ENGLISH NOTES.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 617, 30 December 1869, Page 1 (Supplement)

ENGLISH NOTES.

(pall mall gazette.) The address of the Mayor of Cork to the Lord Lieutenant on his recjnt visit to that city has, by some accident, been copied iuto a local journal as the address of the ladies of Cork ; and this mistake is the more to be regretted as the lollowing passage figures conspicuously in that documunt : — "Nature has .'done much for us, but man almost nothing." One of the Calcutta papers says that a respectable Baboo has addressed the following letter to a chemist in that city: — " Dear Sirs — I beg to know that there is any such medicine in your shop that can make the whole body white, and is unequalled over the whole world, and also you will kindly let me know its price as soon as possible." This shows what a mistake poor Mclme Rachel made in remaining in Bond street. „Npw that the educated Indians are sighing for white skins she might have made a fortune in Calcutta. There is far more to be extracted from a Bengalee than a Borradaile. It is stated that when the manager of the theatre at Turin was about to put on the stage a representation of the story of the Nun of Cracow, tho young men of the city vent to him and declared that not one of them would attend his house again if the objectionable piece was not withdrawn, which was accordingly done. We recommend convicts, if they can, to get into the prison at Allpiues, iv British Honduras. Lieutenant-Governor Longden reports that it is simply a bush hut, built after the fashion 6f the country, the walls being pimento sticks fixed in the ground, and the roof a frame of slight poles covered with thatch, through which an active man could at anytime force his way without much trouble. It is divided into two rooms. During the lieutenant-gover-nor's visit to Allpines last year, ho rode up to this prison iv company with Cap tain Kelly, of her Majesty's ship Mullet, and the Colonial Secretary. They found the door open and a man inside, who told them he was a priadner. There was- no keeper or constable near ; the man was the only prisoner, and had, apparently, been trusted not to go away while the keeper of the prison went on the beach to see the unwonted sight of a man-of-war in the bay. A Russian paper states that an inmate of one of the prisons in St. Petersburg has obtained damages to the amount of five roubles from a friend who neglected to forward a letter to the Spanisii Cortes in which the prisoner offered himself as a candidate for the throne. His letter waa as follows : — "I am the nobleman Von Robert,and consequently au individuality. I have acted for some years as superintendent of the post station at Krassny, and have gained nothing by it but 140-criminal actions (which vouches for my unselfishness) ; besides this I have served in a regiment of hussars and a regiment of grenadiers. I have been in custody five years (four in prison). I speak three living languages fluently. My form is majestic, prepossessing, and my features full of expression ; Therefore /when I am on the throne of Spain I shall not compromise the Spanish people, whom I hope to love as my own by a miserable exterior." It is satisfactory to hear that M. Arniiind, a French, savant, has stated to the Academy of Sciences that he has discovered a sure antidote to nicotine in the common watercress. It destroys the poisonous effects of nicotine, and) yet does not alter the aroma of tobacco. A solution of watercress may therefore be employed for steeping the leaves of tobacco, and would thus divest them of their noxious propei ties, and, moreover, a draught of the same will act as a sure antidote to nicotine. A discovery has been made in India which renders it not impossible that not only may Sir John Thwaites anil his boon companions be able to resume those banquets which poverty has for : a time so ruthlessly cut short, but that the Metropolitan Board of Works may actually succeed in setting the Thames on fire at last. It seems that sewage may be utilised by being converted into gas. Experiments have been successfully tried at Darjeeling and Calcutta, and it is now proposed to apply the process to some of the larger citie3. The gas must be much better than that supplied by our gas companies at home, for it is said " to burn brightly" — a compliment which cannot be paid to the expensive commodity which helps only to make darkness visible with us. Instead, therefore, of gazing through tears on a polluted river and a bankrupt Board of Works, we may look forward to a pellucid stream, a wealthy corporation, and a brilliantly - lighted city ' with a diminished gas rate. There will also be one inestimable advantage to be derived from the adoption of the scheme. By blending our gas-pipes with our drains it will only be Hecessary to dig up our thoroughfares once, instead of twice, a month. A great noise was heard the other morning in one of the most elegant houses in the Rue de Rivoli, and soon after the people thus attracted before the doorway saw a well-dressed man rusliing down stairs with an indefinable bundle of things in one hand and a bottle in the other. He threw down the bundle in the middle of the courtyard, and poured upon it the contents of the bottle, to which he set fire, causing the whole to blaze furiously. Several women were then heard crying and sobbing upstairs in the most pitiful manner. It turned out afterwards that the gentleman has a wife and three daughters, who evince an inexhaustible and immoderate love for false chignons. They possessed already twenty of these artificial ornaments, and were going to purchase four more — larger and thicker, in accordance with the very last fashion — when the angry husband and father, tired of being continually called upon to satisfy such an extraordinary taste for chignons, seized the whole stock, got a litre of petroleum and set the false hair blazing in the court to the amusement of all present. In the evidence taken before the Select Committee on Poor Law (Scotland), Mr David Lewis called attention to the large (quantity o{ wine, whisky, qn,d ale ad-

