DE OMNIBUS REBUS.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 275, 29 April 1875, Page 4

DE OMNIBUS REBUS.

An honest citizen of Perth, being recently met one Sunday morning going from the church, by his minister, was greeted with " 0, John' do not tru' the kirk, there will be no preaching in hell." "Indeed," said John, "it'll no be for want o' ministers, then!"

The Nautical Magazine says :—" It may be-interesting to mention that the very first export of the present colony of Victoria, as far back as 1803, was timber. H.M.S. Calcutta, one of the two vessels that took out the party which endeavoured to form a settlement on Point Nepean, was ordered to take home a cargo of timber fit for naval purposes. Before leaving the bay Captain Woodruff shipped 150 pieces of what Lieutenant Tuckey, the historian of the expedition, calls timber compass, the which, he goes on to inform us, was chiefly honeysuckle. History is silent as to the use made of this early consignment of shipbuilding timber." The latest development of newspaper enterprise in England (says the Argus) is the running of a special train from London to Liverpool, via Birmingham, for the special purpose of delivering The Times newspaper at the breakfast tables of its subscribers along that line of railway. The train leaves Euston-square every morning at 4.55 and reaches Birmingham at 7.30, which is one hour and fifty minutes earlier than the time at which the other London dailies reach that town. On the way, the papers are made up into parcels and thrown out at the various stations passed ; those for towns a few miles away from the line being dropped at the nearest places.

Apropos of the question of the disposal of our dead, Public Health mentions a plan which has been brought under its notice by Mr Wilson, an architect, which, though ancient, sounds novel to modern ears. It consists of a combination of vaulted catacombs, of no costly character, simply and systematically arranged. If such a pyramid were erected upon a base of five acres of ground, Mr Wilson calculates that it would provide proper space for 625,000 bodies, and that upon a plot of eighteen acres it would contain 5,000,000 of the dead, with perfect security to the health of the living. Mr Wilson further argues that the pyramidal mode of sepulture (of which he showed some plans at the Great Exhibition of 1861) would be practicable and economical as regards the saving of land and the cost of funerals, while it would present a solemn and grand appearance externally. The Academy Bays :—" The number for January 15th of lm Neun Reich contains three hitherto .unprinted letters of Goethe, which refer to Byron's intended dedication to him of • ' Sardanapalus.' These letters were addressed by Goethe to his friend, the chief librarian and professor, von Benecke, of Gottingen, who seems to have been selected from his well known acquaintance with English, literature and his official position in the Hanoverian university city, to be the medium of communication between the British and the German poets. It would appear that Byron, having been specially gratified by Goethe's eulogistic notice of ' Manfred,' was anxious to pay him a compliment by dedicating ' Sardanapalus' to him ; and when he forwarded the manuscript from Ravenna to his publisher, Mr John Murray, in 1821, he sent with it the draft of the form of dedication which he wished to be submitted to Goethe for his approval before it was printed. It was as follows :—' To the illustrious Goethe a stranger presumes to offer the homage of a literary vassal to his liege lord—the first of existing writers—who has created the literature of his own country ind illustrated that of Europe. The unworthy production which the author ventures to inscribe to him is entitled " Sardanapalus." By some accident which cannot now be explained, this proposed dedication did not come into Goethe's hands till a year after the publication of the drama, when, as these hitherto unpublished letters show, it was forwarded to him by Professor Benecke, to whom the poet returned it on November 14th, 1822, with a request that it might be sent to Mr Murray for insertion in any subsequent edition of ' Sardanapalus.' Strangely enough this document, to which Goethe attached such importance that he caused a lithograph to be taken of it before he parted with it, was not forwarded by Professor Benecke, among whose papers it was found after his death in the same envelope in which it had arrived by poet from Weimar,"