MISCELLANEOUS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 336, 18 October 1848, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

The Morning Chronicle newspaper has passed into the hands of Baron Rothschild, and from being tti'e "property of a Reman Catholic has become that of a Jew.

New Profession in Paris. — Upon a brass door-plate, in the Rue de Lancry, Pa- 1 ris, is inscribed, " Ambroise Fortin, Four- * teenth." Upon the common superstition that thirteen is an unlucky number at table, this gentleman has founded the profession of dining out — holding himself ready, at his lodgings, from 6 o'clock till 8, in full dross and appetite, to receive any summons, and fill a vacancy at any table. His fitness for his profession consists, moreover, iv unsuspected morals, and complete acquaintance with the topic of the day. He passes his mornings in collecting the political hearsays, the private scandals, the bon mots, and the rumours of forthcoming gaities. He begins to converse whenever looked at by his host, and ceases and eats when the attention is withdrawn, and when a real guest has anything to say. For this ready supply of a very common necessity to dinner-givers, he makes no charge — as he unites with his profession that of wine-recom-mcnder, and is paid handsome suras by different owuers of vineyards, for speaking his mind as to the wines he finds on different tables to which ha thus has professional access. There are five well known professed quatotr ziemes (fourteenths) in Paris, and as it is estimated that there are 500 houses in tiiat city where dinner parties are given, the fatal number of " thirteen" happens often eneugtf to give full employment to these. It is supposed, indeed, that the profession will be largely increased before the publication of thenext census of trades in the almanack. Monsieur Fortin is described as a very handsome youngman, ot dignified manners and unstaggerable self-possession, an ornament to any table, and claiming a subsequent acquaintance, unless by the expressed wish of his employer. Right is Might. — Though the strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks, yet the Lord was not in the strong wind. Nor was he in the earthquake ; nor was he in the fire. In what then was he 1 In the still small voice ; and this one of its holy utterances — Right is might. As sure as God liveth — as sure as the holy one of Israel is the Lord of hosts, the Almighty — right is might. Meekness is might. Patienqet/ is might. Humility is might. Self-denial and , self-saciifice is might. The cross was two pieces of dead wood ; and a helpless, unresisting Man vras nailed to it ; yet it was mightier than the world, and triumphed, and will " ever triumph, over it. Heaven and earth shall gs^&way; tinriro^p&rtj*b<^lfe4d^-^ word, or. thought. On the other hand, mighT — that which the children of earth call so, the strong wind, the earthquake, the fire — perishes through its own violence, self-exhausted, and self- consumed ; as our own age of the world has been allowed to witness in the most - signal example, For many of us remember, and they who do not have heard from their fathers, how the mightiest man on earth, he who had girt himself with all might, except that of right, burst like a tempest cloud, burnt himself out like a conflagration, and only left the scars of his ravages to mark where he had been. Who among you can look into au infant's face, and not see a power in it mightier than all the armies of Attila or Napoleon 1 — Archdeacon Hare's Mission of the Comfo fer.

Spanish Pigs. — " In Spain pigs are tS \re numerous even than asses, since they pervde the provinces. As those* of Estremadura, the Hampshire of the Peninsula, are the most esteemed, they alone will be now noticed. That province, although so little visited by Spaniards or strangers, is full of interest to the antiquarian and naturalist ; and many^are the rides at different periods which we have made through its tangled ilex groves, and over its depopulated anJ aromatic wastes. A granary under Roman and Moor, its very existence seems to be all but forgotten by the Madrid government, who have abandoned it to feres natures, to wandering sheep, locusts, and swine. The entomology of Estramadura is endless, and perfectly uninvestigated — de^ minirais non curat Hispanus ; but the heavens and earth teem with the minute creation : there nature is most busy and prolific, where man is most idle and unproductive ; and ia these lonely wastes, where no human voice disturbs the silence, the balmy air resounds with the buzzing hum of multitudinous insects, which career about on their business of love or food without settlements or kitchens, rejoicing in the fine weather which is the joy of their tiny souls, and short-lived pleasant existence. Sheep, pigs, locusts, and doves are the only living things which the traveller will see for hours ani-hours. Now and then a man occurs, just to prove how rare his species is here. "Vast districts of this unreclaimed province are covered with woods of oak, beech, and chesnut ; but these park-like scenes^ve no charms for native eyes ; blind to the picturesque, they only are thinking of the number of pigs which can be fattened on the mast and acorns, which are sweeter and laigcr than those of oar oaks. The acorns are still called bellota the Arabic bolfct-rfajot being the Scriptujra^ejjg^j^f&o tree aud the gtaqj|£

