MISCELLANEOUS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 452, 1 December 1849, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

Increase of Cholera in London. — This frightful disorder is greatly on the increase in the metropolis, and should the present warm weather continue, there is every chance of it spreading (ar and wide. In the locality in which the Dispatch office is situated, there have been many deaths during the last week. The victims to the disease, previously in strong health, have been taken ill, and died within 12 hours," having in that short interval of time suffered excruciating torture. — Weekly Dispatch, July 1. Among the deaths Jrom cholera in America, that of the celebrated American comedian, Danforth Marble, occurred under rather remarkable circumstances. He had been announced to appear at the Louisville Theatre in a new farce called " The Cure for the Cholera;" but his performance was prevented by his being himself seized with the fatal disease, which speedily hurried him off the stage of life. The Brussels Herald says, " the drying up of the Haurlem lake is proceeding rapidly. For some time past two «team engines have been added to the one previously there, and the three are now constantly 'at work. The water of the lake is gone down more than a metre below the level at Amsterdam."

A German " Daughter op the Regiment."—The Times correspondent, in his letter from Frankfort, of the sth instant, gives the following : —"The Regent is holding a great general review, and I suppose the last one, of troops stationed here, on the fields adjoining the new splendid railway bridge over the river Maine. In spite of the early hour, a great many of the Frankfort dandies are going to ride and drive thither, in oider to see, not the venerable Archduke, but a youthful Figlia del Reggimento, who accompanies the regiment of Mecklenburg dragoons now in service at Frankfort. It appears that this interesting creature is the orphan of an officer, and was left by him 1 heir to at least a very ancient and honoured family name. From love of adventure she accompanied the squadron of which her father bad been the commander, on its way from Mecklenburg to this place. Romautic stones are told about this Fraulem Yon T. ; among others, that all officers of the regiment are bound by their word to be, under all circumstances, nothing more than her < protector, and the defenders of her honour and name. By special order of the colonel of the regiment, she is permitted to wear a most elegant and tasteful uniform, and to ride with the dragoons whenever sbe pleases. She has had lessons in riding, and has appeared at a parade in Frankfort, and been stared at as the most wonderful spectacle ever seen by our staid citizens."

The Holt Inquisition. —The Inquisition at Rome is thus described by the unprejudiced correspondent of the Daily News: — " I was struck with the outward appearance of civilization and comfort displayed by the building, which owes its erection to Pius V., author of the last creed : but on entering, tbe real character of the concern was no longer dissimulated. A range of strongly barred prisons formed the ground flour of a quadrangular court, and these dark and damp receptacles I found were only the preliminary stage of probation, intended for new comers as yet uninitiated into the Eleusinian mysteries of the establishment. —Entering a passage to the left, you arrive at a smaller co-irt-yard, where a small barred dungeons rises from the soil upwards, somewhat after the outward look of a three-decker, 'accommodating'about sixty prisoners; These barred cages must have been often fully manned, for there is a supplementary row constructed at the back of the i

I quadrangle on the ground floor, which faces ' h large jjardf n. All these cellular contrivances have strong iron rings let into the masonry, and in some there is a large stone firmly embedded in the centre with a similar massive ring. Numerous inscriptions, dated centuries back, are dimly legible on the admission of light, the general tenor being assertions of innocence : Iddio ci liberi dilingua calumnia* trice,' ' lo Domenico Gazzoli vissi gut anni 18,' Calumniutores mendaces exierminabuntur.' I read another, somewhat longer, the drift of which is, ' The caprice or wickedness of men cannot exclude me from thy church, O Christ, my only hope.' — The officer in charge led me down to where the men were digging in the vaults below ; they had cleared a downward flight of steps, which was choked, up with old rubbish, and bad come to a series of dungeons under the vaults deeper still, and which immediately brought to my mind the prisons of the Doge, under the canal of the Bridge of Sighs, at Venice, only that here there was a surpassing horror. I saw embedded in old masonry, unsynimetricaHy ox* ranged, five skeletons in various recesses, and the clearance had cnly just begun ; the period of their insertion in this spot must have been more than a century and a half. From another vault full of skulls and scattered human re* mains, there was a shaft, about four feet squire, ascending perpendicularly to the first floor of the building, and ending in a passage off the hall of chancery, where the trap-door lay between the tribunal and the way into a suit of rooms destined for one of the officials. The object of this shaft could admit of but one surmise. The ground of the vault was made up of decayed animal matter, a lump of which held embedded in it a long silken lock of hair, as I found by personal observation as it was shovelled up from below. Why or wherefore, with a large space of vacant ground lying outside the structure, this charnel-house should be contrived under the dwelling, passes my ken. But this is not all ; there are two large subterranean lime kilns, if I may so call them, shaped like a bee-hive in masonry, filled with layers of calcined bones, forming the substratum .of two other chambers on the ground-floor, in the immediate vicinity of the shaft above mentioned. I know not what interest you may attach to what looks like a chapter from Mrs Ratcliffe ; but had I not tha evidence of my own senses I would never have dreamt of such appearances in a prison of the Holy Office. But here the thing will become serious, for to-morrow the whole population of Rome is publicly invited by the authorities to come and see with their own eyes one of the results of entrusting power to clerical hands. The archives (wanting the very recent ones only) have been overhauled*, and a selection will be published forthwith. The cases are of the most intense interest, reachiug from Galileo's time down to modern days ; and here most disgraceful letters from the Sardinian and Neapolitan courts, including a choice correspondence from the Duke of Modena will be given verbatim, in extenso. Latterly, the concern had become almost exclusively political, and only busied itself with ' carbonari' and ' freemasons,' under which term every aspirant after a constitutional form of government was thought fair game, and hunted out secundem artem. — It is quite possible the Croats of Radetsky may force back on the population of the territories clerical rulers again ; but no friend of the Roman Catholic Church, acquainted with. the present sentiments of the Romans, can view such an event without deep alarm.

