MISCELLANEOUS.

Cromwell Argus, Volume V, Issue 236, 19 May 1874, Page 7

MISCELLANEOUS.

. - _ . A-player at-whist may hold G35 thousand millions of various hands, so that continually varied,jit 50 deals per evening for 313 days or 1.5,050 hands per annum he might be above 40 millions of years before he would have tho same hand again. Orton, the Tichborne Claimant, who is now in Millbank Prison, weighs 3821b., or 27st 41b. The London Daily Telegraph of the lOrli March published a long statement signed'by Charles Orton. He confessed that lie at once recognised the Tichborne Claimant as his brother, but that his silence was bought by five pounds paid monthly for a year, with tho promise of a thousand or two more at the conclusion of the trial. ■••Ona.r.of the successful candidates for East Melbourne, Mi- George Coppin, is u strong advocate for public-houses being opened on Sunday. ' He holds that the correct restorative after a dry discourse is beer, fresh-drawn, foaming, and frothy; and he says the man should not obtain this by "sneaking through the back yard, as is the custom now," but " walk through the side door, jug in hand, and return with the vessel frothing over, and looking attractive enough to make a policeman's mouth water." The Argun corroborates this view, and says, "The public-house is the poor man's cellar, and he ought to have access to it at all times." A Levenworth clergyman, while preaching his sermon one Sunday evening, perceived a young man and woman under tho gallery in the act of kissing each other behind the hymn book. The good parson did not fly into a passion and discharge a volley of anathemas at this misguided pair, as some ascetic priest would have done, but, tender-hearted as Goldsmith's "Village Pastor," he merely broke his sermon off shortly in the middle of the " thirdly," and offered a fervent prayer in behalf of "'the young man in the pink necktie and the maiden in blue bonnet and grey shawl who were profaning the sanctuary by kissing one another in pew No,. 68." The Rev. Dr Begg has been giving at Home his New Zealand experiences, and in the course of one of his addresses, said : " New Zealand was a paradise for the working classes, where they could soon become landlords. The country was mountainous, undoubtedly, but there were also extensive plains, in which there were large sheep runs, possessed by men who left this country with nothing. Highlanders succeeded amazingly there. The aristocracy of New Zealand, in 'fact, might be said to be the Highlanders. He visited one grandson of a Highlander, who had half a million sheep, and another who possessed 125,000 sheep. He had heard of two Highlanders who had taken their stand on two mountains, and each asked Government for a lease of all the land they could See. They obtained their leases, and now they both were wealthy men. So successful were Highlanders, that a Chinaman making application for employment called himself Macgilivray. The people were astonished, and asked him the meaning of a Chinaman being called by such a thoroughly Highland name, atid he replied, 'No use making application except Scytman."' . Jumping at a Conclusion.— The Rev. Dr Gumming, of tho Scotch Church, London, in a sermon, said that on his late visit to tho Highlands, especially in the districts of tho Deoside and Braemar, he had been shown a number of most beautiful blue stones of dazzling lustre like to the diamond, although intrinsically far below the value and preciousness of the diamond. He had noticed that the peasantry of those places, immediately on the cessation of a downpour of rain, and when tlie rays: of the sun shone forth, wont out upon the hill-sides, and wherever they saw glittering substances they took possession of them. There was not the least doubt that the earthly paradise of Adam and Eve was Idled to repletion with flowers, shrubs, and treos, formed of diamonds of the purest water, whoso combined lustre far exceeded that, of the sun in his noonday splendour. At the fall these were scattered over the earth in the .shape of diamond dnbrix. The debris was universal in the soil of all countries, and furnished the explanation of the diamond dust referred to as found in tho Highlands. There could be no doubt that the new Jerusalem would have its World constructed of material diamonds and precious stones.