ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 71, 6 February 1862, Page 2

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the Otago Daiia- Times,

Dear Srn, —In answer to my note of yesterday, Mr. Parkinson says, " It was purely a suggestion oi mine that a Cliornl Society should be formed in Dunodin."

Now, I think that if Mr. P. feels jit all interested in getting up a society, he could do a little more than " purely 'suggest it," arid as for " two or three influential parties agitating- the matter," is all humbug. Suppose that the three" most influential men in.die town were merehnns, lawyers, or any. thing else yon please, the probability is, not one' of them would hardly know a note from a broom-stick, or if they heard a piece of music surig, be able to tell whether it was "Old Hundred" or "God save the Queen."

The ones to get up a Choral Society I.should think, should be those who have some taste . for music and who are willing to take a little trouble upon themselves to help it along. It is my intention, to make my home in Dunedin at least for several years, and nothing would please me better than to meet once a week with a number of singers and have a few hours' practice. I make no pretentious to being a professional, singer, but I am willing to do any tiling in my power to assist those who are. Where I came from, there was but one thing considered requisite for a person to belong to a Chora! Society, viz : a good voice. Now, I am sure that in Dunedin there must be n large number who have good 'voices and would like to join a society. I think if Mr. P. would go to the ministers of the different churches and request them to mention it on the Sabbath, and invite all who fael interested in it to meet, say in one of the Chnrchos, on some evening", a Society could be formed without the assistance ..of " two or three, influential parties;" and give particular notice that it is not for professional singers only, but all who can sing by note or by rote. When I asked when and where we coidd meet, I did not mean for practice, but to form a Society. Hoping that I may have the pleasure of singiug in a chorus with Mr. P. very soon, I will subscribs myself yours respectfully,

Dunedin, February 5.

A New Substitute for Ivory, Horn, &c—The collodion film*when formed on glass is tough, and can be made of any desired thickness; and by the addition of gutta-percha, india-rubber, &c, a great range of elasticity, pliability, and hardness, it is said may be produced. : It has recently"'baeii proposed to'apply these sheets of dried collodibn (which, if made of good pyroxylins, will be colorless and transparent,) to several usefiil purposes. Out of a Mass of it, with proper tools, it is easy to work any desired form.- The dried collodion is said to possess the physical .properties of many of the most valuable materials used in the arts ; it may be substituted for ivory,- horn, wood, glass, Sec, for manufacture of statuary, billiard balls, buttons, &c.— Builder.

A Union fanner wrote to his son, who had absconded, begging" him to return and' assist him in threshing. Tlie youngman replied:—" Dear Father, —I can't go home at pi'escnti 1 should be very glad to help you, but Uncle Sam has got a mighty' sight bigger job of threshing on baud than you have, and I'm boqiid tosep him out of the woods'first."

A French murderer, on being nrfosteil rocentlyj snlij-r" I murdered my wife at Jive in the morning of Monday, the 27th October, find I did so because, for a month before, I had reason to suspect that she was not faithful, to mo. I murdered my auut at nine o'clock, because she had some money, and 'I wanted to pay my debts." , He added, " .if either of the women raised any cry as J strangled them, and that consoles me!" :'.':■ ■■ ■; .-., ' ..■• ■■: ■■■■"•

; i Lightsing Photographed.—A Berlin artist named Guother, has succeeded,' during a late storm, in photographing a flash of lightning.

A SPRING OF GIN.

(From All (he Year Bound.')