Steam boat race on the Mississipi. — "At this moment an ejaculation of 'mind your fires there,' proceeded from the captain, who had approached, and was now standing on the promenade deck between the funnels, and looking anxiously forward on some object in advance of us. On turning to ascertain what it was, I perceived a steamer which had left Memphis on its way up to Louisville about ten minutes before we did. She was going at half speed when I first observed her, but immediately put all steam on. lat once divined what was to take place. The firemen seemed distinctly to understand it, as they immediately redoubled their efforts to cram the furnace wuh fuel. By the time we were abreast of the Lafayette, for that was our rival's name, she had regained her head-way, and ihe race commenced wiili as fair a start as could well be obtained. Notwithstanding the known dangers of such rivalry, the passengers crowded eagerly to the quarter deck to witness the progress of the race, each group cheeiing as its own boat seemed to be leading the oiher by ever so little. -By this time the negroes became almost frantic in their efforts to generate the steam ; so much so that at one time I thought that from throwing wood into the furnaces, they would have taken to throwing in one another. But a short time before upwards of two hundred human beings had been hurried into eternity by the explosion of a boiler ; but the fearful incident seemed for the moment to be forgotten, or its warnings to be disregarded) in the

eagerness with which passengers and crew pressed forward to witness the race. I must confess that I yielded to the infection, and was as anxious a spectator of the conies* as any one on board. There were a few timid elderly genlemen and ladies, who kept aloof; hut with this exception, the captain of each boat bad the moral strength of his cargo with him. For many minutes the two vessels kept neck and neck, and so close to each other, that an explosion on board either would have calamitously affected the other. At length, and when there still appeared to be no probability of a spjeedy decision, I perceived a reaction commencing among those around me, and on the name of the Helen M'Gre■gor and the Moselk, two ill-fated boats, being whispered amongst them, many retired to the stern, as far from the boilers as they could, whilst others began to remonstrate, aud even to menace. *How can I give in V asked the captain, in a tone of vexation, ' Run him on that 'ere snag, and be d — d to him, 1 suggested the mate, who was standing by. The snag was about two hundred yards ahead just showing his black crest above the water. It was the trunk of a huge tree, the roots of which had sunk and taken hold of the soil at the bottom 4 about eight inches of the trunk, which lay in the direction slanting with the current, projecting above the surface. From the position which they thus assume snags are more dangerous to steamers ascending than to those descending the current. In the latter case, they may press them under and glide safely over them ; but in the the former, the chances are if they strike, that they will be perforated by them and sunk. They are the <:bief sources of danger in na« Tigating the Mississipi. The captain immediately took the hint, and so shaped his course as to oblige the rival boat to sheer off a little to the right. This brought her in a direct line with the snag, to avoid which she had to make » sharp, though a short detour. It sufficed, however, to decide the Tace, the Nicbe, immediately gaining on the Lafayette by more than a "length. The latter, thus fairly jookeyed out of her object, gave up the contest and dropped astern. There are certainly laws against this species of racing; hut the Mississipi runs through so many jurisdictions that it is not easy to put them in force. Besides, it was evident to me, from what I then saw, that, in most cases, passengers and crew are equally participes crimi■nis." — Mackav' Western World.