MISCELLANEOUS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 802, 9 April 1853, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

DIFFICULTT WITH THE NEGROES OF IlLlnois.—The St. Louis Evening News says, a gentleman from Carlisle, in Illinois, states that a few days since a difficulty arose at that place between some citizens and a party of free negroes. It grew out of a fight that took place between a negro boy and a son of exSenator Breese. The father of the negro boy interfered, and gave Judge Breese's son a beating. Others interfered, and party after party became involved on each side, until the excitement became general. The citizens took the cegroes who had first offended, tied them up, and whipped them. Three other negroes who had somehow signalized themselves in the difficulty were served in like manner. Some of the citizens, in the course of the excitement, loaded a cannon with several pounds of buckshot, and fired it at the negro house. There were only two occupants in at the time, one of whom received a slight injury. The negroes were ordered to leave the place in three days, and threatened with titnilar tre itment if they failed to comply.—Norfolk, U. S. Herald. '.

An Extraordinary Execution.—The Trieste Gazette has the following from Athens, dated the 27th ult.:—" The murderer of the Ministei Korfiolakia has been executed. He had written a letter to the widow of his victim, to entreat her to implore the clemency of the Queen, as the real authors of the murder were at liberty. The Queen refused, and the execution was fixed for Suoday last. Another mur. derer was executed before him, and when his turn came he advanced boldly towards the scaffold, and attempted to read a paper to the crowd, but was prevented. He then drew forth a long knife, and was about to stab the executioner, when the latter struck him a blow on the head. He then raised his knife again, but the executioner, with his knife, stabbed him, and he fell to the ground. An assistant-executioner then stabbed him in the back, and the executioner repeated his blows, inflicting 17 wounds in the whole. When he was dead the form of execution was proceeded with on the dead body. "Uncle Tom's Cabin."—-Mr. W. E. Franklin, the bookseller and newsvendor of the York, Newcastle, and Berwickßailway, had sold up to Thursday, Oct. 28 4,714 copies of " Uncle Tom!"—4l6 copies at 6d.. 338 at 7d., 3,139 at Is., 351 at 25., 478 at 2s. 6d., 54 at 3a. 6d., and 9at 7s. 6d. The three-and-sixpenny edition is "the author's;" so that Mrs. Stowe has only realised a profit by 54 copies out of 4,794! Mr. Franklin, it may be supposed, has been much benefited by the book; but it must be remembered that general literature has had small sale during the rage for " Tom." For the past two months •• Uncle Tom" and the " White Slave," the '' Duke of Wellington" and " Sir Robert Peel," have monopolized the pence of the travelling public, and have generally gone off in pairs —Gateshead Observer.

An Aristocratic Highwayman. —A strange case of highway robbery took place near Penrith, in the county of Cumberland, on the afternoon of the 23d inst. The facts are briefly as follows: —Mrs. Williams, the wife of the Rev. Mr. Willams, of Dacre Vicßrage, was returning in a gig with a female servant from Penrith, where she had been on a visit to the Countess Oassinski, when she was overtaken by a youth of gentlemanly appearance, mounted on a valuable pony. He rode past her vehicle, and kept in front till he got to a lonely partof the road, shaded by trees, between Da'enain and Oacre. He then turned round, met Mrs. Williams, and presented a pistol, at the same time demanding her money. Mrs. Williams at first refused to give it to him, when her assailant said he would count three, and if she did not deliver her money before he had finished he would shoot her. Terrified by his threats, she surrendered her purse, which contained a considerable sura in gold and silver. Having made an ineffectual attempt to obtain money from the servant, he asked Mrs. Williams her name and residence, and the lady having told him. " Well," said the highwayman, " I'll see if you are Mrs. Williams, I'll follow you ; and, if you have told me tales, I'll shoot you from behind, both you and your servant; and if you speak to any one on the way as to what has happened I'll shoot you." Mrs. Willams then drove on, the highwayman riding behind as footman. She met several persons, but did not