Abrmt fventy years ago. in the middle of .1 very hot summer's day, a respectably dressed young woman was observed sitting on a doorstep in an 3ast-end thoroughfare in WJiitechapeK Her manner was bewildered, and her speech was incoherent. A policeman coming up in tho course of a few minutes, asked her where she lived, and with some difficulty, she told him the 'dishtillilery.' As there were not half-a-dozen distilleries.thrpugh London, she was supposed to belong to an establishment of the kind in the neighbourhood, and thither she was conducted with as little delay as possible. She was at once recognised, and admutted as Mary, the housemaid. .^ There were several theories with regard to the condition of the housemaid. Charitable people traced'it to the heat of the weather ; uncharitable paople traced it to the residence at a distillery! The popular idea was, in such a place there must be as much gin as water, and that the servants had unchecked liberty to draw either liquor. Some thought it a pity that steady young women should be thrown in the way of such temptation; others wished they had the young woman's unlimited control over a spirit tap. Of course, the young woman's story, that she had tasted nothing but water, was received with incredulity. Even when she admitted that she had drunk rather freely of the simple fluid, in consequence of the heat of the weather, the incredulity was not lessened. This was one of the results of living at a distillery.

A few weeks after this occurrence, still in one of the hottest of the summer months, two more of the'; distiller's servants • were taken unwell. Their illness showed itself ehiefty in a tendency to dance and sing songs in a defiant manner, and a disinclination to work. According to their own account, they had tasted nothing but a can of water, and, of course, no one who looked -at them would believe such a barefaced assertion. Certain symptoms of drunkenness are not easily mistaken, especially when they appear in persons employed in a distillery. The young •women were doctored with strong tea, soda-water, and other well-known restoratives, and some care was taken to conceal their indisposition from their employer.' This gentleman, however, became aware of the 'accident,' as it was called, and \ery generously took no notice of it. Perhaps, as a distiller, he could hardly object to a little drunkenness, even when it appeared in his own establishment ; at least, some of his enemies said as much.

Nothing more was thought about the matter for some weeks, until a new groom, belonging to the distillery, was heard telling a curious story concerning one of the horses in the stable.

I giver feed, he said—a quartern an' a' 'arf, an' threerpen'orth—which she took as usual, but when I tried her with the water, she shied at it. I thought, p'raps the water was dirty, so I empties the pail in the yard, an': fills it agen fresh from the same tap, but when I offered it to'er again she threw up 'er 'cad an' shook all over. . ,

..What.did you do, then ? asked one of, his listeners, an in-door man-servant,'who waited at table. v

.What did Ido ? returned the other,: almost contemptuously. Why, tastes the stuff o'course, 'an finds it as good cold whiskey-an-water as I ever put my lips to. •■ ; .

The extraordinary story came to the ears of th c master, and the water-tap which stood in the distillery yard, was openly examined before all the servants. Water was drawn in tumblers, mugs, and pails, and tasted by all present. No one could detect the slightest flavour of spirit in the liquid, and the ostler, by common consent, was laughed at as a dreamer. He adhered to his story, but his tone was less confident than it had been before the experiment. . - ", -

