MISCELLANEOUS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 906, 8 April 1854, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

Love and Crime. — " During the reign of the Emperor Alexander, the daughter of a iloble family in a remote province fell in love with one of her father's male domestics, and had the misfortune to become a mother. Fearing that her shame might be disclosed, she consented that the partner of her guilt should destroy the child ; and both her parents dying a fe\V months afterwards, she was left an orphan. Then her former para»nour began to persecute her unceasingly, and extorted large sums of money from her by threatening to reveal her crime. The girl yielded to his menaces for a considerable period, but, becoming weary of his pertinacity, she contrived to set fire to some premises where the man happened to be sleeping, and all means of egress having been previously removed, he perished miserably in the flames. But notwithstanding her freedom from any damning evidence, her bosom was now so torn by agonising remorse for the double crime she had committed, that one day, unable to bear her mfintal torments any longer, she hastened to the village church and confessed her sins to the priest, who, of course, communicated the astounding tale to his wife, under the pronv.se of inviolable secresv. Not long afterwards, the young lady was present at a ball given by a personage of the very highest distinction, where she eclipsed all her rivals by her beauty and the splendour of her attire, when, while she wa? the ' cynosure of others eyes,' the observed of all observers,' the priest's wife approached her unsuspecting victim, and openly recounted the horrifying story the ynung lady had confided to the priest. The ball-room wa3 in an uproar, the lady was taken into custody immediately, and ultimately tried and condemned ; but being of noble birth, the judges thought it necessary to refer the sentence to the Emperor for his approbation previous to its being carried into execution. The result of the appeal was totally unlooked for ; the Fmperor was so indignant at the priest's treachery that he degraded him from his ministerial office, and sent him to the army to serve as a common soldier for life ; and he was so touched with the girl's sincere repentance that he merely sentenced her to do penance in a convent for two months, which, with her shame and crimes, diJ not prevent her from making a most desirable marriage." — Le Due's Russia.

The German Poet lleinb. — We find the following tribute to this highly gifted and unfortunate gentleman in the New Quarterly Review :• — Henry Heine has for many years past been struck with paralysis. His limbs, his body, his features, even to his very eyelids, are lame, and to all purposes like those of a dead man. Indeed it may be said that life only lingers in the brain and tongue — the man is a mere corpse : the poet only survives. An exile from his country for many long years past, too, a captive to illness in the back room of a small apartment in the Faubourg Poissonnie>e at Paris, the poet, whose early flights of fancy created a new era in German lyrics — and, one might almost say, in German politics and religion — has still been active ; and, if not his best, at least his most pungent books have issued from that living head attached to a dead body, which keeps its dead vigils in the heart of the Babel of France. — Press. French Coal. — In 1789, the total production in all France barely reached 215,000 tons ; but in 1802 it had already increased to 900,000 tons. Stationary then till 1820, it rose in 1830 to 1,600.000 tons. In 1845 the official returns show that it reached to 4,202,000 tons, and now France occupies the second place in reference to the production of this mineral immediately succeeding England, whose production is, however, eight times as great. — M. Dufrenv.

Bold Trick. — The " swell mob " of London do perpetrate robberies with the most singular ingenuity and address, and appear never, to be at fault. A lady alighted at the Bank, ascended the steps, and entered the vestibule, and presented a cheque to the paying teller, receiving a very large amount of bank notes, which she deposited in her purse, and returned to the carriage. Just as she had taken her seat, a gentleman came down the steps of the Bank without his hat, wearing spectacles and a pen behind his ear, and said :— " Madam, we have forgotten to take the number of those notes, will you allow me to take them off ?" She handed him the notes, and he ascended the steps of the Bank, and entered the building. The lady having waited some time, finally returned to the Bank, and soon ascertained that no person had been authorised to ask for the notes.

Soldiers at a Fire. — At the late conflaI gration at Dover, the soldiers quartered there attacked the element as they would have attscked squares and battalions of an enemy. I They were summoned to turn-out and put the fire down, and they did it. This was a matter of course : a thing was to he done, and it was j done. The soldiers vanquished the enemy ; and were duly commended for their readiness and daring. But how, the next time that a fire breaks out at Dover ? How when the alarm-bells ring, and the drums beat, and the soldiers are ordered to rush to the rescue of houses and warehouses from destruction ? How when they are summarily ordered, not to attack a fort, and so cover themselves with glory, — but to pull down that chimney, level that' wall, and, it may be, cover themselves with nothing but the ruins ? How, with the cry of " Fire ! Fire !" in the soldier's ears, how will he receive the alarming intelligence ? "Well, if the soldier be of a calculating turn of mmd — (which ten to one he is not) — he will reflect thus : " At the last great fire at Dover, the gallant Skyblues turned out, and, as the papers said, greatly distinguished themselves. And the Skyblues had their clothes damaged in the scramble; and so they stopped the fire, and so their pay was stopped to make good the injury done to their uniforms. To be sure, the Skyblues covered themselves with credit ; but, again, they soaked themselves with water. 'Jhey were distinguished for their bravery ; -and they were also distinguished for the soot and soil upon their cluthes. The stoppage of the fire

was a great thing for the town of Dover ; but the stoppage* which the Skvblues were under to make erood their uniforms were not so good a thing- for the regiments. A eoHier may think thu« when called upon to act at a fire. But, as we have said, it is ten to one that, without any such calculation, and at once obeying the instincts of duty, he rushes to the conflagration, to suppress it, and to return to barracks, his clothes soaked, sooted, and torn ; such clothes to be made good at his own expense. Is not this most unjust? Is it not to take a mean, a dastardly advantage of the generous impulses of the soldier to call him out to face a peril, and then, to make him, out of his own pocket, pay the cost of doing a public service? This is to stand fire with a veneeance. — Lloyd's News.