speak to them, being afraid that her unwelcome ! attendant would make good his threat. After , following her for some distance, her pursuer turned his pony and rode rapidly away. When Mr. Scott, the hi#h constable, was informed of the circumstances of the robbery, he imme- ' diately went in quest of the highwayman, and found that he had gone to Mr. Robertshaw's, the Castle Inn, on the day of the robbery, about four o'clock, where he had his horse fed. He then went out, and returned again about 7 o'clock in the evening, and requested to stay all night. Mr. Robertshaw refused to allow him to stay, but sent him to the Fish Inn, near to the railway station, where he stayed all night. On the following day he told Mrs. Hodgson, of the Fish Inn, that he was the son of the Hon. Mr. , that he was low of funds, and that if he could only get to Keswick and see , Esq., he would be able to procure a supply. He also a^ked Mrs. Hodgson to lend him 305., which she did. He then left by the express train for Kendal, intimating that it was his intention to proceed by coach to Keswick from Kendall. Mr. Scott went to Keswick, and awaited the arrival of the coaches. The highwayman, however, did not make his appearance, consequently Mr. Scott was obliged to return without him. On subsequent inquiry it appears that the young man carae by the express train from London to Carlisle two days previous to the robbery ; tha the put up at the Bush Hotel, and, after staying all night, wished to know if he could be accommodated with a hack horse, as he wished to go to Corly Castle. Mr. Birch, the proprietor of the Bush Hotel, was unable to accommodate him, but sent him to Mr. Brockbank, of Carlisle, livery stablekeeper, when he was furnished with a pony, the same upon which he committed the robbery, and which he left at the Fish. Soon after borrowing the 30s. of Mrs. Hodgson, as the youth did not return, Messrs. Birch and Brockbank concluded that they were " done ;" consequen'ly Mr. Birch opened the portmanteau which he had left at the Bush, in order to trace out the name of the delinquent. The marks on his linen corroborated his statement that he was the son of the Hon. Mr. , and it appears from subsequent inquiry that he has broken loose from the Military School, where he was in training for the army. He has not been heard of since he left Penrith. — Standard. The following interesting account of an improved process of making suerar, recently invented by Mr. H. Bessemer, Old St. Pancras Road, is extracted from the Times, November 2. " In the manufacture of sugar from the cane the saccharine juice is by the usual system expressed by a roller mill , which, on an average, obtains from 50 to 55 per cent, of juice ; whereas the cane, according to the most eminent writers, contains 90 per cent., the remaining 35 or 40 per cent, being left in the " cane thrash." Mr. Bessimer. by a great improvement on his original invention of the canepress, is now enabled to obtain, by a principle of continuous pressure, from 75 to'SO per cent, without any additional cost. In order to produce granulated sugar from the juice of the cane it is necessary to separate a large proportion of the water in which the saccharine matter is held in solution. This has hitherto been effected by boiling, the water passing off in the form of steam. It has, however, been discovered that the heat necessary to produce ebullition effects a rapid chymical decomposition of a large portion of the sugar under operation, which assumes a dark brown or blackish colour, and is prefectly upcrystallizable, in which condition sugar is commonly known under the name of molasses or treacle, and amounts to 40 per cent, of the entire quantity of saccharine matter present in the juice. In the new process just patented by Mr. Bessemer this separation of the aqueous portion of the fluid is no longer effected by boiling, but is dependent on that beautiful law of nature by which evaporation is carried on spontaneously, and every shower of rain again vaporized, and caused to ascend in the atmosphere. To carry this into practice a small pan only is required, in which is placed a screw of a peculiar construction, presenting about 6,000 superficial feet of surface, which is kept wetted by slowly revolving in the fluid to be evaporated ; and in contact with this wet surface some 10,000 cubic feet of warm atmospheric air is forced per minute by a common blowing fan. The aqueous portions of the solution are thus rapidly absorbed by the air, and pass off as a perfectly invisible vapour, while the temperature of the fluid is only 1 10 decrees Fahrenheit. The most remarkable fact is that the evaporation at this low temperature is equal to that of firepans of the same dimensions with a powerful fire beneath them. A vast amount of fuel is thus saved, and a still more important result obtained from evaporating at this low temperature is, that none of the saccharine matter is converted into molasses, ncr is there the least perceptible increase of colour. Hence, not only is the quantity increased in this single process, 40 per cent., but the superior quality of it would command, as we are informed, 7s. or Bs. per cwt. in the market over the ordinary colonial produce. In the usual mode of manufacturing sugar, after the crystallization has taken place, the " mother liquor," in which the crystals are formed is separated by a very slow pocess of drainage through holes made in the bottom of the hogsheads ; but, as the whole of the dark viscid syrup will not drain out by the mere action of gravity, a coating is left upon the crystals, which renders them brown and of less value. By another most important invention of Mr. Bessemer this drainage is effected with extraordinary rapidity and perfection, by continuously passing a very thin stratum of sugar over a fine wire gauze surface, beneath which a partial vacuum is formed, and on which a number of fine jets of water (like a syringe) are allowed to flow ; the passage of the water through the interstices between the crystals of sugar entirely removes the syrup from their surface, aud renders them at once sufficiently dry for shipment. The time during which the sugar is exposed to the action of the water is one-seventh of a second only, during which minute interval the water is drawn into the vacuum chamber, without being allowed sufficient time to dissolve any portion of the crystals. This instantaneous conversion of brown sugar into white must however be witnessed to be appreciated. These are the most striking as ihey are the most useful inventions applied by Mr.

