MISCELLANEOUS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 562, 21 December 1850, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

Jenny Lind was to sail from Liverpool for New York in the Atlantic on the 21st August. The " Swedish Nightingale" has perhaps commenced carrolling delightfully ere this in the United States. Donna Maria Martinez, the negro Prima Donna, the " Black Malibran," as the French call her, has been playing at Her Majesty's Theatre, London. Why not come to America ? The Port op London. — I made my way to the Custom-house, where by the courtesy of the authorities, I was allowed to view the Port of London from the roof of the "Long Room." A noble sight it was ! The river before me bristled with a thousand masts, and the city behind me with a thousand steeples. On the opposite side of the shore, chimneys as tall and straight as the masts in front of them, poured forth their clouds of black smoke, while over the tops of the warehouses might be seen the trail of white steam from the railway engine cutting through the roofs. The sun shone bright upon the river, and as its broken beams played upon the surface, it fluttered and sparkled iike a swarm of fire-flies. Down "the silent highway" barges tide-borne floated sideways, with their long thin idle oars projecting from their sides, like fins. Others went along with their windlass clinking, as they raised the mast and sail that they had lowered to pass under the bridge. Then would come a raft of timber, towed by a small boat, and the boatman leaning far back in it as he laboured at the sculls ; and presently a rapid river steamer, stuck all over with passengers, would flic past, and you would catch a whiff of music from, on board as it hurried by. The large square blocks of warehouses on the opposite shore were almost hidden in their shadow, which came slanting down fat out into the river, covering as with a dark veil the sloops, schooners, and inlanders lying in the dusk beside them. Further down the river stood a clump of Irish vessels, with the light peeping through the tangled rigging, and their masts thick together as their native pine trees, some with their sails hanging loose and flaccid, and others with them looped in rude festoons to the yards. Beside them lay barges filled with barrels of beer and sacks of flour ; and a few yards beyond was a huge foreign steamer, with its short, thick, black funnel, and blue paddle-boxes. Then came hoys laden with straw and coasting goods, so deep in the water that, as the steamers passed by, you could see the white spray beat against the tarpaulings that covered their heaped-up - cargoes. Next to these, blacklooking colliers, and Russian brigs from Memel and Petersburg}), lay in a dense mass together. Behind them stood the old " suffrance wharfs " with their peaked roofs, and unwieldly cranes: while far at the back might be seen one solitary tree. Further down by the river side was a huge old fashioned brewery, with its jet of white steam shooting through the roof; and in the haze of the extreme distance the steeple of St. Mary's, Rotherhithe, loomed, grey, dim, and spec-tral-like. Then, as you turned again to look at the bridge, you caught glimpses of barges in the light seen through the arches below, and the tops of carts, omnibuses, and high-loaded waggons moving to and fro above. Looking down towards the wharfs next the bridge, you could see the craDes projecting from " Nicholsons," with bales of goods, banging from them and dangling in theair. Alongside here lay a schooner and a brig, both from Spain, and laden with fruit, and, as you cast your eye below, you beheld men with cases of oranges on their backs, bending beneath their load as they passed from the ship across the dumb lighter to the wharf. In front of the schooner were lugboats, and empty lighters, standing high above the water, as they waited to be laden. Next to this was Billingsgate, with the white bellies of the fish just visible in the market beneath, and streams of men passing backwards and forwards to the river side. Immediately beneath me was the gravelled walk of the Custom-house Quay, where children strolled with their nursemaids, and hatless and yellow-legged blue-coat boys, and youths fresh from school, had come either to look QX

