ENGLISH AND FOREIGN ITEMS.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 14, Issue 729, 25 October 1869, Page 3

ENGLISH AND FOREIGN ITEMS.

PROPOSAL TO MAKE A NEW SEA. The Standard says:— Uappetit vient en mangeant. M. de Lesseps is not conteut with diverting the commerce' of the world, and carrying ships across an isthmus —he now contemplates a project for remodelling a continent and creating a new ocean. He has ascertained that the general level of the desert of Sahara is below that of the water in the Red Sea, and he is represented to be thinking of cuttiug a pas sage for it into the interior ! There is something almost absurd in the idea of making a new sea, but next to the audacity of the project the most remarkable thing about it seems its wonderful simplicity. If only those figures ascertained by M. de Lesseps are true, what is to prevent the desert from becoming a vast lake of salt water ? The surveyors sent to investigate the matter declare that the ground slopes down to an average level of twenty-seven metres below that of the adjacent gulf. Cut a canal through the intervening patch of high land, and what is to prevent the water from flowing in ? It is becoming evident that M. de Lesseps is not a man to be trifled with, and we sincerely hope he will not find the British Islands in his way, or he might propose to dredge them off the map of Europe. If he disestablishes the desert of Sahara nothing will stop him afterwards, and we shall see him undertaking to warm the North Pole, or getting up a company for supplying the nations of the earth with inland lakei, rivers, forests, and all physical phenomena on the lowest terms. Mountains removed in town and country. Agencies in all parts of the solar system. " WITCHCRAFT." At Walsall, on the 15th July, Mary Passant, married woman, was charged with having assaulted Ann Tipton, wife of Abraham Tipton,Elmore-green. The complainant, who had been been very kind to the defendant, and had attended her in three confinements, called one day the previous week upon her, she having been recently confined, and asked her how she was. The de fendant replied, "I would be much better if you would pray for me." The complainant said, " I wish you well, I am sure, but as I am not a professed prayer, I don't think I could do much in that way. But why do you ask me to do so? Surely you don't think I have done you any harm." Defendant said, " I do, for I saw you, that night you were sitting with me, throwing something in the fire while you were looking at my husband's watch. (The witness, by way of parenthesis, added her husband had no watch at the time.) But if you will kneel down and bless me, I will be got better." Complainant then replied, " I will do as you require me to do if you will not entertain such wicked thoughts about me. Have you told any one that you thought such things about me ? " Defendant said she had not; whereupon complainant knelt down and asked God to bless defendant and her family. A day or two afterwards, as defendant was at her own door, complainant, who was passing, asked her how she felt. The defendant requested the complainant to step into the house, which she did. When they got inside the defendant said, " I have been to a man at Walsall, who told me that you have witched me, and I must draw your blood in order to be cured. He also said you witched a blacksmith at Coalpool, and I have sent to Mr Wray, bookseller, for two fortune-telling books to see if it is true." The defendant then darted at the complainant and scratched her face, but the complainant, whose face bore traces of the ill-treatment she had suffered, effected her escape. The Bench, after hearing the evidence, sentenced the defendant to pay a fine of 10s and costs, or in default to be imprisoned for one month.

EARL GRANVILLE AND THE GOUT. The London correspondent of the Albion says: —" No such bad case of gout as Lord Granviile is at present suffering from has ever been in the flesh in either House of Parliament. Lord Palnierston used to come down to the House of Commons sometimes with a gouty arm in a sliug, and for several of the latter years of his life he was obliged to wear large and soft boots. During the Commons' debates