Bessemer to the manufacture of sugar, though there are a vai iety of other important details, a description of winch -eerns less callid for. We understand the improvements have received'he approbation of num?rou? scientific nnd practical men, several of whom have expressed the opinion that this adoption will be one of the first steps towards the restoration of that prosperity which has so long been withheld from our sugar growing colonies." Perfumes. —"Whether any perfumed lady would be disconcerted at hearing the sources of her perfumes, each lady tnu&t decide for herself; but it seems that Mr. De la Rue and Dr. Hoffman, in their capacities as jurors of the Great Exhibition, have made tenible havoc among the perfumery. They have found that many of the scents said to be produced from flowers and fruits, are really produced from anything but flowery sources ; the perfumers are chemists enough to know that similar odours may be often produced from dissimilar substances, and if the half-crown bottle of perfume really has the required odour, Ihe perfumer does not expect to be asked what kind of odour was emitted by the substance whence the perfume was obtained. Now, Doctor Lyon Playfair, in his summary of the jury investigation above alluded to, broadly tells us that these primary odours are often most unbearable. " A peculiarly f«3tid oil, termed fusel oil, is formed in making brandy and whisky; this fusel oil, |distilled with sulphuric acid and acetate of potash, gives the oil of pears. The oil of apples is made from the same fusel oil, by distillation with sulphuric acid and bichromate of potash. The oil of pine apples is obtained from a product of the action of putrid cheese on sugar, or by making a soap with butter, and distilling it with alcohol and sulphuric acid; and is now largely employed in England in making pine apple ale. Oil of grapes and oil of cognac, used to impart the flavour of French cognac to British brandy, are little else than fusel oil. The artificial oil of bitter almonds, so largely employed in perfuming soap and for flavouring confectionery, is prepared by the action of nitric acid on the foetid oils of gas-tar. Many a fair forehead is damped with eau de millefleurs, without knowing that its essential ingredient is derived from the drainage of cowhouses." In all such cases as these, the chemical science involved is really of a high order, and the perfume produced is a bond fide perfume, not one whit less sterling than if produced from fruits and flowers. The only question is one of commercial honesty, in giving a name no longer applicable, and charging too highly for a cheaply produced scent. This mode of saving a penny is chemically right, but commercially wrong. —Household Words. A step —and to some extent an important one —has been made in the direction of a decimal system of notation as regards weights and measures. The Bank of England have given notice that from the Ist of next month the only weights used in the Bullion Office of that establishment will be " the Troy ounce and its decimal parts," —superseding by that change the present system of pound.", ounces, pennyweight* and grains. Practically the change will be a great convenience to all parties concerned. It will facilitate busi- I ness and prevent mistakes : —for the intricacy of. the calculations rendered necessary by the old Troy divisions of weight was most tedious and perplexing. Another step in the same path is, the re-issue of a new supply of " florins," —that i« of iwo shilling pieces ; and it is understood that gradually the half-crowns will be withdrawn from circulation. The new coin itself is a great improvement on the unfortunate production which some two or three years ago brought the name of 11 florin" into extreme unpopularity. This time, there is at least nothing to complain of as regards curtailment of the Queen's style and title : —and although the impression might perhaps have been sharper than it is with great advantage, it cannot be denied that the coin as a whole is artistically a respectable as well as a useful addition to our circulating medium. —Aiheneum.

