MISCELLANEOUS.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 185, 20 September 1872, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

A g. v u tie'nan who Vis tare 1 y from the Inangahua states that the town of "Reefton is in a most deplorable condition so far as business is concerned. There is literally nothing doing. The- Reefton of to-day, and that of five months since, are not be spoken of in the same breath, and it is hardly possible to conceive that the present stagnant and deserted tow n could ever have displayed a quarter of the bustle* under any .circumstances, thf?t it thpu did.

The loss in the gold by the imperfect methods of amalgamation that are in use in the various gold-fields of Victoria, is estimated by a practical- correspondent on mining, who writes in the ' Daily Telegraph,' to he not less '.tb-i-n £IOO,OOO irtvaiue in a vear, and he arrives at these figures by calculating for every ounce obtained 12 grs. are never recovered.

In one of his tours an American, minister came up at. night toa publichouse where he was known, and where he proposed to;pass the night. The landlord met him with a smiling c.nant( n-nce. and told him that, having built a new barn, he was nicely prepared to accommodate the * clergy. " I have," said he, "a very good .stable, with all the improvements, for .Episcopal horses ; a comfortable sort of stable for Presbyterian horses ; while I keep the old barn for Baptist horses. The feed is according to the style. of the stable." " "Well," replied the traveller, " everybody knows that I am a Baptist, but my horse is an Episcopalian."

The Americans are odd. in their spelling. They pounce on words of -fixed orthography,arid turn thein out in phonetic ■■shape with recklessness that would have made Dean Trench's hair stand on end. This month, in one of the best literary journals of America, we have" mold" and " frenologist." "WTiat next? Of course,. " frenologist" is already supported by "frenzy ;" but if the Greek " ph" is to be uniformly "f" in English, then we must make up our minds not only to (: fouetio" spelling, but to "filanthropist," " niosepher," " anmbious," and a procession of similar oddities. The Toothache.—A correspondent of the.'English Mechanic' gives following curious remedy:—Put a piece of quicklime as' big as a walnut in a pint of water in a bottle. Clean the teeth with a little of it every morning-, rinsing, the mouth with a little clean water afterwards. If the teeth are good it will preserve them, and keep away toothache; if the teeth are gone it will harden the gums so that they will masticate crust and ail. •

Ties of A.n English resident in Scotland writes to state his surprise that bank notes of the Bank of England, even for small amounts, are not current payment. The only way in which they pan be negotiated is by endorsingtheni and presenting them for payment at some bank—' Times' The following says the ' San Francisco Call,' is an inscription on a tombstone erected over the grave 'of an editor's wife in the vicinity of that town :—" To the memory of Tabitha, of Moses Rkiannr, Esq., Gentlemanly Editor of the Trombone, Terms 3 dols. a year in advance. A Kind Mother and Exemplarv Wife. . Office over Coleman's Grocery, up Two "Flights of Stairs. Knock Hard. We Shall Miss Thee. Job Printing Solicited."

Cardinal . Cullest o"sr : Ttsteidelitt. —Cardinal Oullen has issued a: pastoral which alludes to Judge Keogh's speech and to growing infidelity. He says : —"Latterly, siieh men-."as Cromwell, .TRpbes pier re; and other resricidew —men who abu.i°d thr> talents given to them by of degraded morals, who rejected every principle of the true faith —havc been " publi"l v eulogised, -compared with th« paints and proposed to the for imitation." Thp Cardinal, speaking of the growing infidelity, savs th?it the Professors of Trinity* College,"Dublin, are openly contradicting .the G-os'v.d byteaching that the wicked shall not be. punished with, eternal torments.