on this very Church Bill Disraeli appeared for a whole week with a largo cloth shoe j but since Tuesday night Lord Granville has not been able to wear a shoe of any kind on his right foot. On Tuesday he entered the House on crutches, his right foot being encased in a shoe of Brobdignagian proportions. He was obliged to stand on one leg while addressing the House, and, when sitting, the aching limb was supported on a large cushion. By Thursday he had become so much worse that his foot was wrapped round in bandages covered with a silk handkerchief. Once seated he could not rise without crutches, and when the House adjourned his valet entered with a sort of little Bath-chair, on the seat of which the noble earl placed his knee, and in this position rolled himself out to the ante-room. Last night the wheeling chair, the crutches, and the cushion were again in requisition, his foot was still much swollen. At times he seemed in great pain." The Wairarapa Mercury, referring to the above, observes : —" It is no wonder that the Secretary of State for the Colonies writes us such impertinent despatches when we know that he is a victim to gout, and therefore must vent his ill-humor somewhere." STRANGE PHENOMENON. A strange geological phenomenon caused some excitement recently at Murat, a village between the valley (f Mont Dore and that of St. James, A civil engineer had caused a rectangular well to be sunk to a depth of 53 metre; 1 through a stratum of hard tufa, which covers the primitive formation in that district. At this depth, which is insignificant, compared to the shaft oi a mine, the heat, nevertheless, became so intense that the workmen had to bi relieved at short intervals. Theii wooden shoes soon got intolerably warm, and they could not lie down to rest themselves on the hot ground. On the oth«r hand, the appearance of the tufa denoted that the well had nearly reached the granite, The engineer, on leaving the spot for a while, had recommended his men to be very careful during his absence, and to content themselves with removing the rubble, without going further down. One of them, however, in throwing the last shovelfuls into the skip, took it into his head to remove with his pickaxe a piece of tufa, about 30 inches in circumference; but no sooner had he done this than he saw the bottom of the hole he had made swell up. At the same time a loud rumbling noise was heard. The men in a fright jumped into the cage and called to be pulled up; but they had barely got to a height of a dozen metres when a thick column of hot water, preceded by a violent report, rose up in the air, projecting huge stones upwards The water in falling scalded the men grievously. The jet diminished, and the well filled rapidly, the poor fellows succeeding, however, in getting out in time. In the course of ten hours the well got quite full, and from that time a rivulet of thermal water has been flowing from the spot into the Dordogne. The liquid on arriving there still remains at temperature of 40° centigrade. Upon analysis it has been found to contain upwards of 20 milligrammes (nearly half a grain) of arseniate of potash per litre, a proportion unheard of before. The Minister of Public Works has ser*t a commission of engineers to the spot for further investigation. MISCELLANEOUS. A butcher who was summoned at Hammersmith Police Court, on Tuesday, 20th July, for neglecting to have his child vaccinated, answered with what might be termed a plea of " no confidence" in the lymph furnished by the authorities. He would have the child vaccinated from a cow or not at all. He was ordered to pay a nominal penalty and told that he might take his choice of lymph, but he must have the vaccination performed at once. A Sheffield chemist has been committed for trial on the charge of manslaughter. The mother of four children has for some time been in the habit of giving each of them half a teaspoonful of "Godfrey's cordial" every day, not because they were un well, but, as she said, to "nourish their stomachs." She sent the other evening for a supply to the shop of Mr Jenkinson, a neighboring druggist, who iu mistake sent a pennyworth of,

of laudunum. The usual half teaspoonful was administered to an infant ihree months old, which produced its death. At the inquest the jury returned a verdict of manslaughter against the druggist at the same time strongly recommending him to mercy, on the .ground that his act had been one of pure mkadventure. An English lady of fashion, amongst other invitations to her soiree damante, sent one to a captain of a militia regiment, in which, according to the conventional form, " she hoped for the pleasure of the warriors company.*' Imagine her consternation when, on the appointed evening, in marched the obliging officer at the head of his whole company, A cabman who committed suicide at Cheltenham, in July, took the precaution to place the following instructions in One of his pockets: —" Wherever my body isfound, pack off the corpse to the workhouse, as there are no funds to bury me,—F. Jackson. Le Figaro says that the Gastrin <i an American vessel, bound from New York, fell in with a sailing vessel, 180 miles at sea, apparently without crew. In the cabin he found the body of a man of about 30 years of age, his head reposing on a box containing .=£32,000 in guld. Theie was no paper or sign by which he could identify the body.