MISCELLANEOUS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 324, 6 September 1848, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

The Minister of Marine has decided that several vessels of ' the fleet shall have their names changed. The Cnuronne, ship-of-the-line, now at Toulon, is to be called Barricade; the Duchess d' Orleans frigate, on the stocks at L'Orient, the Victoire ; the Charte frigate, now at Brest, the Constitution; the Reine Amelie, the Parisien ; and the Comte d'Ezt, the Patriote. — Galignani's Messenger* M. Gamier Pages is succeeded in the Mayoralty of Paris by MS Arago," Miuister of Marine, whose successor l§ not named. Count Rambuteau late\Prefect of the Seine, has enrolled, himself in theXNational Guard of the first arrondissernent of fails'. General Cubieres, notorious for his connexion with the Teste affair, K»s offered his

services to the Government. They received the offer very drily ; saying there was no objection to receiving his services, but indicating that as he holds no rank in the army, his regular course would be to enter as a soldier of the line. Count Flahault, Louis Philippe's Ambassador at Vienna, fainted away on hearing of the establishment of the 'Republic. At the tomb of Carrel, M. Girardin, by whose hand he fell in a duel, demanded that the Government should put an end to duelling. The Morning Post gives the following piece of atrocity from Oxford :—": — " It is an affecting circumstance that Louis Philippe dismissed M. Guizot with Thiers (tears) in his eye."

Confidence in the People. — When the revolutionists who won the Republic for France had forced their way into the Palais Royal and had reached the apartments of General Athalin, one of Louis Philippe's aides-de-camp, they encountered the General's lady, a woman of dignified deportment and stature, whom the general had espoused for her rare beauty, being but the daughter of a poor fisherman of Granville. "My friends," she exclaimed, " I trust you have not come here to offer any injury to myself or my husband. lam not one of your^rae of ladies, but a daughter of the people. I throw myself then confidently on your protection. But I will not leave my husband ; he is confined to his bed by illness." The band were struck with the boldness of the appeal. They repaired to the general's chamber, placed him in an armchair, and, headed by this daughter the people, they conveyed him to a friend's house in the neighbourhood. On reaching his destination, the general recollected leaving a sum of 130,000f. (£5.300) in notes and gold in his desk. He handed the key of the desk to a working man in a blouse, whom he did not know. An hour after the man returned with every sous of the money.

The Sword op Ney. — On the morning of Thursday, the 24th February, a band of insurgents, in search of arms, visited the residence of the Duke d'Elchingen. The duke was absent, and the duchess was alone. "We come for arms," cried the group. "Take them," said her grace, pointing to some swords and fire-arms. "And that one?" said a citizen, pointing to a sword left suspended on the wall. " That sword," she replied, " belonged to my father-in-law. 'Tis the sword of Marshal Ney. Do not, pray, deprive me of that. The people always respected it." The men "were moved, and taking down the weapon, they all kissed it with emotion, and, placing it in the hands of Madame d'Elchingen, they bowed and withdrew. -Assuredly F. M. the Duke of Wellington and the Earl of Ellesroere have a dash of the "true phrophet." The French princes have invaded England and taken possession of some of the royal palaces. Of 106,000 emigrants who lately crossed the Atlantic for America, 6000 perished during £heir voyage, 4100 on their arrival, 5200 were sent to the hospital, and of those who settlea in towns 1900 died. Mr. Burton, the well-known builder and contractor, passed his last examination at the Bankruptcy Court on the 7th March. Upwarcfe oi £11,000 will remain after the estate paying 20s. in the pound. During the year 1847, 27,093 men enlisted in the army) and of these recruits 7,760 were afterwards rejected as unfit for military seryice.. There fis now exhibited at Nottingham a " Y*rksn|re giant," who is nearly eight feet .high and weighs 462 pounds. His father, a fatmir^ Wa*s six feet six inches high, his mother six fee.t, and all the children were taller than, the mother ; one daughter was seven feet two inches. The Journal de Reims says, that the other day a gentleman captured a raven, round the neck of which was a silver plate, with an inscription in English — " This raven, caught by Captain Duncan, pf w the Scotch Guards, in garrison at Rheims, was set at liberty January 7, 1643/' -■ : . ' "

A DISTINGOTSJTEp BENCH OF MAGISTRATES. — The foYbwang gentlemen have, within the last few yeatifr Usually attended the sittings of the Cashel benplLvp/ magistrates : — R. Long — father shot, himg^lf twice fired at ; W. Murphy — father shot I "Samuel Cooper — brother shot ; Leonard Keating — nephew, Mr. Scully, shot ; E. Scully— cousin, Mr. Scully, shot; Godfrey Taylor — cousin, Mr. Clarke, shot ; William Rose—shot ; C. Clarke — brother shot ; a nephew, Mr. Rose, shot. — Times. , The first English Lottery was drawn on the 11th of January, 1569. It consisted of 400,000 lots, 10s. each lot ; the prizes were plate, &nd the profits were to go towards repairing the havens of the kingdom. It was drawn at the west door of St. Paul's^Cathedral. The drawing began on the 11th of January, and continued incessantly, day and night, till the 6th of May following, as Mait-

