MISCELIANEA.

Cromwell Argus, Volume IV, Issue 177, 1 April 1873, Page 7

MISCELIANEA.

Tt is stated that the Japanese, seeing thw [advantages of rising English, talk of giving up their own language and adopting ours. Over 400 divorce ca-es are n nv on the list of the Divorce Court in England, and the appointment of another judge is being seriously canvassed. Upon the marriage or a woman named Wheat, of Virginia, an editor hoped that her pith might be flowery, and that she might never b ; thrashed by her husband. The heirs of an Illinoisian, who fatally fractured his skull by falling out of his waggon when intoxicated, have recovered 100) dollars danmos from tire barkeeper who sold him the liquor. A citizen of Gosport, the other night, mis- | took his wife’s yeast bottle 1 for his favourite j “ little brown jug,’'and took a “long pull ;and a strong pull” therefrom. He is now , regarded as a rising man. j At the Liverpool Assizes, the Rev. W. IT. | Casey, curate of St. Matthew’s. Liverpool, Wes defendant in an action for brea.-h of promise of marriage by a German lady, named Schneider, formerly a mcmbir of his choir. The damages were laid at £5,000, and the defendant consented to a verdict for that amount. t’o ue of the finest specimens of uncut opals ever seen in Australia are being exhibited at Melbourne. The stones are from the Bnlloo River, in Northern Queensland, and the dis- * overor has, in conjunction with other parties, i taken up a thousand acres for the purpose of | mining for opals. i On a recent trip of one, of the Illinois rivo? i steamers—a light draught one, as there were only two feet of water in the channel—the j passengers were startled by the cry of “ Man ■overboard !” The steamer was stopped, and i prep-rations were made to save him, when ilie was heard exclaiming, “Go ahead with iyonr darned old steam-boat! I’ll walk.” ! Samuel Leo. Prnfe sor of Hebrew at the I University of Cambridge, England, was i seventeen years of age before he conceived ! the idea of learning a foreign language. Out : of the scanty pittance of his weekly earnings I as a carpenter he purchased a book, and when j this was road he exchanged it for another, ! mid thus advanced in knowledge, He had j not oven the pr vdege of balancing between : reading and relaxation, but was obliged to i pass d-.rectly from bodily fatigue to mental | exertion. During tie six years previous to i his 25th year, he omitted none of the hours | usually appropriated to manual labour, and he retired to rear regularly at ten o’clock in the evening, and yet at the age of 31 he had actually taught seventeen languages. This illustrates that ** v.lierc there is a will there is a way.” diaries Haddon Spurgeon, the eminent j Baptist preacher, belongs to a family of | preachers ; liis great grandfather, his grand- ! father, wlo .was a small shop-keeper, his ! father, Rev. Join Spurgeon, of Fetter-lane j chapel, and his brother James are of this ‘company, ] ant ami present, whose genius | scorns to have culminated in the present | minister of the Surrey Tabernacle, This j peculiar family gift is now branching out in ■ the ieniminc side of the family, and a sister of i Mr Spurgeon is preaching with much success pat Willingham in Cambridgeshire, where her i husband is a Baptist minister. The cases : from Willingham tried before the local Bench i have decreased to such an extent that the | police authorities have expressed their thanks 1 to the lady preacher as being the instrument I of the improvement. j Some or the “ Myst ry” plays, which wore , wont to bo performed throughout Europe dnr- | mg the Middle Ages, under the- patronage and j generally under the superintendence of the I clergy, were ludicrous adaptations of BibliI cal events. An English traveller of the last ■ century describes one called the “ Creation,” which Ik- saw performed in Hamburg, Germany, in 1723. According to his account it was a grotesque a Pair, Young priests had : "dugs of geese tied on their shoulders to personate angels, Adam appeared on the scene in a big curled wig and a brocade morning gown. Among the annuals that passed before him to receive their names was a wcilJiod horse, pigs with rings in their noses, and a mast;ft with a brass collar. A cow’s rib bone had been provided for the formation o? Eve, but the mast,id' spi*d it out, grabbed it and carried it off. The angels tried to whistle him back, but not succeeding, the* chased him, gave him a kicking and recovered the bone, which they placed under a trapdoor by the side of the sleeping Adam, whence there soon emerged a lanky priest in loose robes to personate Eve. A professor’s wife, who occupied herself sometimes with assisting her husband in making casts of interesting obje-ts of; e dogv and natural history, says the Ma.-vfaHwcr and B'liiihr , also for her own pleasure made sometimes flowers and fruit of wax and other materials ; and notwi hstauding she had become quite a successful expert in this line, she found flint almost always her efforts were criticised by her friends. Once at a tea party she handed a large apple round, and stated her confidence that this time she had been quite successful in her imitation of Nature s product ; but her friends as usual were not of her opinion ; one criticised the shape, saying it would be more natural if it w *s not so globular ; another criticised the colors, and said that it wip better than other imitations, but she had not quite hit the natural indescribable peculiarity which distinguishes the natural apples from mere imitations ; almost every one had some fault to Hud. After tho apple had passed round and came in her hands again, she ate it. without saving anything. Her friends had been criticising a real apple, but never afterwards critaciebd ]sx of fpuiij.