Soon after- Christmas, when the weather was very severe, the calm that followed was broken by discovery. A spring of .water, possessing peculiar properties, suddenly bubbled up, in the middle of a public highway in 'Whiteehitpel. It wiis not tested by many people more scientific than a knot of cabmen, boys, and east-end idlers ; but, one of .those bystanders—uo mean authority on a question of ardent spirits—boldly', pronounced the spring to be some kind of gin. it few hesitated to try the drink, more from fear than from holding temperate opinions, but when a score or two had drunk, and hurt loudly agreed with the opinion of the first taster, a general scramble for the precious water took place. A few police came on the ground, bnt were unable to dispel the crowd, or account for the mystery. The policemen had no rule to guide them in such an emergency, and they only formed part of the mob. Never, since the days when the old water-conduits ran wine on- high festivals, was such a scene witnessed in a public thoroughfare. In the present slate of the law and the national finance, it is impossible to cut the connexion between the exciseman and ardent spirits. Whenever one is seen, the other is sure not to be ', far off; the spirits following the man, or f lie man following the spirits. The street fountain of wliat turned out to be whiskey-and water was soon taken into custody by a body of inland revenue officers, who had more experience in' such matters than the astonished policeman. They tasted the running liquid, and at once began to trace it to its t ource, unchecked by any. theories about" remarkable springs. A broken pipe of a well-known east-end water company was the first tiling discovered ; and the pipe—burst Jby the: frost—was traced at one end into the distillery where the female servants had made themselves " ill" with " water." The other end of this pipe was also traced, through a long distance, into another distillery, where it possibly may have conveyed whiskey underground ".without' the knowledge of the exciseman, and without volunteering on account of the Government; This was ostensibly a private branch water-main, laid down by two distillers (who happened to1 be brothers) to supply their works with water, and no one was more astonished to find the pipe filled with cold "grog" than the suspected .manufacturers. One or two scientific men stepped forward for their defence, and discoursed about peculiar waters,- and remarkable springs, and several other theories, in explanation- of the spiritual manifestations. : The; V.Government, however, were not to be satisfied without a trial in a court of law; and a jury, after patiently hearing the case, inflicted a fine of seventy-five thousand pounds sterling on the two d|sti!jers. The sobriety of the maid-servants SyaV.'inejdenr tally vindicated, the ostler -was relieved from the suspicion of being a madman ; the excisemen were rewarded j the public revenue was benefitted ; and AVhitechapcl, in being deprived of a peculiar spring which might have converted it into a *'spa,"' was doubtless, the only actual loser., ; ■ - ■ . : •

SoKNEiiT- of the .'River Ciiagrks.—The scenery and all surrounding the banks of the liiver Chagres, is so wonderful and interesting in its (own peculiar style, that were the- discomforts aud drawbacks .ten times what they actually are, I shbuld'"'ihink the voyage well worth the experiment. The .sun," I must; own, was overpowering : it is a. wonder" we did not get a " stroke" before being exposed to five hours>' unceasing blaze. I never before to-day completely realised the " deep silence of a noontide forest, ,■. Far as the eye could reach over hill and plain, before aud : around, spread the undulating but unbroken surface of the tropical woods, looking like some vast petrified •ocean. Then the stillness ; not a breath, not a sound was heard, save what was caused by ourselves, and that was not much, for it-was too hot to" talk or to move unnecessarily, therefore, the, .0n1y..-token of life was the measured plashing of the"jiote1 ih'jthe water drawing us slowly along. We had pro'e'e'edeel thus for a couple of miles when we experienced an interruption of a very curious nature, and which, owing Vo the incongruity it presented to all' tjiat hfA gorio brforeit, will 'not be-speedily forgotten! ' O'uj: i)p'ii| suddenly stopped at the entrance of" a. little creek, when there appeared by the" river side^-'a woman! with a child of between four and Bye J'ea'rs old. One would have imagined she had dropped out of the skies, did the inhabitants' of the regions "dress in"the style of this lady; but from Vhere on the face of the earth did she come from, was certainly neither to be seen nor conceived. -She.Avore a pale yellow dress of crape gauze, or some'equally light material, with several blonde flounces of most elaborately designed patterns; Over her'shoulders was thrown a shawl, bright blue- in color, and also of & light material ;■ while neck) arms, and • head,. /ihoim resplendent with je^yels (chiefly diamonds) and flowers. To complete the picture, she held in her hand some articles of furniture, generally supposed rather to belong rather to the bed-room than the,public conveyance. ' A little later, the boatmen darted jjuickly across, the river in pursuit of an unliajipy ignano, which'they espied basking in the the sun.' Having caught the poor victim, thtty tied him' up, fastening the claws behind the back, and carried him off in triumph preparatory'to cobkina:arid eating him.— 4> Woman's Wandering in the We«tern World, ■'*:

