MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS.

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 83, 16 December 1864, Page 6 (Supplement)

MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS.

LonD PATVJtEBSTOsr ox Racing. — At the race dinner afc Tiverlon on the 24th August, Lord Palmerston drew the following analogy between Parliament and the turf ;— " There is a great similarity between Government and Parliamentary conditions and the racing to which we have attended to-day. - (Cheers . and laughter.) The House of Commons very much resembles a ;racecourse. First of all, parties go there and run for the Queen's plate. (Roars of laughter and cheers.) It is a general sweepstakes, and more than one takes the states if lie -wins. (Continued laughter.) Then, again, there is the match, and he is- lucky man who does not meet with his match, and, he is not at all contented in that encounter. (Cheers and laughter.) Our rules are somewhat similar to those which guide the turf, because there -is that good feeling in the House of Commons whickgives weight for age. (Loud and prolonged cheering and laughter.) It is very true that the young ones are sometimes very apt to bolt out of the course. (Continued laughter.) - We have one rule which is not enjoyed to the same, degree by the turf— that is to say, that sometimes we run a dead heat, wluch in Parliamentary language ,is expressed by the words " a tie." (Laughter.) . But then our judge does not make us run the: heat over a^ain — does not make us go through the debate again, and take the division' over again. Our judge decides, the matter on the spot, and, a dead heat having been run, he decides in favor of one hor3e or the other, just as he inaythink it best to do. (Cheers and laughter.) The Speaker settles the matter. He gives the casting vote. (Hcav, hear.) Then there is another .thing in ■which we greatly resemble the turf — that is to say, ifc often happens that a very good-looting -horse ' breaks down. (Loud laughter.) . And SO~ there is a great analogy in reality between things that apparently differ very much:" The Gambling- Helis o"f\ Germany.' — These places are turning out their usual number of victims. The following cases hare occurred within the past few months in connection with. Hottiburg and Weisbaden alone. A book-keeper in "a Frankfort banking-house, after having lost at play every farthing he pdsessed, cut Ms throat in the baths last November. In the beginning of March a young Frenchman, after having played away his last franc, committed suicide by cutting open the bloodvessels at his pulse, and allowed himself po bleed to death. On the 2nd of May a man- from. Ereoznach,. who hadlosfc all his money at the gambling table afc Weisbaden, hung himself in an inn at Mayence. He left a wife J and ten children behind. . In Kirtorf,", a village' near Homburg, the body of a gambler -was discovered in a pond. On the 17th May the' body of a confectioner's apprentice was found in the Siver Maine, before falling into the water he shot himself with a pistol thvougk the head. He left a letter behind stating that his losses had driven him to suicide. On the 22nd of May a waiter, twenty-one years old living in Frankfort, who had lost all his savings at Homburg, drowned himself in the Maine. r ■ ; . <-> At ttie Sea-side. — Families compress^ them " selves into five bedrooms who have been used to, ten ; o> a sea-side villa is packed and^gorged "with human beings — cook, butler, and- waiting maids included — until it resembles v four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie." Many of these inmates abhor that immersion "which -it-is the privilege of the situation to furnish. For them, affusion is enough, or perhaps too'much. "Meanwhile, they stuff and stagnate, ' and •do ndt read Erasmus Wilson on the liuman skin. The house itsolf perhaps is~ Dewly run up to suit a, growing demand, and is one* 'of these eggshell structures in which the little brick that there is seems introduced in order to make the masses of plaster stick togethff. It is at night that the mischief is chiefly done. The < house becomes like^an old blunderbuss charged to the muzzle ' with destructive'elenients. The' sons of the family or their friends bivouac on sofas ; a bloated flunkey, like a reel in a bottle, is stowed away in a closet under the stairs ; - and the younger children are packed in a maritime piggery as near the -roof as they can be crammed. What chemists call '• carbonisation." and ordinary mortals "stuffiness" o" the air takes place, and the consequence is that the local members of the medical-faculty have a a lively season of it.— Saturday JSeview. Speaehjg- out is Dbeams. — 1 .correspondent of ,the Richmond Dispatch — a remarkable paper fov its size, by the "way, tells the . following in a jetter from one of the Springs . — " An amusing incident occurred in . one of the cars of Virginia und Tc-nnessee-road, which must be 4 preserved in pui.nl. It is too good -to be lost, r- As -the train' 1 entered the big tunnel near this place, in accordance with the usual custom a lamp was lit. A seryant girl, accompanying her mistress, had sunk into a profound slumber, but jost. as the lamp was lit she awoke, and, half asleep, she imagined herself in tho infernal regions. " Frantic with fright, she implored her Maker ,to have mercy on her, remarking, at the same time, • tho ' devil has got me at last' He* mistress, sitting on tho seat in front of the terrified negro, was deeply mortified, and called, upon her, * Mollie, don't make such a noise jitisl, be not afraid. The poor African exclaimed, ' Oh, missus dat you ? just what I 'Bpected. I always thougKt if ever I got to the bad place, I would see you dar." | These remarks were uttered with such. "violence that nob a word was lost, and the whole coach became convulsed with laughter.' - ' ■©