MISCELLANEA.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume II, Issue 108, 12 August 1846, Page 3

MISCELLANEA.

The Queen's Visit to Paris. — A letter from Paris states :: — •" There can be no longer any doubt of the intended visit of Queen Victoria. Apartments have been prepared for her at the Tuileries and at Neuilly. A.t each place she will have a state bed -room, fitted up in the most splendid style. It is said that towards the end of May, or early in June, the Duke and Duchess de Nemours will go to London, and will accompany the Queen to France. Active preparations are going on also at the Hotel de Ville for a banquet and ball on the occasion of her visit.

The New Liberal Paper. — I told you, some time ago, if 1 recollect right, that a new daily paper, of ultra-Liberal politics, was to be started, with Chas. Dickens as the editor, and his father as field-raarshall or conductor. Messrs. Bradbury and Evans, the proprietors of Punch, are the epifited men ostensibly known in the new paper — that is to be. A number of " crack" reporters, all short-hand men of the metropolitan journals, have been engaged at salaries of seven, eight, and ten guineas a week, for three years certain. Dickens is to have two thousand pounds a year ! Jerrold, Mark Lemon, and others of mark " and likelihood," are to be among the chief writers. There is plenty of cash in the bank, and' the parties are all men of undoubted honor. After a little " hitch," the effects of which lasted only twenty-four hours, everything has gone on most cheeringly. Charles Dickens had a dinner party the other day, composed of the principal lads engaged. Each gentleman invited had to come with six names for the future journal. After dinner these were discussed with the champagne and claret. Some of the titles were funny enough, and your readers must lose a good laugh by my withholding them. By general consent The Daily Press was adopted, thus following for a title the period of Addison, Steele, &c. — Correspondent of the Morning Chronicle. Mr. Charles Dickens had a letter in the Daily News, a few days since, on " Ragged Schools" in London, academies opened by benevolent persons for those outcasts of society who are not admissible into any other kind of schools. The name implies their condition and use, and it may surprise some of our readers to learn that these " ragged schools" have been intro iuced into the Park by Mrs. John Cropper with complete success. Should not the example be followed 1 Liv. Jour.

The British Museum. — By reiurns recently made, it appears that the annual estimated charge for the British Museum, to Lady-day next, is £34,975. The return embraces nine divisions, including the number of persons who have visited the institution for the last eight years. From Christmas 1836, to Christmas 1837, the number was 321,151 ; from Christmas, 1837, to Christmas, 1838, the number was 266,008 ; to 1839, 280,850 ; to 1840, 247,929; to 1841, 219,374; to 1842, 547,718; and to 1843 and 1844, an increase of 10,000 each year. No fewer than 5,627 visits by artists were made in the year 1844 to the galleries of sculpture, and 8,721 to the print room. It is stated, in respect to the reading room, that the number of books returned to the shelves of the general library from the reading room is 142,179; to the Royal library, 22,408 ; to the closets where they are kept for the use "of readers from day to day, 78,470 ; and to the shelves of the reading rooms, about 116,400; altogether, 359,457 volumes ; on the average, 1230 a day. The number of readers is 71,494. A letter from Constantimaple announces that M. Rouet, a French traveller, has made some interesting discoveries of antique sculpture on the mountains of Kurdistan, near Mossoul, and that he is about to send drawings of them to France. The Duchess de Berry, who passes^ the greater part of the year at Venice, has recently purchased and taken up her residence at the Palazzo Vendramino Calegri, built by Lombardo, and reckoned the finest on the Grand Canal. One of the largest saloons, decorated with exquisite taste, has been converted into a theatre, in which French pieces are performed by amateur actors. Her Royal Highness constantly attends the representations.. Mr. G. Cartwright, of Preston, received an order lately for a miniature steam-engine on the high-pressure -principle, for which he sent to Messrs. Chadbura Brothers, Sheffield ; and, strange to say, though the engine had to be built, he received it enclosed in a letter, "by post, foul- days after ! The engine was complete in every detail, accompanied by a boiler and a fire-grate containing fuel.

