MISCELLANEOUS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 734, 12 May 1876, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

A separation case is about to be decided in Paris, the parties in the case being M. Fcrrand, sub-leader of the orchestra of the Opera Comique, and his wife, who was a rich widow. The lady, finding fault with the way in which the musician locked up her money, one day broke open her busbond’s strong box and shut herself up in her room with her servant. M. Fcrrand, on returning home and finding that ho had been robbed, demanded an explanation, but his wife refused to answer, and remained barricaded in her room. The husband, after having in vain summoned the garrison to surrender, invested the place in the most effectual manner, and had the doorway built up. The next day a sortie was attempted, but without success. After passing several hours in great anguish, Madame Fcrrand at last determined to make known her position, and enveloped some sous in pieces of paper, upon which she had written a statement of the case. Unfortunately this took placebn the Ist of April,(and it was some time before anyone ventured to give notice to the authorities, considering the whole affair a hoax. At last, however, relief arrived, and now the besieged demands a separation. A strappmg big stranger entered a store on Woodward avenue recently, and leaning too heavily on the show case broke one of the panes of glass. “ That will cost you two dollars,” said the proprietor. “ Haven’t got the money,” replied the stranger. “Well, you can’t go out of the store until you pay for that glass,” said the storekeeper in a determined voice. “ I’m sorry; but I’m willing to be licked, if that will do you any good,” replied the stranger rapidly getting out of two coats and a vest, and showing arms like joints of a stove-pipe. “ Oh, 1 guess it was purely accidental, said the shopkeeper in an altered voice, as he got behind the counter, and you needn’t mind about waiting around here any longer. Here’s a car ticket if you are going up the avenue.”—Detroit Free Press.

When Louis Phillippe was staying at the Star and Garter, Richmond, he walked one day by himself to Twickenham, for the purpose, as he said, of seeing some of the old tradesmen who had served him when he resided there. As he passed along the road a man met him, pulled off his hat, and hoped his Royal Highness was well. “ What’s your name J” inquired the king. “What were you when I lived here?” “ Please your Royal Highness,” replied the man, “ I kept the Crown,” meaning an alehouse close to the entrance of Orleans House. “Did you, indeed?” said Louis. “Why, my good fellow, you did what I was unable to do.”

Lord Cockburn, in his “Memorials,” says:—“ Lord Braxfield died in George Square, Edinburgh, and was laid in his coffin without the attendance at that ceremony of any relatives or friends. The chief parties present were two undertakers—a man and a boy. The latter, very many years later, was our informant. When the “ chesting ” had been performed, great was the lad’s horror and astonishment to see his elder companion draw from his pocket the end of a rope, which he hitched into a noose, and put it round the neck of the corpse. With many an oath he feigned to hang the dead judge, shouting with ghastly glee into the listless ear, ‘ Monie a ane ha’e ye hangit. ye auld sinner ! an’ noo ye’re hangit yersel’, hoo d’ye like it, ye auld deevil ?” This is how the Taranaki News (a small journal with a marked predilection for the classical, bewails the departure of a levanting Greek “ The secret departure, early in the week, to the discomfiture of his creditors, of a certain Hellenic confectioner, makes us sigh at the degenerancy of the sons of those who fought at Marathon and Thermopyke, and cultivated philosophy at Athens.”

A machine for writing spoken words has been invented by M. H. Hnppinger. The Revue Industrielle describes the machine as being about the size of the hand. It is put in connection with the vocal organs—the instrument recording their movements upon a moving band of paper in dots and dashes. The person to whom the instrument is attached simply repeats the words of the speaker after him inaudibly. This lip language is then faithfully written out. The Montreal Daily Witness gives particulars of the plans prepared by Mr Legge, C. E., for the Royal Albert Bridge, which is to span the St Lawrence at Montreal, a little lower down than the Victoria Bridge. It is to accommodate a railway truck, carriage, and cart traffic, and a tramway line, and provision is also to be made for pedestrians. Its total length will be 15,500 linear feet, or very nearly three miles. It will have one arch of between 500 and 600 feet clear span over the navigable channel of the St. Lawrence, with a height of 130 feet above the water at high tide ; five of 300 feet each at the same height, four of 240 feet each, and 51 of 200 feet each. The estimated cost of the bridge is 4,000,000 dol. (L 800,000), and its erection, which will commence next spring, is expected to occupy three years. The Victoria Bridge, which has hitherto passed for being the largest in the world, is only 7000 feet long, with one arch of 330 feet span and 24 0f242 feet span. Its construction occupied six years, and the total cost was L 1,290,000. The other day at the Greenwich Police Court, a man in feeble health, nearly blind and unable to walk, whose wife had only just been confined, and who with her and his children had partaken that morning of a scanty repast of tea and dry bread, was sent to prison for five days, being unable to pay a fine of 6d and 2s costs for not sending his son to school. If the facts of this case are correctly reported, we cannot be surprised that the School Board and its officers are detested among the poor, and that the misguided zeal which so harshly uses tho powers conferred by Parliament" has tended to retard the progress of education, by making people hate the very name of tho thing. As wo have before remarked, there are no such thorough-going tyrants as those whom the people choose for themselves. If a Minister of the Crown had ventured to do the high-handed deeds which have been done by a knot of comparatively obscure people elevated into power by popular election, ho would speedily have been forced to resign his office.