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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume V, Issue 215, 18 January 1865, Page 3

Sound between two Houses. —ln reply to your correspondent as to what will deaden sound between two bouses where the party-wall was 10 inches thick, and the thickness of which ho has considerably increased by various methods,! think, after the many experiments ho has tried, he will find the cause to bo a very simple one, i.e., the floor-joists of both houses either are a continuous length, or some one or two of them touch or abut at their ends. —Correspondent of the ’Guilder. A Chicago paper invents a new title for our soldiers. Announcing the arrival of Wisconsin recruits, it calls them more rebellion-crushers.”

Thb Dog Nuisance.—A Wholesome State oi? Affaihs. —We invoke the aid of Mr Police Inspector Atchison and all his active staff, and also that of the gentleman who acts as Registrar of Dow for this city, and to whom the anual tax should have been paid by this time—to check this growing evil. In Auckland the other day a little child was severely bitten on the face by a dog—so severely injured, indeed, that it will carry the marks to its grave. This is not the first, second, or third time that we have recently read of such occurrences taking place in the streets of Auckland. A correspondent, addressing the Southern Cross on the subject, draws the following bright picture of the acendancy winch the canine species has gained. He say :—“ For ugliness, uselessness, snappishness, and snarling, perhaps no town in the universe could show such numerous specimens of dog flesh as Auckland, and they apparently live in the streets. Night and day is is the same. Every where one turns they are met or surrounded by a multitude of mangy yelling curs, ill-bred bull dogs, or deformed terriers. Only a few days ago I saw no fewer than five dogs, great and little, rush out of one tavern open-mouthed, and attack a pedestrian on the other side oft he street, who could only stand on tho defensive, whilst the assailants were moinetarily recruited from the ranks of the scavenger class of curs in the street. A female stepped out of the house in question and called off the pack when the five original assailants retreated for shelter behind the bar. This is a sample of what one encounters daily in the strets of Auckland. At night the dogs are recklessly turned loose upon the town, many of them of a ferocious nature, and I have heard of several respectable persons who suffered personal injury in consequnce. On several occasions I have myself been in imminent danger from their attacks ; and 1 know the case of a gentleman on the outskirts of the city who was attacked when on horseback by a fierce mastiff, and it was with difficulty he succeeded in shaking it off As this intolerable dog nuisance is on the increase, I would earnestly entreat the attention of the authorities to the matter. Iby no means object to persons keeping dogs, but let them be kept on their own premises and not on the streets. I would not allow any one to maintain animals which endanger tho lives of tho community. If watch dogs are neccessary, as no doubt they are, let them be chained on their own premises ; or, if turned loose, let it be onlv when the fences are sufficient to keep them within. It is absurd to say that the ss. annual tax is sufficient to keep down tho number of dogs. There are thousands at large, I firmly believe, for which no one has ever paid a shilling." Thank to Mr. DeCastro we have a similar law in "Wellington to that which this correspondent refers, but we believe it to be altogether inadequate to check the nuisance which is fast upon the increase. We bdieue it was Dean Swift, who, in some letter relative to Ireland and the Irish, remarked fhat it was a most singular thing that in passing through localities in which the peasant population were really in a state of starvation, every man, woman, and child was followed about the roads by at least. one illbred mongrel. We know of our own "personal knowledge that this is not only the ease in Ireland hut in almost every other country unless were the law is extremely stringent. It is. indeed, a wonderful idiocyncrafv, and one not easily accounted for. However, let us hope that the authorities will so shrewdly guard against the evil that thera may never in the city of Wellington be occasion to draw such a picture as has been drawn of Auckland. We cannot but wonder how tho Assembly members used to escape the terrors of hydrophobia. A Literacy Imposture.—' The London correspondent of the Western Morninff News savs:— “Speaking of poetry recalls a very singular circumstance that has recently been talked about, and which is probably new to most readerk. Every one has read or heard that of wonderful poem Edgar Poe’s—‘The Raven’—and probably most of those who have read it now also of the very singular essay in which the poet explains the manner in which the poem was composed. He tells them how he came to make choice of the particular metre, how the burden suggested itself to his mind, how the last verse was written first, and the others to lead gra dually up to it, with a variety of minute and particular details, all tending to show its originality. The whole of this essay tarns out to be as ingenious n fiction as any of tho ‘ tales of mystery’ with which it is usually bound up. Poe’s sola accomplishment was a minute and accurate acqnaintence with Oriental languages, and this ho turned to account by translating almost literally the poem of * Tho Raven’ from tho Persian. The translation is so minute and accurate that even the cadences are preserved throughout, while the curious repetition of rhymes by which it is distinguished is equally characteristic of the Persian poet. As a singular specimen of literary imposture such a matter as this deserves notice. The discovery is due to the well-known Eastern traveller, Mr. Lang, formerly of the Dotnbay service, and has since been corroborated, I hoar, by some of tho most celebrated Orientalists in England.”

Dukk op \Y elxngtott’s Statue.— The largest block of granite ever cut in Cornwall, weighing about forty tons, has been quarried by Messrs Freeman, and taken to the Penrhvn to be enginepolished. The block is for the base of the shaft of the monument erecting at Strathfieldsaye. A man being asked by a young lady what phonography was, took out his pencil and wrote the following, telling her that was phonography: “XT. R. A. B. TJ. T. L. IT.” (You are a beauty, Ellen.) “Mother,” said Ike Partington, “did you know that the ‘iron horse’ has but one ear?” “One ear! merciful gracious, child, what do you mean ?” " Why, the engine-eer, of course.” A magnetic mountain has been discovered in Swedish-Lapland. It is creating a great sensation, and, as may bo expected, is drawing immensely. Sn attsfetitaw.— “ Bear roe!” exclaimed a lady, as she looked at the boa constrictor in a show, “ why, the skin of the creature is of a regular tartan pattern.” “It is, my dear,” remarked her busband, “ and that is what Shakespera alluded to when he talked about a snake being* scotched.' ”