MISCELLANEA.

Cromwell Argus, Volume 2, Issue 92, 15 August 1871, Page 6

MISCELLANEA.

—o — There being some doubt as to the actual date of Sir Walter Scott's birth, many people being of opinion that because the centenary was to be celebrated in Great Britain on August 9, he was born on that date. The matter is easily set at rest. On consultiug Lockhart's " Life of Scott," and more particularly the autobiographic fragment prefixed to the body of the work, we find Scott distinctly stating that he was born on August 15. The centenary celebration in Britain was fixed for August 9 to suit the convenience of sportsmen, the grouse shooting opening, as most people know, on the 12th. At all events, there need be no dispute about the date of Scott's birth.

" The 'corky' insolvent is a quite colonial sort of party. You can't sink him because of his corkiness; but of all cool touches in his line a note a friend of mine got couldn't be beat. Here it is : —' Sir, —Before I file my schedule, I propose to pay all my creditors 7s 6cl in the pound. I might rise enough money to sa tisfy all. If Igo through the Court, there will not be sixpence in the pound. Yours, • . Let me know before next Wednesday.' Observe the innocent artfulness of this gentle youth. He could pay seven shillings and sixpence in the pound ; but " if I go through the Court there will not be sixpence in the pound." If the new insolvency law makes it cost seven shillings to earn sixpence, its inventors ought to be proud of it." —" Peerybingle Papers." A system of foisting spurious tea upon merchants is growing up in China. Nearly half a million of pounds of willow leaf, according to Consiil Medhurst, were made up in the foreign settlements at Shanghai in the last season, over which his report to the Foreign Office just issued extends, and palmed off as green tea. The spurious article, though scarcely distinguishable from the genuine article, has no similarity of taste, and it has therefore to be mixed with tea before it is sold ; but as it can be propuced at twopence per pound, a mixture of even 20 per cent., which is about the ratio of adulteration, represents a tempting profit to the producer. Bishop Kingsley, in the " Central Advocate," thus discourses on the city walls of the Chinese : —" After giving a good deal of attention to the subject, I am satisfied that the whole amount of wall in China, if put together, would build one twenty feet high and ten feet thick, entirely round the globe, and would require five thousand men to work steadily for two thousand years to accomplish the work."

Canada is the fourth maritime power in the world, and, according to the Year Book of 1870, has 7,591 ships, with a tonnage of 899,000. She stands ahead of every nation except Great Britain, the United States, and Fz'ance.

A Cincinnati paper brags a little of the dexterity with which its butcher boys do their work :—"The operation of killing and dressing is so rapidly performed that if you study the faces of the hogs after they are hung up to cool, you will find an expression of the most intense bewilderment upon them, as though puzzling themselves to make out what had been going on and where they were."

On Whisky and Newspapers.—A glass of whisky is manufactured from a dozen grains of corn, the value of which is too small to be estimated. A glass of this mixture sells for a dime, and if of a good brand is considered well worth the money. It is drunk in a minute or two. It fires the brain, sharpens the appetite, deranges and weakens the physical system. On the same sideboard on which the deleterious beverage is served lies a newspaper. It is covered with half a million types ; it brings intelligence from the four quarters of the globe. The newspaper costs less than a glass of grog, the juice of a few grains of corn, but it is no less true there is a large number of people who think corn juice cheap and newspapers dear.—" Scottish American."

The New London (Wisconsin) " Times" reports that a girl in that place, thirteen years of age, committed to memory 3100 verses of the Bible in a single week. A French Dwarf.—Amongst the exiles from France which the late disastrous war has driven to England, not the least remarkable is the graceful little lady who has been holding levees in the Burlington Gallery. The Princess Felicie, as her exhibitors have christened her, is a genuine dwarf, a real living Liliputian. She is, perhaps, the smallest female yet exhibited in London, one beside whom Miss Minnie Warren would be almost a giantess. Like Mis 3 Minnie, the Princess Felicie is the child of parents of the ordinary station, who have accompanied her over to England from her native province. She is now in her ninth year, measures scarcely l!)in. in height, and weighs just Gib. She is of perfect symmetry in limb and feature, and altogether a pleasing and gentle child. The following curiosity of literature has been sent by a squatter to the Wagga Wagga "Advertiser." With the exception of the surname, for which is substituted the national prefix "Me," it is a correct copy of a. Census paper as fdled up by one of the station hands :—"William Mc—, beam in,Cotland, aged 200, prcsstrean ; Louisa Mc—, aged 203, beam in London the 31 of next July; Louisa Mc—, born in New South Wales, aged 5 years hold on the 208 of next September; Alexander Mc—, born in N.S. Wales, aged d years hold on the 9 of next may ; Catherine Mc—, bom in N.S. Wales, aged two years hold on the 4 of next February."