. EruDPF.A.x Ctukj.tikh ix St. Dojiincio.—That the negroes h:-id 7'iumy wrongs to avenge we cannot deny, mid (hat it was the- cruellies inflicted on them that made them in turn no cruel, is equally true. Even female slave proprietors.torgot tlte softness of their sex in their relations with the unfortunate negroes ; one of these ladies was one morning informed by her steward that a negress, in.supp!.vinjr tlic sugar mill wifh canes, had been'unfortunately caught up by the-machinery, and her arm wrenched off; he said it was with difficulty he had prevented the entire body from being drawn in. The lady listened coolly'anil said, " it would have been no great loss, only that my syrup might have been spoiled." Another lady ordered two of her slaves, fora slight olfence. to be thrown into a cauldron of boiling sugar. A Dominican planter bought a high price female quadroon in the island of Martinique ; this woman nursed one of his children, and was nursing a second, when his wife became jealous of Sophy— that was the name of the slave ; tli j husband declared that her suspicions were ill-founded, and she required, in confirmation of his assertions, that he should fire a pistol at Sophy ; the slave bent to avoid the blow, and received the shot in •lier hand ; the infuriated wife, ordered her to be shut up in a closet and loaded with irons; she then with her own hands ent off her hair and ears with a pair of scissors—she. sent for her husband and desired him to brand the slave with hot irons on the face and on several parts of the body—he "did so. Poor Sophy was allowed to languish long in torments ; at length her cruel master and mistress sent her to Charlcstown to he sold, but her marketable valuo was so lessened by the mutilations she had undergone, that a purchaser could not be found. Those are only a few instances of the conduct of the conduct of female slave holders with regard to their slaves, and it no way exceeded the cruelty of the male planters. When tlie day of retribution came, when the slaves, following the example of the mulattoes, rose against their oppressors, the carnage and the crimes they committed were fearful.— St. Domingo, in Colbufn's United Service. Good Look.—Not long ago, in a rural part of England, a little girl was in the liabit of stealing barley from a rick. She and her companions persisted in following this pastime in spite of the remonstrances and threats of the owner, and at last he lost patience, seized her as the oldest of the offenders, and had her brought before the bench of magistrates. As it was proved that this was not a casual but an habitua* offence, the bench thought fit to make an example of her, and ordered her to pay two shillings as a fine, besides the expense. But law, even of the-simplest kind, costs money, and the expenses were seventeen shillings. It was not certaiu. that the friends of the little thief would lay down a sovereign for her unless some gentle pressure was exercised, and it was therefore added to the sentence that, unles the fine and expenses were paid within a given time, she should go to prison for three weeks. This produced the desired eftect, arid the money was found and paid. But the history was not to end there. One or two of the papers that watch the proceedings of magistrates with most jealousy and suspicion got hold of the case. Here was a monstrous outrage on common sense, and ' a cruel tyranny of the rich over the poor. A poor little child sent to gaol for three weeks because the .simple creature, in its play pulled a little barley, valued at twopence, out of a rick. The writers cf sensation articles, exulted in so telling a theme, and, for once, they produced an effect much greater than usually falls to the lot of the Catos and Erutuse's of journalism. The readers of the sensation article took it into their heads to subscribe for the injured innocent. The generosity of one was stimulated by the record of that of another. Subscriptions poured in, and in the end no less than thirty-five pounds were collected and handed over to the friends of the child. Such is the harvest that this lucky little girl has reaped from the fruitful soil of British indignation. Few instances of good luck could l:e more surprising. She has been the talk, not only of her parish, hut of all England. She must be famous herself, and it must even be a privilege to be connected with her. She will henceforth be pointed at in school and church an the celebrated Jane Smith, or whatever her name is, whose wrongs moved England to wrath, and set in motion the pens of "Publicola," j and " Aristides," and " A Lover of Homely Justice." And she will not only be the heroine of the parish, | ,but also its heiress. If her thirty-five .pounds ■ .ire I carefully put out at interest, she will have at least fifty pounds by the time she is her own misti-ess. Fifty pounds in hard cash is, among the village poor, quite as great a fortune for a young woman to have a-:; fifty thousand is for a young lady. Then, if we contrast the greatness of the end with the smallness and ignoble character of the means and first startingpoint of her good fortune, we set at the true measure of her luck. She has suddenly become famous and rich, .and this by simply stealing twopenny-worth ofbarley. None of the poets that have sung the fickleness,and blindness of fortune had ever a more telling instance to furnish a theme for their verses. — Saturday Review.