Important Scientific Invention. — 'A letter -frum Berlin of the 17th says— " It is well known that the paper prepared for photography grows more or less black by rays of light falling upon it. One of our young painters, M. Schall, has just taken advantage of this property in photographic paper to determine the intensity of the sun's light. After more than 1,500 experiments, M. Schall has succeeded in establishing a scale of all the shades of black which the action of the solar light produces on the photographic paper :—-so: — -so that, by comparing the shade obtained at any given moment on a certain paper with that indicated on the scale, the exact force of the sun's light may be ascertained. Baron Alexander yon Humboldt, M. de Littnow, M. Dove, and M. Pongendorif have congratulated M. Schall on this invention; which will be of the highest utility not only for scientific labours, but also in many operations of domestic and rural economy." — Alhen&um.

An Irish Verdict. — At the Galway assizes, an action for seduction was tried, in which Myles Burke, of Headford, was plaintiff, and G. Lynch, Esq., of Consheen, defendant. The subject of the action was a girl of seventeen years of age, with whom the defendant eloped after having promised her marriage. An action for seduction was instituted prior to last assizes, but it was withdrawn at the instance of the defendant, who promised to marry the girl. He broke the promise, hence the present action. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff — • damages £100 with a consent that " if the defendant married the plaintiff's daughter within one month, it was not to be acted on ; and if the plaintiff's daughter refused to marry the defendant within that time, then the verdict to be changed into one for the defendant."

A Special Jury Case.— It is not long since a circumstance occurred in connection with one of those special jury cases, which bears so strongly upon the point I amanxiousto illustrate, that I cannot refrain from relating it. It was a contested point of patent-right ; the invention being a machine of peculiar construction and application. As usual, counsel floundered dreadfully amidst cog- wheels, sockets, pinions, pistons, bsarings, coupling-boxes and cranks. The special jury had to depend entirely upon the witnesses to form the faintest judgment on th» merits of the competing machines. When the counsel had finished torturing the principal witness for the plaintiff, the foreman of the jury — a thoroughly practical and shrewd man of the world— requested him to be so good as to repeat carefully Ins description of the plaintiff's machine; in order that he might commit it to paper, and thus prevent any misconception. The witness complied ; and on the completion of bis details, he was told that as he had been a long time in the witness-box he would not just then be called upon to hear the paper read over to him, but that it should be done on his being called up for re-examination. The chief engineering witness on the other side was requested, in a similar manner, to detail most minutely the several parts of his employer's machinery ; and, having done so, was 111 like manner desired to stand on one side for the present ; the foreman taking down his words also. Further evidence was taken ; and eventually the two engineers were recalled separately, when the foreman of the jury, having r«ad ever the accounts of the two distinct machines, asked each of them if they felt positive that the description therein given was a true and full explaantion of their respective employers' inventions. They felt no sort of hesitation in declaring that they did so most completely. The foreman then addressed the Court, and begged it to observe as a means of testing the value of the evidence they had just received, that he had read the description of the defendant's michine to the plaintiff's witness, and that of the plaintiff's to the defendant's witness, and that they had thus both sworn to their opponent's specification. No doubt if they had been left to tell their respective stories in their own way, without the worrying of counsel, they would not have been confused, and would have given clear and distinct evidenc. The case Was eventually decided upon the persoaal inspection of the opposing machines by the members »f the jury, who thus, after all, acted the part of Tribuuals of Commerce. — Household Words.

Dr. Davy on the Temperature of Man. — What is true of bodilj, is true of mental exercise. Original writing or study, or any intellectual effort, raises the temperature of the body even more decidedly than bodily exertion. Dr. Davy never found his own temperature raised beyond a hundred degrees even in Barb&does, except after the delivery of certain chemical lectures ; while the most violent bodily exertion under a tropical sun, produced a result, decided enough indeed, but not so striking. Again, as passive bodily exercise lowers the heat of the body, so passive mental exercise does just the sam*. After the passive work of writing from a copy, or of reading for amusement such light works as do not exercise the powers of the mind, the heat of the bo.ly is found invariably to have fallen. Balance gained or lost in this way will be soon recovered, for the temperature of the body fluctuates with ea*R. We should add that, while a light meal makes no difference, a full m«-al, followed by drowsiness, reduces the beat ; which is reduced also by the use of wine. It the use of wine at supper or after dinner be at all in excess, the reduction oi heat by it is very marked; the temperaiure, however, before breakfast next morning, by way of compensation, rises cons derably, as ail repentant topers know.