FEROCITY OF A STAGE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 138, 25 April 1862, Page 6

FEROCITY OF A STAGE

Sail retribution was infiicte-1 by a deer some years Ujrsi for an uiiFpoitMiiaiilikc net, committed no doubt thon-ht!essly and from want of considuialiou l>y the then maMtr of the staglwumls. A very old and well-known dcr had, throughoutniany a st.ig- hunting set-on, evaded the vigilunce of the harborcr in thu Dulvurton country, and had so artfully concealed himself' that he was rie\or found by the hounds. In vain was he sought for, and lo.iij af'tiT the autumn hind-hunting was over, and when the hounds were in kennel ior the winter, intelligence was bion^ht to the mas'er thnf the sta£ was in Iladdon. Tlie hospitable hall was full" of gcniknun, many perhaps lamenting that the season was o\ur; and wishing to show them spoit. the master f, r-i\e the woid of command to unkennel the hounds and try for the "mucUlc hart '" In half an hour Joe Faulkner was in the saddle, and forth sallied the party. The animal was found by the p.ick in no time; but a strange a glmstly-locki.ig I wait he was —his neck swelled to a tremendous size, and his body lean as a grcj hound and tucked up, always "the case with a stag after the rutting season Ilc'look.'d wholly undt to run, but liy no means unprepared to fight a G'outranee. Still after gazing a while angrily at his ibca, he turned his hi ad to the wi»d, and soon left the steeds behind. Following <>n the Imc. liowcver, the hunters at la-t heard Uie hound* at bay, and soon rnw a sijiht towhiuhnn artihl might do justice but which lnv pencan but feebly describe. " In the middle of a large field stood a mighty onk, whose "giant bole" might ha\e witnessed the death of many a stag in good Queen licss's timel; and beneath the outstretching arms, with hi* hincl-qiurturs against the tree, stood the persecuted beast. Joe in an evil 'moment had drafted out some of his best entries, to give them blood! and three of them lay dead at the feet of the quarry. The old hounds, gathered in a semicircle, At cautious distance hoarsely bnyud, and the deer, though he moved not from his i place, seemed ready to encounter any new foe ■whose courage or imprudence might induce him to try conclusions with him. Alas ! that I should relate it! The hounds were called off to n respectable distance, but the deer's attention still engaged in front. A rope was sent for, and brought from a farm-house two miles distant, and one sportsman, more adventurous than the rest, climbed the oak —(would that he had hung in its branches by the hair of his head I; —and dropped a noose over the devoted head of the victim. The. deer was | killed—and most unfairly killed. Had he discovered the treachery and bolted from his position,! will not venture to say, what might have been the fate of more than one of the bold sportsmen who, unhorsed and standing around, waited issue of the the scheme. — Notes on the Chose of the 1\ rtl<J Red Deer in the Covntirs of Devon and Somerset, by Charles Palli Col/.yns; of Dulaertoii. Bj:.ysts on the Tight lloi-rj.—No reasonable doubt can be entutaiuucl that elephnuts have been taught to ■walk on ropes.. The biliogiaphy ot the subject, whitl* ■we s,paiu tho reader, may be found in Aldi ovttvdi Dv QwtdrupciWjua, lib. From this it appear* that the funnmbuU species -was. the African, not the Asiatic elephant. rlo ihow the piecirer.cs-s of thefts lecords, : one statement is : " Nero, according to Xii'lnlhnVb account, gave gieat and most magnificent games, in ' honor of his mother, on v. hith occasion an elephant, introduced into the theatre, mounted an arcli en the top of it. and iroin thence walked upon urupc with a on his kick.'' Whoever, now, should go to the expense of tunning elephants to walk a l ope, would piobably recehe very coubidorublu Jotuins for his outlay." With the exception, however, of elephants, we iuny bold quadruped fiii.i'inlmli&U, to Jiavo mibtaken their vocation. The animals who are leally at home nniidbt giddy height*, delighting to tnner.»e tns-pension-bridges composed of a, single rope or cane, are the quadrumani, tho -four-handed animals, the monkeys, great and small.. In fact, the bast ropedancers imitate their personal mechanism as far as they can. True, Blomlin has no prehensile tail; but liia hands prehensile to an eminent degree, while his feet are quite handy, grasping the rope. Without wishing to offend these gentlemen (on the contrary to pay them a compliment) we may take Leotard to be a tiying squirrel of superior grace, and Blondiu an experienced gorilla of surpassing abilities and suavity. Dickens' "All the Year-Hound."

