MISCELLANEOUS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume III, Issue 170, 17 March 1847, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

Brougham and the Tallow Chandler. — Some of our readers may recollect the story of the fallow chandler, who, when he disposed of his good-will, and was about to retire upon a fortune, made an especial agreement that he should be allowed to come to the shop and enjoy himself on melting days. We wonder that this story was forgottea by Brougham — so full as he is of anecdote — when he was called up to the Lords. He ought certainly, to have had a clause inserted in his patent that woul 1 have relieved him in his present strait, for he complained, a night or two since, that " there seemed an utter incapacity to do business in another place. Their Lordships did their business ; but elsewhere they seemed never to think of it." Assuredly, like the old tallow-chandler, Brougham ought to be permitted to take his seat in the Commons on melting days. — Punch. The author of " Mammon" states that in the metropolis there are at present 12,000 children training in vice, 3000 persons receivers of stolen goods, 4000 annually commited to prison for crime, 10,000 living by-gam-bling, 20,000 by beggary, and 30,000 practising theft and fraud.

Twenty-nine violins, belonging to Mr. Cramer, have been sold by auction for £'280. The sightseers of the metropolis have recently been gratified by the exhibition of a being called " the Wild Man of the Prairies," -who has held his levees at the Egyptian Hall, ■Piccadilly. The advertisements relative to • this singular specimen' of nature led the public to believe that he was a most mysterious creature, half animal, half human, " the long sought for link between man and the ourangoutang, which naturalists have for years decided does exist, but which has hitherto been undiscovered." Thus began the advertisement, which had the effect of attracting several visitors to the exhibition, but, unfortunately for its complete success, one too many. A correspondent of the Times, who characteristically signs himself " Open-eye," paid his shilling, and was shown into the sanctum of the monster. He at once discovered the " Wild Man of the Prairies" to be no other than that exceedingly tame dwarf, Hervio Nano, otherwise Harvey Leach, who about ten years since performed the part of a blue-bot-tle at the Adelphi, Surrey, and other minor theatres. This, besides being the most barefaced, is also the most transparent attempt to •deceive a gullible public oa record. The Suabian Mercuty publishes the following statistics relative to the Austrian Monarchy :—": — " The Austrian Monarchy covers an •extent of 12,104 square miles, containing •35,295,957 souls, inhabiting 713 towns, 2468 burghs, 64,208 villages, and 5,036,548 houses. The clergy is composed of 65,505 individuals, and the Church revenue, without including Hungary, Transylvania, and the military frontier, exceeds 7,000,000 of francs. Austria exceeds all other states in the number of primary schools, in which more than 4,000,000 of pupils are educated at an expense of 4,000,000 of florins.

The Daughter of Rosas. — With the character of General Rosas the Chief of the Argentine Republic, the readers of the public journals are in some degree acquainted. He is described as cruel as Nero, and as ferocious and bloodthirsty as Robespierre. His daughter appears rather to improve upon than to be deficient in those qualities : she is thus described by a recent traveller :—": — " This young woman seems to partake of the vicious traits of her father. She has been known to sport with the decapitated heads of victims as they have lain upon the ground in the yard, and to look upon an execution, or the cutting of a throat, if such can be called an execution, as mere pastime. Rosas, it is well known, kept in his household, after the manner of the iroufisted monarchs of old, a couple of jesters, or as they are more commonly termed, fools ; and whenever this young lady wished to obtain an especial favour from her father, she would get one of these fellows to place himself on ' all fours,' and then, mounting astride his hack, would ride into his presence, and with mock humility present her petition. Her ludicrous attitude always put the Dictator in a good humour, and secured the wishes of the petitioner."

Louis Philippe in 1804. — The then Duke of Orleans thus wrote to the late Bishop of Llandaff — " I quitted my native land so eaily, that I have hardly the habits or manners of a Frenchman, and I can say with truth that I am attached to England, not only by gratitude, but by taste and inclination. In the sincerity of my heart do I pray that I may never leave this hospitable soil."

