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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume III, Issue 217, 12 September 1868, Page 2

A new rifle has made its appearance in Paris called the ravageur, which, according to the assertions of its inventor, eclipses both the needle-gun and the Chassepot, and can be fired 40 rounds per minute, or 2400 per hour. A humane philosopher proposes to do away with capital punishment, and to substitute death by electricity. A lightning stroke kills instantaneously, and without pain, if we may judge from the reports of those persons who have been nearly killed by such inflictions. Franklin was stunned by a powerful shock of electricity, and, when he came to, wondered how it was that he was stretched on the floor: he had felt nothing. An electrician would easily provide the means of administering a death-stroke; and to say the least, the method would be several removes better than the barbarous one of killing by strangulation at present iD vogue, to say nothing of shooting and the guillotine. — Once a Week. A woman was pleading lately against her husband before a Parisian judge. She accused him of being a lazy fellow who lived on what she could earn, and did nothing himself. The husband handed to the judge a certificate from the head cook of Prince Napoleon Buonaparte, stating that on all occasions when banquets have been given at the Palais Royal the defendant has acted, as 'cuisinier supplementaiie.' To- this M. Mamerl, the counsel for the wife, replied that the certificate in question proved Jiis case, . eeing that for. the last five years it is\uotorious that the kitchen fire at the Palais Royal had never been alight.