ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 715, 9 June 1852, Page 4

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

The Y/omen op New Bedford and their Marriage Poktion. — In New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whales for dowers to their daughters, and portion out their nieces with a few porpoises a piece. And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own red roses. But roses only bloom in summer, whereas the fine carnation of their cheeks is perennial as sunlight in the seventh heaven. Elsewhere match that bloom of theirs, ye cannot, save in Salem, where they tell me the young girls breath such music, their sailor sweethearts smell them miles off, as though they were drawing nigh, the odorous Moluccas instead of the Puritanic lands. — Herman Melville's The Whale.

CoNdUEST OF DtFFICULTIES. "It IS Well known," says Sir Francis He id, "that one of the results of Mr. Robert Stephensou's elaborate investigation was, that the London and Birmingham railway ought to pass through the healthy and handsome town of Northampton. The inhabitants, however, urged aud excited by men ol influence" and education, opposed the blessing with 6uch barbarous, fury, that they succeeded in distorting the line via 1 the Kilsby tunnel, to a point five miles off." The Kilsby tunnel is a specimen of engineering which tells with double force after the above relation, Let to a contractor for £99,000, a quicksand soon stopped his progress, and though the company relieved him from his engagement, the vexation killed him. Mr. Stephenscn ,tben undertook the task, and confronted the difficulty , with a most inventive spirit. Though the water rose and covered the works, though the pumping apparatus appeared insufficient, though the directors were inclined to abandon the task, the engineer, by aid of their capital and his skill, with 1250 men, 200 horses, and 13 sleam en gines, raised 1800 gallons of water per minute night and day, for eight months, from the quicksand alone, and infused into the workmen so much of his own energy, that when either of their comrades were killed by their side, they merely threw the body out of their sight, and forgot his death in their own exertions. Three hundred thousand pounds was the cost oi this great work. .Thirty-six millions of bricks were used in its formation ; 117,452 cubic yards of soil were taken from the tunnel in eight months ; 286,480,000 gallons of water were pumped from it ; and for all this the shareholders of the company are indebted to the men of influence and education," who excited the people of "the healthy and happy town of Northampton." — -His--tory of Railways.

Hommes a' Queue. — The Paris correspondent of the Literary Gazette communicates the following :—": — " Iv the last silting of the Academy of Sciences of this city, a pamphlet was "presented, entitled, Information on Central Africa, and on a Nation of Men - with Tails (Jiomviesa queue) residing there ; and the Academy, far from thinking it an attempt at imposition, received it with the same gravity as it would have done any scientific communication. The author of the work is M. de Castelnau, a gentleman of the highest celebrity as an enterprising traveller both in Central Africa and Central America. He has been frequently employed ■ (and, I believe, still is) by the French Government on scientific missions of the highest importance ; and onJy recently the Government published at its own expence> an account of a geographical and scientific expedition into the central parts of South America, with which he was charged some years ago. Now, it is certain that such a man would not be a party to a stupid fraud on the public ; and it is certain, also, that he is not a gullible simpleton easily imposed upon. You see, then, that there is the very .best reason in the world for believing that there is a nation of tailed men. M. de Castelnau, states that, some time ago, he was at Bahia, in Brazil, and was told by a number of slaves, brought to the market, whom he had questioned, that this singular race really existed. 'One of the slaves,' he says, 'called Mahammah, or Manuel, remarkable for his intelligence, and had made immense voyage?. My studies as a naturalist enabled me several times to put his statements to the test, and I always found them of gieat exactitude." The statement of this Mahammah was, as M. de Castelnau proceeds to tell us, to the following effect : — He belonged to a tribe called the Haousta, and he once formed part of an expedition sent against the Niam-Niams. After going over lofty mountains, they one day arrived at a spot where a band of Niam-Niams were sleeping in" the sun. Creeping towards them without noise, they massacred every one. On examining the bodies,- each was found to have a tail about a foot in length, and an inch in diameter. Each tail was smooth a.nd glossy. Those of the women were the same as those of the men. On the following day the expedition met other bands, whom they also put to death ; they had the same appendage. One of these bands, when attacked by the Haoustas, was occupied in eating human flesh, and the heads of three meu suspended to stakes, w.ere roasting in a fire round which they w"ere.seated. This betailed race of human' creatures are, Mahammah said, well made and have woolly hair. Their arms are clubs, arrows, and spears, and they cultivate rice, maize, and other grain. Another slave, named So-Allah, of the Boochee country, who was also questioned Ly M. Castelnau, stated that he had never visited the Niam-Niams, hut they were well known in his country, and he had seen chilJren belonging to them brought there as objects of curiosity. These children had tails as long as the finger, and he had touched them. A third slave named Mecdassara, a native of 'Kano, informed M. de Castelnau that he had been' one of an expedition against the NiamNiams, and had killed several with his own hand. They all had tails. That of one roan was about a foot and a-half long, but the average length Vas about afoot, and the average diameter an inch and a half. The tail is .stated to be without movement, and, according to Eedassra, the Niam-Niams sit on benches, in which there is a hole for the appendage to pass through. He added, that the* expedition to which he belonged brought three Niam-Niams prisoners to Kano, and their singular make excited the greatest cv-

riosity among his people. By order of the Sultan their lives were spared. M. de Castelnau produces the testimony of other slaves to the same effect."