ministered as medicine to the poor in Edinburgh. Ho- states that during the last three years the cost of these stimulants amounted to LIOUO, or about L 330 a year. He chinks these medicines are indulged in to an extent out of all due proportion in the workhouses, and that the expenditure on this head is much greater than it should be. He produced to return of wine and spirits issued to patients for the month ending May 14, 1867, from which it appeared that there were administered to 122 pauper patients on the sick list 36 bottles of wine and 9G bottles of whiskey. Mr Lewis also stated that there was no special epidemic — no special form of disease for which it might be presumed such medicine was particularly useful : it appeared to have been treated as a sort of universal medicine — good for all diseases. It. should always be remembered, in ordering stimulants for the afflicted, that three-fourths should be allowed for absorption by the nurses ; and as the quantity nominally consumed by the 129 patients referred to by Mr Lewis only amounted to about one buttle a month per head, of which the patient probably received almost three glasses, it is not easy to see the force of Mr Lewis's complaint. There are no doubt spirituous impostors, but they are as often to be found in the staff of the workhouse as amongst its inmates. A few years ago an ingenious gentleman managed to get drunk gratuitously almost daily in the streets of London by falling down in a fit with a small placard on hu breast — " Don't bleed me, but give me a glass of hot brandy and water ;" and by this device for some time fared as well as the guardian of any union. There is one circumstance connected with the murder at Wood-green which is worthy of remark as showing the advance we have made since the barbarous days of chivalry. We learn that when the unfortunate woman who was murdered arrived at the railway station she found the murderer waiting for her. An indescribable terror seized her, and when she saw him knock her companion down she ran back to the station in great fear, and appealed to several gentlemen for protection. She exclaimed, "I am afraid of my life ; do protect me !" but no one interfered. Of course not ; King Arthur or Sir Lancelot might have mixed themselves up in a row to sa\e a woman from injury, but they were barbarians compared to decent railway travellers. The poor woman probably might have appealed to every one in the parish, from the post-office to the policestation, and no one would have lifted a finger to save her. We do not like to mix ourselves xip with disreputable quarrels. We carry umbrellas, not lances. Accordingly the murderer had it all hia own way, and after shooting the woman and beating her head to pieces, walked over to commit a second murder in the presence of "two musicians who looked on with amazement" and then "fled at once." The man must, indeed, have had what the Daily Telegra^^i would call "a wild control" over himself ; otherwise he might have added to his other atrocities by kicking the respectable bystanders all round for their cowardice : or, to use a more fashionable term, their " policy of non-interference." The autobiography of Flora Macdonald, the preserver of Prince Charles Stuart, will shortly be published iv Edinburgh. The MS. has till now been carefully kept in the family record chest. The volume, which is being edited by the last surviving grand-daughter of the heroine, will con-" tain some interesting anecdotes hitherto unpublished regarding the memorable escape of the Prince. Mdlle. Nilsson has received a bracelet, the gift of Queen Victoria. This makes the 101 st bracelet in her possession. It is said that a statement in Lord Byron's handwriting will shortly be published, which will settle the question which has lately been raised in the papers relative to Lord and Lady Byron. A correspondent, writing from China, says — "This country is rapidly uudergoing the process of civilization. Beer is now made at Shanghai, a whisky distillery is going up at Canton, and the first hauging recently came off in that city with great eclat." In view of the large number of recent breach of promise cases, it is suggested that betrothals be advertised as security againstintidelity to marriage engagements. The custom, it appears, is commonly followed in Germany. The Crown-Princess of Prussia, who is Lieut.-Colonel of the Second Regiment of Hussars, is reported to have worn the costume of the regiment, and to have ridden between her father-in-law and husband at a review the other day at Stettin. The Dundee ' Advevtiser states that the spot at which the late Lord Justice Clerk jumped into the water has been visited by numerous persons who have, bit by bit, carried off nearly the whole of the ash sapling on the branch of which traces of blood-stained fingers were found. Since the Queen has been on Loch Katrine and Loch there has been a surprising fillip given to the sale of Scott's works, both prose and poetry. One bookseller sold, within a week, over fifty copies of the • " Lady of the Lake," whereas for six months previous he did not sell ons,a month. A tidal wave of considerable magnitude swept up the English Channel on the morning of September 29th. In several of the small harbors on the south coast of Cornwall the tide rushed in at the rate of five or six miles an hour, and then receded again as rapidly. The rise and fall amounted to five or six feet. Iv the Thame3 the tide rose to a great height, and in low lying districts considerable damage was done. A Paris correspondent says the Bavarian girls, whatever may be the reason, have the finest Ivriir in Europe. There is in the town where the fair Austrian Empress passed her childhood the monument of a girl who died of having too much hair. It is stated in her epitaph that the nourishment of her body was absorbed by the capillary vessels, and that her hair in the space of ten months grew to the extraordinary length of three yards. The estimated loss of shopkeepers in

Paris caused by one particular class of , rubbery to which they are subjected, and which in England is known as i ! ahopl icing, is from L 12 ,000 to L16,0U0 | annually. The pieces of silk and woollen ' stuffs thus stolen are- rarely disposed of iv Paris, as the pawnshops will not .take them without making the most \ minute inquiries, and the dealers in such j merchandise are the first to call in the police ' when it is offered to them in this irregular \ way. It is said that most of it is sent to : Li.ndon, where there are depots established for the express purjjose of receivingthe produce of robberies on the Continent. The ' thieves, who come from England, usually associate in gangs of four, one of whom is invariably a woman. They take up their j abode as a general rule in some small • house, or iv part of a house, in the outskirts ' of Paris, and when they have succeeded in j effecting a piece of business they lie close two or three days, in order to avoid observation. Then, when they thir.k the matter j is nearly forgotten, one of them goes j quietly to some small railway station and books his parcel for London, Lady Mary Hamilton, sister of the Duke of Hamilton, was married at the Chateau de Marchois on Sept. 21 to the Duke of Valentia, son of the Prince of Monaco. The daughter of a Scotch Duke has thus become a sovereign Princess. The Emperor and Empress of the French presented the bride with a brilliant bracelet and a thistle brooch as a souvenir of their regard on the auspicious occasion.