Miscellaneous.

Lyttelton Times, Volume IX, Issue 554, 24 February 1858, Page 5

Miscellaneous.

ENGLISH NEWS TO NOVEMBER 17. The ' Wellington Independent' gives the following paragraphs as the intelligence brought by the Hastings from London, one day later than the last mail. Parliament was summoned to meet on the 3rd December for the despatch of urgent and important affairs. The greatest activity was still displayed in despatching troops to India, and in recruiting for the army. Commercial affairs were in a most unsatisfactory condition in consequence of the state of the money market. The rate for short loans on Government securities was 9 to 10 per cent. A portion of the Atlantic Telegraph Cable had been recovered (about 58 miles of it), but operations had to be suspended in consequence of the boisterous state of the weather, until the spring. The submerged wire had no appearance of injury, and the whole of the recovered cable could be used again. A full account of the wreck of the Dunbar, Australian clipper (extracted from the ' Sydney Herald, of the 10th September), is published in the' Times 'of the 17th November. Respecting the prospects of the wheat and flour markets in Adelaide, the "Times" observes:—" We have elsewhere given an extract from one of our Melbourne contemporaries on the prospects of the season with regard to wheat and flour. - The calculations of our contemporary are, that Victoria will this year be fully able to supply herself, with such shipments as she- may be able to obtain from South Australia, and he therefore argues against the impolicy of inducing shipments from Cali- , fornia, South America and other quarters by holding out the expectation of high prices. We quite agree with our contemporary, and we give it this prominency on account of the importance we attach to it. The cry of abundance, reaches us from all parts of the world. In- England^ on the European continent, in the United States, and in South America, the crops, have been , quite equal: to ours, and we. must not therefore flatter ourselves with the notion of finding ; ready places-of shipment at more than barely .remunerative prices. We are not given to ' croaking,' and have certainly no desire to discourage our ..farmers, but the truth should at all times be told and we shall take an early opportunity of stating the grounds' on which our allegations r^st. Douglas Jerbold's Witticisms.—Jerrold was, beyond all doubt, .the prince of English wits in his day. His witticisms were generally made on the prompting of the occasion', and surprised every one by the quickness with which they were conceived and uttered. What made -their freedom from premeditation the more certain, they very often consisted of some clause of a sentence—perhaps of but a single word—r which only was sense as taken in connection with what some other person had just said. Jerrold, who was a little spare man, with an oval pallid face, a keen, grey eye, and resolute month, usually sat somewhat aside from what might 'be called the current of conversation, and only opened his mouth when he could cap something with a bon mot. It is universally acknowledged that such good things, when put in print, fall greatly short of the. impression they made when first uttered by their author; nevertheless, the few which here follow, taken down some years ago, will perhaps give a faintidea of the style of the man. At a dinner of a society connected with the fine arts, where a queen's counsel happened to be present, the Law was .unexpectedly toasted, out of compliment to him. The learned gentleman blundered out a. few sentences, stating that he did not see how the law could be considered as one of the arts ——' Black !' rapped out Jerrold, like a dart from a bow. On a literary friend producing a volume of miscellanies under the title of Prose aud-Verse, Jerrold bantered him about it, as.'Prose and Worse.' A tedious old gentleman, meeting Jerrold in Regent street, and having stopped him, posed himself into button-holding attitude, while preparing to grapple, ' Well, Jerrold, my dear boy, what is going on ?' ' I am,' quoth the wit, instantly shooting off along the pavement. . A dull foreigner was indulgingin a.rapturous description of the beauties of the Pro'digne. 'As • to one song in particular (naming the song), I was quite carried-away.' 'Is there any body hero that can sing it ?' said Jerrold. i Somebody told Jerrold that George Robins the auctioneer was dead ; 'and, of course,' added the gentleman, 'his business will go to the devil.' ' Oh, then, he'll get it again,'said the wit. A friend was telling, one evening, where he had been dining, and what he got to eat. ' There was one article I never saw before ;-none of you could guess what it-was—it was a soup made of calves' tails.' ' Extremes meet,' was Jerrold's remark.

A literary friend, who had set up a neat barouche with a pair of greys, drove Jerrold out one day into the country. As they passed through a village, the people came to their doors to behold the pretty equipage. ' I think they're rather struck with our greys.' remarked the charioteer. ' I wonder what they would uay of our duns ?' quoth Jerrold. He had a theory in the spirit of the Caudle Lectures, that women rather liked that their husbands should stay out late occasionally—' It gives them a wrong.'