ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 855, 12 October 1853, Page 3

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

A Brighton correspondent of the Times records a curious phenomenon. "In making the excavation for the lock on the Hove Ship Canal, near Brighton, a quantity of shale, of a blackish colour, which was thrown out, has spontaneously ignited. The stratum, of shale is about 8 feet in thickness ; the quantity

thrown out is therefore, large; and the whole of it extending over a space of some score of square yard"*, give^ si-jas of approaching combustion, while in many part's it is already burning like a lim3 kiln ; so that it has been removed from .wound the piling, for fear of its being destroyed. The process of combustion gives out a stifling and offensive vapour ; and leaves upon the surface a deposit of a white and also of a yellow substance, the former resembling saltpetre in appearance and taste, and the latter sulphur. A small quantity of the shale, evidently forming a part of the same stratum, has been thrown up from under the clay in a brick-ground near the chalybeate at Brighton, about three miles distant from the lock, and has also ignited. Your informant attributes the combustion to the presence of phosphorus, in some form, which ig-^ nites when it has reached a certain temperature and comes in contact with the oxygen of the atmosphere." The Edinburgh Guardian tells the fate of a " Scotch Actseon." Two young ladies were bathing at a secluded spot near a village; a " gentleman" not only stai'ed at them, but actually proceeded to bathe close to them; and the ladies resolved to punish him, They appeared to fly from his intrusion, dressed themselves, and then carried off the gentleman's clrthes; in vain he shouted and gesticulated and entreated—they retreated. Some hours elapsed before any one came near this mean-spirited bather. "At length a grinning' rustic made his appearance, and informed him that the * twa leddies had left his cla'es wi' a wench at the green, a mile awa', wha \sadna gi'e them back without a pun' for taking care o' them, forby being a penalty for affronting the leddies dookinV The penalty was paid on the restitution of the garments ; and the unlucky wight quietly left the village, where the joke was already known, and the conduct of the damsels publicly approved of. The offender is now suffering fiom a severe attack of rheumatism." A Touch of Nature.--A car of passengers recently passed over the Western railroad, in which occurred a simple but touching scene worthy of record. One of the passengers was a woman, carrying in her arms a child, which annoyed every one with its petulance and cries. Mile after mile the passengers bore the infliction of its noise, which rather increased than diminished, until at last it became furious, and the passengers nearly so. There were open complaints, and one man shouted, " Take the child out." The train stopped at a station, when an old gentleman arose, and made the simple statement that the father of the child had died recently, away from home, that the mother had been on a visit, that her dead body was on board the train, end that the child was in the arms of a woman who was a stranger to it. It wa3 eaough. There was a tear in nearly every eye, and all were melted into pity and patience. All selfishness was lost in thinking of the desolation of the poor little wanderer, who would have found a warm welcome in hands that a moment before would have visited it with a blow. —American Paper. "Spißiv-RAppiNa OOtdons. —One of the witnesses on the Hull bribery commission made the following disclosures against the *' Liberals." " I wish to give you," said the confidential Mr» Wilde, "all the information I have, and make a clean breast of it. In that door there was a nick made, which may be seen to this day; and if I ana rightly informed, Mr. Win. Farthing and Mr. Richard Cattley, after the election, when the pay-day came, sat in the room at the bottom of the passage with the nick in the door, and Mrs. Hopper sat in an adjoining room with a screen ; to shield her ; and when the voters came up to be paid, those who were to have £1 or £2 a piece rapped ot the door thus (knocking ou the table) one! two! (Loud laughter.) —The Commissioner: Then two raps meant £2 and one rap £1 ?— Witness ; Yes. (Laughter.)—-The Commissioner: And three raps meant £3? — Witness: y es# —The Commissioner: What is the greatest number of raps you heard ? —Witness (laughing): Three. When they knocked Mrs. Hopper put the sovereign* through the nick in the door. The men went through the passage into a little back yard, got the money from Mrs. Hopper through the door, and then were let out another way." This beats " Spirit-rapping" altogether, and Mrs. Hopper is infinitely before Mrs. Hayden. The American Pythia made money by the rap* pings, but the Hull sybil gave gold for every knock. —Leeds Mercury, June 11. An Italian Stratagem. —The Union au Var publishes from Nice interesting details of the arrest of a celebrated brigand, Pietro Spina, who for several years past has spread terror and desolation in the town and province of Caneo (Piedmont.) He has just been arrested by four resolute gendarmes of Limona, a village situated in one of the valleys which skirt the other side of the Maritime Alps. Pietro was a man of athletic form, and endowed with great muscular strength. His features were remarkably handsome, and he was a great favorite among the fair sex, even among the wives and sisters of tbe gendarmes, who gave him intelligence wbeu danger was threatening him. His favourite, howerer, was a young girl named Ceccbina, oi great beauty, and very fond of dress and living. The Count d'Aspromonte, captain of tbe gendarmes, hearing of this penchant of Ceecbiaa, gained {her over by presents, and at length by invitiDgher to a dinner in which the champagne of the country was not spared, she was induced td make important revelations, aud promised, )ike Delilah, to betray her Samson. She arranged with tbe gendarmes that they should follow her at a distance when she wenl to carry provisions to Pietra, and soon after she bad eniered the cave in which be bad found refuge, and while he was enjoying tbe food she bad procured for him, the four gendarmes rushed in and secured him, but not without a desperate struggle. He was heavily chained, and conveyed to Caneo to await bis trial. The Reverend John Mayor, 8.D., son of the " spelling book '* Dr. Mayor, has been founddead in a debtor's cell in Oxford County Gaol» where he had been confined for nine years. He had a living in Essex worth £350 a year.