A Russian Wedding at Jerusalem. —We heard that there was to be a very grand wedding of a Russian lady in the chapel of a Greek convent. As the bridegroom was an lonian gentlemon, and therefore under the protection of the British Consul, whose presence was necessary at the marriage, they ■were so kind as to send us an invitation to the chapel on hearing.that we wished to see the ceremony. The metropolitan Bishop of"Petra officiated, assisted by various bishops and clergy, himself handsomely robed as well ns the bishops ; the rest wore only the everyday I lack gown, and observed no order ; all of them continued chatting among themselves, and laughing, scarcely in an undertone, dnring the ■whole service. Nobody seemed to know exactly the right order of the service, and theyiltept correcting and expostulating with, and advising each other all the time; the difficulty, we were told afterwards, was to decide which piece should be in Russian and which in Greek,,* and they all laughed at every mistake. ' After-several prayers and some i, reading, to which no one seemed to attend, and at which no one knelt, the hands of the bride ana bridegroom were joined by the bishop, who then blessed two wreaths of coarse artificial flowers (answering to our rings), touching the Gospels with each flower ; then presenting one to the bridegroom, he crossed him with it on the forehead, shoulders, and chest, doing the same with the wreath of the. bride, and then again changing the^wreaths and crossing his:hands and Iheirs ; last of all he laid each wreath on his own head, where it looked supremely ridiculous ; the gay: flowers on the snowy locks, with the ■ Eat in ribbons streaming down. Then came a great many, prayers and blessings, no one kneeling, after which the Bishop of Petra put himself out of the way in a little pew, and the bishops and priests joining hand in hand with the bride and bridegroom, walked, or scuttled in a ring round and round the altar, chanting: a psalm, two gentlemen walking behind bride and bridegroom, holding the wreaths above their heads, a ceremony that was remarkably undignified, for they all laughed the whole time. After this, the patriarch took a common glass tumbler in his hand, and administered the Holy Communion in a spoon to the newly-married pair and to the Russian Consul, mumblingsomething out of a book, while all the, priests-laughed and chatted-on, and finally exploded in fits of laughter, because the Bishop of Petra had tumbled down with the glass in his . hand and broken , it. TXlie whole service was so entirely irreverent, and the attempts at chanting so ludicrous, that they were quite glad when they all disappeared, the lights extinguished, and all Jiands hud hurried away to the banquet, nor did we care to see another Russian wedding.—Beaufort's Travels. ■ A Woud About Serpents.—There is another little -serpent says our old friend) who is painfully active in his movements, and a master of flic science ' of projectiles. He springs upon his prey from bejicnth sluubs, 4c, after having turned himself rapidly round anil round upon the ground, lo obtain that, rotary motion for bis flight which alone insures accuracy of aim. He is quite a 'Wliilwoitlr in his w:iy, is this small serpent, the Acontia, mid brings down his men at 20 cubits distant. . The Paubcra secures his prey with a hook, which is fastened to the end of his tail. He swallows oxen alive ami entire, and cousequcntlv suffers severely iiom indigestion on account of the fiorus. Our old'friends the nsps, vipers, bons, anacondas, cobras,- nnd rattle-snakes figure in this strange company, nnd we have many novelties concerning their nature and value. You would not imagine, now, that from vipers "many noble medicines are prepared," and that " a wine from their flesh • is singular in consumptive, leporous, and scorbutic - cases,'" or that " they afford also, a volatile salt, the xnost generous ccrdi.il in nature." (jreatisfhc power of pimple thinps. If ever, dear reader, you meet a jntlle-snakc, don't run away, but get a branch of wild penny-royal; then, having fastened it to the end of a stick," present it to the creature s nose, and it it ■ ■4e onlv-of the family, one of which /was. Bo.dealt with by Captain Silas Taylor, in the year 165,, it will turn and wrijrKle, laboring hard to avoid the potent herb, find die in Iras than Half an hour from its mere scent. — Once a Week. - ~ Consolixg A Widow.—A. clergyman consohnß a young widow on fie death of her husband, remarked, tliatihe could-not find his equal. "I don't know about that/ remarked the sobbing fair one, butJ'lltry." . ' -