The Anastatic Process op Printing. — The following account of the Anastatic Process of Printing invented by Mr. Rudolph Appel, and of Messrs. Glynn and Appel's Patent Paper for the prevention of piracy and forgery by this process, being the substance of a paper by S. Bateson, Esq., is extracted from the Report in the Athenaeum of the proceedings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. "As some may be unacquainted with the nature of the Anastatic process itself, and oi the abuses of which it is capable in unscrupulous hands, I think it right, in the first place, to give you a short account of its history, nature, and progress. It was invented some eight or nine years ago by Mr. Rudolph Appel, t native of Silesia, who came over to this country. Owing to various circumstances, the Anastatic printing languished for several years, until tardy justice was done to its inventor at the Great Exhibition in ISSI, when a prize medal was awarded him. Since that time it has been becoming more generally known. Tlia term " Anastatic'- means raising up, or a reproducing as it were, and very significantly does the name express the result; for by it any number — thousands upon thousands —of reproductions of any printed document may be obtained, each of which is a perfect facsimile of the original, no matter bow elaborate tie engraving may be, or how intricate the design. I will oow endeavour to describe the actual operation of Anastatic printing. The print of which an Anastatic copy is required is first moistened with very dilute nitric acid (one part of acid to seven of water), then being placed between bibulous paper, all superabundance of moisture is removed. The acid being an aqueous solution, will not have attached itself to the ink on the paper, printers' ink being of au oily natura ; and if the paper thus prepared be placed on a polished sheet of zinc and subjected to pressure, two results follow : —ln the first place, the primed portion will leave a set-off, or impression on the zinc; and secondly, the nitric acid attached to the nonprinted parts of the paper will eat away and corrode the zinc, converting the whole, in fact, into a verj shallow stereotype. The original being removed (perfectly uninjured), the whole zinc plate should next be smeared with gum water, which will not stick to the printed or oily part, but will attach itself to every other poition of the plate. A charge of printers'ink btin n r now applied, tljs in its turn only attaches itself to the set-off obtained from the print. The final process consists in pouring over the plate a

solution of phosphorous acid, which etches or corrodes more deeply 'he non-printed portion of til? z' "sc, and prfdo-es a -*nif<ice <o which prin»t=r\ ink wilt not .math. T»e process is now complete, an.) from such a prepare I zinc plate any numhei of ltiipre-.SiOi>s m.iy be struck off. — The uses to which this inveution may be applied are various — copies of rare prints may be obtained without the aid of an engraver. Reproductions of books, or of works oat of print, may be bad without setting up the type, authors may illustrate their own works, and amateur artists may have fac-similes of pen-and-ink sketches at a very inconsiderable expense. To be ia accordance with the facts already mentioned, the anastatic piocess should only be applicable to the copying of impressions made with printer's ink ; any other inks, however, even the most fugitive, may be adapted to this operation, and hfcnce, without some safeguard, the dishonest practices to which tbe anastatic process might be applied would be numerous. Copies of cheques and bank-notes may be taken so as to defy scrutiny. In point of fact, bankers have been tuutaken a^ain and again when examining notes and cheques forged by this process ; and as I have endeavoured to impress upon you the laws, I will describe the antidote which is offered by the patent paper invented by Messrs. Glynii and Appel. It is as beautiful from its simplicity as it is efficacious in its operation. It coosiais merely in impregnating or dyeing the pulp of which the paper is made with an insoluble salt of copper. After a series of experiments, the patentees preferred phosphate of copper to any other salt ; and for this purpose sulphate of copper and phosphate of soda are successively mixed with the pulp, which, of course, produce an insolublesalt, the phosphate of copper. Besides this, a very small portion of a very peculiar oily and non-drying soap is introduced, which affords a double protection. Should the forger attempt to submit a note or cheque printed on tbe patent paper lo the anastatic process, a film of metallic copper separates between the paper and the zinc, not only preventing a set-off, but cements tbe paper so strongly that tbe paper must be destroy c.l — it can only be removed in small pieces. Thus, the forger is punished by tbe loss of the original, the public protected, and tbe banker benefited, as it ia presumed no forger would apply for the value of the note so unlawfully used. Hitherto, elaborate engraving, beauty of design, and execution by skilful hands have been I the sources of protection, and under such conditions a forger must be either a skilful engraver or employ some person to engrave for him. This fact has generally led to the detection of forgery ; but you can easily imagine how justly alarmed bankers will become when they learn that any one who understands what is called chemical, that is to say, lithographic printing, may with the aid of a zinc plate, a little nitric acid and a press, bo able to produce tuch perfect fac-similes of notes and cheques as to pass tbe scruttny of the most lynx-eyed of their clerks. You will agree with me that it would be wrcng, if not criminal, to publish to the worth so dangerous a process to facilitate forgery, unless 1 was, at the same time, to produce a safeguard which would absolutely defeat such attempts."