Smoking in 1851. — Among the articles of traffic which were most in demand during the Exhibition season, cigars have taken the lead. It would be dangerous to say how many millions have been sold. • The run on real Havannas was so great that they were called for much faster than they could be made. The smoking mania has now become a universal epidemic. Of all intolerable street nuisances this is the greatest, and ought to be resisted by every true born Briton who has a spark of patriotism or independence left. The very atmosphere is redolent of the odious weed. If you meet twenty men, they have, on the average, thirty cigars or pipes among them. From the peer and the heavy dragoon, down to the butchers' boy and the omnibus cad,' there is scarcely an exception. A leading medical practitioner, at Brighton, has lately given a list of sixteen cases of paralysis, I produced by smoking, which came under his own | knowledge within the last six months. Then, the expence is ruinous. Many young men smoke eighteen cigars per diem, besides what they give to their friends. Not long ago, I heard an invetprate smoker whose entire income could scarcely have amounted to three hundred a year, declare that his cigars alone cost him. one hundred and fifty. He drew the long bow, of course, but if fifty was the truth, it was bad enough. A curicus phase in the disease is the taste for short, dirty pipes, black with age, use,- and abomination, which has crept in lately. Every third dandy you meet has one of these in his cheek. The cutty and the cigar hold divided reign. Several speculators, during the last year, traversed Ireland, buying up sackloads of these indigenous productions, which they sold again in London at an euorm,ous premium. The peculiar aroma, so much coveted, is only to be met with in specimens of the dhudeen, which have passed ih.r~-.ugh many mouths in successive generations, and have become family relics. Even in Boston, in the United, States, in the land whew, according to some naturalists, children are born with lighted cigars in their mouths, there is a law against smoking in the streets, and penalties inflicted on the offender. With, all our respect for our transatlantic brethren, and their matchless energies, we scarcely expected to have received from them such a lesson in refined civilization. — Dublin University Magazine, for November.

Life in* a Chinese Stueet. — Narrow, dirty streets, iow houses, brilliant open shops, painted with red and gold. Here is a fragrant fruit shop, where a poor Chinese is buying an iced slice of pine-apple for less money than a farthing. Here is the chandler's, gay with candles of the tallowtree coated with coloured wax. The chandler deals in puffs ; and what an un-English appeal is this from the candlemaker on behalf of his wares, "Late at-night in the snow gallery they study the books." Study the books ! Yes ; thrcugti the crowd of Chinese, in their picturesque familiar dresses, look at that man, with books upon a tray, who dive^ into house after house. He lends books on hire to the poor people and servants. Who is the puffer here? "We issue and sell Hang Choiv tobacco, the name and fame of which has galloped to the north of Kechow; and the flavour has pervaded Keangnan in the south." Here we have "Famous teas from every province ;" and you see boiling water handy in the shop, wherewith the customer may test hid purchases. Here, on the other side of this triumphal arch, we peep through a gateway hung with lanterns into a small paved paradise •with gold fish (China is the home of gold fish) and exotics and trellis-work, and « vines, and singing birds ; that is a mercer's shop, affecting ssyle in China as in Eogland, only in another way. vVe will walk through the paradise into a grand apartment hung with lanterns, decorated also with gilded tickets, " Pekin satins and Canton crapes," " Hang Chow reeled silks," and so on. Here a courtly Chinese, skilled in the lubrication rf a customer, produces the rich heavy, silks for which his country is renowned, the velvets or the satins you desire, and shaves you skilfully. Talking of shaving, and we tun against a barber as we come out of the silk shop. He carries a fire on his head, with water always boiling ; on a pole over his shoulder he balances his -water, basin, towels, razors. Will you be shaved like a Chinese ? he picks you out a reasonably quiet door-way, shaves your head, cleans your ears, tickles your eyes,- and cracks your joints in a twinkling. Where heads are shaved, the wipings of razors are extensive; they are all bought up and employed as rranure. The Chinese have so many mouths to feed that they can afford to lose nothing that will fertilize the ground. — Dickens 1 Household Words.