/and, from Stowe, informs us in bis history, vol. i. f p. 257. There were then only three lottery offices in London, The proposals for this lottery were published in the years 1567 and 1568. To imagine that mere beauty is sufficient to keep the marriage bond unbroken, without heart and intellect, which alone can knit it firmly together, is to attempt weaving a garland of flowers without their stems.— Jean Paul Richter. The last case of modesty is that of a lady who discarded her lover, a sea-captain, because, in speaking of one of his voyages, he said he hugged the shore. An American has invented a process by which glass is made to perfectly resemble, and answer all the purposes of marble, and that too at fifty per cent, less than the cost of the real marble. Centre tables, mosaic floors, grave slabs, monuments, and even statuary as per mould, are the fruits of his process. The quarries of Carrara will yield no more delicately veined blocks. The sand that lies in the hill side, the open field, or out on the beach yonder, touched by the inventive genius of our age, becomes marble. — New York Churchman. Western orators have said many smart things, but it was a homesick Irishman who said — " Sir, I was born at a very early period of life, and if ever I live till the day of my death — and the Lord only knows whether I will or not — my soul shall see svrate Ireland before it laves Ameriky."

A Flood in Australia. — Mr. Stephenson returned early, having met two of the mounted police. To my most important question — what water was to be found down the river — the reply was very satisfactory j namely ' plenty, and a flood tide coming down from the Turon mountains.' The two policemen said they had travelled tweuty miles with it on the day previous, and that it would still take some time to arrive near our camp. About noon the drays arrived in good order, having been encamped where there was no water about six miles short of our camp ; <the whole distance travelled from Cannonba to the Macquarie having been about nineteen miles. In the afternoon, two of the men taking a walk up the river, reported on their return that the flood poured in upon them when in the river bed so suddenly that they narrowly escaped * it. Still, the bed of the Macquarie before our , camp continued so dry and silent, that I could scarcely believe the flood coming to be real, and so near to us, who had -been put to so many shifts for want of water. Towards even- ' ing I stationed a man with a gun a little way up the river, with orders to fire on the flood's appearance, ihat I might have time to run to the part of the channel nearest to our camp, and witness what I had so much wished to see, as well from curiosity as urgent need. The shades of evening came, however, but no flood ; and the man on the look-out returned to the camp. Some hours later, and after the moon had risen, a murmuring sound like that of a distant waterfall, mingled with occasional cracks as of breaking timber, drew our attention, and I hastened to the river bank. By very slow degrees the sound grew louder, and at length so audible as to draw various persons besides from the camp to the river side. Still no flood appeared, although its approach was indicated by the occasional rending of trees with a loud noise. Such a phenomenon in a most serene moonlight night was quite new to us all. At length the rushing sound of waters and loud cracking of timber announced that the flood was in the next bend. It rushed into our sight, glittering in the moonbeams, a moving cataract, tossing before it ancient trees and snapping them against its banks. It was preceeded by a point of meandering water, picking its way like a thing of life, through the deepest parts of the dark, dry, and shady bed of what thus again became a flowing river. By my party, situated as we were at the time, beating about the country, and impeding our journey, solely by the almost total absence of water, suffering excessively from thirst and extreme heat, I am convinced the scene can never be forgotten. Here came at once abundance, the products of storms in the far-off mountains that overlooked our homes. My first impulse was to have welcomed this flood on our knees : for the scene was sublime in itself, while the subject — an abundance of water sent to us in the desert — greatly heightened the effect in our eyes. Suffice it to say, I had witnessed nothing of such interest in all my Australian' travels. • * * " The river gradually filled up the channel nearly bank high ; while the^ living cataract travelled onward, much slower than I had expected to see it ; so slowly, indeed, thtt more than an hour .after its first arrival, the sweet music of the head of the flood was distinctly audible from my tent as the murmur of waters* and the diapason crash of logs, travelled slowly through-the tortuous windings of the riverbed. -I was finally' lulled to sleep by that me- ' lody of living waters, so grateful to my ear, and evidently so unwonted in the dry bed of the thirsty Macquarie." — SirT.L. Mitchells t Expedition into the interior of, Australia',

Picturesque Hair Cutting. — An English traveller in Paris sent for a hair cutter. An elegantly attired person arrived, and the gentleman sat down to prepare for the operation. The man walked round his " client" once or twice, and finally taking his stand at some distance,- attentively scrutinized the gentleman's face with the air of a connoisseur looking at a picture. " Well," said the Englishman, impatiently, "when are you going to begin ?" " Pardon me, sir," was the polite reply, " I em not the operative, but the physiognomist. Adolphe !" he called out, and a sleeved and aproned barber entered from the hall ; "a la Virgil !" with this laconic direction as to the model after which the gentlemen's air was to be arranged, the artist retired.