A Peek Working as a Blacksmith.—The London correspondent of the Mancltestrr Guardian states that Lord Ockham (sou of the Earl of Lovelace, and grandson of the poet Byron), has for some time past been working at Woolwich Arsenal as a smith, at weekly wages. The writer says :—" The young nobleman in question ran away from school at an early age, was missing for several years, in spite of large rewards offered for him, bound himself apprentice'aboard a coaster, underwent much hardship in this miserable position of cabin boy aboard a northcountry collier; was even at one time reduced to the work-house, at a little town in Yorkshire ; ■ and, finally, when discovered by his relatives, preferred to win his bread by the work of his hands as a boltmaker at Woolwich Arsenal, where he is still, or was very recently working. Ho often, while in this employment, walked up to Lord Byron's .seat near Ham, and remained over Sunday, his day of leisure, "as his guest, hut always "was careful to return to Woolwich in time to begin his work on Monday morning. I may add that, though I have not seen him at work in the arsenal, a near relative of my own has seen him on the trudge from Woolwich to Ham— a fine, stout, handsome, young'man—in a blue penjacket, lone boots, and n wide-awake, with a short -pipe stuck through the band. There may be eccentricity in this conduct of the young nobleman, but I do not believe there is anything cither of excess or irregularity in his conduct! or hnythinjr discreditable in his'motives." By.the death of Lady Byron, who was Baroness) of Wentworth in her own right, that Barony descends to Lord Ockham, who is therefore now actually a member of the House of Peers. ExTRAOiiiHKAny Stohy ov a Madman.—AJlullingftr correspondent of the Irtth Times states that some time ago Captain Sydney Smyth, who had been confined in a lunatic asylum, set fire to the residence of his brother, Captain Robert Smyth, of Portlick Castle, Westnieath. The building was totally de.troyed ; the motive of the maniac being revenge for some fancied grievance. The correspondent adds :—: :" Immediately after the destruction of the building, the lunatic fixed his residence in an elevated part of the nuns, where he has actually remained since the 21st of July, successfully opposing all the attempts made to capture him. Armed with a sword, of which he had managed to possess himself, and furnished with a formidable supply of stones and missiles of every description, which he was ready to hurl on any hostile intruder, he succeeded for more than a month in defying the power of the civil authorities, who have been unremitting in their endeavours to effect hjs arrest, which it was found impossible to do without a certain loss of life. The only persons he allowed to apin'oach him were two men belonging to ; the place, by whose means food was conveyed to him. It was proposed to render him insensible by mixing opiates with his drink, and then securing him, but the attempt was not more successful than several . other stratagems which resulted also in failure. At one time lie seems to have entertained the intention of escaping, and making his way to his former residence ; but the constabulary took such effectual measures as to frustrate his object, withdrawing the boats from the neighbourhood and guarding the roads—in fact, subjecting him to a regular siege. The number of police engaged in watching him, on one occasion, amounted to 30, accompanied'by the county inspector,. a sub-inspector, and resident magistrate, but all their efforts proved fruitless until yesterday, when subinspector Kirkland and his party succeeded iv capjturing him. He is unquestionably insane,, and per- ' gists in his threats of further vengeance against his brother.,' A dancer of Vienna fell in love with Mad'lle Winkler, the daughter of another dancer, and demanded her in marriage of her father, who refused. Only one thine, to a Gorman apprehension, remained to be done. Instead of running away with the girl, lie inyited her to take a walk with him in a forest near Baden, and there, whether with or without' her conSent, phot her dead with a pistol, after which he blew gut his own brains.