Miscellaneous.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VIII, Issue 507, 12 September 1857, Page 5

Miscellaneous.

The city of Genoa has just escaped a grave danger. The 900 prisoners of the bagne had planned an attempt at escape, but fortunately the plot was discovered in time. The city was plunged into great consternation by the bare announcement that the prisoners intended making the attempt, as in 1849 an evasion was attempted, and dreadful excesses committed. A. letter from Naples in the * Union' states that great excitement exists in that capital in consequence of the robbery of the most celebrated diamonds of Sicily, those of the Duchess

de Savigliano, daughter of General Filangieri. The robbers are said to have left nothing but the cases. _ Their value is about 225,000fr. At Zurich, in former times, it was the custom when a married couple applied for a divorce on account of incompatibility of temper, for the magistrates to shut up the pair for a fortnight in an isolated tower on the lake. Not only were they condemned to a common room, but they were supplied with only one bed, one chair, one knife and one fork, so that their comfort depended entirely on mutual complaisance. If, after the expiration of a fortnight, they persisted, in their resolution, the tribunal ordered a serious examination of the case, and, if possible, the divorce. But, in general, the quarrelsome pair did not wait till the end of the trial to which they were subjected to become reconciled and to request to be released. The ' Czas' of Cracow of the 26th of May, says,—" A letter from Kiew gives the following recital, the authenticity of which we cannot guarantee. It is well known that, in virtue of an order of the Emperor Nicholas, the students and pupils of the colleges are obliged to salute the officers whom they meet in the street. A student of the University of Kiew having by some oversight omitted to s-Jute a general who was passing, the latter gave him several blows in the open street and had him arrested by some soldiers. The student was set at liberty by order of the governor of the town, but the whole body resolved to avenge the insult so offered to their comrade. Some days after the general was at the theatre when several hundreds of the young men entered the place, and one of them mounting on a seat apologised to the audience for disturbing the representation, but said that the affair having taken place in public, the punishment must be equally so. They then seized the general, laid him on his face along a bench, and gave him a severe whipping. The students then left the house, after having asked pardon a second time for having disturbed the representation." [It is proper to say that this story has been subsequently contradicted. It is almost too good to be true; certainly too good to be suppressed.] The Court of Assizes of the Haute-Garonne tried a young woman named Dellac, who is remarkably handsome, for attempting to murder her husband. She, it appears, though the mother of two children, led for some time a most scandalous life. In February last her husband found her with a young man, but he contented himself with turning her lover out of doors, and with absenting himself for a few days. He returned in the evening, and, telling his wife that he )iad pardoned her, went to bed, and asked her to join him. She, however, refused, and said' that he would sleep soundly enough without her. In the night he was awakened by a strange sensation in the throat, and on jumping up found ;that his wife, who was standing by the bedside, had inflicted a deep wound in his throat, and that blood was flowing from it in abundance. He jumped through the window and went into a neighbour's house, where medical .assistance was procured for him; but his wound is not yet healed. A singular circumstance in the case was, that though the woman's hands were stained with blood, it could not positively be ascertained whether it was with a razor or a knife that she inflicted the wound. In her defence, she said that she had caused the wound accidentally in the course of a dispute which took place between her and her husband. The jury declared her guilty of an attempt at manslaughter, and the court condemned her to five years' imprisonment. An English lady, possessed of the natural bloom so often found in the humid climate of Britain, and so rarely in the drier continental atmosphere, felt very indignant at the Parisian belles attempting to vie with her by the employment of rouge. She had a little King Charles spaniel, and she taught him to lick the cheek of any one who took him on her lap. So at balls she picked out the most highly-, rouged ladies, got introduced, showed her pretty dog, who of course was duly admired and petted; and invariably the result was that the ladies had to hurry from the room with one or both cheeks paler than when they entered it. But though it was fun to the English lady, it was death to her little dog. The cosmetic is not wholesome, and the unconscious avenger of his | mistress's real charms fell a victim to the poisonous nature of the fictitious charms of her rivals.