the shipping, or to skip and play among the targes. Here boats went by with men standing up in the stern and working a scull behind, like a fish's tail. Some yards off, were Dutch ell-boats, of polished oak, with round ibluffbows and unwieldly green- tipped rud.ders. Then came a tier of huge steamers with gilt sterns and mahogany wheels, and their bright brass binnacles glittering in the sun ; at the foremost-head of one, the bluepeter was flying as a summons to the hands ashore to <;ome on board previously to starting, .while the clouds of smoke that poured from the thick red funnel, told that the fires were -ready flighted. Behind these lay the old JPer«t»—-tbe receiving ship of the Nayy — -^rith her tqpmasts down, her tall black sides (towering high out of the water, and her white ventilator* hanging above the hatchways. After her .came other clamps of foreign vestsels, coasters, and colliers— schooners., -brigs and sloops — with their yards aslant, and their -sails looped up. Besides the wharf> in front 4>i these lay lugboats and sloops, filled with •square cases of wine, while bales of hemp, barrels of -porter, and crates of hardware, swung from the cranes, and were lowered into the boats or lifted ont of the sloops and "foreign brigs " below. Further on, you could just make out the Tower-wharf, with its gravelled walk and the red-coated and highcapped sentry pacing to and fro. Beyond this again you saw the huge, massive warehouses of St. Katherine's Docks, with their big signet letters on their sides, their many prison-like windows, and their cranes to every Mloor. At the back stood the square old Tower, with its four turrets, and its grey, buttressed walls peering over the waterside. As I stood looking dawn upon the river the hundred, docks of the churches around me — ■with the golden figures on their black dials ' twinkling in the sunshine — chimed the boor v of two in * hundred -different 4ones, while, * solemnly above all, boomed forth the monster bell of St. Paul's, filling the air for roi- ' nates afterwards with a deep, melodious moan.; • and scarcely had it died away when there arose from the river the sharp tinkle of "four hells " 1 from the multitude of ships and steamers bellow. Indeed, there was an exquisite charm in the different sounds that smote the ear from the busy Port of London. Now you would 'hear the tinkling of the distant purlman's bell, as in his boat he flitted in and out among the several tiers of colliers. Then "weuld come the rattle of some chain suddenly fct go ; after this the chorus of many seamen leaving at the ropes ; while, high above all would be heard the hoarse voice of some one from the shore bawling through his hand* to his mate aboard the craft in the river. Avon, yon would catch the clicking of the capstan palls, as they hove some neighbouring an- , chor, and, mingled with all this, would be heard the rumbling of the waggons and carts ' in the streets behind, and the panting and .quick pulsation of the steamers on the river in front of you. Look or listen which way you would, the many sights and sounds which filled the eye and .ear told each its different tale of busy trade and boundless capital. In the many bright-coloured flags that fluttered Aver the port, you read how all corners of the ■earth have been ransacked, each for its peculiar produce. The massive warehouses at the waterside looking like the storehouses of the wealth of the world, while, in the tall mastlike chimneys, with their black flags of ■smoke streaming from them, you saw how all around was at work, fashioning the far-fetched prodnce into new fabrics. As you beheld the white clouds of the railway engine scudding above the roofs opposite, and heard the clatter of the carts and waggons behind, and looked .down the endless vista of masts that crowded .each side of the river, you could not help feeling how every power known to man was .used to bring and diffuse the riches of every (part of the world over this little island. — Mominff Chronicle's Special idorrespondeni. A SIMFLE MeTHOJO OF EXCLUDING THE House Fly prom Apartments. — This is beading of an article in the Saturday MagaXine.i and the plan proposed to effect this object — of so much importance to domestic comfort in a hot .climate — being both simple and inexpensive, we extract it for the benefit of ■our readers:: — When speaking of this formidable pest, it is not — says Arthur Young — that they bite, sting, or hurt ; but they buzz, tease, and worry ; your mouth, eyes, ears, and nose are lull of them ; they swarm on every .eatable ; and if they are not incessantly driven mwmj by a person who has nothing else to do, •ocatajneal is impossible. The remedies nuuilly .employed to lessen the inconvenience are almost entirely useless, seeing that if ire destroy a large number of these insects by aweetened infusions of green *ea, quassia, &c, a number equally large is generally ready to take the place of the destroyed. It was, therefore, on a subject of general interest that Mr. S pence wrote when he communicated to the Entomological Society the account of a mode employed i>y a friend of bis at Florence to remove this drawback to the comfort of existence. He

states that his curiosity was greatly excited on being told by a gentleman residing in the neighbourhood of that city that for two or three years he had entirely succeeded in excluding flies from his apartments, though allowing windows to be wide open for the admission of air; while the sitting and diningrooms of his friends swarmed with them, a strict search was necessary to detect even one or two in his apartment. The apparent impossibility of excluding flies from a room, where the windows were wide open, was explained by a fact of a very extraordinary kind ; that is, that flies will not pass through the meshes of a net, even though these meshes are more than an inch in diameter. The method, therefore, of this gentleman was simply to suspend a net made of light-coloured thread to the outside of the window ; and although every mesh was large enough not only to admit one fly but several flies with expanded wings to pass through at the same moment, yet from some inexplicable cause, these insects were effectually excluded. The plan has been successful at a monastery near Florence, and also at Rome. The cost of a thread-net is very trifling, and the trouble attending its use is small. It may be firmly secured on the outside of the window as soon as the flies become to be troublesome, and allowed to remain till the cold weather ; or for those who admit the comfort of frequent window-cleaning, it may Le stretched to -a slight outer frame of wood, and in that manner easily fixed to the window or removed from it. A substitute might even be found for a net by fixing small nails round the win-dow-frame, at the distance of about an inch from each other, and stretching threads across, both vertically and horizontally. But it must be borne in mind that to render the plan successful, it is essential that the light enter ike room on one side only. If there be an opposite or side window, the flies pass through the net without scruple. Many experiments of the plan have been tried by Dr. Stanley, as appears by the Transactions of the Entomological Society, and the success of it fully established.