MISCELLANEOUS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 583, 20 June 1873, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

o It has been asserted by a high authority that four millions of sermons are annually preached in London. The following notice was exhibited bn a board in one of the T.ondon suburbs; *‘ 'lbis excellent site for a Church or Public-house to be Let.” The celebrated Garroway’s Coffeehouse, Cornhill, London, is now in the course of demolition, in order to make room for an extension to the banking premises of Messrs. Glyn and Co. At the late Assizes at Maidstone, a man, on being sentenced to seven years’ penal servitude, offered to toss the judge whether it should be fourteen years’ or nothing. The offer was not accepted. At the present time the number of telegraphic messages forwarded annually in the United Kingdom exceeds sixteen millions, or ten times the number in 1859, when the telegraphs were in the hands of the companies. Professor Plantamour, who prophesied that the world was to be burned up a few months ago, is now in Paris. He desires to read a paper before the Academy to prove the sun’s heat is diminishing, and that we shall all be frozen to deatf about 2011. It is said that one United States Senator congratulated another Senator who had just concluded one of his great efforts thus : ‘‘ A great speech. The best speech I ever heard delivered by a man—who knew so little about his subject.” Anna Dickinson, the noted American lecturer, on one occasion, in the course of her remarks, asked the question, “Why was I born ?” There was an emphatic pause, a repetition of the question, and then a small boy in the gallery shrilly piped, “ I give it up.” At a meeting held in London, in March last, it was resolved to raise a memorial to Mr. Charles Knight, well-known as author, compiler, and publisher. The late Douglas Jerrold once wittily remarked that the best epitaph for Charles Knight would be the words “ Good Knight” on his tombstone. There arc some typographical errors that rather strengthen and improve a writer’s diction. A Liverpool journal furnishes a neat example. Chronicling an accident, it says that, upon receiving in his][chest the contents of a gun, the victim “felt dead.” Perhaps he was dead. A married man was lately caught courting a girl at Sheffield. A crowd took possession of him, dragged him to a publichouse, tattooed him, and finedjhim ss. He was then bunded over to a large number of women, who shaved the hair off his head, cut off his whiskers, applied a huge treacle plaster, and emptied several bags of flour over him. A Parisian lady “called on her milliner to inquire for the character of a servant. The respectable appearance of the latter was beyond questioning : “ But is she honest ?” asked the, lady. “I am not so certain about that,” replied the milliner. “ I have sent her to you with my bill a dozen times, and she has never yet given to me the money.” A youngjady [having “set her cap” for a rathorjarge specimen of the opposition sex, and having failed to win him, was toiling her sorrows to a couple of her confidants, when one confronted her with these words; “ Never mind, Mollio ; there are as good fish in the sea as ever were caught.” “ Oh, Mollie knows that,” replied her little brother ; “ but she wants a whale.” The London correspondent of a Scotch paper tells a rather amusing stoiy about a well-known writer on a London contemporary. It appears that the religious sect of “ Howling Repent ants, ” which was formed about two years ago, has come to a premature end; but before this disaster occurred, several newspaper men tried, without success, to find their way among the Howlers. Even Mr. A rchibald Forbes, who will gain admission where other men will fail, could make nothing of the doorkeeper of the Howlers. His face, we are told, wasn’t half long enough. A Mr. \V right, of Sheffield, has invented a substitute for coal, ami one of which there is an unlimited supply. By this invention air can be used as fuel. In passing through a charged battery, atmospheric air is carbonised, and thus combustible gas is produced, which burns brighter than coal gas, and when mixed with air has a heating power that can melt copper wire. The gas would cost sixpence for every one thousand cubic feet. The invention for heating has been patented. Recently', in one of the cars on a New York Central Railroad train, a dispute arose between two elderly ladies. One declared if the conductor opened the window she would die, and the other protested against its being closed, for she would certainly smother to death. The conductor w - as in doubt, when a venerable gentleman exclaimed, “ Open the window and kill one of them, and then shut it and kill the other ; then, perhaps, we shall have some peace.” Goldsmith’s Work. —The process of fine-art manufacture in this branch of trade is strikingly exemplified in a little work’ published by Mr. J. W. Benson, of No. 25, Old Bond-street, and of the City Steam Factory, 58 and GO, Ludgate-hill, London. It is enriched and embellished with designs, by Italian, French and English artistes, of brooches, bracelets, ear-rings, and other articles, suitable for personal wear, or for wedding, birth-day, or other presents, with their prices. Mk Benson, who holds the appointment to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, has also pub lishod a very interesting pamphlet on the Rise and Progress of Watchmaking. These pamphlets are sent, post free, for two stamps each, and they'cannot be too strongly recommended to those contemplating a purchase, especially to residents in the country or abroad, who are thus enabled to select any article they may require, and have it ; forwarded in perfect safety.