Music in Germany. — One of the world's great men, Martin Luther, bestirred himself to establish the study of music in all the communities founded on the evangelical creed ; and this, not in any degree as a direct ally in his warfare against the Roman Catholics. Pie believed that music was a gift of God ; that its use was especially becoming in praises of its author ; but was also, by itself, of excellent value at all times. In the education, therefore, of all who followed him, he was careful to provide the means of exercising this divine art ; and laid down a system of musical tuition, enjoined in every Lutheran parishschool, which has continued in force ti roughout nearly three centuries. What fruit "this seed has borne, all educated persons know.. In Germany alone, of all countries, is music a common domestic friend, instead of being, as elsewheie, an outcast, a prostitute, a mountebank. Its cultivation is thought no folly, its practice introduces no excess, is exposed to no peculiar temptations ; the whole land is filled with its cheerful voice, and with a grateful feeling of its value, as a heavenly companion amongst the cares of daily life. At the same time, its highest creations have silently grown, in that country, to a perfection elsewhere unknown. It is needless to name Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven — authors of the greatest works that music has yet produced, and the genuine offspring of the soil on which Luther's powerful hand cast the first seed. For, although of these great composers some were born Roman Catholics, in Catholic states, it was at an era when the original growth, fostered by Luther, had already ■

spread over the whole land, and shed its fruits over regions which were remote enough from the root which gave them birth. Such virtue is there in the true thought and the genial insight of a single man ; and such is the stature to which an art may rise, when it is sustained by the understanding love of a whole people, and viewed, at its proper height, as one of the minor revelations, an avatar of the beautiful. — Tail's Magazine.

A Curious Manuscript. — There has been discovered in the library of the monastery of Titero, in Spanish Navarre, a volume in vellum of 142 pages with illuminated figures, Gothic ornaments, and leaden seals, containing a poem in 100 cantos in the Provencal language of the 13th century. The subject is the conflict between the inhabitants of Pampeluna and the French governor, Eustache de Bellemare, appointed by Queen JJlanche to rule Navarre duiing the minority of the Princess Joan, her daughter. The mauuicript has been deposited in the library of Pampeluna.

A Royal Suitor. — The Madrid correspondent of the Times thus describes the appearance of the successful candidate for the hand of Isabella of Spain : — With not an unpleasing countenance, Don Francisco d'Asis' personal attractions are not very striking. His physical conformation resembles that of a woman ; and his voice is disagreeably thin and shrill — something like that of a girl of 12 years old. The latter defect he had, before leaving Madrid, been trying, but ineffectually to remedy. He took lessons from a colonel of cavalry for some mouths, in the open air, screaming each day until he became hoarse. He was aware that a regiment of cavalry on the parade-ground, or in the field, would not feel much awe. nor charge an. enemy with more desperate valour, at hearing tne word of command given in the thin squealing voice of a frightened child. Galignani says that a nephew of Abd-el- j Kader, now at school at Passy, in the course of an examination, distinguished himself in the history of France. — His uncle has done the same. A New York paper cleverly defines a certain sort of state economy as the art of saving a little money at an enormous expense. When the Duke of Wellington was examined before the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the subject of military punishments, he gave the following pithy answer to a question on military drunkenness. Lord Wharncliffe inquired, "Is drunkenness the great parent of crime in the British army, in your opinion ?" The answer of the great Captain was given in a single word : it was, " Invariably." One of the largest trains ever seen on a railway left the Rugby station last week. It consisted of 84 carriages, and was impelled by three of Stevenson's powerful s>ix-wheeled engines. Its length extended to nearly half a mile, and the weight of merchandise, exclusive of the carriages, was upwards of 240 tons. The motto which was inserted under the arras of William, Prince of Orange, on his accession to the English crown, was " Non rapuised recepif" 11 1 did not steal it, but I received it." This being shown to Dean Swift, he said, with a sarcastic smile, " the receiver is as tad as the thief."

A Good Speculation. — Some excavations are being made at Roche-Cirviere, in the commune of Aurec, says the Mercure Segusicn, in the hopes of finding a treasure which is said to have been hidden there from 800 to 900 years since by a Spanish Prince driven out by the Saracens. A high legal functionary has, it is added, furnished the money for this speculation on the faith of a revelation made by an animal magnetizer. — Paris Paper.

