MISCELLANEOUS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume III, Issue 177, 10 April 1847, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS.

Temper in Argument. — Besides, what is the use of violence? None. What is the harm ? Great, very great ; —

• [Something is wanting here to make the sense complete, but so it stands in the manusoript, which appears to have been hastily written.—Ed.]

chiefly, in the confirmation of error, to which nothing so much tends, as to find your opinions attacked with weak arguments and uuworthy feelings. A generous mind becomes more attached to principles so treated, even as it would an old friend, after he had been grossly calumniated. We are eager to make compensation. — Coleridge.

Abd-el-Kader is a handsome man of about thirty-seven or thirty-eight. Although dressed in the common Bedouin bernouse and turban, he was easily distinguishable from his attendants by the splendour of his arms and of his horses. Even from a distance I thought I could trace on his dark and bearded countenance the intrepidity and religious enthusiasm by which he is distinguished. His bearing was proud and noble. I could not help watching this man with a certain degree of admiration, for he alone is the soul of the whole resistance to the French ; without him no three tribes would act in common. I heartily wished him a better fate ; for his lot will be either to fall in battle, or to be betrayed by his friends, like Jugurtha, to whom he may well be compared, although to equal courage and perseverance he unites an elevation of character not ascribed to the Numidian of old by historians, who indeed were nowise impartial. Abd-el-Kader has strictly forbidden his soldiers to kill the prisoners in cold blood, and in order to put a stop to this practice amoug the Bedouins, he pays ten Spanish dollars for every living captive. The Emir received an almost European education from his father, who was a marabout highly venerated by the people, and who lived for several years in Italy, where he became acquainted with European habits and manners. — The French in Algiers.

National Theatre at Mexico. — The building, of which the theatre forms a part, contains a cafe, hotel, restaurant, billiards, and card-rooms. It presents to the Calle Bergara a very handsome front, within which are found two patios, or squares, with galleries running along each, and communicating with the reception-rooms. These patios are covered with glass, and are ornamented by a profusion of natural flowers, and a few orange trees, which have a charming effect. They form at night a kind of crush-room, through which all Mexican belles must pass to and from the boxes, and they are consequently crowded with young men pretending to taste or fashion, who exchange adios and glances with the dear creatures as they are marched in solemn procession, under the guidanc- of unforgiving fathers, or sympathizing mammas. Next to the last patio are two staircases, communicating only with the boxes, which are private property, the access to them being thus separated from the money part of the house ; and beyond that is the entrance to the pit, and tire groundfloor of boxes, which are subject to distinct regulations from those of the upper tiers. The boxes of the upper tiers are admirably arranged. A slight division in a waving line, not breast high in any part, separates one from the other, so that there is a free circulation of air through all. They are cut down in front so low that the whole person of the occupier is seen from every part of the house, and ladies have not to complain, as in Paris and London, of being shut up in cases in which their heads and shoulders are only visible, and all the elegance of the general toilette concealed. A Mexican kdy sits enthroned in her box, as on an elevated platform, presenting the whole of her graceful person and brilliant costume to the admiration of her friends. A slight rail, a few inches high, conceals only her feet, and secures her from falling over into the pit; but enough is understood, especially on gala nights to prove that a Mexican architect has been the first to discover that beautiful women, seen to full advantage, are more ornamental in an open box than silk curtains or mouldings of white and gold. The boxes being private property, are furnished according to the taste of the owners ; some are very handsomely fitted up, and the form of the house is so well arranged, that from every seat not only are the performances seen and heard, but from every chair in every box the whole of the other patios are visible. Attached to each box is a retiring room, or cuarto. Between the acts the cuartos are filled with smoking coteries, in which it must be owned the ladies, with their paper or straw cigarettes, are most indefatigable. As these cuartos are in darkness visible, only one candle, or dull lamp, being found, it is amusing as you pass to see them suddenly lighted up with so many flashing fires like glow-worms, and to hear the chatter of the performers, who contrive to talk and smoke with unceasing rapidity. — 2imes,

New York Gaming Houses. — There are some forty or fifty gaming-houses, of all sorts, but only ten or twelve that may be considered 'genteel.' These latter are about equally dispersed' through the fashionable quarters of the City, and each has its one, two, or three hundred regular frequenters — a fair representation of whom congregate nightly and lose

their five, ten, twenty, or fifty dollars with what stomach they may. This class of the frequenters of gaming-houses is composed principally of clerks, small merchants, mechanics, and other respectable classes of community realizing moderate or small incomes, and to whom every dollar thrown away at the ga-ming-table is a monstrous crime against their employers, their creditors, or their wives and children. How they contrive to procure the money at all which they lose at gambling is a matter of great surprise — and it is evident that it has all been dearly earned ; as the bills are drawn forth, slowly and painfully, one after another, as if the corner of each were twisted around the very heart-strings of its infatuated possessor. * The gaming-houses themselves are luxuriously and (some of them) even gorgeously furnished. The floors are laid with the richest carpeting and the walls are enameled with magnificent mirrors and costly paintings, disposed in a truly artistical manner, and producing under the brilliant illumination of endless gas-lights, a fascinating, dazzling, and bewildering effect. Then the fronf parlour is always reserved for a supper room, where a choice and dainty entertainment, consisting of almost every accessible luxury and extravagance of the table, is laid at ten o'clock and remains through the night, warmly supplied by attentive and well-bred waiters, who perform their functions in silence and seem to understand the wishes and wants of a guest by instinct. Wine, and that of the very highest and rarest qualities, is of course to be had for the asking — or almost for the thinking of; and all for nothing ! only, you will please step up to the other table and buy a few dollars worth of round pieces of ivory, some red, some white, but all reeking with the blood of slaughtered purses. The red ones cost 5 dollars apiece, the white ones 1 dollar. The game most usually played now in the fashionable gaming-houses is Faro. Roulette has nearly gone out of fashion and Hazard entirely so. The proprietors of these establishments are nearly all wealthy, and some of them have accumulated immense sums. They are certainly very gentlemanly men ; and we were politely and most attentively waited upon through several of these establishments, although it was well understood that our visit was merely one of curiosity, and a desire to inspect personally establishments about which so much has been said, and so little is actually known by the uninitiated. The present is the heel of the gambling season, which reaches its highest activity during the races. Then every one of these establishments is nightly crowded, and immensely deep play is carried on — thousands and tens of thousands changing hands — banks being broken — sporting men ' bursted' — fat pigeons 'plucked,' and green-horns ' cleaned out' in an incredibly short space of time. The season for country merchants buying goods is also very favourable to the interests of these ' peculiar institutions ;' and many a one, who is so unfortunate as to lose his pocket-book • or to be robbed, could trace his loss with considerable certainty though to no purpose. — American Paper.

Growth of Plants. — Let some fastgrowing plants be placed against a southern wall ; the grape vine and the hop are good specimens, in the morning, when there is likely to be'a hot sunny day, make a mark on the wall level with the top of the shoot, and though the sun shine hotly on that shoot all the day, it will not increase. But observe it the next morning ; it will have grown from half an inch to two inches. The common white clover opens its leaves in the morning, and closes then! at night ; when they are open to the sun, they do not increase, but when they are folded in sleep they do, and they are larger the next morning than they were at night. All this growth will be in proportion to the heat and light of the previous day. This appears to establish two facts — first, that plants increase during sleep or repose ; and, secondly, that growth is something reflex, it being proportioned to previous exercise or excitement — nutrition and growth going on while there is the least excitement from external things.