Mexicans on Americans. — I had a large pot of soup kept always on the fife, to which the half starved Americans [who had lost their way in a desert district near the town of Guajoquilla, and some of whose party had perished, Mr. Ruxton having rescued most of the survivors] had access whenever they felt inclined : and, as J ,was sitting at the door, several of them passed into the house, brushing by the muchachas without the usual * con su licencia,' much to the indignation of the ladies. It is a general impression amongst the lower classes in Mexico,' that the Americans are half savages, and perfectly uncivilized. The specimens they see in Northern Mexico are certainly not remarkably polished in manners or appearance, being generally rough backwoodsmen from Missouri. They go by the name of " burros" — jackasses : and have the reputation of being infidels, who worship the Devil, &c. I was trying to explain to my female friends, that the Americans were a very civilized } eople, and a great portion of them of the same, religion as their own ; but they scouted the idea : the priests had told them the contrary, and now they saw with their own eyes that they were burros. " Ni saludan las muge?asl" indignantly exclaimed a dark beauty, as a conclusive argument — they -do. not even salute the women when they pass — as, just at that moment, a Missourian, six feet high in his mocassins, * stepped over her head as she sat on the sill of the gate. * "Ni saludan las mugeras," she repeated; " you see it yourself. Ah, no, jor dios, son burros, y miiy sinvergzienzas" — they are jackasses,' and entirely without shame. Valgame Dios, que hombres tan fieros \" what wild men they are ! — Ruxton' s Adventures in Mexico.

Arctic Expeditions. — \Ve have noticed from time to time, the active and judicious measures which have been adopted by the Admiralty, with a view to render assistance to Sir John Franklin's expedition, which sailed in the spring of 1845, for the purpose of exploring the north-west passage into the Pacific, and of obtaining a series of magnetic observations, required to complete the set which had been obtained from every other part of the globe. In June last, Mr. Bell, one of the most active and intelligent of the chief traders of the Hudson's Bay Company, proceeded in their ships to York factory, in temporary command of the four boats belonging to the Arctic searching expedition, accompanied by fifteen picked men of the, sappers and miners, and five seamen, forming part of an expedition to be fitted out under the command of Sir John Richardson, who (accompanied by Mr. Rae) is now on the eve of departure to join the boats, for the purpose of proceeding to the shores of the Arctic Sea. Mr. Bell's party were ordered to advance in the spring of this year to Fort Simpson, on the Mackenzie River, to be there joined by Sir John Richardson, having wintered, probably, at Cumberland-house, which was the furthest point the party expected to attain before the closing of the navigation. The boats were amply stored with provisions, winter clothing, &c, and a fifth boat, similarly stored, will be jfuruished -by the Hudson's Bay Company, who have displayed the, most laudable desire throughout to render every assistance in their power to carry out the intentions of the Admiralty. Sir James Ross, whose whole life may be said to have been passed in the Arctic and Antartic Seas, is now, actively employed in fitting out the Enter prize, and Investigator, under the command of Captain Bird, an experienced officer on Polar voyages. They will sail early in May to Baffin's Bay, and through Lancaster Sound to the westward, sending out their boats and steam launches to different points of the coast, and examining the Wellington Channel, through which it is not improbable the Erebus and Terror may have proceeded, with a view of making the passage to the northward of the Parry group. Commander Moore, also. an experienced officer in the navigation of the icy seas, of her Majesty's Ship Plover, who ;i» ; i» now on his, way round the Horn, by Bearing's Straits, where he will be joined by Captain Kellett,,of. her Majesty's Herald, has been ordered to proceed to the eastward in his

boats, along the northern shores of America, as far as the Mackenzie River. It may con- | fidently be hoped, under Divine Providence, that these admirable arrangements may be crowned with success, should Sir John Franklin's expedition have got into difficulty. A reward of upwards of 100 guineas has also . been offered to any of the whale ships which may bring information of the expedition, the actual amount of the reward depending on the authenticity and value of the information conveyed. They have also been invited to look for any -of the copper cylinders which Sir John Franklin was directed to throw overboard daily on reaching 65 deg. north. Although these precautions are most proper and creditable to the authorities, we do not ourselves feel any unnecessary anxiety as to the fate of the ships. That they may have been hampered, as others have been, is very probable, and is almost a necessary contingency in the navigation of an icy sea, but we place great hope in the materiel as well as personnel of the expedition, for ships better adapted for the service, better equipped in all respects, or better officered and manned never left, the shores of England on any of those arduous voyages of discovery which have helped to raise the character of the British seamen in the eyes of every enlightened nation in the world.