Miscellaneous.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VIII, Issue 503, 29 August 1857, Page 5

Miscellaneous.

A strange auto-de-fe has been celebrated at Grasse in the department of the Var. Incited by the preaching of a body of itinerant Capuchin monks, a number of the inhabitants delivered up copies of Dumas, Sue, Sand, Balzac, Thiers, Lamartine and Michelet ; and these were burnt at night in public, the clergy attending, and the cure" chanting " Parce, Domine, " while the books blazed. Some of the townsfolk scoffed at the holy men who were engaged in the business.

One of the Speeches.—Job Kolik was one of 'em on the stump. A- doubled-barrelled throat, and lungs as large as two-bushel baskets, enabled him to electrify his constituents up to a boiling point in less time than it would take a Susquehanna raft to go over the Niagara Falls. His great speech in Bob Stubbs' ten-acre lot was a crusher. For the sake of posterity we give an extract:—" Fellow-citizens—you might as well try to dry up the Atlantic Ocean with a broom straw, or draw this 'ere stump from under my feet with a harnessed gad-fly, as convince me that I ain't gwine to be elected this heat. My opponent don't stand a chance! not a sniffj'; why, he. ain't as intellectual as a common sized shad. Fellows, lam a hull team, with two bull-dogs under the wagon and a tar bucket— I am. If thar's any body this side of whar the sun begins to blister the earth that can wallop me, let him show himself—l'm ready. Boys, I go in for the American eagle—claws, stars, stripes, and all; and may I burst my everlastin' buttonholes, if I don't knock down, drag out, and gouge everybody as denies me. " The mails of the Oneida and European appear to have produced a sensation at home. If our j readers would only meditate for five minutes upon the figures we subjoin, and on the social, commercial, and national interests they involve, they will findthemselves breaking out for ever and anon into exclamations of wonder, hope, and, we might add, without affectation, of gratitude. " The Etna had a very heavy mail, consisting of about 340 boxes, embracing both the Oneida and European's mails. Of these, it is stated that there were not less than 15 omnibus loads of letters and newspapers, brought from the Waterloo railway station ; and upon being opened and stamped, the official tellers declared the number to be 334 boxes and 39 bags; letters, 150,000; newspapers, 93,500; exclusive of no less a number than 10,000 "registered letters," containing cash and articles of value which it was considered necessary by the senders to secure in their transit as far as possible. In I order to get rid of this huge mass of correspondence, the authorities at the Post-office, upon the receipt of .the telegraphic message announcing the arrival of the ship in the Solent, summond the sorters to appear on duty again at midnight, but as the mails did" not reach the office until two hours afterwards, the work of ' sorting' of course could not commence till then. By eight, o'clock, however, by dint of great perseverance, the mass was got through and distributed by the successive posts throughout the metropolis and the provinces to every portion of the United Kingdom. The approximate amount of postage upon the correspondence brought by these two mails is nearly £4000, and the mail is the largest ever known to arrive at one time at the General Post Office from any part of the world."— Sydney Morning Herald.