! Extraordinary Case. — The late London journals contain copious details of an ac- ■ tion for breach of promise of marriage, the trial of which occupied live or six days, brought by a Miss Smith, the daughter of a wealthy farmer in Warwickshire, against Earl Ferrers, the issue of which discloses a more outrageous conspiracy than we are accustomed to find even in the pages of the most high-flowing romances. The case for the prosecution exhibited a long series of the most ardent love | letters, purporting to be written by the noble defendant ; treating in the most familiar terms of his coming nuptials with his fair correspondent, and there were also adduced several letters purporting to be written by the Hon. Devereaux Shirley, brother of the defendant, during his Lordship's illness, in which the defendant's devoted attachment to his^anc^e was spoken of in the most moving terms. The hand-writing of the defendant was distinctly sworn to by several witnesses, and the intimacy of the parties was endeavoured to be shewn but scarcely successfully. Tha damages were kid at £20,000, aud a heavy verdict was fully anticipated when the plaintiffs case was closed, Lord Ferrers having to all seeming flown from his first love without t rhyme or reason and married another lady on ! a couple of mon'hs' acquaintance. The case for the defence, however, produced very different results. The counsel for the noble defendent declared solemnly that his lordship had never either written or spoken to the plaintiff in his life, or even seen her excepting at church. The fact of the letters being his Lordship's handwiiting was satisfactorily disproved, most of the witnesses swearing that there was not the remote likeness in the hand to his Lordship's, and the signature being different from that which he usually wrote. The Hod. D. Shirley, his Lordship's brother, most distinctly swore that he had never spoken to, or seen the-piairßifF, that he knew of; and further, that tne letters purporting to be written by him wjp forgeries, and bore date at a period when Be was serving with his regiment in Scotland. The crowning fact, however, was the production of a seiies of anonymous letters, addressed to Lord Ferrers at various periods, inviting him to make the acquaintance of the present plaintiff, which on comparison were found to be in the same hand-writing as the letters purporting to be written by Lord Ferrers, and which was eventually admitted by the plaintiff's mother to be her daughter's hand. "Uuder these circumstances the counsel for the plaintiff requested to be non-suited, and the letters were impounded by order of the Court. — Melbourne Argus. In the Times of the Bth January, a letter appeared from its JVlexican correspondent, in which there was a statement to the effect that the earthquake of the 7th January 1845 had caused such a flood of water to be poured into the two principal veins of the Real del Monte Mines that all the power of steam could not keep it under. This statement being/ calculated to create considerable alarm amongst the shareholders of the company, the Secretary addressed a letter to the Editor on the same day in which whilst he admits that the waters had been troublesome and were still abundant, the fact was that the drainage of the mines was fully maintained by three steam engines, viz., one of 75-inch cylinder, and two of 30-inch cylinder each ; while the company had unem ployed an engine of 53-inch cylinder, and others of smaller size for use, in case of need.

Serious Accident, and Narrow Escape of General Tom Thumb. — During one of the public levees of the renowned General' Torn Thumb in the Trades' Hall at Airdrie, a large portion of the floor gave way with an awful crash, and precipitated some three hundred men, women, and children into the room below — a distance of fourteen feet. The scene of confusion and excitement, mingled with the groans and screechings of the affrighted multitude can scarcely be imagined. About one thousand persons were in the hall, but fortunately, and strange to say, no death was occasioned by the accident. Several persons, including some of the General's suite, were bruised, but not dangerously. That portion of the floor which fell was the precise spot where the General gave his performances, and which he had left only two minutes before, and had gone into an adjoining apartment to change his costume. The table on which he exhibited fell with the multiuide, and was crushed to atoms, and the little General must inevitably have been killed, had he not providentially left the room a couple of minutes' before, for the purpose above indicated. From examining the ruins of the building, the joists do not seem to have been erected in the most substantial manner, of which the little General being a stranger was, oi course, ignorant. We opine that General Thumb, " light weight" as" -he is, will not trust himself, or his friends, in another hall, till he has learned that' it is substantially built.

