’s ever changeable weather. Ladies are the offsprings of a hot-bed, the growth of a greenhouse, tended and watched, lest the wind.of Heaven may visit their faces too roughly, till they are good for nothing as women at any rate as wives’or mothers..-’ A Snoring Bishop— The Western Times tells the following anecdote of Bishop Pbiilpotts;— “ On Sunday afternoon last Bishop Phillpotts took his seat on his episcopal throne in Exeter Cathedral, drew the curtains around him, and made all sung for meditation. Dr. Colredge of Thorbiton, was tbe Divine appointed to preach, andjthe sermon was marked with that vigour of thought and terseness of expression for which he is somewhat celebrated. He denounced triflers, and more especially those who, having used the six days for the pursuits of ibis world, went and slept away the seventh at church. The sermon being concluded, the Kev. Dr, looked over towards the Bishop’s throne, expec. ting to see the Right Rev. and respected Diocesan slowly rise aud dismiss the (lock with a pious benediction, The Doctor looked in vain ; but as he directed a stern and astonishing gaze right into tbe Bishop’s snuggery, the people really could not fell what to make of it; every face wa3 turned, with indescribable anxiety, towards tbe throne. The verger rushed over with his mace, and knoeked decidedly $ then louder, and more decidedly ;but, alas! there was noresponse, save in the stillness between the knocks ; the response of an audible but comfortable snore. The third rap of the mace waked the Bishop, who shaking himself, like one suddenly startled from a pleasant dream into a dull reality, to deliver his professional benediction, as wide awake as ever.”

Three balf-pay officers have been struck off the list for attending repeal meetings. Most Horrible. —A state prisoner at Symrna, sentenced to die of hunger in prison, was found alive twenty-eight days after his incarceration. This unfortunate man’s sentence had been commuted) confessed that he had prolonged his sentence by a box of wafers, which also contained a small piece of gum elastic and a morsel of sealing wax. Whan these were exhausted he began to eat the miserable pasteboard box which had contained them.

A Nose—A lady whose over fondness for geners ous living had given her a flushed face anJcarbuncled nose, consulted Dr; Chyne. Upon surveying herself in the glass, she exclaimed, “ Where in the name of wonder doctor, did I get such a nose as this?” “Out of the decanter, out of the decanter,’’ replied the doctor.

The Milk Sickness Dr. Seaton, of Jefferson county, has in press a pamphlet entitled an “ Inquiry into the causes of the Milk Sickness-’* Dr Seaton has lately taken a tour through the regions of Indiana where it prevails for the purpose of obtaining for himself the symptoms of the disease and investigating its causes. He attributes it to arsenic, which he finds scattered in great abuudance, in the form of arsenical iron pyrites,throughout every section where milk sickness prevails. French Ideas of English Government. — The correspondent of a French periodical in the south of France, describing the condition of Great Britain a short time ago, states to the purport that the Queen and Ministry have songht, refuge in Fiance, except the Premier, who had to defend his life by shootiug (partridges and grouse?); and that in consequence of this. Sir Cobden was now de facto the ruler of England ; Sir O’Connell « f Tara-king” of Ireland; Sir Doctor Chalmers the Bishop of Scotland, with secular dominion; and a partner of the times journal supreme Prince in Wales, He does not seem to know where to place “ Padre Matthew,” but makes him out to be a sort of viceroy over all the others. This may seem caricature ; but it is very nearly and in substance the representation upon which some sage political reflections are founded touching the decline and fall of the British empire.