Glass Milk Pans. — Sir J. W. Lubbock, one of the life members of the Royal Agricultural Society, having received through the liberality of Captain Stanley Carr, a certain number of the German glass milk pans referred to by him in his paper on the rural economy of Schleswig, Holstein, and Lauenburg, published in the first volume of the Society's Journal, both for his own use and for presentation in Captain Carr's name to the Council of the Society, had induced Mr. Pellatt, of the Falcon Glass-works, Blackfiiars, to undertake the manufacture of these utensils for sale in this country ; and that gentleman by successive improvements in their manufacture has at length been enabled to manufacture them at three shillings each in green glass, or of any size at the rate of sd. per lb. in green, and 7d. per lb. in the best white flint glass. — Gardeners' Chronicle. >

' The German Ocean. — All along the coast during the late hot weather there prevailed a smell of turf smoke, a circumstance which occasioned considerable surprise, because the neighbourhood around us produces but a comparatively small quantity, and certainly not enough to produce such an effect. For spine days the phenomenon was regarded

as unaccountable until it was suggested that it came over from Holland, the wind lying in the right direction, and the state of the atmosphere being peculiarly favourable to the smoky vapour across the German ocean. — Yarmouth Advertiser. During Mohammed Ali's rule, the population of Egypt has diminished more than a third.

Mohammed Ali and a Batch of Wives. — Mohammed Ali is now, it is believed, in his seventy-ninth or eightieth year ; bu: time has dealt kindly with hun, and he has not been wanting on his part in endeavours to deserve this lenient treatment. About seven years ago he was recommended to dismiss his harem, which he accordingly did in a very peremptory and yet prince-like manner. More than six hundred women, many of them young and beautiful, had a notice of ejectment served upon them. But instead of turning them loose upon the world, the pasha determined to provide han isomely for their future welfare, and gave them in marriage to his beys, and his effendis, his officers, civil and military. Nor did he act a niggardly part on this occasion. Every man who received a wife received also something to help him to support her ; the commonest method was to raise the happy individual a step in the service in which he was engaged, so that there never was, perhaps, a batch of marriages which resulted in so general a satisfaclon to all parties. — Topic.

Worthy of Imitation. — The Austrian Government has just issued a decree by which every engineer who has driven his engine for an entire year without accident shall receive a reward of 100 florins (£10), and that those who have done so for ten consecutive years shall receive 1,000 florins (£100), and a gold medal. The Imperial family of Russia are all excessively handsome, and I never have seen beauty more evenly distributed among the children of one house in any rank of life. The Grand Duchess Olga is the prettiest woman in Russia, and each of her brothers and sisters is gifted in the same manner. I had ihe honour of seeing them all, with the exception of the Grand Duke Constantine, who was absent in the Mediterranean. But even among the youthful branches of a family so famous for beauty, the Emperor shines pre-eminent, as well by the majesty of his deportment, as by the Jove-like beauty of his countenance. Towering over every one in the room, his well proportioned figure glided through the crowd ; and the extraordinary grace of his manner is only equalled by the superiority of his manly form. A kind word, a cheerful remark, or a glad smile, greeted and delighted every person he addressed ; while with rare talent he seemed to unite in one, the host, the master, and the companion. Never in any rank of life have I seen a man so admirably fitted for the position in which he is placed ; and when we considor what that position is — the absolute monarch, the wielder of the destinies of the seventh part of the habitable globe — we must think him great indeed, on whom such a dignity can suitably rest. His eagle eye, on this night, wande^d over the room. He directed everything, even to the smallest minutiae ; while never, for a moment, could I detect a movement or gesture unworthy the dignity of the Emperor. Truly Nicholas is the first gentleman of the age. — Bourkes St. Petersburg h and Moscow. Rauch has completed his statue of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg Schwerin, and it is at present being cast in bronze at Merseburg. It is to be eleven feet in height, and on a granite pedestal thirteen feet high. It is destined for the square of the grand ducal palace at Schwerin.

A Heavy Female. — On Tuesday evening the " stout lady," Mrs. Arraitage, who had been for some time exhibited heie, was desirous to change her locality to Glasgow, and found her way to the terminus at Hay Weights; but none of the railway caniages were found sufficiently capacious to admit her, and it was found necessary to fit up a horsebox for the conveyance of the nearly 32 stone weight female, in which she got safely and comfortably to the " city of ilie west," — Caledonian Mercury.