MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume II, Issue 80, 3 February 1864, Page 6

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

An Incident of the American War.—l was in the hospital as nurse for a long time, acd assisted in taking off limbs and dressed all sorts of wounds ; but the hardest thing I ever did was to take my thumb off a man's leg. It was a young man who had a severe wound in the thigh. The ball passed completely through, and amputation was necessary. The limb was cut off close to the body, the arteries taken up, and he seemed to be doing well. Subsequently one of the small arteries sloughed off. An incision was made, and it was again taken up. " It is well it was not the main artery," said the surgeon as he performed the operation ; " he might have bled to death before we could have taken it up." But Charley got on finely, and was a favorite with us all. I was passing through the ward one night, about midnight, when suddenly, as I was passing Charley's bed he spoke to me. " H my leg is bleeding again." I threw back the bed clothes, and the blood spirted in the air. The main artery had sloughed off. Fortunately, I knew just what to do, and in an instant I had pressed my thumb on the place and stopped the bleeding. It was so close to my body that there was barely room for my thumb, but I succeeded in keeping it there, and arousing one of the convalescents, sent him for the surgeon, who came in on the run. " I am so thankful, H ," said he, as he saw me, rt that you were up and knew what to do, for he must have bled to death before I could have got here." But on examining the case he looked exceedingly serious, and sent out for other surgeons. All came who were within reach, and a consultation was held over the poor fellow. One conclusion was reached by all. There was no place to work, save the spot where my thumb was placed; they could not work under my thumb, and if I moved it would bleed to death before the artery could be taken up. There was no way to save his life. Poor Charley! He was very calm when they told him, and requested that his brother, who was in the same hospital, might be called up. He came and sat by the bedside, and for three hours I stood, and by the pressure of the thumb, kept up the life of Charley, while the brothers had their last conversation on earth. It was a strange place for me to be in; to feel

that I held the life of a fellow mortal in my hands, as it were, and stranger yet, to feel that an act of mine must cause that life to depart. Loving the poor fellow as I did, it was a hard thought, but there was no alternative. The last words were spoken. Charley had arranged all his business affairs and sent tender messages to absent ones, who little dreamed how near their loved one stood to the grave. The tears filled my eyes more than once as I listened to those parting words. All were said, and he turned to me. " Now H , I guess you had better take off your thumb." "0, Charley! how can I?" 1 said. " But it must be, you know," he replied cheerfully; '• I thank you for your kindness, and now, good bye." He turned away his head, I raised my thumb, once more the life current gushed forth, and in three minutes poor Charley was dead." Tobacco-growing at Mount Benger.—The Times correspondent says—" Messrs Ballentyne, Brothers, of this place, have in their garden a very fine and healthy lot of tobacco plants, which they have raised from seed. These gentlemen tell me that the soil is admirably adapted for the growth of tobacco, and they intend saving all their plants for seed, in order that they may be able next year to cultivate it on a large scale, believing that for sheep-washing it will be highly profitable to them, even in an unmanufactured state." A Hint to Advertisers.—ln a case tried at the Lord Mayor's Court, on Saturday se'night Treloar v. the London, Chatham, and Dover Kail way Company, the plaintiff, who is the well-known cocoanut fibre mat manufacturer, recovered £9305 compensation for the loss of his house and business at 12 Ludgate Hill. One part of the plaintiff's claim was a sum of £SOO, put as "loss of profit on advertising." In support of that claim, the'' plaintiff was called on and said, " I look upon money expended in advertising as capital invested ; it will, of course, be some time before a benefit is felt, and an advertiser must not expect it too rapidly. In some cases it will be years before a benefit is felt, and it all depends upon the nature of the business. In my case I have expended £SOOO in advertising the business which I was the first to introduce. I did not expect a return for three years, but it came surely, and the older the advertisement the more surely comes the return. It was only the other day that a gentleman brought me an advertisement, which he had cut out of a paper seven years old; he had kept it, and found my shop by its means." To answer this it was urged for the company that an advertisement might die out from staleness, and that it was a very good opportunity for plaintiff to issue a fresh advertisement, with the words "Prize medal holder" inserted. His Lordship remarked that, no doubt, advertising was of the very highest importance to peculiar businesses and the plaintiff was evidently of opinion that he had derived considerable benefit from following it up. It was indeed stated in the evidence that plaintiff considered that he had made 10 per cent profit per annum, on the -£SOOO expended j that meant that plaintiff had put £SOO of his present profits as arising out of the consequences of his advertising; so that it was, as would be seen, of considerable importance to trades generally that persons should consider well the whole mode to be adopted, for the plaintiff in this case evidently reduced the matter to a science.— English Paper. China.—The following curious passage from a private letter, written by a gentleman of much acuteness now in the English service in China, will at once support the conclusions we have steadily pressed on our readers, as to the issue of our present policy there, and illustrate the modus operandi. " China," he says, "isin a frightful state, only held together by English assistance. * * * We can't go on fighting them for ever, and the moment we cease to supply them with men and ships, the whole vast empire will break up, and it is not improbable that you will some day hear of me as Governor of a province five times the size of England. * * Cruel fate is driving us to acts we all deplore. Here, for instance, is a city with hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, and the Governor comes trembling to me on any alarm, and trcsts entirely to me to defend his walls against rebels and pirates. If the gunboat placed here for the protection of our interests went away, the rebellious Chinese would bombard the city. Fancy a letter like this:—«Shih of the great pure dynasty, Intendent 0 f the District, Comptroller of the Customs, &c.,&c, to the great English officer.—Whereas I have been informed that rebels infest the islands, to the destruction of harmless traders, will the honorable officer who loves the people as his own children direct the Senior Naval Officer to go out and punish the guilty, so shall security be restored on the coast ?' On which I, the honorable officer, go on board the gunboat, and steam down to the islands, where, in the midst of scenery like paradise, pirates abound. We go into a quiet nook and find ten junks, which open fire upon us from all their guns. Our 68-pounder is run out with an eight-inch shell in it. A great crash, and up goes junk No. 1 into thin air. Another discharge of grape sends the pirates on shore, when the country people come down and poke at them with long spears. The junks are taken into port* and sole I, the honorable officer, having cleared the seas, had a delightful trip. The week after, the pirates are all back again in other junks. The Chinese do simply nothing." The English must ruin China before long, on the old principle that " nature abhors a vacuum."— London Spec* tator. A man in California who had a brother hnng, informed his friends in Ireland that his " brother on a recent occasion addressed a large public meeting, and just as he finished, the platform gave way, and he fell and broke his neck."