trhirh, with water, formed the original diet of the aboriginal Iberian, as well as of his pig ; dry, the acorns were ground, say the classical authors, into bread, and, when fresh, they were served up as the second course. And in our time ladies of high rank at Madrid constantly ate them at the opera and elsewhere; they were the presents sent by Sancho Panza's wife to the Duchess, and forrred the text on which Don Quixote preached .so eloquently to the goatherds, on the joys and innocence of the golden age and pastor.v happiness, in which they constituted the foundation of the kitchen. " The pigs during the greater part of the year are left to support nature as they can and in gauntness resemble those greyhound, looking animals which pass for porkers in Fiance. "When the acorns are ripe and fall from the trees, the greedy animals are turned ort in legions from the villages, which more onirectly may he tprmed coalitions of pigsties. T*he-5- return from the woods at night, of their owr accord, and without a swine's general. On entering the hamlet, all set off at a full gallop, like a legion possessed with devils, in •a handicap for home, into which each singe pig turns, never making a mistake. We have rgdre than once been caught in one of these pip-oeluges, and nearly carried away horse and all, as befell Don Quixote, when really swept away by the ' far-spread and grunting (hove, ' In his own home each truant is welcomed like a prodigal son or a domestic father. These pigs are the pets of the peasants ; they Are b. ought up with their children, and partake, -s in Ireland, in the domestic discomforts of their cabins ; they are universally resp- '.<], and justly, for it is this animal who pa\ > ihe ' rint ;' in fact, are the citizens, as at Soirento, and Estremenian man is quite a secondaiy formation, and created to tend herds of these same, who lead the happy life of forme- Toledan dignitaries, with the additional .iihji'iage of becoming more valuable when dead '' j , is astonishing how rapidly they thrive on their sweet food ; indeed it is the whole duty of a good pig — animal propter convivia natural — to get as fat and as soon as he can, and ihen die for the good of his country. It jnay be observed for the information of our farmers, that those pigs which are dedicated to Sf. Anthony,' on whom a sow is in constant attoflfl.ipce, as a dove was on Venus, get the -v <t fat ; therefore in Spain young porkers '- ..i- ( tnKie7:"vflCiriioliy'~Wait?Hsn hits day, but "1 r .• of other saints are less propitious, for the killing takes place about the 10th and 11th jf November, or, as Spaniards date it, por el St. Andres, on the day of St. Andrew, oi on that of St. Martin ; heuce the proverb * eve y man and pig has his St. Martin or his iaf s.l hour, d cada puerco su San Martin. 3 " The death of a fat pig is as great an event in Spanish families, who generally fatten up one, as the birth of a baby ; nor can the fact be kept secret, so audible is his annoucement. It is considered a delicate attention on the part of the proprietor to celebrate the auspicious event by sending a portion of the chitterlings to intimate friends. The Spaniard's proudest boast is that is blood is pure, that he is not descended from pork-eschewing Jew cr 1,1 jor — a fact which the pig genus, could U reason, would deeply deplore. The Span,ard doubtless ha# been so great a customer of pig, from grounds religious, as well as gastronomic. The eating or not eating the flesh of an animal deemed unclean by the impure ii.ildel, became a test of orthodoxy, andf at once <if correct faith as well as of good taste ; anc' good bacon, as has been just observed, is wedded to sound doctrine and St. Augustine. The Spanish name Tocino is derived from the Arabic Tachim, which signifies fat. " The Spaniards however, although tremendous consumers of the pig, whether in the salted form or in the skin, have to the full the Oriental abhorrence to the unclean animal in " the abstract. Muy puerco is their last expression for all that is most dirty, nasty, or disgusting. Muy cochina never is forgiven, if applied to woman, as it is equivalent to the Italian Vacca, and to the canine feminine compliment bandied among our fair sex at Billingsgate : nor does the epithet imply moral purity or chastity ; indeed in Castilian euphuism the unclean aniiLal was never to be named except in a peiiphrasis, or with an apology, which is a singular remnant of the Moorish influence on Spanish manners. Ha!u, of swine is still the Moslem's most obnoxious term for the Christians, and is applied to this day by the ungrateful Algerines to their French bakers and benefactors, nay even to the ' \llustre Bugeaud.' " The capital of the Estremenian pig-dis-tiiots is Montanches — mons anguis — and doubtless the hilly spot where the Duke of Arcos fed and cured * ces petits jambons verraeifs|' which the Due de St. Simon ate and adruiseu so much ; ' ces jambons ont un parsom s i admirable, un gout si releve et si vivi- - qu'on en est surpris ; il est impossible, - i n mmgex si^ exquis.' His Grace of „". : \ usedlo BhuF*to£2£}|^jflg^ £ laces

abounding in vipers, on which they fattened. Neither the pigs, dukes, nor their toadeaters seem to have been poisoned by these exquisite vipers. According to Jonas Barrington, the finest Irish pigs were those that fed on dead rebels ; one Papist porker, the Enniscorthy boar, was sent as a show, for having eaten a Protestant parson: he was put to death and dishonoured by not being made bacon of. " Naturalists have remarked that the rattlesnakes in America retire before their consuming enemy, the pig, who is thus the gastador or pioneer of the new world's civilization, just as Pizarro, who was suckled by a sow, and tended swine in his youth, was its conqueror. Be that as it may, Montanches is illustrious in pork, in which the burgesses go the whole hog, whether in the rick red sausage, the chorizo, or in the savoury piquant embuchados, which are akin to the mortadelle of Bologna, only less hard, and usually boiled "oelovo eating, though good al&o raw ; they consist of the choice bits of the pig seasoned with condiments, with which, %s if by retribution, the paunch of the voracious animal is filled ; the ruling passion strong in death." — Ford's Gatherings in Spain.