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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 18, Issue 1181, 25 November 1871, Page 2

The public executioner in Paris has patented a new kind of guillotine, out of which he expects to make his fortune. The Hon. Judge Dowling (says the Pall Mall Gazette of a recent date) chief magistrate of New York, is a useful person to have staying in the house on certain occasions which are not so rare as they ought to he in the neighborhood of London. Hearing a noise the other night in the house of a friend to whom he was on a visit at Richmondterrace, Westbourno - grove, and on going down stairs to see what caused it, the American Justice found himself in the presence of four black-faced burglars, whom—taking them perhaps, for niggers, and despising them accordingly—he attacked with an umbrellastand, dispersing them and putting them to flight. Without undervaluing the strength and courage of the Judge, we may be permitted to remark that his introduction of a new weapon gave him a decided advantage over his opponents. It is not stated whether or not the umbrella stand was loaded with umbrellas; but, in any case, such an engine is to an ordinary household weapon—say, for instance a parlour poker—much what the mitrailleuse is to the common musket. On the other hand, like the club of Hercules, it is not every one who can wield it; and we are afraid there are but few persons in this country by whom an umbrellastand would be found, as it was by Mr Justice Dowling, a convenient instrument for the punishment and expulsion of housebreakers Mr Laughton, in a recent number of Nature, examines the question whether the condition of the atmosphere can be influenced by artificial cau-es, in the course of which he refers to the assumption of Professor Epsy in regard to producing rain by means of fire, and the oft-repeated assertion that a heavy can nonade will effect a similar result, After a careful consideration of the subject, he comes to the conclusion that no human agencies can be relied upon to bring about any material change in the atmosphere with any de giee of certainty, although he thinks that large fires, explosions, battles, and earthquakes do tend to cause atmospheric disturbance, and especially to induce a fall of rain; but that for suoh a result it is necessary that other conditions be suitable. A commander in the royal mail service found his steamer some thirty miles out of his course. He could not account for the local attraction that had sent him so far out of the way. Instruments and calculations appeared equally faultless. Sorely troubled from having passed a sleepless, watchful night, the captain went on deck after breakfast. Seeing a lady sitting—as was her custom —and working near the binnacle, it occurred to him that probably her scissors were resting on the ledge of it. Detecting nothing of the sort, and bent on closer examination, he discovered that her chair had an iron frame. It also flashed across him that the lady's ample crinoline was expended b,y steel hoops. So, mustering all his faculties, he claimed, with N as much forgiveness and as little reproach as possible, " Ma<lam, you have, by your local attraction, drawn my ship soine forty miles from h.er course!"