Anecdote op a Lady of Borneo. — The < following little adventure was told me during (

my stay at Sarawak by Dr. Treacher, who had lately joined Mr. Brooke, his former medical attendant haviug returned to England. It appears that Dr. Treacher received a message by a confidential slave, that one of the ladies of Macota's harem desired an interview, appointing a secluded spot in the jungle as the, rendezvous. The doctor, being aware of his own good looks, fancied he had made a conquest ; and, having got himself up as showily as he could, was there at the appointed time. He described the poor girl as both young and pretty, but with a dignified and determined look, which at once convinced him that she was moved to take so dangerous a step by some deeper feeling than that of a mere fancy for his person. She complained of the ill-treatment she had received from Macota, and the miserable life she led ; and avowed that her firm- resolve was to destroy (not herself, gentle creature ! but) him, for which purpose she wanted a small portion of arsenic. It was a disappointment that be could not comply with her request : so they parted — he full of pity and love for- her ; and she, in all probability, full of contempt for a man who felt for her wrongs, but would not aid in the very simple means she had proposed for redressing them. — Captain Keppel's Borneo. A short time since a provincial newspaper speaking of a forest which was going to be enclosed, made the following remark :—: — " This waste will be a great saving to the country." A fellow in Kentucky, with a railway imagination, wants to know how long it will be before they open the equinoctial line.

St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey. — a duet. — Westminster Abbey. — Ever since I was an abbey, or, so to speak, a little baby, I never kuew anything so shabby, no, not excepting a superannuated tabby ! St. Paul's. — To whom are you alluding? on what wrong may you be brooding 1 thus on the silence of the night so remarkably an abrupt exclamation intruding. Westminster Abbey. — To the dean and chapter's doing, to the course they've been pursuing ; which if they don't abandon it, I fear will prove my utter ruin. St^ Paul's. — And pray how. have they illused you ? mismanaged or abused you, disfigured you, or due repairs and fit and proper maintenance refused you ? Westminster Abbey. — Why, old fellow, don't you know that they've made me quite a show, which is- not at all the purpose I was built for long ago, and is one that I consider exceedingly mean and low ? St. Paul's. — You suffer not alone, your grievance is my own ; I, too, have to bemoan that like a curiosity-shop I am daily shown. Westminster Abhey. — I'm reduced to the condition of the Chinese Exhibition — though that will shortly close — when I shall, goodness knows ! — or of the Egyptian Hall, which I don't like at all ; I feel, with deep objection, that I'm open for inspection, like Burford's Panorama, or Madame Tussaud's collection. St. Paul's. — My case is just the same, and I say it is a shame ;~ I am like the Industrious Fleas, or any sight you please : and I am sure you will agree, a Cathedral Church like me ought never to have been converted into a sort of Wombwell's managerie. Westminster Abbey. — May I ask you, by the way, how much the public pay to behold your various wonders, hear your whispering gallery's thunders, and listen to your verger's monstrous Cockneyisnas and blunders ? St. Paul's. — Four-and-six, or thereabout, to see me out-and-out, is the sum the showfolks charge ye — by them I mean the clergy — a price my visitors may justly groan at. Now, in return, tell me what you are shown at? / Westminster Abbey. — 'Tis but a sixpenny touch, but that's sixpence too much for work-ing-men and such ; the nation's church should be, like the British nation, free, for high and low, rich and poor, gentle and simple, without money, without price, without reward or fee. St. Paul's. — That's exactly what I say, 'tis a monstrous thiug to pay to see a church, as if it were a concert or a play. How deplorable our state is ! There's the National Gallery gratis : so is the British Museum; and here are we, no better than the Colosseum I—Punch.1 — Punch.