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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 262, 2 December 1876, Page 4

A yarn for the Marines: — A Philadelphia despatch says: — "Captain H. E. West, a submarine operator, was at work on the hulk of the sunken Ironsides, off tbe League Island Navy Yard on Tuesday, trying to blow the hulk to pieces. He charged it with 2501bs of double strength powder. When this was fired it blew a piece of iron. weighing nearly a ton twenty feet into tbe air. Iu its descent it struck a barge Beveral hundred yards away, and went through its deck and bottom. Tbe barge was loaded with iron plates and chains from the Ironsides, and it went down like a flash. When the barge touched bottom it careened, dumped its load, and instantly rose to the surface again, thus eaving the lives of the workmen on board. The whole thing occupied less than a minute." [We wonder whether the workmen got wet.] Io an American lady's letter recounting the writer's experience across tbe herring pood occurs the following significant passage ; — " There is something pitiful in the humility of the lower orders in England. They are a ead-faced and solemn set. They quite understand Carlyle's theory that balf mankind are born with saddles on tbeir backs ready to be ridden, and the other half are bom booted and spurred ready to ride tbem. Tbe common people have felt tbe saddle so long on their backs tbat they do not object to it now. I presume, in fact,, tbat they scarcely feel its pressure. The whole of life in England seems to me to be arranged for tbe benefit of the upper classes, one of jvhosa distinguishing characteristics is very unwholesome contempt for (hose people wbo are beneath them." The Loodon correspondent of the Argue, writing on September 29tb, -it-tee that considerable sensation had been produced during the previous week by tbe loss of a large number of foreign bonds in their transmission from tho London Stock Exchange to Pari6. The value is said to exceed £40.000. The theft is supposed to have been the result of a well-organised plan. Many Russian bonds are included in the batch, and, as most, if not all, of those lost are "To bearer," it will be extremely difficult to apprehend the thieves. The bonds were sent over the London, Chatham, and Dover, and the Northern of France Railways, but where or wheu the abstraction took place it is not even approximately known. The loss of the property may lead to a peculiar action at law, for most of the valuables were insured, aod as the police cannot discover whether they were abstracted while passing over the English or the French railway, the question is as to who shall be held liable for the loss. The amount is large enough to provoke a serious dispute. ' During a case which was tried before the late Justice Maule, a witness twice, in the course of both examination and cross-examination, declared that there were two things in the world which he admired— women and horses. At the conclusion of the trial the Judge asked

that the witness should be brought : before him. "I think, sir," said the Judge, " that I uaderst od yoa to say tbat in your opinion there only two things io the word worthy of admiration — women and horses ; is that so ?" , " Yes, my Lord, I Baid that, and I'm ! not ashamed to stick to it." "Very well," said the Judge solemnly ; "Now I give you a bit of advice. When you go home get an honest solicitor to maka your will for you, and have a clause inserted instructing your executors to have your skin tanned aftsr your death aud have a lady's saddle made out of the leather." "But, my Lord,' 1 exclaimed the amazed witness, " what oan ." " Don't you see ? " said his Lordship, interrupting him, ''Why, then you will have the satisfaction of knowing tbat after you are dead you will constantly be between tbe two objects of your admiration." The Mayor of Bristol entertained the Lord Mayor of London recently, and the occasion was of course an important one — important enough for a young Bristol lady to send for her dinner dress from Worth of Paris. The dress came, and was all that could be desired, only she couldn't get into it. She had to discard under-garment after under.-gai ment— fortunately it was very warm weather — until there waa little' else but herself and the dress. Then it was laced up and she looked beautiful, but when she came down io dinner she couid not ait down. It was so tight in the skirts and elsewhere that it wes ooly with a dead lift that she managed to take a chair. She waa not comfort- : able, because of the servants that must needs pass behind her, but she looked in fact to admiration. Only after dinner she couldn't get up again. I {Argus correspondent) am telling you the truth when I say that the gentlemen on both sides of her had to pull the skirts to set her free. But this is nothing. An old lady of my acquaintance who tells me everything, was taken to see a young lady's wedding trousseau. The dresses were splendid, and all necessaries to match. " But where, said she, "is the underclothing?" "Ladies do not wear under-clothing now, madame," said the milliner, " the dresses are too tight to admit of it. They wear suits of washleather." And sure enough there were three chamois suits of "dittos," fitting close to the frame aa any glove. The London correspondent of a northern contemporary writes as follows:—" Wrestling is certainly an English game, but certain Frenchmen have visited our shores to show us that we are not always superior in athletic exercises. Their Btyle is " catch as catch can," and a man is not con", Bidered thrown until both his shoulders touch the ground simultaneously. Our champion found no difficulty in disposing of them when wrestling io the Cumberlsnd and Westmoreland style, but in turn had to cry peccavi when tackled in the French manner. One of the Frenchmen, «« Boulanger," is oalled " the man with the iron jaw and steel arms," and his feats certafnly deserve the title. He throws 561b weights about aB though they were cricket balls; he places an iron bar weighing 112lbs across his shoulder, ou each end of which a maG seats himself and a third man having got on bis back, he walks about with little apparent inconvenience; and finally he takes up a chain with a man seated in it in his teeth, walks round with him, and then waltzes with his burden to the music of the band. The most absurd story is going the rounds of the Roman journals, which, of course, comes from Paris. .Some diplomatists were talking about the Oriental question, and one of them expresed a wonder as to what England would do eventually in regard to Turkey. The Persian Ambassador said: "England will do as the monkey did." The Pe.6ain told how a learned man of the good old times, wishing to test the power of maternal affection in a she monkey, took one, with a young monkey, and put both in a high and large tin box which was placed over the. fire, while itgradualiy heated. When the box began to get hot the poor monkey seized the little monkey iu ber arms and jumped and danced about on tbe hot floor of the box. At last the floor was so hot tbat all her leaping was of no use. Then what did mother monkey do? She took her baby monkey, put it down on the floor, and stood on it J Tbe poor little fellow roasted, but her feet no longer burned. Up to tbe present England baß shown a mother's heart towards Turkey, but when the

fire becomes intolerable aha will cook her young caohjtpy. A farmer residing near Newcastle, U.S., recently discovered a number of boys helping .the-jselyes tc» apples in, his orchard. He ; immediately unloosed a large bull-dog, and seethe brute after the boys. The savage a_arnal caught one of the. youths by the j throat, and, in a moment, tore out tha boy's wind-pipe . and severed the jugular vein, j causing death iu a very few minutes. .At the annual sale of yearlings at the ; Colham Stud Farm, England, a yearling colt 1 i fetched the enormous and, unprecedented . price of 4,100 guineas. This is nearly double the largest sum ever yet given for a yearling. The purchaser tfaa the Duke of Westminster's trainer.